Awareness could be a terrible thing. While I thought the others hadn’t noticed just yet, the lack of quest progress made it almost certain that the people we had just killed hadn’t been the bandits we were looking for. Which begged the question, who had they been?

And why had they been hiding in the underbrush, only showing themselves when we approached? If they were bandits, just not the ones we were looking for, all was well, but if they were not, things might turn troublesome.

Crouching near one of the bandits, the one stabbed by Rai, I carefully checked their bloody clothes, trying to find hints of their identity. Simple leather armor, a weapon, serviceable and well maintained but nothing fancy, their gear was just what a smart bandit would use - But also what most adventurers used.

“Looting the bodies… I never was a fan of that particular part of an adventurer's life.” Oliva remarked, after walking up.

“I’m less interested in loot, I’m looking for information.” I replied, spotting a set of packs under a nearby shrub.

“Lenore, can you scout around a bit, trying to find similar hide-outs? I need to know if anyone is nearby.” I asked my feathered friend over our connection, an uncomfortable feeling settling within my stomach.

Opening their packs, I realised that they, too, had been using magic packs, essentially the same as we did, small belt-packs that could hold a lot more than they should, thanks to magic. In this case, the pack I was looking at held everyday items, clothes, rations and a whole lot of junk but one item quickly caught my eyes. Guild-Cards, shining with a red glow, intensifying the feeling in my gut. Looking closely, not touching it, just in case, I was able to read the inscription and realisation settled well and truly in.

Unless the group we had just fought merely used their Guild-Cards as props to venture into towns, working as bandits when no work was found or something along those lines, we had just killed a group of adventurers. Sure, we had been convinced that we had stumbled into an ambush, and the jury was still out on that one, but what if we had merely reacted to an ambiguous situation? What if they had thought we were a group of bandits, reacting to the unknown with vigilance, just how we’d react to a similar situation?

Somehow, the idea that we had killed them by mistake, that it had merely an accident caused by annoyance, carelessness and a bit of overreaction made me feel worse than if we had killed them intentionally, to reduce competition, for example. Such a meaningless death.

“Did you find anything?” I asked Lenore, standing up, having made a decision. As soon as I got a negative reply, I mentally added, “Anyway, I need you down here.”

Moments later, I could hear her approach, transmitting my ideas to Lenore even while I considered how to explain the situation to the others. Before I could come up with a good way, Lenore landed on my shoulder and I pushed the explanation back. First, we had to get rid of the evidence.

“Step back, everyone.” I told the others, observed the area around us, especially the strewn about corpses, just as I asked her to. The others looked at me with questions in their eyes, especially at my serious demeanor but they moved back, giving us the space we needed.

The spell Lenore used, with me channelling Astral Power to her, was rather simple, one that we had used before. Death-Magic was able to work on the energies of the recently deceased and in this case, Lenore used her magic to increase their decay by an insane rate, turning what would have been months or even years of slow decay into a matter of minutes. Watching the corpses wither away, turning to dust at a rate the eye could easily see was rather disturbing but compared to what might happen if the events got exposed, the disturbing sight was greatly preferred, at least in my eyes.

Of course, death-magic wasn’t so precise to keep the surroundings from being disturbed, coincidentally erasing the damage our fight had done to the vegetation. While the effect wasn’t as pronounced as it was on the corpses, they were the focus after all, it was more than enough to make tracing just what had happened difficult. To further reduce the chance of anyone realising just what had happened, I called upon my own magic, creating a darkness-infused mist, blanketing the area and devouring all magic that lingered, erasing everything that Lenore could detect with her sight, while the only thing I could detect with my nose as a faint, lingering smell.

Nodding to myself, I turned to the packs that were still behind me, spared of the destruction and any influence our magic might have had. Without knowing the exact details regarding the magical effects and abilities bestowed on Guild-Cards, I wasn’t willing to risk affecting them in any way. They turned red after the imprinted owner died, that much I knew, but I I had no idea if there were additional effects, such as marking the first person touching them, or some other way they might identify the killer, if subjected to the appropriate skill. It might be mere paranoia on my part, but I had enough trouble regarding civilisation, cities and large-scale organisations already, without a need to add more of it to my plate.

“What is going on?” Olivia asked, when I turned around, looking at them.

“Adra, do you think you’ll be able to quickly find the bandits?” I asked, mostly ignoring the question.

After a moment of hesitation, Adra, still being supported by Rai, after exhausting her magical power, looked up and shook her head.

“I don’t know.” she admitted, sounding rather unhappy, before continuing, “They managed to hide their tracks incredibly well, but why are you asking that? What is going on?” she asked, echoing Olivia’s earlier question.

“Circumstances have changed, time just turned into an essential resource.” I explained, without really explaining anything. By moving quickly and acting as if outside information, and not our actions, had caused the change in our plans, I hoped that Olivia failed to realise just what we had done. Even if she had taken part in the fight, I couldn’t trust her to put her own safety above her piety, not with the way she had been acting. If she felt her Goddess needed her to atone for her part in the fight, she might reveal what had happened. But if there was no awareness that she needed to atone, only a direct intervention from her deity might trigger such actions. If Eleutheria even knew what had happened, deific capabilities were something I wasn’t even remotely aware of.

“Adra, can you lead the others west, back towards the road? Lenore and I need to take care of something, before it turns troublesome.” I asked, looking over my shoulder towards the mountains, as if there was something coming from that direction.

“Please, hurry.” I added, finally getting a nod in response. Once they turned, moving roughly in the direction we had been coming from, I used a stick to pick up the magic packs, luckily they were light-weight, in a way that Lenore could use her feet to pick them all up at the same time. I had considered looking for valuables, especially coins, in the packs but at the end of the day, these adventurers had been quite low-level, the strongest barely reaching level fifty, which convinced me that it just wasn’t worth the risk of handling magical artifacts with unknown capabilities, their Guild Cards.

Nodding, mostly to myself, I helped Lenore grab onto the stick I had just prepared and pushed myself into my Hallow, gathering my thoughts for a moment. So far, I had tried to make the others think that the sudden change in plans wasn’t related to the fight, merely a coincidence. In order to sell that, there was one more step I needed to take.

After flying for a couple minutes, we dropped the packs into a suitable clearing, without ever landing. It was merely a precaution anyway, another of those ‘just in case’ ideas, in this case, just in case the Guild Cards send out an emergency signal.

Once we had dropped them, Lenore landed in a nicely large tree and I left my Hallow, holding onto the tree with my Eisblumen.

“Retain some power, but we need to make this flashy.” I told Lenore, pulling out the staff we had made quite some time ago, after getting that magical jewel from the wolves.

“I know, I still need to fly us back.” she responded, amusement audible in her voice.

Landing on top of the staff, we started to weave our magic together, into the largest waste of Astral Power we had ever conjured.