Chapter 93: Traitor

I miss those days.

From dawn until dusk, no matter what he was doing, this thought was always in a corner of Ilan’s mind along with the faces of his former comrades. Nostalgia had long since led to the sad realization that he was probably never going to see them again, casting at the same time a shadow on his fondest memories with them.

How many deviants did they fight together?

How many mysteries did they uncover?

How many lives did they save?

After all these years, Ilan had no way to know.

There was nevertheless one thing he was sure of.

These days spent roaming the land to accomplish more missions than he could hope to remember were the most dangerous, but the happiest he ever lived.

However, his life as an Adventurer was over.

Ilan knew it, but knowing and accepting were two very different things.

Contrary to his companions, he had no plan made for his retirement. As long as his body was strong enough, as long as his mind stayed sharp and his magic powerful enough to crush anything on his path, he didn’t see any need to change his lifestyle. He didn’t want to open an inn, create his own business or even start a family like his companions.

For him, his family was always by his side, weapons in hands, ready to fight and put their lives on the line for each other. This was more than he could have ever hoped for.

That’s why, when the time came for their group, which had been together almost constantly for the past ten years, to break up, Ilan was lost.

He couldn’t continue to act alone, nor did he want to, and trying to find another group of adventurers to join seemed like a betrayal to his teammates in his mind. So he simply returned to his hometown, the academic city of Jillal in the Southeast of the Dorell Kingdom, and took up a guard position there.

Even without any recommendation, he ended up getting quickly promoted from a guard of the outskirts to guard of the inner city where the magic academy run by the ‘false elf’ was located.

A prestigious position, to be sure, but Ilan understood it the moment he put on his green coat weaved with fine embroidery and golden thread.

This wasn’t his world.

This wasn’t the kind of life he wanted.

A comfortable, but dull existence with each day similar to the previous.

So, he left this cloak behind and became a mercenary.

This solitary work he once rejected was the closest thing to his former life he could hope to have. His companions were gone and impossible to replace, but a life of adventure was still possible.

For someone with his strength and devoid of any ties, a world of possibility opened before him. He could serve as an escort for noblemen, lead extermination missions of deviants on the Dorell Kingdom’s territory, escort merchants through the most dangerous lands and many more things even he had trouble enumerating in his mind.

He was probably strong enough to become a personal guard for a Ryunno clan member although this kind of position held no appeal to him.

For a few months, Ilan accepted all sorts of missions. With his abilities as a true mage and his experience as a man who had seen almost everything the Dorell Kingdom had to offer, even the most difficult missions presented little challenge to him.

There was only one place left for him to continue to hone his skills and feel the thrill of battle.

A place that many of his fellow mercenaries not confident in their abilities avoided at all costs.

The wilderness.

Of course, he had been there before, on the outskirts at the very least. However, the kind of mission their small group had accepted wasn’t that dangerous, even there. None of his companions were as hot-headed as he was and willing to take significant risks.

He never blamed them for that and learned to tone down this calling for adventure that made his heart beat with joy and excitement.

Now alone, there was no reason to hesitate anymore.

It didn’t take long to realize that if he didn’t want to become a soldier for a camp or a guard in one of the Advanced towns scattered throughout the wilderness, his only other choice was to escort convoys.

Missions to eliminate specific deviants or magical beasts, deemed too dangerous to continue living near Advanced towns, were often carried out by handpicked teams of a mixture of soldiers and mercenaries. Biding his time to have the necessary trust from the authorities to enter one of these teams, Ilan contented himself with escorting the caravans of precious resources essential for the prosperity of the kingdom.

What he didn’t foresee was that slaves were included in these ‘precious resources’.

Once engaged to do a job, Ilan never backed down. In all his years of activity, the missions he had to abort or finally chose to avoid at the last moment for one reason or another could be counted on one hand which was something he took great pride in.

This time again, Ilan swallowed his remorses and accomplished his job.

Slavery toward Beastmen tribes was common in the Dorell kingdom ever since their defeat in the last Great war. Many people saw this cruel treatment as a just return for their role in this conflict. Ilan was more or less of the same opinion until he saw the true face of slavery with his own eyes.

Broken families, innocent children, and mutilated prisoners all gathered together under the banner of insatiable greed.

It wasn’t cowardice or his own greed that stayed his hand and prevented him from freeing these poor souls, but the simple realization that there was no place left for them in this world, not one that Ilan could have gifted them. He had neither the strength nor the resources for that.

So he simply ignored their cruel fate and accomplished his duty as he promised.

The aftertaste of the first mission of this kind was so bad that Ilan almost decided to go back to Jillal then and there. However, the call for adventure was still too strong within him to ignore, or maybe it was simply the fear of settling down for good that drove him to continue this kind of work.

A few more conventional missions later, he encountered Walmir.

A former soldier and a high-ranked one at that apparently, if the rumor of his previous assignment as a personal guard for the Waldemar family was true.

Now older and with a missing arm taken by the ‘Red murderer’ himself, Ilan was ready to see this man pour his pent-up emotions, frustration, and cruelty on the unfortunate slaves locked up in the cage fixed on his carriage.

Ilan saw this kind of scene enough times in his previous trip to finally decide that this was going to be his last.

However, he was wrong.

There wasn’t anything honorable in what both of them were doing, but for the first time there was no needless violence, no deprivation of food, and no cruelty for him to witness. The slaves were delivered to the auction of the first Advanced town where they would most likely be sold to work in the mine until they gained their freedom back, which was something Ilan had no idea even existed.

It was apparently for this sole reason that Walmir preferred to work in this part of the wilderness.

Curiosity made him choose to accompany this man once more.

Judge a man not by how he treats his equals but by how he treats his inferiors.

A few more missions with him were all it took for Ilan to judge the character of this man.

To witness his refusals of more profits from nobles to obtain children for their perverted tastes.

To see him escort freed slaves away from the first Advanced town at his own expanse to offer them a chance to have a decent life.

To learn that he was himself a former slave.

To understand that he was simply a man doing what he had to do to feed his family.

He rounded up captured Beastmen and was part of the system that condemned them to years of hard labor in an inhospitable environment, but with the hope of being freed in the end, which was more than any of the other slavers he met had to offer.

Maybe there was some honor to have in all this horror after all.

Without any true purpose, and because of the lack of responses for a free spot in an Advanced town’s hunter team, Ilan continued his work and soon Walmir became his sole employer. He encountered his family and became a part of it in a sense.

Ilan had seen better men than Walmir, men who would rather die than accept what he was doing, but he also had seen so many worse than him. He often wondered what his former companions would have to say about his current activity.

Maybe he would be too ashamed to answer or even face them anymore.

Maybe he would simply say that he gave these unfortunate souls the best they could hope for in this corrupted kingdom.

He knew that no apology and no amount of explanation would suffice, for they were probably still as blind as he was before entering the wilderness. It was only after being away from all civilization, away from the innocent or perhaps naive eyes of the population that the true face of the kingdom became apparent.

They needed slaves more than anything.

Not because of any kind of retaliation after the Great war, but simply because they could do it without any consequence.

The Beastmen tribes forced to hide inside the wilderness after the war were too convenient a tool for the kingdom to abandon. It was the same for the Humans and for the Dwarves who needed to exploit the mines on their territory to pay tributes to the Ryunno clan. If they had to do it, they obviously preferred it to be done by other races.

Ilan was a strong mage, probably among the strongest Adventurers of the Dorell Kingdom. However, he wasn’t strong enough to change this reality.

If he were a better man or a Master mage powerful enough to offer more than false salvation to all these poor souls, he would have fought against slavery.

However, he was neither.

He was just a former Adventurer who had the responsibility of protecting a man, whom he could now call his friend, and returning him back home after each mission.

He saved his life many times during the two years they worked together.

This was his duty.

An honorable part of this job that was anything but honorable.

Even when all the soldiers under his command either deserted or were killed after the sky started raining down beams of pure destruction, even after he was the only one left, he never abandoned him. If Walmir really intended to retire after this, it was his duty to make sure he could accomplish this last mission to the end.

Abandoning now would be treason.

And, if there was something worse than being a powerless part of this slavery system, if there was something Ilan could never accept, it was treason.

-------------------------------------------

Weakened.

Staggering.

Breathless.

Ilan nonetheless continued to walk toward us.

Even with my senses partially paralyzed, I had no trouble feeling his mana gathering, almost boiling inside him, ready to unleash his rage on a shivering Paul, powerless to stop him even in this state.

“Wait, Ilan!” I screamed.

However, my plea was ignored.

A single word escaped his tightly pressed lips, like the growl from a savage beast.

“Traitor!”

The glow of his sword tightly clenched in his right hand intensified as he slowly raised his arm above his head.

Like an executioner able to do its grim work even from so far away.

“Don’t!” I blazed.

The slice of condensed water I saw tear apart so many enemies before was the only answer I got.

“Ah!”

Paul’s surprised and helpless scream was all I could hear as I immediately stopped to use the healing aspect of the water element I had been using all this time. The little mana I had at my disposal was barely enough to summon a gust of wind, certainly far too weak to stop this kind of attack.

However, it was still enough to make Paul stumble backward, just an inch away from the attack that continued its course into an unfortunate tree that was cleanly cut off before crashing with a thunderous noise that shook the rain-soaked earth all around us.

Time seemed to stand still as each of us processed what had just happened.

Paul didn’t even try to fix his posture, too shaken by his sudden brush with death while Seth also stayed completely motionless, devoured by the fear Ilan had always inspired inside him.

“Don’t… get in my way… Sillath!” breathed Ilan with barely contained anger.

Even without this poison shackling my body, I did not doubt that I would have still been rooted to the spot under this kind of gaze. Even at my best, Ilan wasn’t someone I could win against without paying a steep price.

“Run!” I suddenly shouted putting an end to the torpor Paul and Seth had been put under.

I didn’t know if my resistance to Paul’s poison existed because I didn’t drink enough of his soup or if my previous poisoning by a Durnïel had any role to play in this fortunate development. In the same way, I had no way to know how Ilan could still resist the same poison.

All I was sure of with my muddled thoughts, unable to come up with any better solution, was that Paul would definitely be killed if he stayed here.

This realization finally hit both Paul and Seth as they started to run toward the carriage as fast as they could immediately after my words.

Another ominous gleam of Ilan’s sword announced a second attack.

However, this time I was powerless to intervene.

I could only watch with horror as the same blade of water left his sword to cut Paul’s head off.

“Look out!” I exclaimed, anguish dripping through my voice.

Paul just had the time to turn his head to directly look at the attack destined to take his life if not for Seth’s hair forcefully pulling him toward him at the last second. Once more, Paul escaped death by a hairsbreadth and stubbled against Seth, almost knocking them both to the ground.

The screams of mixed terror and encouragement from Himara covered Ilan’s own growl of annoyance. If he hadn’t intended to spare Seth with his last attack, Paul would have died, no matter what Seth had done.

Muscles and veins straining against his skin, Ilan’s mana once again gathered in his sword with even more violence than before.

My limbs were stiff, my mind unclear and my mana difficult to use, but there was still something I could do.

One heavy leg at a time, I slowly stood up to stand in front of Ilan.

I saw the same anger I had at Paul’s betrayal burning in his eyes.

“Move!” he growled with a feral fury difficult to ignore.

Nothing I could possibly say would make him stay his hand. So I simply gritted my teeth and stubbornly stayed in front of him to prevent him from releasing his deadly magic.

I lived and fought together with this man each day for more than two months. He saved my life and likewise, I saved his many times. Even with all our respective mistrust, this kind of bond wasn’t something he would easily ignore.

I waited with bated breath for the result of this gamble that could very well be my last.

Hesitation and annoyance made their way into his face just long enough for hope and relief to rise in my heart before his anger immediately drowned it.

Without any warning, he suddenly waved his free hand and summoned a gust of wind of his own.

Devoid of mana or strength to resist, my light body was immediately sent flying away. I wasn’t even able to cushion my fall, magically or not as I always did, and violently crashed to the ground a few meters away from him, unable to stand up anymore.

However, it was enough.

Paul’s whistling, followed by the characteristic roars of the Vrapy was all the confirmation I needed.

They had made it to the carriage and left Ilan’s range of attack in a matter of seconds.

A heavy silence, only disturbed by the sound of the wheels in the mud moving away quickly, immediately settled as Ilan realized with bated breath that he was too late.

I had hoped to persuade him to abandon any retaliation so that Paul and Alianelle could continue their journey with us. However, I didn’t have enough time to convince Paul to trust me and renounce his plan.

Perhaps more time wouldn’t have changed anything.

Perhaps his choice was definitive and his trust in me eroded beyond salvation.

I would never know, but hoping to keep Ilan from killing Paul long enough for him to calm down in my condition was a pipe dream.

As the carriage finally went beyond our line of sight, leaving us with nothing to help us rejoin the first Advanced town, I felt defeated to have failed to keep our group together, worried about the rest of their journey, and sad to have lost any chance to talk to Alianelle ever again.

However, most of all I felt relieved.

Relieved to have avoided the worst,

I let out a huge breath I had been unconsciously holding and straightened my posture to rest my back on a nearby trunk while observing Ilan’s corded neck, flared nostrils, and pulsating temples. His sword had already lost its deadly luster, but not his face, still red enough to cover most of the green dots on his skin.

“Did you know?” he asked in a snarled whisper.

In no condition to stand up, for now, I slowly shook my head. This denial and my skin sharing the same green marks as him were apparently more than enough to convince him.

His face relaxed somewhat, but not the fire in his eyes.

This kind of unnatural expression, conveying no appeasement or acceptance after his failure, made me wrinkle my brows. The carriage will be long gone when the effect of the poison finally completely dissipates.

There was nothing he could do anymore.

This was the reality, and even he couldn’t change it.

So why did I have such a bad feeling while looking at his eyes fixed where the carriage had left?

This question crossed my mind just before noticing that his axe, strapped to the left side of his waist, was beginning to glow with its own light, getting brighter every second.

His sword intensified his water magic and allowed him to have destructive power against single foes while his axe strengthened his wind magic and was preferably used to fight against crowds.

This truth about his abilities, which I had witnessed many times before, prevented me from immediately understanding what was going on. That’s why I didn’t immediately notice the fundamental change that was currently taking place in him ever since this axe started to glow with a bright white light.

The green dots on his skin were slowly fading.

Eyes round with shock, I finally understood how he had resisted the poison. It wasn't because of any hypothetical training with the poison mage he had met a few years ago, as I had first thought, but simply thanks to the ability of this artifact, which I had never witnessed and which was consuming his mana like an insatiable beast.

Was this an innate ability of the axe or was an aspect of the wind element that he had never shown me before simply strengthened by his weapon?

I had no way to be sure, but one thing was clear, the poison coursing through his body and preventing him from using his abilities to the fullest was being cleansed. The enormous toll of mana from such an ability was apparently difficult for him to bear as he stumbled a few times in the process.

For long seconds, I watched powerless as Ilan got rid of the shackles placed on him by Paul’s treachery.

I didn't immediately notice that his mana had shifted away from his axe and couldn’t repress a gasp from escaping my mouth as I finally perceived the enormous amount of mana building up in his feet. He sheathed his weapons and tensed his impressive muscles in a movement I had never seen him do.

My eyes rounded with shock, I was powerless to intervene as Ilan surrounded himself by a dense wall of wind hiding most of his figure.

I was only able to notice this blurry figure bending his legs before a sound similar to a cannonball echoed. Faster than I ever saw him move, Ilan propelled himself with such strength that not even the ground under his feet was spared. In just a few seconds, he was gone, leaving me with nothing but horror in front of this scene.