Eli POV

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The boulder cracked as the bullet missed the red dot made of berry juice on it by several inches.

"Don't breathe when you're taking the shot. Small movements like that make huge differences in where the bullet ends up" I told Salamede. She was currently perched on a tree overlooking an empty field while I was down below a few yards to her right. It was approaching midday and my vine suit/ deer skull helmet was getting a bit too warm.

It took a while but I managed to make a scope that used half-circles of water as lenses in a wooden tube that fit above the gun. While easier to describe than make, it provided Salamede a window of training for accurate shots that was actually achievable in the amount of time we had left.

The mass of vines and wooden helm molded around Salamede's skull and horns, giving her a more organic feel than mine. Magically enchanting a vine suit involved putting down several triangle constructs with plant mana constructs placed in them and using it over and over until they moved like any other limb. Salamede had used it a few times but the branches still needed a lot more practice and mana usage before they could be used to jump and hold on to trees like mine.

"Hey, I'm hitting near the dot now." Salamede pouted.

"If a bandit takes a child hostage, that distance between the red dot is the difference between a family reunion and a funeral. You've made great progress but there is still a lot to improve on." I tried to respond encouragingly. Truth be told I was proud of her, she had made good progress for just a day's training and she hadn't even looked down the barrel of the gun once.

We had spent most of the morning getting her used to the air boosters. But she took to using spirit magic to make the connections quite easily, which wasn't a surprise considering how much Keltons use it compared to humans. The biggest issue was that she would stand still when attacking, even as she was being charged by me. Also, no matter how many times I came at her, she would hesitate for the critical fraction of a second.

"All right, it's almost lunchtime. Let's break for now and get some rest." I called to her.

"Sure," She said in her rough voice as she jumped down. We then made out way back towards the abandoned troll nest that held my secret entrance.

"What a thrilling day this has been. I feel so... powerful, like a lethal killing machine. Not a bad step up from being a maid." She said excitedly through a spirit connection.

I gave a slight cough as I moved the boulder aside.

"It varies by the person, but having to use that gun on another human being will be different than using it on an inanimate rock," I said as we moved through the dark hallway.

When we made it into the soft glow of the workshop's lamp fastened to the pillar in the middle of my basement and put our vine suits away, I saw Salamede looking at me with a smile playing across her lips. She wore her leather armor under her suit, now padded out with air booster to give her some added maneuverability, and some brown boots. She went over to the grotto on the far side to wash her head.

"What?" I asked as I took off my vine suit and laid it on the magnet table alongside a blue dress with white frills. Along the length of the stone table were various bark pieces molding the copper sphere, wires, valves, and other assorted parts slowly molding bits of steel and iron laying on top of them into another generator/gun set up to replace the one I gave Salamede.

My white shirt and brown pants didn't have any sweat on them and my leather brown boots were still good enough that I could walk directly to our lunch.

"You said 'another human'. You really consider me like your kin?" She asked almost shyly.

"Better than. You've been invaluable to me, both as a friend and as a partner." I replied semi-honestly. In truth, I have started to feel more and more like we should be something else besides friends. She had helped me more than anyone else had in living memory, and my feelings had become more inclined towards romanticism after yesterday.

Sure, I had found her sexually appealing long before then but that had been a purely physical thing. I was a man after all and I make no apologies for that. But this was different, more like a subtle warmth in my bones and a sense of ease with her near than hard lust.

"Thanks, I'd love to talk more but I'm starving." She said as she stood back up. When she came up to me and looked over the rough wall of the basement I noticed that the water was flowing down her grey skin in the neck opening of the armor near her chest.

Subtle warmth, Eli. Not hard lust.

"Sure, I'll let you get changed and we can get something by the docks," I said as I made my way up the stairs. After a minute Salamede came up with the blue dress and looked tired but quite happy. I offered my arm, which she took. As we walked through the town we got a few quizzical looks, from both humans and Keltons, but the people in our area had gotten used to this 'odd' couple and made no comment. Besides, they were all still happy with the 'capital-level' quality of their roads, and being the ones who made them that quality was a great way to make up for oddness.

We came onto the backside of the docks and ate at a tavern. Our dark wood booth came with a view overlooking the dockworkers moving cargo onto and off various ships. I had a chicken soup while she ate a chicken leg quarter with spicy cream sauce. We talked in a spirit magic connection as we ate.

"So what are we focusing on when we start making moves against the bandits?" She asked.

"Any attacks have to be hit and run unless we can nab a high ranking officer. They will have skilled mages hidden with grass camouflage, not unlike ours, and we can't afford a long drawn out fight or let any of them get away. The big thing going forwards is that this is all needs to look like the orcs fault. That means collecting their discarded arrows and supplies to leave at attack sights and using our advantage of surprise to the greatest effect.

We have your suit up to snuff for long-range movements, it's just not capable of my extreme jumps so you'll have to ride on my back. While I'm doing that, focus on aiming and shooting while moving. You don't need to be perfect just be proficient enough to hit a body while jumping." I said as I gulped down the last of my soup.

We finished up our food and went back towards my house. Salamede spent the rest of the day jumping through the air and shooting various stones placed among the trees. While she did that, I went out and gathered as many orc arrows, body parts from battles, and other weapons to use as a cover for our activities. While I jumped through the trees, I used my internal mana generation to accumulate mana crystals in the sack I used while doing the roads with the hole facing my right side.

The next day I had classes again. It was another miserable slog and I only got a barely passing grade in my tactics class. Apparently when you're being charged by cavalry, setting up caltrops ahead of time isn't a good answer because you're a mage who is far too valuable to take any such risks setting them up and instead you need to let the peasants die as you use the enemy's charge as an opportunity to hit them from behind. Of course, it didn't outright say that but it was pretty obvious that was general strategy when reading between the lines.

Blow them all away with a minigun wasn't an option so I felt like the whole mental exercise was a waste anyway.

It wasn't until I got back home around midday that I felt like my day really began, I accrued a good number of mana crystals as Salamede showed marked improvement in her marksmanship.

She had even lessened her hesitance in fighting, not by a miraculous margin, but the difference was definitely there. It was at the end of the days training that we were both in the workshop. The air piston helped the container and some flatter portions of the wheel generator and air pump go along much quicker than pure magic would have demanded, but it still wasn't quite finished. The mana crystals quantity also reflected my growth in mana generation. The slab of mana crystal that took me nearly a whole day to make now only too a few hours at most.

As Salamede stood to my left, she watched the writhing mass of vines on the table as I fed the mana crystals to her vine suit. The enchantments somehow got gradually better at moving the vines into the proper directions and with greater speed every time it was used, making it just a matter of using them over and over again until the suit was capable of using all of its functions.

"Ok, repeat the steps again" I told her as I made three vines sway back and forth in the air above the table.

"Wrap the vines around the tree at an angle to help maintain momentum or wrap around sideways and extend the grass underlayer to cushion the blow when you stop." She repeated studiously. I nodded back in satisfaction.

"Quick, you've sustained a wound. Where do you activate the healing function?" I asked in a brisk tone as I fed a cracked mana crystal to the summoning circles that sustained the almost minute triangles running along the vines.

"The shoul... no, the stomach?" She said uncertainly.

"The back base of the skull or the throat." I replied firmly, I felt a dull ache in my lower chest but it passed quickly enough that I continued my train of thought , "We're not going out into the field until you can activate the healing functions without even thinking about it. When we dual later I will randomly shout "Injured" and you must activate the healing functions. I'll have them shoot a small jet of water out instead of going to the healing function to let me know how fast you've activated them."

Salamede got a put-out expression with pouty lips but she kept it out of her voice.

"I understand" Was all she said in reply.

But we didn't have a lot of time to spend training. I had been up before the sun scouting several of the locations in the closer western region where Maw's gang were hunkered down. The decision had finally been made and the message had arrived. The soldiers fortifying these places had only just this morning left for the main base to help root out the long-gone menace, a.k.a. me, from their base of operations. Even if I hadn't seen the troops leave, the few left to maintain their patches of territory were obviously left understaffed.

The camps all varied in composition and size, from wide camps to single stone building to mini forts with a wood wall, but the signs of a recent reduction in numbers were all there regardless of the makeup. Roads in and out of the places were churned from heavy traffic but the places now had few if any traffic or noise. One watchman being assigned to patrol an entire side of the perimeter by themselves. Men who had armor being forced to empty latrines or attend to the other dozens of maintenance jobs.

However few men were still left, it still meant someone would be in charge of them. They would almost certainly not be high enough to negotiate with nobles but they could tell me who would be. It was an opportunity that was probably going to close in a few days and I needed to take it for all it's worth.

We spent the afternoon doing more training in the middle of the woods. She got decent about activating the healing function and getting a good shot off when still, but her vine suit still wasn't ready to do the very long jumps. Even without that, I would say melee combat was her biggest weaknesses. She could move almost as fast as a wind mage with the regular boosters and the half oval of wood she had used as a hand cover was also a flame thrower, so those would help make up for her short-range problems in the fighting.

Hopefully, she wouldn't see hand to hand combat but it was a good enough melee craft, so much so that I made one for myself.

The next day I didn't have class and fortunately, the new one I was taking in a couple of days was a math one so I would ace that pretty easily. I was taking one crafter class on customizing equipment for our clients starting in three days, which would be the big time sink going forward but until then I was free.

Salamede and I made our way out of the tunnel to the troll nest as we donned our vine suits before the rising of the sun. We made our way towards the most promising site I previously found by scouting, with nothing but three days worth of supplies in a bag of holding she was carrying while I carried the bag of various orc weapons and bits to make sure they're blamed for what's coming.

After a few hours of jumping, we came up to our target. It was a wide camp nestled out in a clearing in the middle of the woods. As we looked on from a large tree by the entrance, I saw it was all the same as when I had last seen it. The surrounding trees had been cleared with the closest being near the entrance, which was wide enough for two carriages and complete with a sign proudly displaying the gaping jaw.

It had a wide wall of logs running along its entire perimeter, about twice and a half the height of a man. The center had a sloppy wood house with no porch and only a single window to the left on its front surrounded by a large field of mud and stumps. The small slope on the right side of the encampment had a grassy hill that stood above the muck and had previously been a campsite with tents if the well-worn paths running along it was anything to go by.

I took note of their numbers. There were less than a dozen tents on the hill now and one or two men patrolled the wall on the walkway while a small team among the tents were working with some vegetables over a boiling cook pot. I saw one messenger go into the house then quickly come back out. The rest were working on the roads, filling potholes, clearing stumps and other such menial tasks.

"At least there are no innocents in the way this time," I said to my self. The guilt was still there but it at least wasn't as raw as it had been. More like a numbing ache than a blade to the gut. There was pressure on my shoulder as Salamede gave me a squeeze in reassurance. I scolded my self and got back to the task at hand.

The camp was large enough that we couldn't just charge in without risking one of them getting away and giving their leaders an early warning about our presence in the southern region. So I put Salamede on guard duty. She would watch the entrance since the palisade was high enough that the men couldn't get over it without injuring themselves.

I slipped down to the forest floor and got into position, leaning against a tree while lining up my shot to take out the guard overlooking the entrance. I was far enough away that he didn't see me until I had gotten close enough to puncture his throat with a stone shard.

I rushed headlong up to the entrance and did a boosted jump over the palisade onto the platform behind it. People were so busy they didn't notice me at first but as I jumped down to rush towards the larger group of men, one of the men working on the road looked up. The scraggly man with wild black hair was with a group of six men to the left working with shovels and a few yards to the right were three men using axes on stumps.

His brown eyes went wide when he saw me and looked down at the body lying on the walkway but before he could make a sound I jumped towards the group and activated my helmets laser-life fire. It cut through him and five other men. The last one stood there dumbstruck before I bashed his head in with a stone boulder flying from an earth spell.

The three men with axes were a bit quicker to react. Two charged me while another towards the back immediately fled. I put up my right hand and set them both on fire with the flame thrower. As they were screaming and dying on the ground, I ran up towards the hill as I heard the sharp release of air near the entrance telling me Salamede was doing her job. A horn blew from the last watchman on the far side of the palisade, but it cut off when a bullet from Salamede took him in the head.

By then the few men near the cooking site were rushing to the tents, probably to get some weapons while someone came out of the house. He was about 5'7 with a large amount of wild black hair and a decently maintained combo of a white shirt with brown pants. He took one look at me and rushed back into the house. He was probably the commander, so I couldn't just blow the house away. I made a quick dash towards the cooking site. There were a few men now carrying swords and putting on leather armor, but it did them no good.

I activated my helmet again. The lines of concentrated flame cut through the camp with ease, slicing tents, and the men inside them like an onion. Through the den of sobs and cries, I saw three men slinking through the smoke and mayhem to get away by going around the backside of the hill. I took one of them in the head with a fireball but I noticed the commander coming out of the house now, so I let the remaining two run off to 'safety'.

The commander had a solid jawline with bright green eyes peering through the open face of his helmet. He scowled at me with a sword in his hand and a metal plate over his chest as he sauntered up. He took a stance extending the blade outward with a dramatic flair.

"I don't know what the fuck you are, but I will deliver your head on a platter to the boss." He spat at me as he pressed against the hilt of the sword. The plain-looking sword sprung two lines of flame out from the guard handle along the sharp edge of the weapon. It was far enough that the steel didn't glow from the heat and seemed to be used mostly to kill other sword users who tried to parry the blows.

Summoning a dozen smaller rock spells around me, the stone shards quickly formed and pincushioned the man. Sure he blocked a few with his sword and armor, but his knees and arms were still completely exposed. After tearing several holes in him the brown, razor-sharp stones quickly disappeared.

He howled in pain and dropped the sword into the mud, making bubbles come out of the partially soft ground before the flames died out.

After restraining him with several stone cuffs around his hands and feet I dragged his bleeding body back to the wooden house. I whistled off towards the entrance of the camp and a second later Salamede came bounding down from the woods.

"How did you do?" I asked through a spirit connection when she finally got within arms reach.

She stood there for a moment, the wooden mask that flowed around her head portraying no emotion.

"You were right, it's different when its a human. One of them nearly got away but I got all three that tried to take off" She said, sounding kind of distant and subdued.

"You did well. If it helps, these are bandits. When we run across some of their victims any guilt you feel will disappear like flecks of water on a hot stove." I reassured her. She didn't say anything in response.

I dragged the man across the yard into the house. He dripped blood everywhere but once we got to the door I healed him. While holding him in front of me like a shield, I moved to open the door. Which is when he screamed.

"Wait! All right, there's a blade that will drop on your head if you go through," He cried pitifully.

I summoned and threw a stone block using a spell from my left hand. It crashed through the dark wood door. What looked like the blade of a guillotine fell from somewhere above the door head and cut deep into the rickety light brown wood of the floor. I stepped over it and into the main room. The house was comprised of the main room we were currently in with a smaller room to the left that had a bed peeking through the doorway. The wood of the floor and walls was barely maintained and rather bare, having only a desk and chair to the back right. for any furnishings.

"All right, I have some questions about how the Maw gang works," I asked as I slammed him flat across the desk, landing with a solid thud from his armor. He looked like he would love to punch me but was held back by the fact that he loved living more. Salamede walked in and stood to my right.

"When the boss hears about this, he's gonna stop at nothing to kill you." He said bitterly.

"I'm sure he will," I said dismissively before continuing.

"So how does the gang operate? Who would have the authority to launch raids in the western region?" I asked. I was hoping to get more accurate information about this gang from an actual member and not a former one, the last question was to lead him to believe I was interested in the raid on the academy town while allowing me to probe him about their power structure without making my real concern obvious.

He glared at me for a long moment.

"This can be as pleasant or as painful as you want it to be," I said evenly. I had my wooden arms with blades coming out of the hand portion extend outward closer to him.

When the serrated edges came closer to him he took a deep breath before spilling everything.

"Maw typically likes doing tax schemes. Helping nobles hide goods they don't want the government to know about or have trade associations look leaner than they are through fake raids while taking a bit of the difference in some tax thing with the government. He does a lot of stuff outside of what bandits typically do and doesn't typically like doing actually dangerous activities." I put my hand up to stop him.

"You keep saying Maw as a person. Which is it? The boss Maw or the gang Maw?" I asked.

"It's both," He said carefully.

My eyes glazed over at the sheer gaudy hubris of such a labeling decision.

I started up a spirit connection with Salamede.

"Go stand by the door and keep an eye out." I said politely. She moved back towards the door and stared out over the sea of mud and the occasional body.

"Please continue," I said respectfully while keeping the incredulity out of my voice.

"As for the raid, a while back a meet up was called. This is when all the bosses get together to make any sort of move in the western regions, it helps keep the wrong eyes off all of us by denying the more reckless ventures. They agreed on some plan where we had to move some of our boys out to be put under the command of a Viper higher up for a raid. It went south and we've been trying to keep a low profile while they sort out all the problems." He said.

"So why did the boss, Maw, want to help launch a raid on the academy? That's just about the best way to get attention on themselves. And does the restriction about western activity include kidnappings?" I asked while trying to sound like I was saying it absentmindedly, my mind trying to sort through this mess of information.

"I don't know the whole story behind it or if the boss actually wanted to help. People out in the dirt don't get any information about decisions like that. It was as much of a surprise to me as it was those ditch diggers you killed when we got our boys taken under the Vipers command to pad out their numbers. As for the kidnapping, yes, yes it does" He replied. His green eyes now had a sense of calm. He was a man who knew his time was coming and had finally accepted it.

"So where would I go to find the Vipers commanders?" I asked politely, but on the inside, I was screaming 'fuck' as loud as I could. I came here to extract information from a high ranking goon but apparently no one outside their castle has any idea who made the decision to kidnap me.

But then my skin crawled as I realized something about the set up he described. I chocked the realization down to focus on the conversation.

He motioned towards the back of the desk. Going to the right and around him, I saw a small stack of papers with various logistical reports and scouting details. But the most prominent item was a map with several landmarks and known Viper and Water Skimmer holdouts, another gang directly next to the swamps.

"So which of these would I have to visit to find out more about the Viper camp?" I asked calmly.

"The main base is the middle one with a viper head for a symbol on the map. Unlike us, they only have one commander who stays in that base and coordinates the rest of the region instead of having one guy manage each section like us. Aside from him, their leader is the only one who would know but the leaders all took up as 'guests' in our castle." He said, his voice dull and lifeless.

Figures, why stay with your men when you can stay in a nice warm room and get cozy away from the fighting?

I took a deep breath and put my right hand up in a flash, not even giving him time to think before a block of stone took him from this life through a gaping hole in his skull.

"Eli!" Salamede shouted, almost stumbling as she turned on me with her shoulders raised in anger.

"He... you. You just killed him. He was defenseless." She said, her voice showing her clear outrage despite how rough it was to audibly hear.

"So were his victims. Besides, what were we going to do? Were we going to let him go after we finished our conversation?" I asked calmly. Salamede took a few seconds before she turned her head to the left to stare at the wall in thought.

"N...no," She said in a deflated tone.

I put a hand on the patch of vines that was her right shoulder before using the calmest and most polite tone I could manage.

"That was the most humane way to do it. No fear. No elongated drawn-out suffering or agonizing about the few seconds of life left. Just a barely formed thought then nothing." I told her. But on the inside, I was getting a chill up my spine wondering if he was looking at me right now. Of course, that rested on the assumption that death itself functioned in the same manner as I had experienced in my universe.

"You're right, I should defer to your judgment more." She said after a moment's consideration.

"Pff. I am but a man. If you have something to say or contribute don't hesitate to bring it to my attention." I said encouragingly as I went and looked over the rest of the reports as salamede went back to keeping an eye on the entrance. When I was satisfied that I had learned everything worth knowing in this place I jerked my head back towards the door. After taking the map and putting it in one of my pockets, we stepped over the blade sticking in the floor and went back outside into the main yard.