The leader growled to the lightly robed man next to him "what's taking so long", only for the other party to snort in disdain while continuing his complex chant.

Right now the leader had his target in the palm of his hands, but he failed, again and again, to grasp her firmly. His troubles started with the initial encirclement, using some sort of magic trickery she was able to just waltz out of the carefully planned encirclement. Then he and his closest men rode their precious savanna lizard mounts to give chase, however, again she proved difficult, the advantage of the reptiles eyesight should have lead to a quick capture against a normal horse, instead he found out that her horse could run just fine during the night as it did during the day.

Hours passed with no side gaining the advantage, she could not get away because anytime she got out of sight the Lizards could follow their noses without missing a beat, and they could not get closer due to occasionally losing sight of her coupled with the slowly declining stamina of their mounts, giving the man a splitting headache with another thing that her mount seemed to surpass common sense with.

Slowly the distance increased as losing sight of their prey became more frequent and it took longer for the panting reptiles to follow her scent.

Ignoring the twisting of his stomach he ordered for his men to "dope" their mounts, the lizards had small vials of liquid shoved down their open maws then soon after their eyes became bloodshot as they seemed to gain a second wind.

At first, the leader was hoping this would allow their mounts to keep up long enough for the woman to make a mistake and allow them to catch up, but once their mounts ingested the liquid they began running faster than they ever had before, giving him quite the surprise.

He could see the distance visible closing and he gave a mental note to himself to thank the alchemist that suggested the potions to them when he saw their mounts.

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Presently.

Salenia swung her sword around frenziedly only hitting the mark occasionally, but glancing off a blade or shield every time. The men surrounding her did not attack and only focused on defense, they seemed perfectly content to keep her here forever and she could feel her face heating up as her attacks became more reckless.

Several corpses littered the ground around her feet as a testament to prowess as a swordsman, even one handed and almost blind she could still kill the less skilled amongst the people surrounding her. however, they quickly learned that the energy shield that covered her body was impenetrable by any of their current means and every time it seemed to disappear it only did so for as long as it took for someone to get too close, then find themselves missing limbs.

As time wore on and both sides continued to get nowhere the man in robes suddenly stopped muttering to himself and the leader started to grin viciously. The man pointed his palms towards the woman that was encircled and shouted: "OLNGVBO" (

Salenia saw the mage casting but the people dancing around her gave her no room to retaliate only adding to her frustration. when her sensitive ears caught the end of the chant which he so graciously yelled for her she rolled to the side directly behind one of the enemies to dodge.

The man that suddenly found himself between the spell and the target paled and jumped to the side too, however, Selenia expected this and the moment he put his guard down he found a sword pass through the back of his neck.

Salenia's small victory was short lived as she realized the spell turn midair to target her again, she was in no position to dodge so she pulled her blade in front of her to mitigate the damage if it passed her barrier.

As she moved her wrist she realized too late that the spell was not targeted at her, but her sword instead, before she could move it behind her the spell hit the blade and tore it from her grip.

The blade made a whistling sword as it cut through the air and the leader who was waiting for this bellowed "NOW".

A man that was standing at the back that Salenia thought was either useless in a fight or a coward suddenly jumped towards the unarmed Salenia.

She could still her sword falling so she decided to go for the fool closing in on her first, she was confident her shield would protect her from any harm in the meantime anyway.

When the man was less than a meter away from her he suddenly spun around throwing ropes everywhere.

Salenia managed to grab the man by the throat before he finished his spin and started to squeeze. As his throat collapsed under the pressure she noticed that the ropes were a net causing her to scoff at the man in her grasp before dropping his lifeless body on the ground with the others, their blades could not harm her what could a net do?.

While removing the net scuffling boots caught her attention and she realized the other men were each grabbing an edge of the net, they pulled hard and she lost her balance then hit the ground. The shield would stop them from pushing her further down but whenever she started to try and move they would throw their bodies against her causing her to fall and roll around, soon she found herself sprawled face down on the ground with a man standing on each limb.

One of the men asked "boss should we just wrap her up and offer her up for the price or should we stab her shield until it breaks".

The leader thought for a moment before ordering "just keep stabbing her, I don't want to take any chances with this one, she has already caused enough damage. besides it's going to be a long ride back" then gestured towards the collapsed savanna lizard mounts, the "doping" had given them a boost, but there is no such thing as a free lunch in this world.

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Several hours later the sun had started to rise revealing a half-dozen exhausted men and beasts surrounding a tied up individual that was surrounded by a soft glowing shield.

The mercenary group had spent hours trying to deplete Salenia's shield with no luck and now they were as exhausted as their mounts which they had drugged the previous night. if they knew Salenia was communicating with the spirits to help gather mana faster than they could deplete it they might just die of frustration where they stood.

However Salenia was in no better condition, she thought to herself 'I thought I had learned from my mistakes of underestimating people, if only I did not use the rest of my armor as a decoy to escape the city then the enhanced grip of the gauntlets would have made it impossible for that S%#(*@ mage to disarm me. if I learned to communicate with the spirits better when I was younger then maybe I could use them to attack right now, or if...'

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During her self-loathing episode, another person had overheard the noise and now observed the situation from the shadows of a tree in the distance. They sent mana into the lens of an eye and bent it slightly to gain a better view of the disturbance. They saw Salenia as she struggled to fight against her captors and those people attacking the prisoner with their weapons while she was bound and unarmed.

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The leader stood next to the mage quietly as he mused on how to solve the barrier problem, the mage had said the barrier would not hold long, but that was hours ago and his patience was wearing thin. he decided to take another stab at attacking the prisoner when his men became too tired to do it anymore.

He picked up a spear from one of the fallen and started his assault, his attacks were much more powerful than his subordinates and managed to bring out a crisp bang every time he struck the shield, every time he struck his subordinates would cheer him on in hopes of gaining a few brownie points over the others.

"Wow boss you sure are skilled with that spear"

"You should be able to break that shield in no time if it's you boss"

"Kill that annoying bitch"

"yea fuck her up"

gurgle*

"turn around an hit her without looking boss"

The strange sound in the middle caused him to raise his eyebrows and turn around to see who made such a weird attempt to gain his favor. Once he turned he found a blade lodged in his chest, gurgle*, he thought 'so that's what that sound was', before collapsing on the ground.

The other men jumped up at the sight of an intruder appearing out of nowhere and stabbing their boss, but they were already exhausted and could not put up much of a fight before they were all cut down.

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Salenia heard the noise and assumed some other party had come along to take her for the bounty, but she felt the ropes loosening, she jumped up and cautiously watched the blurry figure while feeling around for her sword. The figure just stood there silently until she had retrieved her sword again, then asked "what happened to you for there to be so many assholes trying to kill you ms's well done" while pointing to Salenia's burnt face.

Salenia felt immeasurably better once her sword was back in her hand and she replied "It's a long story, can you point me towards the direction of the new dungeon city"

The other party shrugged then replied "its that way" while pointing slightly away from where Salenia had just come from.

Salenia frowned and squinted trying to figure out where the other person was pointing when the other person saw her eyes they exclaimed "oh your blind, it's a wonder you managed to kill this many of em with one hand and no eyes... you can just follow me I suppose, I'm going that way anyway and its only a couple hours away on foot"

Salenia thought for a moment then thanked her savior before setting off on foot now that her mount was limping with bolts stuck in its behind and the lizards were in no shape to move right now.

They walked together with Salenia occasionally stopping to heal her horse with what little spirit magic she could use.

Salenia muttered to herself "finally the Salenia mini-arc is over" the other person asked, "what arc something?" Salenia replied "oh its nothing important" and continued walking.