In a single step Jellal appears in front of the woman. His right hand latches onto her throat as he lifts her off the ground. She flails about as she tries to break free of his grip, but it’s no use. Her attempts to escape gradually lessen in strength before her hands fall down limply to her sides.

Using his left hand Jellal reaches into the top of her pants. One at a time he pulls out a knife, some feathers, and a boar’s tusk she’d been concealing under her clothes.

The boar tusk had been hidden in her cell the night before but he didn’t bother look for the thief. Since they were leaving today the thief would either leave it behind or bring it out with them, revealing their true identity. Today his patience paid off when she acted exactly how he predicted.

The rest of the prisoners could feel the urge to speak up in anger over another death, but they refrained from doing so. In the end she’d made a conscious choice to steal from their warden despite knowing they would be set free today.

Of course whether their overlord can be trusted is another issue entirely. For the most part they trusted his words, not out of real trust but out of their desire for hope. Not believing him is the same as giving up their dreams of being free which is what sustained them to this point.

They watch silently as Jellal throws the body to the side and walks over to the table with the items on it. Placing the items on the table he turns around and looks at the group. With the exception of Meredith and Evangeline, all the captives are gathered together. Since Evangeline isn’t coming with them she has no need to be here and is still sleeping in her cell. Meredith is also sleeping, but that’s due to Jellal never waking her up.

[This may be the wrong time to ask, but are they going to let you in the city without any identification or money? Now that I think of it I stacked up a bunch of papers the bandits had collected and never went back to look at them so maybe your ids are in there.

Since I’m an exceptionally generous person and I have no use for them you can have them back. Just don’t get sticky fingers and everything will be fine.]

Leading them out of the dining room Jellal opens the treasure room before they’re even close to it. On the way he stops by his room to wake up Meredith, who’s still being guarded by Sif. Understanding it’s time to leave Sif comes along with them as they stop by the treasure room.

Piled up in the furthest corner from the entrance they find a random stack of paper. Jellal gestures for them to have at it as he plops down in a chair. They dig through the pile passing papers back and forth while setting most of them aside.

When they’ve gone through the entire stack each of them has at least one paper in their hands. Not wanting to leave their fates up to chance they take turns showing what they took to Jellal before they leave the room.

The last person left is Vincent who’s holding a handful of papers. Knowing Vincent won’t do something stupid to get himself killed Jellal waits for his inevitable explanation. A forced smile appears on Vincent’s face as he sets the stack to the side.

[Would it be possible for me to take the rest of the identification papers with me? Using the papers we can accurately gauge who was robbed by the bandits and who was using them as an excuse to pull a fast one on the people. There’s plenty of precedent for people to use bandits as an excuse to lobby for financial assistance if their business is failing. The benefits they gain may not be much, but they’re still stealing away taxes from hardworking people for their own selfish agendas. I may not have much sway in the kingdom but I’m still a noble. As such it’s my responsibility to procure these papers, if possible.]

[I couldn’t care less about a bunch of papers or your duty. If you want to carry a stack of papers through the forest while blindfolded be my guest. Just don’t forget what I told you earlier. If you fall behind or get separated it’s on you.]

Vincent quickly grabs the papers and chases after the group. Jellal leisurely gets out of the chair and follows after him. After leaving the treasure room he seals it up so Evangeline can’t get in while he’s guiding the captives to the rendezvous point.

When he steps into the dining hall he’s greeted by the waiting captives. After collecting their papers they returned here to practice walking around with their blindfolds on. With one person acting as the lead they cover their eyes and try to navigate around the tables.

They blindly stumble about as they try to get the hang of it. Occasionally someone will become separated from the group and lead the rest of the column to collapse into a pile flailing bodies.

Jellal doesn’t say anything and navigates through them on his way to the other side of the room. When he starts heading for the entrance they quickly uncover their eyes and race after him. The group ends up as an amalgamation of nerves and excitement as they stop in front of the defensive wall.

[Alright, Meredith, you stand off to the side. Everyone else form two columns. There’s fifteen of you present so without Meredith it’s a perfect seven-seven split, not hard to figure out.]

Following his instructions they split into groups and line up. Walking up to the first person in each line he hands them a dirty old cloth. Each of them takes a hold of an end while Jellal keeps the middle. Using the cloth he can lead them through the forest as he wishes without having to drag them around by the hand.

On his que the group put on their blindfolds leaving them unable to see what’s happening. Feeling around in the dark they locate the person in front of them, placing their hands firmly on their shoulders. Meanwhile Jellal wraps the cloth around his wrist so he can use his hands freely before they set off.

When the rest of the prisoners are taken care of Jellal turns his attention to Meredith. Leaning down so he’s at eye level with her, he carefully helps her put on her blindfold while keeping his left hand on her shoulder. With her blindfold secure he runs his hand down her arm and holds her hand. By keeping his hand on her shoulder he allows her to know it’s him grabbing her hand so she doesn’t have to feel anxious about it.

Along with Meredith he walks up to the first defensive wall. After one last check of their blindfolds he removes the first three walls. Passing through the opening he leads them to the outer wall which acts as the final barrier keeping them from leaving the cave. Instead of opening the entrance he stops, causing the train of people to bump into each other.

While he’s almost causing a human pileup inside, a horde of monsters wander around the entrance outside. The horde is made up of weak monsters but numbers over two hundred. Thanks to their awful sense of timing the start of the journey is delayed. While Jellal could easily kill them, the bodies would prove to be an annoyance to the people he’s babysitting.

The thought of letting the monsters pass only lasts for a few minutes before he gets sick of waiting. Calling an audible he uses wind magic to massacre any monster not in their path to reduce the time he has to wait.

The monsters slowly get out of the vicinity and he finally opens the entrance to the outside. Taking his first steps outside he uses earth magic to repair the divots he previously used as a defensive arrangement. The spikes too are returned to the earth so the blind tagalongs don’t skewer themselves.

The blindfold and line up method of leading the captives away proves to be extremely inefficient only a few steps out of the entrance. Since they can only rely on the person in front of them to know when and where to move the lines movement is janky and disjointed, with the prisoners constantly starting and stopping.

Their tendency to be cautious with their steps doesn’t help matters. It’s understandable for them to be wary of their steps given their inability to see, but when it’s combined with them using their hands to connect together it causes them to move around by scrunching together then lengthening back out. This inchworm method of travel immediately gets on Jellal’s nerves, forcing him to come up with a quick fix.

Bringing everyone to a stop Jellal rips a vine off the side of a tree. Putting to the side he finds another similar vine and snatches it up as well. Using mana as fuel he makes the vines grow until they’re long enough to easily reach the length of the lines.

He lays the vines on the ground in between the lines. Using earth magic he props he the ends so the vine is around waist height before having the prisoners blindly reach out to their sides until they found them.

With the new vines they have more room to space out and walk comfortably. Since Jellal’s holding the other end of the vines he can easily control the pace they move at, making things less annoying on him.

Of course he still plans on holding Meredith’s hand during the trip so he ties the ends of the vines he’s going to hold onto together while sticking a chunk of wood between them closer to the prisoners. The piece of wood acts as a spacer keeping the vines from tangling together and causing the people relying on them to have a pile up.

Having taken care of the inchworm issue they once again set out. When everyone is out of the cave he puts the defensive walls back in place, leaving a larger gap than usual so Sif can come and go at will. He also replaces the divots and spikes once they’ve cleared the area, leaving the base well defended.

During the short time they’ve spent marching so far numerous hordes of monsters have passed through Jellal’s detection range. Even if they all attacked at the same time he would be able to handle it, but that’s not the important part.

What’s important is the variety of monsters in the hordes. Up until this point this is the first time he’s come across hordes with stronger monsters mixed within. Orcs and bears may not be the top of the food chain when it comes to monsters but their inclusion in the hordes is a telling sign. The monsters being effected by the miasma’s no longer limited to the smallest of the small fries.

It may be fine now, but the implications it has on the future of the forest and the world as a whole is troubling. If these monsters can be taken over by the miasma it’s only a matter of time before stronger and more dangerous monsters suffer the same fate. More troubling still is whether they’ll be subject to the same nearly infinite reinforcements the weaker monsters are.

If every type of monster is available in infinite numbers like they’re being pumped out on an assembly line the amount of danger facing the world in the near future can’t be understated. Orcs may be fine, but what happens when it’s wyverns being mass produced by the miasma? What happens if dragons are also subject to the same fate as goblins and wolves?

Jellal frowns as he ponders the prospective implications of this new information. He may not have much of a connection to this world but he’s living here now so he can’t very well ignore the issue.

‘I don’t get it. What’s the purpose of the miasma? Looking at the way it’s shown to work so far it almost seems like a reset switch to bring the world back to square one, but that shouldn’t be the case. There wouldn’t be stories about how it caused the collapse of society and ruined empires if it was meant to be a hard reset.

Since there’s technology floating around from the last time the miasma spread it shouldn’t be meant to wipe out everything. So what’s its purpose? The stories mention it being the result of built up malice and evil intentions which might be a good clue. Usually I wouldn’t put too much stock in old stories with no real evidence, but the stories are too suspicious to ignore.

According to Kira the stories are pretty common yet they still don’t know how to stop the miasma. If someone knew how to stop it why isn’t it mentioned in the stories? If it hasn’t been stopped before the only candidate to spread those stories is the same bastard who’s responsible for the miasma.

My conjecture being true would mean the stories tell us the true cause of the miasma. If it’s caused by malice it definitely isn’t meant to be a reset button. It’s more likely to be a poor attempt to get the worlds inhabitants to behave. If I was a uselessly incompetent con artist of a god it would make sense to me to get people to not be total dicks through such an idiotic method.

Following the same line of thinking brings me to a conclusion I don’t like unfortunately. If the goal is to decrease peoples tendency for evil there shouldn’t be a true solution to stopping the miasma’s spread. To stop it you would probably need to decrease the evil in the world, which is an equally stupid way to fix the moronic problem.

Now I really want to know what it takes to be a god, because it obviously has nothing to do with intelligence.’

The moment his thoughts start pointing fingers at his old arch nemesis he loses the ability to contain it. He immediately blames everything on the world’s god as his irrational anger flares to the max. As he starts looking around for something to punch out of existence his eyes fall on Meredith.

Keeping his eyes glued to her his anger slowly subsides and he calms down. With his temper under control he decides to think of his old nemesis as a figment of his imagination. In this way he can escape reality and deny an idiots existence at the same time, which is a double win!

Switching his focus to leading the group through the forest, he does his best to avoid hordes of monsters. This way he can make it more difficult for them to remember the path he brought them on and keep them protected at the same time.

Whenever a stubborn horde refuses to cooperate and insists on getting in the way he wipes them out with magic from a distance. To ensure as smooth a trip as possible he dodges the corpses making their path wind even more incomprehensibly.

A few hours of slowly trekking through the forest later and the sound of running water blesses the ears of the captives. During the entire trip the surrounding area’s been eerily quiet, causing them to grow nervous. The only sound to reach their ears prior to this has been the distant screams of monsters.

Naturally those screaming monsters were mostly annihilated by Jellal for coming too close to him, an incredibly dubious crime.

Having finally reached the stream Jellal has the group take a small break. Exhausted from the long trip most of the captives sink to the ground like puppets with their strings cut.

Jellal leaves Sif in charge of watching the group while he takes Meredith over to the stream. Taking a clean cloth from his bag he wets it in the stream. Using the wet cloth he gently washes her face, neck, and arms.

Using water magic he creates a sphere of water. Manipulating it further he creates tendrils which spread around her hair. Unpacking some soap he washes her hair before using a new cloth to dry her off.

Returning from his side trip he can only shake his head and sigh. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it also claimed the life of a captive. The former adventurer’s inability to control herself caused her to be the first casualty since the start of the trip.

Sif’s blood soaked mouth releases its clamp on her neck as the body lies motionless. Unsure what’s going on the rest of the prisoners can only sit on the ground with their heads tucked between their knees, not daring to take their blindfolds off to check.

[Up and at ‘em. Things will only get easier from here on out, so unless you’re foolish enough to break the one rule I set before we left there’s nothing to worry about. For any of you thinking of breaking the rule: you reap what you sow.]

Getting everyone lined up again and holding the vines he leads them toward the stream. Using earth magic he creates a wide bridge over the river. Since it’s held together with magic structural integrity isn’t as important as it would normally be.

To make sure it can handle the weight of the group crossing he adds in a gravity magic to reduce the gravity around the bridge. Due to his lack of practice he can’t reduce it by much, but he’ll take what he can get regardless.

When the entire group finishes crossing the bridge he returns the area to normal to hide all traces of them passing through.