The group blindly makes their way through the forest while being dragged along by Jellal. Due to the smaller number of hordes on this side of the stream their progress is much faster than it had been previously.

Unlike when they first left the hideout the prisoners aren’t as cautious with their steps. Having gotten used to marching through the forest blindfolded is a major contributing factor to them being able to keep up their pace during the second leg of the trip.

The more spacious environment doesn’t hurt either. With more room to maneuver they don’t have to take as many detours to find a path they can all take at the same time.

Overall the journey is smooth sailing allowing them to quickly close in on the rendezvous point Jellal prepared for them. As they approach Jellal slows their pace to a crawl, waiting for the right timing to move in.

At the meeting spot Sionia and a group of adventurers fight off a small horde of monsters. They work together seamlessly as they efficiently take down the monsters in the quickest way possible.

Mac carves through any enemy that’s foolish enough to approach him, causing a comfortable space in the area around him. Behind the group Sionia rapidly fires off arrows, displaying her excellent marksmanship and taking down each monster with one arrow a piece.

The rest of the adventurers work in smaller groups as they ward off the horde. Focusing on defense first, they kill the attacking monsters momentum before shifting back and switching places with their comrades. They swiftly attack the off balance and stunned enemies before quickly retreating behind the shield bearers.

This method allows them to easily deal with their foes while slowly falling back. Due to them falling back constantly the horde has to continually rush forward to reach them, thinning out the herd and making them easier to pick off. If the monsters had their heads screwed on properly they wouldn’t fall for such an obvious ploy like a bunch of broken records, but the influence of the miasma has caused any ability they once had to use basic tactics to disappear into thin air.

When the last of the enemies are wiped out they put away their weapons and retreat out of sight. The adventurers back out until they can no longer see what’s going on at the rendezvous point, leaving everything to Sionia.

Initially they planned to stay with her and act as her guards in case she was double crossed, but Mac vehemently opposed the decision. Out of the entire group he’s the only one who was allowed to know what the real situation is. The rest of the adventurers only knew they would be escorting a group of people who had been captured by bandits and nothing more.

For them the most likely explanation is a bandit making a deal with the guild to evade punishment, which would perfectly explain why they have to pick up the people so far away from the city. Being under the impression they’re dealing with bandits caused them to be extra wary of betrayal due to who they’re dealing with.

Despite knowing the truth Mac is the most nervous of the bunch. If they were really dealing with a bandit things would be much easier after all. Even the most vile fiends don’t want to be stuck in this miasma infested forest where death waits around every corner. Thanks to that they wouldn’t dare attack the people they made a deal with since it would jeopardize their safety, but Jellal’s different.

To Mac, Jellal’s nothing less than a beacon of bad luck. Wherever the strange goblin shows up there’s bound to be trouble. Regardless of whether it’s true or not, Mac sticks to his belief that nothing good will come of dealing with Jellal.

He’s already proven himself to have a short fuse, and having a bunch of extra adventurers running around is a match waiting to be struck. If they dared show their faces the fuse would be lit and the chances of stamping it out would border zero. Such a thing happening definitely can’t be allowed, thus Mac personally watches over the group of adventurers to ensure there aren’t any overly curious cats in their midst.

Seeing the group clear out and leave Sionia on her own Jellal leads the prisoners to the clearing to hand them over to her. He already expected the adventurer’s guild to send extra people to escort them back. If they didn’t, the chances of the prisoners making it back alive would be greatly reduced and there would be no point in them making the deal in the first place.

After all the captives are in the clearing Jellal brings them to a halt. Sif doesn’t come out with them and instead stays hidden in some bushes at the rear of the group.

[You seem to have had a rough time waiting for us. As per the agreement I’ve brought the people who were captured by the bandits; fourteen in total. Now that we’ve arrived at our destination there’s no longer a need for them to wear the blindfolds I suppose, unless you also want to try leading around a bunch of blind people through the forest. It’s an interesting experience. Not one I want to take a second stab at, but still interesting. What do you say; want to give it a shot?]

[Of course I do! I love making people I waited in a forest to escort to safety wander around defenselessly in monster infested area. How did you know?]

[You always struck me as the type of person who doesn’t have any morals. As expected, I was right on the money.]

[Says the pot to the kettle. You should try looking in a mirror some time. Ah, I take it back. Even if you looked in a mirror you wouldn’t be able to see anything other than your oversized ego.]

While the pair engage in some banter the prisoners stand in place unsure what to do. There’s nothing they want to do more than take off their blindfolds, but they haven’t been given permission to do so yet. The last thing any of them wants is to make it to place their being handed over at only to get killed for taking off their blindfolds.

Looking at how well trained the captives are Jellal can’t help but let out a little chuckle.

[From now on you’re no longer my problem. Also be sure to return your blindfolds, they’re my property after all.]

Relief washes over the group as they’re finally able to say they’re free from captivity. Ripping the blindfolds off many of them try to hold back their tears as they embrace in their excitement.

Jellal gently removes Meredith’s blindfold before fixing her hair. The others begin funneling over to turn in their blindfolds forcing Jellal to shift his attention. Once their blindfold is collected they move across the clearing and wait next to Sionia.

In the end the last person left on his side is Meredith. To make sure she doesn’t have any trouble in Pavise when she gets there he slips one gold and a few silver into her pocket. Giving her back a light nudge he urges her to join the others. She hesitates momentarily before trotting over and standing next to Sia and Beth.

[I suppose our business is finished then. Be sure to tell the geezer keeping an eye on your friends in the forest not to break his hip acting like he’s still young.]

Before leaving he can’t help but throw a verbal jab at Mac. He even made sure to crank up the volume so the old man would hear him. Out of the forest behind Sionia Mac’s voice sounds out in response.

[Why don’t you bring your mother over and I’ll show you what it means to break a hip, you runt!]

With the prisoners out of his hands, Jellal has no reason to linger. Doing an about face he casually strolls back into the brush he came from. When he’s out of sight Sif joins up with him as they start their trip back to the cave.

Without the extra baggage slowing them down the two freely sprint through the forest. Under Jellal’s leadership they easily avoid any potential enemies on their trip. Thanks to Sif’s agility Jellal doesn’t have to waste time circling wide when they dodge a horde. Instead they weave through the various groups by the smallest margin possible without getting noticed, shortening the time needed for their trip even more.

They arrive at the entrance of the cave and slip inside before any nearby monsters have a chance to notice them. As always Jellal seals off the entrance after they’re inside so they won’t have to worry about their cave being discovered.

Finally home they stroll through the empty hall to the dining hall. Jellal gives the material from the giant hawk a once over to make sure a certain vampire didn’t mess with it while he was away. Confirming everything’s in place he loads the materials into his bag.

He didn’t do this earlier because he didn’t want to reveal the existence of his bag to the prisoners, doubly so since it was right before they were set free. One of them died do to their greed before they even left the cave so how could he have confidence they wouldn’t get greedy the moment they’re free.

A room full of bandit treasure may be enticing for adventurers, but they wouldn’t take the risk with the climate of the forest. However if the prize their after is something far more useful the chances of them taking the risk and venturing out greatly increases. The types of items this applies to is limited, but storage items will always be chief among the desired items due to their utility and rarity.

After the material is stowed away Jellal passes through the dining hall and toward the treasure room. The first thing he needs to do before he can get back to his training is make sure Evangeline didn’t take any of his stuff.

Walking past his room he glances inside at the sleeping vampire. At some point when he was escorting the prisoners she moved her sleeping spot from her cell to his bed. Looking at her drooling all over his pillows his face twitches and he has to suppress his urge to stuff a week old sock in her mouth.

‘I wonder how vampires are categorized. Are they considered monsters or an “intelligent species”? The others didn’t seem to have any problems being around her so she probably isn’t classified as a monster. Then again, she didn’t really spend much time with anyone other than Meredith so it’s hard to tell. I’d imagine as long as they don’t go around sucking peoples’ blood without permission they would be thought of like elves or dwarves.

The main proponent against it is their strength. Humans tend to consider themselves the top of the food chain and don’t like when others are stronger than them. It wouldn’t be surprising if they made up some excuses to consider vampires as monsters so they could righteously strike them down and eliminate the potential threat they pose to human superiority.

More importantly is how they’re considered by the world. If they are monsters the possibility of me having to deal with some miasma inflicted vampires in the future is a something to take note of.’

Arriving at the still sealed treasure room Jellal opens it up and steps inside. Using his mana to scan the area he already confirmed nothing is out of place before he came inside. He heads to the left side of the room and walks along the wall until he finds his objective.

Looking at his reflection in the mirror he turns his head back and forth while looking at his jagged ears. Grabbing the earrings he bought during his trip to the city from his bag, he holds them up to his ears before deciding how to wear them.

Popping open the clamps, he prepares to jam the wire through his ear. To ensure it goes through he coats the wire in mana to reinforce it. For the first earring he lifts it up to his right ear and stabs it through the earlobe near the base of the ear.

He repeats the process on his left ear leaving him with two normal looking piercings. The third earring is poked through the lower part of his ear approximately three quarters of the way down the length of his ear. His final earring is jammed in right next to it with only a small gap separating the two.

Turning his head in front of the mirror he inspects his handiwork.

‘As I thought, goblins are tailor made to wear earrings. Maybe it has something to do with the way the ears are shaped. The earrings definitely accent the jagged uniqueness of the ears. It’s a shame I could only find four of them last time. To really get the most out of these ears I’ll need a few more.’

Jellal takes some time to admire himself in the mirror before leaving the treasure room and sealing it behind him. If he wanted to sell the mirror he could undoubtedly get a good price for it, but then he wouldn’t be able to use it to admire himself. Naturally being able to check himself out in the mirror is far more important than some material wealth.

Passing through the dining hall he makes his way to the living quarters. To pick up where he left off with the experiments he returns to the depths of the living quarters where his personal training area is.

Taking out his piles of dirt he gets right back into sorting it. The more time he spends sorting the granules of dirt the faster and more accurate he becomes. Even with his best efforts it takes him nearly an hour just to finish divvying up the dirt.

With the dirt ready he moves on to constructing the blocks. To save time he only makes them five square centimeters. To make the blocks identical he builds them in layers, while checking for any minute differences between layers.

When the layers are all stacked up and held together by magic he moves on to the next step: compacting the dirt together. Using earth magic to compress the dirt; being sure to examine the blocks for any flaws along the way.

When he’s finished he’s left with two identical blocks, with identical structures. The cherry on top is his perfect knowledge of the cubes. If even a single speck of dirt is out of place after the teleportation he’ll know about it.

Now at long last he can resume his experiments. For his control he teleports them in place to get confirm his previous conclusions. Thoroughly checking the cubes, he confirms they haven’t had any changes due to the teleportation.

Getting into the real experiments, he picks out a position on the makes a slot for the block to slide into with earth magic. A few measly centimeters away from there he makes a second identical slot to use as the target destination.

Before he tests the dirt cubes he pulls out a chunk of wood and puts his dirt cubes away. Placing the wood in the slot he teleports it to the other slot, only slightly off the mark. This results in an unexpected explosion that sends him flying into the wall.

‘Note to self, teleporting something to an already occupied location is extremely dangerous. I knew it wouldn’t end well, but I wasn’t expecting an explosion. I thought the object would be ripped to shreds not explode in my face.

Extremely dangerous, but incredibly useful information. What kind of defense can stop me from teleporting a rock inside an object to make it explode? As for what would happen if an actual living being was involved instead of a pair of inanimate objects, we’ll find out later. I bet it’ll be a nice big explosion of blood and flesh.

Why is space magic so useful when it isn’t used correctly? Sure it’s dangerous, but being able to intentionally cause an accident with space magic is basically an instant kill.’

Brushing the dirt off his body Jellal fixes the hole in the ground and remakes the slots. Bringing out one of his dirt blocks he begins the experiments.

In an instant the dirt block disappears from one slot and appears in the other. Carefully scrutinizing the cube Jellal notices something strange: there’s no damage to the cube. Even when he only shifted the wood blocks to the side a tiny amount they were damaged, yet the dirt cube is completely unharmed.

Placing it on the ground away from the slots he picks a new destination at random. Teleporting the cube once again it falls from the sky and lands in his outstretched hand. After careful inspection the result is the same as the other test: a perfect teleportation.

‘Why? I went through so much trouble to make a pair of blocks perfectly identical and then the first one teleports perfectly. It’s like a slap in the face to put in so much effort for one objective then not be able to complete it. I only wanted to see where my magic was going wrong so I could fix it.

Unless, the answer is right before my eyes. The difference between the two tests is the test subject, or more precisely the structure of the objects. The most important difference should be my knowledge of the objects’’ makeups.

To know for certain if my line of thinking is correct I need to do a few more tests though. Teleporting may not be so far away after all, kekeke.’

Sitting on the ground holding a dirt cube, Jellal laughs like a mad scientist about to see his dreams come to fruition before his very eyes.