Sandy and Cindy looked at the young man—he said his name was Clarence—with adoring eyes.

He acted grumpy, but he had helped them twice by now. Despite his demeanor, he was actually quite gentle.

Right now, he was glaring at them with naked hostility. Sandy supposed they might've inconvenienced him by interfering with him joining the group he wanted, but it was for his own good in the long run.

She and her sister couldn't let him get seduced by that trollop.

Now he even wanted to know what made them think they were suitable for going to hunt monsters with him.

Obviously, it was because they actually cared about him! He wouldn't need those trollops when he had them.

The direct approach, however, was not working. He seemed very insistent on joining an experienced team. Wasn't he good enough by himself with just the two of them?

No matter how hard they tried, he just seemed to get more irritated.

Finally, he snapped, "If you guys keep following me, you'll find yourselves lying paralyzed on the street."

The look in his eyes was enough to make Sandy's breath catch in her throat.

Sandy thought he was a nice person, but she couldn't help wavering in that moment. She shook the feeling.

Clearly, this wasn't working. For some reason, he was really refusing to budge. She took Cindy and left.

It was time to try a different tactic.

I finally got rid of the nuisances and retired to an inn. The next morning, I went to the spot I had arranged with the adventurer from yesterday, Maurice. We were to meet up there before going on a short mission to clear some monsters out of an already well-explored set of ruins near the city.

There were some researchers whose work had been interrupted by the sudden appearance of a couple of aggressive orcs. They had nearly eaten the project leader; she had barely escaped with her life.

When I arrived, I realized that if there is a god, they really don't love me.

I know you might think it weird to question the existence of gods when I was supposedly brought here by one, but I had no strong reason to accept that the entity the Temple of Light worships is an actual god. I guess if you define 'god' as a sufficiently powerful being, maybe, but I believe the term has other implications.

At any rate, this realization was brought about by the reappearance of the nuisances, this time holding the group's bags.

"Big bro, over here!" The louder one was waving at me.

"Big brother, we found a way to help you! This way, you can travel with us without us holding you back!"

"What are they doing here?" I asked Maurice.

Apparently they had volunteered to be baggage carriers, take watch duty, and help set up camp.

I thought it was kind of dangerous to bring people who couldn't even defend themselves properly, but Maurice thought it would be fine as long as they stayed in the warded campsite.

Theoretically, that should be reasonable enough, but these two seemed like such airheads, I wouldn't be surprised if they wandered away to pick mushrooms or something.

We headed out and they hovered around me incessantly like a pair of hungry horseflies. If this persisted, I might really have to paralyze them before heading out next time. They wouldn't die and would eventually recover. Probably.

Thankfully, we arrived near the ruins by the late afternoon and left them at the place where we would camp for the night.

Clearing the ruins was a somewhat delicate task. Due to its archeological importance, we couldn't go casting area damage spells and the like.

I was mostly in charge of precise shots and mental attacks. The priest dealt with healing. Maurice and her husband were close range mana warriors.

We killed the attackers easily enough.

When we were finishing our sweep of the place to ensure we hadn't missed anything, I noticed an extremely faint anomalous energy fluctuation coming from underground.

It generally wasn't considered safe to leave a single person alone in the ruins, but we were independent contractors. I insisted, so the group went back.

I focused, sensing deep into the ground. After some significant effort, I found there was a structure several hundred feet down. It was protected by intricate spacial distortions.

There seemed to be a path through, sort of like a gate, that was sealed shut with an incredibly fine weave. I set to work unraveling it. I doubted there were many mages alive capable of undoing this, but fortunately, I was one of them.

In my defense, I want to clarify that the defenses were the sort of protections used to hide something, not the sort meant to imprison something. I wouldn't have been doing this so casually if I thought there was some eldritch horror locked away under there.

Teleporting short distances is fairly simple.

I teleported into the open space that I had verified was directly under the anomaly, controlling my mana as tightly as possible to avoid any leakage. If this site had archeological significance, I did not want to disrupt the ambient mana concentration.

The area looked to be a living area of some sorts. A shelter? I wasn't sure. It was large enough to hold maybe a few hundred people. Was it for a village? The wealthy? Government figures? What would drive them to want to hide so deep beneath the earth?

There were some metal artifacts whose use I could not ascertain. Were they machines? The air was still and dry, yet they were crumbling from the passing of countless years.

In one room, I found a pile of stones. Their mana density was higher than the surrounding area, although only slightly. Were they fuel for the machines? Were the intended users of the shelter mages?

I recorded some measurements for the mana concentration in the air, then carefully transferred one of the stones into a lead box.

By examining the rate and pattern of mana diffusion, it might be possible to approximate the date when the rock was produced.

I took some images and made a few more notes before leaving. I wasn't some sort of history nerd, but I was a bit curious about what happened here. If the shelter was as old as it seemed, it had some interesting implications.

I came back to the camp to find it in turmoil.

Apparently, a group of criminals had captured the louder nuisance and were demanding our surrender at nightfall in exchange for her life. The terms of surrender were unacceptable and would almost certainly lead to our agonizing deaths.

I was shocked. I never would have imagined this could happen.

That was a total lie.

What the hell did Maurice expect, bringing a pair of defenseless idiots around like some sort of luggage? Even if it didn't happen here, it would've happened sooner or later.

She probably underestimated their idiocy and also underestimated how cunning her enemies were.

The remaining nuisance was sobbing. It was far from the first time in the past two days, but she seemed more sincere about it than usual.

"Please save Sandy. She was just trying to help!"

Apparently, a boy had come up to the campsite and started crying about how his parents had been attacked by some thugs.

The nuisances had rushed over to help and promptly walked into a trap. They let the crybaby, Cindy, return to pass on the message.

The wards on the campsite had been fairly strong. I knew, because I had set them up myself. That didn't matter if you strolled right on out of them at the first request of some random person.

The nuisances must have been a windfall for the criminals. They had been looking for an opportunity to get revenge on our group for some reason or other and a ready-made hostage basically walked right into their lap.

Hostage or not, these people clearly had it out for us and it wouldn't be good to just ignore them.

I didn't plan on waiting for nightfall and walking into an obvious trap, though. I wasn't Sandy.

For the second time today, I focused my senses. This time, it was over a wide area instead of a particular target.

I found a man in a tall tree near the top of a hill, teleported in front of him, and rendered him unable to move.

He had a spyglass, so he was probably the one the criminal group sent to observe us.

It was hard to pry deep into a person's mind, especially a well-guarded one. Reading surface thoughts was doable, however, and even more so with amateurs.

"What's the first reason your group will realize you've been captured?"

There was a bird call whistle he had to blow every seven minutes to signal his status. He was currently due to blow it in about three.

I continued to question him in this manner until I had the criminal group's signals, their numbers, abilities and the location of their hideout.

I asked about their motivation for good measure, and it turned out to be revenge for their leader's older brother.

Should I bring the party along? Maurice seemed to have a soft side, so she might actually try to surrender.

That would be annoying. I'd just go alone. I was a lot more stealthy that way.

The criminal group knew my party had a mage, so they had grouped tightly around the hostage to prevent being wiped out by area attacks.

They were all on high alert, as well, and a mana warrior was holding a needle to the side of Sandy's neck. It was coated in a highly lethal poison that supposedly even the high priestess of the Temple of Light couldn't cure.

I had my doubts about that, but point was, it would be beyond our priest's ability and it was very fast acting.

The mana warrior was the leader, and while he wasn't particularly strong, according to the scout I had captured, his senses were very good.

I took care of all their defenses and men I could eliminate without raising the alarm. Then I warded myself to hell and walked into their camp.

I should at least try to negotiate first.

Sandy suppressed a terrified shiver. If she so much as twitched, it might be enough to kill her. The poison coated needle carassed the surface of her skin.

The slightest slip and she'd be dead. Even she could feel the power of the corrosive mana thrumming within it.

The man holding it to her neck was called Crag. His rough hands were amazingly steady.

If it kept going like this, she would die tonight. She hoped her party would save her. She was so young, and has so much to see.

She wanted to make it back to her sister and family. She had only wanted to help people.

Where did it go so wrong?

As she prayed to every god she knew, a familiar figure appeared out of the trees and walked confidently into the clearing.

Hope rushed back into her in a torrent. It was her new friend, Clarence, the one who had saved them before. He had come to save her again.

It wasn't even the arranged time yet and he was alone. He must have been so worried about her he was unable to wait.

He acted like that, but he really was gentle deep down.

"I've killed the men you sent out. You guys are the only ones left. I don't plan to surrender, but I can let you leave alive."

Crag scoffed.

"I thought I told you to come at nightfall. I've half a mind to just kill the girl now for your actions."

"Do that, and you all die. You should know very well she's the only reason I didn't just blast this entire camp into the heavens."

"But then the girl dies too, doesn't she? As soon as you start casting anything, hmm, I'm a very twitchy person and I think this needle will go right into her artery."

"Yes, which is why I'm giving you a chance. Her safety in exchange for your lives."

"I have a better idea," one of Craig's men pulled out a set of mana restrictors, "I'll let her go if you take her place."

"Is that your final offer?"

The way Clarence said it filled Sandy with an inexplicable sense of terror.

"Big bro! Please save me!" she cried.

She was so scared of death. She had so much to live for. Clarence was strong. Even if he got captured, he wouldn't be in as much pain as she was.

She hoped he could see how much she needed him.

Crag smirked.

"You hear that? She even sees you as family! Final offer. A life for a life is a fair exchange. You wouldn't let your family die now, would you?"

At his words, Clarence started laughing like he had just heard the funniest joke in his life.

In that moment, his eyes were not remotely those of a sane man.

"My family? Do you know what my 'family' would've told me to do in a situation like this?"

Mana shifted. Sandy felt the needle go into her neck, but the sensation was replaced as the air around her was filled with a light far brighter than the sun at noon.

The space around Sandy and the criminal group was filled with incredible heat. It seared the flesh off their bones, then turned their bones into calcium dust.

"I told you not to call me your brother."