The nobleman holding the nearest elf was an earl named Zai, and he was currently in a summer home near the city.

I broke in through a window on the first floor, using anti-magic to avoid triggering the alarm.

It was late at night, but there were still guards. I became invisible and tried to open doors as quietly as possible. I couldn't activate anti-magic and invisibility at the same time, so I kept a close watch for unusual mana constructs.

The elven woman was not in the basement, as far as I could tell, or any of the easily accessible rooms.

I wasn't familiar with her mana signature, but sensed two people in what looked to be the nobleman's bedchamber. One of them was rather fuzzy but bore the rhythm of a heartily sleeping man and the other was abnormal, upright and close to the edge of the room.

If I had to take a guess, the one near the wall would be the elf. It could be someone else, but the nobleman wasn't known to have any other slaves or mistresses.

It is possible to set up alarms that trigger when anti-magic is activated, using a similar principle to checking if a circuit broke. Such alarms can be circumvented by effectively rewiring the mana flow network with your own magical constructs to avoid blocking the signal from passing through. Then, anti-magic can be used to disable the remaining portion of the alarm that triggers based on proximity.

It is, however, a delicate task. It was a testament to the nobleman's concern about intruders that he was using such a system to defend his room when anti-magic is both rare and expensive. No ordinary thief would have access to it. Fortunately, nothing went wrong and I was able to make it in.

Even with magic, it was too dark to see colour. As I entered the room, my eyes were immediately drawn to two things.

There was a large metal box in the center of the room, thrumming with magic. It was probably latched from the inside. The fuzzy energy signature was coming from within it.

It made sense, as the wards would disrupt the clarity of the signal.

Finally, I had met someone more paranoid than me. It was good for him, too, as the structure made killing him not worth the effort.

The second thing I noticed was the woman chained up on the wall.

She was restrained in crucifix position, gagged, and stark naked. Although covered in gashes in various stages of healing, she was clean and of a healthy weight.

Apparently, Earl Zai believed in maintaining his 'toys' so that they'd last longer. Or maybe he thought he genuinely cared about her? Who knows what goes on in a pervert's mind.

I tapped her on the shoulder to wake her up. She opened her eyes. They carried in them weariness and anger. Then, she realized I wasn't the nobleman and looked confused.

I pressed my finger to my lips. I had my face covered, but the gesture was clear. She nodded, so I removed her gag, then fed her a healing potion.

She watched calmly as I started to work on her shackles. They were mana-restricting and physically locked, so I picked them like a normal person.

After being freed, she silently accepted the cloak I offered her and pulled it on.

I'm not normally one to care too much about a woman's appearance, but there was a sort of elegance to her that I found remarkable.

I thought it might be hard to get her out of here, but it turned out my concerns were pointless. She was careful and cooperative, at least until we left the premises.

After that, she immediately started running away from me at a remarkable speed.

A good move, but it was too late. I had put a tracer in the healing potion I fed her.

It wasn't some sort of magical construct. An elf would've noticed that. Instead it was a certain extremely dilute mixture of alchemical reagents that would remain in her body for quite a while and slowly come out in her sweat.

Nobody would notice it if they weren't looking for it and even if they were looking for it, only someone extremely sensitive would be able to pick up on it.

It wasn't foolproof, but if tracking an elf back to her home were easy, the Elven kingdom wouldn't be so isolated.

I briefly wondered if I had gone too far. As far as I knew, the elf was a completely innocent person and I was planning to break into a haven that had probably been isolated for good reason.

But I was starting to get a really bad feeling about this planet's situation. If anyone knew about the ancient ruins, it would be a race that never aged. In the end, I wouldn't seriously hurt her. A small violation of her privacy should be acceptable given the stakes.

She covered her ears and headed towards a run-down inn, where she got a room for the night.

The next morning, she went to the adventurers guild. It made sense, as there was a strip of land overrun by monsters around the border of Elven territory.

It would be better to join a group for getting through a portion of that section.

She signed up for the licensing exam, but it wasn't for days.

From all the groups that were currently in the area, only a few frequently ventured into the area near the border of Elven territory.

I tried chatting with some of the adventurers. Some were unwilling to talk to me, as Maurice's group told them what I did, but eventually I found that the group most likely to journey near Elven territory in the near future was called the Blood Wolves.

They were a party from the capital that occasionally came to take a particular mission in the area.

The leader was a young woman with pink hair and an atmosphere that made me feel distinctly uncomfortable. She was currently faking a polite smile.

"My name is Copsi. I heard you're looking for a team. Want to join us? I like a man who does what they have to instead of waffling around like a sissy and getting everyone killed."

I suspected my first impression was spot on. This woman seemed like a bit of a psychopath. But who am I to judge?

The rest of the Blood Wolves wouldn't be together until they left on their next mission, but Copsi invited me to go help her deal with a monster problem that day.

Since I wanted to join her team in advance, I agreed.

The request was made collectively by a small farming village. Apparently a group of bull-like monsters with the heads of jackals had taken up residence nearby and were consuming their livestock.

The village elder walked out to welcome us, along with his granddaughter.

"Thank you for coming out here. I know adventurers of your grade normally don't take requests that pay so little. I don't know what brought us this good fortune, but you have our deepest gratitude."

Both the man and the girl bowed to Copsi.

"Don't worry about it," she said, smiling, "I'm here because I want to be."

Copsi's fire-wreathed blade easily sliced through the flesh of another monster. The edges of the wound were singed black, but the blood from the arteries as thick as human arms could not be so easily stemmed.

The area before her was filled with flowing blood, smoke, and the screams of the dying.

She was a magician, and a strong one, but close quarters combat appealed to her far more than hiding and shooting spells like a coward.

She'd rather be drenched in the beautiful scent of iron.

The last of the monsters tried to run. She sliced one of its legs off and approached it as it cowered in fear and started to whimper.

Savoring the moment, she slowly pressed her blade to its neck and let its life flow through her fingers.

Indeed, despite the low pay, she truly wanted to be here.

She lifted the blade to her lips and licked the blood off of it, sighing in pleasure.

Then she saw the man she brought with her staring at her in disgust.

How irritating. She had brought him along in hopes that he'd be worth considering, but it turned out he was just a piece of trash.

He had wasted her time.

Copsi felt her mood begin to plummet. If he died here, there was a chance she could blame it on the monsters.

It might be hard, though, because he was a mage. Could she get to him before he teleported? Was it worth it?

Fuck it. His face was pissing her off. Nobody could hurt her. Not anymore.

"Is something wrong? Do you have some sort of problem with what I'm doing?" Copsi asked sweetly.

His face retained that abhorrent expression of disgust. As her last hope started to slip away, the man responded.

"Well, it's your choice, but isn't that really unhygienic? You're eating raw animal blood."

Copsi felt her hope begin to flare again. Trying to suppress it, she asked carefully, "So that's what was bothering you?"

"Yes? I know you can probably afford it, but it'd be annoying to have to use healing magic every day just to offset the effects of some strange illness you got from randomly licking raw blood. That's unless you're a vampire or something, but then I think you're going about it the wrong way. It just doesn't seem like a good idea, however you look at it."

"You didn't mind how I was dealing with the monsters?"

"Why would I care about that? It's not like you're wantonly murdering innocent people or anything."

Warmth flooded her chest. Not only did he not judge her for having a bit of harmless fun, he was even worried about her health.

How cute. When was the last time someone worried about her?

Now that she looked at him again, the man was quite handsome.

"Your name is Clarence, right?"

"It is."

"Great! I think you'll make a fantastic addition to the team."

She couldn't help but sneak a few more glances at him as they walked back to the village. The more she looked, the more she liked what she saw.

As a mage, she could tell he had done something to disguise his face, but the approximate features would be similar. He could even be more handsome under his mask.

He was strong, brave and understanding. He made her feel warm. He treated her like a person.

"Thank you so much. We really might have suffered horribly without you! I don't have much money, so all I could do was make you dinner. I hope you enjoy it."

A stupidly soft voice snapped her out of her thoughts. The village elder's granddaughter was blushing demurely as she handed Clarence a basket.

Who the fuck did this pathetic bitch think she was?

What could possibly have deluded her into thinking she was worthy of trying to seduce Clarence? In every way this little village girl was inferior to her.

Not only that, why the fuck was she thanking Clarence when Copsi had been the one to do most of the work? If not for her, Clarence wouldn't even be here. This bitch was not only unworthy, but also ungrateful and shameless.

Surely, Clarence wouldn't be daft enough to chose someone like her instead of Copsi.

Yet he accepted the basket.

It was okay. He probably didn't understand the significance of what he did.

But this couldn't go on. Tonight, she'd be paying the village girl a visit.