Kawooo!

The Giant Mammoth cries as it charged towards Charlotte. However, she doesn’t seem to be alerted and calmly put her huge white shield forward. I shook on the branch of a faraway tree where I was observing the battle as I witnessed an unbelievable scene.

“[Fortress Wall]”

She chanted as she along with the shield was enveloped in white light. She looked strong as she stood still awaiting the charging beast.

Bam!

A loud sound was produced from the impact but Charlotte wasn’t pushed back at all. It was amazing. She’s holding off against such a large weight. She may be crazy but I was actually amazed at her strength.

While Charlotte was restraining the mammoth, a rain of arrows fell on the giant body of the beast leaving trails of dark streaks. Compared to the mammoth’s size they looked minuscule but the quantity made up for it. Countless small wounds appeared on the mammoth’s body and it started bleeding from the accumulation of damage.

The mammoth started to rampage and tried to stomp on Charlotte but she dodged it and slashed at the mammoth with a sword pulled out from her shield. The mammoth started bleeding all over its body but it didn’t seem to be weakened by those wounds. Adam appeared and assisted Charlotte who was continuously attacking the mammoth. They had immaculate teamwork.

Adam shot his arrows from afar while Charlotte deals melee damage on the mammoth. It was an amazing scene to witness. I was greatly inspired as I watch the battle.

From afar, Rachel was preparing a magic circle while sporadically assisting the other two. She must be preparing a grand magic spell to finish the mammoth.

When the magic circle looked like it was completed, Rachel shouted.

“It’s done, get away from it!”

On cue, Adam and Charlotte flee from the rampaging mammoth and away from the scene.

“[Domain Magic: Ice Age]”

Rachel shortly chanted and a sight I’ve never seen before unfolded in front of my eyes. A huge dome made of mana suddenly appeared and trapped the mammoth along with Rachel in it.

I was surprised but I didn’t move from my spot. Since the spell was invoked by Rachel herself it must be fine. Moreover, Charlotte and Adam were calm with it although they didn’t relax and let their guard down. All of us stared at the dome and waited.

It didn’t take long; after 10 seconds, the dome disappeared and a frozen landscape revealed itself from within. A mammoth frozen corpse laid in the middle of it and Rachel was standing there pale-faced and looking drained. She fell and was caught by Charlotte who immediately rushed in as the dome disappeared. Adam was busy examining the mammoth’s corpse that was frozen and still in perfect condition. A monster’s corpse is only valuable if it’s undamaged after all.

Judging that it was safe, I jumped down from the tree branch and headed to the group.

“Ah, Richard.”

“You guys were amazing.”

I praised the S-ranked adventurers in admiration.

“Well, we’ve been doing this for a long time.”

Adam calmly responded to my compliment, but then Charlotte started pestering me.

“Hey, Richard, what about big sis? Did you see me? Wasn’t I the most amazing?”

I ignored her and she started showing a pitiful look again. Adam and Rachel just smiled at the scene.

“Well, let’s go back. I don’t think we could handle another mammoth.”

Mammoths are solitary monsters. But we were in the dangerous parts of the forest so it’s not a good idea to stay for long.

“I’ll help with the corpse.”

I offered to carry the corpse for them but Adam stopped me.

“It’s fine. Watch this.”

“[Shadow Space]”

Black matter sprouted out from the shadows beneath the mammoth’s corpse and enveloped it before dragging it into the ground. The whole thing disappeared right after.

“Was that a Unique Spell?”

“That’s right. Pretty cool isn’t it?”

Adam boasted with a cheerful smile at my question. Well, it is pretty cool so I’ll give him that. After Adam stored the monster’s corpse in his shadow subspace we headed back to the city.

The journey took a couple more days but we finally arrived in town. We got straight to the Adventurer Guild to report the mission completion. I didn’t go with the group since I didn’t do anything, I just went with them to observe how strong Catastrophe level monsters are.

I split from the group and went back to the inn. When I got into the room Harry and Chris were inside discussing something.

“Harry, you’re back.”

“Young master, I didn’t notice you come in. Great timing, I finally found the location of the Black Rose’s hideout. “

“Really?”

I threw my backpack and ran to the two to listen to their plans so far.

“So what did you find out?”

“The Black Rose is a mid-level Dark Guild but their strength isn’t much for an assassination group compared to the bigger names. From the 6 commanders in their ranks, 5 of them have already been killed in their attempt to assassinate us and the remaining commander is supposedly their strongest commander, Lagrie.”

“What about their leader?”

“Their leader, Ralond has as much strength as the other commanders so he’s not that impressive.”

“So we can destroy them all right away.”

“Indeed.”

“So let’s head out tonight.”

Chris and Harry nodded at my suggestion.

***

Later that night, three dark figures sprinted through a forest and headed to a cave entrance hidden within the trees.

Turned out there was a spacious hideout inside the cave. We stealthily head deeper into the hideout to find the leader. There was plenty of rooms so we split up but it still took some time to find the leader’s.

There were also a lot of assassins inside, they are an assassin’s guild after all. And since none of us were actually assassins and we never had done stealth missions like this we kept getting seen but anyone that saw us was quickly put down.

In one of the rooms, I found children being locked up inside prison. They looked impoverished and I noticed the mark of the guild, a black rose on their bodies. I’m guessing Dark Guilds got their personnel like this; kidnapping children and training them while brainwashing them to instill loyalty. How revolting.

I got into the prison cells to examine the children’s condition and while some of them looked normal and were scared, some of them had lifeless looks in their eyes. They must have been tortured somehow.

“Don’t be scared, I’m here to get you out. Follow me.”

The scared children were delighted by my statement and they willingly followed me. The ones that looked lifeless had to be pulled by the other children, however. I brought them out of the cave and asked them to wait after I cast Barrier to protect them.

I got back inside and regrouped with Harry and Chris who had found the location of the leader’s room. They shouldn’t have noticed yet that there were intruders. The first commander should also be by the leader’s side since he’s some sort of a personal guard to their leader.

I decided to finish the task before telling the two about the children I found. Chris kicked the door and I quickly jumped in to find the leader sitting at his desk with the first commander serving him tea. I just assumed their identity since I don’t know their faces.

They looked shocked that someone unknown burst into their hideout but I don’t care about their feelings so I asked bluntly.

“Are you Ralond?”

“Who are you?”

Seems right. I took down my mask to reveal my identity.

“You just sent some people to kill me so I decided that I wanted to give this place a visit.”

I said with a friendly smile.

“What? A child...Richard?”

“Correct.”

He instantly deduced my identity from my statement. At that moment, the person who should be Lagrie dashed towards me swinging a dagger but Chris blocked his advance and pulled the fight outside the room to give me space. Harry went out to assist him although I think any one of them could do the job by themselves. Well, that left me all alone with the leader though.

“So tell me, who sent you guys?”

I sat on his desk and interrogated him while pulling out a spare knife I’ve been forging for fun. He who looked terrified when I aimed the knife at his neck while exuding hostility underneath my friendly smile confessed right away.

“It was Marquis Malcoff!”

“Malcoff?”

‘The Aristocrat’s head?’

It seems the Aristocrat Faction was the one who’ve been sending assassins to kill Harry. They must have been desperate to prevent the Royal Faction from gaining power. Well, that explains why the assassins are so weak though. I doubt the Empire would do such a flimsy job.

“Well that settles it, but what about those children you imprisoned?”

“That... they are orphans that we take in and train to become assassins.”

“Orphans? You didn’t kidnap them?”

“Most of them had their parents killed by bandits or were kicked out of their hometown, so we took them in since nobody is going to look for them.”

“I see. Then why do some of them look so lifeless? Did you torture those kids?”

“No! We didn’t torture them! It’s just that not all of them could survive the harsh training to become an assassin.”

“I see.”

Having to be subjected to harsh living conditions and training, and seeing some of the other children die from the training; you’re bound to be numb after surviving all of that.

“I’ve told you everything! Please spare me!”

“Alright I’ll spare you”

Ralond looked glad and smiled when I said that but I wasn’t finished.

“-from a painful death.”

I cut off his head with the qi-infused knife to put him through a quick painless death. I wiped off the blood of the knife using his clothes and walked out of the room. Harry and Chris looked like they were done with their job too with the corpse sprawled on the ground. Of course, they’d kill him, it was overkill to send the both of them in the first place.

“Let’s clear this place before going home.”

We searched the whole place but we found out that every single one of them had been put down when we were infiltrating the place. We were so bad at hiding that it turns out everyone found us.

Our pride was a bit hurt from it so we walked out the cave with sullen faces and we saw the Barrier I cast with kids in them.

“Ah, that reminds me. I found some kids in their prison.”

And then I told them how I found these kids and what Ralond told me about them.