The Ogre man restrains himself from pausing due to the pain, only gritting his teeth quickly.

He continues charging in the weakest part of the encirclement, me.

Gathering my mana, I shout, “Flame Lance!”.

The lance of fire shoots towards him mercilessly, causing burn marks to appear on his skin.

However, outside of the burn marks, the attack does little to stop his charge.

I show a shocked expression, before returning to quickly fire more ‘Flame Lance’ spells.

The lances pierce his tough skin unceasingly.

However, at this moment, the Ogre man reaches me, and delivers a devastating strike on the abdomen to me.

A huge impact was felt right after he delivered the blow to me, similar to the effect activating his ‘Additional Impact’.

“Urk!”, I let out, coughing out blood.

I writhe in pain while collapsed on the grass floor.

The impact also makes the small satchel I had near my waist break, scattering the contents of it all around.

Luckily, the bottle of high level potion lands near me, and I quickly drink up the contents.

Almost instantly, my pale face looks better, and I manage to get up again.

However, the Ogre man manages to get away at this point, rushing towards the forest.

Zhe Yun, now in hot pursuit, wasn’t about to let him escape this easily, however.

With his advanced skill still in effect, he was ahead of Sylvia and Wind in the pursuit.

He was still a few metres short of reaching the Ogre man in time and once the Ogre man escapes into the deep recesses of the forest, we would be unable to pursue, unless we wanted to split up.

Splitting up the group would only cause us to be picked off one by one by the many wandering Class 1 Magical beasts in this area of the forest.

There’s no point to pursuing the Ogre man at this point, with his injuries, he’ll be killed very easily by any wandering magical beast before he even manages to escape to the main road.

However, Zhe Yun wasn’t going to leave it at that.

Eyes flashing with a look of decisiveness, he grits his teeth.

He holds his short sword more lightly, chanting quickly, ‘Undaunted Pierce’!

It’s not an advanced skill, but just a quaint skill used by some adventurers, mostly to make up for their lack of long range abilities.

At the cost of throwing away his weapon, he launches the glowing short sword towards the Ogre man.

Normally the skill wouldn’t manage to inflict much damage to the Ogre man’s tough skin at all. The skill’s impressiveness lay in its ability to maintain the speed at which it was throw, and being able to follow the target until the weapon hit.

However, with Zhe Yun’s Advanced skill still being in effect, the speed of the strike was simply unparalleled.

The sword flew quickly, reaching the Ogre man within the span of a second.

The Ogre man, focused on running into the forest, didn’t manage to see the strike.

However, at the last moment before the sword was about to pierce straight for his heart, force created by the sword was felt, and he moved his body to the right, causing the sword to pierce the right side of his abdomen instead.

He suppressed the pain, instead opting to run faster into the forest, before he’s out of sight.

After pursuing to a 10 metre radius of the camp, Zhe Yun finally stopped.

Staring at the direction the Ogre man with a complicated expression, he looks vacantly.

After staring for a while, he eventually looks down, turning around to return to the camp with a lonely aura. He also dissipates his advanced skill at this time, looking slightly paler due to the loss of blood.

We all stare in our respective positions as well.

This can be considered a victory, albeit barely.

The Ogre man is not likely to survive in the forest in his current condition. However, Zhe Yun had to lose attributes in order to trigger his advanced skill, not to mention the loss of blood, making him not as reliable in battle than before.

Zhe Yun continues walking slowly back to the camp, before retreating into his now 1 person tent.

All the while, he said nothing.

Meanwhile, Sylvia came over to show concern for my injuries.

The merchant also came over, and I shook the now empty potion bottle with an awkward expression.

The merchant looks at the empty bottle with a look of disappointment, however, reassures me that it’s alright that we all got out of it safely.

He throws a look at the tent of Zhe Yun’s, instructing us to not disturb him.

We then all slowly retreat into our own tents, preparing to finally get a good night’s worth of sleep after this mess of a night.

I sit in my tent, going through the events of just now.

It was unexpected for Zhe Yun to possess a long ranged skill, but luckily things didn’t differ that much from the plan.

I squint slightly, muttering, “Now, will we finally know the identity of the real perpetrator?”

Chasing away the Ogre man, Ruk, was necessary for my plans to lure out the real traitor.

As for why I believed in the Ogre man even though his character was called into question by Zhe Yun… It’s quite simple, he was the one who opposed that we take a detour when we found the magical beast corpse.

If he wanted to steal the potions, or simply kill us all, it would be easier to do so in the deeper recesses of the forest rather than the main road.

Of course, he could be trying to hide his intentions, but that’s highly unlikely. His words held tremendous weight in the group, especially after his display of strength. If it wasn’t for Wind speaking out strongly, he would have gotten his way easily.

We would then travel on the main road, possibly encountering the Class 2 magical beast group, but also avoiding this in-fighting we have currently.

It’s due to this fact that I chose to trust him.

My end of the deal to him was providing him with that potion, an assurance for his safety.

I simply wasn’t injured by his strike previously.

I lift my robes, only to see a slight scratch on my fair skin.

The ‘Additional Impact’ was just the effect of my ‘Wind Impact’ spell.

At the moment of his strike, I positioned my satchel in front of my stomach, while he cooperated and hit it. At that point, I activated Wind Impact, right after dropping a piece of bread, with the potion stuck within in a smaller bottle.

The Wind impact scattered the other contents of my satchel, masking my actions, and launching me away from Ruk.

While everyone focused on that strike, he picked the bread up discreetly to turn to escape, while I drank the water that was in the bottle of the potion, pretending to ‘recover’.

If I truly wanted to stall him, I’ll have used ‘Ice Lance’ instead of ‘Flame Lance’ afterall.

I told him to follow the group, and only return once my signal is given, or when we discover the real traitor.

Tonight’s the best chance for the perpetrator to strike.

It’s right after a heated confrontation, no one’s on lookout duty besides a single servant like before.

Which is why I’m keeping awake, to see if I’m able to catch the person in the act if any commotion arises.

I’ll have to rely on the recovered Ruk to suppress that person after that.

As I think to myself, a voice sounds from outside, “May I come in?”