Rescue Operation

(Adam the mage’s POV)

After a swift walk of about half an hour, Amanda and me reached our old playground during our youth, a vacant cave behind the waterfall. I always use magic to open the pathway to the entrance without getting wet. Now that I can’t use magic, I cut a huge yam leaf (looks like an umbrella) growing nearby, and we both enter the cave behind the waterfall under the yam leaf.

The cave is nostalgic. We prepared an air hole, a kitchen, a storage room, a toilet, a stout wooden table, and some utensils around when we were small. I put the bag with daily amenities, blankets, and cloths down. Amanda went to light and kindle the fire.

I take out my newly made weapon; the slingshot and take a proper look at it. I take out a depleted magic stone from a large bottle and place it in the cup of the slingshot. I then retract the cup to check the elasticity. It seems to react just nice. I retract at about 30% of what I believe is the maximum elasticity and release it at the stone wall. Piack!. The sound reverberated loudly in the cave. The depleted magic stone did not get deflected. It lodged deep into the wall with a cavity in.

“Kyahh! What is that?” (Amanda)

“I tested out the new weapon. It seems to work as intended. But the springy cloth gets heated up with each use.” (Adam)

I prepared some extra springy cloth and bottle caps for in case my slingshot got damaged halfway during battle. I was unable to test it at my home in fear that the noise would alert the neighbourhood about my presence.

I take out a gnarled wood staff that has a hole in the centre. This is my favourite staff that I stored away together with other inconspicuous items before I moved to the military. The magic stone in the centre has turned black and brittle, and it falls off into bits and pieces. I tried casting magic with the staff’s aid; the invocation cost usually won’t deplete the large magic stone in one go. It must due to the effect of my negative mana state. I now string the springy cloth to both end of the circular section of the gnarled wood staff. I’m going to turn this into my backup slingshot. I make holes at bottle cap with a sharp metal puncher in the cave, then attach it to the springy cloth of the staff. This one has a centre hole, so it has a good balance and aim.

“I will remove the rope from my hand and tie you near the waterfall entrance. If you need a bath, you can use the waterfall's water. I leave a cup and also a bottle of water for your usage. If I failed to return after two days, you can escape on your own. I don’t feel like taking you with me when I die. I just don’t want you to blabber out my presence and alert the army before I’m prepared.” (Adam)

“I will patiently wait your return. Please save Lillie” (Amanda)

“Yeah” (Adam)

I don’t want to waste anymore time, and go right into action. I exit the cave with the yam leaf again while thinking again my plan of action.

(At the slave dealer venue)

(Slave Dealer’s POV)

“Hey, don’t disturb our new merchandise! What you gonna do if she died before we can sell her off? Can you buy her up with your pay, huh?” (Slave Dealer)

“Boss, she’s already half dead when they sold her to us. We paid dirt cheap to get her. Can’t we at least have some entertainment in the woods here?” (Peon 1)

“Shut up! She can sell for a decent price in the capital. Now, prepare the meals for the slaves”

“Yeah, yeah” (Peon 1)

While Peon 1 is fetching food from the cook of the day, Peon 2 (Peons take turns to cook, they don’t trust slave to cook)

“Psst. Boss is always being so picky. It is us that work hard for his sake. Without lackeys like us, he will be easy pick” (Peon 2)

“He’s greedy, but his body is puny. If not for the money, I might die of boredom in this woods.” (Peon 1)

“Hey, why not we keep a spare key to her cell when one of us is on duty later? We just need to wait till Boss or his assistant goes to sleep” (Peon 3)

“Good idea bro. You always come up with good ideas. You should be the boss bro” (Peon 1)

“Just bidding my time. When the time comes, you guys will help me out ok?” (Peon 3)

“Now, go bring these food for those mongrels and do as planned” (Peon 2)

“Yeah” (Peon 1 and 3)

I know what you are planning, that’s why you will be peon your entire life. (Slave Dealer)

“Hello!” (unknown person, from outside the building)

I signaled my assistant to attend the matter. (Slave Dealer)

“Yes, kid? Good boys should go and sleep early, or they are going to get caught by the bad guys” (Peon 3, walking out of building)

“Sir, I want to buy a slave sir” (unknown person -> village boy)

“What are you saying, kid? Do you have the money? How old are you?” (Peon 3)

“Who’s there? What do you want brat!?” (Assistant Slave Dealer comes out)

“Erm, do you sell a girl slave that was from this village?” (village boy)

“Ahaha, how much money can a brat like you procure? What if I say that I do have her?” (Assistant Slave Dealer)

“How much sir, to buy her?” (village kid)

“One hundred gold crowns, kid. But I believe you can’t even obtain that amount saving up all your money your entire life” (Assistant Slave Dealer smirks)

“I do sir. I go get them now sir” (village kid)

“Don’t joke with me, you cheeky brat!” (Assistant Slave Dealer)

Phuck!

What is that sound? I saw my assistant standing still. (Slave Dealer)

Piack! Piack!

This time, I heard another two sounds of wood getting hit. This time, all my assistants standing outside stood still. Are we under attack?(Slave Dealer)

“Sound the alarm. We are under attack. The mercenaries should move their ass to protect us after all the money we paid them!” (Slave Dealer)

I jumped behind the table desk. One peon secured my safety. He’s a swordsman with the qualification of a knight. He uses his shield to protect me while I go deeper into the building. There is a safety vault in the building that I can hide while the mercenaries smoke out the attackers. (Slaver Dealer)

I can hear someone collapse behind me. Has the Peon got taken out?

“What a useless slob, and he called himself a knight?”(Slaver Dealer)

Next instant, I got a tunnel vision, and I can see some revolving images of my life. Why I can’t move? After that, my vision turned blank. No way. I want to enjoy my gold, eat delicious food, and see beautiful places. All that robbed from me, it’s unacceptable.

The slave dealer struggled endlessly in his last moment.

(Adam the mage’s POV)

I travel as quick as my legs can carry me. I always monitor my surroundings to make sure I never attract any attention. But no matter how careful I am, I still encounter somebody. A village boy is trapping some star fish (only comes out on a clear night sky with stars) to earn some extra income.

Luckily, my hood covered my face and he is not someone I’m acquainted with. I asked in my hoarse voice do he want to earn some more extra income, and he agreed.

I give him one copper coin to go talk with the slave dealer at the edge of the village and inquire the price of buying a girl being sold to them in this village. He did his task well. He managed to get 5 adults come out and talk with him. But the slave dealer doesn’t seem to be among them. I adjust my magical lens to view at tight angles. I managed to catch the glimpse of a person who looks most important behind the wall, instructing the guards.

I prepared several depleted magic stones on my hand, put one in the cap, and pull back the sling. I aim it at the person talking to the boy currently, because he’s blocking the line-of-sight to the important looking person. There are also several people with their head bobbing in and out of the firing zone. The boy started running away, because I told him to do so after he has inquired the price of the girl.

I release the sling and the depleted magic stone instantly hit its mark. Piack! What a solid ring to it. It pierced through three people at the skull. It’s a clean shot and it pierce through them like cheese (made from Yama goat). Before the others realize what’s going on, I already loaded another depleted magic stone and shot. This time, it hit a lone peon standing outside. This is weird, as I tried to aim at the important looking person inside. It seems the passive skill sharpshooting affects the passive skill aim when I use physical objects. Sharpshooting allows the auto-correction of physical projectiles that has mass, so it always hit the target nearest to it. I test an aim at the important person again. He started running deeper into the building, and I release the next shot. It hit the next peon outside the building as I hypothesized, so I just give a rough aim at my other targets and let the skill affect them accordingly.

Piack! The sound reverberates nicely. I shot the next depleted magic stone without much of an aim, as a mercenary with a shield and sword now covers the line-of-fire of the important person running away. I’m quite sure he’s the slave dealer. The projectile hit the shield squarely on the front, puncture it, and pierce the chest of the mercenary with little resistance. That is magical shield for you. Physical projectile is the bane of magical shields and armours.

Shifting the lens that already can operate as night vision on top of heat sensing, I create an optical zoom of x120. Without x-ray sensing, the image is a bit blurry, but it is enough to pinpoint the location of the slave trader. I load and release the next shot quickly, and it pierce through the wall of the building, going straight through and pierce the target. The slave trader can be seen still running, so I load another shot. When I am taking aim again, the slave trader has stopped moving, and slouches down near the wall.

I can hear commotion being raised inside the building, and several men of big build are rushing out from other entrances of the building and the adjacent ones. With my current slingshot’s springy cloth getting hot, I change to my gnarled staff slingshot. I lock and load my slingshot with more depleted magic stone, and shoot at the emerging mercenaries. In order to save ammo, I sometimes waited for several of them to group together, then release my projectile. Sometimes I got three of them in on shot, sometimes five, and a minimum I got two together in one shot.

The mercenaries are not taking this lying down, as they managed to pinpoint my location based on my projectile direction that hit their allies. They did a mad dash to my location while spreading out wide. This is a good strategy, but too bad, I can see them just as clearly as day. I move to the sideways from my original location, and wait for the mercenaries to align diagonally this time. I release my shot, and I believe I hit six people this time. PPpPAckpack! It resounded between the trees. The momentum of the bullet must have been greatly reduced after passing through so many targets, plus the trees around.

The rest of the mercenaries had given up and ran towards the direction of the capital. Though I don’t have much grudge against the mercenaries other than because they are working for a group that captured and probably tortured my sister, I can’t let them go scot-free. I train my eyes and my arm, to see how far my current slingshot can shoot, and the difference in performance in both the slingshots. So I spend another 6 shots shooting at individual fleeing targets for test.

The night got quiet again, so I use my lens to locate any more people left in the building. Hopefully, none of the stray shot hit the slaves. It’s difficult to differentiate which are the slaves and which are leftover of slave dealer’s people, so I try looking at which is locked and which are not. Due to stacking display of the cages, I can only roughly predict that three of them left, and they are crouching near the cages.

I swiftly and quietly enter the main building that house the most slaves. Some of the slaves are savage, and they lunged at my direction. I quickly go to the direction that houses a lone cage. I reached the room, and train my eyes. The slave warehouse is poorly lit by wood torches. If I’m still able to invoke magical phenomena, I can produce better lighting with magic. I readied my slingshot and manipulate my lens to look at right angles to catch a glimpse of any surprises.

“Drop all your weapons and come out with your hands up in the air!” (Adam)

The place is quiet. They still think I didn’t know that the last three slave-dealer’s peons are hiding in this room, trying to pounce on me the moment I enter. Okay, since they want it the hard way, I decide to release one depleted magic stone to the nearest target. It pierces the wall and hit the buttocks of one of the peon. I made sure to reduce the power of the projectile to avoid stray hitting.

“OWhhhh! OWhhhhh!” (Peon X)

“ I know you are there, stop hiding and come out peacefully. If you don’t comply quickly, I will pierce you multiple times with this until you are satisfied.” (Adam)

The peons slowly come out and surrender. I check to make sure they don’t have any weapons on their body, even the injured one.

I quickly go into the room with a torch in hand and check the content of the cage. I froze. It’s my beloved sister. What have they done to her? She’s shaking and hugging herself at the edge of the cage, crouching with her face down. I called out her name several times, but she never responds to me. I take out my slingshot, load them with plain stone, and shoot all three of the slave dealer’s peon at their crotch. Then I demand them for the key of the cell and also the location of the slave-dealer’s wardrobe.