“Welcome back, Vefal.”

“I missed you too and from what I heard, there were more of ‘these’ confronting you two. You shouldn’t have let me stay with you instead of Ghiscra.”

At the north entrance, Vefal, Erganisu and a group of men, some bound in chains had arrived. It was only yesterday when we were finished with our divine fraud.

She was about to close in for a hug but that stupid pet of her jumped straight from my side and she caught it with delight.

Stupid rat, I should have just let the soldiers cooked it when it was caught wandering a few days ago.

“Ah, Burra, you can be pampered later; Ruigne would likely make you disappear if I let him simmered too much in his jealousy.”

While blissfully petting it, she puts it down and seemingly it understood what it had been told and just snuggled close to her leg. She proceeded to hug me and I welcome it.

“Well, at least you know what jealousy is.”

“I’m not ignorant or oblivious to jealousy. I was jealous when Rino tried to get close to you right? But it’s only a momentary feeling like anger for me.”

Being embraced with warmth, her words and voice soothed me.

Ghiscra at the side was smiling as she watched us while Erganisu was dragging those in chains nearer.

The soldiers in the outpost began to gather and caused a commotion.

As the chained prisoners lined up and was struggling in their confine, the one in charge of the outpost, Custodian Htalin came out from the main building.

“Your honour, what is this ruckus?”

“These prisoners had committed the act of assault and attempted murder towards the summoned Erganisu and Vefal Striden, we will hold them in custody. Lock them up and wait for my instruction.”

Looking straight at his bluish pupil-less eyes, I assumed the strict authoritarian pose.

“I-I see. Guards, bring them to the holding cell.”

“Wait first, Ghiscra and I will see to the procedures and there is something I needed to confirm. Erganisu and Vefal, get some rest first, I received both your reports later.”

Erganisu nodded but Vefal shakes her head-

“I am your bodyguard, remember? I’m quite well-rested. Erganisu was the one who did all the job of dragging them. They don’t even sleep but they seem to be weakening. We tried to give them food but they don’t respond and they started to smell like their decaying.”

That’s interesting.

“We’ll meet up in one hour then.”

--

After examining what’s under their hood, setting some spells in the holding cell and putting strict guards on the prisoners, Ghiscra, Vefal, Erganisu and I were moving in the forest in our constantly casted, spell enhanced state with the sun up high, indicating that it was midday.

All of us were armed to the teeth starting with Vefal’s short sword and a bow with a couple of Eo-stone arrows and Erganisu with a mace-like weapon with a spike on top of it. Both Ghiscra and I were only armed with Bladeshards, the native weapon of Symokiva.

On my right hand was a scroll that was tracking one of the escaped assailants. I’ve instructed Erganisu to leave at least one of them if they were escaping even though I told him that the ideal number of capture was 6. If it were less than that, then he’ll know to just capture the appropriate number and leaves one to escape.

Right now, the tracking spell had indicated that the target was stationary. How this tracking spell worked was not like it had a pointer showing where the target is but it sends a transmission of a sort direct to the caster of information’s of the whereabouts of the target.

“Stop.”

Vefal on my side with a hushed tone, held her right arm barring me. We all stopped immediately.

Looking towards both sides with narrowed eyes, she then summoned her [Shadow] and went ahead in front.

“Follow my lead, there are warning strings tied around this place.”

When she said that, I casted a Light White spell called ‘Precision Sight’, a spell that enable me to see minute details of anything physical. It was true, there were strings like those detection lasers tied to the trees and branches.

We skilfully avoided these strings and after a while, we reached to a clearing and at the centre of that clearing. Vefal’s [Shadow] was standing guard over a place. It was a sinkhole of a sort. We rested for an hour because of our slightly Eomancy Overuse status and physical fatigues. Also we need to take some time planning on how to enter and plan for every scenario once we’re inside.

Thankfully, no patrols whatsoever had checked here.

“Let me go inside first. With my [Indomitable], I can land safely even if it is a spike pit.”

Erganisu suddenly spoke to us as we checked the sinkhole. We haven’t reached a conclusion yet but he seems to want to end this quickly so he activated [Indomitable].

And it was probably true; he’ll crush those spikes with his special-ability enhanced body.

“Before you go, let me cast a mental protection spell just in case.”

[‘Eo, Aer, Menti, Unio’]

-After saying that, Ghiscra casted the ‘Mental Wall’ on Erganisu.

He nodded thankfully and jumped straight into the sinkhole. After two seconds, there was loud ‘thud’ inside the sinkhole.

“Please jump in. It’s not that deep and there are no spikes at all. Also, we have companies, sleeping companies to be exact.”

It seems it’s not that deep... for Erganisu.

In a two second interval, it’s not that deep huh? As all four of us were preparing to jump inside, a mischievous but necessary thought was running into my mind.

“Vefal my dear, I don’t think our fragile bodies can’t take the fall. From the timing, it seems like it might be fifty feet drop. Don’t worry, I’ll cast ‘Wind Guidance’ on you but you have to carry me, in the front, like a princess or a prince in distress.”

Both Ghiscra and Vefal stared at me and Vefal was the first to react as she laughed and proceeded to kneel.

“Jump into my arms, my princess!~”

“Much oblige!~”

[‘Eo, Luxaer, Ollus, Olatus’]

I happily hopped into her embrace and casted ‘wind guidance’ on her. Ghiscra on the other hand was dumbfounded and forgot to react to Vefal’s [Shadow], who was imitating Vefal and gestured towards her held out arms for Ghiscra to jump into its embrace.

“No, I’ll do it myself.”

She declined with an amused smile as she was enjoying our antic.

The [Shadow] disappeared, ghosting into the sinkhole. With Vefal carrying me, she jumped inside, followed by Ghiscra.

As we slowly float downward, I was right about the height. Even if it were thirty feet, I don’t think we would die but the possibility of being crippled or seriously wounded is high.

We saw the top of Erganisu head as he was standing still watching his surroundings.

Both of us landed and seeing how dark it was inside, I activated [Synikorvus] and simultaneously casted ‘Torch Sight’ on both Vefal and me. For Erganisu, he had a natural low-light vision and Ghiscra already did cast the same spell on herself as soon as she landed.

The place was a natural cave formation and there were dozens of heavily garbed figures sitting and hugging their knees all around us. Below each of the figures, there was a circle formation and after observing only the edge of the formation, I felt like seen them before.

Just before I could try to search inside my memories-

“Four of them are here, at the very least, I don’t have to be cautious anymore. Although I found it to be baffling that you are able to find this place. It must have been one of the magic that this land embraced.”

-A gravelly voice tinged with wizened tone was echoing. Erganisu was staring at a particular figure that would have been indistinguishable but the fact he, judging by the voice, was looking up at the four of us with red-glaring eyes made him standout.

What’s more, that figure was actually surrounded by four other figures, clearly guarding him.

That figure got up and seeing his ragged clothing makes him look like a human wearing a drab of rags. When he got up, there was a tremor like the creaking of machines starting to operate. All the figures inside were getting up slowly.

“As powerful as you all are, these numbers will eventually overwhelm you and you have not enough room to maneuver around. Even if you managed to fight back, I have a measure to make sure I take you all down.”

“And a lovely afternoon to you, judging by this magic formations and your unfamiliarity with ours, you’re not from around here? Are you someone from outside of the Leylines?”

With an excited tone, I just had to ask that as Vefal puts me down from her carry.

“Whether I tell you or not, it doesn’t matter now that you had sealed your own fate by carelessly barging here without any plans it seems.”

After saying that, there was a grating sound coming from him. I assumed he was laughing.

“Well consider it our last request… or so I like to say but all four of us like living too much as far as I’m concerned. Plan is it? Oh, we do have one, which is to make enough time to come up with the other plan!”

As soon as I finished saying that, I took out a scroll containing an Advance Deep Grey spell ‘Solid Dome’ and activated Synikorvus. Seeing this, the ragged mage shouted something in a language that I’m unfamiliar with. All the garbed figures then launched themselves as they close in on us.

Thankfully, there were some distance between them and us as I finished the spell in two seconds. A dome erupted around us, encapsulating us in the darkness.

“Okay, we have about twenty seconds or unless they have enough firepower to break this dome.”

Everyone assented, so I continued-

“First of all, we shouldn’t bother with these garbed assailants as I am positively sure that they’re all dead or to be exact, undead so the focus is on that ragged-looking guy.”

-I lay out my plan.

When the dome had dissolved due to the time limit, we came bursting in full power with our Soul Weapons and enhanced status.

Erganisu was in charge of fending off the attacks from the assailants. With [Gabiel], he had adjusted his strength to a the highest level possible for him to fend off their attacks and maximized his moving speed. He also maximized his reaction speed by lowering or rather numbing his sense of taste.

Vefal’s [Shadow] helped with Erganisu with fending off the attacks in a radius opposite distance towards him so as to cover all the gaps.

Vefal herself was marking the area with [Rhelya]. As far as I know, her Soul Weapon enables her to mark an area of circumference of about two hundred metre in radius and summoned about four black orbs.

In the marked area, she can briefly turned into existence like her [Shadow], hiding and moving faster around and in shadow form; she can take on physical attacks with minimal damage. She can also swap places with her [Shadow] and vice versa.

The four orbs can only be inside the marked area but they are portal entrances to a pocket space. Two of the orbs can make a gateway enough for a humanoid to enter into that space and stored them inside although not to long as the orbs would forcibly spit out whatever it had stored inside after a few second.

It can also be used in an offense such as using one orb to expand about half of a human body. Vefal could shoot an arrow into that expanded orb then it would appear in another expanded orb, making an unexpected angle of attack. Well, that’s the gist of it.