Before the trio headed in the direction of their target, Elise first asked Hiroka some details about what the area was like, after Nalia gave a rough approximation of the distance.

“It’s pretty dense with trees, and there’s a small stream around there, one of the ones that converges into the Irida river.” Were all the details the woman was able to give, since that wasn’t really a notable area.

“Understandable that they would hide in such a place. It makes things a bit more annoying than I would like, but we’ll just have to deal with it.” Elise said.

“We need to be able to see them without being seen, right?” Nalia asked.

“Yeah.” Elise replied.

Hiroka didn’t find anything unusual about their exchange, but it had more meaning than she realized, because the duo were actually thinking about Elise’s ability. As one might expect, her eyes were very good for analyzing enemies, but they couldn’t be used if she couldn’t see the target.

Thankfully, it was convenient enough to work even if Elise wasn’t looking directly at the targets themselves (she had found out about it from looking at images, after all), so any form of remote viewing they managed to use would work for that purpose. Yet, there was a catch: Elise’s ability did not work on humans (probably due to herself being a human).

The two were hoping that their first target was one of the elves of the group, so they would be able to gather information on their ability and prepare accordingly before the fight. If that wasn’t the case they would need to be a bit more broad with their preparations, but they’d still fight, since they would almost definitely end up fighting other humans at some point. Not knowing the opponent’s skills was simply something they would need to get used to.

That was the most relevant limitation of Elise’s ability. It was also unable to see any details about the transcendents (though they thought that might change once she got more powerful and were curious about what it would say about them) as well as things without enough soul to have an ego.

That last one meant that things like simple insects or robots were a blind spot, and so were things like the pseudo lifeforms created by the forest abomination. (The abomination itself wasn’t, but Elise had been too focused on the fight to be able to use her ability on it. It was her first time fighting, after all.)

Regardless, the trio started making their way towards the enemy. Nalia cast spells to muffle the noise they made as well as to make them harder to spot and Hiroka gave some advice on where to move around so they could keep themselves mostly hidden behind the trees (based on the enemy’s position).

And as they got closer and closer to the target, the three of them became ever more cautious in their movements. They had the advantage of surprise and really didn’t want to squander it. Nalia still readied herself to defend in case it became necessary.

Thankfully enough, they managed to reach close enough without any problems occurring. They had gotten to a point where it was possible to hear the sound of the stream, and from what Nalia was able to gather from her trace it seemed like the enemy was nearly on top of it.

They were thus close enough for Nalia to try out her plan. She focused for a few seconds before starting to cast a spell. It wasn’t a very powerful one, but the effort was necessary to make it as hard to detect as possible so as to not alert their target. And after several seconds, it was done.

‘Mirrorscope’ She called out the name of the spell inside her own head and triggered it.

Five circles of light manifested around her body before turning into reflective disks, one of those disks flew over and stopped right in front of Elise’s face while the others spread around and went towards the area where the enemy was.

They weren’t heading directly towards the enemy though. Those disks actually began to go around that area, and they began to stop one by one, their faces angled in such a way that they would reflect light onto one another, with the final destination being the mirror in front of Elise.

Their whole purpose was to allow the girl to spot their enemy without them being detected. Nalia was carefully moving them around in order to catch sight of the enemy. Their only magic was being able to float, so her spell was hard to detect, and even more considering that those disks were small and difficult to spot.

Sure enough, it worked.

“Lucky.” Elise said upon catching sight of the target in her mirror. He was in fact an elf.

Specifically, it was a male elf who had the appearance of a man on his thirties. His actual age was hard to determine because different elf races aged at different rates, and he wasn’t close enough for one to be able to tell which one he was.

He was also wearing a long, flowing overcoat on top of a strange outfit that seemed like a mix between a suit of armor and an actual formal suit. But much more important than that was the information picked up by Elise’s ability,

‘Elvish Combat Butler. Certain elf tribes are separated into castes, with members of each one being trained for jobs of different natures, and only the best members of the servant caste are trained for the job of combat butler, which were the most valued servants of the highest caste. In addition to serving skills, they were also trained in the use of the Astona, traditional psychic-guided circular blade weapons, in order to serve as bodyguards.’

Seeing that caused Elise’s left eyebrow to rise a little bit, but it was far from the weirdest description she’d seen given how much she’d researched while still with her sisters. That sort of thing was to be expected when her ability tried to categorize targets that had more unique and personal skills.

“So he uses psychic powers to manipulate blades… I wonder what his range is.” Elise said.

“Psychic powers again? That’s kind of a weird coincidence.” Nalia commented.

“That abomination was pretty much just a psychic screamer, while this guy appears to be a telekinesis specialist. They are different, so it’s not that much of a coincidence.” Elise replied.

“Wait… You can tell his abilities just by looking? Did you also know what mine were from the start?” Hiroka asked.

“Kinda. I saw that you were a stealth and ambush expert, but nothing more concrete than that.” Was the answer.

“Huh.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Well, we should start preparing for the fight now.” Elise said, looking at Nalia.

The fairy nodded and replied mentally ‘I’ll prepare the mist spell to deal with hidden weapon attacks, plus some standard mobile shields for general defense.’

‘I think using fire and frost spells for offense is a good idea, since his main method of defense is probably based around using blades or other things to block, so he might have trouble dealing with heat or cold effects, but in terms of general offense, earth bullets should probably work fine.’ Elise sent back.

‘Sounds good. I also need to prepare some restraining magic to prevent him from running away and actually capture him as planned.’

Elise nodded at Nalia, satisfied with their initial planning. The two would need to adapt depending on what actually happened in the fight, but the general idea seemed solid. The fairy then began to mold the spell formulas and hold them inside herself, which were the procedures needed to prepare spells for later use. Hiroka understood what was happening and said that she would be keeping watch while they fought.

It didn’t take much longer for the preparations to be done, upon which Nalia sat down on Elise’s shoulder and cast on her that very same mobility spell she had used on their first day together. Or rather, an improved version of it.

Nalia wasn’t the biggest fan of taking her contractor close to an enemy, but she really didn’t like the possibility of something attacking Elise while she was away. If they were together, Nalia could at least protect her directly. Her current spell also increased Elise’s agility enough to make her a lot harder to hit.

The girl took off like the wind, running towards the enemy and easily weaving around the dense vegetation. Elise reached combat range in only a few seconds, and from the perspective of the enemy it was like she had just appeared out of nowhere.

Taking advantage of his surprise, Nalia threw down a ball of light that exploded into a faint mist before shooting two earth bullets at the opponent, who barely managed to block with a round shield that flew out from within his coat. The distance between them was a mere twelve steps. The battle had started.

While all of that was happening, Hiroka jumped up onto a tree and began to make her way closer.

The Stranger recovered fast, bringing out three bladed steel rings of different sizes at the same time as he blocked a third, bigger earth bullet with his shield. Nalia flew from Elise’s shoulder in response, casting a fireball spell and altering its properties to focus more on heat than explosive power.

And as she threw it, Nalia was already bringing out another one of her prepared spells, unleashing her magic to manifest two dozen floating shields which were white in color but so well-made one would think they were actual shields painted white instead of spell creations.

Sensing the danger of Nalia’s fire, the opponent threw himself to the side while using his shield to block. That distraction gave the fairy time to perfect the created shields, executing the magic to its maximum performance.

As one would expect, that was a very energy intensive operation, so Nalia’s attack briefly paused as she recovered her energy. She had prepared the formula beforehand, but still needed to provide the power needed to actually cast the spell. Holding completed spells was still far beyond the fairy’s capabilities.

That pause gave the opponent time to breathe and recover his posture, upon which he immediately shouted “Who are you?”

“Who do you think I am?” Elise replied with a smile.

She wasn’t going to waste an opportunity to try and get more information. The elf didn’t bite though, instead sending his ringblades forward and bringing out a few more weapons, four of them being more ringblades, one being a naked blade (like someone had removed the guard and pommel of a sword), another being a steel wire and another being a large and heavy-looking iron wheel.

Nalia manipulated the shields with one hand, moving five of them to block the enemy weapons (and moving two behind Elise to protect the rear). On her other hand she manifested a blue snowflake and blew into it, unleashing a wave of cold air that turned the ground white as it flew towards the enemy.

The Stranger jumped to the side again, this time with a strange, long leap that apparently involved using telekinesis on his own shoes to move them. Regardless, he escaped the area of effect of Nalia’s cold breath, but that seemed to confirm their previous thoughts about the flaws in his defense.

The elf’s ringblades were still continuously attacking, so Nalia kept on blocking them with her shields as she began preparing another spell. In the gap before she finished it, the enemy sent forward two more ringblades along with the naked blade, which the fairy still managed to block.

And from one of the new rings a tiny, near-invisible needle detached itself and shot towards Elise much faster than any of the Stranger’s previous attacks.

And it was perfectly blocked by a sharp movement of one of Nalia’s shields, causing the elf’s expression to darken slightly. She hadn’t seen the needle, but that was where the mist came in, as it had the sole purpose of serving as a sort of radar, with the fairy able to perceive even the smallest disturbance on it.

She then cast her spell, creating a pillar of fire midway to the enemy that began shooting beams of flame at him. The elf responded to that by jumping further away, escaping the effective range of the flames but also reducing the force he could impart onto his weapons, lightening the burden on Nalia’s shields.

The fairy shaped the fire pillar into a sphere and threw it towards the enemy like a fire grenade, but at Elise’s suggestion she threw it slightly behind him, so the Stranger jumped back towards them to evade. Their shields couldn’t be moved too far away from their initial positions, so keeping the battle within that area was advantageous to the duo.

The enemy tried to take advantage and move closer to them, but Nalia dissuaded him with a couple of earth bullets. Without missing a beat he sent his steel wire forward, which snaked around the shields Nalia tried to block it with, quickly closing in.

‘Bury it!’ Came Elise’s order via the contract bond, and Nalia cast a spell that ripped away a large amount of earth from the ground and dropped it onto the wire. It was much less weight than the landslide she had moved before, so the fairy was able to do it quickly.

She followed it up with the same hardening spell she had used at that time and essentially entombed the opponent’s weapon.

But the threat was not over. The Stranger used that time to move even closer, reaching 5 steps from them before Nalia unleashed a powerful wave of cold that halted his progress. And being so close, he was able to put more psychic force onto his weapons, forcing the fairy to bring more shields together in order to barely hold them back.

His next move would have been another advance, but Elise didn’t plan on allowing that.

‘Bring down that tree!’ She ordered, while also running forward.

Through their connection, Nalia was able to understand her full meaning without the need for any more words. She manifested her improved cutting spell, a spinning saw that was double the size and spun at double the speed of the previous one.

With a thought, she sent it to cut straight through the trunk of a tree that was a little to the left of her and landed on Elise’s shoulder as the girl reached her. This was followed by manifesting a line made of magic and using it to pull the falling tree towards herself, Elise leaping back just in time (she still had her movement boost).

The elf had moved closer during that time, dodging Nalia’s shields or forcing them away with telekinesis, but the falling tree slowed him down for a moment and that was enough, as Elise’s followup order of ‘Explode it!’ was executed before he managed to leap over said tree.

A red spark jumped from Nalia’s finger and sunk into the middle of the tree, which bloated up, turned red and then violently blew up, all in the course of half a second. The Stranger had been nearly at the top of the tree when it happened, but his reaction was quick and decisive, jumping onto the air and hiding his body beneath the steel wheel he had brought with him, essentially using it as a surfboard to ride the explosion while also protecting himself from the shards of wood that were launched from it (Nalia had controlled the spell so that said shards wouldn’t go their way).

The force of the explosion shoved the enemy away from them, however, which was the main point. Having gained precious time, Elise thought about the situation.

‘Seems like Elise’s defensive abilities aren’t a good match for the enemy either. In that case, there’s only one thing to do.’ And sent her order to Nalia:

‘Full offense.’

The fairy’s eyes narrowed as she canceled her mist magic, the wind boost on Elise and the shield spell, and without needing to spend energy maintaining them, Nalia now had a lot of power to spare.

The advance of the enemy’s weapons had flagged as he was blown back, so the sudden lack of shields wasn’t an immediate concern, and Nalia quickly cast a new spell to go on the attack. She wasn’t planning on giving the enemy the time to think of attacking them anymore.

Above her head, three points of red light appeared, and one of them quickly surged in size, turning into a flaming sphere half Elise’s size. That sphere launched towards the Stranger, who barely had time to get back on his feet before the attack reached two steps from him.

Taken off guard, he was forced to use his wheel to block, but the explosion was so violent the wheel was shot into the distance, and the shockwave was almost enough to shove him onto the ground.

That was just the beginning. Before her first shot had even hit, Nalia had already expanded the second light and was about to launch it, and shortly after it was launched another red light appeared to replace the first one.

The Stranger was forced to jump away to try and avoid the second shot, but it exploded midair in response, causing the shockwave to smash him into a tree. That was almost it for him, but his survival instincts kicked in and he focused his power to shoot himself away like a bullet before the next hit of the bombardment hit next to the tree, even at the cost of letting his weapons drop to the ground, completely abandoning his offense.

The next attack swerved to hit closer to where he had ended up, but the brief gap was enough for him to shove himself towards the duo at high speed, psychically grabbing his weapons again and shoving them ahead of him, essentially turning them into the tip of an arrow to pierce through his opponents.

That sudden counterattack was probably the best move he could make under such circumstances, but it still wasn’t enough. Nalia stopped the attack she’d been doing and moved the two red lights in front of herself.

And as the combined mass of weapons reached them, the two lights collided together, creating two powerful explosions, one of them nullified part of the explosion, blocking the shockwave and heat that would have otherwise harmed Nalia, while the other one blew the mass of weapons apart, breaking them into pieces and forcing the elf to focus his psychic power to try and resist the after-effects, only barely keeping himself on his feet.

And that was the end. Nalia cast a quick spell that animated the ground around the enemy and caused it to surge up and pull his body halfway into the ground. He tried to drag himself up with telekinesis, but Nalia twisted her hand and compressed the earth, crushing his body from all sides.

“Aaaarghh!” He screamed in pain, his focus completely gone.

The fairy boosted herself with wind magic and reached him before he could recover, touching his temple with her palm and casting a spell that sealed off his psychic powers by preventing the energy from leaving his head. It was done.

Elise walked up to them. The Stranger wasn’t gravely injured, so he soon managed to recover enough to speak.

“If you kill me, you’re going to regret it.” He threatened her.

“Who said anything about killing you?” Elise asked playfully “There’s no way I’d do that. The beastkin alliance will definitely pay a lot more for a living Stranger, after all.”

“You… You…” He was shocked, then it turned into anger “I’M GONNA KI-”

Nalia sealed his mouth with a spell “And that’s enough from you.”

Having completed their mission, Elise and Nalia began to wait for Hiroka (who had definitely been watching) to report to her higher ups.

‘You don’t really care that much about the payment, do you?’ Nalia asked Elise mentally.

‘Not really, but if I’m going to act as a mercenary, I’m gonna take it seriously.’ Was Elise’s response.

Nalia smiled in amusement. Her contractor was definitely a character.