Now all that is left is the basement, but it isn't going to be easy, this is the heart of the trap. There are only eight guards, but they are at the bottom of the stairs. As soon as I open the door they will have a clear view of me and the door is trapped.

The trap on the door isn't a big deal, but there are more traps on the stairs. There is no way I could disable them without being spotted by the guards below. The only option I can think of is to find another way down to the basement.

However, there is no other way down to the basement unless I use a gate. The problem is that a gate is certainly not subtle, the guards would sound the alarm before I even got through. The basement is all one big room, so the light from the gate would be instantly visible.

Then again, maybe I am thinking too much, there is a much simpler solution. The guards are all together right at the bottom of the stairs and the floor is normal stone. So I use the dagger to trace out a big rectangle above them, then I stomp on it.

The stone immediately breaks free and falls down, crushing the guards instantly. They had no chance to get over their surprise and raise the alarm, but it was noisy. However, I don't worry about that, jump down, and run over to the elves.

8 Level 5 Humans defeated! 4,000 Exp gained!

This time there are no cages, the elves are just tied up in the middle of the room. The elves all look excited to see me, although some look disbelieving. Their excitement rises as I start freeing them, but it changes to amazement when I open the gate.

However, no one argues or hesitates when I tell them to start going through the gate. I will leave all the explanations to whoever Stillwater sent to welcome them. Once the last elf has gone through I close the gate, I am not done here yet.

I quickly return to the roof to take a look, but nothing outside the church has changed. This means I have time to set up what I want to do, so I send my mana out. First I change all the traps so anyone can set them off, not just the elves.

Then I pump more mana into them, they won't last as long this way but they will pack more punch. Next I link all of the traps together, so as soon as one goes off it will start a chain reaction. Unfortunately for the humans, they prepared a huge amount of traps for us.

As soon as I am done I drop shapeshift and take off, then I set off the alarm in the basement. The poor human soldiers all rush towards the church when they hear the alarm. As soon as one of them steps onto a trap the entire center of the city is covered in explosions.

As I watch from above, the church and all the buildings around it are reduced to rubble. While I can't see what happened to the soldiers, I am fairly sure none of them could survive that. Unfortunately, it seems that since I wasn't the one to make the traps I don't get the exp for them.

My sight is soon blocked by smoke, a majority of the traps were fire based. Leaving the city behind, I fly out to meet up with the ship, but I am not in a rush. When I glance back I can see that the fires are spreading, at this rate the whole city might burn.

While I feel a little bad for the innocents in the city, I am not about to turn back and help. The reason I am not gating back to the ship is to give the elves time to get settled. They will probably have another welcoming party for the newly freed elves.

Hopefully, someone will explain to them about the 'elf' who saved them so no one freaks out. Nala and Albion being there should help, but I am quite a bit scarier than them. Even though Nala is a predator, she doesn't have that dangerous vibe, she is more like a giant housecat.

That is my fault, I have been spoiling her, I really should take her out and teach her to hunt. I, on the other hand, have killed a lot so I give off a very dangerous vibe. Even when I was freeing the elves I saw some of them shivering in fear when I came close.

Unfortunately, that is not something I have figured out to hide, at least not yet. It will only get worse as I continue killing, but I won't let that stop me. I am completely fine with it, there are even some situations where it can come in handy.

In fact, I am kind of hoping it will develop into something like the killing intent mentioned in a lot of manga. However, I am not about to go on a slaughter spree just to try and increase it. Plenty of enemies keep coming to me, so all I need to do is be patient.

Finding the ship is easy since I have a marker I can track, but when I do find it the ship is stopped. The deck is brightly lit and absolutely covered in elves who are partying. It makes me realize that even with the spacial enchant on the ship we still might have issues with overcrowding.

Honestly, I never expected to find and rescue as many elves as we have. It is something I will need to discuss with Stillwater, but not right now. I will let him enjoy the party with his people tonight, tomorrow is soon enough.

When I land on the ship there are some of the new elves nearby, they look scared and retreat. This reaction is understandable, but it still doesn't feel very good. However, I ignore them and head to my cabin, the other elves should educate them.

As expected, my cabin is empty when I enter, Nala and Albion should be at the party. I am a little hungry so I eat some food and then lay down to get some sleep. However, just as I am about to fall asleep I hear the door open and when I look up Brightfire enters.

Brightfire says "The sky to the north is glowing red. Do you know what it is?"

"It should be the port city burning."

Brightfire says "Is that why you didn't come back through the gate?"

"The humans had set up a ton of magical traps for us. I just turned them against the humans. It is their own fault for trying to trap us."

Brightfire says "Can't argue that! Are you alright? You sound different."

"Don't worry, I wasn't injured."

Brightfire gives me a doubting look, but in the end she leaves to inform Stillwater. We will be skipping the next two cities, but this next stretch of ocean is going to be the most dangerous. Now that I think about it, it is probably a better idea to sail around the island.

Hopefully, that would allow us to avoid most of the kingdom's naval patrols. While I am fairly confident that we would win, we would definitely have casualties. It might take a bit longer to sail around, but I would rather lose some time than lives.