I finally made one of them speak up.

It was the one holding the staff. By the voice I want to say that he was either an older man, or a very tired one. Most likely both.

-I think the fact that all of us are still standing without as much of a singular casualty between both sides. I can tell that the one person who got hit is still well and good. Or at least they were before they disappeared in that portal of yours. Good job on keeping that open, by the way.

As I mentioned that, one of them flinched. It was the one closest to the portal, still hidden behind the wall.

I say still, but I am pretty sure that they have just emerged from it. Around the time when we were exchanging spells, I think. All the time they were hidden, so hearing that I was aware of the portal's existence on the other side, they got promptly scared.

-You say you are his enemy, but why are you here then? I find it hard to believe that you managed to accidentally bump into him.

-We didn’t. I tried to tail him, as you were I assume. Or did you appear here accidentally as well, hm?

He did not answer at first.

-What do you want from us? - I asked. - Or are you just here to harass random travelers?

-That is not for you to know. And you are far from “random travelers”.

-Far point. So. What now? We are going to look at each other like this and stay in this stalemate forever, or until the guy that is keeping the portal open runs out of mana?

-He won’t. We have time.

-If you won’t believe his word, believe mine - spoke up For, emerging fully from behind the wall, yet still keeping behind me. - My name is For, and I am currently the ruling leader of Red Mages. As far as I am aware, both of us are on ground that belongs to neither of us.

As soon as she appeared and introduced herself, the demeanor of the person in front of us changed. He was no longer as hostile as before, but still kept his reservations.

-I am aware of your standing and of our current location. That does not change our stance on anything, although I am unsure how someone like you, of all people, appeared here. Isn’t your group affiliated with Axelrod?

-That we are not. If you know me, you also know that we are a mercenary group and we work for whoever deems worthy to pay us. Axelrod bought some of our people, that is a fact, but the group you see before you is still unemployed.

-But that doesn’t mean that it cannot be changed. So we would be prudent to eliminate you before you inevitably get hired by him.

-That is not going to happen - she immediately said. - As my associate just announced, Axelrod has made an attempt on his life. And as his employer, I cannot in my right mind cooperate with someone that is a threat to health or, in this case, the lives of my people. That is why we are currently in the process of looking for him. To terminate our deals and warn him about the consequences that come with breaking contracts.

She wasn’t lying. She wasn’t telling the complete truth either, but I think that story was believable enough for him to at least stop hostilities for a second. And I might have been even correct.

-I do not care about your inner workings, but thank you for that piece of information. What about the third person? Is he also one of your employees?

Kon stepped up behind me as well.

-That he is. One of the newer acquisitions, as we are being thinned by our “employer” Axelrod. As you are aware, most likely, he is dragging people to war without much of a second thought about their well-being.

-Hm…

Just as Kon stepped out of the hiding, I noticed mana flicker a little bit around the head of the guy talking to us. I slowly moved in front of him, blocking his view, as I was expecting he was preparing some kind of spell, but nothing came our way.

He noticed that, and immediately stopped.

-I see your new employees are indeed a bunch of gifted people - he nodded. - No wonder we had some trouble in this fight. For which I apologize.

-As long as both sides are fine, no harm done - I replied. - But I must ask again, what was this all about? I have a distinct feeling that we both are after the same quarry.

-It looks for me that as well - nodded For. - It is rare to spot even a singular person that hails from the Wildnorth. And even rarer to see a handful of them spring out of the portal right in front of your face.

I could tell he was considering how much he could say to us. His mana teetering at the brink of distrust mixed with hostility and hopeful opportunism.

-That might be true, however that is not in my power to disclose to you.

-I see…

The conversation was clearly going nowhere, but you couldn’t say the same thing about the rest of the people.

While we were talking, behind the wall the remaining people were moving constantly. As soon as I mentioned the portal the first time, all the remaining people immediately jumped back in, returning to wherever they came from, just to be replaced by one singular person.

I am not sure if that was someone new or one of them just came back, but effectively we were left with only two of them.

The portal never closed, so I could only surmise that in case of any further conflict reinforcements would pour out again.

-While I don’t mind standing here talking with you - I finally said - I think neither of us has the time.

-Agreed. Although I am afraid I cannot let you leave just yet. See, even though you undoubtedly are not Axelrod, I still cannot let you free after assaulting some of my people.

-First of all, it was you who attacked first - retorted For. - And what, you expected us to just roll over and die?

-That was a preferable outcome, yes - he nodded - although after realizing who we are dealing with, I indeed changed my mind.

Well, he was at least telling the truth.

-How generous - scoffed at him For. - And speaking of assaults, don’t you think you are forgetting something?

-I am not sure what…

-You destroyed our portal. I think it would be common courtesy to at least refund our wasted resources.

-Ah. Well, I am sorry that happened, but as you are aware, the same thing happened to us.

-And yet the portal is still standing.

-Of course. Because we have remade it on the spot.

-Good on you. We don’t have resources for that, sadly, so we are still on a loss here.

-Your lack of resources is not a problem of mine.

He was right.

I don’t know what she was playing, but we still had everything we wanted and needed to move forward.

Sure, we wouldn’t be able to reach the spot we wanted to, but Kalkano was not the worst of the places to land.

Yet, she was still adamant about that.

-It’s going to be. Because it’s either you are going to give us some anchors to leave this place, or we are going to have to stay here for now and wait until someone collects us.

Collects us?

I am sure that there was no one capable that would come for us remaining. Everyone was missing…

One look was enough to tell that she was bluffing. I was unsure why she would even gamble like that, but hey, that’s her decision. Despite those people being a pretty unknown factor in this, I still felt confident enough that in between the three of us we had enough ability to get out, even if it came to blows. Again.

I was now paying special attention to the guy’s mana.

Was he talented enough to actually notice the bluff?

Besides the three of us and Axelrod, I've yet to see a person who had a similar ability to mine.

No wonder, after all it seemed to originate from the Origin Crystal, meaning whoever would have something like this would be immediately a person of interest to me. And Axelrod.

But that didn’t mean that someone wouldn’t be able to tell a lie by other means.

-I see… - he muttered. - Hmm… Well, I would be happy to provide you the access to a city of your choosing, but sadly, we don’t have anchors either.

-What about that open portal, though? - I asked, pointing towards the wall. - You clearly have some.

-Ah, well, of course, but just let me finish. We have anchors but only to our base of operations. That is clearly not even close to your destination, I am afraid - he replied, not even missing a beat.

-And how can you be so sure?

-Because you are not from Wildnorth, like you call our homeland. Or, are you trying to tell me that you aim to visit our land, hmm? Is that where your “leads” point towards?

For some reason, as he mentioned Wildnorth, he started feeling more hostile. Stange.

I also could’ve sworn that someone had poked out of the portal, just to go back, ushered by the one guarding it.

-Well, that depends - shrugged For. - As you are aware, we are tailing Axelrod. Since both of our groups evidently missed him, I assumed you had means of following him, but I guess I was wrong. Suit yourselves then, we are going to just wait.

-Ah, well, too bad. We don’t have visitors after, or at all, really. It would’ve been quite refreshing to see someone from outside of our circle to actually go with us…

He said that, while his mana was screaming the exact opposite.

It was so clear, I could tell that even For and Kon were able to tell that something was wrong about his “invitation”.

-Alas, no. Well, it happens. We’re going to just wait.

When she mentioned staying, he immediately calmed down, albeit just for a second.

Apparently realizing that our presence is going to…

Do what exactly?

I mean, sure they were going to do something here, but would it really be that much of an issue if we were here to witness it?

Seems like he thought so, because he sighed.

-Well, do what you will. But I’d request for you to keep out of my way.

-Of course.

He gestured towards the portal and the person still standing guard near it disappeared inside.

One gesture more, and the wall he built disappeared.

-I am going to remove yours if you don’t mind…?

For a second I was confused on what he was talking about, but my brain soon started working again.

-Ah, right. Wall. Yeah, sure, go ahead, just let me move…

The three of us walked towards the edge of the room. I wanted to move towards the exit, but a slight nudge from For directed me the opposite way, towards the portal.

I was not sure what she was planning, but I just went with it, and looked expectantly at the guy.

He… was having some problems.

I stared at him, gesturing towards the wall, attempting to dispel it just like he did with his, but for some reason it was not working.

Instinctively, I looked closer at mana around him to try and figure out what the hell he was trying to do, but I really was not sure.

Right, he was gathering mana and directing it towards the stone, but it was only bouncing off of it.

It was clear that he was getting frustrated, because every single attempt was accompanied with more and more… elaborate gesture, to the point where it started looking like he was just flailing his arms.

It honestly reminded me of Goldie and his attempts at “spells”, but clearly the person in front of me was a bit more experienced, so it was not it. And, well, actually using mana.

-Ehm… Any problems?

He finally noticed the three of us staring and immediately stopped.

-No. I… Just I guess your mana is more annoying than it should. That’s all.

-My mana?

He shrugged, not explaining.

-I don’t know what my mana has to do with anything - I said, not budging.

He looked at me, condescendingly.

-I thought you employed people smarter than that. I guess I was mistaken.

One look was enough for me to feel For getting angry right next to me, but her response was surprisingly calm.

-That is my issue and mine alone.

-Pff. Of course. I knew that you were scraping at the bottom of a barrel, but for someone to not understand basic mana concepts that is a new low for me.

I could tell that she was about to tell him off, but I was first.

-I am sorry that my abilities are not up to your standards. But if you could kindly elaborate and enlighten me, I would be thankful. See, I want to be as useful as I can get, but it’s apparently not enough.

-Clearly.

He considered something for a moment, but replied.

-What I was saying is that your mana is hard to get out - he started. - See, any mage that is at least worth something is able to control their mana. With this… - he pointed to the wall - I can clearly tell that you are not.

-Well, my control over mana was good enough to duplicate your spell…

-Duplicate?- he laughed. - Ha. Not in a million years. As you see, my spell dissipated without even a trace, and yours left a permanent scarring on the mana of this place. And you call yourself a mage? Shame.

The whole explanation made me unsure if I was hearing things.

Was he thinking… that what he was looking at was mana?

That I, instead of controlling a piece of rock, just made… what exactly?

I honestly was not sure I even understood him.

-You even wasted mana on making this thing look like the cave’s walls.

-So did you…? - I said, trying to mask confusion, but failing poorly.

-I did. But only to mask my shield. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. But you didn’t have to. It was clear that you’d shield yourself from our eyes, but to layer that much mana on top of it. Bah. Waste.

-Really…? Are you… that dumb?

That definitely caught the attention of everyone in the cave.

He looked at me, half-offended, half-angry.

-How charming. And I thought…

-You think that I made some kind of shield…?

Now anger turned into condescending again.

-And now he doesn’t even know what he made. Pff. Amateur through and through.

-You’re right about that one. But you’re the amateur.

Without a thought I touched the wall I made.

-Visu nuwo loim elwu.

The stone that I raised liquidated in a blink of an eye, just like ice that got suddenly heated, and splashed on the ground into a small puddle.

-WHAT IN THE HELL…!?

Yeah, that was not something he expected to say the least.

For some reason, he thought that I didn’t make a wall out of the stone. Instead, he assumed that I created some kind of barrier out of pure mana, and made it look like a stone wall.

Why? Well, you got me, I have absolutely no idea.

Besides the fact that just melding stone was infinitely easier, especially when I was surrounded by rocks, it would be a massive waste of mana and effort. To make something like this was straight up pointless.

The “residue” that I thought was mostly my spells shattering on their barrier, was just actually the barrier itself. Strange way to do things, but hey, it was effective and it fooled me so, why not, right?

And they were pretty smart in using it, too. The “smoke cloud” that was spreading while we were fighting was their attempt at reaching my own barrier. If I was using something similar to them, if both of them collided it would definitely start another tug of war, and I bet they were thinking that they would be able to win then. Since they had an easy source of getting reinforcements via the portal.

But of course it was pointless, since even if they were to reach it they would’ve just hit a literal wall.

Besides that there was also the fact of my body being Origin Crystal.

If the “residue” would have reached me it would just disappear harmlessly, completely nullifying their progress.

Or…

Well, about that one I was not sure.

After all, they were using some kind of artifact to create that barrier.

Before, I thought that it was just some, as they were calling here “void artifact”, a.k.a. a piece of tech, to disrupt my spells, but the longer I was thinking about it and, since he got a bit closer to me, I was able to pick up on some more details.

Sure, it looked somewhat similar to the void created by the lack of mana and overall incompatibility of magic and technology, but it was not exactly it.

What concerned and interested me was the fact that, up close, I was able to tell that the void was not completely empty.

It was bizarre…

It was like I was looking at sparkling water hovering mid-air, where the bubbles were just sparks of mana filling inside of the “staff” he was holding.

From afar, they were so small and I honestly just thought that it was a trick of the light, or a reflection of any other mana source that was in the cave.

In the center of it there was definitely something creating a manaless spot, though. There was no arguing with that.

About the fact how?

Well, without disassembling the “weapon”, I wouldn’t be able to tell.

-I told you. You’re an amateur. That was just a plain old rock - I said, slightly annoyed, both by his magic and attitude.

And maybe a bit by my inability to understand the weapon.

-Rock?! Don’t be stupid! It withstood a barrage of elements, how would the piece of rock…

-Well, this rock is not really a normal one… - butted in For. - This place is strange. Probably why Axelrod came here. For someone that is chasing him, you know surprisingly little about that…

-LITTLE? My family has been chasing this murderer for a millennium ! How do you even…

-Millennium?