167 Noey's wings

Brenia moved into the camp of the huntresses and placed the corpse of her companion Kali on a blanket they compassionately prepared for her. She would take care of her burial with the help of some volunteering huntresses as soon as her own injuries where taken care of.

She was made to sit down in a wide tent with Penny and the three remaining slave while the huntress mage, Jaska, examined her wounds. She had also checked on the other but Penny merely had a scratch on her arm while the other three were completely fine.

The wound of Brenia was harder to cure however. First of all, the spike had to be removed and because of its serrated edge, the only way to do so safely was to push it out the other side. Brenia had to grit her teeth and bear with the pain while the mage worked. Taking it out took a lot of time because Jaska wanted to be extra careful to not hit any important organs.

"I don't think anything major has been hit or you wouldn't have made it here but I'll still be extra careful and examine the opening properly once I get that thing out of there." She explained.

"Do I need to worry for Brenia or are you confident in your magic?" Penny asked the other mage.

"I do more healing than I do fighting. An injury like this doesn't seem any different than what I usually see." Jaska answered.

"In that case, I'll trust you with it." Penny nodded in satisfaction.

"What do you mean you'll trust her with it, It's my wound not yours. What are you getting involved fo-Ha!"

"Stand still!" "What are you complaining for now if you already decided to trust her!" The two mage complained together.

Brenia felt a bit awkward being stared down by the two short woman but surrendered while the mage inched the needle further and further into her stomach.

At least, she didn't have to make much efforts to find a path through because the needle was already very deeply embedded into her. It only needed a small push before it pierced her skin from the inside to poke its head back out opposite from where it came in.

Brenia gritted her teeth but still let out a few pained cries as the needle was moved around in her flesh. It wasn't her most painful experience but it was certainly up there.

The three servants looked away in disgust while Penny stared intensely. She didn't let her eyes wander away from the wound and the actions of the mage for the whole time she worked. She was probably trying to figure out what sort of spell would be used to patch her up. She was never satisfied with the knowledge she already had and always needed more.

Then Jaska poured healing medicine through the hole while Brenia laid on her stomach. The thing felt like a strong burn and jolted Brenia up. If she had not been trusting the two mages fully, she'd had left the tent right away. How come medicine stings so badly?

"That's not healing medicine at all. It's a thing to kill bad stuff that might have gotten inside while the wound was open." Jaska explained casually. "Now I'm ready to actually start healing it."

Three long spells and a mountain of disgusting feeling later and she was declared "Taken care of for now". A long bandage had been wrapped around her waist and what she could only describe as mud had been applied in large quantities on her skin. She felt repulsed but if that was what was needed to be healed, she wouldn't complain too much. Jaska also took care of the burns on her arms and the scratches. In a similar manner.

"Will you tell me the details of what was included in that paste later? I feel curious." Penny was saying from the side.

"Sure, I like to share knowledge with other mages. What's your specialty? Are you good with earth magic?"

"I'm a generalist."

Brenia let out a sigh as their talks stretched on and sat back up with difficulty. The bandage and the stuff underneath made her stiff, plus, it was still as painful as a fresh wound.

The leader of the huntresses came to sit close to her and started a conversation of her own.

"I'm sorry about your companion, the fisherbeast did that?"

"Yeah, we got ambushed. I got wounded right from the start and she didn't have any time to react. I should have been more careful, I was lax because we didn't encounter anything remotely dangerous in a while and I was busy spouting nonsense."

Connie placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. As the leader of a large group of huntresses, she must have lived a similar situation many times over. Brenia wasn't new to deaths either but previously, the dead around her had not been in her direct care.

"I'd say to not feel too bad about it since this sort of thing can always happen but I also know the feeling you're going through. Even knowing we're not truly responsible and that there's nothing more to be done. We can't help but feel shame and sorrow. Did you know her well?"

"Yes, I've spent more than five years with her now. Kali was a slave I got in the imperial school but more importantly, she was my companion. I brought her and Janna here only because I didn't know what else to do with them even though I knew they're unsuited for that kind of thing."

"So you two are graduates from the Imperial school? We know someone who studied there too. A lord named Emp. We worked for lord Emp twice and fought an unnameable of chaos alongside him."

"It's the first time I hear anyone call him lord Emp." Penny said from the side, voicing what Brenia thought before she could say it aloud.

Their own conversation must have ended while she was talking with Connie.

"You know him too?" Jaska asked in interest.

"Of course we do. I had so many spars with him I can't even count them anymore. I didn't know you worked with him! You seem to have a good impression of him so this makes it all better to me." Brenia said with a smile

This large group of well known huntresses worked for Emp twice in the past and seemed to have a good relationship with him. She trusted him and his judgment about fighting and warriors in general and having hired them twice meant that he must have been satisfied. Plus, she remembered the story he gave about the unnameable of chaos. It was a terrible fight but the huntresses didn't run away in a panic despite their great loses. This meant they were reliable on top of being sufficiently strong. Now she really wanted to get their help.

"A friend of a friend then!" Connie exclaimed with a smile. "I wish to talk about this some more but it's unreasonable with your injury. Rest for a while, process your loss and bury her properly. I'll wait for later to ask why you were looking for us."

"What about the payment for the treatment of my wound?" Brenia asked.

"That too can be seen for later. I won't ask for anything outrageous since the wound wasn't unreasonable to deal with so you can all relax here for now." Jaska reassured them with a smile.

The huntresses left the tent they spared to let them rest and almost immediately after the flaps had fallen back in place, Penny rushed up to hug Brenia strongly.

Brenia groaned in pain in answer. Penny very rarely expressed affection or concern but she was surprisingly soft sometimes. Brenia decided to not tease her friend about her feelings for once. She let herself be hugged obediently and just voiced her own concerns.

"Are you alright? What's up with you so suddenly?"

"I'm just glad you're fine after all. I'm really sorry for throwing fire at you and even more sorry about Kali. It's all because I said that nothing interesting happened. I should have kept my mouth shut."

"You think you invited bad luck onto us? That's ridiculous. Neither of us are responsible for Kali. I'm not angry at you at all, neither for that or for the fire spell. If not for that magic, things could have went a lot worse for us. You did great, that's exactly why I wanted you with me."

Brenia patted the back of her friend for a bit to make her feel better even though it seemed that Penny was the one trying to make her feel better about Kali. Still, while Brenia wasn't really the type who liked hugs, holding a friend close in a moment of sadness wasn't all that bad.

They used each other's concerns and friendship to improve their respective mood and then shared those feelings with the three remaining servants. They worked through their grief as a group and all got a hold of themselves after some time in private.

Penny didn't even make a fuss about all sleeping in the same tent but didn't change her clothes for her nightwear and refused to look towards Brenia until she was properly dressed.

The next morning, the mood was still heavy because of the dead at their side but it wasn't suffocating anymore. At least not for Brenia. The corpse didn't let out any bad smell either thanks to something Jaska did using magic.

She armed herself with a shovel and many other huntresses joined her into digging a new hole in an open spot of the nearby forest. They tore through old roots and pulled out rocks until the hole was a good meter deep and long enough to house Kali.

They brought the corpse over, leaving her only her clothes before lowering her into the hole.

The huntresses had nothing to say for her because they didn't know her but Janna had a lot tell. She had been paired with her as Brenia's servants ever since she stepped into the school so of course she knew Kali better than anyone else. Her final goodbyes were very long and emotional. Brenia and the huntresses let their tears flow freely as they listened in silence.

In the end, she gave Janna the task of planting the tree over her friend. It was only fair for the closest to the departed person to make sure she would take roots properly. Some would have argued that Brenia was the one who should have done it as the owner of the slave but she didn't feel like she was worthy of the honor.

She apologized to Kali once more, said her heartfelt goodbyes just like Janna and brought down her shovel again. Her own speech had been far shorter but Brenia had never been good with that sort of things.

The only feelings that really matter are those that are too hard to say aloud, those that are kept closer to the heart and won't come out no matter what. Words are just never powerful enough to translate feelings properly.

That was what she believed.

Penny and her two servants watched from the side and also gave their own goodbyes before dirt covered Kali. The mage didn't have much to say, Kali was just a servant after all, she didn't know her well, that was just how she was with slaves. In truth, she gave the strong impression of being here to support Brenia rather than send off the dead.

She was of course saddened by the death of someone she knew but was clearly more preoccupied by how it affected her friend.

Later on, after everyone had calmed down, Brenia and Penny were once again sat with the three leaders of the huntresses to explain their circumstances.

The first thing they talked about is the crimson backed fisherbeast. The huntresses were really interested in it because it was possibly related to why they were there in the first place.

"The villagers here reported that many hunters suddenly went missing and those travelling in small groups along the path sometimes vanished. We've been hired to find the cause and deal with it but even after spending two weeks here, we weren't able to find anything abnormal." Tacey explained.

"We supposed that the thing we were hunting was clever enough to escape in front of our large groups so we were planning on dividing into smaller teams to lure it out of hiding. With the story of how your group encountered that old crimson backed fisherbeast, I think that our problem has been solved. It would make sense for only small groups to be targeted it the culprit was this kind of monsters. They only have two hooks after all." Connie followed.

With the few elements presented to her, Brenia would also be willing to bet that they found the cause if she was in their shoes.

"Being an old one, it was smarter than a simple beast and targeted me first and then Kali who was taller. It had a sense of who was menacing to it and who wasn't. I'm sure it would have stayed hidden in front of all your warriors."

"Right? In that case, I think we can confidently report to the village head here that the menace has been removed even though we aren't the one who did it." Connie concluded.

"We won't be able to accept any payments for that one though because we can't prove that its the right creature. We aren't even the ones who beat it." Tacey complained

"The most important is that the villagers are safe now." Jaska answered with a difficult smile.

Clearly the three of them were sort of upset to have lost money and two weeks of their time. They might be happy for the villagers but they still incurred a loss this time around. They were known to go around helping villages to get rid of things they couldn't deal with but they still needed money and supplies to live and keep their operations running.

From what Brenia understood, even when the village couldn't pay properly, getting the materials from the monsters eliminated would be sufficient to make the trip worthwhile. This just served to show how much money were worth the different parts of monsters as they were enough to sustain a group of dozens of huntresses. This time, they wouldn't get either reward or materials but they had sufficient reserves to stop this from turning into a bad situation.

Brenia still insisted on giving them something for taking care of her injuries however and a decent price was quickly agreed upon.

They then discussed about various things like how the fight went. It was at the part when Penny shot a spell at the creature while it was tangled with her that Jaska was the most surprised.

"Why didn't your two servants warn Brenia of what kind of spell was coming. Aren't they your callers?"

Penny took a curious air and questioned the other mage on this.

"What are callers?"

Penny was a scholar, she never intended to fight or hunt seriously using her magic so it was normal for her to not have heard about this even if it was a fairly well known way to deal with magic.

"You don't know? I guess that explains it. When working in a group, mages don't have any time to spare warning the others while casting their spells. In order to prevent any injuries from friendly fire, it's necessary to train a few people into recognizing your magic. Those would be your callers. They're meant to guess what type of spell is going to come out and when, then they relay to the others what needs to be done before the spell is cast. They're used to signal the others of what's about to happen but they need to know the spells well enough to recognize what's coming next so they're usually apprentices."

"That does make sense. They've seen me study magic from scratch so there's no one else who knows my magic better than them. They should be able to fit the role. It would make it much safer for Brenia in a fight if those two could warn her of what I'm about to do. I'll think about it and see if they can do it."

It was a great idea when fighting monsters but Brenia doubted the usefulness of that tactic when fighting other people. Normally, wouldn't the opponent be smart enough to dodge as well if they were warned by the callers? That would be a question for another time.

Next, they spoke about what she intended to do with the skin and the needles of the creature. This reminded her that she still had to quickly take care of the fur properly before rot took it. Whatever she chose to do with it, she had to take proper care of the material or its quality and value would drop sharply. Connie proposed to let her use the tools they had but Brenia didn't need them because she had her own. She was a huntress too after all.

"Will you sell it later in a big city like Red-water or will you find someone to make some equipment out of it? If you're looking to make some armor from it, I'd suggest going to the village of Dark-glint in Artefine. They have the best smith there is." Jaska proposed.

"How is a smith going to help with fur?" Penny asked with a dubious frown.

"Because its not just a smith, It's the legendary Marcelia!" Connie told them with a voice filled with admiration.

Penny didn't sound impressed at all as she seemingly never heard of her but every huntress had once heard her legendary name and every armor maker and weapon-smith knew of her too. Brenia quickly had to explain to her how much of a big deal she was before turning back to the huntresses.

"I didn't know she was over there. Would she accept making an armor for me though? Doesn't she hate taking requests?"

"She does but you might be able to convince her of helping you if you have a compelling goal and if you carefully use Emp's name." Connie confided with a grin.

Brenia just frowned skeptically while Penny voice her question.

"What does Emp have to do with this... Wait! His mother is a smith he said! No way!"

As Penny shouted her disbelief, understanding flashed through Brenia's eyes.

"The legendary Marcelia is Emp's mother?"

Her mouth hung open in surprise while the other three nodded in confirmation.

"She is. Didn't you know that?" Tacey asked them suspiciously.

Maybe she thought that Brenia and Penny didn't really know Emp after all. Brenia decided to explain.

"We didn't. Emp was always really secretive about his name. He never spoke about his father at all, didn't give any clue as to whom he might be and only spoke about his mother when smithing was involved. He never gave her name though, we just thought she was a really good one after seeing the armor she made for him."

"And the one they made for Vanessa." Penny added.

The three huntresses turned to each other and shared looks. They held a silent conversation with seemingly only their eyes and in the end, Connie shook her head and turned back to them. They had come to a conclusion that satisfied all three but left them with a rather awkward expression.

"He never told us his name either, we had hoped we could learn it from you." Connie admitted for the three of them.

"Sorry, not gonna happen." Brenia laughed. "Although, maybe he will give it to us the next time we meet. You might all learn it if you come help us. We have a hard task to complete before we meet up and we wanted the help of Noey's wings for it."

"A task?" "What sort of task is it?" "A job given by him?" They asked back all at once.

Brenia shook her head to deny the last one.

"No, it's a mission I gave myself but his lover is very invested in this and paid a huge amount of gold for it to be completed."

Now it was Tacey's turn to frown in disbelief.

"The apple girl gave you gold for a task?"

"The apple girl?"

"She means Calla." Brenia told the confused Penny.

She had not known Calla for long but Emp spoke plentifully about the apple she gave him which he used to beat the strong monster.

"Oh! No, not that one, that's his wife. We're speaking about a lover he had in school, Mable." Penny clarified.

"Sorry, we don't know that one." Jaska apologized.

Brenia waved her hand in dismissal.

"It's fine, it's not really important for the story. To make it short, she was attacked by a teacher in her bedroom while under the protection of Emp. He rushed in before things turned for the worse and smashed him out the window with his hammer. The guy escaped but kidnapped two other girls as he did. One of those two is a friend of ours so we're hunting him down to hopefully save her and get revenge."

All three showed disbelief.

"They survived a hit of his hammer? What are they?"

"That's what makes this job dangerous, the guy happened to be a battle mage."

Jaska gulped down nervously as her eyes widened. The other two looked her way to get some explanation about what a battle mage was. She told them what sort of mages were called battle mage and Penny provided some more details about that in the abilities of their prey in particular.

"If we can get him, we'll save two girls, gain the respect of the army for doing their job in their stead and gain a massive bounty." Brenia ended while showing them the wanted poster she still kept.

She would also get Emp to do a single thing for her but that was irrelevant to the huntresses. Penny looked like she was about to say it to tease her but a frustrated glare managed to shut her up. She just giggled instead.

Meanwhile the huntresses didn't look all too pleased.

"So you were looking for us because you wanted our help with a manhunt?" Connie asked with clear reluctance.

Tacey spoke in the same line of thought with a stone cold face.

"We're not mercenaries, we don't hunt down people, only monsters."

"We dealt with people only once and really regretted it after."

"But what we're hunting isn't a man! It's a monster wearing the skin of a human!" Brenia told them fiercely.

The three of them still didn't look interested.

"Even if you say that, it's a bit much for us."

"We don't know how to fight people."

"I'm not really keen on it either."

Brenia clicked her tongue in frustration. She really needed their help but who knew they'd be so reticent. Penny also tried to find a way to get their huntresses on their side.

"We came all the way here just to find you and get your help. We lost one of us for this too so it would be a shame to not insist. What would it take for us to convince you to help? Would money be enough? We don't really need the bounty on his head."

"The money isn't really the issue here though."

Brenia didn't know them well enough to change their minds. She had managed to convince Penny because she knew her but the huntresses were a mystery. The best she could do was to throw a wide range of different argument and hope that one of them would stick.

"The guy is wanted for two kidnapping of noble girls and an attempted ****. Only the gods know what sort of depraved acts he committed before that. There's no reason to be squeamish about it, his death will be more than deserved."

"You say that because you have a grudge on him and that won't lead to anything good. We're all painfully aware of that here." Tacey objected.

"I'm not holding a grudge against him in particular, I'm holding a grudge against people like him. I'm going after him not because he targeted someone I know but because of the crime itself and because I need to help the two missing girls."

Jaska turned her head to the side in an embarrassed manner.

"That's a job for the guards and knights rather than us though."

Brenia shook her head in denial and pressed her argument.

"Because of his power and talent, ordinary guards can't hope to match so we have to do something instead. If I happen to fail, Emp will go after him himself because he dared target Mable. No matter what, this is a dead man but the quicker we deal with him, the less likely he is to harm others and the more likely it is to find the two other girls alive."

"Even though she looks demented like this, we're truly just trying to help everyone." Penny said from the side, quickly getting a glare from Brenia.

Still, nothing they said really influenced their original opinion. They weren't exactly against going after the mage but they had no personal interests in it and were reticent about hunting down something else than a mindless creature.

On one hand, they were willing to help out Brenia on account of their good impression of Emp and how his own lover was targeted. On the other hand, they seemed to find it hard to believe that no strong knights squads would go after the mage instead them. They didn't want to risk the lives of their companions on this and didn't like how it would set a precedent of them acting as bounty hunters.

They finally agreed to at least let the group as a whole decide their course of action. This was all that Brenia managed to do after much talks about justice and how glorious of an achievement it would be to catch him.

After that, all she could do was wait for them to come to an agreement while she took care of the fisherbeast skin.

It took them a whole three days of loud arguing and silent thinking to come to a conclusion. In those three days, they passed the wanted poster around and asked about the details of what he did along with the risks associated with hunting him. Brenia wanted to tell them they'd get him for sure but Penny dampened the mood by being pessimistic of their chances.

"A battle mage can turn the tide of a whole battle by himself. If we were to go with just me and Brenia, the chances of us winning would be close to nothing even though Brenia seems so confident. I made plenty of preparations to fight him but guessing all his possible attacks is impossible and there's bound to be a lot of casualty. I think that with your help we can definitely win but it will be a hard earned victory."

The huntresses all made sour faces hearing that. Of course, no one likes to be told they'll probably die if they choose to accept the hunt. Plus, they didn't even know where he could be and would probably end up searching aimlessly for years like the guards were already doing.

In a group made out of only women however, Brenia managed to find many supporters. What she lived through and what Mable narrowly escaped weren't common at all but some had similar sounding experiences that had pushed them into a group made up of only girls and many more could easily feel sympathy.

Thus, slowly but surely, the balance tilted into her favor until one of the huntresses made a comment that gave a clear victory to one of the two camps.

"I've seen this guy before!" She exclaimed as the portrait was handed to her. "His hair was a bit different and he had big mutton chops but I'm sure it's the same guy!"

The others including Brenia all pressed her to know where she saw him before and she gave them a compelling story.

Back when she wasn't with the rest of Noey's wings, she was living in Windbow, in a village somewhere south of Red-water. Ninoslav passed through there along with two girls just like Brenia said he would. He was going further south than where they were but the only path south of there would eventually connect to the big road going into the kingdom of Dugo through the mountains.

The other huntresses complained right away.

"But there's nothing in Dugo. There's a lot of untamed wilderness, a bunch of backwater villages and then a few islands isolated in the sea."

Brenia on the other hand was pretty happy with the news.

"That's the whole point. If there's almost nothing, the chances of him getting caught by guards would get really low and the chances of anyone knowing he exist would get even lower."

He was certainly there. Even if the huntresses decided to not join her, at least she would have gained a good clue on where he was going.

She would not need to go fight the battle mage alone however. With the announcement that they knew where he was going, the vote heavily tipped in her favor.

She was never good with convincing people of anything, she didn't even like to talk with others all that much. This sudden surge of support had nothing to do with her however. It was all thanks to something she was very familiar with, it was the excitement of the hunt.

Hunting beast or hunting man didn't matter, the heart of a true hunter would be gripped the moment they found the tracks. The mage was now prey and his scent was caught. The huntresses were just swept by the sudden progress in the hunt for the man, now they thirsted to see it to the end.

Neither Brenia nor Penny would have ever been able to convince the huntresses to go after a dangerous criminal like Ninoslav but they didn't have to. The hunt itself excited too many of the huntresses for their leaders to object anymore.

Noey's wings was successfully hired to help them hunt the mage but they didn't go straight towards the kingdom of Dugo. They first had to make a detour towards Dark-glint. If the legendary Marcelia could make her an armor with the fur Kali died for, it would be great and if not, at least she would have met the renowned huntress.