Chapter 58 - Battle In The Forest (I)

The next day, was a day like any other.

A half-slumbering city.

A cold morning, filled with yawns and the urge to return to bed.

I mean, what did you expect?

The whole city being alert? Its forces searching for the culprit of a random fire?

Well, you were wrong then.

The talisman did it's work well. So well, that unless you sent a precious high ranked magic user to investigate, you won't find a thing.

Well, I wouldn't depend on succeeding a whole mission with a talisman, if it didn't work well.

'It was worth tens of millions of Coles after all.'

I thought, as we made our preparations for leaving the city.

Though I said preparations, they weren't actually much.

We just gathered our luggage, checked our ride, I mean the raptors, and checked out of the inn.

Out of the inn, onto the road.

Taking the straight path to the teleportation hub, our carriage 'coincidently' passed through the last night's fire site.

There wasn't much of a commotion now, only some people, probably neighbors were still gathered there.

"He was a good man, the bar owner."

"Yeah, he was..."

"It is too tragic, not a single person managed to escape..."

"Its all because of alcohol, the damn thing burned too quickly, to let anyone escape!"

"Hey, don't curse! The officer is still here, looking for survivors."

I could here their conversations.

And I could also sense a D rank mage going through the rubble, as someone said, an officer looking for survivors.

Unfortunately, he wouldn't find anyone.

I was sure of it.

Opening the window of the carriage a little, I peeked through the tiny gap, finally taking in, the site of disaster.

The building had collapsed. It's roof falling down as the wooden beams couldn't support it anymore, while the ground floor had been totally reduced into black charcoal.

Kicking the still red embers of building, a blue robed mage was standing in the rubble, his eyes taking on green hue as he searched the area.

But just like I said he found nothing. Shaking his head, his eyes turned normal before he lifted his hand in air.

In response, cumulation of magical symbols, runes, appeared above his head. Turning and twisting, slowly forming a kite-shaped magic circle real-time.

"Ohhhh, a magic circle!!"

"A magic circle!!"

People cried out, like small kids in a festival, as they moved back.

And then, the magic circle flashed, conjuring a wave of freezing water that wet whole plot, creating black smoke, before-

-Snap.

The mage snapped his fingers, freezing the water the next instant. Covering the rubble with a thick layer of ice.

'Show-off.'

'But it's good that he didn't dwell much.'

Relived, I closed the window.

"What happened there?"

Cana asked curiously.

"Nothing much, a building caught fire yesterday."

I replied innocently.

"Syrus knows better, he checked it out last night."

"Is that so?"

She said, glancing at the small window between the front and the back of the carriage, from which she could see the back of Syrus's head as he drove, before answering.

"I will ask him later."

"As you wish~"

With that she went back to talking with Allen, no longer paying me attention.

Silence lingered in the carriage for a few minutes, that is, only if you excluded the whispering duo in front of me, before we arrived.

[The teleportation hub]

Opening the door, I jumped off the carriage, stretching, as if I got stiff from a short ride.

Of course, that was just me getting into character.

Right now, I was wearing a white full sleeved t-shirt, baggy black pants that were tight only at my knees and white shoes. Topping it all with loose high neck black overcoat, with a single strap.

That along with my new appearance, light brown hair, chestnut-colored eyes, and peach skin suited my new persona perfectly, especially when I wore light armor that only covered my joints and a chestplate under my overcoat.

My appearance, thanks to my mother, and my clothes, thanks to Amy.

When I proposed this, I got really scared due to the weird smiles they had at that time. Thankfully, they didn't go overboard.

Also, it was not just me who had a makeover, naturally my party members followed too.

Syrus had gone from wheat colored to white skinned, his red hair stayed red, but his green eyes were disguised as golden.

As for his clothes, I got him proper high-quality ones. Black sleeveless body suit that started from his neck and ended above his knees, black trousers worn over them further covered by a red sarong fastened by a white band at his waist.

All of this was topped by a long elbow length gauntlets and a short-sleeved half-jacket.

His new look was quite fashionable, at least from a mercenary's perspective, and got along well with his red-edged sword.

You could even say, Syrus had the biggest makeover after me.

For Cana and Allen pursed ordinary looks.

Cana changed her hair and eye color, going from faded pink and rose to light brown hair and even lighter brown eyes.

She wore a proper mercenary dress, which had all kinds of tools, pockets and utilities, all of them, hidden by a brown hooded robe she worn over it.

But even then, holding a book in one hand and Allen's hand in another she looked like a proper support adventurer, with those high length brown shoes of hers.

And lastly, there was Allen, since he was a kid, I didn't do much. Going with blue for his hair and golden for his eyes, I hid the dragon mark on his arm, and decided that was it.

Right now, Cana made him wear a full sleeved grey shirt folded to three fourth length, a faded yellowish colored pant and a blue long waistcoat over it.

Along with fingerless gloves and similar blue high length shoes, he looked absolutely adorable.

Leaving the carriage, my 'trouble-seekers' gathered and together with them, I left the city of Rabhat, the last city on the border of the Ellsworth County.

***

[The Next Day, Night-time]

The next day, we were camping.

Enjoying the cold breeze and the song of the crickets.

Not because we wanted to, but because we had to.

The reason?

The teleportation arrays.

The teleportation arrays were like a web, they covered and connected, each and every city of the continent, making traveling extremely fast.

You could go from Fernsby Duchy which was in the north, to Arsenio Duchy which was in the south in an hour or two.

But, but, but, here there were terms and conditions.

This service was only for nobles and military personnel.

Unless you are a noble with high rank, or an military personnel with orders, you couldn't use more than half of these arrays.

Why was that?

It was simply to make it harder for any criminal to escape.

If anyone could simply teleport from one corner of the continent to another, then it would be an abysmal task to catch any thiefs or criminals.

After all, no matter how strict the security measures are there will always be some 'phantom kids' who will find a way around them.

Anyways, for normal public, only some specific arrays were activated, while they had to travel on foot to cover short distances, all in hopes to reduce the number of these phantom kids.

And yes, it worked.

Though the public was discontent with the decision, as it made traveling quite inconvenient for them, but, in the end they relented.

Quite funnily, that was the only thing they could do...

As I said before, an extreme world, this one.

That was that though.

After being teleported out of the County, we didn't stay in the city we arrived for long. Instead, we immediately bolted off, taking the road for the next city with a teleportation hub.

And thanks to that we were camping right now, in the middle of nowhere.

This was expected though, and we were all prepared for it.

A nice little fire was lit in the middle of our camp, a pot filled with hot cream stew atop it, giving off a nice appetizing smell, as Syrus who was wearing an apron tended to it, creating a comical scene.

On his side were the duo, Cana and Allen, with Allen looking like he couldn't wait to eat anymore, while Cana was persuading him otherwise.

A homely scene I must say, normally, I would have joined them, but right now, I didn't.

I was too busy scrolling through the faction store, looking for a new identity that could help me in approaching the Church of Light.

Plus, even though I didn't show it, I could just not act homely when I killed people yesterday.

Even if it was for just revenge.

The attack on me in the estate, the Archmage with the secrecy attribute that attacked me, somehow, someway, the Earl investigated him, and found out that the Archmage was connected with those guys I blew up.

So yeah, instead of just a mission, it was type of revenge.

Or that was how I justified it. Cause deep down I knew; it wasn't that either.

I was killing for the sake of killing.

I was killing to get used to killing.

These guys were going to killed anyways.

Till now.

From the day I had been transmigrated to till now, I had not killed a person with my sword.

I took actions knowing it would kill them, I ordered someone to kill them, I bombed people, and even killed a demon.

But with my own sword, with my own hands, I hadn't done it.

Yet.

And I feared the day I will do that, will I puke my guts out, will I be traumatized, or will feel absolutely nothing?

I feared that last possibility the most...

-Ring, ring!!

Just as I was about to brood more in my thoughts, the amulet in hand started ringing, interrupting me.

-Ring, ring!!

Looking down at it, I checked who was calling me, already having a few guesses about his identity...

And I wasn't wrong.

It was the Magus whom I was thinking about.

My Dad, the Earl.

Reynold Von Ellsworth.

-Ring, ring!!

I stood up.

"I'll have to take this; you guys can eat without me."

I informed the trio, before getting in the magical tent. And yes, it was magical, a lot bigger from the inside.

Constructing a sound barrier, I sat on bed and picked up the call.

And the first thing, I got after picking up were-

-You're late.

Words of reprimand.

"I was about to eat dinner. It's you who is calling at wrong time."

I defended.

-You are late even for dinner then, should have eaten ages ago.

Hearing that, I said sarcastically.

"Oh, that is cause unlike someone who gets served delicious dishes on a silver platter, we have to cook for ourselves!"

At that, he smirked, as if he already won as he slowly said,

-No one told you to leave in the first place.

And fuck, he did.

"..."

I opened and closed my mouth a few times before admitting my defeat and sighing.

"You didn't call only to criticize my eating habits, did you?"

At that, his smirk got even wider.

-Well, just thought I should inform you. I recruited those kids, Valen and Tiara.

"Really!?"

-Yes, really.

I exclaimed, feeling accomplished at the thought.

'Finally, I brought one of the protagonists on my side, even if it is only on the surface.'

'At least, this went well.'

I suddenly felt relieved, suddenly felt that what I was doing, all my efforts, all my plans...

I felt like they were not in vain...

Feeling better, I asked in a light tone.

"Anything else? And how is mom? She isn't worrying too much, right?"

-She is a strong woman, but with you doing those dangerous missions, she can't not worry.

-Honestly, I don't understand. You can mobilize all the faction's resources you want in my name. All you need to do is give me a call and that's it.

-So, just why are you doing these?

His eyes locked with mine, as the atmosphere around us turned intense.

"You know..., I was just wanted to be independent...?"

I said, making my statement end like a question, cause even I couldn't believe, how lame my excuse was.

-Then you should stop depending on all my resources.

Of course, excuses would be answered as such.

-But, that's not really it...

-You are lying.

He stated, with his piercing blue eyes still staring at me, almost as if they could read my mind.

-I guess, you plan to do another one of those 'secret' things of yours.

"Yeahhh..."

I replied weakly, averting my eyes, waiting for further questioning.

But instead of questions, I heard a light laugh followed by

-Haha, my son has a become a man of secrets. Maybe I should be happy that you aren't a simpleton anymore? I don't know...

-But remember this Rayne.

-I don't care what you do, I don't care what your plans are!!

He said, his voice still calm, but somehow, I could feel the rising intensity of his words.

-I only care about your safety.

Words that immediately softened.

-So, be back safe...

"I will."

I said, before the call disconnected.

-Huuuuu

Taking deep breaths for a while, I cleared my expression, and stepped out.

"Yo, I'm back."

I said raising my hand, as I moved towards the group.

"Leader."

Syrus acknowledged.

"Done talking?"

Cana inquired.

"Have this too big-brother, its tasty!"

Allen chimed.

"Yeah."

I replied, taking an empty bowl, filling it with stew, as I sat down between Syrus and Cana.

The stew was hot and had an appetizing smell, taking a spoonful of it, I was about to put it in my mouth when-

-HOWWLLLLLL!!

-HOWWLLLLLL!!

-HOWWLLLLLL!!

Howls, many howls, sounded from all around the camp.

"Big-brother, danger."

Allen turned his head and said seriously.

'Yeah, I had a feeling that my trip was going too smoothly.'

Placing the bowl back on the log, I stood up.

Summoning my sword, I said.

"Prepare for battle."