Chapter 622

Once the fires calmed down, the familiar woman stepped through and the Portal closed behind her. The bandits who lived had fled, but at least sixty had fallen to the Grand Master’s single attack. I couldn’t help but grumble. After all, I could have done something similar by casting Meteor. Well, I would have killed everyone, myself included. Some debris might have even damaged the city.

The Grand Master’s attack wasn’t just powerful, but it showed an extreme level of control. The caravan didn’t have a single singe on it. Yet, a ring of ash and charred corpses surrounded them. I also had a feeling that this wasn’t a specific skill given by his mage job, but something he was able to create through pure mana and fire control.

The job system allowed rapid growth, but it was also a crutch. Skills executed using the system were specific and predictable. For example, Lydia had Swordsman as a job, and she certainly had many levels of Swordsmanship. However, recently, she mentioned a desire to find a teacher. Although she’ll be unlocking Expert Swordsmanship soon. No matter how high the skill was, it was predictable. A true swordsman would be able to adapt in ways that Lydia simply couldn’t.

At some point, all of us would hit a limit where progressing couldn’t be done by spamming experience levels or combining skills. We’d need to truly understand the essence of our skills, and gain control of them so that we could execute skills that didn’t even exist on the skill sheet. It was clear to me that this Master was one such man.

Once I was sure the bandits had cleared the area and weren’t watching with spies, the group of us began to head down the hill and approach the caravan. The leaders appeared to be a young boy and girl. They were profusely thanking the Grand Master. As for the magician, he was on his knees, looking up at the man with reverence. It was actually the Blue Mage girl who noticed us approaching first.

“Ah? Oh! It’s the noble from before! Hi, noble!” She waved her hand excitedly like she wasn’t surrounded by death, her chest jiggling as she did so.

“Siti, right? Just call me Deek.”

The others began to turn our direction. The mage on his knees gave a sour look when he saw us. The Grand Master glanced at us once with a bored expression and then promptly ignored us. Only the younger male and female seemed to act surprised to see a party approaching.

“Huh? Where did they come from?”

“They were waiting on that hill to see the outcome of the battle!” The Mage said angrily. “Did you enjoy watching us struggle for our lives?”

“Don’t speak to Master that way!” Shao stroked a knife on her belt.

“You…” Salicia narrowed her eyes.

“We would have helped.” I responded, “We were about to when the Grand Master appeared.”

“I bet you were…” He responded hatefully.

“Now, now, don’t act that way! I’m sorry for his disrespect, my lord.” The young boy chastised him and gave a bow to me. “I’m sure you did your best. Why are you here?”

Upon saying that, I did feel a bit guilty that I had considered just leaving them to die. The young girl looked at me suspiciously, only relaxing after the boy spoke. She was holding his arm closely. It was difficult to tell if she was his sister or girlfriend. They were both in their lower to mid-teens, although I wasn’t good at determining ages, so I rarely thought about things that way. Considering some women with me were hundreds of years old, despite looking no older than twenty, I reckoned that was a good policy.

“We’re just doing our best to try to help with the bandit problem.” I explained. “A better question, what is your caravan doing here?”

“We came because we’re desperate! We need help!”