Chapter 151: Mercenary group

"I think I already made it clear a moment ago."

Even though it was my first time meeting this guy, he was already getting on my nerves. But judging from Ayda's relatively restrained reaction to his appearance, it was clear that he definitely had the strength to back his arrogance up. 

And it only irked me even more. 

"I don't give a shred of fuck about your background. If you want to be my ally, then I will consider it, but if I see you going against Ayda ever again…"

Rather than finishing my threat, I just shook my head with disgust before stepping aside. With my hand placed gently on the handle of my handgun and my emotions ready to be channelled once again, I allowed my woman to start the debate once again.

"It's is as you see it is. Now, drop off your high horse and pay respect to the progenitor." After gracing me with a lovely smile, Ayda was pretty quick to point the discussion back towards me.

"Proge… Wait, is he…?"

Apparently, what Ayda told me about true mages wasn't complete bullshit, otherwise, I would be truly unable to explain Hubert jumping in surprise when he heard my girl. 

"That's right, I'm a true mage and a progenitor at that. And Ayda is a woman that I'm greatly indebted to and greatly in love with. Tread your next words carefully."

It wasn't as if I was unwilling to recognise people with strength. If he really was some kind of a powerful witch, then there was absolutely no reason to antagonise him… But I wouldn't stomach having someone on my side that would constantly get on my nerves. 

"My bad. I would like to apologise then." 

Contrary to my expectations, Hubert actually managed to swallow his pride, bow his head and utter the words of a proper apology. Only nodding my head slightly in response, I walked several steps away before leaning on the remains of the female general's elevated platform.

With just enough distance to reach Ayda if Huber would dare to try something but far enough to allow them the privacy of talk, I then cast a quick glance at the rest of the survivors. 

Out of the group of around fifty people, only ten or so seemed to be capable of walking by themselves. Everyone else earned quite a lot of wounds and scars from prolonged tortures and starvation they had to undergo while in captivity. 

Just the sight of those people was sickening. Thinking about this, I felt a knob of rage twitching in my soul, as if wanting to burst forward and rip the female general apart. 

"Are you okay?" 

Before I could even realise, Ayda already concluded her business with the man, before quickly making her way towards me.

"Yeah. I just can't wait to get all of them to safety. While I know it's naive, for people to do such things to other people…" 

Tightening my firsts, I shook my head before focusing my attention inwards. Rather than despairing over the cruelty etched deeply into human nature, I preferred to actually try to work my emotional clogs down a bit. 

"Oh, so you are that eager to sleep with all those women?" 

With my eyes closed as I focused on my inner state, I could not see that coming. With a sudden burst of pain appearing in my stomach, I nearly bent in half. Opening my eyes, I saw a pouting expression on Ayda's face and her retracting hand with two fingers extended.

"What did you poke me for?" 

Whining out as the waves of pain shook my mind, I quickly managed to find the answer to this question myself. But to announce that, I had to wait for the pain to subsidize a bit. 

"It's not like that, you should know it. If not for what you told me, I would gladly rip that whore apart. As for the others, I just can't stand the sight."

Finally straightening up,  I placed my hand on Ayda's head before rustling her hair a bit. For some reason, doing so was strangely relaxing. 

"For me, everyone should just be friends with others, working tirelessly to improve the lives of everyone around them. Seeing the ugly side of human nature… It just pains me a bit."

There were no more words needed. Unloading the supplies from the bags that we dropped once we stepped into the arena, we started feeding the freed prisoners. Their tattered and exhausted bodies struck me too close to the core when I could clearly recognise the same traits plaguing them as those who I only saw on the drastic historical photos. 

"The means can change, but there will always be monsters amongst people."

After that moment of reflection, all thoughts seemed to vanish from my head. Helping to feed the former prisoners took all my attention. From time to time, I could see that some of them were throwing me weird looks, but given how they all looked exactly the same, my initial guess that it had to do with gender couldn't be proven.

In the end, one's bodily traits could hardly be seen when one was on the verge of starvation.

Sadly, we couldn't lower our guard completely. As soon as the fresher prisoners got taken care of, they received the spare machine guns that both I and Ayda took with us, with a quick explanation on how to shoot. 

Neither of the two of us that knew how guns worked had any hopes in their shots. Rather than serving as a barrier between the rag-tag group of wizard's oppression victims, they were only capable of putting doubt into any enemy daring enough to approach us and alerting me at the same time.

Thanks to this, we managed to avoid two of the attacks the wizards attempted to launch before we were ready to depart. With a few shots announcing the intent, I would then quickly turn my head towards the direction of the sound only to trace my eyes alongside the line of the gun's barrel.

Once the direction of attack would become obvious, I wouldn't even bother pulling my stones out. As average shooter as I was, with the high-powered rifles supplied directly from the warehouses of now worthless military equipment, even if I missed the first few shots, their range more than made up for it. 

"Hey! We are ready!" 

Before the third attack could fall on our heads, Ayda finally shouted to me. Taking a look behind, I could see that while the former prisoners were still in a pretty bad state, a sudden abundance of food allowed them to forcibly move forward. 

"No matter how I look at them, it's not going to be easy to escape." 

Looking at the bunch, I was convinced. The only direction we could take would be straight towards the village. Due to my slightly reckless usage of Sander's recurring stones, there was only a small cone of land that wasn't subjected to my disasters. And just like the wizards before, we would have no other choice but to use it. 

"Let's go then. Nothing good will come from just standing in place."

This was when the true difficulty of the mission would begin. No matter how long we thought about it, there was no way to safely transport the former prisoners back to the village.

If we were to bring more people with us, then it would be impossible to sneak out to the arena. If we were to station them just a small distance away from the place, they would be likely to be hit by the magic of the stones. While there were ways to solve this particular problem, every solution gave birth to more problems, ultimately forcing the two of us to just go on our own.

"Ah, if you are worried about moving those people, then we can just wait for an hour or two. In that time, a mercenary group I'm used to working with should make their way here. While they are not the best…"

Just as Hubert started speaking, I heard shouts from where we told the guards to stay. As soon as I turned my head towards it, I could see one of the former injuries raising his weapon before aiming it down at the approaching group. 

"Hold your fire!"

Alerted by Hubert's words, I managed to stop the man just in time. Just a single moment later, and the mercenaries that Hubert apparently brought here would turn into another batch of enemies.

"Seriously… You should've told us that sooner…" 

Shaking my head while unable to believe that someone socially high enough to speak to Ayda in the tone he initially had, would be so damn useless when it came to important matters.

"Sorry, sorry, it just slipped out of my head. But just give me a moment…" Chasing to the front, Hubert strained his eyes for a moment before turning his head back towards us with a smile of accomplishment all over his face. "Yeah, it's them. The burning fang."