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Chapter 200 - Red Eyes (Thank you for your support, Thomas Allard!)
🕑 Added 2024-11-17 16:42:26 +0000 UTCClarice made up her mind and then she grabbed a pair of curved knives from under her clothes. They looked pretty sick, but I wasn’t confident in her combat skills at close range.
“Use my bow instead. If you break it, then you will have to pay for it.”
I tossed the bow to her and then grabbed my short swords. While I could do my best and bombard them with Mystic Barrage, it was better not to show my best cards at the very beginning of a fight… still, that might as well be the best option, given how many enemies are around.
“You should try to remain camouflaged. I think that they know who I am and they won’t try to kill me that easily.”
“What if they are working for someone who hates your family?”
“... I will take my chances.”
I didn’t want to take my chances. That was why I was planning to kill everyone. Her idea wasn’t half bad. Splitting the focus of the enemies into two areas was better than one.
I put a mana core into my belt and then a bunch of magic smoke bombs hit the ground. The smoke began to spread around and soon enveloped us. When the smoke dissipated, only Clarice could be seen.
The enemies looked around in confusion in search of me, but soon their attention was taken by Clarice when she summoned some arrows and fired at them. She was surprised at how light the bow felt and how fast the arrows flew at the enemies. Two of them were hit in the chest and soon the other spread around… Clarice looked a bit shaken for a moment, but soon she hardened her expression.
The enemies moved around enough to give her a hard time choosing a target, but as soon as the two of them stopped in the middle of a tree branch, they trembled when they felt the burning pain on their backs…. When they turned around, they saw two green spheres in the air glaring at them coldly.
You received 1855 experience points.
You received 1855 experience points.
When the others noticed what had happened, they pointed their bows and fired a barrage of arrows at them, but I used the bodies as a shield and prevented all the attacks. When they began to surround me, I put another mana core on my belt and then the amulet created a bunch of magic smoke bombs.
The enemies kept firing arrows in the middle of the smoke screen, but they could tell that they had hit nothing and when the smoke dissipated, they only found the corpses of their allies almost falling from the branches.
“Capture her first and he will be an easy target, afterwards!”
Well, that didn’t take long. As expected of wannabe assassins, they sure can make up their minds rather fast… All the assassins turned around and then jumped to gang on Clarice. She used Rapid Fire several times and then unleashed several arrows on the enemies. Still, they grabbed their knives and blocked them… Some got hit here and there, but they avoided being hit on the vitals.
I couldn’t help but smile… they were truly not very bright. Just because they saw me giving my bow to Clarice, they thought that I didn’t have others… My hand crossbow was already loaded with five bolts and I fired them into five different enemies.
The impacts made the bolts explode alongside the bodies of the targets… several of the enemies around were engulfed by the flames as well, but it looked like their clothes weren’t that easy to burn.
As the enemies rolled on the ground on flames, Clarice recovered from the blast of the flames… the heat was still high around her, but she endured and soon began to finish off the enemies. She hesitated a bit, but I made sure to finish off most of the enemies from my hiding spot.
You received 1855 experience points.
You received 1855 experience points.
You received 1855 experience points.
When the battle was over, I moved around fast and then recovered the bodies of the enemies… I didn’t want to let anyone guess what had happened there. It was better to keep that kind of information hidden.
“What now?”
“... Let’s return to the old home. I need to think about a few things.”
“All right, keep putting these on the amulet that I lent you. Be careful with your steps.”
We left the area in a hurry with Shadow Step amulets, but soon Clarice told me to stop since she couldn’t sense anyone following us. We still began to run at full speed ahead, though.
We moved for a couple of hours without making any talk… We all had a lot to think about it. Something was off with the Aeloria Dominion, and I wondered if the actions of the empire caused that. The empire and this land had their fair share of trouble over the years, but it was still odd… it felt like they were going to team up against the dwarves. But would that really happen?
‘It is obvious that some backstabbing is going to take place, but it looks like the elves are willing to take their chances… I can only imagine that some of the big shots of this place want the war to happen, no matter the cost. Or maybe some insurgents were acting out of their own volition.’
“I need to talk with grandma and my brother about this… they should have some ideas of what is going on.”
“You don’t think that your brother is involved?”
“No… he is a massive pain in the ass, but he is truly genuinely interested in protecting our lands. He wouldn’t risk starting a war that would destroy our forest. Even if he had a golden chance to attack the confederacy.”
I couldn’t say if Clarice’s opinion was biased or not, but at least I had to consider what she thinks… her grandmother wasn’t working with the big shots of the Aeloria Dominion any longer. She did that in the past, but she retired when the previous leader of the Silver Bows stepped away as well. Even if she had been away from the main scene, she should have some ideas about what was going on.
We had two hours before sunrise when we reached the town where I met Clarice, and soon I realized that something was off. The atmosphere was weird, too oppressive… Clarice realized that as well and raised her guard. We approached the first house above the shop and soon we confirmed that it was empty… Clarice’s grandmother was no longer there.
After looking around nervously, Clarice didn’t find any signs of battles, so she felt a bit relieved, but she knew that her grandmother wouldn’t have left the town without a good reason. In the next moment, she looked at me a bit anxiously and with a look of guilt in her face, then I immediately understood the message…
We headed to the old house in a hurry and found the place completely empty. Everything was the same as before, but there were no signs of Glacien or of battles. We went to check the rooms where Clarice’s friends were supposed to be resting, but they were all empty.
“No signs of battles… were they forced to surrender to someone or did they betray you?”
“... I can’t say for sure…”
Working with a group of people in that line of business without trusting them completely had many demerits… it was impossible to read their intentions and, thanks to it, Clarice couldn’t tell what had truly happened.
“... I am sorry, Regulus… I…”
I ignored Clarice’s words and began to focus… for situations like that, I used my paranoia to its full power. I looked around the room with a bit more attention and soon found some marks at the entrance of the floor… It was a bit damp as well.
“Glacien left without putting up a fight. I told her that if something like this were to happen, she should just do her best to leave some marks behind with frozen claws skill.
“How could she do that without being noticed?”
“I taught her in the last few months to walk with only three paws and then use the other to mark the path that she will follow. Her bracelets recover mana, so she will be able to use that skill once every two minutes, but the traces will soon vanish… let’s go. Your grandmother should be with her. They wouldn’t have taken them in the middle of the day.”
Whoever attacked them, you wouldn’t have been able to do it the previous night, since we only attacked when the sun was about to rise. Soon enough, I found another mark on the grass. There was a bit of water there and a line that Glacien created with her claws.
“Wait, I will grab my bow.”
Clarice went in a hurry to her grandmother’s home and then returned with her bow and that quiver that I was interested in. Even if the quiver was amazing, the cost of mana was pretty high. She would have to keep using the effect a bunch of times to stock enough powerful arrows.
Finding the traces of Glacien’s mark outside the town was hard… but I recalled that I had the glasses that had the Enhanced Vision effect. I also could use Hawk’s vision, making both of them feel like I was using a microscope.
I couldn’t rush ahead, or I could make some mistakes along the way… morning was coming, so finding them before that was pretty much impossible.
At first, Clarice tried to walk beside me, but soon she stepped away when she saw in the darkness, the color of my eyes changing from green to red now and then. I could feel that too, but at this point in time, the weird feelings that my blood usually makes me feel felt like a minor nuisance now.
I considered that something like this could happen and that is why I parted ways with Nimir when I had the chance to do what I could for him, but it looked like I forgot about that and didn’t worry too much when I tamed Glacien. She was an animal, not a person… Since I used her to fight, it was clear that eventually, she would die.
I should have accepted that when she joined me, but I still couldn’t accept someone using her to get to me for whatever reason… even if half of the forest had to be burned down, I would make those people regret their choices.
Comments
MagicWafflez
regulus is going to john wick some elves... lets hope it doesn't come to that. he has very *very* few emotional attachments, they should beware what will happen of they're severed.
