"Nope, we are going back."
Huge spells were being casted left and right. People were running at speeds fast enough to cause wind currents, and weapons were clashing so hard that the sound was making my ears ring.
At the notice of such notorious slave traders being spotted, it wasn't just people from Toride that participated. Adventurers from the three nearby cities came too.
It's not like the attack on the Filthy Foxes would be made on the same day they were spotted, they were tailed until we were ready to attack. As such, there was enough time for all kinds of people to get here.
This battle was the result of that.
"Can I at least cast Fire Meteor?"
"Are you sure you'll be able to hit only our enemies in such a chaotic battlefield?"
"No... But I can cast some other spells."
"Do you think any of your other spells would have significant impact on the fight?"
"No... But it's still something, isn't it? I don't want to stand and watch people die."
I sighed. She wasn't wrong, but what could we really get out of this?
'It just feels too chaotic.'
With so many different variables: adventurers, traders and the slaves themselves, I just couldn't guarantee everything would turn out okay, and I couldn't guarantee any profits.
If the amount of variables was reduced by a factor of ten, I could probably calculate something, but with so many people at once? It was just too much.
'If there was one place we could get some recognition, it would be at the slaves' side.'
The slaves were kept in carriages. To make sure they couldn't be used as hostages, adventurers were surrounding the carriages, as if they were precious.
Those people were under the most pressure, and that's why that group was made up of the strongest of the bunch.
'Hm, she's pretty talented, huh?'
The rude girl was one of those people.
She was more powerful than me, by an amount that was even greater than when we first met.
'Well, she deserves it.'
My training made Mitsuki look lazy, but the rude girl's training made me look like a softie. Of course she would be so powerful after so much effort.
'Doesn't mean she's stronger than me though.'
I continued observing the situation, looking for anything we could do.
Then, I decided to change my perspective.
'Ah, I see. While there are a lot of variables, they are not of the same value.'
Obviously some people had more effect on the battle than others. If I were to focus on just those specific few...
'―――'
My eyes narrowed. The strongest of the traders didn't seem that nervous despite being outnumbered and outpowered.
"Let's explore a bit, shall we?"
I started walking, and the trio followed behind me.
Walking a bit away from where the carriages were, I frowned.
"Erdia, Goddess of Earth, you are the kindest."
Once again, I said a compliment and offered mana. I was then graced with the Blessing of Earth.
I spread my mana through the earth. With the blessing, it was much easier compared to normally.
And this time around, I wasn't going to control the earth, I was just going to sense through it.
'―!'
I had gotten lucky. For the first time in my life, I had rolled the dice and succeeded.
"So, I had found some more traders. They are underground."
The trio looked at me with surprise.
"Well, more accurately, I found an escape route for them. There are underground tunnels here. Multiple even."
Mitsuki frowned with a serious expression.
"We should probably inform others of this."
"Right, that's also important, but what's more urgent is finding out whether they are any slaves down there."
"Why?"
"Because if there aren't any, I can just collapse everything."
Mitsuki nodded.
"I'll go inform some people then."
She ran off, as she wasn't that useful in reconnaissance.
"Hey, you have any ideas on what you can do?"
Souma shook his head, while Leila tilted her head in thought.
"We just go around and search for people, right?"
"That's what I was thinking. Souma, you really don't know what you can do?"
"No. I'll just follow Leila, I guess."
Leila took a deep breath.
"Erdia, Goddess of Earth, you are the coolest."
I started walking along the path of one underground passage, while Leila went to another one. Our mana sense didn't have enough range to just see all of them in one go.
Suddenly, I started hearing voices from far away in the direction of the tunnel. I enhanced my ears.
"Tsk, how did we even get found out? So many products gone..."
"Be grateful we still have the most important ones."
"I guess, but Madam's gonna be really mad."
My eyes gleamed.
'So the slaves back there were bait.'
While those were stalling the adventurers, these ones would run away. It would still be a loss for the traders, but on a much lesser extent.
'Souma and Leila probably encountered something similar.'
Enchancing my eyesight, I carefully looked forward amidst the trees.
With my limited field of view, I couldn't see much, but it was still clear that there was a whole group of traders there. Considering the two voices, those were probably the leaders of this group.
"So, where's the escape carriage?"
"You should know that. Did you not pay attention again?"
"Just answer the fucking question."
"Haaaa, it's further north, hidden inside a hill."
"Alright. Everyone, you heard him, run!"
Considering how some of the guys' expressions changed, he probably put a bit of killing intent into his voice.
Once they all started running, I started Thinking about my options.
'―――Tsk.'
Honestly, we were too late.
There were multiple underground passages, which lead to different hidden escape carriages, which would all go in different directions.
Whether we liked it or not, catching all was impossible.
'But can I even catch these ones?'
I started running while continuing to consider my options.
I was still weak, but was I really so weak I couldn't even stop these guys?
'...Not anymore.'
All of the traders in this group seemed at least somewhat capable, as such, they ran pretty fast. But I was fast enough to overtake them if I spent some mana.
I ran to the point where I was in front of them, but still far enough for them to not notice me.
Then, I threw a couple poison bombs.
The whole group stopped right before the poison cloud.
"Be careful! They're onto us!"
'That's right, think that I'm a whole army.'
There's no way these traders would expect that only one weak person was sent to take care of them. As such, it was in my best interest to keep that misunderstanding alive for as long as possible.
I cracked my neck and fingers.
'Let's get a bit serious, shall we?'
***
The big fuckard beside me started carefully looking around.
"Hey, skrawny, you got any plans?"
I sighed. This bastard was annoying, but I had to work with him by the order of Madam.
I looked around. Every single guy apart from me had a slave on their shoulder.
"Well, Prest, we have hostages. The opponent wouldn't do anything that would compromise their survival. As such, we could just run around the poison cloud without even caring about traps or ambu―"
"THE GROUND IS CAVING IN!"
Just a second after that warning from Prest, the ground disappeared from beneath us.
We didn't fall far, but when we did, we noticed that we were now surrounded by mist.
"EVERYONE COME TOWARDS MY VOICE!"
"WHAT? NO! MY VOICE IS THE REAL ONE! THAT'S AN IMPERSONATOR!"
The voices were quite different, anybody could tell the difference between the two if they just listened a bit closer.
The problem is, from all the ground being destroyed, a lot of sound was made by the trees falling, and a lot of people were dazed despite the warning.
The two voices continued shouting constantly, which didn't help with the sense overload.
I stood up. Things felt bad.
'So they made the mist below the ground, and then made the ground collapse. It seems the opponent is quite smart.'
"Prest, threaten the hostage!"
Prest was right beside me before the ground collapsed. He would definitely be close by and would be able to hear me.
"IF YOU DON'T STOP THIS, I WILL CUT THE NECK OF THE GIRL ON MY SHOULDER!"
The fake voice didn't stop at all, but now that some time passed, the confusion of everyone was way less.
"Just keep shouting. Your voices are not similar at all."
"EVERYONE COME HERE!"
"NO, COME HERE!"
Despite the shouting, I could hear footsteps nearing our location.
'Too little.'
Instead of the six I was expecting, I could hear four at most.
This was bad bad.
'God fucking dammit! Why do I have to deal with this?! What did I do?! I just don't want my wife to die, why are you not giving me a break, Solevitasn?!'
Cursing at the heavens, I focused.
The mist was now a bit more see-through. I could see Prest and four other guys beside him. All of them had slaves on their shoulders
"Tsk, these fuckers, they think I won't go through with killing the hostages. HEY, THIS IS NOT A BLUFF! ANOTHER MOVE, AND SOMEONE DIES!"
Silence. No more attacks came, no voices answered.
I brushed the dirt from my clothes.
'Finally done. These bastards are really smart.'
Prest was the strongest guy here right now. As such, it would make sense he carried the person with the most value.
But that ended up backfiring on us. Prest might've said that he would kill the girl, but she was too valuable to kill, so he was bluffing. The opponent saw through that bluff
Now though, with hostages that weren't as important close by, his words were no longer bluffs, and the opponent recognized that, stopping the attack.
My eyes narrowed.
'No way people as smart as that would give up now.'
"Should we go now?"
"Not yet. We have to figure out their plans."
I halted Prest's momentum. If we acted too rashly, we might end up with more losses.
'But standing still didn't do us good either. The ground was literally pulled from under us...'
I had to come up with something fast.
'Considering the scale of the magic, there are probably at least 3 mages. Since only two of our guys got killed, there are probably only two frontliners on their team.'
So there were five of them against the six of us.
'The mages probably already spent one-fourth of their mana, and the fighters are a bit down too. We are completely good in the mana department though.'
In the first place, there was an important aspect to consider.
The enemy was smart, and they were using that to win. But what did that mean?
That meant they couldn't win without using their brains. They weren't strong enough to win by virtue of being strong.
'The situation's not hopeless.'
I could see my wife again. That knowledge gave me courage.
"Yes, we should go. Stay as close as possible, and have a weapon right next to one of the slaves' necks. We don't run, and focus on our hearing and mana sense."
I whispered that last part, to make sure the opponent wouldn't hear.
We started slowly advancing forward.
We were very focused... and nothing was happening.
'If we just keep going like this, they can't do anything!'
And as the silence dragged on for a long long time... the whole mist suddenly disappeared.
'The mana must've run out.'
All of us looked around, and we were shocked.
There was one pair of footsteps. Everywhere around us, that lonely pair was everywhere.
'It was just one guy?!'
Suddenly, Prest's eyes widened and he ran off without an explanation.
"Wait!"
But it was useless, he had already run off. He even left behind the girl he was carrying.
I wondered why he would do that, but then I noticed.
That pair of footsteps, it disappeared in the direction of―
"Our escape carriage!"
'The opponent never planned to win, they just planned to cut off our escape route!'
They had played us for fools!
'Dammit! Prest, run faster!'
I prayed that Prest would catch up to the opponent before they destroyed our only means of escape.
**―
"Aargh!"
I turned to the sudden sound behind me.
There, I saw one of ours being stabbed in the neck by a... cute boy?
I shook my head, appearances didn't matter. I got into a fighting stance, same as the other three.
I immediately noticed something.
'This boy has the same footprint as the footsteps all around us. He's the opponent!'
And then, it dawned on me.
'He tricked Prest!'
He didn't go to the carriage, those footprints were bait!
"You're smart and careful. Unfortunately, that didn't really matter, all because your allies aren't."
The boy smiled. It was a carefree smile, as if he was just doing something mundane without any thoughts of failure.
I stiffened. This boy looked cute, but he was extremely dangerous and not to be taken lightly.
One of my guys put a dagger next to a hostage's throat.
"I think you should stop right now."
"Why."
That response stumped all of us. Wasn't this guy supposed to be smart?
"If you don't, I'll kill her."
The boy slowly shook his head.
"Ah, I see, you misunderstood me. I didn't mean why I should stop, I meant why should I care about her?"
All of our eyes widened.
"I am alone here, and history is written by the victors. 'Oh, I was too late. I couldn't do anything about it.' There wouldn't be any witnesses to suggest otherwise."
It was at that point that I realized ―I was looking at a crazy person.
He didn't attack us to save the hostages, he attacked us for the sake of gaining reputation.
Nothing else mattered to him.
'This fucker... he's more crazy than me!'
At least I was doing all this for the sake of my wife! This guy only cared about himself!
'Why does a bastard like this deserve a better life than me?!'
I hated this boy, I hated Madam, I hated Prest, I hated this world, I hated everything!
Why is my life like this?!
As I was lamenting my life like usual, a realization struck my mind.
"Attack him, the bastard doesn't have much mana left!"
'He's been stalling for time!'
Now that I thought about it, it was absolutely ridiculous for a single person to pull off what he did. He was bound to be low on mana!
Just like I thought, the carefree smile on his face completely disappeared and he clicked his tongue.
"What? Where did your smug attitude go?"
I smirked. I wouldn't be tricked anymore by his mind games! I was smart! Yes, I was definitely smart, he just had the advantage of a sneak attack! I wouldn't lose to him!
'I will see my wife again, all because I'm smart! As it has always been and always will be!'
We threw the hostages to the ground and ran at him.
He started running back, making sure we couldn't surround him.
Me and the only female trader left started casting magic at him. He was getting hit by some, but it didn't do meaningful damage due to his leather armor.
All of our strong spells, he answered with his own or dodged. All of our weak spells, he took head-on or answered with his dagger.
The two guys who were just doing nothing sped up to catch up to him. In response, he put the dagger into his left hand, took out some poison-covered needles out of a pouch on his belt and threw them at the two frontliners' faces.
The two frontliners raised their shields to block the attack.
My eyes widened.
"LEFT―!"
That was all I could say before the boy stabbed the frontliner on the left in the gut with speed I couldn't follow.
'Using these petty tricks like line of sight! Annoying bastard!'
But the death didn't matter. We just had to make him run out of mana, that's all that mattered. Considering the sudden burst of speed, that kill must've taken a lot out of him!
Just like I thought, when the other frontliner attacked the boy, we drew blood. He wasn't able to dodge it!
The boy started rapidly retreating. Me and the gal continued barraging him with spells.
Slowly, wounds started appearing here and there. His movements grew dull.
To stop the frontliner from attacking, the boy was constantly throwing poison needles at him in different spots.
Then, he reached into his bag, and his hand returned empty.
His expression froze.
Finally the frontliner could start attacking.
The frontliner thrusted his sword forward and the boy caught it with his bare hand.
My brain tingled.
"Retreat!"
The frontliner let go of his sword and jumped back. Right at where the frontliner's neck used to be, the boy's dagger was there.
"Aw, man. Hey, could you be a bit dumber?"
The boy threw the sword away. His hand was barely harmed.
'Earth armor...'
He cast a spell to cover a part of his hand with earth, and used that to grab the sword without taking significant damage.
'He's been hiding his true capabilities until now!'
The earth was only there for a split second, this saved enough mana to allow him to cast a high-level spell, so that the earth itself would be extremely dense and hard to cut.
It was an awe-striking display of skill. One that I doubted I could pull off.
But him being so in control of his spells wasn't the worst part.
'I did not see him making that Shape!'
It was almost like the spell was completed out of nowhere!
It didn't make any sense. This boy didn't seem to have any artifacts on him, so where did that come from?
'If I wasn't paying close attention to his manerisms, I would've lost another guy of mine.'
It was at that thought that I noticed something... wrong.
This boy was supposed to be at low mana. No, he is at low mana... and has been for a long time now.
'So how does he still have some left?'
If the boy had been faking being low on mana, then it would've just been easier for him to move at speeds we couldn't react to and just kill all of us. He already showed us he was capable of that.
But he didn't do that.
'How? Everyone regenerates mana at the same rate. Be it the strongest magician or a sick baby...'
How was he keeping up?
I shook my head. The how wasn't important right now.
The thing that was important, was what it meant for my current situation.
My eyes widened.
He... was actually slowly gaining mana until his next big move.
'Like the sudden dash and the earth armor.'
That was this boy's plan. From the start, he had been stalling by talking and using the mist until he could kill one of ours from the get go. Then, he tried to kill another one once he got sufficient mana back.
'He might be getting more wounds, but that is not an accurate depiction of how close we are to winning.'
With the frontliner now without a sword, we were in a worse situation than I expected.
The boy has already showed he could keep up with my and the gal's magic while still regaining mana. Sure, the frontliner could try to attack with the shield, but that would compromise on his defence too much. Punching was no good either.
We couldn't outlast this bastard. And considering the spell that came out of nowhere, he still had some tricks up his sleeve.
'We need to rush before it's too late.'
And now was prime time for that, just when he used up most of his mana for a high-level spell!
"Go full force, that's the only chance we have!"
I shouted as I ran around the boy to surround him, and started getting close and personal. I didn't know much hand-to-hand, but it was better to risk that than get picked off one by one!
I started punching him. Yes, that was a bad idea, but considering the two other people who were also punching him, and the spells being fired at him, we could dodge his dagger most of the time.
I started seeing more and more red. The boy was getting tired.
'Yes! This is working! I'll kill you!'
More red filled my vision... until it was suddenly replaced by purple.
"Huh?"
My throat and lungs felt like they were burning.
I looked downwards.
There was a poison bomb there.
I immediately retreated.
I coughed up some blood.
'I haven't breathed in enough to die, but this really hurts.'
It seemed like this was the case for the other two too.
When I looked at the boy, I couldn't help but be confused.
'Why's he not coming out? Does he want to die?'
The boy slicked his hair back and frowned.
"You know what? You're annoying. Really annoying. I was planning on just getting hit a bit, but you've made me use another one of my poison bombs. They aren't cheap, you know?"
I smiled. This boy was a pain in the ass for me. Hearing that was music to my ears.
But slowly... that smile started fading away.
The boy... he was not coming out of the poison cloud. In fact, he was standing there, perfectly fine.
'He isn't affected by the poison.'
My expression froze.
Futile.
I could not win this fight.
We cannot attack him while he's in the poison cloud, but he can recover his mana.
I turned around and started running.
When you cannot win a fight, the only path left is to run. I did not hesitate even a bit.
I could hear two pairs of footsteps following me.
Then it was reduced to one, then it went back to two again. Then it was reduced to one again.
Using the timing of the previous changes as tells, I dodged to the side. With a speed I couldn't react to, a poison needle flew by next to my head.
'Just, be very attentive and careful. Calm down.'
I steadied my breathing as best as I could. The boy would need some time to regain mana, what could I do during that time?
'Nothing! I can do nothing! Fuck them all! Fuck Prest! Where the hell even is he?! And why did those guys we left behind not hinder properly?! Did we lie to them about saving them for nothing?!'
As much as I would've loved to do anything else, running and praying was all I could do.
Using the timing once again, I dodged. Another needle flew by my head... but another one hit me in the leg.
A searing pain shot through by leg and I tumbled onto the ground.
Sitting up, a shadow loomed over me.
When I looked up, I saw the boy's whole body covered in shadow.
"Please spare me! I don't want to do any of this! My wife is being held hostage! Please, I'm not a bad person!"
I kneeled, looking at the ground.
A silence followed. I could hear my heart beat and feel the sweat coming down my face.
...
"Why."
I froze.
'Ah, I had forgotten. Right... I'm in front of a crazy person.'
I wasn't going to live. My begging was useless.
A small chuckle escaped me.
Suddenly, he lifted my head with his dagger. I had no choice but to look at his face.
When I looked at it, it... surprisingly didn't look all that scary or crazy.
"I'm not giving you the satisfaction of dying in bliss. Just because you did things in the name of love doesn't excuse them. You are still a bad person. You still killed and kidnapped people."
I smiled.
"You're no better."
"I know."
The boy nodded. The longer I looked at his face, the more normal it looked.
The boy then smiled. But it wasn't a smirk or anything similar.
It was just a normal happy smile. Not sad, not crazy, not mad.
Just a smile of happiness.
A smile of a content and undoubtful person...
"Hey, this is just personal. You were an enemy I wanted to get rid of, that's it. No luck involved, no fate shenanigans, the world did not work against you because it hated you."
He slit my throat, but I still managed to hear one last thing.
"So just hate me, alright?"
***
"You two also succeeded?"
"Yeah, we stalled them until help arrived. Mostly by just setting all the trees on fire."
"Ah, I see. But you had to pay a fine for destroying the forest, right?"
"Yep. The reward is bigger than the fine though, so it was worth it. I'm honestly impressed you managed to kill all of them with no help and no property damage."
"I did not kill all of them. I lured the biggest threat away. I still had an unexpected bit of trouble though."
"You actually miscalculated something?"
"I'm not perfect. Also, one bastard was really smart. I only won because I was strictly stronger."
"So even you have moments like that, huh?"
I nodded.
That last guy I killed? He was way too smart.
I just had more tricks ready and more advantages.
Since I don't use Natural Body-Strengthening, I technically regenerate mana faster than others. I had more tools, I had the advantage of a sneak attack, and I could make Shapes without them realizing it.
If I lacked just one of those things, I would have had no choice but to run away.
'It was pretty close.'
Souma looked me up and down and frowned.
"Yeah, you do look pretty beat up."
Souma and Leila were both completely fine, since they took a different strategy from mine. I was full of wounds though.
As Souma looked at me more, his frown deepened.
"You're really beat up. Doesn't it hurt?"
'It should, logically.'
"No worries. I'm going to get some healing once we get back."
It would be a bit of an expense, but still smaller than a fine for forest damages.
'After all, it's only Mind Overload that requires a lot of money for what it is.'
I might've had a lot of wounds, but they were all shallow. This would take two golds at most, I calculated.
Souma shrugged.
"Whatever you say, but be careful, alright? We care about you."
He playfully hit my shoulder. I...
...I smirked.
"You're the ones who need to be careful. I always have a back-up plan."
I looked backwards. Despite me not being able to see her or sense her because she was too far away, I could still tell she was there.
'It's nice to have more things to fall back on in case things go wrong.'
I loosened my neck a bit.