Althea
The wind swept past her hair, moving it into her face again. Althea grunted, forcing the wind to calm down. Just as she did so, another gust of wind blew right past her dress, pulling it into her legs. Even with it billowing outwards in a cone shape, these gusts of wind were strong enough to force it into her path.
Ignoring her fashion difficulties, she looked down at the scene below her, unsure if she even had a chance at finding something. Aasha was an intelligent enough girl, but somehow ALthea doubted she understood what it meant to look at things from this high up.
Even a Master's eyesight wasn't quite enough to make out an encampment, especially with the canopy blocking her view. Still, it had been worth checking out. There might be a chance that there was some visible camp that she could spot. A castle, perhaps? How, and why a collaboration of bandit gangs running a jumped up black market would get their hand on a castle eluded her. The bandits in books just seemed to love them.
Althea could safely say that at least this black market was taking place under the cover of trees. There was no sign of it from this high up in the sky, but the dense jungle gave excellent cover for any illicit dealings.
The mountains, that were really just hills, jutted out gradually in her sight, casting their shadow on the plain. For some reason, that had just made the entire jungle turn orange. A reddish-orange that reminded her of the sunset. The trees also seemed very dense to her, but she couldn't really tell. Traveling there would be simple enough, but then she would have to leave Aasha alone. In a forest filled with beasts that could kill her.
Now that they were actually traveling, she was starting to regret letting Aasha tag along. A guide was well and good, but this guide was a Novice. This forest was weak as far as forests went, but it was still far too much for Aasha. Not to mention how slow walking was. Even with her carrying the girl around… Althea shook her head, dropping back down to where she had left the girl.
A moose sat beneath her leg, looking like it was far too powerful for the girl to kill.
"Do I even want to know?" she half mumbled. Aasha just beamed at her.
"I got us lunch!"
Althea rolled her eyes. "I don't really eat moose."
"Oh," Aasha actually looked a bit dejected.
"What were you even doing, chasing after a dangerous beast like that?" she asked, not able to keep herself quiet.
"I mean, it was…near. I knew I could take it. There is this part of their neck that's-"
"And what if it wasn't?" she asked. " What if the part of the neck you were thinking of targeting wasn't a delicate portion for this moose? Having a few differences is common, even among beasts of the same species. Not to mention, your aim could have easily missed!"
"Well, it worked. I am not reckless, you know!" Aasha said, her face puffing up as she put on a stubborn expression. Althea had to remind herself that she was dealing with a sixteen-year-old, a teenager with far too much bravado.
"Just don't make too much trouble." she said as she pulled her close and levitated them both into the sky. The last few days of meditation had more than tripled her mana, pushing her right up to peak Master stage, but she still didn't want to waste any more mana than she had to. Levitating still took core mana, and she needed that if it came down to a fight.
Even though Zhang had been pretty easy to kill, Feng and that unknown man had been anything but. If she faced monsters like that again, she would have to pull out her fire attack to even hold a chance. The lightning attack had unreal amounts of power.
Even her aunt's attack did not seem to hold that much power, though that was likely an illusion. The black fog was known for its sneakiness. That lightning strike? Althea was sure the flowers saw it coming.
But it still worried her. Staying in the Diery county, she had sort of forgotten about how much more powerful people were. Of course, she knew it intellectually, but there was a difference between reading it on paper and an attack nearly electrocuting you.
Even this black market made her nervous now. There was no saying who was waiting for her there. For once, she could not just march in or send a subordinate. Heck, she had to change into something more practical.
The jeweled dress was far too conspicuous. What kind of person went to a black market full of thieves, bandits and other vagrants wearing a dress made of jewels? Even fools were wiser.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Well, she could deal with that later. First, she would check it out with her mana sense. Perhaps after that, she would return to Gramma's village for a change of clothes. And drop Aasha off too. Yes, she should do that. A black market was no place for a Novice.
There were too many things that could kill her. The incident she'd had with bandits had shown her how easy it was to accidentally kill people with a Master's power. And that was a bunch of Journeymen.
… Just like the thief. Now that she thought about it, she really needed some less lethal ways to deal with people. The chances of the staff being in this market was rare. The chances of her finding some thug that might know where she could find it was much higher. But she could hardly question thugs if she kept killing them.
Althea brought them down to the canopy's edge, hovering just above it as she extended her mana sense. Even though her sense extended far, to properly get an idea of what was going on, she needed to get close. There was nothing she needed to worry about as far as she could sense.
But she couldn't be sure.
Trying again, she swept the area, making sure she had not missed anything. The issue was that mana sense was for sensing mana, and it proved quite inadequate when she tried using it to sense people. A normal mage scaring the beasts away using their mana was easy to detect.
A bunch of martial artists that were trying to be sneaky were much harder to make apart. Martial artists just used so little mana outside of fights that it was hard to differentiate them from the Southern Continent's mana hungry, carnivorous wildlife. So, she had to spend a long time checking and verifying things.
Thankfully, the camp wasn't that hard to spot. After spending an hour or so slowly levitating through the darkened area, she encountered it. A surprisingly small place for something this renowned, but it was definitely what she was looking for.
There were just a few thousand people, but the average cultivation was in Journeyman. Not even established noble families had this kind of force. There was at least one Adept here that was hiding certain areas from her, and dozens of Masters. Gramma's information panned out, this had to be the black market. Now to see how she could infiltrate-no.
Althea's eyes narrowed as she looked at the thief, replaying the memory from her mind to confirm her recognition. Yes, this was the same person. The staff wasn't around, but he could have stored it somewhere. What did she do now? Just leaving suddenly felt risky. The thief was right there. If she went back to Gramma's village to change and then returned, it would be far too late. The thief could have moved on by then.
Growling in frustration, she clenched her fist. How hilarious. There was a spacial ring on her finger that had quite a bit of space in it, but it only had cakes. Why had she not thought to stock necessities when it cost her so little?
Oh, right, she didn't expect that she would face any difficulties. Even if it pained her to admit it, she had grown rather complacent back in the Diery county. Now, that was enough thinking. What she needed was to find a way to get the thief without entering the black market, drawing that Adept's attention, or killing him.
That was sure to be easy.
"I don't suppose you know how to retrieve a thief from the black market?" she asked Aasha rhetorically.
"Well, you could have one of the others there do it." Aasha said.
Althea swerved her head around suddenly." What?"
"The black market isn't exactly a safe place, I am sure someone will be ready to kidnap him for you."
"Of course." Why didn't she think of that? There wasn't even any need to hire someone. As long as she didn't make a big scene and disrupted the market, she doubted that Adept would care. If he even cared at all. What was an Adept doing here anyway, weren't they, like, rare?
Althea wasn't foolish enough to go looking for the Adept, but she did wonder. Wait, she was drifting again. This was time to catch that bloody thief. Thinking quickly, she scanned the market, looking for things she could use to attack that wouldn't involve blowing things up. Or dropping boulders on him. Not sand. The herbs weren't really effective. The mind magic artifacts were way too weak.
Hmm, what about the flaura. There were poisonous plants. And she did have a guide.
"Aasha, are there any plants that can put a Journeyman to sleep?" she asked.
"Wait, you've already got the thief?" the girl asked.
"Yes, now about hose plants?"
"Well, those bushes should do the trick." Aasha said, pointing to their left, where she could barely see a bunch of rabbits lying dead.
"Darknight thorns, not very deadly if they're treated quickly, but they can knock you out pretty quick."
Althea narrowed her eyes. "How do you cure them?"
"Just give them a little Setflower extract." Aasha said.
"And where can I get this extract?" she asked, raising an eyebrow as she considered her guide.
"Gramma has some. As long as you get the thief to her in, like, three hours, he'll be fine." Aasha shrugged.
Althea didn't waste time, extracting a few of those thorns from a nearby bush and implanting them into a breeze. The breeze then flew into the black market, flying straight towards the thief. Having it target just him was a bit difficult.
A breeze that played lodge with people was more than noticeable, and the thief might bolt if he saw it coming. Not to mention the other people there that were sure to have targets on their heads. So she opted to have the breeze flow over their heads, drop the thorns right behind the thief, and then use another gust to have them inserted into his neck.
Thankfully, the market had a lot of corners. And alleys. So many places someone could just disappear into. Like bodies that suddenly fell unconscious and needed to be stored somewhere temporarily. At least no one had noticed the thief fall unconscious.
There was, however, a slight issue. How did she get the body out of there? The alleys might be dark and stuff, but levitating an entire body was still a lot of mana. There was bound to be someone that detected it, even if the Adept ignored it.
Going in there herself was not an option. But…she looked at her companion, the reckless teenager she was sure would be more than happy to take the risk. That was why she simply pulled the body towards her with as much magic as she could muster, collected it in her hands, and then made a run for it.