It was the voice of Sylvia. I’m surprised, but answer, “Please do.”
She appears with her hammer beside her, as she puts it down to take a seat unreservedly.
“How’s your injuries?”, she asks concernedly.
“Nothing much, I’m almost perfectly healed by the potion.”, I reply in assurance.
“Hmm~ Is that so?”, she asks cheekily.
“What?”, I ask, in response to her eyeing me with a look of suspicion.
“Have you changed your clothes?”, she changes the topic suddenly.
“I just came back.”, I reply instinctually, shaking my head.
She stares at me with a huge grin.
I begin to feel uncomfortable at her gaze.
Wait…
My clothes?
I look down.
Only to see my clean and slightly ruffled clothes.
Clean?
How could I miss such a thing…
I sigh in exasperation, “You got me…”
I say as I raise my hands in surrender.
If I were struck by Ruk with full force, how could I get out of it with my clothes being intact?
They would have simply broke apart by the effect of ‘Additional Impact’ triggering.
This was really my mistake.
“Of course, who do you think I am?”, she says cockily.
“So? You can’t have come by just to laugh at my foolishness, right?”
“That’s half the reason.”
She pauses.
“The other half is to silence you.”, she says playfully.
As I widen my eyes in shock, she laughs.
“Well, it’s good to see that you’re surprised. Since you chose to bet on the innocence of the Ogre man, I would have thought that you were thinking I was the suspect.”
I sigh in relief, “Don’t even joke about that… my heart almost stopped…”
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“That’s your fault for hiding this from me.”, she replies nonchalantly, letting out a ‘Hmph’.
“Alright, alright, I’m sorry.”
“Since you don’t think it’s me, it’s time to explain to me who you think it is.”, she says seriously.
“The strike was too telling, too clearly a setup for the Ogre man. If anything, I blocked off both you and the Ogre man as the suspects. My biggest suspect now is Wind, she may be an archer, but who’s to say she doesn’t have a magic item capable of dealing such a blow?”
“Furthermore, you’ve said before that she’s from a small elf village. I’ll be honest, since you probably already guessed it, the potion is the main item we’re transporting. The batch of potions isn’t something one person would covet, they wouldn’t be able to use it by themselves.”
“Selling stolen goods is obviously out of the question, since whoever wanted these would find out easily.That leaves someone with an organisation, like that village of hers.”, I explain, as Sylvia nods thoughtfully.
“That’s impressive deduction there, Mr Detective.”, she compliments.
“I still failed and exposed my plan though.”, I laugh self-deprecatingly..
“Don’t worry, I don’t think anyone else noticed, Wind didn’t even come over afterall.”, she assures me.
“I do hope so.”
“It is so. You- You’re really playing with fire though. With your level of power, any one of us could kill you... “, she says concernedly, looking at me with complicated feelings, some of compliment and some of regretfulness.
“I don’t have a choice, if I didn’t do so, and the perpetrator decided to silence all witnesses after getting what they wanted, we’ll all be buried here. I’m taking precaution exactly due to my weak self.”, As I say this, I think back to the peaceful bowl of soup I had on our first night of camping in the forest.
Then I think of the stale and hard bread I ate earlier.
I sigh.
It’s really a huge disparity.
“It’s sometimes a burden to be able to do something, huh…”, she says, relating to my thoughts.
“Don’t worry about it, I’ll protect you if anything happens!”, she says brightly after a moment, smiling.
At this moment, we hear a soft muffled sound.
The sound would most certainly be unnoticed if we were asleep, even if lightly.
We react quickly, looking at each other.
Sylvia grabs her hammer quickly, as we rush out of the tent.
Heading straight for the cavern where the potions were stored, we see a servant lying on the ground, and a slim figure taking something off the caravan.
As we reach within 1 metre, I quickly shout loudly, “STOP!”
The shout alarms the person, who drops a potion on the grass floor.
Sounds of people waking up are heard.
As we look more closely, we see distinct pointy ears of a certain species.
It was Wind.
Zhe Yun, having only just rested, quickly starts rushing over.
Looking at all of us, Wind has a shocked expression.
However, she quickly regains her composure.
“Why is it you?”, Sylvia asks, even though we had our guesses.
Wind doesn’t reply, keeping silent.
After seconds pass, she lets out, “If you just let me take the potions quietly, we could have stayed together safely till we reached… but now…”
She takes out a small chalice.
Facing all of our staring, she seems casual.
“Our village needs this to improve our living conditions. I’m sorry for all of you, but with this artifact, I’ll have all of you buried here.”
“It’s funny, isn’t it. If the Ogre was here, he may have been able to block this strike, but with your classes, there’s no way you can defend against this
As I furrow my brows, while preparing my
“Do you really think a single Magic Artifact can bury all of us?”, I challenge her words.
She raises her brow, “It seems you’re not familiar with this item. I don’t like to speak much, but nonetheless, I’ll answer your last question.”
“It’s an artifact exclusive to elf villages, able to be used once to unleash an Area of Effect attack, similar to the power of a Class 2 Mage. The Ogre might have been able to tank it, but the strength heavy Berserker class most certainly can’t.”, She says, while looking at Sylvia.
Sylvia furrows her brows.
“Well, goodbye.”, she says, as the object in her hands starts to glow.
Zhe Yun and Sylvia charge towards her actions, wanting to stop it, despite knowing they wouldn’t reach in time.
However, at this time, Wind feels a bad foreboding.
As she continues to activate the artifact, she feels a weird wind behind her.
She wants to turn around to check, but before she gets the chance to do so, she hears the muttering, ‘Double Impact’ from behind her.
Before she reacted, the Ogre man launched a terrifying strike from behind her, striking her twice in her chest.
She spurts a mouthful of blood out, as she lets go of the Chalice during the process.
Having suffered fatal injuries with her weak constitution, she looks up at her assailant.
“Wha- How?!”, she says in disbelief.
She then quickly realises something, turning to look at me.
“So… that’s the case.”
The Ogre man, Ruk, towered over her, as Zhe Yun and Sylvia surround her as well.
She stares at the gang.
“I guess the whole thing felt too convenient, haha.”, she says, laughing at her naive thoughts.
Saying this, she grabs a short knife on her waist, quickly slitting her own throat, as we look in surprise.
“Convenient? Wait…”, I mutter, upon hearing her words.
As I start to come to a realisation, events flashing back, a sound flashes.
*Shing*
The Ogre man Ruk, who relaxed slightly seeing the death of Wind, now had a gaping slit on his neck.
“Wha-”, he tries to say, before his head lands on the ground with a thud.