Chapter 9

The sun shone right on my eyes and woke me up.

I have got to move that bed to where the sun can’t do that again.

I tried to go back to sleep but I suddenly remembered that we were supposed to head out to meet up with the clients today.

I jumped out of bed, washed my face and mouth and rushed downstairs. Rachel was already in the kitchen preparing breakfast.

“Oh, you’re awake. I made breakfast with what we have left.” She set down a plate of sunny-side up eggs and bread on the table.

“Thank you. Are you feeling well now?” I pulled up a chair and sat down.

“I’m okay now. The medicine he gave me worked really well.” She sat down as well.

“What were you doing anyways? Your Mana was going rampant inside you. It was some kind of Ice Magic” I broke the yolk of the egg and dipped the bread on it and ate it. A simple breakfast is always the best. Rachel did the same.

“Oh… Maybe it was because I was trying to make Cold Fire.”

“What?”

“You know, it’s fire but instead of burning you, it freezes you.”

I have absolutely no idea on how to even do that so I just let it be.

“Well, don’t do that again until you have mastered manipulating Mana.” I say that knowing that there is no way that she can do that without knowing Body Strengthening.

“I promise. I’m not too keen on freezing to death.” She says as she bites off a piece of bread. “Speaking of which, when are we meeting the clients?”

And here I thought that she was just waiting for me to finish up my food. “After we finish eating. After all, the sooner we get the job done, the better.”

“Hopefully they provide food. We won’t have enough for two days.”

“Hopefully…”

We cleaned up the dishes after we finished eating our breakfast.

“We’re just going to fly over there, since walking will take us about a week to get there.”

“Ok, I’ll just go change clothes before we go.”

After just a few minutes she came downstairs wearing the cloak we bought and a plain gray shirt and silk pants.

“Finally ready?” I said with a slight irritation in my voice. I found no use in washing up as we’re just going to get dirty again since we’re staying out there for a few days.

“I didn’t take that long…”

I waited for her to reach the bottom step before heading out of the house. “Are you going to be fine flying by yourself?” I ask.

“I’m not that used to flying but I should be fine.” She says as she starts hovering.

“That just means you need practice and this is the perfect time for that.” I went and gestured for her to lead. “I’ll catch you if you mess up.” With that, we started our flight towards the caravan.

We were travelling at a very high speed. The caravan was supposedly about three days away from Atna and we reached it in just a few hours.

“There they are.” I pointed as I get in front of Rachel. “Let’s land over there.” I pointed over to the trees just a few minutes of walk away from them and landed there.

“Why are we hiding?” Rachel whispers to me.

“It’s just a precaution.”

“For what? No doubt they would’ve seen two human figures flying towards them.” She retorted in her normal volume.

“They couldn’t have, I was casting Light Magic to keep us concealed the whole time.” We started our walk towards the caravan.

“This whole three hours of flight?”

“The whole time.”

“You’re crazy…”

“You’re the crazy one, just a few months of teaching you and you’re already so strong. You’re almost to my level.”

“That’s because you’re a good teacher. Besides, I only know how the spells work, I haven’t really mastered them.”

We argued over who is the crazier person is between us until we reached the caravan at around noon.

“Oh, we’re here.” I peeked my head out of the bushes to take a look at them. They were setting up to cook some food.

I decided to come out of the bushes and pulled Rachel with me, revealing ourselves to them.

One of the guys saw us and quickly unsheathed his sword. “Who the hell are you?!” The other people got alarmed and ran over to us unsheathing their swords and readying their bows.

~ Well that’s a warm welcome… ~ I thought as I raised my hand in surrender and Rachel did the same. “We’re from the Contractor’s Guild.”

“Oh yeah?” A young man stepped closer to us. He was wearing a leather armor protecting his stomach region and underneath it was a rather elegant robe that went down to his ankles and a sword that seemed to have a string tied so that one can’t unsheathe it hanging on his waist. “Show us your proof!” The wind blew softly making his brown hair flow with the wind.

I pulled out the contract that Leon handed to me and my obsidian guild card and Rachel also pulled out hers.

“Sages huh? …Fair enough.” He turned around and motioned his hand and the others sheathed their blades and put away their bows.

“Sorry about that. Our caravan was recently attacked by bandits so we’re quite a bit paranoid right now.” He turned back around and faced us and held out his hand. “The name’s Nicholas, Nicholas Fugue. I’m pretty much the leader of this caravan.”

Last name, that means he’s rather high up in the social hierarchy.

I shook his hand as a greeting. “My name’s Chris, the lady beside me is Rachel.” Rachel did a curtsy as she was introduced.

“It’s good that two Sages have come. We’re severely lacking in manpower after the bandits took some of our men.”

~ Severely lacking huh? ~ Including Nicholas, there are around twenty people in this caravan. That’s way too much people for just a caravan with just two wagons.

I pulled Rachel close and whispered her to be careful, to which she just nodded.

“Come on, we were just about to eat when you guys came along.” He waved his hand to signal us to follow him, so we did. We went to the back of one of the wagons and there they had set up a cooking station under the shade of the rather tall wagon.

They were preparing meat skewers. It wasn’t that appetizing as it smelled like it was just burnt animal.

“Have some, we have a lot more.” Nicholas picked up a skewer.

The meat on the skewer was a rather well-cooked meat.

I shook my head, “We just ate before we met you guys. I’ll have to pass on your offer.” Rachel also shook her head when Nicholas asked her.

“Well, more for us.” He started munching down on the skewer.

Rachel and I mostly just kept to ourselves by staying quite a few distance away from the group. Occasionally, some of them would strike a conversation with us. To which we only replied with straight to the point answers, which made them lose interest and leave us alone.

Everyone eventually finished eating and we started moving again. The rest of the trip was rather lackluster. Before we knew it, it was already sunset. “Let’s set up camp here for the day!” Nicholas stopped the caravan and declared so.

Rachel and I were each given a sleeping bag, which we just set on the ground away from the group and just sat there relaxing.

“Hey! Can you help me with this?” One of the men shouted to our direction.

“Got it!” I stood up and told Rachel to wait here for me.

“Thank you, I just need help setting up this tent.”

I grabbed hold of the stake and he started pounding it to the ground with a hammer. I looked away from it so dirt won’t get on my face. I found myself staring at one of the wagons. A silhouette was formed as the light of the sunset shone through the covers of the wagon.

~ Hmm… ~ I pondered for a bit whether or not I should do something about it right now. ~ Let’s try to find out more before acting. ~ With that, I went around just helping out with setting up camp. I asked them what they were transporting. All of them said the same things; spices, furs and cloths.

The sun had already set and the surroundings are now dark. Making myself invisible by casting Light Magic, I walked over to the wagon where I saw the silhouette.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“Let’s just kill them boss.” I saw Nicholas and five other people conversing right beside the wagon. “They already our faces, if we leave them alone they’ll know it was us and kill us!”

“He’s right boss. Both of them are Sages! They’ll surely kill us when they realized they’ve been robbed!”

“No!” Nicholas, who was addressed as boss, raised his voice. “I have established this rule many times! We only steal and not kill!”

“You’re going to get us killed!”

“Enough! This conversation is over! If I find out something happened by tomorrow, we’ll all be in prison!” With that, Nicholas turned to leave the group.

The five people that were left waited for Nicholas to get out of sight and out of earshot. “Fuck him! He’s going to get us captured and killed!”

“Let’s just do this on our own. They should be over there setting up.” He pointed at the direction of where Rachel and I decided to sleep.

“Two Sages… No doubt they’ll have quite the amount of fortune on them!” They started sneaking towards their destination.

Silently, I followed them. I looked over and saw Rachel setting up her sleeping bag. I had thought about knocking out these five people but I decided against it. I want to see how Rachel handle herself in combat besides myself.

The men got clumsy and let themselves known by excessively moving in the bushes. Rachel noticed this and turned around just to see them so close to her.

They were surprised that Rachel turned around and immediately tried to grab her. Rachel froze their feet to the ground and stepped back, resulting in the assaulters falling on their faces. ~ Nice ~ I thought as I watch the encounter unfold.

“Damnit!” One of them drew their sword and used it to break off the ice the rendered him immobile. The others did the same and in just a few seconds, all of them were freed their feet from the ice.

With a grunt, they started charging towards Rachel. Rachel once again used Ice Magic but this time, she froze their whole bodies except for their faces.

The men started shouting words of insults, threats and curses towards her.

“You bitch!”

“I’ll fucking kill you!”

“Let me go!”

“What the hell is going on?!” It was Nicholas. He showed up with pretty much everyone in the caravan.

He saw the five men who were frozen in ice besides their faces. He drew his slender sword from his waist along with its scabbard. He didn’t unsheathe it from the scabbard.

~ What a weird guy. ~ I thought with a bit of admiration as he follows up with his rule of not killing anyone.

The rest started getting their weapons ready and I figured it was my time to step in. Before anyone could do anything, I activated my Gravity Magic forcing everybody to lay on the ground.

“What the hell is this?!” Nicholas who was struggling to stay on his feet finally succumbed and fell to the ground. Most of them had already passed out because of the pressure, but Nicholas stayed struggling to get up. I applied more pressure and he finally passed out as well.

Confirming that everyone had passed out, I deactivated my Light Magic and made myself visible again.

“Where have you been?!” Rachel screamed at me as she saw me appear in front of her.

“I’m sorry about that. I was taking a walk around the camp.”

“You could’ve took me with you.” She said with a frown on her face, which somehow looked very alluring.

“I’m sorry. How about you come with me right now. I saw something pretty interesting just a while ago.” I held out my hand to her and she took it. Following my lead, we walked over to the wagon where I saw the silhouette.

“This wagon?” Rachel asked as she released her hand from mine.

“Yeah, this is where I saw them.” At that moment, a rather loud thud was heard from the inside. “See…?”

Rachel and I unfolded the cover that was covering the wagon and looked inside. What we saw was a rather young woman wearing a rather elegant dress. She had black hair that was kept rather neat with a white headband.

Beside her is an old man who is wearing what looks like a uniform. I’m guessing he works for this young woman. His wrinkly face and mostly gray hair was contrast to his rather well built body that can be seen even with the uniform on.

“Stay back!” The old man shouted as he put himself between us and the young lady and took a combat stance with his fists up in the air.

“Relax old man.” I put my hands up in surrender while Rachel backed up slowly from the wagon.

Without them knowing, Rachel started disconnecting the covers from the wagon.

“What do you want from us?!”

“Like I said, relax. I’m not going to do anything” I said as I was unwilling to talk to him while he’s so agitated. Not to mention I’m also getting sleepy and I’m getting a little bit grumpy.

I saw Rachel had finally finished disconnecting the covers and gave me a thumbs up. With that, I pulled on the cover, revealing the outside to them.

“Wha?!” The old man was startled and charged at me. I sighed in annoyance, I dodged his attack and tripped him, making him fall to the ground face first.

He immediately got up and turned to face us. What faced him was Rachel and I both pointing our finger, that has a Fireball floating at the end, towards him.

“I said relax!” I screamed at him, making the Fireball bigger in size.

 The young woman stood up. “Please don’t hurt him!” She tripped from the wagon and to the ground. “Ah!”

“Miss!” The old man shouted and rushed at her to help her get back up. He then turned to glare at us.

“This wouldn’t have happened if you just stopped being hostile you know.” I said, crossing my arms in front of me.

“Hard to do that when your whole caravan gets overtaken by bandits and some stranger with glowing eyes suddenly finds us.”

Right… Eyes… Since yesterday, when Rachel fell ill, I had started to keeping my eyes activated for as long as I can. Today I was successful in keeping it activated for a whole day.

“That doesn’t really mean I’m evil…”

“I wonder about that. A long time ago, I was attacked by someone with the same eyes.” Based on what he said, it might’ve been an ArchMagus. But it’s not a guarantee, it may have just been a very powerful Magician. I’m a good example of this, as I haven’t been appointed to be one yet and soon, Rachel will soon be one of the examples for this.

“I’m surprised you’re still alive then.” Those who have their eyes strengthened can have pretty much total control over Mana since they can see it. Which means that they can be extremely powerful existences but that doesn’t mean that all of them are. The only determining factor of this will be whether or not the individual has mastered controlling Mana.

“Well, I had help from the whole city.” I noticed the Mana around him. He was getting a spell ready.

I’m now really getting annoyed. I’m not even trying to be hostile here.

In what he would consider a surprise attack, he fired off a simple Fireball at me.

“You know what, I don’t want to deal with both of you right now.” I used Dispel on it and the Fireball vanished.

He just sat there surprised that his Magic was ineffective. I walked over to the wagon cover and ripped out a portion of it and wrote on it.

I sent it to Leon using Warp. I’m sure he can deal with this. “This one other guy can deal with you.” With that, I warped them to Leon’s office.

“Lost your temper there?” Rachel asked as she patted my back.

“I don’t understand, I wasn’t even the least bit hostile towards them.”

“Well, he did say he was attacked by someone with the same eyes. Maybe it traumatized him?”

I sigh. “Maybe. Whatever, I’m tired, let’s go home.”

Rachel nodded, “Yeah, I want to take a bath, I’m all dirty now.”

“Why not just use Water Magic to take a shower here?”

She slapped my back. “While there’s like twenty men around?! No!”

“Ow. Sorry, sorry.” I tried to rub my back where I was slapped to try to relieve the pain. “Go ahead and Warp us.”