“Take him down and we’ll live!” The words echoed through the air from the mouth of someone who looked to be the only evoker here.

His voice carried a hint of command and rallied the rest of them. As they tightened their grip on their weapons, a collective tension filled the atmosphere. They were a mixture of large and small races, which made dealing with them to be tricky.

Seeing that Tuilë wouldn’t seem to budge from her position any time soon, I couldn’t help but ask, “Tuilë! What are you doing there?!”

“Sorry, Maxim! I can’t take this wrench out without bending it!” She looked at me apologetically while continuing with whatever she was doing.

Really?! You don’t even care about the surrounding area when you unleash your devastating attack, but you care so much for that hunk of metal?! I creased my eyebrows at the thoughts.

“Just… Whatever, I’ll take them down alone then.”

Anyway, I was more than enough to deal with this riffraff — none of them would pose a threat as long as the evoker was taken down first, and looking at his weapon that had a cyan stone embedded in it, he seemed to wield a Cryo element.

“You beggars! Come at me if you dare!” I taunted with disdain. The words hung in the air; a challenge thrown at their feet. They seemed momentarily taken aback, unsure of how to respond to my bold proclamation.

“Damn you! Attack!”

I didn’t know which one among them shouted that, but that was enough to give them the courage to start with their assault.

To tell the truth, I couldn't be bothered to engage in a drawn-out battle with each of them individually. So instead, I cast {Air Pistol} at each of them, precisely targeting their weak spots. Of course, at full power, this spell had the potential to be lethal, but I dialed it down considerably, just enough to incapacitate them without causing any serious harm.

With a swift motion of my hand, the pebbles shot by the compressed air struck each of them and knocked them down.

“Argh!”

“Ahhh! My leg!”

“…”

Once all of them had fallen flat on the ground, I heaved a sigh of relief. Despite having a total advantage over this battle, it was still mentally taxing, honestly. It might have been worse if I was faced with humans…

“Maxim, one is getting away over there,” Lunaria told me as the Luna-1 hovered beside me, its lenses looking in a certain direction.

“I know.” I scrutinized my eyes and gazed at the same spot the drone was seeing, feeling the arc in my mouth.

Nothing could escape my Vocation. Not even an invisible being. Much less something that only relied on such a weak ability…

***

Renn’s Perspective

Renn couldn’t believe what he was witnessing before his eyes.

A source user so strong that she could blast all of the people he brought… and another one that beat the strongest enhancer in his group without suffering an injury — a dual source user to boot. He had never seen the dreadful spell that this man had used.

Just what kind of freaks did he offend this time?!

In the beginning, he had made sure that everything was going to plan and even went to extra lengths to gather necessary information. From the moment they had entered through the gate, he had shadowed these impostor hunters, silently observing their every move, assessing their capabilities. Patiently, he waited for the opportune moment, biding his time until he was confident that they had exhausted themselves.

But it was the discovery of the jewelry by these people that drove him to take calculated risks. Otherwise, without the allure of those precious objects, he wouldn’t have been so audacious in his approach.

After all, he had a growing suspicion that something wasn’t right from the start. It was as if this whole operation had been too smooth. Normally, no hunters or even scavengers would go this deep into a mutated monster-infested area in fear of exhausting themselves and getting killed in the process, but these two people were different.

Now that it was all blown, there was no point in continuing. Furthermore, he didn’t know what these people might do to him. The best he could think of was to be robbed of all of his possessions… Worse still? He might even be fed to mutated monsters around here, piece by piece, until nothing remained of him… His short body hair shuddered as he thought for the worse.

Whatever the case, he had to make a quick getaway.

He silently crawled on the ground as the chaos ensued. To buy some time, he directed the rest of the source users some fake hope by rallying them to surround the dual source user. With every careful step, he inched closer toward a place dozens of meters away from the escalating battlefield, almost at a distance where his miracle power would absolutely protect him.

In those fleeting moments of hope, a sudden shock jolted through him as something seized him by the neck, lifting him effortlessly into the air. His heart was pounding, and his eyes were enlarging. Fear and confusion clouded his head.

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Gasping for air, his voice trembled: “Eep! H-How did you find me?”

“Heh, not gonna tell you.” A menacing smirk crept across the assailant’s face and he tightened his grip. It was the dual source user who had been surrounded by his peers…

By now it was too late to mount any sort of resistance. And the only thing he knew was only a bleak future would await him ahead.

***

Maxim’s Perspective

Among the initial assailants, there was one missing: the one that led them. He was as cunning as he looked and as agile as his animalistic counterpart would act when cornered; it’d be funny to see him bite back to complete the proverb.

Renn

[…]

Source Level: None

Source Element(s): None

Vocation(s): [Hide Presence]

Stats:

* STR: F (12)

* AGI: F+ (18)

* VIT: F (9)

* SRC: F (7)

* SPR: E- (24)

Accumulation Points: 10 [F+]

Despite his Vocation that masked his presence even from a source user, as the name suggested, [Identification] was still working on him — and I could even send the status screen to track his movements. Thus, I simply lifted him by his neck, and we were now face to face, an ethereal figure juxtaposed with a floating status screen.

It was both amusing and unsettling to see a somewhat translucent being accompanied by the display of his attributes.

“Wh-What do you w-want, sque…? I can give you all my belongings… So please, spare my life. Sque,” he pleaded, stuttering all the way.

“Who cares about your measly stuff? Speak, who are you, and who employs you all?” I demanded, tightening my grip on Renn’s neck.

“U-Uh…” Renn paused for a few moments before finally confessing, “My name’s Renn… And it’s the Old Thief— I mean, Old Tarlak. He was the one that orchestrated all of this, sque.”

“He’s not telling the whole truth,” Lunaria whispered into my ear, her voice barely audible.

How does she know whether he is lying or not? Oh yeah, I guess the drone is equipped with sensors to detect subtle body language cues… With these thoughts, I instructed Lunaria, “Tell me if he’s lying by pinching my left shoulder, otherwise, pinch my right shoulder.”

“M’kay.”

Being lenient here would only encourage him to continue lying, and because of that, I summoned my most menacing expression and sternly questioned, “You dare lie to me?”

“Keuk!” He flinched, looking like a little mouse that was about to be eaten alive. “I-I swear it has something to do with Old Tarlak, sque… If you don’t believe me, you can ask these people here…”

Being a stronger existence, I was able to exert pressure thanks to my immense source power. This was proven to be the case when Tuilë became a Tier-3 enhancer… I mean, even the hairs on my body stood on end when confronted by her at the time.

I felt a pinch from the drone’s manipulator arm on my right shoulder. It appeared this so-called “Old Tarlak” had some involvement in this whole situation. Somehow, his name was a tad familiar… like I ever heard it somewhere, so I asked him just that.

“Sque. He’s the owner of the only recycling store in the Eastern Outpost. He’s the most hateful, greedy bastard for us powerless scavengers!” Renn’s voice trembled with contempt as he clenched his pink-colored fists. His small eyes narrowed into fiery slits, unable to contain the anger within.

No wonder I felt like I’d heard his name… Still, if he hated him so much, why did he work for him? Whatever.

“Okay, let’s say these people were ordered by him. Then, who came up with the idea of stealing from me? Remember, no more lies,” I threatened, enunciating each syllable.

“It… It’s me… I saw the corpses of crustacrawlers left untouched all around the parking lot and beyond…” He squeaked and then went silent, visibly afraid to continue his words.

I was in no mood to argue with him anymore, so I fixed him with a death glare, my eyes narrowing, silently urging him to reveal the whole truth.

While feeling the shivers transmitted to my hand, with trembling lips, he continued, “Th-Then, I was blinded with greed and things happened. Sque…”

“I see…” I felt a pinch on my right shoulder. Well, unless Lunaria was deceiving me, he was telling the truth.

For scavengers who were barely scraping by for a living, even a single First-Order source crystal was a heaven-sent opportunity. Faced with the prospect of earning a substantial amount and escaping the perils of their dangerous work, they might resort to extreme measures like the one they had taken.

But deep down, I knew they were people driven by circumstances and not for the sake of doing evil. As the saying went, “There is no pure good or evil in this world.” However, it remained a fact that their actions had put me in danger. Even so, something within me hesitated at the thought of ending their lives, as if it would push me past a point of no return.

I decided to release my grin on him for now. “Don’t you move!”

“Yes, yes!” Renn’s rat-like head vigorously bobbed up and down, resembling a lively spring toy figure.

Surveying the scene, I observed the assailants that lay strewn across the ground. Most of them only suffered minor injuries, and some were moderately injured, while the rest were knocked unconscious and received severe wounds. A sense of responsibility weighed on me as I realized that their fate now rested in my hands.

I held my chin; my train of thought began wandering into the next course of action I should take.

The Aquarine judicial system, or lack thereof, presented a challenge. Or in other words, I couldn’t hand them over to the ruling organization of this place, which was obviously the Divine Mushroom Cult. I didn’t know what would happen to them if I did that.

“If only there’s a more logical solution, a way to benefit from them without resorting to force,” I mused quietly to myself. “Imagine if there were a magic that could bind them to work for me while eliminating any possibility of rebellion…”

Honestly, if such a thing existed, it would be like a sla— I mean, a contract often exploited in black companies.

“Actually, it’s not like there is no way to keep them in check through magic,” Lunaria commented.

Just then, Tuilë, who unexpectedly appeared beside me, added in Lunaria’s stead, “You mean using runic inscription? I’ve read something similar from one of the books in the ruins… but I thought the technique was lo— Oh, wait!”

“Exactly.” Her voice contained a trace of pride despite its flatness.

“What’s this all about?” I quickly asked, but then remembered something concerning this airheaded girl — Tuilë. “No, more importantly, why did you come to my help just now, Tuilë?”

“Hehe.”

“What do you mean ‘hehe’?!”

“Ohh, don’t be so pedantic.” She waved her hand, brushing off my words. “See, I was afraid about my precious wrench getting bent, so it took me a bit longer to get it out. Besides, I had faith in your abilities to handle them on your own, and look, you're safe now, aren't you?”

For some reason, there was a pinch on my right shoulder… causing me to squint my eyes in dejection.

“Stop that, Lunaria.”

Knowing that my life was deemed less valuable than a wrench made me question my self-worth. Yes, this experience was useful for me, but… the underlying sting remained, despite her unintentional intent.