Clarice was edgy as well. We hadn’t been resting properly lately, and it didn’t look like she was used to that. The stress of the situation only made things worse as well.
“Is your friend here going to help with that?”
“Who knows? There is only one way to find out. If you are willing to let Grandma go with that crazy bitch, I am not.”
“... What about you, Clarice’s friend? Can you speak? What are you willing to do?”
“What is necessary?”
“And what would that be? I had heard that you destroyed the dwarven towers, two of them, without being found out. Very impressive. Are you willing to do that much to rescue your pet?”
“Sure, if enough people decide to get in my way. It is better to make it clear who they are dealing with, right? If they insist on that, then it will be fine if they explode into countless pieces.”
Arslan kept glaring at me. I could say that he was used to making people cower in front of him with that alone, but I was no stranger to those tactics. Rowan always tried that, but it never worked. I had already seen a giant worm chasing me for days to eat me alive. A pair of eyes wouldn’t scare me, not even close.
“... Losing thirty unseen arrows is already an annoying blow. I suppose fighting you would be a waste of time as well. Still, I didn’t hear anyone finding the bodies of those thirty unseen arrows. Hand them to me and I will get ready to talk with her.”
I tossed the magic bag to him since I didn’t want to turn the place into a gruesome scene and make Clarice recall what we did to them. I could make magic bags left and right, so losing one wasn’t a real problem. Besides, if this made things work faster, it would be worth the penny.
I already stripped the bodies of the magic tools and also used Essence Extraction on them, so I didn’t have anything to do with them anymore.
“All right, wait in one of the quarters until I sort things out.”
“No. We will stay here to make sure that you will do everything correctly and not plot anything suspicious.”
“Do you have no faith in your older brother? Are you saying that I would betray you two?”
“None and yes.”
“Your words hurt me deeply, little sister. Very well, but you will owe me one.”
I moved to the corner of the room and then decided to wait, I was already imagining this guy selling me out to the empire in order to secure their help to crush the dwarves, he didn’t have anything to gain by helping me, and Clarice owing him favors didn’t seem that impressive either. Unless he would force her to work for the Silver Bows.
Since I didn’t have anything to do once more, I began to make some scrolls… it was annoying to be only able to do this much, but it couldn’t be helped.
Eventually, some of the members of the organization came and then dragged the clerk to somewhere else. Others came and received orders to prepare a group to prepare to depart to the territory south of their location. It was where the crazy bitch was supposed to be. I wanted to know who that person was, but Clarice kept avoiding my gaze for a while.
‘By the look of things, she is someone that both of them are aware of. Considering what he said and his behavior, she must not be an enemy… perhaps an unhinged ally, but that wouldn’t explain the rain of arrows that almost hit us. There are a lot of pieces in this puzzle that are missing.’
I already had the fighting power to wound and kill a lot of people at the same time, but things might get a bit different since the possible enemies already knew what I could do. Making more Great Fireball scrolls might get innocent people involved… even if I was pissed, I didn’t want to risk the death of innocent people.
In this aspect, maybe some training in the knights academy would have been good for me… Ulric and Remi seemed pretty fine in invading someone else’s homeland and then chasing civilians. Burning the trees didn’t seem the right thing to do either, so I decided to change my tactics a bit.
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Miasma Cloud: Summon a cloud of toxic gas in a targeted area, poisoning all enemies within it. The miasma lingers for 10 seconds, dealing poison damage and reducing their movement speed by 30%. Cost: 100 mana.
‘I guess this one will weaken people enough without risking their lives… I only have to attack to kill those who have weapons. I need to be cautious here. Otherwise, they will have more reason to target me or Glacien in the future. Making some scrolls to create an extra layer of debuffs to my arrows will work as well… let’s make some of those.’
While I was working, I noticed Arslan gaze at me a couple of times. He also looked at my scrolls, wondering what I was doing. Still, unless he had the skills to make a scroll and the spell that I was writing, he would need identification to learn it. Still, as long as it was touching me, everything would have its parameters and information hidden.
Speaking of which, I haven’t been using that skill a lot lately, mainly because I wasn’t getting many results… but that wouldn’t change unless I keep leveling up. I needed to make amulets for it as well.
After a couple of hours, Arslan finally raised his butt from his chair and then stretched. It was noon, so we would only arrive at the location at night. Maybe he was wasting time since he was planning to do something along the way. Still, that was fine by me. I would have a good reason to blow him up.
“Let’s go. I don’t have much time to waste with this. Grandmother sure likes to make me work to the bone…”
We left the room and then the building only to find a group of twenty men on their horses waiting for us. There was a carriage there as well, probably the one that this guy was planning to use…
“Get it, or are you afraid that I might be doing something too?”
That condescending smile could be improved… I just had to make him lose a few teeth and then it would be perfect. I got inside the carriage without saying anything or reacting to his words.
Before long, we departed from the town called Castellana. It was quite the weird name for an elf town… I ignored the difficult atmosphere and kept working on my scrolls for several hours.
“It looks like you shared our parents’ secret about magic ink with him, Clarice. Well, I always knew that you couldn’t keep any secret, but I am still baffled.”
“Shut up. I am also baffled by the fact that your followers are all morons and retards like that woman. You will be the downfall of our homeland.”
Clarice’s tone was sharper than usual, her words cutting with an uncharacteristic brazenness that made me think about it for a moment. It wasn’t like her to be this harsh, at least not in the time I’d known her. But as I watched her interact with her brother, I began to wonder if this was how she always was around him. Perhaps she needed to be. He was undeniably an unnerving son of a bitch, the kind of person who could make anyone’s skin crawl with a single glance.
Still, he was her brother, and that fact alone carried weight. Did she hate him? Tolerate him? Or was this harshness her way of protecting herself against whatever darkness lingered between them?
I knew very well how family drama could be annoying… and that was why I wanted to stay clear of that kind of annoyance. Eventually, when night fell, we kept moving, but I stopped making my scrolls.
“Shall we stop to eat something? Camping in this area is quite good, you know?”
I let out a sigh… it looked like this guy knew that I had been in the land for a while, but he didn’t make any move, apparently. A guy with white hair and his sabertooth companion were bound to draw a lot of attention, so it was no wonder that he knew about me… the question was why he left me alone.
While I was wondering about that, I saw a light in the distance and then recognized the town where we found the guards… the carriage began to slow down until it stopped in front of the first line of guards.
“Lord Commander Arslan is in our carriage and he wants to meet with the leader of this town!”
We didn’t hear anything after that, but soon the guards around the place approached the carriage to check the contents. Soon they bowed and nodded when they saw Arslan and Clarice, but they flinched when they saw me.
“It is fine. I will take responsibility for whatever he does here.”
I wonder if that was his way to make me drop my guard… the guards looked at each other in hesitation, but they soon opened the path and then the carriage began to move again. The town was a lot more quiet than before, but some guys were still patrolling around and ready for battle…
Before long, we arrived and stopped in front of the largest tree in the area. We left the carriage and soon my tension increased… The atmosphere seemed normal enough, but I still had to get ready for whatever happens.
“It looks like she wasn’t expecting us to come here. Well, let’s get to her house then.”
Arslan approached the tree and then the magic steps emerged from it as well. Without hesitation, he began to lead the way while the guards assumed their positions around the tree. Clarice waited for me to follow him since it would be weird if I followed after her while climbing the stairs. I let out a sigh..
I followed Arslan, ready to summon my bow and a bunch of scrolls and make them explode around me. I had to consider how to avoid getting Clarice involved in some of my attacks, but I probably can protect her with Soul Shield… eventually, we reached the highest house in the tree.