“See that? That's the pass,” the party leader calls out. He's a bulky man with a big horn on his forehead like a rhino or something, dressed in a full set of gleaming red plate armor. It's amazing he managed a two day walk in that. He must be really high level.

He's pointing just ahead, where the road dwindles down to little more than a slightly more walked dirt path that cuts between two gently inclining mountains. Maybe they pitch up more later, but as they are now, I hardly see a point in there being a pass between them.

“Everyone be careful from here on. We'll take advantage of the terrain and spread out to the sides of the pass and sweep through. Watch each other's backs and call out as soon as you see anything out of place. We'll wipe away whatever is plaguing this area and head home.”

A round of agreement goes up all around, and everyone starts spreading out.

“Master, is it alright if I stock a spell to cast if we get into a fight?”

Master Liina considers for a moment before answering. “Sure, just keep it reasonable, you don't want to catch any of our allies with it.”

“Yes, Master.” With that in mind, I figure I'll work on a tornado shaped wind-pull spell. If I use it on whatever might be here, it should buy us all time. I tell her as much and she nods. Then, she pulls me over to the party leader.

“Hey, if you see a huge tornado, that's my slave's magic. It means we've spotted something.”

The rhino-altra rolls his eyes a little, but says, “Sure,” before we head off.

When Master Liina catches my questioning look, she laughs and says, “If I didn't warn him, he'd probably think your magic was an enemy attack. Sure, it would still get everyone where they need to be, but it's best to avoid confusion, don't you think?”

“Oh...” That makes a lot of sense. “Yes, Master.”

We end up pretty far off in the wings to the right side of the pass, climbing right up the side of the mountain. It's actually that shallow. There are a few rocks and trees around to help where there are a few rough, steep spots. For the most part though, it's not too difficult a walk.

As I said, I keep a big spell stocked... sort of. Like before, I can only keep up a rate of a single element spread out every second or two with my current mana regen. I don't want anything too big, so after a half hour, I let it fizzle and start over.

If I had better regeneration, I could start a second before letting the first fizzle, so I wouldn't have to worry about having basically nothing for a while, but I can't do that with what I have to work with, and I can't absorb natural mana to make up for the difference. I'd have to do it for way too long and end up incapacitating myself eventually.

So I make do, stocking a spell for up to a half hour before starting over with another. Once I get used to it, it's surprisingly easy, as long as the spell formation I'm putting it together isn't terribly complex.

The whole time, we keep on the lookout, searching for any sign of, well, anything, small scattered groups of adventurers off to our left and right, moving in and out of sight now and then when a tree, rock, or somewhat steeper bluff cuts between us.

We walk like that for hours, until we fully crest the mountain, scrabble our way down the far side, and reach the end of the pass, where everyone meets up again, standing in a big circle.

“So... does that count as a completed investigation?” one man wonders, scratching his head.

“Did anyone see anything?” the party leader asks. “Anything suspicious at all?” Everyone shakes their heads.

“A big zero here,” Crichilm, the slave owner, complains. Next to him, Tesneretta- Tess for short, just glares at me, after that comment at the end of our one conversation.

I don't care. Fuck her.

After a few more comments and a whole lot of shrugging, with guesses that whatever happened either wasn't here or already moved on, or it may be hiding from so many of us if it's intelligent. We decide to do another sweep backward and delay and decision-making until after that.

So we do. Another multi-hour trek up and down the side of a mountain that leaves everyone else pretty much fine, and me a panting, sweating mess. Damn they all have so much Stamina...

When we all circle up again, I sit on the ground. A few altraska laugh at me, but I don't care. I'm too tired.

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“Anything this time?” the party leader asks once more. But again, there's nothing much. Master Liina doesn't have anything to contribute either, we didn't see a single monster, animal, or blade of grass out of place.

I'm so tired, I really hope he doesn't tell us to sweep through again. I don't know if I'd make it. Do all altraska have so much Stamina? What about humans? I look up-

Huh?

I turn back and forth. The hell?

Stumbling to my feet, I take a step into the center of the circle, spinning to gaze around at our entire group.

“They're gone.”

“Yumi!” Master Liina exclaims. “Don't interrupt!” Grabbing me by the arm, she gives me a hard spank.

“Ow!” I yelp. “But Master, they're gone!” I keep turning, eyes flashing over the surrounding, angry faces, but I don't see them anymore. “Crichilm and Tess are gone.”

Her eyes go wide, then she looks around too. When she realizes I'm right, she looks straight at the party leader and says, “We need to do a head count.”

We come up with twenty five people. The quest started with thirty two. The difference isn't obvious when we're all standing mixed together, but seven of us have vanished, gone without a trace. No shout of warning, no signs of struggle spotted by any of our group on our way back through.

“We really don't have any sign of what happened to them? Nothing at all?” Merith, the party leader, asks. “Doesn't anyone have any ideas?”

Standing back in the circle with Master Liina again, I tug on her sleeve to get her attention. It only takes her one look at me to know I have an idea. I whisper, “Party.” To her, and she knows exactly what I'm thinking.

“Hey, I have an idea.” She steps forward and calls out for the group's attention.

“Sure, anything that can help,” Merith responds.

“Alright, but fair warning, you're not going to like it.”

“What is it?” he asks, eyebrows creasing close under his big horn.

“My slave can get the information of everyone in our party. It might provide some clues.”

“Alright, do it.”

“You heard him. Do your thing, Yumi.” Master Liina plops a big hand on my head, and I bow.

“Yes, Master.” Then I turn my attention toward the Party information again, and feel when it works. This time, I pay careful attention to the form of the Scan that occurs and how it differs from normal ones.

Oh, so that's how it works... As soon as I feel it, it's almost too obvious. It's running almost the same way as how I pull up windows, through focusing its attention on different aspects of the people it works on.

Even as I have that realization, the surrounding altraska are starting to shout angrily.

“Hey, I said it'd be unpleasant,” Master Liina laughs with that big foxy grin. “Yumi.” She tilts her head toward the party leader.

“Yes, Master,” I respond again, really, really glad that she's standing between me and the surrounding crowd. With one more small mental push, I send the Party information to Merith.

His eyes go wide. “Now that certainly is something...” But then he shakes his head and focuses, probably on the information. I'm looking it over too, and the first thing that's clear is... I have all thirty two people listed here. Crichilm and Tesneretta too. Their Health looks fine, so they definitely aren't dead.

But... Glancing over the list, another pattern emerges. This time, I manage to contain myself. I push the information to Master Liina as well and ask her quietly about the ones that are missing a small amount of Health.

She immediately relays the question to the party leader, who asks around and confirms. The ones who are missing are the ones missing a little Health. The first thing that comes to mind is an ambush and getting knocked out, or maybe some sort of sleep or paralysis magic.

But there's one last piece of information that brings all the pieces together. Tesneretta isn't missing any Health.

“Fucking humans!” Everyone is snarling, almost all angry eyes directed at me, even as I cower behind Master Liina. And this is after I already figured out the mystery for them. Not that I can blame them, now that I know how humans really are here.

Doesn't make it any less terrifying though.

Chances are, the humans are ambushing any altraska traveling through the pass, incapacitating them, and bringing them back to Thanifa, the nearby human town Tess mentioned, to sell them as slaves. The key to figuring it out was how Tess wasn't harmed. Monsters wouldn't discriminate, humans would.

“So... what's the plan?” someone asks.

No one says anything. I'm not sure what they're thinking, but I see two main options.

First, go to Thanifa to recover our party members who were captured. Or, stay at the pass and deal with the ambush party.

If we go after our party members and Thanifa, we might get into a big fight against an entire human town. We also won't be dealing with the actual problem we were sent to address.

If we stay to do our main job, we'll be abandoning our captured party members, leaving them to be sold into slavery. And there's still the issue of having no idea how they're ambushing us. Even trying to use bait-

Oh, that might work. Now that we have an instant indication of when and who is being ambushed, we can respond, even though the person themselves can't warn us.

And... we have a perfect piece of bait. When I tug on Master Liina's sleeve again and make my suggestion, she grins from ear to ear.