Through a portal, Schlain and Aryan made their way to the scenery similar to that of the one they'd seen at the barista manor, a pastry plain in the middle of nowhere. The only difference this time was that Shlain and Aryan portaled themselves at the outskirts of a forest just before the plain that was the Batista domain.

The moment the duo arrived, they were approached by someone from deeper within the forest. "We were waiting for you two."

The one to speak was a woman, a very tall one, whose face Shawn recognized as one of the members of the scavengers.

"Everything has been made ready for your arrival. Please follow me. "

Without a complaint, the duo followed the woman deeper into the forest. It was along the way that Shlain took notice of a strange glance the boy threw at him now and then.

"What is it, Boy? " Schlain asked.

"Nothing, Mr. Shlain. Nothing. " The boy answered, yet Shlain, familiar enough with the boy, remained unconvinced.

"Is it still about what happened the other night?"

"No... it is not," he answered, not so convincingly.

Shlain knew that it was a lie but didn’t pursue the matter, for he felt that pursuing the subject would only worsen things up.

Soon, the three of them arrived at a location where several members of the scavengers were waiting for them.

***

With Shlain's and Aryan's arrival, everyone taking part in the operation was finally reunited. The duo were finally briefed on the strategy for their whole forestry operation. It was only there that Shlain received clear details of their actual operation.

They were after an unnamed person who is said to be soon, from the intel the aristocracy received, to have been escorted to a hidden mansion deep in the Aplas woods, the largest forest on the continent and the largest one in the kingdom.

Despite the fact that none of those present had been told anything about the target precice's identity, they knew that the one they were looking for was someone closely related to one of the fourteen but also related to the royal family. Shlain didn't know what use exactly that person held for the aristocracy or Mathilda; he just knew that it was someone they had to, from Mathilda’s words, get their hands on.

"Does everyone understand what he has to individually do?" The woman, who was apparently in charge of the operation instead of Shlain, asked after having gone through the strategy they were to take for this operation.

Most heads present nodded; only one didn’t.

"Mr. Shlain, does anything matter?"

Shlain, peering at the heavily guarded mansion down the steep, commented, "I get that this is supposed to be one of those missions where we appear then, thanks to that boy over there, disappear as soon as possible, but given the importance of the said target, why didn’t your mother or Mathilda send more people for this? You didn’t even allow me to take one of my men on this? " Shlain asked, suspicious of their current number.

Their numbers were far lower for this mission than for the one they organized to remove the Church's most troublesome Vicar, a wielder of the rare teleportation magic. Today, there were only twelve of them, and though it might sound like a lot, the scale hinted by Mathilda made him assume that there would be at least twice this number sent for this operation.

To Shlain, the difference in the level of thought and planning put into that operation compared to this one was phenomenal, making this one feel like something thrown together without much thought.

"I’d like to believe that there are enough of us here, Mr. Shlain." The woman said, after peering down below and looking back at their current effect. "I am confident that we can take care of them just right."

"I don’t doubt that..." Shlain mumbled as he saw that, down below, even though there were only twelve of them, they would clearly outnumber them, which once again somehow stirred a certain doubt in his heart.

"And even if something unforeseen were to occur, we thrust Mr. Shlain and Brother Aryan to take care of things." The woman stated this with absolute confidence.

"I really envy that confidence you put in me. Anyway,... we will do what we can from here."

With these words, the operation finally started. While the others were to sneak into the mansion and retrieve the target, Shlain and Aryan were to passively observe the overall unfolding of the operation from a distance from their faraway higher ground. They were to intervene if something were to go wrongly, or if they noticed from a distance any anomaly.

It was precisely the passive nature of the task they were given that made Shlain uncomfortable. Though he, deep down, could understand the decision to not send him on the frontline, there was still something about the overall operation that made him anything but at ease.

"Mr. Shlain, is there a problem?" The boy asked rather clumsily.

For some reason, the boy, too, seemed equally uneasy, so Shlain shared his worry, to ease the tense atmosphere. "It’s just a hunch, but I am under the impression that something is about to go wrong. If anything--"

Schlain interrupted himself at the sight of the scavengers emerging from their hiding spots and charging the mansion. It was as they were doing so that Shawn noticed, a little too late, glowing runes scattering into a circle around the manor, forming a circular perimeter around the mansion, which most of the scavengers had already entered.

"What the hell is that?!"

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They didn’t notice the thing; they had no way to, for it was only when most of them got inside its confines that the glowing rune came into light.

Immediately noticing the abnormality, Schlain leaped into action, reached out to the boy next to him, and instructed, "Aryan get-" he started, only to be interrupted by something from behind him.

He didn’t even have to look back when he, upon noticing something coming their way, wedged Aryan away from him, before he himself distanced away from where he stood, allowing himself to avoid something darting his way.

Not even a fraction of a second later, something resembling an arrow landed and lodged on the ground, but it wasn't all, for the thing instantly turned into a massive agglomeration of rock.

As he looked where the projectile was bolted from, Shlain noticed, near a tree, a man dressed in a knightly outfit. Soon, he realized that the man was everything but alone. Shlain knew that a half-dozen other men came out of their hiding, each wielding a slingshot, which, despite its child-like and harmless appearance, Shlain knew, was the magical item that caused the earlier rock's agglomeration.

From where the first shot landed and whom these people’s eyes were mostly focused on, Shlain immediately ordered Aryan, "Boy, get away fro--"

He wasn’t even done talking when the boy, using his teleportation, got away. Though the haste and the swiftness of his flight left Schlain perplexed, Shlain didn’t mind it much since it was what he was expecting of him anyway.

Seeing the men immediately swap their slingshots for swords and spells upon the boy's disappearance, Shlain's assessments were confirmed; their initial target was the boy.

Having seen what their slingshots were doing, even though it was only once, Shlain immediately assumed they were here for the boy and wanted him alive.

"I knew something was about to go wrong, but I didn’t expect to see it coming from this side," Shlain mumbled, retrieving the axe and sword from his back. "But that doesn’t matter; it’s time for me to clean things up," he announced, with an ominous smile on his face.

The men had already unsheathed their swords and magic and made their charge at Shlain, but alas for them, Shlain was their opponent. Using the elemental he had been gifted with since birth, Shlain cut through the men that went against him like a knife through butter.

In no time, Shlain finished every last one of them.

"It was too easy, too easy. Don’t tell me that’s all you got." Shlain complained.

It was exactly then that, from behind him, toward the mansion, a shockwave took him aback.

"What the hell was that again?"

As he turned to face the source of the commotion, Schlain saw something coming from behind, which was revealed, as he got to where they were to observe the operation, to be coming from the mansion domain.

A blue force field, similar to the church barrier, veiled and surrounded the entire mansion domain. The only difference this time was that, instead of the watery appearance of the church barrier, the one Schlain saw was like a wall, spatting toward the sky and impossible to see through.

The scavengers who were supposed to retrieve their target in the mansion were now trapped within that force field, which, Shlain now realized, appeared to be more akin to a prison than it was to anything else.

Just when Shlain thought things couldn't get any worse, from where he was, he noticed men emerging from the woods. Some wore the same outfits as the men he had previously killed, while others wore hoods, concealing everything about what they could be like beneath.

""What’s all of this? Were we set up?" Shlain wondered, noticing that the barrier was cast from the point where he had earlier noticed the glowing runes.

Shlain didn't know where the boy had teleported to, but there was a good chance he had teleported to them in an attempt to alert the others; however, with this barrier impossible to see through, there was a chance he was trapped inside; after all, these men seemed to be after him; them being ready to intercept the boy was to be expected, to some extent.

Though Shlain thought teleportation magic was impressive, he knew it wasn't all-powerful. After all, they were able to take down one of them a few years ago.

With a sigh, Shlain made a decision.

"Tsk,… Gotta do what needs to be done."

Leaping from where he was, he ran down the steep and solemnly charged at the men down below. Making no effort to try to hide his presence, Shlain, roaring like a wild animal, in a couple of seconds, reached the men.

"Here he is! Her--" a man shouted, but before he could say anything else, his head was severed from the rest of his by a clean swing of Shlain.

"Hahaha, yes! Here I am!" Shlain shouted, immediately swinging both ax and sword at the nearby men.

Strangely enough, completely different from what Shlain would’ve expected, some of the men, upon seeing him, instead of gathering up to corner him, immediately retreated deeper into the woods.

It soon came across to Schlain that the ones to run away without somation were the ones dressed in hood, leaving the others dressed in knightly outfits, confused by the sudden abandonment, behind.

"Running away from me!? As if I’d let you do that!"

Having hacked and slashed through the men unfortunate enough not to flee, Shlain made its next target the hooded men.

Despite his effort to get away from Shlain by dashing deep into the woods, Shlain caught up with one of the hooded. Shlain swung his sword, clearly intending to decapitate the man, only to be met with a tough and clinging resistance.

Though his neck was not severed, the man, from the blow, tripped and rolled on the ground, a process in which he lost his hood.

" … a battle Armor…?"

It was revealed to Shawn that beneath the hood wasn’t just a face, but rather a helmeted face. As he faced the man, Schlain saw that the man was equipped with a full, resistant yet light-looking armor.

The man was about to draw his weapon when Shlain closed the distance, struck with yet another sword swing on one side of the neck, but this time, followed with an ax swing on the other.

Before being able to point his sword out at Shlain, the man’s helmeted head flew into the air.

Despite his surprise at the battle armour, Shlain was about to continue his charge after the other hooded men when his gaze was drawn to the weapon next to the one the man was about to draw; daggers, two daggers, and not just any daggers, "Faty" and "Anaka" daggers known to be used by clergy.

It was now, thinking about the prison-like barrier and these men, that Shlain realized that the clergy was behind this.

"The Clergy, but not any …"

It was then, from a corner of the woods, that Shawn felt something bolting at him. With his sword, Shlain deftly received the lightning bolt that flew at him, scattering it into countless shards like broken glass that went crashing, like lightning struck, onto the nearby trees.

"I've had my fill of low blows for the day, Mister or Miss, so I'd appreciate it if you could stop lurking in the shadows and face me properly." Shlain said to the one that launched that attack at him.

"Indeed, things weren’t meant to be done like that; it was just that seeing you, it was hard to restrain myself."

"Do we know each other?"

"Oh, we do," the man announced, finally coming out of the tree’s penumbra. "Of course we do, Shlain Eirwein, alias the White Ghost."

Dressed in dark priestly habits, the man that came out was, just like Shlain, a tall man in his late sixties, yet thanks to his muscular build, he exuded a youthful and lively impression. His bleached white hair and his golden eyes, combined with the overall expression of his face, were reminiscent of an eagle poised to claw its razor-sharp claws deep into its prey.

His hands violently clenched onto his ax and sword, "Archbishop Durant Sunnivah." Shlain mumbled, calling out the name of his brother's murderer.