Our target was an abandoned church on the sprawling side of the city. The church was a smaller replica of the church in Volés, though this one was rougher around the edges. No banners lined its gable, and the decorative wooden pillars around its walls were mostly cracked and fallen, some lying in splinters around the perimeters. The garden appeared much like an overgrown graveyard.

The girls and I approached calmly, but carefully. The former applied more to the girls than me. Darko had split off to perform his part. From my lackluster understanding, the “plan” consisted mostly of improvising spells and punches until the cultists were either dead or otherwise immobilized. My job was to enjoy the show and not get myself killed.

I knew I could play my part. I mean, my task was literally to do nothing. Yet, apprehension remained. No matter what the team argued, we could have very well been walking to another trap.

But I had promised to keep my head up. So I did, hoping that my willpower was enough to overpower whatever trauma I was possibly about to endure.

“Remy?” Shena asked with a hint of concern in her voice. “Does it feel as if we’re being watched?”

Remy paused. She glanced behind at the alleys and rooftops, then said, “No, I don’t feel anything.”

Shena held her head as if listening to the wind. “It passed when you looked.”

“We are about to enter a cultist base,” Remy said. “Someone is bound to be watching us in one way or another.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Shena said. “But I swear I felt magic in the air. The professional and active type.”

Remy glanced at me. I shrugged, obviously feeling nothing but my nerves. “It’s probably nothing,” Remy said. “There aren’t more than a hundred mages in the world skilled enough to spy on us without alerting us, and I doubt any of them care enough to watch us clear a minor cultist operation.”

“Right,” Shena said. “Let’s move, then. Darko should be more than ready.”

A sentry stood by the closed front doors of the church. A woman in similar attire to the Priest Keeper from Volés, close enough in resemblance to re-spark bad memories. She spotted us approaching and immediately froze at the sight of Shena’s glowing staff.

The woman had no time to cry out, as Shena’s gooey projectile made contact with her face. The slimy goo filled her nose and mouth, blocking her breath ways. Within seconds, she fell unconscious.

“Don’t worry, she’s not dead,” Shena said. “We try to keep our victims alive, if at all possible, as vile as they are. My spell provides breath for the next several days and ensures that she won’t wake up before that.”

“I see.” I gulped. A horrified look was glued to the sentry’s face.

Shena tested the door handle of the church’s double doors, finding our entrance locked. I would have deemed the mission a failure there and then, but Remy found the keys from the sentry’s pockets within fifteen seconds of searching.

Staves held like the shields of a SWAT team, the girls pulled the doors open, then stepped into the church.

Inside, we were faced with the shadiest and most obvious setup I had ever seen.

Priests and servants were spread across the roughed-up and non-operational church, dimly lit by a single chandelier. Abandoned benches and other furniture were left in place. Statues and podiums had disappeared—same with anything else that might have held value.

The servants ranged from active cleaners to idle gazers leaning on walls. None wore cultist masks nor openly carried weapons, and none appeared panicked to see their church being broken into. The priests, however, gave concerned looks to our mages.

“Greetings,” Shena said. We paused near the entrance, presumably to ensure we wouldn’t get surrounded on all sides. “We have come to pick up the items and gear of Darko, the Wyvern Slayer. According to a letter written to our master, his gear is kept here.”

The leader of the group licked his lips and faced us. He was an older man in a priestly robe. “The items are in our safekeeping. However, I cannot give them to you.”

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“Why is that?” Shena asked. “Our Master has ordered us to pick up the items.”

“The Wyvern Slayer’s items are valuable,” the priest said. “I cannot risk such expenses falling into the wrong hands. I will only deliver them directly to the man himself. Preferably, he should arrive alone, to not bother us as you have.”

“Ah,” Shena said. “How kind of you. In that case, offering the items to us will not be an issue.”

The priest frowned. “What do you mean?”

“The Wyvern Slayer is very much in the building with us right now.”

“What?” the priest asked.

As if at the cue, a door behind the altar flung open by force. Through stepped a red-haired grinning maniac, holding two unconscious masked men by their robes. He tossed the cultists on the floor ahead, then called out with an exaggerated tone, “The Wyvern Slayer does it again! This time saving a perfectly honest and not-at-all criminal church from a cultist ambush!”

Panicked responses commenced. Half of our assailants dropped the act immediately, drawing weapons, realizing they were the ones surrounded in a trap. This prompted the other half to do the same. The head priest grimaced before pulling out Darko’s sword from a hidden scabbard.

Crossbows and daggers filled the remaining hands. The weapons of choice for cultists. Also the weapons I had the worst memories with. Any second now, I knew a gigantic black sword would appear from behind, blocking the exits.

A Black Plate did not appear. Instead, Shena’s mana chords glimmered through her skin as dozens of slime balls flew out from her staff at a pace comparable to my heartbeat. Few of her blows missed the stationary and untrained cultists, who were too frozen to dodge.

Bolts and arrows shot my way. I yelled something incoherent, holding my arms and staff to block my face. My efforts proved unnecessary. Remy’s casting snapped incoming crossbow bolts in half mid-flight with the help of a spell I couldn’t even guess to identify. It was as if she could stop projectiles through willpower alone.

With the lesser cultists busy, Darko rushed straight for the head priest. The priest let out a battle cry and slammed the glowing sword down at Darko’s head at a speed I thought would kill the leader for certain.

Darko’s side-step was far quicker, making the priest’s expert swing appear clumsy. Darko countered with a fist to the head. The blow sent the priest flinging across the room. The sword fell from his grasp and bounced with clatters across the room. The priest fell unconscious if not dead.

Then, as if no fighting had ever happened, the church fell quiet.

“Heh,” Darko said with a grin. “Expert performance, wouldn’t you say?”

“Your call-outs are growing harsher to withstand each time,” Shena said with a sigh. “We’re lucky nobody heard.”

“The cultists will remember once they wake up, I’m sure,” Darko said.

Shena rolled her eyes. “Did you find our clothes? The invitation?”

“I did,” Darko said. With a grin, he waved around a piece of neat parchment. “My stuff was all casually lying around being examined. Cill’s stuff… Well, hopefully we’ll find his items somewhere.”

I released my breath with an audible gasp, only now realizing I’d held it through the whole fight. I took repeated breaths, my body refusing to calm down. A large part of me had expected to withstand further trauma from bloodshed or to straight up die. Apprehension had kept me prepared for that reality.

“Not so bad, was it?” Remy asked. “This is actually how most of our missions go—granted, our opponents are magnitudes below our skill. Every now and then the cultists offer someone difficult, which is why we always work as a group. For most jobs, however, we could perform them with our eyes closed.”

“It’s done, then?” I asked in disbelief. “We don’t need to kill more?”

“We didn’t kill a single one, actually,” Darko said. “Sadly, that means we can’t collect their souls. We’ll drop the bunch off for the constabulary. And as for that fellow.” Darko glanced at the head priest. “We’ll keep him tied and use him as proof of our success. I’ll show him directly to the King.”

I snorted, and for once in my life I expressed something vaguely resembling a smile. My allies were powerful. They had protected me, just as promised. Not only that, they made the cultists appear like child’s play.

Maybe our earlier missions were exceptions, after all. If every mission went like this… I could do this. If I simply learned a few supporting spells to help the team… Perhaps, in some world, I wouldn’t be such a nervous, utterly useless idiot. If I just learned and improved myself, I could—

And that was where the celebrations of my naively meager victory ended.

Something landed behind us with a thump. A sensation washed over my body, my instincts telling me not to move a muscle. Whatever hellish being had arrived at the doors, its aura alone was enough to freeze me on the spot. My mana chords squeezed themselves to near suffocation.

Darko’s sword on the floor suddenly lifted as if by levitation and flung across the room in an arc, over my head and into the arms of whoever was blocking our exit.

“Greetings from a time long past, old friends,” a man’s voice said. “It appears the outposts have offered you little challenge.”

Darko’s expression evolved into pure hatred from the pits of hell. “Jordan… What do you think you are doing!”

“It has come to my attention that a recent awakener has joined your party to learn under an illegal, irresponsible teacher,” the man said. He held his staff, then pointed the shining orb directly at me. “I have come to free you of this responsibility.”