[LEVEL INCREASE]

Roth raises his head back as the rain washes over his face. Blood and sweat trickles down his face as he takes a moment to collect himself. He ignores his wound as it slowly oozes blood. In that brief moment of calmness, he felt relief, but quickly snapped out of his trance. Looking over behind him he sees the black smoke rising where the orange glow of the flames once was. For the time being he prays only Mina is safe with the training she has had so far.

He quickly rushes over to Sillo as he's being gently held up by Shiana. Sillo's face is riddled with fear and shaking from pure shock. He holds Shiana's hand tightly and Shiana's face is pale, and her eyes are running back and forth on him to figure out how to save him. Sillo's eyes rapidly blink as his eyes match with Roth.

"I- I'm- sorry... I shouldn't have... been an asshole- with you... can you... ever forgive me...?"

Sillo's blue silver robe soaked in blood and water as the gash goes across his chest. Roth kneels next to him and casts appraisal. His whole chest is glowing deep dark red and continues to grow darker. Without hesitation he reaches with both his arms out and his palms begin to glow. Shiana's teary face looks in confusion watching his palms. Sillo's shaking and terrified face slowly began to grit his teeth. The gritting soon turned to slow heavy breathing. Now his face became relaxed and slowly opened his eyes.

Sillo blinks rapidly and grabs his chest putting his fingers in the torn clothes. He pulls down the ripped clothing showing the severe laceration. The deep wound that showed the torn flesh began slowly closing itself. His eyes widened in disbelief; Shiana’s face dropped in total shock. She looks at Roth with a hasty voice, " Who... who in the world are you???"

"I'm just a guy who doesn't want to see others get hurt is all. I promised to keep you guys safe, I'm sorry about the others. I wish... I wish I could've done more." Roth puts his head down in shame. Sillo tries to quickly get up but is still weak and collapses back into the puddle of water.

"You saved me, even when I was terrible to you. You even protected us from that damn monster. As far as I'm concerned you have nothing to be sorry about."

Shiana holds him steady, " Sillo calm down, don't move so quickly. Roth I- thank you, you truly did a great deed here."

Shiana's stern and cold emotion was now replaced with gratitude and joy. Joy for Sillo being safe and unharmed. Roth seeing her acting with Sillo made him suspect they had a history together, but Roth ignored that curiosity for now. He looks towards Tobias and Yoseph to see if they're alright as well. Tobias gets up slowly trying to stretch his back from the amount of force he was slammed against. Yoseph struggles to get up as he is coughing, grabbing his chest.

A giant dent was on Yoseph's chest armor that was very deep. So deep that it was actually cutting the skin up slightly. Yoseph was wheezing trying to catch his breath from the direct impact he took. Both Tobias and Yoseph sluggishly walked towards the three.

"Kid, I've seen some messed up things as a mercenary, but I have never seen anything like that in my life." Tobias said in disbelief.

"I gotta hand it to you squirt, I'm ashamed to admit it, but you saved our asses back there. I guess Aufnier might be right about you after all." Yoseph said still with an unsure look.

Roth was too exhausted to care about his attitude and decided to help Sillo up to his feet. Roth made Sillo lean against him to help his balance.

"I think... I think I will be okay, thank you Roth."

"Nonsense, you may have been healed but that didn't stop the loss of blood. My magic may have healed you, but it can't do everything."

"I guess that...makes sense..."

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Shiana helps Sillo walk on his feet and chimes in with Tobias and Yoseph limping behind her,

"I am embarrassed to say, but we didn't do a damn thing. We all got captured with the exception of Roth. Roth was able to beat him fairly quickly, even with that weird substance he had taken."

"Yeah kid for you being only a bronze plate you are way stronger than I expected. Maybe even stronger than me haha." Tobias said jokingly as he winces in pain just at the end. Yoseph snarly interrupted, " Are we seriously not going to talk about the big issue here, kid, you summoned lightning magic. Nobody can do that, the only people who can possibly do that are people with dark magic. But you have elemental and light magic as well. And what in Theanitas name was that glowing light that came out of that freak?!"

Roth didn't stop to answer and kept walking back towards the mansion with Sillo leaning around his arm. "It's a long... story." Yoseph gives a frustrating expression and continues to walk towards the mansion. "Just be glad he's on our side, right? Hahah!" Tobias let out a capacious laugh that followed with a cough. They slowly made their way into the building down the corridors of the mansion. The building was eerily silent, no more screaming, no more fighting. Just pure deafening silence until they reached the ball room.

They were all shocked to see all their men on the floor dead. Puncture wounds near their necks and sides. Puddles and pools of blood scattered across the ballroom floor. The window high above was shattered and charred on the edges of what looked to be an explosion. "Oh my word, they're all-" Sillo was interrupted by Tobias, " Look over there!"

They all looked in the direction he was pointing and saw Jeune sitting on the floor holding Ifani's head in her lap. Tobias rushes towards them and quickly kneels beside the two. His upbeat outgoing personality is now switched to a panic mode. Roth and the others made their way to them and saw Ifani was extremely pale. So much blood loss has taken that a giant area of blood has surrounded them.

"I-I-I just couldn't leave him here by himself. I tried everything to make the bleeding stop but it won't stop pouring out..." as Jeune said with sniffling tears.

"I.... it's...okay... Jeune...this is our job... we kn- know the risks..." Ifani is nearly on death's door barely hanging by a thread. Tobias grabs Ifani's hand trying to comfort him. He turns towards Roth pleading to help. Roth looks at Ifani and uses appraisal. He can see Ifani's body is nearly colorless, but the dark hue of red shows the area that he was stabbed. He quickly kneels beside him and places his hands over his sides towards the wound.

Roth puts more mana into his healing to make sure everything is closed up quickly and fully healed of any damage. Jeune and Tobias look at Roth in suspense and back to Ifani. Ifani's half weak open eyes stared into Jeune as he let out a sigh of relief and began to slowly close his eyes.

"Ifani...? Ifani?! Is he... Is he-?!" Cried out Jeune.

"Don't worry, he is safe now. That sigh he made was him feeling relief. He lost nearly all his blood, he just fell asleep and needs rest."

"Th-thank you Roth I... I'll stay here and just keep him safe... the little bastard is right there that did all this." They all looked to the other side and saw the teen unconscious bleeding from the nose face down into the floor.

Tobias was hesitant but complied for her sake and continued on without her. They made their way to the entrance, and it was a disaster. The whole front door area was completely destroyed. The stairs were damaged immensely and the area looked as if half the building had collapsed. A carriage was tipped on its side inside the building with amounts of rubble on top. And laying in the rubble was the monstrous beast, Dante. Covered in lacerations, bruises, and blood. Blood oozed out through the metal jaw brace.

Laying in the middle of the area was Ganzo, extremely covered in cuts and lacerations all over his entire body. His body was so cut up as if he was spinning inside a blender. And miraculously he was still breathing. Roth quickly rushed over to Ganzo and quickly put his hands to heal as the others before. Slowly but surely the lacerations began to dissipate. Ganzo was now free from all damage and was breathing softly resting on the rubble floor. Roth smiles and looks outside of the destroyed entrance. He saw the sky still producing a plume of black smoke covering the entire forest.

He immediately stopped and stared at the smoke of death. Ignoring everything else he quickly ran back to the H.Q area ignoring the calls of the others behind him. His mind began to race. His heart was beating with intensity. A cold sweat kept running over him. Roth can't keep his mind calm and only the worst-case scenarios kept coming into his mind. All the trees he passed by were scorched to a charred crisp. The ground blackened by the raging fire that was just here a moment. The rain did not let up and still continued to pour making the ground muddier with each step.

Finally, he made it, catching his breath. He looks around trying to find Mina. He begins to panic when he can't find that big brim hat she's wearing. Then just in the distance on a small broken bench he sees a small girl with her hands over a mercs hand healing. Barely hurt with only a few scratches and dirty soaked clothing. The girl looked over to Roth's direction and her face brighten up just like the sun, " BIG BROTHER!!!"