“I have to say. I am impressed.” The commander said to Marissa.
“Well, I thought it would be harder. I almost feel bad for the bandits.” She responded.
“I still don’t know how you would think this could be easier.”
“It’s harder to capture than to kill. If we could just kill those people I have a hunter who, if we allowed, could probably eliminate everyone really easily or the cutest weapon of mass destruction you can think of.”
“Why aren’t we using those people?”
“The hunter, Klaws, Is cleaning the beach, because he is crazy strong and cuteness incarnate, Mia, Is in the dungeon.”
“I completely forgot that there were more people besides you five.”
“MOON! STOP KILLING PEOPLE!” Mathias shouted. His voice came through a communication stone given by the army in the fortress.
“He is mad that Marissa is saying that two people are stronger than him.” Kaki said.
“MOON! STOP KILLING PEOPLE EVERY TIME SOMEONE MENTIONS MIA!”
“And there goes another one.” Luminus added.
“If I have to heal more cuts on allied soldiers because of Moon, any damage he takes, he will heal on his own.” Shishen said over her own stone.
“As if any of these weaklings can touch me.” Moon said with full confidence in himself.
“KILL THE ELF! HE IS AWHG…!” A bandit shouted but was quickly taken care of by Moon and his dark blades.
“Moon, we need them alive. Stop killing them.” Narissa said over the stone.
“It’s not like fodder will know much.” Moon said back.
“He isn’t wrong, you know.” Mathias added as he knocked out another bandit.
Moon, Mathias, Kaki and Luminus were taking part in a small operation that Narissa devised. They were to work as a striker unit and help the army capture the bandits and get some answers on what exactly they were trying to accomplish but the plan went out of the window when the group of four turned out to be stronger than anticipated. There was still a chance that the bandits were just weakened from something but Narissa didn’t put much credit on that theory. The group, once on the field, quickly had their first engagement with the enemy and killed all of them without really meaning to. Something was making them unable to hold back as much as they used to. That something was the little Mia inside their heads saying that in a real fight, your enemy was 99% of the time, trying to kill you and if they didn’t want to die, they should do something about it.
It might have been the adrenaline at the time but their first kills, at least the first persons they killed, didn’t affect everyone as much as it would have a few months ago. They stare death in the face every day now and being told over and over that you have to be ready to kill, for once, or four times, actually worked.
As for what they were actually doing now, they were walking towards strategic points Narissa managed to pinpoint due to the intelligence they were getting and dealing with the enemies there while the army captured who they could and moved supplies they found back to the fortress for later use if necessary.
“A group of horse riders is coming our way.” Kaki said over his stone.
“How many?” Narissa Asked.
“5 to 10. Kinda hard to see with all the trees. Wait a moment…”
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“I am just going to cut everyone at once, people can survive without legs and it’s not like we need horses.” Moon said as he began to prepare a spell.
“I swear on Mia that if you break any more companion badges I am going to make you choke on their remains Moon!” Shishen shouted over the communication stone.
“It's not my fault they want to act as shields when we said we don’t need it.” Moon said back. Which was true. The four boys on the field stated in no uncertain terms after their first encounter with the enemy that anyone in front of them was a liability but even making sure that they are fighting in front of everyone was not being enough to stop someone from ‘shielding’ someone from the group from something they could clearly handle on their own.
“Man, stop treating them like children. They are not doing that to you so I expect you to at least do the same.” The commander said over his own communication stones.
“Alright I am ready, let’s get this…”
“STOP! DON'T KILL THE HORSES!” Kaki suddenly shouted, really desperately.
“Why?” Almost everyone asked in some way or another.
“Those are desert riders, they are really good horses.” Kaki answered more calmly after seeing Moon actually stop.
“How good?” Narissa asked.
“Imagine the best war horse you can. Now imagine that it can work like it normally would in plain or in the cold but in the desert. They are pretty much what would happen if you could mix the best parts of a war horse, camel and dromedaries in the body of a horse.”
“Do you think we might get any relevant information out of this?” The commander asked no one in particular.
“If these horses were stolen or bought from legitimate people, there is a really small number of people who deal with them. After all of this is over, if you don’t have anything, I can try to ask my family if they know anything. I want one of those horses though.” Kaki said.
“Kaki, not the time to make deals.” Narissa said as she shook her head.
“Yeah.” Everyone else in the group said.
“TREMBLE BEFORE THE MIGHT OF RIDERS OF ARHG…!” The man leading the horse band said before exploding, making all the other riders stop on their tracks.
“Moon!” Mathias shouted over the stone.
“Hey. That wasn’t me.”
“It was me. Sorry.” Luminus said.
“I saw it. What did you even do?” Narissa asked.
“I tried to compress my spell like Mia did. I thought I could hold the leader with that.”
“Luminus, as your commander, I need to ask you this. What was the first rule we established for this whole operation?”
“…” He didn’t answer.
“Don’t try to do what Mia would or could do because we can’t.” The other three answered.
“And why that?” Narissa asked.
“Because we are not as cute as her and we are bound by common sense.” This time all of them said.
“Good. Now, capture those horses and the riders. They must know something to have something so valuable with them.
“YES MA’AM!” They all said.
A while later, a group of soldiers was brought to the medical tent that Shishen was in.
“Saintess, please heal these soldiers.” The head nurse of the place asked Shishen.
“I am not a Saintess for fucks sake. I am not using divine healing.”
“Anything you say, Saintess. Now please fix our brave soldiers.”
“Goddammit I am not a Saintess!” Shishen said loudly but went her way to do the work. As for what exactly was happening. Due to the amount of people coming and going from the medical tents near the fort, Shishen had to go about healing in a more controlled manner.
If she did things normally, she would use a considerable amount of mana to heal anything.
She had a natural affinity for healing magic so she could perfectly heal mostly any injury once she received some training, at the cost of a higher than average mana cost but lower than what she was actually doing.
As she began to work on healing the injured, she tried to follow an advice Mia gave to her once. To heal things in parts, starting the earliest point she could think the body would heal naturally and lo and behold, it worked. By dividing her healing in smaller points, the next one would cost less, to the point that she was able to heal serious wounds using only a third of what she normally would and to finish it off, the entire process somehow came out better in the end.
Shishen was healing so many people in such a good way that people couldn’t help but think that a saint came to help them.
As she began to heal the group of eager soldier who ‘defended’ her classmates from a small army of bandits on horses she couldn’t help but think that she shouldn’t follow more of Mia’s advice on magic or she might actually become a Healing saintess, something that as far as she knew, was not something she was fit to be. First because the ever elusive ‘divine energies’ that the saints used were not something she had and second because she enjoyed her freedom.