We traveled for a whole day and about half a night without a rest, only stopping a couple of times to check the direction we were going towards and if our target was moving. Every time when I checked though, the flame was still unmoving, right in the center of Kalkano. We were hoping that it would stay that way. That would also mean that they were none the wiser that they were being pursued and tracked.

At midnight, we finally reached the road just outside the village.

Once more I checked the map, and our target was still where we last saw it. Silently, we hid our monstrous mode of transportation away from the village in some bushes and commanded them to stay hidden. The smart creatures understood perfectly and lowered themselves to the ground, hiding in some nearby shrub - even during the day it would be hard for someone to spot them that way.

The village looked completely dead.

Well, to be honest, the last time I’ve been there it was not much better.

The homes were dark, people were nowhere to be seen. It was not all that strange, it was the middle of the night after all.

Like the last time, we were led in by Bert. Following close was Odar and me. Both of us were hiding our faces - besides the hoods that we had on us, we wrapped our faces with cloth. For Odar it was to hide his actual identity - even here, outside of the city, his face was supposed to be well known to the public. For me on the other hand, it was just to hide my recent changes in my face. Speaking of, I now noticed that Bert never even mentioned how I now had half of my face replaced by a crystal, which was strange. I asked him about that later, just to learn that he was briefed beforehand by Odar.

Besides that, we also did not want our prey to recognize us. If Melle was indeed captured by those monsters, it was likely that they also had some people on their side as well. Bert’s face was known here, so it was not a problem, and he apparently knew somebody here as well. If my face was still the same as before, I would be fine too, but alas, it was not the case. We were both to act as his new bodyguards, a.k.a. the replacement for Goldie and part of the force wiped during the attack that occurred when we last traveled together.

So, we slowly creeped into the village, watching carefully for anyone or anything out of the ordinary, but we did not notice anything. Without issue we arrived at the familiar house and Bert knocked at the door.

We did not have to wait for long until the door creaked open slightly and we saw a shadow of a person peek outside.

-Bert. You’re here again?

-Seems like it. I need a favor.

Bert’s voice was calm, but for some reason I felt like he was somehow nervous.

-You and your problems… what do you want?

-A place to stay for a night.

-I am not some kind of inn.

-I don’t need an inn. I just want to sleep.

The guy behind the door did not respond.

-Come on, it’ll be worth it… - he said, pulling out a sack of coins, showing off the contents.

-Ugh. How long?

-For now, one night. Or maybe two. I am not sure yet…

-Pay up front and let me sleep.

-Sure. The regular?

-That works.

I noticed him handing over some gold.

-You know where to go - he muttered, giving him a key.

With that quick exchange, he led us to a familiar stable. This time though, it was completely empty. It was eerily quiet without the animals…

-What are we doing here exactly? - asked Odar after confirming that we were indeed alone. - I am pretty sure that none of us needs to rest, so I assume you have some kind of plan?

-What do you mean, we of course need to rest. While we might be able to investigate during the night, it’d be nice to also be able to chat with some townsfolk. Who knows what they’d seen?

-I mean, sure… but do they really not have an inn here? Do we have to stay in some stable?

-Hah, so that’s it. Mr. Royal feels uncomfortable sleeping in a stable, eh? - I laughed at him.

-Shh - immediately silenced me Bert. - Walls have ears.

While I did admire him for being overly cautious, it was virtually impossible for anyone to hear us. After all, it was the middle of the night and we were in a barn that was pretty far out on the outskirts of the village.

But I guess, just to be safe…

-Come on, we are alone here. No one is going to hear us. If they would, his Highness would surely be able to deal with them with ease.

-How did you… - started mumbling Odar.

-Ehh… who would’ve thought that smuggling you out was such an easy task… We need to thank those monsters… without their attack this would’ve been impossible…

I was obviously spewing bullshit. But if, by some wild chance, someone was to listen to us, they’d definitely get interested.

-I said shut the hell up.

-Right, right… my bad. In any case, tomorrow we should split. I am going to protect his M… ehm, you, and you are to check if we are followed. They probably already dispatched some kind of pursuit. We did steal an important piece after all.

-True.

It looks like both of them caught on on my bluff.

-Okay then, you both stay here and I’ll check the surroundings.

With that, he left us alone in the dark shack.

Making all that up was straight up stupid, but hey, what can you do. I was not sure if Bert went ahead and actually intended to do what he said, but I was not going to sit there just waiting.

Instead, I moved to the center of the room and closed my eyes, focusing. I wanted to use my magic sense and check if I’ll get any pings close by.

Odar noticed me moving, but did not follow, instead was intently observing me. Even with my eyes closed I could feel his drilling look, which made me a bit anxious.

It was the first time in a while I used the magic sense, and definitely the first time that I used it on such a scale. I just intended to check our immediate vicinity, the shed and maybe the nearest bushes, I never thought I could even go farther than that.

But, oh, I was mistaken.

Most likely thanks to my crystalized body parts, the range was immensely bigger. As soon as I focused, I instantly was able to feel the whole shack and then about halfway into town. Before I managed to shake my surprise and stop myself, I already reached the road we came from.

The sudden flow of information threw me on for a loop. Every person, or rather source of mana, lit up in my head like a flame, giving me a glimpse of what we were up against.

In the stable, I could not feel anyone besides Odar. His flame was burning with a bright light, which actually gave me a good idea about his mana capacity.

I knew that he was close to the king, so I expected that, especially after seeing him use more than one element, but even so, the size and power of his presence was something to behold. Bright and colorless, somewhat similar to the flame I used to see on the contracts.

Not far away from the shack, there was another person, a lot less powerful, yet their flame was still pretty dense and bright. It also had a blue-ish hue. It had to be Bert. He was moving away from us, towards the forest. What was unusual though was a small, dark spot that looked like it was sucking in his flame…

Then I remembered. The unusual feeling and the image I noticed was definitely from his bow. I already inspected it once.

His bow was just absorbing his mana, being fueled by it.

It was not that strange of a thing, I was aware of the existence of such artifacts, but never actually had an occasion to use one myself.

Moving my attention away from him, I noticed three other signals that were almost as strong as his, which made me wary, but for naught. They were just our mounts, stationed away from the village. That surprised me a bit. Even though they were almost at the edge of my range, I could feel them just fine. Were those monsters really that strong?

Other than that, I did not notice anything unusual. There were a bunch of signals in every house, all of them dim and unmoving, probably because they were asleep. It was even possible that Melle was among them. If you were asleep, there was no difference - powerful or not, you were just a small ember, dim and barely noticeable.

But that also meant that we did not have to play that stupid deception game any more.

I snapped myself out of the trance and stretched out, lying on my back.

-Good news. We are in the clear. There is no one listening, nor anyone is even remotely close.

-And you are sure, because…?

-A gut feeling. What do you think?

-Ehe. Sure. So what, you want to follow him?

-Nah. It just means I can do my thing without worrying too much.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

I pulled out a map. During our trip here I already used it a bunch of times to confirm the location of our enemy and I was about to do the same.

I noticed that Odar wanted to stop me for a second there, but changed his mind and instead watched me intently.

After focusing for a second, the flame appeared, like every other time. And like every other time, it stopped right above the name of the village that we were on the outskirts of.

-Seems like we are fine… - he muttered, looking from behind my shoulder. - Can we go one step further?

I hid the map and instead pulled out an empty sheet of paper, prepared just for that reason.

One second later, a small flame was hovering in front of me, marking the direction we should take.

-Seems to be working. Should we wait for Bert or just go along without him?

But before we were even able to think that over, he was back. He looked slightly on edge, and noticing our attempts did not help him calm down.

-What the hell are you doing? - he hissed at me. - We might be uncovered like this!

-Weren’t you gone just to prevent that? - I asked calmly.

-And besides, we already checked our surroundings. There is no one nearby.

-Did you find anything interesting?

-No. The village is as dead as it looks.

-So we should be fine.

-I guess… - he muttered, still not sure. - If you are using this, that means…

-Yes. We are on the right track, nothing has changed.

-So what, you want to go now and try to find some clues?

-Yeh.

-But how? Don’t you think wandering with open flame like this is not a dead giveaway?

-Relax. I told you that no one is around. I wanted to do a lap and circle the whole village, thanks to that we can at least pinpoint the location.

-And if you get spotted?

-It’s better to get spotted during the night. I can just play dumb and say that I’m scouting, just like you did. And since I am the fire mage, or rather Red Mage, I can easily say that I’m just using the flame to brighten up the area.

-I guess…

-If worse comes to worse, I can try and excuse myself with this - I pointed to my necklace.

-And if it’s not gonna work, then…?

-If it comes to that, then I’ll think about it. I’ll probably run and you can just contact the reinforcements.

He still did not look very convinced.

-Since when you’re so worried about me?

-I am not worried about YOU. Just don’t want to fuck this up.

-I can’t blame him - nodded Odar. - While we might get away with it… him, not so much…

-Ah. Oh well, not my problem - I shrugged and stepped away towards the door.

I wanted to make it quick. While I still was pretty sure that everyone was well asleep and I should be fine, there was always a probability of some kind of anomaly happening. All this seemed too suspicious to me… This village did not look like a place that would host some kind of kidnapper.

It might have been small and unassuming, but it lacked something. I could not put my finger on it, but I still had a strange feeling about all this, like something was not adding up.

Contrary to my worries, nothing happened during my whole walk. I managed to easily slip away from the houses and take two laps around the whole thing without anyone spotting me.

During the first one, I barely was paying attention to the flame, just making sure that no one was following me.

I wanted to also use my magic sense, but I stopped myself. If I was to do that here, I would have to focus completely on it. While it was possible to do it on the move, it would drastically reduce my effective range. Even with my power elevated, thanks to the crystal, I would barely even reach the houses on the edge of the village. Besides, I for sure would have to drop the concentration on the flame that was tracking Melle. While we did have more materials for it, I did not want just to waste them like this, and just to be sure I did not want to cast it in the open like that.

Considering all that, after I made sure that I was indeed in the clear, during the second lap I was paying attention solely to the flame, to pinpoint the location as close as I could.

Surprisingly, it was not that hard of a task.

To my annoyance, I could tell that she was somewhere closer to the middle of the village, maybe a bit closer to the main entrance, somewhere where we came from. I couldn’t tell exactly which building though without entering the village and getting myself completely exposed. Weirdly enough though, the signal, or rather the size of the fire, was a bit weaker than I anticipated.

When I first tried that method on For in the capital, even though she was decently far away from me, the fire was stronger than this, meaning something was off. She could not be further away than her at the time for sure, I could tell just by the size of the village, so what gives?

With this new information I came back to the stable that we were renting.

Both Odar and Bert were waiting for me, expectantly. I quickly told them what I found out and shared my worries about the strength of the flame.

-I can’t tell you much about this magic, I never actually had to use it like this - muttered Bert, visibly distraught. - To disrupt that kind of magic… hmm…

-It’s not that hard, actually - said Odar. - But in this remote place… well…

-I didn’t expect you to know much about this kind of magic…

-I had to read up recently… thanks to you…

Right, I did stir up the capital quite a bunch. I did not expect him to take it so seriously though, it was already resolved after all.

-Anyway. Besides the distance, as you mentioned, not much can interfere in pinpointing the location like this. All of them need a dose of preparation and none are good news for us.

-What was that supposed to mean?

-Well - he started - the method you are using is slightly flawed. It does not show you the current location of the desired target, instead it just gives you the last place the person’s mana was recorded.

-Mana was recorded? - I asked, confused. - What do you mean by that?

-Every living being has mana, right? Whenever we use it actively to cast a spell or just straight up exist somewhere, our mana mixes with the environment, leaving traces behind. This method shows us the most recent place where that kind of contact had happened.

-Makes sense… but how then can you disrupt that kind of contact? Wouldn’t that mean that it’s virtually impossible?

-That’s why I said it’s hard and needs some careful preparations at first. For example, if I was to take someone to a place that has its mana flow disturbed, or at least pass through a location like that…

-...you’d be able to lose their trail… - I finished for him.

-Exactly. But for such a place to exist… I hardly want to believe it…

-In any case, we should pinpoint the exact location of the place - interjected Bert. - Whether she’s still in there or not, doesn’t matter much. If they are indeed gone, we might find some clues.

-Agreed. So what, you want to go with me and drop the pretenses?

-Not yet. I have an idea though.

-Me too. Bert, you probably remember, but I used to live not far from here. I know the layout of this place. How about you?

-I mean, somewhat I guess? I’ve been here quite a few times. What are you getting at?

-I want to draw a map of this place. Or at least the area where Mor is suspecting that our target is at.

-Hah. Well, why not… we do have a bit of spare parchment…

Together they started drawing. At first, they wanted to use the paper from the get go, but I stopped them and suggested that we at least should confirm the area we wanted to map.

With my guidance, we managed to create a very rough map, at first just straight up drawing in the ground.

When Odar was about to try and convert this to paper, I stopped him.

-Are you sure we need to use paper?

-What do you mean?

-What, you think the spell can hold without that? I guess you can try…

To our amusement, it actually worked. The small ember appeared from my palm and floated towards the ground. While it was definitely smaller than what I used to, we were able to confirm the place we should search.

The last place Melle’s mana was, was the building we first arrived at.

-I can’t believe it…

-That it worked or that she’s in there?

-Both.

-That’s actually good to know - I muttered. - If I know the layout of the place, I can just make a map myself, not even using anything…

-That’s… I honestly did not think it would work - said Odar, visibly distraught. - From what the king told me, this kind of magic would only work if the map was both very accurate and magically enhanced…

-While I want to say that we were so precise that the first condition was fulfilled - I said, lost in thought. - I don’t think the second one applies at all…

-Right?

-Let’s leave that for now. I am more concerned about where we found her…

-Yeah. Didn’t you say that you know that guy, Bert?

-Right… Well not exactly… I did not tell you earlier, but something was bugging me since we arrived…

-That does not sound good.

-Hm.

-Yes… Well, for starters, I don’t really “know” the guy. He just knows me.

-The hell is that supposed to mean?

-It’s just as it sounds. I often pass through this town, and sometimes, just like today, I use this place to get a quick rest. If I am alone, or at least when I am not leading my caravan that is.

-You said that you also sometimes get the supplies from here, didn’t you?

-Yes, but not very often. And that’s just in the worst case, after all we are not that far from the capital.

-Sure… but what’s that about not knowing him?

-I do not know his name, nor anyone who lives here. He’s just the only person that I ever managed to contact in this place.

-Hm? Didn’t you say that there are a bunch of other people here?

-Yes. I am sure I felt a bunch of people in the houses.

-I have never seen anyone besides him here. I never thought much about it.

-This is a strange village.

-Yeah. But that’s not what was strange though…

-Oh great…

-Remember, when we last passed through here, he invited me inside and only me, right?

-Sure. So what? It was pretty much the same this time.

-Yeah, but this time he actually opened the door himself and let you both see him.

-And? Not like any of us have seen his face.

-Right. But that is the first time he’s ever done that. The same with the key…

-The key?

-You noticed that he actually had it on him?

-Now when you mentioned it…

-Why would he have it with him in the middle of the night, when everyone is asleep?

-Huh.

His revelations left us with mixed feelings.

-Well shit.

-Any idea about his magic then? - Odar was not losing time, just went straight to the point.

-No idea. I’ve never seen him use any.

-Does he know about yours?

-Not many people do. Unless he knows about my father, then that’s a no. As a caravan leader I tried to hide it, and as far as I know I did not let anyone see me using magic ever, besides my subordinates that is. And… ehm, you.

-Right. I did catch you back then…

-I have no doubts about Mor, but what about the rest? Could some of them…

-Oh, they are super dead. Ask Mor.

-Hey, that sounds like I killed them. It’s not my fault that you let a problem magnet join your group.

-Yeah, right. Besides that, only you know my magic, Odar.

-Hm. I’d expect it to be the same with me. What about you?

Right. He was able to use multiple elements. That could be a good way to catch someone off guard. That is, if it's that unusual as Melle seemed to think.

Odar nodded.

-Not many people know about me and my magic. We should be fine at that front.

With that in mind, we agreed that we should act as soon as possible, while we still had the surprise factor.