Kursk didn't let their numerical advantage make him underestimate Adam or be overconfident about their chances. Even though the young man in front of him didn't appear impressive in any way, the small details he noticed about him were enough for him to be careful.

That wave of mana he released to scan the whole area around them wasn't something anyone would be able to do. Also, assuming he was the same person who attacked the reception ritual's magic circle, that was an astonishing move in terms of mana used, and when they went to check the place where the attacker was, they found the broken remains of a bow. based on what Fiden said, the reason that happened was that a great amount of mana passed through it in a short amount of time, an amount the materials it was made of couldn't handle.

You should have an astonishing reserve of mana to use it in such a wasteful manner, and just that would make any fighter worth anything careful. Krusk, trying to leave the face-off without any casualties from his side, made it his goal to get Adam to retreat without a fight.

"Listen, boy, the girl will probably be safe, and there is no relationship between you and her as far as I can see, so why would you make things hard for you?" Said the amaryn next to the semigin.

"Well, it's quite hard to believe that she's going to be safe from how the village was, and also, helping her is trivial for me, there's no problem at all," said Adam in his usual calm yet playful tone.

"There's no need for anything else to be said, it seems,' the semigin said as he nodded his head towards his soldiers.

They advanced towards Adam and Susan as one, trying to trap them at the centre of a half-circle. Adam's choice of the battleground made it so he only needed to care about what's in front of him, and not what's behind him, therefore Susan. But it also made his movement restricted and stopped him from retreating.

Seeing the soldiers start moving towards him, Adam too took a step forward, opened his clenched palms while murmuring something. As he did, his hands which were wearing the blue embroidered gloves, shone with a milky white light and the phantom of two gigantic hands manifested above too random soldiers.

Not giving the soldiers any chance to struggle, Adam moved his hands as if to catch something in front of him, the phantom hands imitating his movements without any delay. Each hand caught a soldier and threw him away in the air, mimicking Adam's hands' movement.

After he had done that, and even before the two thrown soldiers hit the ground, Adam had already moved his attention to another two soldiers. But by then, the other soldiers were already prepared for that, and while those two avoided the two gigantic hands, the rest sent magical projectiles with different appearances and colours at him, as the amaryn threw dark brown mana-strengthened arrows.

Krusk, on the other hand, was charging at Adam like a wild boar, his speed was unbelievable and shocking with that huge built of his, and his appearance as he ran with the earth shaking after each step he took was enough to freeze the heart of the bravest soldier.

He was holding his greatsword with both hands and his whole body was glowing with a faint bloody red glow.

Adam, seeing the different magical projectile getting closer, manifested a translucent milky white barrier around him and Susan with no sign of any hand movement or any murmuring at all, he manifested it casually and in a second.

But when the projectile hit the barrier, Krusk was already standing in front of him, he lifted his greatsword, and with that, his already big arm muscles bulged and the same bloody red glow covered the greatsword as he swung it at Adam.

Despite his big size and strong body, Krusk wasn't a muscle head, on the contrary, he was a meticulous man, and someone who had great battle instincts. He knew that to fight someone like Adam, someone with a possibly astonishing mana reserve, the best course of action would be to get close to him and stop him from using his magical advantages to rain them with destructive magical spells. So while Adam was kept busy by the other soldiers, he ran as fast as he could towards him, trying to engage him in close combat.

No hint of fear or worry from the approaching greatsword was shown on Adam's face, all he did was whisper something to himself, making one of the gigantic hands disappear, and just as it did, Krusk's greatsword connected with Adam's defensive barrier, the barrier stopped the sword for half a second only, but that was enough for Adam who clenched his hand into a fist and punched in the direction of the attacking Krusk while murmuring the same spell again.

Just like the first time, the gigantic hand manifested before Adam, and mimicking his hand movement, it punched at Krusk.

Boom!

The gigantic hand met the greatsword and in where they connected, an explosion of white and red lights happened, the settlement continued for less than a second, but after that, the red light was swallowed, and with that Krusk was thrown flying away back to where he came from.

While in the air, Krusk straightened himself and fell on his feet, stabbing his greatsword in the ground, using it to keep himself standing and to stop his movement.

Everyone stopped for a second, all the soldiers looked at Adam who was still standing there nonchalantly while he shook the hand he punched Krusk with up and down as the gigantic hand above him did the same.

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Krusk stood up and looked at Adam hesitatingly, there was a depression in his iron armour at the chest area, but he himself wasn't truly hurt.

He knew that that wasn't because of the quality of his armour, nor was it because his opponent's attack was weak, no, it was because his opponent had shown mercy, he clearly felt his opponent hold himself back as he attacked him, if he hadn't, he would have been critically injured for sure.

Thinking about that, he threw a glance at the two soldiers Adam threw into the air, he noticed that they weren't in a critical condition and that they would be back to their optimal state after a bit of rest and light treatment.

None of the two parties made any move, Adam was looking at them interestingly as if waiting for what Krusk was going to do, while Krusk looked at him in silence, no one knew what he was thinking.

"We aren't your match, are we?" Krusk vainly said with a long sigh.

"Exactly," answered Adam casually.

"So why didn't you just kill us? I don't think that would have been an issue for you, and as you have already shown in the village before, you have nothing against killing us, so why didn't you?" Continued Krusk, it was clear he wasn't just a bit confused about that.

"Hmm... Do you know? I went to the village last night, and when I was there, I heard a lot of things, and you can say that maybe what you all have done wasn't enough for you to be treated as heroes, but it was enough for me to let you live," said Adam as he shrugged his shoulders.

Krusk showed a look of realization and threw Susan a complicated gaze before turning to his soldiers and shouting:

"Come on, we have to go back, we can't deal with him."

Susan expected that some of the soldiers would show unwilling expressions but to her surprise, they all just gave relieved sighed and started getting ready to leave.

While they were doing that and checked on those two soldiers who were thrown away by Adam, Krusk looked at him and said:

"Don't worry, we won't tell them that we have met you, but still, you have to be careful, from the amount of mana that reception ritual's circle needed, the person they were sending after you wasn't weak at all."

After that, he looked at Susan and said, "... I'm sorry Susan... We couldn't help you... Also..." He appeared hesitant with the last part of his sentence before shaking his head and continuing, "Never mind, it's not that important. You should take care of yourself, what's coming won't be easy for you," with that he turned around and headed to his waiting soldiers.

Watching them leave in silence, Susan didn't say a thing, she didn't shout at them and she didn't demand any answers, she just sat there and gazed blankly at where they disappeared.

"Come on, we have to move," after a while of her staying just like that, Adam couldn't stop himself and stepped close to her as he patted her shoulder lightly.

"...Why did you let them go...?" Susan didn't move, instead, she asked with a barely heard deep hoarse voice.

"Because they did nothing wrong," said Adam as he looked at where the soldiers disappeared.

Susan clearly didn't expect such an answer and lifted her head and looked at him in shock.

"What I meant is that 'they' did nothing wrong, this group of soldiers," explained Adam when he saw her face, "last night after you fell asleep I went to the village to see what happened, and I saw an argument happening between this group and the rest of the soldiers, and from what I understood, when the orders to destroy the village and kill everyone in it came, their leader, that man you called Krusk, gave them the liberty to choose if they wanted to participate or not.

"Everyone in this group had refused, and they weren't a part of last night's attack, also it was them who gave the villagers a proper burial, this might seem insignificant to you because they did nothing to help, but that was the limit of what they could have done.

"Even with them doing just that, disobeying orders, they will face prison and possibly even death if the higher-ups in the army wanted to make an example of them. But, if they had tried to help or fight against the other soldiers, they would have been facing the penalty of treason, and they would have been killed for sure, while their family members might have been killed too."

Saying that Adam lifted his head and looked to the bright blue sky:

"Even though there have been no real wars for a long, long period of time because of the Alpha and his Royal Commandments, that doesn't mean that all races are in harmony and that they all are working to improve the state of their people. no, in the shadows of this peace and harmony, there are a lot of things happening away from the eyes of their citizens, all races are working on keeping a strong front, and that would usually mean being the cruellest to their own kind."

For the first time since she met him, Susan saw an expression other than his nonchalant, casual, playful one, he had a deep look that wasn't in character with his usual self.

"Come on, get up and stop lazying around, we have to move," While she was still stuck in Adam's words and the weird expression he showed, she tilted to the side while hearing Adam's playful words in his usual tone.

He kicked her.