"~WHY ARE WE BACK?~" Tristan asked with a slightly shaking voice.
The very same question was on the tip of my tongue, but I was glad that he finally recovered. All this time he was so silent.
Despite all that bravado when he asked to come along, the sight of villagers coming back to life shocked him to the core. Just a day ago I explained that the things he saw in my memories when I watched horror movies are not real... and now the dead forgot to act like dead right in front of his eyes. On our way there, quite a few times his thoughts 'what if other things in the movies are real too' leaked through our soul. I was very embarrassed when realized that what this dragon, now almost at the size of a truck, dreaded the most was... a clown.
"The lead ends there," Aurora said in a calm voice.
I wasn't sure if it was to answer Tristan, or if she just did so before others asked the same.
"Care to tell us, 'Nick'..." Zaos started to speak while trying his best to suppress irritation in his voice, "why back then you have failed to mention that it was an undead that left that message?"
With Aurora using 'peek into the past' it took us quite some time to track down where that last undead came from. And the final destination was... where it all began - the crossroad with a large tree at the side. Needless to say, it was the same place where we were supposed to meet with the Harbingers at the start. A sign with written words asking us to head to the village was still lying on the ground...
"I have told that we can't trust her," Kun glanced at Aurora and then looked around with his hand on the sword, as if anticipating for an ambush, "She should be in the dungeons... just like that demon."
That guy really doesn't like me.
"You didn't ask," Aurora replied to Zaos while completely ignoring the other templar, "I can't spam 'peek into the past' everywhere I go... It costs mana you know. You better explain to me why the hell my alias has to be a name of that wannabe harem idiot?!"
"Because you two are alike?" Zaos replied and then looked at Kun, "You will return to the Capital..."
"But what if the enemy..." the templar started to object, but then stopped in mid-sentence when saw his gaze.
"You will inform everyone about what happened there." Zaos continued, "If they really plan to proceed with that... zombie apocalypse thing, we need to warn the Lords of the lands and make our own plans. Reveon, I would like you to help teleporting him to the temple. The time is of the essence..."
"You can't be serious?!" Aurora ignoring their conversation flared up in anger, "how can you even compare him to me?! The guy is completely hopeless, absolutely no knowledge how to flirt, terrible in bed, and not counting his experience with the slaves..."
"Terrible in bed?" Jade widened her eyes, "You slept with him?"
"Uhh, don't remind me," Aurora replied with a groan, "When I joined, no one has trusted me at that time and I have my needs..."
"No one trusts you even now," Lorenzo muttered but Aurora only chuckled.
"Anyway, terrible as he might be," she continued, "he is still a champion... and since I already decided to get a taste of every single one anyway..." she then paused and looked at Lorenzo, "well, maybe with a few exceptions."
Jade, on whose head the pixe was sitting, couldn't help but burst into laughter.
"That's enough." Zaos stopped Aurora when Phoenix agreed to transfer Kun to the temple, "You said the lead ends there, how that undead got there?"
"With teleportation of course," Aurora replied as if it was something obvious, "how else would I lose the track?"
"Do you recognize the mage that transferred it there?" Zaos asked again.
"It wasn't a mage..." Aurora replied, "the zombie got there with a portal stone."
"Portal Stone?" Phoenix asked surprised, he stopped the magic circle he was creating and looked at me.
He then stretched his arm and an orb appeared on the palm. It was the same stone we got from the assassin, the one I killed for a bounty and then got mixed up in the events that followed.
"Yes, just like this one," Aurora confirmed,
"But there was nothing on him..." Phoenix muttered, "ahh, corrosive liquids from that corpse explosion. Must have melted the orb..."
Zaos then faked a cough to remind about the other templar and Phoenix started the process of mass teleportation all over again.
"Still, for the stone to work, it needs a mark..." I said and started searching the ground, then changed my mind and after activating bracelet skimmed over my options with the scanner.
There.
I walked near what looked like a simple rock on the ground, but when I picked it in the hand, found the mark on the other side. Could probably have done that the last time we were there, but... one has to be aware it's there in the first place.
"Can you check who put it there?" I asked while lightly tossing the stone to Aurora.
This 'peek into the past' might have absolutely no value in combat... but for situations like these, it would be very nice to have it. It's like having hidden cameras placed all over the world. As long as the events you look for have not happened too long ago, even in the wilds, no one is safe from you learning what they did.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
I should be more careful with what I say and do... and I really hope that no one has checked on me when I taught Phoenix body manipulation. This skill alone allowed me to stay on par with Harbingers and Champions, and if it landed in the wrong hands...
"Hmm, this might take a while," after a while Aurora's voice brought me back to the reality, "The stone with the mark was there even two days ago. And I seem to be unable to guess the exact time..."
"How that 'peek into the past' works exactly?" I eventually asked.
"Mmm... I have to set how far into past I want to look and once the spell is activated, can see everything that happened at that time," she answered, and I was surprised how easily she did that. She had no obligation to tell me everything and with me being the one directly responsible for her capture...
"To an extent, I can even fast forward or reverse the... 'recording'," she continued, "but it's easier to just activate the whole thing all over again..."
"No, I meant to ask if you can hear the sounds when you use... Wait! Did you just guess at random when look into the past?" I asked surprised and her following reaction told me that my question hit the mark, "Wait, really?"
"I use my intuition," she shrugged.
Oh, boy...
"I guess I better help you if we don't want to sit there for hours. How far into the past you can look?"
"Eight days," she replied.
"Set it to that and look if at that time the mark was already there," I requested.
"It wasn't..." she replied after her gaze regained the focus.
"Very good. It means that the event when it was placed is within your range. Set it now to four days ago, still not there?"
"It's there now."
"So it was placed at the interval from eight to four days ago," I continued again, "Set it as six and look again..."
"Still there," Aurora replied with a smile, "I see... so it was placed from six to eight days ago. Then if I set it at seven next..."
"The result will leave you with only one day worth of time to search from," I joined, maybe that head wasn't completely empty, "you can then reduce that further into a half day, a quarter... when it's only an hour or two can even switch to that fast forward or whatever method..."
For a while Aurora was silent.
"There, found him," Aurora exclaimed with excitement in the voice. Probably surprised just how much time could be saved.
Just as she said that Phoenix appeared right next to me and startled the priest who released an embarrassing shriek. As our not so friendly templar was already transferred, Phoenix saw no reason to stay at the temple.
"The culprit is a guy that looks like an adventurer..." continued Aurora, "I can track him, but... should this really be our priority? There is no guarantee this will lead us anywhere. Shouldn't we try to catch the bigger fish?"
"Bigger fish?" Jade asked at the side.
"The priest," Zaos said while looking in direction of the village.
They were right.
If that priest was really responsible for the death of those villagers, he should be our first target. There is also a very high chance he is connected to the Harbingers.
And while our pixie champion has confirmed that the necromancer wasn't lying when said it wasn't him that killed those villagers... yes... necromancer. I was also surprised... after all, it was only his puppet that did the talking, and yet the pixie could tell if the one behind it wasn't lying as well. This ability of theirs to detect lies is way more mysterious than I thought...
Still, it doesn't mean that B or some other Harbinger wasn't behind it. For all we know, the necromancer could have ordered that priest... and technically still not lie that it wasn't him that killed them.
"Shouldn't we first check the other village?" after a while Phoenix asked and looked in the direction down the road leading to another village, "If I remember correctly there was supposed to be a party of adventurers making an investigation and yet there was none in the village we just left... even among the dead."
"I will take a look, you guys just follow that priest." and before anyone could say anything I teleported high in the air, just like Phoenix did at that time and then used multiple short-range teleportations.
*
After one more blink, I ended up right above the village and down below saw a familiar sight - zombies.
There were also adventurers Phoenix has mentioned, but nearly ten of them were now dead... and yet the two remaining were dealing with the group of undead practically without any problems.
Maybe the others were killed with the help of that necromancer?
In a fight against necromancer the most dangerous is actually a corpse explosion used when you less expect it... but even without it, a simple zombie can be quite dangerous when controlled by a master of martial arts. When Phoenix forced necromancer to detonate that transmitter-zombie, all those undead must have been released from direct control and were now just regular zombies.
Despite their numbers, the zombies were completely not a match for those two.
One was an old orc with two swords in each hand, the other was a fox beastkin with a bow. Fox was on the roof of a house and was steadily firing with her bow, each arrow piercing right through the eye. The orc on another hand was on the ground and used hit and run tactic. He would charge, kill three or five zombies and then quickly retreat, drawing them where his companion could reach them with her bow and at the same time not allowing them to surround him.
There was, of course, also a possibility that these two were a part of an ambush, waiting for an opportunity when I or someone from our group offers a help just to strike when our guard is down. But... when I activated analyze, I saw that only the orc was at the level 42 and the fox was barely at 23.
Just when I decided that it's time to help them I felt a strong fluctuation in space and... the next moment a massive body of a dragon materialized right next to me.
"~AHH!~" Tristan cried in alarm and started to fall.
His wings were still closed, probably teleported to me while still on the ground, clearly not prepared to appear in the air.
Strong winds quickly surrounded his body and slowed down his decent... then a powerful flap with the wings stopped it completely.
"~WHY YOU LEFT ME?!~" Tristan then shouted while looking at me with a hurt expression.
"Err... I just wanted to save these poor souls from the dead," I said while pointing at the group below us.
Definitely couldn't admit that I just wanted some action... I then quickly checked our bond and sighed in relief when noticed that my thoughts were not leaking at the moment.
"~ZOMBIES!~" Tristan shouted when saw where I pointed.
At first, he looked as if was about to make a retreat, but then probably got angry at himself for this kind of reaction. His body started to glow, the air distorted from the heat, and when he opened his jaws a large fireball started to form.
"Tristan, No!" I shouted.
I could feel that mana used just for this was at least twice the amount of my entire mana pool... but Tristan was fully submerged in the task and was no longer aware of his surroundings.
"Fuck!"
I quickly teleported near the orc, my phantom tail coiled around him like a snake before he even managed to react. I then launched at the fox on the roof and caught her with phantom arms that just finished forming. Only when I landed on the other side of the building, my phantom beast has finished taking the full form.
I then placed both, the orc and fox into jaws of my phantom beast, and burst into a run on all four.
I spared no mana to gain as much speed as I can and even when entered the forest, was more than confident that with my current speed I could outrun any car on a highway.
With a single glance over my shoulder I saw the fireball now almost at the village... and in the next moment, a large blast robbed me of the sight. I heard my arcana defense breaking apart but phantom beast still managed to withstand the rest of the force.
If I was even a bit closer to the explosion...
When my sight has finally recovered, a massive mushroom of flames and smoke rose from the place that once was a village. It wasn't at the level of a nuke... but the power was devastating nonetheless.
I forgot that Tristan isn't a real dragon... and this was definitely not your usual dragon breath.