"Master, are we going to the guild as soon as we get back? Don't forget to stop by Clarice's place to pick up some maintenance tools."

"We can just go straight to Clarice's place, I usually don't head to the guild until morning when there are less people. I'll introduce you tomorrow too to a guild staff I'm close with, I'm sure he'll l---shit..."

"Hmmm? What's the matter master?"

"...Sigh, I promised to drop by the guild this morning to get my new badge and I totally forgot! Lawrence must be pissed"

All I've been thinking about was Faris this entire time since I bought her, and without any mana crystals to sell, I completely forgot about my promotion and new badge.

"Hey Faris, can you take the reins, let's hurry back before my friend at the guild gets off for the day."

"Leave it to me, master."

With Faris at the reins, Blacky breaks into a gallop as I hold my Faris tightly from behind, for safety of course.

---

"Are you sure that's the kid?"

"I'm certain, he's even wearing the same thing when he was bringing the Count's son back."

"Signal the others, it's time for revenge."

---

With nothing better to do as we can't even have a proper conversation while the horse is in gallop, I check out our status.

Human Male Age: 18

Magic Level:

  Water Lv.10

  Electric Lv. 6

  Fire Lv. 1

  Earth Lv. 1

  Wind Lv.1

  Healing Lv. 1

  Dark Lv. 1

  Light Lv. 1

  Nature Lv.1

Unique Magic:

   Identify

Human Female Age:18

Magic Level:

  Dexterity Lv. 25

  Stamina Lv. 14

  Strength Lv. 1

  Fire Lv. 1

  Water Lv. 1

Unique Magic:

  Sense Danger

My magic has barely leveled at all, I guess this is about the limit for staying on the first floor. I need to do some research back at the guild to find us a suitable dungeon to progress further.

"Master, the road in front seems to be blocked off by a broken-down carriage, there are people around the carriage, should we go help them?"

Looking ahead, I see a carriage tilted to the side, missing a wheel, and two hooded figures inspecting the damage.

What could have caused the entire wheel to be missing? I don't trust this one bit, it seems like a textbook setup for an ambush to me.

"...Be careful, I think they're bandits in disguise. If they do anything we'll go with the same formation we used in the dungeon today."

"Don't worry master, I'll definitely protect you."

We slow our approach and stop a distance away from the people around the carriage.

"Excuse me, but can you guys move the carriage off to the side, it's blocking the road."

One of the hooded figures steps out toward us and reveals his face to us. A woman in her twenties with long red hair tied into a ponytail.

"Oh sorry, our carriage broke down and we can't seem to be able to move it at all, can you guys help us out? We'll pay you back for sure!"

"Sorry, we just remembered we were supposed to meet with someone back at the dungeon, excuse us, Faris let's turn back, we ARE in a HURRY after all."

Sensing this to be likely a trap, I try to tell Faris we should retreat fast but before we even managed to turn around...

"...Tsk, they ain't falling for it, attack!"

Two archers emerge from within the carriage and quickly lets their arrow loose at us. Being on guard, I quickly hold my shield up at the sight of the archers. I feel two forces push against me through the shield and by the time I lower the shield to get better vision on our opponents, I see Faris had already dismounted and is currently dashing at them. I dismount and join the fray.

Faris swipes two daggers in each hand and throws them accurately at all four targets. The two archers manage to quickly get out of the way by stepping off the carriage while the two on the ground use their weapon and parries the daggers.

The woman charges toward Faris with a two-handed katana, while the other figure pulls out a large battle axe and heads toward me.

The two archers fire a volley at the closer unshielded Faris, forcing her to abruptly come to a stop from her dash and rolls to the side while chucking another dagger one of the archers. The archer busy loading his next arrow did not expect the retaliation and takes the dagger straight into his wrist.

Nice, one pesky archer down.

The red-haired woman reaches Faris as she stabilizes from her roll and slashes straight down with all her weight. Faris parries the blow not straight on, but skillfully at an angle and deflect the blow to the side and kicks the woman's ankles, making her fall flat on the ground. Before Faris's sword strikes down on her, she rolls rapidly away and gets back to her feet.

I finish my spell and cast a water stream, aiming at the feet of the man charging me with an axe. He threw away his cloak at the start of the charge, revealing his gleaming iron plate armor. This guy must be really strong to dash at me so fast wearing something heavy like that, can't afford to take him in close combat. With that thought, I pour lots of mana to form a strong electric current at the stream as soon as his feet make contact with the water. With electricity running throughout his body covered in metal, he's forced to come down on one knee after a loud grunt.

I try to cast an ice lance to finish him, but before I can fully freeze the water, an arrow comes flying my way, breaking my concentration as I lift my shield up.

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Faris and the woman are clashing swords against each other, each movement flowing fluidly, seeing the archer aim at me, Faris decides to throw her sword in hand, catching the woman off guard, forcing her to step back to parry. Taking this time, Faris breaks away and sprints straight at the uninjured archer.

The previously injured archer draws a sword with his remaining working hand and tries to intercept Faris, but all he got was air with his swing down as Faris stopped before him. Faris takes the opportunity of the failed wide swing that hits the ground and steps on the blade and stabs out at the chest of the archer that had his arrow nocked before quickly smoothly pulling out into a slashing motion and slits the throat of the man still trying to pull his sword from underneath Faris's foot.

Two on two.

Without the interference of the archers, I manage to cast an ice lance straight at the still kneeling armored man. The ice lance hits his thighs and barely penetrates the armor but he's bleeding hard and now he can't get close to me.

Right after Faris slits the last archer's throat, the woman reacher her charging straight at her with her sword, Faris wasn't quick enough to fix her posture and tries to dodge behind the man clutching his bleeding throat. The woman's blade managed to nick at Faris's waist, she's bleeding from the wound but it's shallow.

Fuck, Faris is hurt, I need to hurry to help her, that woman was fighting toe to toe with her even before the injury. I pour tons of mana into a huge ice lance at the now immobile target, the man takes it straight onto his chest and grunts out all the air in his lungs, he's sent flying to the ground with the lance still sticking out of him.

Good, just one left.

I start casting another ice lance as I sprint closer to their fight, Faris is on the defensive now, I'm sure the injury impeded her movements.

I launch my ice lance at the back of the woman but she skillfully dodges it without disengaging from Faris. Having gotten close enough, I cast a stream of water, angled upwards and sprays it all over their fight. Being unable to dodge my move targeted at a large area, both of them are soaked in my water in the midst of their intense sword fight.

I focus on only the water on the other woman and freezes it, the leather armor the woman was wearing soaked up most of the water so a thin layer of ice freezes her from the neck down as well as some sporadic ice pieces hugging her skin and hair.

With the ice slowing her movement, Faris takes this chance and stabs out into her center mass. The woman tries to struggle her arm out of the ice and clutches the sword piercing her abdomen. Blood leaks from hurt mouth and she turns to me staring ferociously.

"You...fucker killed my brother for some stupid bounty...I swear...you'll die a horrib---"

An ice lance pierces her lungs and interrupts her speech. Yeah, I ain't listening to some shitter who hurt my Faris nor do I care for your reasons, just die.

I quickly head to Faris to check her wounds, it's still bleeding but it's a shallow cut. I cast a heal and wrap the wound in some bandages from my space ring. It's going to take a while to take effect but better than nothing.

"How do you feel? You should take and easy, go rest on Blacky, we'll be back in town in no time."

"I'm fine master, you should see if Blacky is okay, I'll search their bodies."

"No, I'll do the searching, you go to Blacky now. This is an order."

Faris retreats to Blacky while I loot the corpses. The woman said something about the killing her brother and bounty, must've been those guys who kidnapped Norton, the ones who split up that night. Fuck I should've been more careful while these guys were still on the loose.

Being criminals sure is profitable, I looted a total of 52 gold coins, 36 silver coins, and 51 copper coins from this in total. I return to Faris who is now standing beside Blacky, stroking his neck.

"Let's go, I don't want to stay here longer than we have to, we'll leave them here and report it to the guards, I'm sure they'll clean this up.

"Sur---MASTER!"

I'm confused by Faris's sudden outburst as she charges at me. I get pushed down by Faris onto the ground as I feel a sharp gust of wind past by us, followed by the sound of something crashing into a tree. I look to the source of the sound and see a clear horizontal slash mark on the surface of the tree.

"Wind magic!"

Reacting faster than my realization, Faris already got up and in fighting stance, staring into the treeline as two figures emerge.

"You guys should've just let that hit you, it would've been a painless death compared to what I'm about to do to you."

"Fuck, we got here too late, careful they must be pretty strong to have taken them out."

The first man who steps out is dressed in leather armor like me and wielding a spear, must be a mage with a cast spear. The second man isn't even wearing armor, just a cloak and duel-wielding daggers. As soon as they stepped out of the treeline, the man in cloak dashed toward us at shocking speeds while I feel the other mana gather his mana for a spell.

Faris is still hurt, I need to take lead and protect her. I cast a water stream, aiming to capture both of them at the same time.

My water spell rushes toward the cloaked man first, at the speed he's running, he won't be able to change direction now. I'm assured I would at least get one but the cloaked man shocks me but jumping high into the air and does a front flip, jumping past my spell and continues closing in on Faris. Faris engages him in melee but from seeing the man's acrobatic movements, Faris won't be able to defeat him with her injuries. I need to do something.

The other mage dodges out of the way of my water stream as well and fires his wind blade at me.

"Your opponent is me, let's have a nice and slow one on one, I'll be sure to not kill you right away."

I roll to the ground to dodge the wind blade, now that I'm focused on him I won't get caught off guard by those invisible attacks again, I just need to pay attention to his mana when he launches the blades. I fire an ice lance at him as soon as I get up. This is turning into a back and forth shootout between us.

Meanwhile, Faris is being outmaneuvered, the cloaked guy is attacking from all directions without rest in unorthodox ways, it looks likes a mix between acrobatics and break-dancing.

This is bad, her wounds are going to open and the longer this fight last the more disadvantaged we are.

I try my best to hit the mage but we just keep dodging each other's spells, I can't even launch a lightning bolt at him with him moving around so much, I need some time to focus my image of a lightning rod at one spot. I try to predict his movement and cast a lightning bolt at him. It misses him by half a meter, I just need to get closer. I try to launch a few more ice lances while I close the distance but he just keeps kiting me around.

Faris gets nicked in the arm.

Fuck, I need to do something, fucker just die already. I increase the intensity of my fire rate but he just switches to pure defense mode, dodging my spells the same.

"Now now, don't be so anxious, we should try to savor our time together."

I ignore his taunts and look over at Faris, her face is getting more and more pale and her movements are getting dull, she's losing too much blood. She tries to slowly move their battlefield into the treeline to limit his movements her posture suddenly crumbles as she parries off another blow.

We've been fighting non-stop since this morning in the dungeon and those guys earlier, even I feel my mana starting to drain, she must be exhausted.

The cloaked man takes the chance and slashes her across her side as he dives at her and then balances himself on his hands to kicks her back away from the treeline.

"FARISSSSSS!"

She struggles to stand but is still able to hold her sword.

Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

Seeing her hurt, all I want to do is rip their heads off right now, in my rage, something clicks in me, like I gained an extra arm in my mind. I start casting again at the enemy mage. This time I fire off two lightning bolts at the same time, I aim at his left and right sides. The lightning bolt travels through at one third the speed of light cutting off both his escapes, he dodges to the right and gets hit. My lightning bolt bores a fist-sized hole through his flank and he crumbles to the ground.

I instantly ready my lightning bolts and look toward Faris's side of the fight. Hearing a loud sound from my lightning bolt and silence afterward, the cloaked man turns his head my way and we make eye contact.

"Die."

By the time he saw my lip movements, two lightning bolts bore through his two shoulders, ripping his arms off. He looks at me with a gaping mouth and falls to his knees, then a sword pokes out in the area where his heart should be as I watch Faris finish him off.

Instantly the biggest headache I had even had jolted my brain, it feels like my brain is splitting in half as a million ants are bitting all around it. The worst part is I am still conscious despite the pain, I drop to the ground and start crawling towards Faris. I can barely think right now.

"...Master"

Faris supports herself with her sword and she weakly stumbles toward me.

"Fa....ris, are yo..u o..kay?"

Fuck, I can barely even talk, is this what happens to me when I run out of mana? Better than fainting I guess.

I gather my willpower and try to focus on Faris, trying to zone out the pain. I slowly stand up and take a health potion and hands it over to Faris.

"Dri..nk th..is."

Faris opens the bottle with one hand while I hold it, both of us can barely stand. At this timely moment, Blacky trots toward us seeing the fighting has stopped.

I move around like a zombie and brute force myself on the horse hugging Blacky, while Faris slowly gets on behind me.

Get us back to the city Blacky, we shouldn't be too far away, I'm sure they'll be high-level healers in the city.

While hoping Blacky would just steer himself, I lose consciousness as I feel Faris's arm move past me toward the reins.

Everything will be alright, it has to.