"W-w-what are you doing!?" A wizard with a confused and terrified expression asks, "How are you even alive right now?"
He is terrified because all of his comrades who came running after me are dead and I am stealing their potential from them.
"Where do I start?" I keep draining them of their potential. It's clear that I need more than what I had before so I need to continue this.
"I started by running past you people so you couldn't possibly ignore me and follow me."
The wizard stares in fright.
"Then I made them all follow me far enough and acted as if I tripped over tree roots."
He keeps staring in fright.
"My hands hit the ground, giving me the opportunity to use Earth Authority and make the ground my puppet."
He tries to back down a little, possibly trying to run away.
"I then used this puppet of mine to kill all these useless bastards."
He turns and starts running but is unable to as –
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!"
-his legs separate from his body, staying attached to the ground.
"Well, well, that is new." I say, quite pleased. "I couldn't do that before. Guess stealing more magic potential makes my magic moves stronger."
It's probably the same difference that is present between people with talent and those not with it. Only thing is – I can actually steal talent from others.
"AAAAAHHH!!!"
Oh yeah, I almost forgot about that little flea that I tore the legs off of.
"Hey now!" I say. "You didn't actually think I was answering your question and telling my story because I was planning to let you go and warn everyone else about me, did you?"
To be fair, they already know that I can steal abilities but, to what extent can I steal them? That's what they don't know.
"AAAAAAHH-"
He's annoying, so I kill him by shooting a pebble through his body as if it's a bullet.
And now that that's taken care of, time to go kill every other goddamned wizard that was back there. Or wait, I can also steal the potential of this guy first. That should help.
Yeah, I'll do that.
*****
The plan has failed. We surrounded those two idiots pretty well but one of them is very strong and the other is cunning. They have already caused many casualties to our side.
When things were getting desperate, the elder called for the Cyclops to fight them. The cunning one still had a few tricks up his sleeve though and that caused many problems and allowed him to escape. The other one though, was all brawn and no brain. The cunning one betrayed him and ran away and this one became the target of all of the Cyclops' attacks.
He is getting thrown around like a doll now.
I guess, even if we failed to capture both of them and suffered casualties, the mission of getting a sacrifice for Goddess Dues still succeeded.
I and my sister are currently hiding behind the adults. We put on a play and made them follow us to the village. That was our job and we did it.
So, even if Goddess Dues is not satisfied with the results, there should still be no skin off our backs. And that's all that matters to me.
So, whatever happens, I am happy with the results.
"Y-y-you w-will-"
The stupid man that was left behind tries to say something but is unable to finish as he gets thrown around by a Cyclops. He is covered in blood and doesn't seem like he'll stand a chance at beating even a single wizard now. Seeing at him in this state, it's almost hard to believe that we took out half of us before the Cyclops were called.
"W-what's that!?" A wizard standing next to me backs away in fright as he points at the forest.
"Hey!" I yell at him. "Your job is to protect me and my sister. How dare you try to back away!?"
"N-no, boy, there's some-"
"I don't care about your pathetic excuses. If something dangerous is there, make sure it can't harm us and alert the others."
I feel a tug at my clothes and turn to my sister – the person responsible for tugging it.
"It's not just him." She says and points behind me.
I turn to look and see that everyone around me seems terrified just like this idiot and is back away, as if they want to run away.
"What the hell is in that forest!?" I ask, not really expecting an answer. But, the man tasked to protect us gives one.
"It's a monster of our kind."
I turn to look at his face, expecting he'd making some stupid face, but what I see is an expressionless visage that I have only ever seen on the faces of our enemies before. It's the face of a man who has accepted death as if it's an inevitable outcome.
But, obviously, that is not the case.
"Hey!" I yell, "Snap out of it and-"
Blood splatters all over my clothes, some of it even reaches my mouth. I look down and see that a spike made out of stones and mud has pierced through the abdomen of this guy.
I can feel my sister getting behind me in fright.
Even though I usually play the wimp in the façade we put up to lure in strangers, in reality, I am the older brother and have to be the courageous one and protect my sister. Therefore, I should call other wizards to-
"N-no way!"
As I look around, all the wizards in the village have suffered the same fate. The only ones alive are the two elders capable of controlling the Cyclops and the two of us. We all, inadvertently, look at the part of the forest everyone was pointing at. And then, we see a man walking out of it, glaring at us with a mocking expression as he says,
"I didn't know I could get this strong from stealing from a mere 5 or 6 more wizards."
He looks at his hands casually. At the same time, I see the two elders getting killed by the same method he has used until now.
"Or maybe, you guys are just weak."
*****