"You- Why are you asking this?"
Unsure of her previous judgment Alice hesitated. She had seen the prowess of the man before her and she knew for certain that the village would easily be eradicated by someone who had sword intent. Since it was so then why would he go through the trouble of using some mystical device to kill all the villagers? Was it a new item he was testing out or was the target not actually the village but this man before her?
After all, it was impossible for there to be no relation between the misty orb and the man next to her. They had lived here undisturbed for many years now.
Seeing the girl's thoughtful expression Jay opted to let her go. He then used 4 small orbs of fire to burn the rope which was holding her, showing her he could kill her at any time.
Alice quickly led the way to the place she found the blue misty orb. She had one of the tents closest to the gates, inside were her meager belongings. The only things of interest were some stone sculptures she had crafted herself.
After looking around carefully, the only thing Jay found out of the ordinary was an imprint the size of the glass orb where she had seen the orb previously. Looking more closely, a thin line split the grass heading straight out of the hut.
Hurriedly he followed the line, it went on from this end of the village to the very other end. When he saw it nearing the wall he thought he would have to follow it in the snow outside, yet at the very last moment, the line turned, stopping inside of a cottage.
This was one of the few wooden huts of the village. When he walked inside he could clearly see that this was the living area of the village's healer. A few low-grade herbs could be seen on the shelves, despite only being low grade, it was rather impressive to find these in the snowy lands. Glancing over the room, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. It was only when he specifically searched the floor that he found something. A wooden hatch was hidden within the floor.
The hatch's handle was cleverly hidden behind a chair's leg, of course, such hiding place would still be insufficient if people were truly searching your room. Once Jay opened the hatch Alice stopped looking at him as suspiciously, it really seemed like this man wasn't the attacker.
Beneath the hatch, there was a wooden ladder going down multiple meters. Despite wondering how such a thing could have been made in secret Jay quickly descended, a fireball ready on his side.
When he arrived on the ground once more Jay was rather surprised. They had arrived in a rather wide tunnel, enough to let 3 people walk side-by-side.
After going through the tunnel for a couple of hours they arrived at a large cavern. The cavern, other than being illuminated by multiple lightstones, had a large research table in the middle. The research table was at least a dozen meters long and seemed to be divided into different parts.
On the left side of the table, there were a bunch of herbs and some equipment to make those into medication. The middle of the table had weaponry, mostly common weapons with failed enchantments. It seemed whoever worked here was trying to learn how to enchant. And on the right side, there were multiple beast cores. A mix of ice elemental cores and earth elemental cores.
So all-in-all it looked like a pretty decent craftsman lived here. After swiftly pocketing the cores on the table he looked at the ground carefully. He noticed the line was still there heading into a tunnel that had a small wooden sign next to it he couldn't read.
Once again a few hours passed, in the end, they found a ladder similar to the one used to get into the tunnels. Jay burst through the hatch before looking around the empty room. This room didn't have much other than some common weapons with failed enchantments.
Another moment later they snuck out of the hut being shocked at the sight in front of them.
This village was exactly the same as the other one. The only differences were that the snow shovels weren't there and there wasn't any snow. Since they had spent a lot of time underground the night had also arrived.
The duo slowly made their way around town, following the barely visible line in the ground. They didn't have to be geniuses to predict where it was going, the same place it went in the previous town. Peeking into the tent that was closest to the gate, they saw an old man sleeping soundly in his bed.
And in the corner, there it was. Another misty orb, white this time. Recognizing the orb Jay ran forward, intending to destroy this white orb before any enemies appeared. Yet he had been too late.
It was midnight now, and in just a moment over a dozen figures appeared surrounding the duo, followed by 2 more just in front of the orb.
Jay frowned, why was it this kept happening. What would want him to die this quickly? Was it because he reincarnated?
Despite not fully trusting each other Alice and Jay stood with their backs against each other, surrounded by about a dozen hard-to-see figures. The figures slowly moved and changed their positions, showing they were hesitant to attack first, perhaps they knew about what happened last time?
He wasn't sure but he did know they were in a bit of trouble now. Even with sword intent, you could be easily struck in the back. And he couldn't quite be at ease with just Alice taking on the other side. Furthermore, he couldn't see his enemies properly and so his attacks probably wouldn't be lethal.
Waving his hand, Jay had a few fireballs appear before him. A moment later he sent them forward, having them remain stationary behind his enemies. But he had barely even done so when those close to the fireballs, struck backward with their swords in order to destroy the fireballs. But this wasn't all, when these people attacked the fireballs there was 1 thing he could see as clear as day, a thin white line which pierced further than their weapons could reach, sword intent.
There was no person that wouldn't get nervous at such a sight. If only one enemy had sword intent he had a glimmer of hope. But now it seemed like all of these hard-to-see people had sword intent, he didn't stand a chance.
There was no way he could win. Would he really die here?