As he climbed the stairs as quickly as possible, he listened to the amplified sound coming from the third floor. He could hear the sound of Sara trashing about in the room as she tried to defend herself against her enemies. However, it didn't last long as he listened to a boom.
Hearing her fall, Jax immediately grew concerned. He hadn't been that worried previously since their job was obviously to abduct her, which meant they needed her alive. However, as she fell and stopped moving, Jax grew a bit concerned. This feeling didn't stay long, yet as he soon heard the sound of her breathing.
Releasing a breath he didn't know he was holding, Jax continued making his way upwards as he focused on information gathering. From what he could tell, they were a seven-person group. Four men and three women specifically. Hearing from their conversation, they were from a newly created dark guild operating in Caelum, and their guild was counting on this job to fund the start of their guild. From their conversation and relaxed attitude, Jax could tell that they were pretty confident in their abilities.
Finally arriving on the third floor, Jax could hear them make their way towards the room's balcony. He knew that he didn't have much time left before they escaped from the villa. Entering his room, which had a shared terrace with Sara's, he ran to the sliding door and seeing that they hadn't yet entered the balcony, he opened the door and started to release his nature power slightly through the planks, which made the balcony.
With the intervention of his power, he grew some twigs and small branches from the planks. Although it took a lot more energy to give vitality to the planks to grow the twigs than to create the twigs from a living organism, it was still better than to make them from nothing. At least with the planks, he had some sort of base which saved him power.
Growing twigs and branches enough to bind the seven intruders, he controlled his shadow, which was currently on the wall due to the sun being at the horizon and prepared to wrap the opponent's shadow, which should hold them up a bit. Thankfully, Jax didn't have any problems using multiple types of magic simultaneously, which would help him fight. Finally, he used his fairy magic to enhance his speed. Jax could use Fairy magic for all kinds of support, such as healing or strengthening a specific trait such as speed or strength.
All of this preparation took less than ten seconds as he prepared himself to fight the intruders who finally arrived at the sliding glass door. They were still talking and weren't on alert as it took a few seconds for them to notice Jax, who was on the side of the wall. However, this time was more than enough as five of the seven had already left the room and were on the balcony.
Using his light magic, he exploded a small bright orb of light, which blinded them for a short moment and darkened their shadows colour. Right at this moment, his shadow linked with the five enemies and stopped them from moving for a moment, which was perfect timing as the twigs and branches bound the five of them together, preventing them from moving or even talking. Immediately afterwards, he used lightning magic, electric shock, which numbed them, making them lose consciousness.
As they were still two members left who had yet to react in the few seconds it took to take down the five others, Jax immediately acted and used two fireballs to end the two weakest of their group. As for the reason he figured they were the worst? They were the ones who had to move Sara. They were the grunts of the group.
As they dropped Sara on the ground and started shouting due to the fire's burning, Jax simply kicked them in the head, rendering them unconscious like the other two. He then went to the young lady's side as he immediately used his fairy magic to heal the few bruises on her face and her arms, which weren't covered by the clothing.
With the help of his magic, it didn't take long before Sara woke up. As she saw Jax above her, using his magic, she visibly relaxed. "Jax, what happened to the intruders?" She asked as she still had a grudge against them.
"I've rendered them unconscious." He said as he pointed to the seven, of which Jax had bound five together and the other two who had branches making their way to them, eventually tying them together.
She nodded and sighed in relief as Jax continued the treatment. "Apart from your bruises on your arm and face, is there anywhere else which hurts?" Jax asked as he would treat her. He still felt that it was his responsibility that Sara was hurt, although the young boy knew he did the best he could.
"Ah, yes." She answered as her face turned visibly red at the thoughts of the location of the bruises.
"I see. Can you give me some time? I will go and bind them in my room. After healing you, we will have to make a village trip to drop the seven of them. Luckily, the magic council branch isn't that far from here, so it won't take long. I hope you don't mind?" Asked Jax as he prepared to move the seven dark mages.
"No, it's fine. I was also hoping to be able to move around after eating." She said with a slight smile as she got up and moved to her bed.
Nodding to her, Jax used his nature magic to move them to the next room.
Five minutes later, he came back to the room of the young lady. He had bound all seven of them together and searched them. They had the same job request on them, asking for the abduction of the young lady. For that, he was happy to confirm that there weren't any changes in the job. Besides, he managed to collect a total of 54,320 Jewels from their bodies. It was customary to have such amounts on them. It was even a bit low considering that the seven of them had to live on this amount to travel on this job. After all, a meal would cost between 1000-1500 Jewels per person.
'Maybe after this job, I should take hunting jobs such as hunting dark mage guilds and taking them down. It seems there is a lot of money to be made. But, I don't even need the money right now, so let's just continue with normal jobs.' Jax thought as he made his way back to Sara's room.
"Alright, they are all bound and unconscious. Now Sara, where are the bruises? Tomorrow, apart from going to the village, I believe you want to go to the beach and having bruises wouldn't be very nice." Jax said as he approached the lady who had a red face at his words.
"R-Right." She said as she turned her back on him and slowly started to take off her shirt and her pants, only to keep her underwear.
Lifting an eyebrow, Jax understood why she had a red face previously. However, he merely gave a quick look at her body due to curiosity and then focused on her bruises. Jax was seven years old and currently had no interest in such things. As he looked at the various bruises on her skin, he started to treat her and Sara, who was looking at him, slowly relaxed as she saw that he was only looking at her bruises.
'What were you thinking? He's just a kid. Of course, he won't care if a girl undresses in front of him.' Sara thought to herself as her shyness went away at her thoughts.
Ten minutes later, Jax finally finished treating her wounds, and she started to dress up again. "I'm sorry, Sara, that I wasn't able to prevent them from hurting you previously. I wasn't alert enough. I will place some more defences around the house before going to bed later." Jax said, full of seriousness at the girl he had to protect.
She answered with a simple nod as they both left the room, and Jax went to gather the dark mages who were still unconscious. With a simple thought, the twigs and branches started to move, bringing the mages along with him towards the magic council branch in the village.
---
As they came back from the branch of the magic council in the village, Jax sent Sara to the villa, and he started to make some preparations around the house, such as growing vines on the walls with his nature magic. With vines everywhere, he would save his magic power should some enemies infiltrate the villa again. Moreover, he would be able to feel it if someone tried to climb the walls. Not only that, Jax used his earth magic to place some detection traps around the house.
The detection traps, when one walked on it, would simply give him a signal, meaning that someone was coming closer to the villa. It was a spell he had thought of when he moved the seven dark mages to the branch of the magic council.
Finally, Jax entered back in the villa and went to his room. Today was the first day his escort mission had started, and he had already taken down two groups of dark mages who had tried to kidnap the young lady. He didn't believe it would be calmer for the next two weeks.