After Ana finished beating up Mitus and the spearman I didn't even have a chance to find out the name of, she finished the recording and put the magic tool away. After she was cleaned up and there were only the two conscious ones in the still-sealed cabin, Ana began to remove a new magic tool from her bag this time it was a hollow metal plate filled with several layers and powered by three cores.
This is no ordinary tool; it even has a kind of mana-saturated gas between the various layers of plates. This is a high quality and very fragile tool.
Ana poured a large amount of aura into the plate energizing it, the gas inside her became more and more concentrated and began to move inside the plate. The more aura was poured into the tool the faster the gas moved inside it; a signal made of concentrated mana began to be emitted from the plate.
It started out being mimicked in all directions but then concentrated in a single direction to the south, Ana held this tool for a long period of time to the point that more than half of her aura reserve was drained by the magic tool.
She only stopped using the magic tool when a green light flashed on the surface of the magic tool signaling something, she sighed and wiped the sweat from her forehead. It seems that operating this tool takes more than just pouring fuel into it, steering the wave must be difficult.
"What was this?"
"A message, I was informing the central of the northern region that we need a logistics unit and that our mission involves dangerous elements and everything must be done without drawing too much attention."
"This is a very complicated message to send in such a short amount of time."
"I just have to send three wave variations with a little pause, the problem is having to repeat this several times to make sure the mana waves can get clear to the other side. You must have felt the strength and quality of these waves, right?"
"Yes, they were quite strong, but traveling a very long distance is not common. There's some kind of trickery involved and it has nothing to do with elemental energy."
"I can't explain this to you Wolf, I also don't know what kind of trick the runes create for this kind of high-level magic tool to work, but what I do know are the codes and the various. I will pass it on to you later, but remember to keep the existence of this magical tool a secret."
"Okay, but how long will it take for the logistics team to get here to clear out this base and demolish it?"
"Some days, we're not too far away, but as they can't draw too much attention their speed won't be too big as they have to be careful. We cannot let the neighboring kingdom discover this operation, this border may be peaceful, but it is not completely closed especially when the neighboring kingdom's military makes unusual moves near it."
This is a very valid concern, even if the north is far from the area where the war is going to take place in the realm. Our neighbors would not be complacent on their border, a group of criminals like Mitus and irrelevant to the ruler of the neighboring kingdom, but a unit of the royal army and a source of great concern.
Not one of our neighbors that is far from the war wants to see any military movements of our kingdom close to their borders, the fear of being dragged into the war must be great. And the last thing we were is for the war to have more fronts and participants.
"You must bring the healer so she can fix the two prisoners, it would be inconvenient for them to die now especially Mitus. It doesn't matter if we managed to get all the information out of them, the temple paladins would complain too much if they missed the chance to interrogate everyone who came into contact with the necromancer, temples can be very inconvenient when you get on your unwanted list, Wolf."
"Try never to be too hostile against great priests, bishops and paladins. All of them are very proud more than should be expected of a 'servant' of a god, I have seen more than once this type of people making an insult to him an insult to his god or goddess, and insulting a god and pick fights with several thousand believers at once."
"I understand your point and I will remind the rest of the team not to talk more than necessary to any 'curious' priest or templar about our mission, I think the best excuse should be adopted would be something like this."
"We are not free to disclose information that has been classified as secret, the mission report was made and presented by the leader. All questions should be directed to her or to the superiors our team reports to. What do you think? Good mantra for everyone to use?"
"Good, but I feel like you're throwing too much trouble in my direction, Wolf. Try to focus more on my superiors, it's their job to take care of this kind of problem."
"Of course, I'll go get the healer."
"Unfortunately, I will have to ask you to stand guard for long periods outside, although I don't believe an enemy will see us here, we must maintain a constant state of vigilance in case a necromancer appears to say hi. Any different energy you feel in the environment activate the alert."
"Yes ma'am."
For the next few days my routine was to be out in the open which is nice since I'm escaping the thick air that the base floors have now. A lot of people there making the environment very unpleasant in many different ways, the pure, cold air of the north is much more pleasant even if I have to resort to my fire element to stay warm up here.
Inside the base, the air was well thought out due to the disproportionate amount of people inside, the number of slaves gathered inside made the air thin and the smell of so many people together make the atmosphere worse. Even after cleaning the slaves in a warm, closed environment there is no way to prevent the air from becoming contaminated, and like a snowball growing down a mountain, the more people stay there, the worse the environment gets.
It's not like a necromancer would care about something like that, she's probably already used to horrible smelling places and I doubt she intended to let these slaves live for an extended period of time. That's one of the reasons I'm focused on guarding the area, Ana and I wouldn't be surprised if the necromancer attacked the base to kill all the bandits to silence them and start her refinement with the slaves.
Ana is particularly excited about this possibility; she is in the cabin now more than ready to start the battle against a necromancer.
The second big problem the rest of the team is having down there is keeping the slaves under control, as it would be 'wrong' to keep them chained inside their saddles so now they are free roaming on the lower floor of the base. This obviously made them unhappy as there was more room upstairs for them to be more comfortable.
And the reason they can't have two floors is the smugglers they want to kill, most inside have lost friends, family, their dignity and possessions because of the smugglers who hunted them down like animals turning into slaves to have a horrible life that it had probably ended up at the whim of its new owner.
The overwhelming majority of people who buy slaves from criminals want to use the slaves in a very brutal way, obviously nobody told them they would be used as materials for a necromancer. Had they known this, panic would have forced them to run like mad towards the nearest temple in search of shelter from the evil necromancer.
The garbage on the second floor is pretty quiet, there's nothing for them to do but wait for death. Particularly Mitus who had enough medical treatment to heal most of his wounds, especially his face that hinders him to speak Ana did a lot of damage to his face.
After a whole day of being robbed his face is still pretty deformed apart from the grunts of pain the chains cause his body as they drain his aura Mitus is in complete silence even though he is gagged I expected him to try to insult someone or try kill himself somehow, but he did nothing but lean against a hard wall. His spirit is completely destroyed, he knows the paladins are coming to interrogate him and he can't do anything to stop it.
One cold morning I was in my tree watching the horizon until I saw a small caravan approaching us. On the first wagon leading the convoy flew a blue flag with a red cross and a white line. This flag is used as a flag of what kind of convoy this is, it would be very strange for a secret convoy to use the royal family's flag to show their identity, so a flag code was created by the kingdom's military.
The flag can even let us know if his convoy is being followed by hidden enemies, which is not the case now. It looks like our first quest ended without major problems and a big bonus for screwing up the plans of a necromancer who will be hunted by several paladins until she is captured or killed.