The sun has basically disappeared, the reddish light of the sunset barely able to illuminate the forest we are entering. After Dean Sunshine's revelation about the true objective of this mission we didn't stay long at the base, we left through a secret exit from the base that took us to the outside of the village, the less attention we call each other the easier it will be to keep this mission a secret.
The magical beast and any other items that we retrieve must be transported through a secret passage and covered by a special cloth until it reaches the rune matrix to be sent to a safe place that for obvious reasons neither one of us knows or has, any clue of its existence. location and name. Even though Dean has said that all team members are trusted people it's always best to avoid knowing too much about sensitive matters like this.
But the weirdest part of this group is that I didn't learn the name of the archer, he didn't say walk and nobody spoke to him and that doesn't seem to change. It would be impolite to turn to him and ask his name and it's not very helpful either, but for some reason not knowing his name is bothering me.
He's unfamiliar, but I feel like not knowing his name is keeping me from having a problem with him. Very weird, maybe this is my mind tricking me this mission is pretty stressful.
Not just for the mission itself, Raven is having fun while teasing Ana. If it weren't for Dean's presence here, she wouldn't be just using his look and simple gestures to tease her.
It's a shame Ana can't do anything but endure Raven's taunts, I don't think Ana is capable of fighting Raven.
As we headed towards where the magic beast was last seen I saw Dean's legendary magic tool, it was very simple and unadorned. A large compass where avian several runes, numbers and pointers that moved pointing several numbers and runes at the same time, each combination should demonstrate what the magic tool is capturing.
By the speed that the hands travel by the magic tool shows how complicated and read this instrument. I tried to see how this magical tool works, but when I saw its mana and elemental energy, I was almost blinded.
I felt my eyes burning when I saw a green sun is blue in Dean's hand that resembled several waves with a crystalline color and transparency throughout the room, they may be focused to travel to the ground, but a part of it still flows through. air blocking my vision.
This thing is really strong, it's the first time I've seen so much light being emitted from an object and it's also the first time I've seen a mana wave with these characteristics. Could this be because of the runes or the material used in the magic tool.
This magic tool is really inconvenient for me, all the way to the area where we fight the magic beasts the mana surge of the magic tool bothered me.
Raven didn't miss the chance to 'talk' to Ana.
"So, this is where you fought? You guys burned this forest a lot, the mage on your team doesn't know how to control it?"
"I didn't see why she was holding back. The fire she created was great, but the forest was not at risk of being completely burned."
"Serious? After burning such a large area, your mage's flames didn't want to spread to the rest of the forest? Were they shy flames?"
"That's enough! We have to go capture the magic beast, his name is Ulric, isn't he? You can start tracking the magical beast now, and you shouldn't be embarrassed if it's too difficult for you to do."
What an arrogant idiot, I know he as a leader might be concerned about my capabilities, but he should have been informed of my capabilities through the countless reports that have been recorded about my abilities as a tracker. He really thinks it's possible that Ana and I have been lying about my contributions in all the missions we've done.
Not deigning to answer a mage much stronger than myself with an insulting reply I went to find the magical beast's trail. One of the most important lessons I've learned over the last few months as a tracker for the team led by Ana is that there's always a better way to track my targets than simply looking for a trail of energy.
I've been spending a lot of time thinking about how the best way to find the magic beast would be and I came to an interesting conclusion, the elemental energy of this magic beast has the remarkable characteristic of absorbing the vitality of everything it passes by.
So, besides the elemental energy of the earth element is the mana she can leave behind i can track her looking for a trail of trees and living beings that have had their vitality drained, the magic beast was badly hurt when she fled combat so her need only heal must have caused her drain ability to absorb everything that comes close to her with an abnormal speed and intensity.
I approached the exact spot I saw the magic beast last and looked for its trail, it wasn't hard to find it. The magical beast may be intelligent, but in a desperate moment it shouldn't be able to try to cover its tracks as a predator normally would.
There is so much mana, earth element energy and trees that have had their vitality slightly damaged on one side. The beast's trail doesn't come close to being a real challenge to face, but I'm not going to tell the idiot leader that.
I'm not going to give him another chance to make one more stupid, sarcastic comment about my presence here. I guess I should pretend that extremely difficult to track down the magical beast?
Better not, the idiot can take out some high-level magic tool and try to track down the magic beast. Perhaps that legendary tool he's been sweating now is capable of detecting the magical beast's life element, better not risk being branded as incompetent.
I started leading the team through the woods my speed wasn't too fast or slow a normal speed but that wasn't enough to keep our idiot leader's mouth shut.
"It's okay boy, isn't the trail too hard for you? An older tracker should be on this mission more as we didn't have a lot of time to find one the commodore had to put that burden on you. Nobody will think anything bad about you if you decide to give up the quest now, don't let your pride compel you to insist on a task above your level."
I really want to fuck him up, I think strapping one of my bombs to him would be a really cool idea, but I doubt it would work on a fucking orange-core noble mage who must carry a bunch of defensive-type magic tools.
"I don't even have a problem tracking the magic beast, but unfortunately I can't say that I can estimate its distance now. I ask that everyone be patient."
"That's good news, I thought you were having a hard time as our speed is pretty low. I usually see trackers leading a team at a faster speed than yours, but as you're still a gray-core warrior I shouldn't expect too much from your capabilities."
Fucking cretin, he really is so bored he can't shut his mouth during an undercover mission.
I didn't increase my speed because if I did, I'm sure the idiot would make a negative comment using the excuse that my pride and anger at being weak is causing me to be careless. I should be careful when I track an enemy that is beyond my capabilities, predictable motherfucker.
For the next few hours not only did the sky go completely dark and I had to put up with the irritating comments of a certain arrogant idiot who gets his blond hair combed into mine from the dark forest during a mission.
I had to work hard to put up with this idiot, I even thought about getting revenge on him, but the look on Raven and Ana who seem to pretend not to see the team leader's horrible attitude tells me that this is a bad idea. Neither one of them would put up with this shit if they didn't have to, this idiot's support in the army too big and willing to protect him from any threat.
It wouldn't be good for me or anyone related to me. The Sunshine family is one of the strongest families in the kingdom's capital and I wouldn't be surprised that many members or allies of them can protect this idiot. The only other member of this family I ever met was Leonor Sunshine who is a completely different human being from this idiot, apart from her arrogance I have never heard or seen her being an idiot like this arrogant bastard.
Of course, her most outstanding quality is that she doesn't mind discouraging the people around her at all because of her far superior abilities, but I think she's completely right with this attitude which is way better than the leader's stupid arrogance of team.
I would love to find a death trap for this idiot to step on and meet his end, the world would be a less irritating place with his death. I would be doing the next generations of humans a favor by eliminating a bad source of idiot genes.
It was already dawn when I noticed that the creature's tracks began to change.
We were getting close to their nest or hiding place, to my surprise we're not that close to the swamp.