-Shaaaaaa…
It was a rainy night.
It would make traveling a lot harder, but it was the perfect environment for what we were planning to do. The rain's noise drowned out anything else, and everyone's field of vision was a lot more limited than usual.
Eleris didn't object to mine and Ellen's decision.
The plan was simple.
Those guys were patrolling in the darkness; they probably did so to kill off any unsuspecting adventurers that stumbled in to prevent them from informing anyone else.
Fortunately, it seemed like we were the only adventurers located near Klitz Point, probably because of the bad weather.
Just like they made use of the darkness to stay hidden, we took advantage of it, along with the rain's noise, as well.
"…I'll use a Scroll."
Eleris took out a Scroll book from her robe.
"A Scroll?"
At Ellen's question, Eleris simply nodded her head with a firm expression on her face.
"It's a Night Vision scroll."
A Night Vision spell. There was no better spell for us in our situation than that.
With that, our mission became even easier. They couldn't see in the dark, but we could.
Also, about the Scrolls…
She was disguised as a low-ranked wizard, so she probably prepared them as an excuse in case she needed to use high-ranking spells.
The Scrolls Eleris was holding definitely didn't actually contain any magic. She was just pretending to use a Scroll while she cast her magic in secret.
She came up with a very plausible excuse. Scrolls were expensive, so she couldn't just use them willy nilly. However, if she wanted to use high-ranking spells and used them as her cover, she could just say that she had them as a form of insurance for emergency situations.
Eleris unfolded the scroll casted Night Vision on Ellen and me.
In a world of complete darkness I could clearly distinguish bright and shaded areas. It felt a little different from looking through an infrared camera.
It was a strange feeling, similar to when I first got underwater breathing magic casted on me.
My eyes weren't really able to penetrate through the rain, but I shouldn't have any problems in the darkness.
Ellen looked straight into my eyes and spoke to me.
"Let's go."
"Yes."
I didn't feel like my heart was about to explode. In fact, I felt rather cool-headed and my heartbeat was even calmer than usual.
I felt like I should be nervous, but I couldn't believe how calm I actually was about everything.
I speculated that it might be due to the 'Sacred Spirit' I received after Olivia's Quest. The description read that it would give me very high mental strength as well as resistance to mental magic.
I wasn't sure whether it had anything to do with it or not.
Anyway, I didn't think I'd make any mistakes due to tension or excitement in the state I was in.
Eleris decided to watch the situation from the rear. Once she had sorted out her internal struggle, she would join us.
When I looked back, I saw Eleris staring at me with sad eyes. It was a gaze someone would have used to send off a loved one to a dangerous place one didn't want them to go to.
While feeling rather complicated about it, Ellen and I used the knife stabbed into the fence as a stepping stone earlier that day and infiltrated Klitz Point.
The situation was different from before.
Due to the Night Vision magic, things that were indistinguishable before were very clear.
People with lanterns hanging from their waistbands were still walking around, seeing if all the bodies had been removed. They couldn't use torches because of the rain.
We decided to avoid that side for the time being.
We first lowered our posture and tried to grasp the situation of Klitz Point.
They were piling up the bodies on one side of the Point like luggage. We watched that scene from the darkness.
Just how many had died? There were about fifteen guys walking around and a total of five digging the ground.
It seemed that they planned on dumping all the corpses in a big hole and filling it back up.
I could also hear some sounds from inside the building as well. They were still working on removing all the bodies and bloodstains. However, it seemed that they mostly tried to cover up those with carpets.
They only needed to be able to fool the convoy team for a short time. It looked like they wanted to try selling the lit-up building as a type of inn.
There were a great many ways to get rid of some defenseless people, like poisoning their food or killing them in their sleep.
When I tried to count the bodies getting moved, I counted more than 30 corpses.
How many people had to die just for the materials transported with that convoy? Ellen and I pressed ourselves against the wall behind the inn, which we presumed to be their hideout, avoiding the people with the lanterns and the well-lit areas.
-Wahahahahaha!
-Ah, I wish I could take all this with me.
-Just do it, kid!
-Really?
While the others were working outside, there seemed to be a drinking party going on inside the building. Those people were probably the higher-ups of the group.
They were intoxicated, which would only make it easier for us to deal with them.
Ellen murmured to me in a low tone of voice.
"There are at least 20 people."
"I think so."
…About 20 bandits who were used to killing against a team of 50 newbies accompanying the convoy.
And they would be faced with a surprise attack on top of that.
It was clear that the convoy would get completely wiped out.
However, there were only two of us there.
They didn't know that their enemy was lurking close by, but would we really be able to kill all of them in one night?
"Once their work is done, they will enter the inn. Let's take care of them all at once."
For the moment, we had no other choice but to wait until all the rats had gathered in one place.
* * *
We sat still in the dark until they completely finished their work.
I didn't know how long the Night Vision spell was supposed to last. However, it was a spell Eleris casted, even if she disguised it as a spell contained in a Scroll.
That was why Night Vision's effect still remained even after more than two hours.
Or she might have cast the spell on us again after its effect ran out as she was watching us from a distance, so we didn't have to worry.
After some time, the guys walking around with the lanterns went back into the inn; that was when we took action.
-Shaaaaaaaa!
It was still raining.
"There should be one entrance to the north and one to the south. Let's start with the north entrance first."
The north entrance of Klitz Point.
There were two guards without a lantern standing there, perhaps to attack any unassuming adventurers trying to enter.
They seemed to be watching for any kind of light indicating wanders or adventurers coming close to the place.
If Ellen hadn't figured out beforehand that something was strange and told Eleris to cancel her light magic, those guys would have noticed us approaching the Point.
"You take the one on the right."
"Okay."
Ellen and I approached them slowly, each holding a knife.
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"Cover their mouths and slit or break their necks. Don't give them room to scream."
Although it was her first time doing something like that, Ellen spoke as if she had already done it a thousand times. They were taking cover from the rain under a poorly made roof close to the north entrance.
-Are there even any people who'd want to come here in this weather?
-If they got caught up in the rain while on their way here, they would try to come here even quicker, don't you think?
-Didn't like three guys come during the day?
-I've heard Durtman whining about getting stabbed in the shoulder by one of em.
-That idiot got stabbed because he couldn't kill the guy in one go.
They were chatting calmly.
Ellen slowly slipped behind them.
We didn't just suppress them—
"Hurp"
"Urp!"
-Slash!
—Ellen and I attacked the two guards from behind at the same time.
I stabbed the nape of one guy's neck with my sharp knife. It was an eerie feeling.
I forcibly covered the mouth of a man desperately struggling to live. The feeling was completely different from simply cutting meat.
Ellen and I kept on covering their mouths until they stopped struggling.
Of course, even if a human's carotid artery was cut, they would still live on a little bit after that.
During that 'Wait-time'…
I clearly saw just how much blood could pour out of such a little wound in just a short moment.
Human beings could die awfully easily.
However, feeling a human's essence of life leaving their body with the blood pouring out at the moment of their death was just grotesque.
I desperately grabbed on to him until the guy I cut was about to die.
Don't move.
Don't scream.
Just die in this darkness.
I didn't allow him any kind of freedom until he completely stopped moving.
As soon as I confirmed his death, I could just feel it instinctively…
I would never forget that feeling. Crushing that dying life under my feet felt so terribly eerie.
"Let's clean up."
Ellen and I dragged the two bodies that had completely ceased all movement into the tall grass outside of the Point.
I had killed a man.
Ellen and I had blood all over our hands and clothes. It was only at that moment that I clearly felt that the Sacred Spirit skill was taking effect.
Normally, the moment someone experienced something like that, their hands and legs would shake incessantly. One would feel scared, nauseous, and want to sit down. However, I showed no such physical symptoms.
I was just extremely confused.
That was the moment the fear that I was capable of something like that so calmly swept over me.
Ellen looked straight at me.
Her eyes were still calm. I couldn't feel any kind of excitement or confusion in them.
Ellen just put her hands on my cheeks and brought her face closer to mine.
"Don't think about it now."
She looked straight into my eyes. It wasn't the time to think about it.
"Let's do what we have to do."
Ellen's deep, calm eyes that seemed like a tranquil lake erased all the remaining confusion from my mind.
Thinking about it could be confusing, and it could even feel scary.
"Yes."
However, I resolved not to think about any of it for the moment.
* * *
There were two guards at the south entrance as well.
We killed these two people positioned by the south entrance in the same way as we did with the guards at the north entrance and dragged them into the thick grass outside.
Kiltz Point had already been completely seized by the darkness. All the other guys were in the inn.
There were no members patrolling outside. So I brought Eleris, who was waiting outside the Point, inside.
"We have to finish everything before the next shift of guards arrives."
"…Yes."
Eleris had a dark expression on her face when she saw the corpses outside while entering the Point.
They wouldn't let the same guards keep watch for the whole night, so there surely would be others to replace them. I didn't know how long each shift was, though.
However, that was the time we had to kill all the people in the inn. Things would be easy if all of them were just peacefully sleeping in their beds. There might be some night-owls among them, however.
The rats were in the trap.
We just needed a way to kill all those rats.
We could surprise attack those that were holding that drinking party, but that battle would be very different.
An all-out fight wasn't something out of Ellen's expectation, but I would keep that as a last resort if possible.
If there was a way to subdue them without fighting them head-on, that way would always be the better option.
If Eleris used her true power, she could do that with a single magic spell, but that was out of the question. If we wanted to use magic, Eleris would have to hit all of them at once only by using some low-ranking magic spells.
It was pretty much impossible to just go in and fight them. Regardless of whether it was actually possible or impossible, the risk was just not something we could take.
Eleris gave us a fairly simple answer.
"Why don't we just set the building on fire?"
Set the inn on fire.
"It's raining, though?"
Ellen tilted her head as if it wasn't really possible. Due to various circumstances, almost all the buildings in the Points were made out of wood. However, it was raining at that moment.
"The most dangerous thing in a fire isn't the fire itself but the smoke."
"…That's true."
People usually died in fires not by burning alive but by suffocation due to the smoke.
"Couldn't they just run out of the door?"
That time it was me who posed that question, and Eleris shook her head.
"That's what I'm aiming for."
Eleris pointed at the entrance of the inn.
"Among the low-ranking magic spells, there is one called Dig. It's a spell used to dig the ground quickly."
Dig.
…A spell that enabled the fast creation of holes in the ground.
"I'm pretty sure they will try to escape through the front entrance if we set a fire. We'll just have to make a big hole before the door."
They would try to escape if they noticed the fire. They should be completely out of their minds and just run out the door without looking at where they set their feet.
Eleris dug a huge pit in front of the inn's only entrance—they would all end up falling into that pit while trying to escape.
Eleris had to do two simple things in the time limit we had set, nothing like casting a high-ranking destruction magic spell like Firestorm or anything.
Set a fire…
Dig a bit…
Eleris gave us a solution for our problem in the blink of an eye.