"...That's everything I know... Please stop..."
Rito stared down at the mage, his skin and flesh now marred and mutilated. It'd only taken him 10 minutes to gain all the information he needed out of him while he sent Durkson to reconvene with the class.
Forming a small knife comprised of mana on his finger, Rito slit his throat, ending his misery. He stood up, wiping the blood off his hands, and returned to the class. He was going to check that nothing had happened before rushing to Galan. With the information he just gained he knew that every minute mattered.
But upon reuniting with the other students he found out that Loren and the others were missing.
"What?!" His expression turned into a grimace, his idiot disciple had run off into the heart of the danger. "Where is he?"
Carol and Trina looked down at the ground, scared to look Rito in the eyes. The boys had been the ones to run off but they were the ones that had to pay for their actions. Once they ensured they were safe the girls swore that they would get revenge.
Carol pointed up at the plume of smoke in the distance. "They should have arrived at the crop field by now."
Rito gritted his teeth, he knew that it wouldn't be long before the leader of the bandits arrived there. He had left something extremely important with the group he sent there.
Gritting his teeth, Rito called Durkson. "Durkson! We're going to the crop field. Everyone else stay here and wait until the raid on the village ends."
Rito and Durkson ran to the crop field, using mana to propel their speed, their forms becoming elusive and blurred as they moved. If Loren wasn't dead by the time Rito found him, Rito would kill him himself.
***
"F*ck! Why do we have to be the ones to do this, the others are probably having the time of their life." One of the armed men at the spice farm was sitting on his ass with a bored expression. The other groups of his band had gotten to either raid the village or attack the class of trainee knights, while he was stuck burning down some plants.
The man next to him kicked his side. "Get up Ren, being serious for once. We're almost done, take out the artifact. Braken's going to kill you if f*ck this up."
"Yeah," The elementalist grumbled. "And at least all you have to do is watch, I'm exhausted. Seriously, why does this random village have such a big farm..."
"Alright alright." The bored man got up and opened the bag he wore, pulling out an object wrapped in cloth. Unfolding the cloth, he revealed a golden gauntlet embedded with red gems.
He placed the artifact in the middle of the burning flames, and despite the flames covering him, he didn't react. This was thanks to the elementalist controlling the flames to not burn him.
He turned to the man who kicked him. "So how long do we gotta wait for."
"There should be a good amount of sun and fire mana present so roughly 5 minutes," He spoke offhandedly, looking around the field. "Where in goddess' name are the others, they should have joined us after distracting that knight."
The man in peasant clothing sheepishly raised his head and spoke. "T-they might be dead... I'm telling you, that Rito guy is... special."
One of the men slapped the back of his head. "That's because you've never seen someone in the Bond Stage before dumbass. Why do we even need you here, you're so useless."
Loren and the others watched the men converse while hiding in the bushes. Loren was able to glean a few things from the discussion. First was that a lot of planning had gone into the attack and that they had targeted Galan for their field lush with sun essence, this gave him hope that nothing serious happened to the village itself. They only wanted to burn down the field.
Second was that they knew about Rito and didn't care too much that he was in the Bond Stage, meaning their leader 'Braken' might be in the 3rd Stage, or worse he could be a Master.
Loren looked over to his companions, Benson and Loot were keenly listening to the group, becoming worried that Rito may have been attacked. Relia's face was red, blood dripped from her lips as she bit it, she was furious that Galan had been betrayed by a resident. Her mana was bursting at the seams of her body, ready to tear the man into two.
'I need to calm her down first, but whatever they're doing with that artifact, we should stop it.'
Placing his hand on top of hers, Loren looked Relia in the eyes. "Calm down Relia, I know you want revenge but that guy's the smallest threat right now, we should focus on the others. Alright, guys, I have a plan. Listen..."
A few minutes passed as the bandits waited for the artifact to absorb the ambient mana, the elementalist sat on the ground exhausted while the others watched on. They were almost done with their assigned task and their boss should be coming soon, all they needed to do was crush the crystal they had, and once Braken's matching crystal dissolved, he should be aware that they were finished.
"Ren," One of them called out to his companion. "we're almost done, destroy the crystal."
Ren pulled out the crystal and crushed it. "There, I can't wait to see if the boss succeeded. You reckon he's done it?" He looked over at his friend before widening his eyes.
"BEHIND YOU!"
Five flying balls of mana flew out of the forest, targeting one of the bandits. Still astonished, the man grabbed his sword to deflect them but only had time to slash at one, the other four crashed into him. Three caved into his chest, crushing his ribcage, and the last shot directly into his head fracturing his skull and obliterating his eye. The man fell onto the ground, instantly dead.
[Loaded Spell: Magic Missile!]
[Magic Art: Delayed Casting!]
Delayed Casting, one of the few Magic Arts Relia had learnt since entering the Storage Stage, allowed her to place a timer on her spells. It would stay in place in the location where it was cast until the timer went off or she chose to trigger the spell herself.
It was the crux of Loren's plan, they had spent the last few minutes building up as many Magic Missiles as possible, unleashing them all at once on one of the bandits.
He chose only to focus their sneak attack on one person since they hadn't had a good enough grasp on the abilities of the group. Loren speculated that they were in the Storage stage due to how domineering they acted towards the residents of Galan. If that were true, then just one Magic Missile each wouldn't be able to kill any of them, save for the unarmed man.
They only really had three adversaries in this battle, the elementalist was too tired, and burning the entirety of the farm should have drained him of most of his mana. Relia also had water spells Loaded, which gave them an advantage against him. The resident of Galan didn't even need to be mentioned, he wasn't even in the 1st Stage.
The man they had killed was chosen because he seemed most like the leader to Loren.
Breathing in, Loren steadied his breath. Someone had just died due to his actions, but he had no time to ruminate on that realization.
Loren, Loot and Benson revealed themselves, entering the vision of the men. Now that one of them had fallen, there were only two possible combatants they would face.
The Galan resident fell back in shock as he saw the man die so suddenly, his expression turned blue. The other three straightened, creasing their brows as they saw the people who ambushed them, it looked to be just a few kids.
Ren looked down at his dead comrade before staring down the trio. "Don't think I won't kill you for that you little sh*ts!"
The three didn't respond to his provocation, running forward. After all, they couldn't even hear him, each of them had stuffed cloth into their ears.
"NOW!" Loren screamed at the top of his lungs at Relia.
Relia stood up, her hands forward placed together in the shape of a diamond. She heaved, filling her chest before screeching in their direction.
[Cast Spell: Sound Amplification!]
After casting the five Magic Missiles, Relia then spent the rest of their time waiting manually casting a spell herself. Sound Amplification was a simple spell that did as its name suggested. Her screech reverberated into the surroundings and stunned the bandits, they winced as they covered their ears.
Relia's spell was painful to hear, but it didn't impede the battle prowess of the bandits too much, they simply sent mana into their ears, fortifying their eardrums and dulling the spell's effect.
But once they redirected their attention to the three kids that had been running at them, they noticed one had gone missing. Ren widened his eyes as he turned back to find Loren holding the artifact.
In the short moment that they had been distracted, Loren used mana to decrease his weight as much as possible, his 30 kg of mass becoming 15. Then using a Mana Art Rito recently taught him called Boost, he flew into the air, landing right where the gauntlet was.
He lifted the artifact at Ren, grinning from ear to ear. "I heard you'd die if you lost this."
Turning around he ran back into the forest. Mana coursed in his legs as they augmented his speed.
Ren's face turned red, blood dripped from his hands as he gripped them with rage. He wanted to go off and catch Loren but stopped when Loot and Benson arrived in front of him.
"Tsk- Bourn! Grab that f*cker now! Ander and I will deal with the others."
Bourn nodded his head before running in Loren's direction, his sword itching to lob off Loren's head. Loren was moving quickly, already arriving in the forest, he turned around and looked at Bourn. He pulled down his eyelid and stuck out his tongue.
"Catch me if you can! If you can't I bet Braken's going to chop off your d*ck!" Finishing his taunt, Loren entered the forest patting his ass towards Bourn.
"Little sh*t!" Bourn screamed as he ran after him, he was experienced enough to know he was being provoked, but the artifact was too important to his leader, he was screwed id he didn't get it back.