Back on his horse, Kent kept replaying the scene that had just happened in his mind.
He vaguely recalled that just before falling off his horse, he had been focusing on the rune in his mind, and suddenly, a blue flame appeared in his hand.
Did he only need to look at it?
He carefully stared at the rune in his mind... but nothing happened.
Kent was about to go crazy.
Wasn't this supposed to be a simple prayer spell? Why couldn't he release it? The rune was so straightforward—a stroke, then another...
Whoosh...
The blue flame ignited once more.
Kent widened his eyes and clenched his fist to extinguish the flame.
He straightened up, pretending to stretch lazily. No one was watching him.
He casually placed his hand in front of him at an angle where others wouldn't notice, and tried "drawing" the prayer rune in his mind.
Whoosh...
So, the way to release it was to mentally draw the corresponding magic rune.
At this moment, he was only an arm's length away from Waterflow, who was sleeping on the burlap sacks of grain.
He could see the fine fuzz on her cheeks, the gentle rise and fall of her nostrils, and her long eyelashes, which, in the sunlight, seemed like still, dormant sprites, trembling softly with a warm glow.
Sleeping, she curled her frail body into a ball.
What a woman so profoundly lacking in a sense of security.
How could a woman like her possess such tremendous combat power? And that, too, when her body was so severely injured.
And her eyes...
They had the gaze of a wolf, a look of death that seemed to belong only to someone who had lived in the darkest parts of the world.
Kent sighed and casually placed his hand on the cart, pretending to pat the burlap sacks as he secretly cast a prayer spell onto Waterflow's ankle while no one was looking.
"Boss..." Splitting Blade rode his horse closer.
"Huh?" Kent quickly withdrew his hand, feeling a bit guilty.
"Boss, are you sure we don't need to tie her up?" Splitting Blade asked.
"Why tie her up?" Kent replied with a question.
"Heh, never mind."
"What?"
"Ah, nothing, nothing. Please, go ahead." Splitting Blade chuckled awkwardly, silently cursing himself for prying.
Seeing his boss touch her foot was one thing, but did he have to get nosy about it...
"I remember you mentioning she's the leader of some organization?" Kent continued, oblivious to Splitting Blade's intentions.
"The Blood Rose Marauders, Boss," Splitting Blade replied.
"And what kind of organization is that? Why are they on the Northern Territory Power Ranking?" Kent glanced back at the cart, where Waterflow was still sound asleep.
The Blood Rose Marauders—or rather, the Blood Rose Adventurers—was not a large organization, but it was infamous along the northern wilderness borders.
Rumor had it that the core members of this group numbered only around a hundred, yet almost all of them were women.
But no one had actually verified if these rumors were true.
The term "marauders" came from numerous raided tribes, trading caravans, rogue pioneer squads, and even some frontier territories that had been looted by Blood Rose. Some tribes even banded together to post a bounty, offering ten gold coins for capturing a Blood Rose member—equivalent to the monthly recruitment wage for many adventure squads.
And the bounty on Blood Rose's leader reached tens of thousands of gold coins.
So why hadn't they been caught?
The reason was simple. First, the Northern Territory was vast, and tracking down a hundred people in the wilderness was simply impractical. Second, deploying troops for a search was time-consuming, costly, and risked escalating tensions across the border.
Moreover, many impoverished tribes or small-scale adventure groups received aid from Blood Rose and would actively conceal their whereabouts.
In their words, Blood Rose was not a marauding band but a band of heroic outlaws.
The power ranking mentioned by the guards was something visible in nearly every tribal tavern on the Red Lands continent.
This ranking, updated every few months, was issued by super-tribes in the area, each ranking featuring different organizations and order depending on the region.
For example, the Northern Wilderness Power Ranking was published by the Black Watch Camp under the jurisdiction of the Anvil Tribe, which periodically assessed pioneer teams or adventure groups on the border, symbolizing the status and influence of the organizations being assessed. Strength and scale were among the most direct evaluation criteria.
The Northern Territory was not a single location but rather an expansive no-man's-land stretching for hundreds of kilometers between the Lima Plateau and Black Soil Forest, extending left and right to the Crow Marsh and the Hidden Highlands. It was rumored to be desolate, teeming with magical beasts, and abundant in rare resources such as rich mineral deposits.
Decades ago, this area had been fiercely contested in the war between the plateau and forest alliances, leaving it strewn with corpses. After the war, the plateau alliance occupied this narrow region but didn't station a heavy garrison, allowing pioneers from both major alliances to enter the area and gather resources.
Over time, the Northern Wilderness Frontier became a paradise for pioneers and adventurers alike.
The edge of the valley lay just ahead.
The reddish-brown rocks had disappeared, replaced by moss-covered stones hidden in thorny shrubs, with some large stones bearing signs of nibbling from herbivores.
Splitting Blade immediately recognized the bite marks of a short-horned mountain goat.
They moved at a decent pace, reaching the Buffalo Meadow, just before dusk.
For adventurers from either the Plateau Alliance or the Forest Alliance, the Buffalo Meadow was an essential path for northern explorations. Beyond this lay endless mountains, swamps, forests, and wilderness.
Upon reaching this point, the escort team became alert again.
From this point onward, they were likely to encounter adventurers from the Forest Alliance. Though conflicts rarely erupted between adventurers from opposing alliances, no one wanted to risk any losses in their squad strength here when they would soon face more formidable challenges in the North.
Of course, there were exceptions—such as encountering bloodthirsty tiger clans.
Unsheathed longswords hung from the front sides of saddles, easily within reach.
Oil-soaked torches were already lit, and stone jars of firebombs were prepared and could be quickly ignited.
Dry Leaf and cripple, who previously had hunting bows strapped to their backs, now held them in hand, with their arrow quivers slung at their waists to enable the swift release of black-feathered arrows.
Only Kent remained relaxed, riding leisurely on his horse.
Strangely enough, despite the hundred-pound armor on his body, weighing over two hundred pounds in total, his old horse showed no signs of struggling at all.