The oil makes the fire spread instantly and aids the hellfire in consuming the men. Their screams bring the battlefield to a stop as they can only watch in horror while both man and horse become charred corpses before their eyes. The smell of burnt meat had already begun to spread, but now its new strength fills our nostrils with dread.

Once their screams finally cease, Roxanne ends the spell with an angry snarl on her face.

Soft clanking can be heard when the enemies drop their weapons. We have no mana to spare to heal their wounded, so Hana finishes off the dying man in front of her, and an archer is finished off by a grim-faced foot soldier. The surviving count is six metal soldiers, two archers, and three mages.

"Cut off their hands!" Lord Ricardo commands. It seems that all of the enemies know some magic, so it's a risk we just can't take. As a single act of mercy, their hands will be stored inside Ento's [Item Box].

I grab Roxanne's hand and help her off of Alissa, then I carry her like a princess. Lina tries to dismount and dangles her little legs before Alissa lowers herself a little.

"Thanks," Lina says shyly.

I turn to Alissa and say "Get Hana, there's still three spies that we have to deal with."

She nods and darts away.

I summon a small bird and keep it on my shoulder as my eyes and ears. Then I turn around and walk towards Ciel with the help of Lina, who steadies my steps. The Brown Angel is already starting the emergency healing along with Oura.

Little Aoi finally comes back while licking her lips. She [Clean]s the blood from her mouth and crawls up onto my shoulder. She ate an entire mage, something that I only glimpsed through [Bind] and then let her do as she pleased.

"And thanks for that! Humanoids have so much mana in their bodies, they are delicious!" She says inside my head.

"Stop peeping into my thoughts," I chastise her.

"Hehehe, sorry!"

I lay Roxanne on the ground and pull out a sleeping bag, then I pick her up again and gently lay her on top of the bag.

Ciel notices us and hurries towards Roxanne.

"What happened to her?" She asks as she inspects Roxanne's neck.

"She got an enchanted arrow through her throat. I had to use so much mana to heal her that I got hit with overuse."

Ciel turns to me. She notices how my eyes are without focus and then looks at the bird on my shoulder. Then she realizes how bad my overuse is and lets her mouth hang open. "W-well, she's fine now. She only needs a little [Regeneration] later, so I'm going to return to the others."

"I'll go hunt down the last three spies. I'll be back later."

"Please be careful," Ciel says worriedly and gives me a kiss on the cheek.

I nod and crouch to kiss Roxanne, but she throws her arms around me and hugs me tight. Once she's had her fill, she loosens the hug and plants her lips on mine. "Love you," she says with a hoarse voice and a shy smile.

"I love you, too," I say with a pained smile and pat her head.

Stupid, reckless tactic. I should've never allowed her to do that.

"Uhm. Wolfy, I'm going to strip the dead of their armor and collect the shields of the men we killed," Lina says.

"Please do. And get their magic arrows, but be careful with them, I don't want them to explode in your hands," I answer.

"I-I will." She gives me a peck on the lips and walks away.

I meet with Alissa midway and Hana pulls me up, setting me in front of her in a very comforting hug. She smells of blood, but it's likely not hers.

I pull out the [Gate] "scrubber" and turn it on, then we dash towards the north and I motion to the Holly flying above us. She approaches us and I give her the command to scout ahead.

It takes less than a minute for Holly to find the "ninjas" hiding under some form of ghillie suit.

What are they doing…?

I slow down and point out where they are for Hana and Alissa.

"Hana, kill that one; Alissa and Aoi, kill the one over there; the last one we will interrogate," I order.

Hana jumps off of Alissa and flies towards the first.

Suddenly, they all bolt out from below their camouflage and sprint off in three different directions.

Alissa shoots a [Fireball] and Aoi coughs her own fireball at the second ninja, making him tumble to the ground. We catch up to him quickly and Alissa instantly snaps his neck with her jaws. These clearly aren't combat soldiers.

The last one is a woman and we easily gain on her. Hana flies back to us with her emerald sword bloodied.

Suddenly, the woman trips and rolls on the ground. Once she stops, she curls into a fetal position and yells, "Please! Mercy! I surrender! I'll tell you everything!"

Hana jumps on her and ties her arms behind her back with a rope. In only a minute, the woman is completely bound and held with a dagger right over her neck. She stops pleading for mercy and now only whimpers.

I dismount Alissa and she returns to normal. I'm steadied by Alissa while I walk towards the ninja woman. Her clothes are simple, baggy, and pure black. They are made solely for the purpose of soundless movement. She carries no weapons that we can see.

Hana unmasks her and we see golden wavy hair, a freckled, pale oval face, and the pointy, flexible ears of the elves. Very pretty, around Hana's age. She's slender and tall.

"What's your name?" I ask.

"Loria," she answers immediately, her voice wavers with fear. She looks at me oddly as my eyes are not focusing on her.

"Who do you work for?"

"Dawn of Fire mercenary circle of magi," she says without hesitation.

We three look at each other with raised eyebrows.

That Dawn of Fire, the one that stalked Roxanne in the past?

"What were your orders?"

"I-I don't know, I'm only a 'ferry.'" She shifts her eyes and avoids looking me in the eye.

"Make a guess."

"Capture the nobles and the dragons."

"What about the rest?"

"I don't know. They could be spared, Goloria is close enough that they could walk back."

"Didn't you know that I had a 'scrubber'? Why didn't you run before I started hunting for you?"

"We did, but we were hiding underneath an enchanted camouflage! How did you even you find us?!" She asks, completely bewildered.

Hm? We'll have to collect that, then.

I turn to Alissa and she shrugs. "Even I couldn't notice them."

"Well, their heat signatures were obvious to Holly. Anyway, where were you going to teleport the people you kidnapped?"

"Close to Escanso. One of our hideouts."

"Point on this map where you guys have hideouts."

She only knows of two: one close to Escanso, and one close to the Grand Delta of Glorampina to the northwest, near the border of the High Forest.

"Name all the people that work above you."

She starts listing names and Alissa writes them down.

"There's a handsome blonde guy that's mysterious and meets with the old mages all the time. But I don't even know what he does and I've never heard his name."

"Describe him," I say.

"Manly face, scraggly blonde-hair, long beard, sullen and tired eyes, tall and thin body."

"That doesn't sound very handsome," I say with a frown.

"He looks like he's not doing very well, but if he cleans up he would look very handsome, all the women say so." Loria lowers her head in embarrassment.

Is that Darean?

"Do you have any more information about the circle?"

She spouts random facts on how they operate. It's a shady circle that compartmentalizes a lot of its structure, she hears very little about anything outside her department.

"I have nothing else. Please, don't kill me! I'll be your slave or even a Blood Slave, I'll accept any power you want over me. I'm single, you can use me in any way you want and I know how to please men," she begs me with teary eyes.

Blood fills my dick and I get an erection looking at her grovel in this way. The idea of fucking her and taking out my frustrations on her wet pussy makes my head spin with excitement, but also renews my anger at this circle of magi for fucking with me.

This isn't even how slavery works, the empire doesn't allow you to force other people to become slaves.

"Are you okay, Wolfy?" Alissa asks through [Bind], worriedly.

"The frenzy of the battle is clouding my mind."

Anger supersedes my disgusting sadism and rape fantasies, allowing me to regain some of my rationality.

I approach Loria so the girls aren't affected by my [Godly Language] and ask, "Did you ever lie to me?"

"Yes.

"What was the lie?"

"I've sent a small written report about the fight back to my boss… wait, what did you do to me?! I'm sorry! I didn't want you to get angry at me!" Her eyes open wide in fear and tears run along her cheeks.

"Are all your comrades as agreeable as you?"

"No. The foot men, maybe, but the archers and mages are freaks. Ugh, this feels so weird!"

Now that the interrogation is over…

I hold back a tired sigh trying to come out.

To make her my slave would first require her to be judged and officially considered a criminal, then she would be sold as a slave, but no sane slave trader would ever sell a slave to her former enemy.

For her to be judged would first require a thorough investigation, which would likely call for imperial lie detectors. Two nobles and a Lord were attacked so blatantly, after all.

There's just so much that could go wrong for us with this investigation… I'm sorry, Loria.

"Alissa, I still can't see, so I'll use your body," I say through [Bind].

"You can just ask Hana."

"I want to do this myself."

"If you say so… well, I'll always be yours, use me," she says solemnly.

I grab Alissa's "string" and receive her senses as I assume full control of her body.

I sneak closer to the side and silently draw Alissa's dagger. I approach Loria from behind and grab her head, then I shove the dagger in with all of Alissa's strength.

"Geh!" Loria whimpers and then spasms. After a few seconds, she stops moving and dies.

Hana lets Loria lay back with a frown. "What a waste, she was so pretty," she says.

I frown. I dislike seeing her as only a potential sex slave, but I also can't deny Hana's words.

We gather the three corpses, recover the bounty plates for them, and burn them into ash with Hana's fire breath. Then, Hana opens a hole with her [Earth Bullet] and we bury their ashes. This way, nobody will know that we ever met these "ninjas."

Their bounties had no crimes listed, they were legal [Gate] mages.

We find the enchanted camouflage they were using. It's a ghillie suit enchanted with [Ignorance], some other spell that seems to mimic [Hide Presence], and an anti-scent spell. I'll have to research those last two.

We finally return to the caravan and see Ciel finishing up her emergency care, then she starts to heal the stumps of the captured mercenaries. Hana dismounts and Alissa acts as my wheelchair while I direct her through [Bind].

I see Anton laying on top of a sleeping bag with Klein and Krista beside him. He's alive, but his belly is heavily bandaged. Krista is holding a glowing smoky quartz, likely a [Regeneration] magic tool. Klein has a makeshift crutch beside her, her wounded leg is completely covered with bandages and red with blood.

"Klein? How's your father?" I ask as Alissa approaches. I can feel her unease through [Bind].

"He took a flaming arrow in his belly, but he couldn't pull it out properly due to the barbs so it opened a hole in his stomach," Krista answers for her, her face looks grim.

"Ciel said he will live, but… we can't let him wake up," Klein says, before her voice cracks as she starts to sob.

I pull a gnomic [Regeneration] magic tool out of my "Items," then I lean over and offer it to Krista. "Use this one, it's better," I say and hand her the shining green gemstone.

Both of them turn to me with surprised faces. Krista doesn't hesitate any longer and quickly takes the stone from my hand. "Thank you," she says, her voice also starting to crack.

"How's your leg, Klein?" Alissa asks, softly.

She wipes the corner of her eyes and says, "I'm fine, it's already stopped hurting. I can march with crutches… Uh, are your eyes okay, Wolfy?" She finally pays attention to me.

"Blind and deaf from mana overuse, this bird is a replacement for those senses," I say.

"Oh… uhm… thank you for protecting us. The men are talking about how you crushed the fuckers," she grits her teeth, seething with anger as she refers to Dawn of Fire.

"But you fought too, and you sacrificed more than us," I say.

"But you killed many more," she shoots back, grimly.

I stay quiet and just nod, then I notice that Osaria is set down beside Roxanne. The dark elf woman has half her face bandaged, but she still seems rather fine, though she seems like she's high on anesthetics. Roxanne looks at the woman with concern in her eyes and holds a glowing [Regeneration] magic tool over her face.

Rande is beside them. He checks on his mother before he returns to barking orders to the still able-bodied survivors. He has a nasty burn on his shoulder that melted some of his armor. The armor was cut out and the wound was partially healed. There's a piece of cloth wet with red liquid tied down to his shoulder, likely an HP potion.

"Use your [Regeneration] tool on yourself," Alissa says to Klein.

"Oh, right, good idea."

"Wolf!" Rande calls to us and comes marching fast.

"Yes?" I turn to him and he looks at me oddly since I don't look him in the eye. "I'm currently deaf and blind due to mana overuse, so I'm using this summoned bird as my senses for now."

"Oh… well, anyway, I want you, Hanafuria, and Alissa with me while I talk with the nobles," he says, his expression is stern.

"Hm?" Alissa lifts an eyebrow at him.

"A slight show of force and displeasure. Everyone is talking about how you summoned a large monster that killed a dozen enemies by itself. I just want the nobles to sweat a little."

"Sure," I answer.

We find Ento using a [Regeneration] magic tool on one of the men. Silvina is nearby, watching over the new prisoners with an arrow nocked in her ornate green longbow, which looks to be enchanted with three gemstones.

Lord Ricardo chops a hand off with his glossy wooden sword and Oura heals the stump of the man.

"Lord Ricardo!" Rande calls out.

He chops the last hand off and turns to us. His grim eyes and his dark armor makes him look rather frightening, but the flowers in his beard ruin the image.

"Yes?" He asks.

"A quick word," Rande says.

Ento waves and we, Silvina, and Ricardo all converge to him.

Once we form a circle, Rande gives a phony smile. "You three look well," he says.

"We are…" Ricardo says, calmly.

"I don't think I saw them attack you three even once," Rande continues and his smile becomes strained.

"What are you implying?" Ento asks and gives Rande a tired glare.

"What do you think?!" Rande hisses at Ento. "I didn't offer to escort you all just to be dragged into your petty fighting!"

"We didn't expect Lord Este to be so brazen," Ricardo says, still calm.

"The Hands of the Emperor must have scared him too much," Ento says.

"I don't think Dawn of Fire works for him directly," Silvina comments.

"So you know who they are?" Rande asks.

"Those exploding arrows are their specialty."

A handless silver elf man is dragged over to us by one of the nobles' men.

"This is one of their commanders, we will interrogate him," Ricardo says.

"I demand to participate," Rande immediately says and sends me a glance.

"Suit yourself."

We take him far enough away from the caravan that his screams won't bother the rest of the caravan too much.

Ento draws his golden wand and touches the commander's forehead with it.

"Now… you will answer some questions, and if I detect even a hint of a lie, you will suffer, understood?" Ento asks, his tone turns completely emotionless.

The commander glares at Ento. "Fuck y-…"

"[Pain]," Ento casts immediately.

"AAAAAH…!" The commander screams from the top of his lungs.

A long minute passes before Ento stops the spell.

"Again, you will tell no lies, understood?" He asks again without emotion.

The commander chuckles and says, "Fuck it, understood."

"Who do you work for?" Ento asks.

"Star Worshipp-…

"[Pain]."

"AAAAH…! DAWN OF FIRE, I WORK FOR DAWN OF FIRE! PLEASE, STOP!"

But Ento doesn't listen and another full minute of torture passes before the spell ends.

"What was your goal?" Ento continues.

"Capture the nobles, capture the dragons, capture any mage that surrenders, and kill the warriors."

"'Kill the warriors'…?" Rande asks, seething with anger.

"Yeah… anyone with a weapon needed to die."

Lord Ricardo and Silvina look at Rande, and the three frown at each other.

"What about the commoners?" Rande continues.

"Let them go."

"Why kill the warriors, then?"

"I don't know, that's the order that we had. I didn't want any more Wicked among us, so I might have spared those who surrendered."

"Sounds like someone wanted you dead," Ricardo says to Rande.

No, they wanted us dead.

"'More Wicked'?" Silvina questions.

"The fucking mages are insane, most of the artillery archers are like that, too. You can see how burning people to death can push someone over the edge, right?" He looks at us flippantly.

"Why do you work with them, then?" Silvina asks, stern.

"Have to make a living somehow…" He looks down.

"You still chose to kill alongside Wicked," Rande says and spits on the ground. The commander grits his teeth and keeps his head down.

"Did you have any information on us?" Ento continues.

"Yes. Quite a lot, especially that boy," he says and looks at me with anger. "You killed my men, right? None of the second squad seems to have survived."

Rande growls. "Do any of you work with gangs of elven thieves?! With poor villagers that have to turn to stealing to survive?!"

"I-I don't know, I'm just a grunt that keeps his men alive!" He lifts his stumps and glares at us in anger.

"Make a guess," I say, coldly.

"We might." -He shrugs- "Most of our info comes from the clients, so it might have been someone with a grudge who showed us an opportunity to attack. Fucking got my men killed, too, so I hope that fucker gets stabbed by the Captain."

"Do you know that I am a Root Lord serving under Crown Lord Confiel Rincipio?" Ricardo asks.

"Yeah. I guess that the old mages want to cozy up to Lord Este," the commander says with a shrug.

Rande turns his frown to Ricardo. "You are working against Lord Este and you still spent that long in Escanso?"

"We are spies in plain sight. Lord Este would never outright kill us while inside his town, that would spark a war," Ricardo answers calmly.

"But you still dragged us into your petty fighting," Rande scowls at him.

Ento turns to us, his emotionless facade is broken as he looks at Rande with disgust. "We are fighting for a cause. Don't forget that the High Forest will be greatly improved once Lord Este is replaced."

"Tell that to the widows of the men who died today. They never pledged their lives to your cause," Rande shoots back.

"For that, we apologize," Ricardo says and bows lightly. "We will pay for the cost of [Regrowth] and send compensation to the widows of your men."

"That will be expensive," Silvina says with worry.

"If not for them, we would be captured by now," Ricardo says and sends me a glance. Ento also glances at us with gritted teeth.

Ento squeezes more information out of the commander, but compared to my own info, he's hearing a lot of lies. Ento has no way of verifying any of it, so to begin with, the info has dubious veracity at best.

We return to the caravan and the death toll is taken.

On our side, six foot soldiers survived with minimal wounds, two are in grave condition, and two are dead. Of the mages, two survived without wounds, and two died. Those are Space mages, so a lot of perishable goods, like ready to consume food, are left behind after their deaths. The food is distributed among everyone and eaten promptly.

On the nobles' side, two foot soldiers survived with minimal wounds, one is in grave condition and two died. Of the mages, two are in grave condition and two died.

Of the nobles' men, two foot soldiers survived and three died. The two horsemen also died with their horses.

Klein can walk with crutches; Anton is going to be sleeping for a while; Osaria can only walk with assistance because she's as high as a kite; Laertes only had some small burns and got some skin cream to ease the pain; Oura has no wounds.

The wagon on our side is wrecked and the cargo of metals survived, but it will have to be buried nearby and retrieved later. Rande's carriage is still holding strong, though the ceiling now has a hole in it where the arrow that hurt Klein and Laertes went off.

Both carriages are now being used for transporting the wounded. The Nobles' carriage is enchanted with [Warp Space], so it carries most of the wounded.

My wound is now mostly healed, and with an HP potion, the rest of the damage will go away in a few hours. Alissa's wound was fully healed by me and the fur on her tail will regrow with an hour of [Regeneration]. Roxanne is using a small [Regeneration] stone on herself, so her voice will fully come back in another hour. Lina, Hana, and Ciel have no wounds.

Alissa recovered Ted and Suzy for us. They received some light burns, but their stuffing is visible. Apparently, they can control the stuffing like they do with their locomotion, so at least it won't fall out.

Now I have to think of a means of healing them, and apparently neither [Heal] nor [Regeneration] seem to work. Their bodies don't have the elementals' fake mana cells, so they are also unable to heal themselves by using mana.

Lina recovered the metal armor for us. The plates are almost all bent or outright crushed thanks to the Masked Aberrant, so we will have to reforge all this steel if we want it to be of any use to us. The shields are all functional, so we now have a shield enchanted with [Wind Shield] and [Dead Zone] for each of us.

She also recovered a lot of arrows for us. The exploding ones are difficult to aim properly due to their extra weight and thick shafts, so they can only be lobbed with poor accuracy. We still need to properly understand how to use them. The other arrow is a magical design that produces a ridiculous amount of flame and heat. This is the one that hit Roxanne and Anton. It's as easy to use as a normal arrow since the arrowhead is simply enchanted with a crude spell.

"It's just one big fire attuner on a delay. I think they use a different 'code' so it's much more efficient," Lina says.

"'Code'?" I ask.

"It's what we use to visualize the components of the enchantment so we can convert mana that passes through the component more efficiently."

"Okay, you need to explain enchanting for me from the beginning."

Rande offers our horses to the nobles, but they refuse. The wounded are all inside the carriages, so we mount them and start to relax a little. This forced march in the middle of the night will be tiring, but we might reach Goloria by dusk tomorrow.