In a dingy and dark cell, a group of skinny and sickly-looking females from all ranges of ages and races were sitting there with empty eyes. Those females are slaves that are being used in Vitos for things; hard labor, experimentations, training targets, and more. The only silver lining is that they are not used for sexual relief, and that’s because the people of Vitos see those from different races as filthy beings, and doing anything of the like with them will make them filthy as well.

People like those women are everywhere in Vitos and they are the country’s main force in handling manual and dirty chores. They are also used to test new weapons on them and they are also used as lab rats. Women are not the only ones treated this way, there are males treated this way as well but they are being held in different cells. Males and females are intently being held separately so that they can’t find strength and comfort in each other. Those people are what's called “slaves” here in Vitos, but it’s different from what's considered slaves in Valc, Millis, and any country that’s not Vitos.

And right now, without anyone noticing, a young man with dark skin and long knife-like ears was standing in the center of the cell, and before long, the man opened his mouth addressing the women who look as if they had given up on life and said: “Do you wish to have your lives back?”.

Back in Akud, Soma and his party entered the first mine they had to investigate and after looking around for around two hours they finally encountered the first monster… or more like the first group of monsters. They encountered a group of Shadow Wolves, Shadow Wolves are wolf-type monsters that have the ability to use the shadows of the whole group as gates that allow them to teleport all around the place. Moreover, they are extremely proficient at team battles, but they shouldn’t be in a place like this. They only spawn in flat plains that have large boulders that cast large shadows around the place, and them being in a cave-like mine doesn’t add up.

Shadow Wolves are proficient in team battles and to use their abilities to the fullest they need to be in open plain areas with a lot of shadows. But if they were here working under someone’s direction to guard the place and not to hunt as a team, then being in the mine would make a lot of sense. The mine is practically a dark and tight area with light sources installed on the ceiling every 2-3 meters. Basically, it’s a place where more than one shadow is being cast all around the Shadow Wolves and people walking in the mine. That means, the Shadow Wolves have a lot of shadows to teleport from and to.

With all of this, one might think that the environment in the mines is more suitable to them than in the open plains since they can just ambush their targets from the many shadows around them. But that’s wrong. They need to use their own shadows as the entrance to teleport to the shadows of other Shadow Wolves around the vicinity. That means, at least one of them needs to appear in front of the target so they can teleport to that one’s shadow and attack as a team, but doing that would cause it to stop being an ambush. And to top it all, the Shadow Wolves are weak at physical attacks and they can’t use any magic to compensate for that.

But if they were in their natural environment; open flat plains with a lot of boulders casting shadows all over the place. They can hide behind the boulders and attack their targets from behind and once the target is injured they would start to teleport all over the place to confuse the injured target and then use that confusion to land more attacks and injure the target more and more till it’s dead. But that strategy can’t be used in the mines since they are confined in the mostly straight baths with nothing to hide behind, but since they are used as guards on this occasion, there is no need to ambush their targets.

“… These are Shadow Wolves, right?”(Alice)

“…That’s right. But, what are they doing here? The only place they can spawn in in this country is the plains before the Undead infested lands around the town of Epia”(Rimi)

“They were definitely brought here by someone and are being used to guard this place. The question is ‘How were they brought here without anyone noticing?’”(Marina)

“Well, for now, leave them to me. I want to try something new”(Soma)

Soma unsheathed his sword and started walking towards the Shadow Wolves. Instead of taking a stance or swiftly attacking them, he held his sword with both hands and pointed it sideways, and once his preparations were done he said the chants for two spells with his Red Book floating right next to his head.

“{Divine Flame}… {Cursed Ice}….”(Soma)

Soma’s sword was instantly covered by two auras at the same time. A transparent-white aura that caused the air around it to shimmer and sway, and a dark blue aura that sucked the light around it. In less than a second, Soma’s sword was completely swallowed by the two auras, and nothing of its original appearance remained. At that moment, Soma moved his hands apart as if separating his sword in half vertically, and true enough, he is holding a sword in each hand.

On his right hand is a sword made purely of the transparent-white aura, and was shimmering as if it was made out of glass. On his left hand is a sword made purely of the dark blue aura, it was as if it was made out of dark blue ink that sucked the light out of the surroundings.

The Shadow Wolves perceived his actions as a threat and the one nearest to Soma dashed forwards at him intending to bite Soma on the neck. But before it was able to do just that, Soma swung his right sword at the Wolf cutting its head vertically in half, and right at the same moment the wound caught fire and started burning the whole head. The fire burning the wolf’s head was completely transparent and had no color nor smoke coming off of it, and with the head rendered completely into ash the body fell down with a thump devoid of any life.

But at that same moment, two Shadow Wolves leaped out of the dead wolf shadows and attacked Soma from two sides at the same time. In response to that, Soma swung his left sword at the two wolves cutting them both with that one slash horizontally, but there was no indication of being cut appeared on the wolves. Instead, they both stopped moving and fell down to the ground as dark ice crystals covered their bodies.

After a short pause, the Shadow Wolves started to attack more violently, and this time, the whole group attacked at the same time by teleporting around all over the place using the shadows of their fallen comrades. Some were attacking Soma from behind, and some were attacking him from the sides, and some were attacking him from the front, there were even ones that were attacking him from above.

Soma swiftly dealt with them using dance-like fluid movement that mesmerized both Rimi and Alice who were seeing Soma fighting seriously for the first time, even Marina found herself unable to look at anything else but Soma’s fighting figure. Soma kept going at it, killing some and sealing some of them in the dark ice, and nor blood nor dirt could be found on him and before long all of the Shadow Wolves were completely wiped out.