Disclaimer: I do not own Mushoku Tensei and all rights to Mushoku Tensei belong to it’s respective owners

Chapter 9: Silent Screams

The twin moons were shining whole, showering the earth from on high above in their full, brilliant lights. Slogging along a deer trail through a misty and dark forest on this night was a party of hired hands. They were 3 bandits and a Magician, a rare and curious combination for any party. Yet, the circumstances which brought them together couldn’t be described as anything but exceptional. They were members of different organizations, coming from different regions of the Central Continent, which by happenstance of fate were brought together by an equally unusual yet wealthy patron.

He was a man of many mysteries.

None of them knew who their patron truly was. Some had wondered where his wealth had come from. The less scrupulous among them sought to gain much of it by unscrupulous means. All to no avail.

The only thing they knew for certain of their patron was his unusual request, the death of the reincarnated Demon God, Laplace.

Due to that, some had wondered if he was an agent of the Church of Milis, perhaps a hand of the Armored Dragon King, Perugius; others have proposed that he might had himself been hired by one kingdom or another. A hole existed in such theories, of course. For if their patron, Faust Ackerman, was truly hunting the Demon God, why hire mercenaries, bandits and criminal Magicians when the threat of such a fearsome being should have sufficed in moving entire armies into action?

Regardless of the truth, the gold he was paying them were real, and they were impossible to ignore.

And so onward they marched to their destination, to perform their mission.

As one of the 5 encirclement parties, it was their job to hold one of the most probable routes their targets might use to escape the attack. In their case, it was a trail which extended from the forest north of Buena Village all the way to the neighboring Bello Village. Though not the main or even the most direct route connecting the neighboring villages, it could nevertheless be traversed. The fact that it went through a heavily wooded forest could be argued as making it a more likely path of escape as it offered much better cover and more places to hide in case of pursuit.

Additionally, depending on where they were stationed, some of them would have to be wary of the occasional patrols of village militiamen going along the village’s main roads. While it would not be difficult to eliminate them, they were ordered to keep their footprint to the minimum to complicate the investigation that was bound to happen after this night. For their party in particular though, this was not a major concern as those patrols were unlikely to extend themselves into the forests.

“…Hah…” Eunos, the masked Magician attached to the party, drew a long sigh.

Being rather frail physically, he was not used to long treks in the cold, damp night. Especially now that they had walked for hours from their cave hideout deep in the forest to the south of the village. It could be said that of any of the encirclement parties, they have had to travel the furthest to get to their destination, and thus, they had left the hideout an hour or two before anyone else. Such a long trek through treacherous terrain had sapped both stamina and willpower from him.

It didn’t help his boredom either that the 3 bandits in front of him had only been talking amongst themselves, leaving him to stew alone on his own.

“…Hah…” Eunos sighed once more, even though he should have long gotten used to being ostracized. His physical frailty and general lack of interest in anything other than his Magic studies had kept him alone for as long as he had been aware of his surroundings. He ought to have gotten used to it, but on this night alone, he felt uncomfortable by the distance.

As he lamented his discomfort in silence, a glint passed by the side of his eyes suddenly—

Pop! Pop! Pop!

—In almost the same instance, 3 talking heads exploded one after another before him, their craniums having disintegrated almost simultaneously from high velocity impacts by something. As their headless bodies were falling through the air, in that split second, Eunos realized it.

Quickly sprinting into action, he levelled his staff to his left just as the bodies of his party members collapsed to the ground along with the torches they were carrying, slowly then suddenly plunging the world around him into darkness.

“Oh falling rain, I call upon you to scatter, and flood the whole world! [Water Splash]!”

Calling upon the Elementary-ranked Water Magic, countless droplets of water appeared as though out of thin air, suspending themselves in the space around him. As he glimpsed upon something fast approaching from the darkness in the woods, enlightened only by the lunar lights shining through the cracks in the leaves, he ordered the droplets to propel themselves at it at great speed and tear his target into pieces.

But just as the droplets were about to move, Eunos felt a sudden reverberation. Instinctively, however, he knew that it was not of the air. At the same time, the droplets of water lost all strength as most dropped powerlessly onto the ground. Some even dematerialized back into thin air.

“—How?!”

The sight had left him almost speechless. Even so, he realized that this wasn’t the moment to think of that.

That something that had been swiftly moving through the woods was rapidly closing in by the second.

Eunos quickly chanted another.

“Blue Goddess, fly down from the Heaven—”

Something exited the woods at great speed in that instance. It was something unbelievable. The sight of a small child, barely 2 or 3 years in age, flew through the woods. The light of the twin moons peeking through the gaps in the tree lines showcased his figure in all its irrational, yet oddly sublime magnificence.

And for all the child’s nonthreatening size, Eunos had never felt terror quite like the one induced by his presence. Realizing that this was his crucial moment, Eunos pressed on.

“—and wave the scepte—”

The boy-child flew past the pointed tip of the masked Magician’s staff in that instance, lightly shoving it to the side with his left hand as he flew along its length. The small palm of his right hand then placed itself upon Eunos’ chest. And in the next moment, Eunos felt it.

The air between the palm of the boy-child’s hand and Eunos’ chest reverberated with intensity all of a sudden and in the next instance—

“[Shockwave]”

—Eunos’ lungs collapsed as his ribs were pounded inwards, shattering into pieces. A head-sized indentation left itself on his chest. It was as though a large, invisible mallet had been driven by a giant against his bosom. The full force of the battering mass of air sent the Magician flying backwards, crashing hard against a tree.

“Goha..!”

As he fell down and lay seated against the trunk, he threw up the blood which had been pushed from his collapsed lungs through his windpipe.

“—This is bad! ThIs Is BaD! THIS IS BAD!“

He realized his situation was untenable. He could no longer breathe nor speak.

Chanting any spell was now beyond him. His Magic had been all but sealed. A checkmate!

Clenching his teeth, Eunos looked up at the fearsome figure of the child floating before him, pointing the middle and index fingers of his right hand towards him. Something spun into form at the tip of those fingers. The glint of the moonlights reflecting off of it was the last thing he saw.

Pop

“…Huff…“

The floating boy-child, Rudeus, blew on the tip of his fingers, mimicking an act he remembered from old Western motion pictures he saw two lifetimes ago. It was a ritual he had often performed throughout the second half of his previous life. It began nonchalantly enough as a way for him to lighten the experience of having blown someone apart with [Rock Bullet].

When a man no longer cared much for the lives of those he killed, he could even start to find joy in the act of killing. Blowing on the tips of his fingers as though it was the muzzle of a smoking gun was one way Rudeus had developed to “enjoy” such an act. Over time, it had become a ritual for him, enforced subconsciously whenever he found a lull after the act of killing with [Rock Bullet]. It was an act he found calming.

After all, what he was blowing on was not the smoke which did not exist, but the lives he had snuffed out – along with whatever sympathies he may have held for them.

“Hmph…”

Carving a thin smirk on his face, Rudeus looked in satisfaction at the result of his work. The Magician lay dead before him, his head having been turned to crimson mist. And by the side were the 3 bandits he had eliminated at the start of the attack, similarly headless.

Rudeus turned to look in the southwest direction, gracefully floating up above the treeline before taking off for his next destination as he left behind the scene of the carnage he had wrought.

“Still, I can’t believe my luck!” Rudeus gleefully thought with a self-congratulatory smile.

Who could have predicted that his enemies would hand him such a great advantage by voluntarily dividing themselves into multiple small parties?

There was soundness in their logic of wanting to close in avenues of escape, but clearly, such a plan could only have come from hubris. Only those confident enough as to not think twice as to whether or not each of their multiple small parties would be capable of engaging their targets – at least long enough for reinforcements to arrive – would have laid out such a plan. They must have assumed complete feebleness on the part of their target such that their only concern was whether their target would be capable of escape.

Regardless, this allowed Rudeus to defeat his assassins in detail, taking small isolated parties one after another.

Rudeus’ counter plan itself was quite simple, he would eliminate each of the encirclement parties first, starting from the one guarding the main road east of Buena Village. Then, moving in a counter-clockwise direction, he would move on towards the main assault parties coming up from the south. So long as he stuck to his own precautions, he should hold enough advantages over them in the engagements. The fact that he had just eliminated his third party stood as a testament to the feasibility of his plan.

Of course, this plan was not without its downsides. Regardless of Rudeus’ abilities, there was no denying that he was still far, far from what he was capable of in his prime. If his enemies could warn each other or live long enough to link up, he could face some trouble. Magicians were the other major concern he had to deal with. While most Magicians were physically inept and required long casting times, so long as there were others who could buy them that time, there was quite the possibility that their Magic could put him at a severe disadvantage. In the first place, had they decided to attack in force as a single unit, they could secure their Magicians all the time they needed to press him into an untenable position.

So, despite his severe dislike of characters like the bandit leader, Deimos, he also could not help but be thankful for his plans.

“[Mana Sense]”

Closing his eyes, Rudeus utilized his unique Magic, [Mana Sense], to find his next target.

It was common knowledge that every living thing in this world possessed Mana. By forming his own Mana into waves and pinging them outwards, it would interact differently when it reached different living things. Depending on the size of the living thing and the amount of Mana they possessed, the Mana wave reflected back to him would be different. This allowed him to map out the presence of nearly every thing around him in a 3-dimensional space ranging outwards from himself.

When flying fast above the canopies on a night like this, where visual clarity was hampered greatly by darkness and terrain, [Mana Sense] proved a more reliable means of navigating and target-tracking. That said, it did come with a major drawback.

Mana dissipated with distance.

And while this was exactly how Rudeus could tell apart the distance between 2 kindred beings possessing the same dimensions and Mana, it also posed a problem. In order to cover long distances with [Mana Sense], it required the caster to ping greater and more dense Mana outwards. This ran the risk of detection by Mana attuned individuals. High-ranked Magicians were typically quite sensitive to Mana disturbance in the air around them, but even low-ranked Magicians would be able to tell if the Mana being pinged was dense and great enough when it reached them.

For example, for his [Mana Sense] to cover a range of 10 km around him – assuming he was staying still – Rudeus would have to ping out waves of Mana which could travel at least 20 km distance. A low-ranked Magician positioned just 500 meters away from him would naturally be very capable of sensing the extremely dense wave of Mana, but even one located 10 km away could surely tell, as it would be Mana that was dense enough to travel 10 km back to the caster and receiver. The latter case would be akin to a low-ranked Magician standing next to him, being blasted by a wave of Mana pinged outwards to a 5 km range.

This was why Rudeus had almost always kept his range under 500 meters. While this was well within visual distance, it would unlikely rouse the senses of even the more sensitive Magicians at close ranges. Most importantly, it still retained its usefulness in times when visual sightings would be difficult or unreliable.

“!”

A clutter of human-shaped forms pinged back at him. Rudeus finally found the ones he was looking for.

Diving though the canopies and into the undergrowth, Rudeus continued to fly fast in the direction of his target, nimbly navigating through the trees.

Just as he reached within 400 meters or so away from them, he pointed the palms of both his hands slightly upwards in front of him, pointing to a space above the party of 5 before him.

“[Double Barriers]!”

Casting his unique Melded Magic spell, [Double Barriers], Rudeus conjured simultaneously an overlapping Advanced-ranked anti-Magic and anti-physical barriers, which covered a 500-meter radius outwards from the party of assassins. The barriers extended downwards from just above the canopy, sealing both Rudeus and the party of assassins within it.

At 300 meters distance, he began his attack.

“[Rock Bullets]”

Summoning four [Rock Bullets], Rudeus sent them spinning forward at great speed while he picked up his pace. A fraction of a second later, popping sounds could be heard in the distance.

“—Tch!”

Sighting by [Mana Sense] in that moment, however, revealed that one of the four bandits he targeted had managed to escape by a hair’s breadth. Rudeus didn’t know whether he was just lucky or decently capable. Regardless, it was trouble.

[Rock Bullet] was his most favored spell, but it was not without its weaknesses. While it moved at high speed and required relatively little Mana, each has only a small area of effect and could be easily avoided if pre-empted in advance. It worked best when catching enemies unaware, surprised or otherwise too weak to move. The only other ways it could kill someone was if they were too physically inept and slow. But such a person would be a rarity among the warriors Rudeus has had to face.

“[Water Hand Blade]!”

As he exited the tree line at high speed, Rudeus conjured a unique Water Magic spell to cover the palm of his right hand. Shrouding his open palm in a ferocious water jet, which spun at high speed around the outline of his fingers and hand like a mini chainsaw, he propelled himself past the bewildered bandit as his right hand drove itself across the bandit’s neck.

His feet landing against a tree trunk as the bandit’s separated head was just starting to land, Rudeus quickly turned towards his next target. The Magician too was turning around to point his wand against the boy.

“Oh, armor of the majestic land—”

“[Wind Slice]!”

Two blades of wind sliced through the Magician’s arms from his shoulders just as he was beginning his chant for [Earth Fortress]. Having sealed his ability to cast, Rudeus propelled himself from the tree. Landing his palm atop the Magician’s head, Rudeus continued as he spun to get behind the Magician.

As his feet landed on the Magician’s back chest, Magically latching itself, Rudeus’ right palm was placed squarely against the back of the Magician’s head. And with that—

“[Electric]!”

—Rudeus conjured miniaturized [Lightning] which crackled its brilliant purple across the Magician’s standing form.

The Magician convulsed uncontrollably, his body shrouded in arcs of plasma energy, his mouth agape. His eyes shone a luminous violet and a moment more, it exploded outwards one after the other. All along his tortured body, his skin was rapidly darkening as many points on his flesh were rupturing open, creating small, burnt pits across his dying frame as his blood were rapidly brought to boil.

By the time Rudeus stopped channelling his [Electric] spell, all that was left of the Magician was a dark, smoking, burnt out husk.

It fell unceremoniously to the ground with a wet thud accompanied by a sizzling sound.

Rudeus took a deep breath, inhaling, then exhaling.

This fight was closer than the last one. With his body the way it was right now, he was almost certain that receiving any attack would be fatal for him. Once again, he felt grateful that he didn’t have to face them all at once.

Taking off to the sky after one last look, Rudeus flew once more. This time toward his next destination.

If they were keeping watch according to plan, the last of the encirclement parties should be located somewhere along the road extending west from the village. It would be surrounded by open fields for kilometers around, with only copses interspersed in between. Unlike before, there would be no forest to obscure their sight and the mists hung much thinner and lower to the ground, possibly making their other senses sharper as well.

To avoid detection until the last possible moment, Rudeus began raising his altitude, flying higher and higher.

Of course, this created a problem with his [Mana Sense] and as such, he had to break his own guidelines, extending the range of [Mana Sense] up to at least 1.5 km away.

This would normally be problem in itself as a competent Magician would almost certainly be able to detect him if they were anywhere within 1 km away from source when pinged by such a wave, but…

“…It’s fine…It should be fine…They’re kind of weak, anyway,” Rudeus thought, half-trying to convince himself – trying to justify, or rather rationalize, his gamble.

Of course, it was not without basis. The 4 Magicians he had eliminated thus far showed capabilities far below those of Magicians he was used to facing. Rudeus wasn’t totally sure whether that was truly what they were capable of or whether it was due to the influence of the terrain and climate they were put under such that their senses became unusually dull. If it was the latter, his next target might be trouble.

Though, regardless of the risks, this was a gamble he had few choices but to make.

And it was with such that Rudeus began extending the range of his [Mana Sense] further away, pinging waves of Mana dense enough to travel a 3 km distance.

Due to the speed he was flying at, it didn’t take too long before he received the responses he wanted.

“There!”

Confirming the party’s position by sight, he abruptly stopped the use of [Mana Sense]. The full moons offered enough illumination for him. Instead, he took a sharp turn up while continuing to fly in the direction of the party. Finally positioned directly above the party at 3,000 meters above ground, Rudeus took a deep breath before the plunge.

“Now!“

Diving head-first straight towards the ground, Rudeus began to conjure five [Rock Bullets] as he closed in to 1,000 meters above his targets. It was at the time too that he noticed something quite unexpected. All 4 bandits and the 1 masked Magician of the party had positioned themselves in a circle, looking outwards in all directions. They were quite well-spaced apart from each other as well.

“As expected, the Magician detected me, after all?!“

No matter, Rudeus realized it was too late for him to fall back. At the very least, they did not seem to have noticed his exact location at present. And this remained his best chance for an opening move, regardless.

A few seconds later, he was just 500 meters above ground.

“[Rock Bullets]!”

As soon he fired off the [Rock Bullets], Rudeus quickly spun his body around, pointing the palms of his hands upwards—

“[Double Barriers]!”

—he encased the entire area in transparent anti-Magic and anti-physical barriers.

In that same fraction of a second, however, he noticed all 5 of the men below him sprinting outwards in all directions.

As the [Rock Bullets] came down, one bandit was penetrated through his torso as one struck him from the back of his spine, blowing a large hole across his stomach. Another had his foot blown off as a [Rock Bullet] pulverized his Achilles’ heel. The rest, however – the one masked Magician and two other bandits – managed to get away unscathed as the remaining [Rock Bullets] hammered harmlessly onto the ground in three consecutive thuds.

“Tch!”

Rudeus noticed it in the split second before the impact, the Magician had shouted something.

Likely, it was a signal.

But how could he have known the exact moment to do so? Could it be that he was able to detect the conjuration of spells in his vicinity? If so, that would make him quite the talented Magician – and troublesome. But, Rudeus didn’t remember encountering him at all during his previous life. Perhaps he went by a different name?

No matter, he had to focus on fighting him now. To do that, he must first constrict their movements.

“[Quagmire]!”

As soon as [Rock Bullets] had hit ground, Rudeus conjured his next spell, [Quagmire]. Turning the grassy field underneath him into a pool of viscous mud, he caught all his targets within it. Rudeus hit ground level just a moment later, at the very center of their formation, as their feet were starting to sink. As he did so, he quickly turned his flight direction to one of the bandits.

Flying fast towards the bandit as the man was struggling against the pull of that sticky, muddy ground that was threatening to drag him in, Rudeus directed a [Wind Slice] spell in the direction of another standing several meters away, tearing the unwary soul into pieces.

As he got past the struggling bandit, Rudeus placed himself behind him just as the enemy Magician was completing the chants for his first spell.

“Flaming arrows of my charge, riddle and ignite my enemies!—”

Just as Rudeus had half-expected, the Magician held off on firing his spell with the bandit now standing between them. If so—

“[Wind Slice]!”

Rudeus tore the bandit apart without a second thought, his body and limbs shredded into pieces. And as he had anticipated, it came—

“[Flame Arrows]!”

“[Ice Mirror]!”

Several [Flame Arrows] propelled themselves at him in all their blazing, fiery forms. Each arrow-shaped burning fire had a size slightly larger than a heavy arrow and lay quite close in girth to a small javelin. As they flew towards him with inflamed ferocity, a protective sheet of ice began to form all of a sudden from a point in space between the two Magicians, forming a perfectly circular wheel almost instantaneously.

The [Flame Arrows] struck against the [Ice Mirror] at several points. The ice rapidly shrunk towards those points of contact as it swallowed the incandescent arrows, disappearing completely as though they had been drained through voids in space.

And then—

A sudden eruption sent shots of steam exploding outwards from those invisible points in space, propelling heated gas at blinding speed. The masked Magician was caught at the center of the directed steam explosion, his flesh melting apart as his body itself was torn to pieces by the resulting shock wave. Whatever surviving pieces had remained of his form were blown back several meters away from where he stood.

That Magician had been unlucky, Rudeus thought. Those who had just seen [Ice Mirror] for the first time often mistook it for a simple Water Magic spell, when it was in fact a Melded Magic of Water and Gravity. It was not a defensive spell either. He had developed it as a hard counter against offensive Fire-based spells. When hit by those Fire spells, the ice would melt, shrinking to the points of contact as they turned to steam while pulled by intense gravity, before being released back in the direction the attack came from. Truly, he was just unlucky. Given his talents, he might have grown to something more useful had he continued to live.

“…A-AH-AAAHHHHH! Mo-Monster! Get away! Get AWAY!”

The screams from the remaining one-legged bandit was deafening. Rudeus found his wails quite obnoxious. With a quick tap of [Rock Bullet], it was silenced forever. All that remained after was the stillness of the night, a good moment for him to bask in the afterglow. Having taken out all of the encirclement parties, Rudeus finally set his sights on the assault parties, the parties led by none other than Deimos and Faust himself. If his predictions were correct, they ought to be stronger than those he had faced thus far, all else being equal.

He would have to take care to take them on with greater cunning and aggression.

Taking off into the sky once more, he flew hard towards the southern forest, keen to punish the interlopers with all the prejudice he could muster.

.

=][=

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Though the autumn was surely moving towards its end as winter would sooner approached, the trees of the forest south of Buena Village remained magnificently endowed with leaves. Even as they had begun to turn a radiant yellow and red, falling with every sway of the breeze, the canopies remained thickly blanketed by them. And so even on a night where the moons shone in their full brilliance, their light could scarcely penetrate the floor of the forest, leaving its denizens largely in the darkness.

It didn’t help that the mists hung so thickly in the undergrowth, enough that anything below a man’s waist was all but shrouded in it. It was as if they were walking upon the clouds on a moonless, starless night. The darkness and the mists hid within them the great unknown, and as such, it would not be strange at all that a traveller’s mind would often wander towards contemplation on what lay beyond the dark, to question one’s vulnerabilities, to ponder on one’s own mortality.

In such cases, companions and conversations held the key to keep the mind together, to hold the darkness at bay. For without them the mind would be set adrift, sucked in by the mysteries in the distance.

Leading the assault through this southern forest was a reinforced party of 9 led by the leader of a notorious band of bandits, Deimos. Aside from the two masked Magicians which had been assigned as auxiliaries to the party, the rest, all 6 of them, were Deimos’ long-time subordinates. Most had come with him from their days in the Strife Zone, a few were recruited throughout their time hunting in the Northern Lands. They had gone through thick and thin together, and this job, their latest, promised to be their most rewarding yet.

And not just because of the gold.

Oh, the gold were good, for they knew nothing that could even come close to it. But something else had left the bandits, and especially Deimos in particular, giddy with expectations.

Life for a brigand was often hard and at one too many times – miserable. This was especially true when hunting trails yielded scarce prey. Occasionally, one may have to fight others for a turf or end up having to fight or run from more well-equipped mercenaries hired by local lords. In such an instance, one may well have to stake the loss of his treasured and hard-earned possessions on the fortunes of battle.

But even so, it was not without merit. Even with all its dangers, the life of a bandit was not without its joys.

Few things could rival the joy of raiding a merchant caravan, capturing said merchant and ravaging his wife and daughters before him, listening to their squeals before decapitating him in front of said wife and daughters. The look in his eyes when you defiled his beloved before him, the look in their eyes when you sliced and diced his carcass into pieces and fed his remains to the pigs, there were few joys in life that could rival that.

And when you finally sold them to the slavers just as their bellies were bulging, having played with those sows for endless months, their soulless, broken eyes at the time…Oh, they were definitely the clincher!

Those memories of happier times, they were why Deimos and his bandits – the most trusted underlings he had brought with him – were most eager on this night. Though only for a short while, they could sample that joy once more. And it would surely be a most joyous occasion, for one of the wenches they were to despoil this time might a bona fide noblewoman. Something all of them had surely wanted but few had actually partaken. Those women were almost always well-guarded and hardly if ever vulnerable to predations on the road.

Thus, being able to do one was a rare opportunity. It would surely raise their notoriety even more, gaining more followers keen to partake in their spoils. Deimos realized, if he played his cards right, one day he could perhaps even call himself a bandit king.

But before he could get to that dream, he needed to get a minor obstacle off the road. That man, Rudolf, had sent two of his masked Magicians to watch him. Even so, he only needed to push a little more, just a little more and they would surely yield. It took them a while of convincing, but surely, they were now quite enticed by the idea too.

“You sure we can have a go at them, leader?” a masked Magician asked.

“Ah,” Deimos affirmed. “Though it’ll have to be after me. Since I’m the boss, after all. I have a reputation to maintain, you know? You don’t mind that at all, do you?”

“Hahaha! Of course! Don’t mind me, leader. You are the boss, after all,” the masked Magician acceded.

“…I still don’t think it’s a good idea, Baudouin,” interrupted another masked Magician, voicing his disapproval of their discussion. “Do you think Master will approve of it?”

“Ah, now you’re just being a spoilsport, Arni,” the first masked Magician, Baudouin, retorted. He brought his arm around his colleague’s, Arni’s, shoulder, reassuring him. “It’ll be fine. They’re gonna die either way, so what’s wrong with a little fun on the side?”

“…Even so…”

“Ahh, if you hate it so much, you can just stay on the sidelines then,” Baudouin chided. “Tell me if you change your mind, though,” he added, as he separated from Arni.

“Then, how about this, Mr. Arni,” Deimos interrupted. “You can take first dips on ploughing that wench,” he suggested. “Uh, what was her name again?” he wondered out loud, then turning towards one of his underlings. “Oi, Shineboots, you went scouting to the village before, what was the name of that maid again?”

“It’s Lilia, Boss.”

“Ah, so how was she?”

“Can’t say she’s anywhere near the blue blood lady, but her face’s pretty good and she’s got them huge fun bags to boot,” the bandit, Shineboots, described.

“Well, you heard the man, Mister,” Deimos reported with a gleeful smile, as though he was a child in summer. “Why don’t you take her for a ride? I heard that since you’ve been such a hardworking wizard, you’ve never actually done it before, even though you’re past 30 now,”

“—T-That’s not…”

“What? Don’t want it?”

“…I didn’t say that,” Arni acknowledged.

“Hahaha! I knew you’re a man, after all!” Deimos delightfully laughed. This time, it was his turn to wrap his arm around the masked Magician’s shoulder as he regaled him his tales on the joys of brigand living, enticing him further with the pleasures they were surely to partake.

The noise of their cacophony slowly grew distant, blissfully ignorant of the plans that had been set into motion. Unbeknownst to them, a small shadow looked on at their jubilant forms from the darkness in utter silence. Slowly and steadily, the shadow followed, its calm surface belied its intense emotions.

The party of brigands continued to walk and walk. On and on, their march grew ever more dreary, slowly but surely. The exuberant voices eventually died down, leaving behind only awkward silence, as the party continued its trudging steps. Slowly but surely, each of them came to realize it. They were lost.

They must have lost their way at some point. They should have exited the forest quite some time ago, yet they had not. And many could not shake off the feeling that they had merely been going round and around in circles around the same spots. The eerie silence which pervaded despite the understanding was slowly but surely growing unbearable.

“…Sorry to say this, Boss, but I think we’re lost,” Shineboots finally said, breaking the stifling quiet.

“Ah shite, you don’t say?!” Deimos retorted, his tone clear with irritation. It wasn’t too long, however, before he realized he couldn’t run away from it either. “Hah, fine. Fine, I get it! Right, Shineboots, find us a way out will you?”

“Ay, Boss,” Shineboots affirmed. “Though, it ain’t gonna be easy, what with the dark and all these mist. Wind’s not coming in either with all these trees, so we can’t exactly tell direction that easily,” the bandit scout complained.

“But, you can do it, right?!” Deimos asked in a threatening tone.

“Ay, it’s just gonna take a while,” Shineboots answered. First, we got to start marking out the trees along the route we take, ‘specially those on forks in the road. Gotta keep an eye on keeping straight as much as possible as well. Anyway, we need to first get out to an open field so I can actually figure out our position,” he explained. “Don’t worry, the night’s still young,” he quickly assured, after hearing his Boss growling at his explanation.

They started marking out the trees along the routes they took on the road. But, even with their best efforts and no matter what fork in the road they chose, they kept invariably ending up in the same places. Discontent in the party grew as what should have been a simple way out were frustrated time and again.

“Shiiinebooots!” Deimos called.

“Right, Boss! Right! I get it! I get it! We’ll try another way,” Shineboots assured. “We should get someone to climb up the tallest tree around here and see which direction’s the way out first.”

“Well, why didn’t you say that in the first place?!” Deimos hollered.

“I thought we’d have an easier time not doing that,” Shineboots explained.

“Ah, well, whatever! Get on to it!” Deimos snapped.

“Badger!” Shineboots called. “Come help me out,”

Another bandit, Badger, quickly approached Shineboots, carrying a torch.

“Ah…Garrot, come along too,” Shineboots then added, turning to another bandit. “I need you to carry Badger’s torch.”

With that, the 3 bandits, Shineboots, Badger and Garrot, travelled ahead of the pack, trekking quickly to find the particularly large tree that they’ve kept running into over and over again. Upon finding the tree, the three called the rest to follow as they began walking towards it.

As luck would have it, the frontmost man, Shineboots, slipped and fell on slippery ground and slid to a nearby hole just meters away from the tree.

“Damn it!” Shineboots cursed, realizing that the hole he fell into was filled with water and mud. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the depth was high enough to reach his chest. “Badger, help me out here,” the bandit demanded.

“Eh, was there always a hole there?” Badger asked, wondering whether he had missed the sight of it before.

“I don’t know. But, never mind that! I’m stuck here and can’t get out!” Shineboots angrily gestured. “Be quick! I feel like the mud’s still sucking me in,” he ordered.

“Guess there’s no helping it,” Badger agreed, as he lent his hand to the other bandit.

Shineboots took Badger’s hand, but despite their best attempts, getting Shineboots out of the hole was easier said than done. It seemed as if he kept getting pulled in whenever any progress was made. And Shineboots himself swore that the muddy water was quickly hardening to watery mud.

“What’s taking your lazy asses so long?!” Deimos shouted.

Their Boss – the leader of the bandits, Deimos – who stood several meters behind them, was quickly growing impatient by the continued delays.

“Hey, need me to give a hand?” Garrot then offered, hoping that getting it done quickly will save him from the wrath of their Boss later.

“Ah, I could use the help,” Badger appreciatively agreed. Three hands pulling on Shineboots was surely better than two.

As Garrot approached to lend them his hand, however, something surreal happened right before his eyes.

A light blue color seemed to shine from under the watery mud bath that Shineboots was currently stuck in. Despite the murky water, it bade the surrounding no respite from its brilliant hues. And in the next moment—

“”AAAHHHH!””

Both Shineboots and Badger screamed at the top of their lungs as their bodies were encased in brilliant violet, which shrouded them in thunderous sparks not unlike those of lightning discharges. While they both convulsed uncontrollably, seemingly unable to separate from each other as their flesh and skin were starting to melt, burn and rupture, Garrot, who stood petrified nearby did not notice at all when the torch he was carrying suddenly shattered into pieces from a high-velocity impact by something.

The surrounding space was suddenly shrouded in darkness save for the sparks of miniaturized lightning which illuminated in continuous, though irregular, pulses.

And under the light of one such pulse, Deimos and the rest of his party saw it, the exact moment when Garrot’s fearful face disappeared along with the rest of his head, exploding outwards into minute pieces. When another pulse shone the light once more, the fearful bandit’s body had disappeared beneath the mist.

“Tch! Arni!”

“Ah!”

While Deimos and the remaining 3 bandits looked on in horror, the masked Magicians, Baudouin and Arni quickly sprung into action.

Realizing that the darkness was hiding their ambusher, Baudouin decided that the only wise course of action was to burn it all down and drag it into the light. [Flashover] would be ideal in this situation. Unfortunately, he was yet to reach Saint-ranked Magic, thus the next best thing would have to be it.

“Oh Guardian of the Flames, rise and protect this one! Burn mine enemies to ashes and cinders! [Flame Pillar]!”

“Oh Flame, light my way and become a bullet! [Fire Ball]!”

While Arni cast the first of what was to be a number of [Fire Balls] high up into the air as a signal to warn the other parties, Baudouin conjured the Intermediate-ranked Fire Magic spell, [Flame Pillar], into being, hoping to encase the area around them in fire, setting alight the forest while also bringing light to the darkness.

Or at least, that was what was supposed to happen.

Yet, [Flame Pillar] never materialized. Baudouin quickly realized that something was interfering with his Mana formation, preventing it from properly converting to the conjured spell’s form. He could feel the waves of disturbance scattering his Mana into disarray.

Meanwhile, Arni’s [Fire Ball] was cast from the point of his staff without trouble. It flew to the top of the canopies and then…petered out.

“Oh Flame, light my way and become a bullet! [Fire Ball]!”

Arni tried once again, firing to another direction up high. The [Fire Ball] flew up to just above the canopies and, once again, it quickly dissipated before disappearing completely.

By this time, Arni realized that something had stopped his [Fire Ball] once it reached atop the canopies. Its effects, the way it disappeared, was broadly similar to that of anti-Magic Barrier he had once learned about. But, was that even possible? A Barrier would typically be grounded somewhere and require constant Mana supply to function. Being placed that up high and covering the different spots he fired his [Fire Balls] at implied that it was an exceptionally large Barrier. But just who could have created such a large barrier and maintain it, all without their knowledge? Cold sweat began to escape him at the realization of such an implication.

Meanwhile, Baudouin’s cold sweat was washing over his skin for a different horror, the knowledge that something could diffuse and eliminate a Magic spell before it was even cast. No, to prevent it from even forming in the first place, as though the conversion of Mana to Magic had become all but impossible.

Was such a thing even possible? Could it even be called Magic? What would happen to the supremacy of Magic if such a thing were to proliferate? Would the world of Magic disappear completely?

“No, this isn’t the time to think such things!” Baudouin reprimanded himself, desperately shaking off such thoughts.

Just then, he felt something heavy latching on to his back, specifically the part of his spine just below his neck and another spot around his waist.

Then all of a sudden, he felt an immense weight on that spot below his neck as he was forcefully yanked towards a nearby tree at great speed. As his back bumped hard against the tree, Baudouin realized his feet no longer touched ground. He was latched onto the tree by the scuff of his neck, or perhaps the spine under it, which felt heavy, as though it was falling against that tree with the weight of a carriage behind it. But something else was falling with great weight too.

No, falling might not be the proper term for it. But it nevertheless felt as such as the back of his spine around his waist was pulled towards another tree, meters away. He was floating almost horizontally above the ground, as the lower half of his body was being pulled across the trail to a tree on the other side.

“AHHH! No! NO! NO! NOOO! AAAHHHH!”

Baudouin helplessly screamed as the pain of his flesh and bones tearing at the seams on his waist became unbearable. The rest of the party could only watch helplessly, mouth agape at the utterly unbelievable sight before them.

Then, with a crack and the sound of tearing cloth, Baudouin became two as the halves of him latched on to trees meters apart. Only his bloodied intestines connected them. A second later, both unceremoniously fell to the ground.

Deimos looked at the scene which had unfolded before him with indescribable fear. He turned around to look for Arni, only to find that he was no longer there. Upon closer look, he realized that the Magician had dropped, laying under the mist without a head.

“””AAAHHH!”””

Deimos’ remaining bandits screamed at the top of their lungs, running witless with fear, a fear that seemed to have carved itself into their very souls.

“Oi, wait!” Deimos tried to warn them, to no avail.

The 3 bandits no longer listened to a word he uttered. They no longer could. As they sprinted and ran, they took with them the 2 remaining torches, leaving the bandit leader shrouded by the darkness. A torch was cast aside by the bandit carrying it, its flame doused as it fell under the mist.

A moment later, as they were a dozen meters away, the flame of the last torch suddenly disappeared as the fearful screams grew less intense along with it. Then, Deimos witnessed it, the moment the darkness was suddenly enlightened by a bright blueish hue in the distance, not unlike the one which had preceded the strange convulsions afflicting the now dead Shineboots and Badger.

Then suddenly, the light blue turned to orange-yellow, as the sight of a burning man dancing in the distance as he wailed heedless tears could be seen. It was the only light brightening the dark. Then that light fell, and along with it the screams.

A distant scream could still be heard somewhere quite far away. But, even that too ended abruptly not long after.

All was quiet. All, save for one, the screams of the man who had witnessed it all. His scream soon turned to wailing. A moment more, it had become an uncontrollable sobbing. As Deimos’ body quivered helplessly, he felt a sudden weight across his back.

Then, all of a sudden, he was yanked towards a tree, the largest tree which prominently stood in the vicinity.

As he was latched to the tree with his limbs forming the figure of a cross, balls of flame appeared one after another to his left and right, extending away before him. When more flames stopped forming, there were eight of them on each side. Then, Deimos felt it, as his hair stood on ends.

Something was coming from beyond the flames light. In front of him, something was coming.

Then, a glint in the distance within the darkness. Then many more.

All at once, those glints grew abruptly close and then—

“Ugghh!”

A muffled scream as intense pain hit Deimos all at once. Seven short spears flew and speared him. Two nailed his palms to the tree, another two his elbow joints. Two more nailed his knees against the tree. And finally, one punctured through both his feet.

As Deimos began whimpering in intense pain, the figure which had hid itself in the shadows finally made its form known to the light. From beyond the darkness in front of him, it floated slowly, till its whole form was visibly basking in the flame’s gleam.

Were it not for the preceding events, this would have made for an anticlimactic revelation as the unexpectedly small figure revealed itself. Yet, knowing what had transpired gave that minuscule figure an overwhelming aura of dread. So much so that Deimos, the aspirational bandit king himself, found his screams strangled as his voice was caught in his throat. All that left was a pathetic, whimpering sob, as Deimos quickly realized who the figure floating before him was.

“Yo, brigand!” the figure greeted with a lisp.

“A-Ah…no, no, no! No!…sob…Don’t kill me! No! Please!”

It was hard to believe that the sobbing wreck of a man had once considered himself a great leader of the brigands. Such a thought managed to cross past the small floating figure’s mind.

“Though, I suppose I should pat myself on the back for making it work this well,” the small figure, Rudeus, thought.

“Don’t worry, brigand! Or, should I call you Deimos?” he tried to assure. “I didn’t go all out with you as I did with the others. If I had wanted you dead, you would already be. That I nailed you with non-reinforced [Stone Javelins] is proof of my generosity, see?”

“W-Wh-What do you want? I’ll tell you anything! Anything at all! I’ll give everything! Everything I have! You can have it all!” the so-called bandit leader, Deimos, bleated. The figure of a confident brigand had all but disappeared. “Just…sob…let me leave. Please, let me…sob…live!”

“I assure you, Deimos, there is nothing that I wish to ask of you to do,” Rudeus answered. “There’s nothing you can offer me that I want, that I don’t already possess, or that I couldn’t take by my own hands,”

“…T-Then…sob…”

“I just wanted to ask something before we start. I’ve been listening to you and your ilk for a long time now,” Rudeus began, as he started making the gesture of cracking his knuckles. “So, recount to me again, will you, how and what you lot intend to do to Zenith and Lilia?”

“A-A-Ah…sob…No…” Deimos sobbed, as his head shook from side to side, his tears falling by the wayside. “NOOO!”

His intense and fearful screams could be heard for some time yet. Yet, no one outside the barrier which shrouded the vicinity would be aware of it. No one, save for its cause, could hear his screams.

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[Author’s Note: Howdy folks, here’s chapter 9. Notice that I’ve made (self-made) spells and incantations for some spells. Well, do forgive me for that, as I can only find very few actual spells and their incantations in Canon. If I missed anything and ended up creating a (self-made) incantation for a spell where the incantation already existed in Canon, do tell me. I felt like I needed more spells and incantations if the existence of other Magicians is going to be made a thing. I’ve already made such (self-made) incantations and spells in previous chapters, if you haven’t noticed.

Anyway, thanks for reading and see you next! Adios!]