The very next day, after packing up only the necessary supplies that we need, I tore down the hideout that we have been using. Even though it is in an inconspicuous location and no one has ever found us, it’s better to leave no traces of us being around.

Once we’re both ready to move out, we make our way towards the center of the Forest of Gaon, where the Mystics live. According to Asellus, it’s a two days trip from our current location, so at the speed that we’re moving at we’ll reach our destination in a day. We can go faster if we wanted to, but for safety purposes and to conserve energy we decided to travel at a comfortably slower pace.

We also choose to avoid paths that people commonly use, as indicated by trampled grass and soil pathways. That way, our chances of being detected by others will be reduced greatly.

We continue traveling for the next few hours while making small talks along the way. When the sun reaches the very peak, we decided to take a small break and rest up for a while before continuing on our journey. Then, once again, Asellus decides to pull out the one conversational topic that I don’t really wish to discuss.

“Gideon, are you going to ever talk to me about your history? I mean, you know most of mine. Isn’t that quite unfair of you?” (Asellus)

“I thought I told you all that you need to know; I’m originally one of the [Six Pillars], the Ogre Lord Buvul, then I was betrayed by Del’thrush and somehow my soul is transmigrated into the body of a human child. Long story short here I am now, ever closer to fulfilling my revenge-” (Gideon)

“Yes, I know all this already. I want to know about the happenings in between, which you refer to the “long story short”. We are allies, aren’t we? You should be less obscure with details like this with your allies.” (Asellus)

Her eyes glisten in the expectation of me spilling the beans, revealing the glint of her innocent youth that is mostly shrouded by the regrettable and lamentable events that had happened to her.

It doesn’t work on me though. I know now by experience that as long as my curse is not yet released, getting too close to anybody will only result in their misfortune. But if I relentlessly don’t reveal anything, she’ll only get more suspicious of me and pull away from me.

It took me a while to think about my decision.

“Okay, let’s make a transaction then – if you can successfully pull off your revenge, and assume position as the new Mystic Lord, I’ll spill the beans and tell you all that you want to know. Is that fair enough to you?” (Gideon)

“Alright then, I have nothing to lose either way, since Vergil is definitely going to die by my hands.” (Asellus)

As she mentions the word “die”, the glint within her eyes vanishes, only to be replaced with a deep dark void of pure hatred. It looks like even though she looks normal and fine from the outside, deep inside she has never let go of the idea of revenge, and the flames of vengeance continues to burn inside of her until today, ever since the day her parents died.

Not that I can’t say the same for me; there’s hardly nothing more I want than to find out the absolute truth behind the entire massacre of the Ogres. Anyone that’s with the ploy will suffer my burning vengeance. This, I swear.

“S-Somebody please help me!”

An unknown voice rang out from a distance, breaking my chain of thoughts and sent the both of us on full alert. The sound of the voice isn’t too far away from us, and it’s getting nearer by the moment.

“Anyone, please come quick…!”

Yet again, a squeaky voice sounds out loudly into the distance, with a desperate yet cute tone to it.

This is when Asellus quickly turns around and whispers to me, with a face filled with an expression of shock.

“There’s no mistaking this voice, this is the tenth Consort of Vergil, Emelia!” (Asellus)

“Do you know her well?” (Gideon)

Asellus nods her head extremely quickly.

“She’s probably the one I’m closest to. Let’s go rescue her! In terms of strength, she’s probably within the lower ranks of Mystics; she’ll pose no threat to us whatsoever.” (Asellus)

If that’s the case, there’ll be no harm rescuing her. We may even end up benefiting from it, and she’ll decide to join us, who knows? At most, if her upmost loyalty is with Vergil, then I’ll just have to ensure that she doesn’t get back to Vergil in a hurry…

Through the direction of the voice, Asellus and I track Emelia down within a minute. Turns out, she’s stuck in an encirclement trap of the Medusa Plant, a plant monster with thick long vines and a head resembling that of a snake. A cute, young Mystic, which I presume to be Emelia, is confined within a ten meter encirclement of vines and unable to get out, not with her back facing the head of the Medusa Plant and risk getting a huge bite from it.

Most of the time, anyone who is trapped by that plant monster alone are doomed to slowly die within the encirclement after a few days if they do not have sufficient strength to break free out of it. It looks to me that if we aren’t around to rescue her, she’ll probably be the next victim of this Medusa Plant.

“Emelia, I’m here to help you!” (Asellus)

“…Asellus? Asellus, is that you? Oh, I’m so glad you’re fine!” (Emelia)

“Don’t get distracted; keep your eyes on the Medusa Plant’s head!” (Gideon)

I leap forward and into the encirclement, as the Medusa Plant strikes towards Emelia in a flash, seizing the opportunity of her being distracted by our timely arrival.

Before the Medusa Plant can get the chance to take a bite out of her, I unleash a mighty uppercut with the silver Greataxe, slicing the head into two separate pieces and landing gently in front of Emelia.

“Are you alright?” (Gideon)

“…Y-Yes! Thanks for rescuing me!” (Emelia)

I take a quick glance at her. She seems even younger than Asellus, with a body size that I can only describe as petite. Dressed in a robe, she has short, messy hair that looks burned in more places than one.

“You’re a magic caster?” (Gideon)

“H-huh…? Oh, I mean, yes!” (Emelia)

“So why didn’t you just free yourself from the encirclement with magic? You look like a magic caster that specializes in fire.” (Gideon)

As we continue to chat, the Medusa Plant is slowly growing back the part where its head was just sliced off. As expected, even for a  B-ranked monster such as this, it will be rather troublesome for me or Asellus to destroy it completely without magic.

“But…before I can finish chanting my spell, the monster plant will have gotten to me already…” (Emelia)

“Emelia, Gideon! Are the both of you alright?” (Asellus)

Asellus’s voice can be heard from outside the encirclement.

“Yes, she’s fine!” (Gideon)

I shout back, while keeping my eyes on the Medusa Plant the entire time, with its head almost fully recovered.

“Thank goodness…don’t be afraid, Emelia; I’ll come and rescue you soon!” (Asellus)

With a huge BANG, a large impact explodes from the direction of Asellus’s voice, and the large, thick vines at that area now has a huge opening, with Asellus on the other side of the hole.

Did…did she just punch through the vines?

“Come on, over here!” (Asellus)

Guarding her from the back, Emelia and I run out of the entrapment. The Medusa Plant tries to interfere with the escape, but with me around, it has no chance of hurting either of us. Within moments, we managed to exit through the hole Asellus created.

Having lost its prey, the Medusa Plant let out a loud shriek and uncoils itself, and slowly makes it escape attempt.

The reason why the Medusa Plant is considered a B-rank monster is due to the fact that it can only hunt beings that’s only slightly stronger than it at best, and does it only through an ambush by camouflaging itself with the surroundings. Once its ambush tactics fail, it can only try to escape slowly.

“…Stupid monster, how dare you attack me when I’m trying to search for Asellus!” (Emelia)

However, it seems that Emelia has no intention of letting it escape. Closing her eyes to concentrate, she begins to gather and concentrate mana within her body, as they flow towards her hand.

“O primordial fire of the ancient, heed thy calling; bury thy foe in a storm of conflagration!”

I subconsciously flinch from the sheer amount and concentration of mana gathering in her fist. I turn to look at Asellus at my side, as she simply shrugs with a wry smile and shares with me a single piece of information.

“She’s too, a Mystic with a single [Absorption], and it is the A-class monster, Flare Hawk. Somehow, instead of getting something like wings, claws or the ability to breathe fire, she gains the knowledge to cast an extremely powerful, shortened chant spell.” (Asellus)

“For dust thou art, and unto dust shall thou return; [Kaiser Phoenix]!” (Emelia)

She opens her fist, spreading her fingers out slowly, and from her palm flames the shape of a bird emerges. The flaming bird rapidly grows to a huge size, about the size of her entire body.

I look at the [Kaiser Phoenix] in awe. I have seen a lot of spells in my life on the battlefield, and I have even experienced one that ensured the death of my previous body. With that, I can safely assure that even though this spell falls short when compared to the might of Del’thrush’s strongest spell, it is still an incredibly powerful one.

In fact, I’m not even sure if I can take a spell like this head on, even in my very best condition. Even with my incredibly tough physique and slight resistance to magic, this [Kaiser Phoenix] can very possibly seriously injure me.

Perhaps with the assistance of Eva, I can probably take one single hit by myself, but I won’t be in a pretty shape after that.

Emelia’s eyes open and the flaming bird spread its wings, flying straight towards the futilely escaping Medusa Vine swiftly. It closes the distance within seconds, and the instant it makes contact, Emelia mutters a single word under her breath as she clenches her fist.

“Burst!” (Emelia)

The flaming bird explodes into a huge blaze, setting the Medusa Vine on fire. The flames spread quickly, burning every inch of the entire plant monster in mere moments. The Medusa Vine struggles and thrashes around on the ground, in an attempt to put out the fire.

However, it was in vain. Not only did the fire remain, it burns even brighter and harsher with every passing moment. Mysteriously, the flames only stick on the Medusa Vine, and do not spread to the surroundings.

Soon, the Medusa Vine ceases its futile struggle and slowly turns to charred cinders.

“Take that! This is what you get…for bullying me…!” (Emelia)

Emelia shouts her words, while panting heavily in and out. Her face is pale, and she’s holding onto her knees for support.

“Emelia, don’t push yourself. It seems that one attempt of [Kaiser Phoenix] per day is still your limit, huh?” (Asellus)

“Yeah…but at least…I’m getting the hang…of it, now I can…at least stand up…and walk a bit even after casting [Kaiser Phoenix].” (Emelia)

This is the limit of Mystics, in a sense. Since they cannot improve the condition of their body no matter how hard they train, Emelia will only be able to cast [Kaiser Phoenix] once per day, as her mana won’t grow any further. That is, unless she can chance on another [Absorption]…

Even if she can completely perfect her spell and minimize any useless mana wastage, she’ll probably not be able to cast two [Kaiser Phoenix], but at least she won’t be struggling this badly just after one shot.

However, with a spell like this, one shot is probably all she needs to annihilate her foes.

“Ladies, how about we get to a safer location first? We have caused quite a huge commotion here, and we might get caught.” (Gideon)

My suggestion is quickly picked up by Asellus. As I move ahead to find a good spot to hide, I spot a few Mystics a couple hundred meters away, running towards our previous direction. I choose a spot on a higher ground, where it will be hard-pressed for any of them to notice us unless we make a racket.

Soon after, Asellus appears beside me, carrying Emelia behind her back. At this moment, the Mystics are almost just right below us, inspecting the charred remains of the Medusa Vine which we fought just now.

“This is…most definitely Lady Emelia’s [Kaiser Phoenix]; only her flames will cause such a clean incineration without causing damage to the surroundings” (Mystic #1)

“If that’s the case, where can Lady Emelia possible be right now?! Every time she uses her spell, she’ll be too tired to move…did anything happen to her…?” (Mystic #2)

“Don’t say that! If anything happens to her, it will be our heads that will roll! After Lady Asellus is known to be missing, Lord Vergil gave a strict order to not let any of the remaining consorts out of the castle’s immediate area!” (Mystic #3)

“We should have known that Lady Emelia will try something like this…she’s quite close to Lady Asellus, and yet we left her unattended for that brief moment…” (Mystic #2)

“For now, we’ll search the immediate surroundings. If this is indeed Lady Emelia’s work, she can’t be far. Let’s separate and carry out an area search.” (Mystic #1)

“Alright!” (Mystic #2)

“Got it.” (Mystic #3)

And with that, the three Mystics all went to different directions, running and shouting Emelia’s name while they search for any trace of her.

Well, at least with this we know a few things now. Firstly, Emelia and Asellus are indeed quite close. Secondly, Vergil has already realised Asellus’s disappearance.

It doesn’t matter much now; we’re but less than a day’s distance away from Vergil’s castle, and then Vergil will be no more!

Then, it will be you next, Del’thrush.

I look at Asellus, and her face shines with a fierce determination. Most probably, her thoughts are the same as mine – defeating Vergil, and exacting her due vengeance.

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Author : Kiribou
Author’s Notes: Hi people, sorry for the late post…I was getting busy with my new business and studies and release of my E-novel, which is going to be available on Kindle and Amazon! Please show some support by buying a copy, or spreading the news to your friends!

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