Zich and Lyla hid behind the wall of the side of the building and searched to find where the captives were. They would’ve been easily found out if guards heavily surrounded the area, but Snoc and Hans had stolen all the soldiers’ attention away; now, they had more freedom to the point that it almost felt lax.
Zich carefully approached the building from the side first. Two soldiers were standing guard. Yesterday, Zich had to hide all traces of his coming and going so he couldn’t harm anyone, but today was different. Zich signaled towards the back.
Whoosh!
Something brushed the side of Zich’s face and caused his hair to flutter. An invisible arrow made out of wind pierced the center of one of the guard’s foreheads. At the same time, Zich stabbed another guard’s neck with Windur.
“Kuh! Cough!”
The guard coughed up clumps of blood instead of noises and collapsed to the ground while shuddering. The other guard who had been struck by the wind arrow died without even being able to make a sound. Zich threw the corpses in a nearby bush, and in the meantime, Lyla murmured a short spell on the spot where the soldiers died. A moment later, the soldiers reappeared just like how they used to look.
“Amazing,” Zich commented.
“It’s nothing much, really. It’s just phantom magic that projects the image in my head for a bit. If you look at it closely, it lacks detail.”
After hearing her explanation, Zich realized that the soldiers were really different from the soldiers who had just died. No, besides their appearance, they looked clearly awkward from a second glance. Still, this much was enough. It wasn’t like anyone was going to pay close attention to each and every guard in a situation like this. They didn’t need to stay in this place for long anyway.
Zich placed his hand on the door. “Are you ready?”
“Yeah.”
Zich cautiously opened the door and put his palm in front of Lyla.
“Huh?”
“What is it?”
As soon as Zich opened the door, they saw two soldiers. The two soldiers saw Zich and Lyla, and their eyes widened. They were about to shout that there were trespassers, but wind arrows pierced them.
Ping! Ping!
The arrows pierced the center of their foreheads once again. Zich ran quickly, but he made almost no sound compared to his quick movements. He grabbed the corpses that were about to fall and quietly laid them down. Then, he raised his thumb at Lyla.
The only difficulty was the trespassing part. There were some guards inside, but unlike the guards at the entrance, they moved alone. Furthermore, they all seemed preoccupied with the noises of battle outside and seemed to not pay much attention to their surroundings. Such guards couldn’t have possibly hindered Zich and Lyla.
“Kuh!”
Blood poured out from another elf’s neck and they fell. Zich lay down the body carefully so it wouldn’t make a commotion again and pointed upwards to Lyla. He was signaling to her to go up.
‘It seems like we are done on the first floor.’ Lyla nodded.
The two arrived in front of the stairs and began to slowly walk up. Zich cautiously leaned his head out behind the stairs and assessed the situation. Doors stood neatly on both sides of the hallway in straight lines. In front of eight doors, there were two soldiers in front of each door—making it a total of sixteen guards. They were guarding the rooms where the captives were imprisoned.
‘It’s impossible to take care of them one by one.’
Since the guards were standing in a straight hallway with no corners and squares, they would be found out if one of the soldiers died right away.
‘I would like to finish off all of them at once.’ Some of the guards could jeopardize the captives’ lives or threaten Zich with them. Of course, that wouldn’t faze him at all, nor did he lack the ability to solve the situation even if that happened. However, he preferred to take the safe and calm road when the operation involved rescuing captives.
Zich placed his lips close to Lyla’s ears and lowered his voice as much as possible.
“Lyla. How many can you take at once with your magic? On the condition that it won’t make a commotion and they won’t realize that they have been attacked until they are dead. And I would also prefer it if you dealt with the furthest ones.”
It didn’t matter if she struck them all with a lightning, fireball, or storm attack, but the conditions that Zich laid out for her were complicated.
“…I can definitely take eight, and all of them if we consider a small possibility of failure.” As expected, Lyla was Lyla.
As soldiers guarding important captives, they were all obviously elite soldiers; but Lyla was certain that she could kill eight of them with the conditions Zich had given her. She calmly said that she could take care of all of them if they considered a small possibility of failing.
“Good. Take care of the farthest eight.”
Lyla quietly cast a spell, but the soldiers didn’t notice. Although a considerable amount of mana whirled around, there was almost no mana seeping outside. It was a fantastical display of mana control.
Whoosh!
Wind arrows flew out. They violently swirled and arched, unlike the previous arrows that had shot across a straight line. The destination was the same; without knowing anything, the arrows landed at the center of the soldiers’ brows as they stared forward.
Pierce!
With a skull-crushing sound, holes formed in eight foreheads, and they all broke down in unison. The rest of the guards turned around at the noise, and Zich moved. In a blink of an eye, Zich stood in the center of the guards who were still alive and moved Windur. It wasn’t even possible to see his movements clearly. Lyla simply saw a chilling beam of light a couple of times, but the result was astonishing.
Shaaa!
The rest of the eight heads shot upwards and pools of blood poured out. 16 guards instantly died without knowing what had happened to them.
As she hid her body at the stairs and looked at the situation, Lyla asked, “Is that all?”
“Yeah.”
They no longer had to lower their voices. Lyla confidently strutted out of the stairs. She avoided the fallen bodies, rolling heads, and blood that continued to shoot up like a fountain and approached Zich.
Zich approached the door closest to him, then he pointed at the handle. “Is there some kind of magical lock?”
Lyla moved her hands near the handle and searched for any mana. “No. If it’s locked, it’s probably a physical lock.”
Crunch!
Zich easily crushed the handle with the lock and opened the door. Regardless of how quietly they defeated the guards surrounding the room, they couldn’t block the sound of the scuffling from reaching past the door. The individual past the door was standing up and looking at them with wary eyes.
However, Zich leisurely asked Lyla, “It’s her, right?”
“Yeah, it’s her.”
The elf in the room looked the same as one of the portraits that Dronian showed them.
“…Who are you two?” The elf’s voice was hopeful as she saw the dead bodies of the Iron Tribe’s soldiers behind them, but her voice still contained wariness.
“My greetings, Your Majesty.”
Zich lightly bowed his head and introduced himself, “My name is Zich, and I’m your daughter’s friend.”
The Queen of the Lake Tribe and Leona’s mother, ‘Sidia Won tu Glorian,’ widened her eyes.
* * *
Zich gathered all the hostages in the hallway. The hostages checked each other’s faces and smiled bitterly.
“Fortunately, it seems like we haven’t experienced any serious trouble.”
“Everything was all right except the thing they put in my food. No, I actually got to rest for a while. It’s been so long since I didn’t have to hear any nagging from my subjects.”
As expected of the leaders of a large tribe, the queens and kings of the elf tribes were very composed even after being imprisoned for a long time. However, they couldn’t hide their curiosity towards the humans who saved them.
“All right. So you’re saying that you are the friend of the daughter of the Lake Tribe King?”
“Yes.”
“You said you were worried about your daughter who ran away, but she brought such impressive support.” The Mountain Tribe King said this as he lightly tapped the Lake Tribe King, Retree Pearl hum Droud.
However, Retree’s face was deathly serious.
“Are there any other hostages?”
“Now that I think about it, the shaman isn’t with us.”
The other royals also realized the shaman wasn’t with them, and their faces stiffened.
Zich replied, “The esteemed shaman is being held captive in the castle. After I bring all of you to safety, I plan to save her also.”
“They put only my mother in a separate place? For what reason?”
“Your Majesty, I will give an answer later on.” Zich quickly cut off Retree’s question, to the extent that it sounded a bit cold.
The Ocean Tribe King said, “That person is right. This is not a good time to hear what happened, especially if we want to save the shaman.”
The Ocean Tribe King also had many questions about the current situation, but their top priority right now was to escape. Retree and Sidia also agreed.
Zich told Lyla, “Lyla, I entrust them to you.”
“Yep.”
“I will be checking if there is anyone in this building in case.”
Zich planned to stand guard in front of the door of the first floor.
“Zich,” Lyla called out to him. “Wait for me until I come back. Don’t ever go off by yourself.”
“Got it.” Zich gave a simple answer and headed to the first floor. The illusion that Lyla set outside seemed to have worked as there were no elves that came into the building. Zich tapped his shoulders with Windur a few times and stared outside. Soon enough, he heard a voice.
“I’m back.” Lyla came down from the second floor.
“Were there any problems?”
“No.”
“Good. Then we just have to get the last one.”
Zich and Lyla’s gaze moved towards the castle.
* * *
The sound of battle continued the entire time Zich and Lyla traveled to the castle, and it did not stop even when they arrived. Since the entire Iron Tribe army was focused on battling the armored intruders, Zich and Lyla had a very easy time reaching the castle.
“Those two are doing a really great job.” Lyla let out her admiration for Hans and Snoc.
“They have talent. They also have a solid head on their shoulders, and they gained a lot of experience in a short time. Moreover, they have a teacher like me. Those two have the best possible environment to grow their skills. Of course, they have to be good.”
Even though he spoke like this, there was pride mixed in with Zich’s voice. The two of them reached the castle instantly. They saw four soldiers guarding the entrance.
“We have to sneak in quietly here.”
The conditions in the castle were different from the building that held the hostages. Considering the size of the castle, there were probably a lot more soldiers guarding the castle. When Zich infiltrated last night, there really were significantly more soldiers in the castle than the building with the hostages. It would be impossible to kill all the soldiers without getting caught as they did in the previous building.
“You told me you know where they kept the shaman, right?”
“Of course. While I was getting out, I found out where they put her,” Zich said this easily, but the castle was in a state of emergency last night. No matter how much of a commotion Hans and Snoc made outside, the castle was a place where the King stayed in, so security was always tight. However, even in that situation, Zich was able to grasp the location of the shaman and memorized how to get there.
‘It was actually easy. Even in a state of emergency, the room that held the shaman was the only place the soldiers never moved at all.’
Lyla asked him if it was hard to find where the shaman was in such a situation, but Zich told her it was easy. If Renu heard this, he would be unable to control his temper and begin breaking furniture in his room again.
“But we have to go to a different place first.”
“Are you talking about the basement?”
“Yeah. The Iron Tribe King seems to really trust that power. He might have dragged the shaman down there again and caused a fuss.”
Zich stared at the artifact that Lyla gave him, and Lyla muttered a spell for herself. Before Zich became fully invisible, he held Lyla’s hand. Then they began moving inside the castle.