Vol. 3 Chapter 29: Capture (Part 1) (Patreon)

The fresh air was truly refreshing, and the morning sun was warm. A beautiful girl sipped her freshly made hot chocolate, and she wondered why there were barely any like this in the palace. After that beautiful, gentle, elegant, mesmerizing sip, she lowered the cup slowly onto the table.

At the moment, she was outside of a particular building, along with a few people. To shield the people from her overwhelming and blinding beauty, she covered herself from head to knees with her brown cloak. Indeed, her beauty must be hidden from the people, as at the sight of her would be akin to a goddess gracing this unworthy soil.

Now guess who this precious girl was?

Of course it’s fucking me!

Young goddess Estelia here chilling with the gang, gucci gang! Okay that’s corny, ignore that. Ugh, I’m already cringing here, shit, I shouldn’t have said that. I feel old already, I can already hear people say that thing’s a century ago.

Not like I had any interest in that thing, I just heard it was a trend, with the nets’ algorithm I heard it a lot after a single search of curiosity. It’s kinda annoying, but for some reason it’s kinda catchy. Fucking hell, my sense of music broke temporarily at that time. It’s a phase! People go through the same thing. Although I heard that pretty late after its trend.

Moving on, as I mentioned, I’m chilling with Rogan and Vernon on the same table. They were quite pretty stiff, I wonder why. Well maybe because we’re still in the middle of a mission. I should say though, this hot chocolate’s pretty delicious, way better than what we had in the palace.

We should hire the maker of this or something — um, no, that’s not important right now.

Let’s see, ah yes, Estevan and Astine were not around here, by the way. I stationed them near the area where I circled on the map. Therefore, the men that remained here numbered only four, then an addition of Vernon and Rogan.

Now why am I chilling right now? Well, there’s nothing else to do but wait. The targets could have moved hideout, or they stayed. Either way, we needed to wait for Allie to give the signal.

“You seem to be enjoying this um… leisurely time, princess. Is the hot chocolate that good?”

Amidst my thoughts, my personal knight suddenly asked me with an awkward smile.

“Oh yes, it is quite delightful. I never felt so relaxed for some while.”

“Princess, should we even be this relaxed…?” asked Vernon.

“We ought to take the time to rest if an opportunity arrives.”

“Are you not worried at all?”

“Of course I am.”

Legit, but I couldn’t just cradle my head because I’m so worried about failure right now. Think of it this way: a person taking an easy time in preparation for a hellish time where everything turns into shit. At least that way, you had a pleasant time before everything fucks up, you know.

I’ll get mad of course that it all failed. No, not just mad, I’ll be enraged. I might fucking wreck this table in front of me, or stomp my feet on the ground. Then maybe I’ll calm myself and say:

It is what it is!

In seriousness, yes, that scenario would be terrible.

So, I’ll be optimistic.

But how long was this waiting gonna take anyway? That damn beastman better bring Allie to where everyone was.

I sipped the hot chocolate again.

Aaaah, what a beautiful morning. Not as beautiful as me, though.

Although I would have preferred it to be cloudy, or on the brink of raining. The moment before a rain, as dark clouds loom in the sky above, you have that ominous psychological effect on a person. That could have been a better influence on the mind of our target, to pressure him. But of course the weather wouldn’t follow my bidding.

Nothing can be done about it.

Which kinda sucks, I should be a god, you know. What could I even do as a god? Am I just someone useless? Oh well, as long as I can live a chill life even as a god, all’s fine…

A little time passed.

“Hm… any moment now.”

I looked in the direction of the circle.

When my servants heard my brief statement, they followed my gaze.

Come on, Allie, pick your choice.

It was then a ball of golden light rose into the sky, like a flare.

Gotcha motherfuckers!

I couldn’t help but smile while I spontaneously stood up. My subordinates and other soldiers stood up with me the moment they saw the light.

Wonderful! Finally we know where you little shits are! I’m coming for you.

Everything had been prepared, some of my forces had been positioned around the three-block area. While the rest may still be somewhere in the city, they will be there in no time. The setup had been planned and discussed, everyone knew their roles already.

A shame to leave this delicious hot chocolate, but I have to move.

“My direct subordinates will stay with me and follow my pace. The rest you go ahead and advance, you have no need to guard me here anymore. Now go to your positions!”

The people in cloaks that were on the other tables immediately made their move, removing their cloaks as they ran, revealing their flashy armor.

Rogan also removed his cloak. “Finally I can remove this.” He was in his usual elite knight gear. After placing the cloak on the table, I allowed him to grab his spear and discard his sword at the entrance door of our headquarters.

I nodded when I saw that he was done. “Alright, let’s go and see how things unfold.”

Our carriage at the same time arrived, one for me to ride in. I and Rogan entered inside.

Vernon sat in the driver’s seat and spoke to the coachman. “Get down, I’ll be taking this.”

After the coachman got down, the carriage began moving.

A hard and intense battle would take place in the middle of the city, unless of course the enemies surrender. But that’s impossible. So I’ll be closely watching the confrontation to make sure there’s no fuck up.

This needs to succeed.

Hm, love indeed makes fools of people.

***

Arnaut was in utter disbelief, he never could have imagined that she was capable of this. Her tears gave off sadness, and yet, it did not make sense to him as she was the one who caused these complications. It was painful to see what Allie had committed.

“I told you Arnaut!” the elf Elivar shouted and unsheathed his blade, followed by the other elves.

“W-Wait—”

“Kill her!”

As he was lost in confusion, Arnaut couldn’t respond to it immediately. However, in that moment, debris came flying all around in the air, as golden light cleaved through the wooden walls. One first came, then another, and another.

One who arrived first clashed with Elivar’s blade using a spear made up of golden light. It was a woman. She had long black hair. Her outfit was a black robe, and a mask covered her face.

The enemies.

Arnaut gritted his teeth for a split second and then... “SCATTER!” he gave the order.

All the beastmen in the room except for Arnaut all transformed into their beast forms. The humans wasted no time and began attacking the mystic race with their golden weapons. The room was too small, however, for this kind of conflict, and thus everything around the building crumbled apart as magic flew all around. Some beastmen bashed through the wall to get out of the building.

Arnaut at the same time watched Allie.

The human woman facing Elivar kicked him away before shouting an order. “Get her out of here!”

A man in robes grabbed Allie and smashed a hole into the wall with his weapon.

“Allie wait!” Arnaut called.

Allie heard him, but the human quickly escaped from the area with incredible speed. Arnaut could chase him easily. However, the woman in the dark robe stomped her foot to the ground, and frozen pillars and spears instantly grew from the floor, piercing all the woods in their wake. They blocked his way.

But for some unknown reason, the woman’s gaze was not focused on him, but on the elves. She fired spears of ice towards them before charging herself with ice and golden spears in each hand. Magic coated the elves’ swords and parried the several ice projectiles coming their way.

They’re aiming for the elves first?

Arnaut thought.

More ice projectiles grew and flew, to the elves’ annoyance. The human woman thrust her spears towards Elivar. Overwhelmed by both projectiles and the spears, he was unable to evade and block a couple of attacks.

“Tch!”

At the same time, Arnaut sensed a human coming at him. A sword of light was about to descend into him, but he managed to dodge it. A sword was beneath his feet, must be something left behind by one of his allies. He picked it up swiftly to parry the human’s weapon and then kicked him to the side, sending him flying to the rubble.

And at that moment, he noticed a change in the movement of the air. Following the source of that change, he saw Elivar gathering the wind in his hand as they were getting pinned down by the humans, especially the barrage of magic from the woman.

The human woman threw both her spears in the hope of stopping Elivar, but it was a second too late. An explosion of wind blew everyone away, including the surrounding buildings. Arnaut was blown away to the next building, the roof and walls destroyed to smithereens. When he got up, thorny vines grew out of the ground violently, snapping at the humans like whips.

It was then that it became apparent to Arnaut the true scale of the situation. At the front of the building they once used as a hideout, men with swords in hand gathered, clashing with his beastmen. With some men wearing knights’ armor.

However, there were only three beastmen that remained here. One beastman was being tied by golden chains. That beastman then shouted something while being tied down, which prompted the other beastmen to hesitantly run through the group of humans to get away from this place. The root of those chains seemed to be the one that Arnaut kicked away.

The elves used their magic to regroup. They appeared to speak for a moment before one separated and ran towards the chained beastman. His sword glowed in magic, his eyes focused on the one in chains. However, the woman from before got in his way and numerous ice projectiles fired from above him.

With the elf injured, he suddenly pointed his hand towards his face. Then a slash of wind fired out, cutting his own head off.

Arnaut’s eyes widened, surprised to see an elf take their own life. He searched for the other elves but they appeared to have begun fleeing, using the buildings as cover.

Then, a ball of trailing light rose to the sky in the color of gold from afar, almost akin to what Allie used. That was not the only one. For a moment later, another one rose through the air in another direction. Arnaut didn’t know what those were for, but if he had to guess, it was for communication.

His gaze returned to the chained beastman, squirming to be free. But from one caster, another caster arrived to tie chains around him. Arnaut was about to go and help him, but a knight stood in his way, and another person in black robe with a mask.

They were injured, bleeding and armor damaged, must be because of the initial encounter. But then a ray of golden light bounced around to the humans and then their wounds healed. The source of that was another woman in a mask. Their healer.

“Surrender.” the knight said to him.

“Two groups, a knight and you…” Arnaut shifted his gaze to the other person. “I’m not sure though, but I have an idea.”

“... We are from the religious order.”

“The church…”

The forces of Wisteria gathered just to hunt them.

“Again, surrender. There’s no point in resisting.”

Arnaut glared at them. “No.”

And he transformed.