Chapter 5 (Patreon)

* * *

A beautiful evening in a dense forest, nice weather at the point where the chill does not yet turn into cold, colorful scenery of the surrounding landscape, and a light, warm breeze that wants to tickle behind my ears. A perfect setting for a romantic date, or even for a subsequent declaration of love to the woman (or the man, I'm not judging other people's tastes) whom you call your Destiny. A few insignificant details spoiled the whole affair: a lot of dead bodies and those just dying, the screams and cries of the wounded, the foul language of terrified bandits, the barking of frantic watchdogs, and other little things that real heroes are ashamed to pay attention to.

Jokes aside, the situation in the slave-traders camp resembled a beehive, which had also been filled with gasoline for some reason and then set on fire. Our triumphant appearance enabled us to inflict enormous damage on the enemy, knocking out more than half at once, but at this point, it came to a standstill. Still, the bastards were pretty tough, and so they recovered quickly and decisively from the shock, despite the dream-induced effects. The few whose psyches couldn't take it were either ignored or killed in case of aggression. But it was to our advantage that the outlaws were not at all accustomed to jumping up and defending the camp, despite all their training. Their main defenses were not the sturdy walls, the remoteness of their refuge, or even the strongest barrier covering the camp with its dome, but the trivial patronage of their superiors.

This gang had been around for a long time, even a dozen years, and even though their (especially overly eager) members were regularly renewed, they had never once had to defend this place against an attack in all their activity. That's why there was so much panic, that no one, not even in a nightmare dream, could have foreseen our arrival. All their posts, outposts, and reassurances were more a tribute to paranoia than real preparation for defense. The same sentries in the far-flung bunkhouses would have had to catch loners and small groups, not keep track of the approaching army - that's what they were put in position for.

In short, we were lucky it wasn't the army or the border guards. They might have had worse training and equipment, and lower levels, but they would have reacted much more quickly and coherently if attacked. It's a good thing history doesn't take the subjunctive tilt, and we won't allow anyone to correct their mistakes.

The Undead were a lot less dangerous than I would have liked, simply because there were only a handful of high-level creatures. Take the same ghosts as an example - there were only about two dozen of them, and they barely made it to the top ten. The rest of the mass was made up of the lower spirits of the dead, and they are far from dangerous to a trained human. First of all, they're not Shadows who can kill with a single touch - they need time and contact with their victims to kill properly. Give them a badly wounded and exhausted man, they'll tear him to pieces, but even a normal teenager can run away from them, and if they have silver-plated weapons, they can fight off a couple or three of them. If he doesn't panic.

I was not going to remind you that the slave traders who lived next to the burial ground knew exactly how to destroy such trifles. And even though the trifles came in great numbers, it didn't make them invincible, but rather a free experience, especially with mages who could hit in areas.

For us, opposition to the ghosts was limited to the fact that Taria tossed (surprisingly accurate!) the biggest flask of the essence of silver, after which a huge gap appeared in the rolling wave, and almost all the undead abruptly stopped moving toward their positions. They have no brains, of course, but their instincts are present, even if they suck. If my three companions had been the only living creatures in the place, no amount of loss would have stopped the lower undead from lusting for other people's lives. But there were other targets here, and so the spirits, like a school of saltwater fish, abruptly shifted their vector and lunged at their creators.

A vivid illustration of the dangers of practicing necromancy, as well as the urge to accumulate a dead army - if these get out of hand, they will all get out together, after which the hapless lord of the dead will have to do his feet or get them blown to hell.

Despite my success with the undead, the situation of my men was getting worse as the enemy arrows gave no respite, forcing Taria to cease firing his trophy crossbow entirely. Hans had to shoot very infrequently, popping out from behind the barricade just for a second to send another arrow at the enemy. And even the nimble-as-a-wheel Losius was forced to retreat to cover, nearly turning him into a mutant hedgehog. In this particular case, order trumps class, and numerical superiority is still too great.

I could have stepped in and changed the situation drastically, but I preferred not to interfere. So far, everything is within the plan, and they understand it - look how quickly they are retreating along the trail through the swamp, marked with barely visible landmarks. You can say, leading the enemy under the ambush regiment in the form of a huge green ogre, which is already exhausted from waiting. Except that the mages, who managed to spot them, could now seriously mess it up by dousing the retreating fire and lightning. I had to intervene, lest they ruin their comrades' skins.

I step out of the shadow step right behind the backs of the squad, covering the five mages from possible attacks. That's where it ends because I have neither the time nor the desire to fuck around with daggers and individual attacks. A shadowy silhouette rises beneath each warrior, either piercing his chest with a dagger formed of pure energy or twisting his neck. All five mages, having become too close together, find themselves wrapped in a not-so-dense shroud of shadow. Their synchronized and somewhat desperate attack confidently ripped through my enchantments, but their aim was not to kill them but to remove their defenses and distract them, which they did successfully - no time or energy left to repel the shadowy ribbons I had sent up close to them.

I went back into Shadow again, skipping a few force-filled arrows and another hit from the overly-quick-acting Phantom. The ringleader himself was instantly lost in his strange spatial technique this time, clearly afraid of reacquainting himself with my shadows. I wasn't even about to strike that blow, already moving toward the second cluster of the enemy. This group was gathered around me by a young Malefic, who turned out to be a surprisingly stress-resistant individual, able to orient himself correctly in the situation.

The step-out coincided with the simultaneous activation of the shroud, which covered practically the entire assembled company of forty or so people. At the same moment, the canvas of shadows burst into violet flames, and from the small hole a Malefic jumped out (like a cork from a bottle), shaking his head in a daze and apparently not coming to his senses sufficiently. Three more fighters managed to take advantage of the jerk, or simply left the enchantment zone before it covered them. The rest were turned into desiccated corpses, covered in frost, and some were completely devoured. About a sixth of the reserve was gone, but the impact was surprisingly powerful. It felt good, honestly! I felt like a mighty archmage, crushing entire armies to ashes with one heel.

I didn't give the main man time to regain full combat readiness, immediately stepping out of my step close to him and striking with two shadow-filled daggers. Alas, the defense gave him the time he needed to survive the fraction of a second I took to strike. A few buttons and a medallion glowed and burst, but kept the wearer alive.

I didn't strike again, slipping out from under a dagger thrown by one of the survivors (an assassin, by the way). I wished the little bastard had had time to jerk his head back so he hadn't been killed by an ally's attack. And it was trivial luck since he hadn't seen that strip of steel and couldn't have reacted to its appearance.

The assassin did not live long, not even having time to grab a new projectile, and the two ordinary fighters also did not have time to react to the blows of the extremely long shadow ribbon. And then the Malefic, whom I was going to kill with the same ribbon, but on the return move, suddenly fell to his knees and put his hands on the ground.

A violet flame erupted from both of his bracelets, and a circle shone with the same color on the ground. The light rose as a translucent wall, cutting off the protected area from any threat. The protection was strong enough to withstand a couple of my attacks... if I decided to launch them. I'd already used up about a quarter of my reserves, so I wasn't in a hurry to use my energy to overcome such unusual defenses.

Instead of shadows, a flask of negator hit the barrier, making the barrier surge in waves and begin to thin. The panicked Malefic attacked me with some kind of curse, but I wrapped myself in the shadow and took the curse as a kind of armor, immediately dropping it like a cloth. I threw the resulting construct of shadow cloth and the curse, still searching for its target, at the assassin who was "stealthily" closing in on me, dodging another arrow. And I cut off the Malefic's head with another of the shadow ribbons.

Ah, I am so good boy.

My gut howled with thousands of needles poking into every possible and some impossible point in my body, and I immediately took off with the runaway trick a hundred yards away. In principle, I panicked a little, for I could have coped with a simple shadow step, but the threat was too obvious. Some sort of bamboo thicket was now growing where the battlefield had recently been, literally glowing with the power invested in it. And Gaze and clairvoyance immediately suggested where the blow was directed from. This was the second time the ritualist had brought an unpleasant surprise. And I couldn't get the beast out, he was too well-protected!

Of course, I could fold the whole place up like a house of cards, just by putting enough force into a punch, but that would require too much investment, and I might not be able to save my teammates in time. And they're in a pretty tight spot right now, even if it's not a critical situation. My party had been pushed into the marshes, or so the slave traders thought, for those sneaky fellows didn't mind getting there.

It ended with Ygra bursting into the enemy's ranks and having a party right in the middle of the crowd, quickly reducing the number of opponents. I knew there was plenty of acid in the alchemist's stores, but I also knew that the product was not given to them, because they simply didn't need it. And if you think about the fact that all the mages I had already knocked out, then it becomes quite funny - there was simply nothing to kill Yggra. She could heal an ordinary wound faster than the blade left it. Only those with special skills showed something because they could at least pierce her skin and do some damage, but each skill ate away some reserve, and warriors have a very little reserve, and they can't hold out that long, even if you forget about the constantly decreasing number of fighters.

The ogre still hasn't received a single really serious injury, taking careful care to keep her eyes and other vulnerable points out of the way. Add to that the effects of her pheromones and the brainwashing attraction, and that's a disaster. All three of my companions took antidotes against her effects, and Taria took a double dose. No one gave the bandits any such formulas, which led to the logical results.

At first, I was even surprised that the ogre was fighting outside of her favorite stealth tactics, but then I realized (slowpoke, I choose you!). Green, after all, perceives the other "pack members" as youngsters and is now protecting them from encroachment. Swamp ogres are individualists, true, but protecting offspring is still on the short list of things they do together.

And since the offspring were helping to kill the attackers themselves, the fight quickly went from defense to offense. The only one I cared about was Phantom, managing to counteract the sunshine of Losius and Hans striking from behind him at the same time. Taria was just lying in the mire, gurgling indignantly, and occasionally tossing the rest of her alchemy flasks - she'd lost her crossbow, and she didn't dare go into the meat grinder, for fear of the integrity of her head and the neck that held it.

Phantom himself was justifiably proving that he had been written off early, fending off both men with respectable skill. I could tell even through the shadows that he was better with a blade than Losius, even if he was his equal in stats (and even better under alchemy). Hans had to watch his back, too, because Phantom was liable to stab him in the back with his blink. He would have been injured if not for the potions he had taken, and that was the least of it. It was strange how a fighter of his caliber could have ended up in the company of slave traders.

I realized that, for now, we had control of the situation, so I went back to the battle. Especially since my clairvoyance was now working at full speed to cover my companions. If I sensed any danger to them, I would intervene, but so far it wasn't necessary... ouch, you're fuckin' kidding me! What kind of life am I living, huh?

Taria stares in shock at the shadow of her own hand clutching a crossbow bolt in her "fingers," but the crossbowman has already been dragged down into the mire by a shadowy tentacle. Because don't touch my tits, motherfucker! I mean, not mine, but mine... I mean, Taria's, but mine... Die, motherfucker!

The tentacle was still holding the sound-shooter by the throat, and I was already hurtling through The Shadow, picking out another target. This time my gaze (and Gaze) fell on the alchemist's lab. Not that he was dangerous to me, but there was a sturdy, defensible building, near where almost all the survivors had gathered, those who hadn't died or fought Ygra and Co. I'm going to cut them down, help my comrades if I have to, and then I can go and visit the ritualist, who's been bugging me a lot already.

The first thing I did, before I got into the melee (saving energy, no more), was to toss another toxin vial through the open window way. There was the creepy-looking face of a shooter who had decided to use the narrow window as a loophole, so I spared him some of the poison. As it turned out, it was not poison, but some caustic lye, not even called full-fledged acid. I must have mixed it up when I was putting together a set of throwing projectiles for the battle.

In any case, I knocked out the shooter guaranteed, so now I could think about getting closer and going to the rear of the bandits who hadn't yet figured out the problem. Now a little...

Fucking shit!!!

The shadow steps worked like clockwork, and my instincts were right again, forcing me into ghostly form and flying up and back at top speed. It was good that it was almost night now, so the sun didn't destabilize the Shadow, and I could take to the sky without fear of slowing at the most inopportune moment.

It blew up badly, literally turning the lab into a pit. Luckily, it wasn't an ordinary explosion that would have hit my team, but some kind of magical stuff. The alchemist's house and the nearest hundred meters, or even a hundred and fifty meters, were covered by a cloud of corrosive acid, like my neighbor Baba Zina. It melted a real crater in the ground. There was not even debris and fragments left of the house, nor of the defenders who had gathered around it.

When I emerged from the Shadow near the boundary of the acid collapse, all I could do was poke the tip of my boot into the gray mass that this infernal liquid had become after a rapid reaction with oxygen (not dangerous and not even poisonous, according to my alchemical intuition). I glanced around the crater and considered the consequences to my health if I hadn't escaped, and all I could manage was to speak thoughtfully from beneath the mask: "That was a real crit!"

There was another intuition warning that brought me out of my thoughtful exasperation, to which I reacted purely mechanically. A shadow, a movement, an exit within fifty meters of the entry point - just about right. I glanced around the quickly withering bamboo thickets (the last lawn had already become wilted compost) and realized that one ritualist was still in this world. And in that world, he obviously doesn't need an artifact that allows him to deliver such blows. I don't know what kind of grass it is, because it only resembles bamboo the slightest bit, not being bamboo. But I know for a fact that it's the only thing I can use in my household.

I was about to start executing my plan, but my clairvoyance forced me once again to be distracted by the rescue of the adventurers in trouble. This time they were going to kill Hans, and I had to react really fast.

The clairvoyance was throbbing in my temples, but a picture of what was happening was unfolding before me. The Phantom, realizing that he was about to be killed and that there was nothing he could do about it, had decided that it was bad manners to go to the afterlife without good company. The wretched brether had deliberately traded his life for Hans's, wishing at least this way to spoil his attackers and prevent them from finishing the defeat of his gang altogether without a hitch. And he might even have succeeded, since his anti-prophetic affirmative had slowed my reaction considerably, and I wasn't at all sure that my shadow could pull the tracker out from under the enemy's sword.

It was Taria who saved the situation. Apparently, her perception was enough to determine the right moment to intervene. I have no idea how low the chance of success was, but it was slim: calculating the locations of each of the fighters, choosing the moment, and reacting in time was truly the luck of epic proportions.

The girl herself, especially, took almost no risks, since Ygra had already managed to zero out most of the bandits, and the remaining seven could only run away from her through the constant use of jerks and similar skills. She could barely stand on her feet from the weakness caused by the too frequent use of her skills and green-skinned pheromones. She was just catching up with them and crushing them one by one, and they couldn't even hurt her - the moment when the concentration of attacks could still pierce her skin and bleed out was over as the number of attackers dwindled.

However, we are not talking about Ygra now, we are talking about Taria.

She demonstrated her talents in "mud fighting," stripping off her outer clothes and even wiping her chest from the mud, then stood up sharply and shouted the order to freeze. It was a good thing her ability didn't work through shadow perception, or it would have been a sad thing for me to be hit by another ritualist attack.

Four men froze at once - Phantom, the two misfits (immediately finished off by Ygra) who happened to glance in the direction of the scream, and Losius, standing in line with the slave-trader who had just blinked. Except Losius had someone to cover him, and Phantom was the only one left. Hans took his chance, blowing his head off with his sword and piercing his heart with his dagger.

I'll give Taria credit, she didn't try to brainwash the rest of my co-combatants in secret, though I could almost physically feel how hard it was for her to refuse such a decision. Well, let's just assume she'd just committed the act of a paragon rather than a renegade. Or maybe she just realized in time that I would notice her influence on her comrades-in-arms, one way or another.

She wrinkled her nose and fell back into the dirt, hiding her "weapons" so as not to hit Hans, who was kicking the frozen Losius to his senses. It was either the slaps and shouts that had worked, or the loss of eye contact with the ability concentrator, but the duelist came to his senses, swore in un noble way, and, blazing with righteous anger (figuratively, since he was no longer able to do tricks with heavenly energy), went to vent his anger on the still-living remnants of the bandits, literally stealing food from Ygra.

I snorted and ducked out of the hit of the obscure artifact again (the ritualist seemed to be just striking by cooldown), stopping just a hundred paces away from the nearly glowing house. The mage who was lodged there had clearly put all the defense to maximum effect, forcing it to work on the wear and tear, but now this place could protect against a lot. And what's more! If his colleagues were to resurrect themselves, and then try to kill the mage trapped inside, they'd have to spend a lot of time and blood to get through those walls.

Alas, I came here, albeit uninvited.

A step, a normal human step, followed by another and another. I walked leisurely and relaxed, but my own shadow was growing behind me, rising in a huge silhouette of many arms, wriggling and contorting in either grimace or squirming. I consciously invested myself in attack and defense, forcing myself to stand my ground rather than move out from under attack.

A step, another, and then the next. The shadow behind me is getting thicker and blacker; it's not a shadow at all, but a full-fledged breach to the other side. Only this time I'm in complete control of it, and I'm not going to let anyone in who I don't want to be here. The icy palms of the silhouette above me enveloped my figure, shielding me from any evil other than the one that had long resided within me. It was at that moment that the unknown artifact recharged, allowing me to attack the idiot who was no longer going to dodge the blow.

It was like I was drowning in green and something else, evoking all the same associations with the light of innumerable and impossibly distant stars. The huge silhouette swayed and, I would have sworn, groaned faintly, but it stood. Nasty, shrill laughter erupted from every shadow that could not possibly be human, and the wall of green around me began to fade and crumble to weightless ash and ice crumbs.

By some strange impulse, I take my own shadow and place it over the figure that protects me, one created by my will alone. At once the feeling of strangeness disappeared, and I began to perceive my enchantment as part of myself. I feel the pain from the spell that struck us, I feel the cold that has always been with us and will forever remain, I feel an unbearably excruciating hunger that cannot be quenched, only weakened. A second, another step, and I took control of myself, becoming myself again, not the creature that had come from the Shadow. The silhouette was still not a Shadow, but it was no longer just a cluster of energy, stopping somewhere in the middle.

I left the target zone of the attack, infusing the silhouette behind me even more. With a sharp movement, I... We plunge a multitude of hands straight into the shadow the house casts, piercing it with our claws. Digging deeper than just into the ground, farther than I could imagine in my worst nightmare vision.

The shadow from the house becomes thicker, blacker, angrier, it becomes part of me, part of us. I ignore the system messages that pop up, trying not to lose that thin line where my consciousness is still connected to the construct that I have created, while at the same time not allowing myself to fall into that connection and dive headlong into the abyss.

A shiver and burning reverberated in our hands as the multi-layered protection on the house began to discharge itself in all directions. The ritualist does not know, cannot understand what exactly is happening, but he feels something approaching. He sees how the naughty shadows begin to move, how the light from the windows dims and gradually disappears, how each exhalation produces a cloud of rapidly cooling steam, and something begins to press on the many barriers. No, not press, but merge with them, climb into them and simply absorb, devour the power invested in these spells.

We hear, touch the lives of those who are trapped behind thin and so useless walls of wood and primitive magic. But what is wood to the power that is in every shred of darkness that stands on the edge of light? What does magic mean to an ancient power whose essence is to take and absorb everything it can reach?

We exhale in a single cold rush, and our exhalation causes the walls of the house to become covered in frost.

We take a breath, and in our yawn, the power that imbues this place sinks. Each second makes another figure disintegrate, each second passes into the next, but our breath never ends, drawing more and more from this place. We sense the very essence of those who hide behind the miserable walls, behind the rapidly fading glow of the protective circles. We feel these souls, among which there is one, especially sweet and desirable, to which we have only a hand to reach. The shadows laugh louder and louder, more and more clearly, waiting for the moment when our breath will drag the panicked victim into oblivion.

I'm sure that if I'd gone a bit deeper, my, our powers would have been enough to break the barrier in an instant. But I was able to hold on and loosen the bond between myself and the creature I had created. It allowed me to keep myself in my mind, but it also weakened my defenses, though by no means fatal.

A new blow from the same artifact made us hiss painfully, but could not do serious damage. But it made us infinitely angry, making us feel an incomparable rage. I-we clawed at the barely perceptible connection between the grass that tried to sprout inside us and the artifact that created it. The green wall disintegrated into ash and ice crumbs even faster than the previous one, and I managed to feel the shadow of whoever was clutching the artifact in his hands.

The small bowl, made of some obviously magical wood, literally glowed with a familiar power, but what interested me was the man who was clutching it with trembling palms. The shadow of whose palms crawled to his wrists, gripping them in an icy grip, already moving further up his body to his throat and the ritualist's heart, beating sweetly.

I make one last effort, and our breath takes the remaining crumbs of power that imbue the place. The ground and walls, which had become part of someone else's magic, were now empty and cold, reduced to the usual dead stone and wood. For months, if not years, the light in this place would fade, and the temperature would be low even in the worst of the heat.

I interrupt the absorption with a tremendous effort, until the moment when it starts to draw the essence out of the prisoner left in this place. The shadow falls reluctantly as if it didn't want to, even though my silhouette never became The Shadow. But his hands left the shadow of the house, and the silhouette shrank, folded in on itself, and returned to my own shadow. It was now plain and harmless... as I sincerely hope.

The reserve is just over a third, presumably due to the life taken from the ritualist, which has fed me, restoring some of my strength. Some messages flashed in the corner of my eye, which I would read later. My comrades-in-arms have once again left the swamp and are now together with Ygra to hunt down the loners who have managed to survive the chaos we have all caused. And Ygra, characteristically, hunted down the poor dogs running around the camp. Apparently, she'd killed a lot of people for the day.

I killed a few of the fugitives who had a real chance of escaping with ribbons that popped out of the closest shadows and then focused my attention back on the ritualist's house. I remember getting a good feel for the lives of those who were there. And one entity seemed particularly appealing to me at the time, one might even say delicious. And the funny thing about that situation was that it wasn't the ritualist at all, but one of his prisoners.

And this prisoner was now on his last breath from exhaustion (he would last till morning, and then that it, let him go to Paradise without queuing): clairvoyance clearly explained (the main thing in time, fuck!) that the unknown artifact drew its power exactly from the prisoner. So there I was, standing in front of the house, wondering whether I needed all that shit, or whether it was better to do without it, just leaving one of the many supposedly freed slaves to die of his wounds.

No, I'm not cruel, I'm just exhausted!

Seriously, guys! I'm exhausted, tired, my personality has been chewed up and spit out once again, and now I have to work my ass off again and save the life of some obscure individual, even if he is a victim three hundred times over. On the other hand, if I do not save him, I will never learn about the origin of the strange artifact, and in general, it would not be good.

Am I suffering from paladin syndrome? Or is it just a lyrical mood? An unbearable desire, so to speak, to bring goodness to the masses, to inflict justice and punish the innocent. Oh, my kindness, at this moment my shadows tear to shreds another bandit who had escaped into the woods and possesses the class of lurker, yeah, I am the very embodiment of sweetness, kawaii, and kindness.

"Fuck, Tin, I thought I was going to die four times!" Hans, who appeared next to me, interrupted my musings. "I, ****, thought that only happened in bard songs, and certainly not to me!"

"Good for you, old stump, you've only nearly been killed four times!" Taria's angry and disgruntled voice cut in. "I've lost count, and I'm dirty up like a pig."

In response to Taria's insult, Losius, who has already recovered from the accidental hit to his brain with her hypno-tits, but is still furious at the memory of his powerlessness, joins in the conversation.

"I should point out that I witnessed you being covered by Tin's shadows." Crystallize that tone, and you could throw it in a martini instead of ice. "As for the mud, separately, we're all just as dirty as you are, but we don't make a scene about it."

"You are allowed, but I am a girl." The aristocrat's words were countered by a truly impenetrable argument. "I was not born to fight, but to love and be loved!"

In response to the obvious quotation, Losius just barely heard a sniffle, and then just as politely replied to the sulking bandit with a perfectly logical sentence:

"I don't like to stoop to this kind of humor, but in the drinking establishments of Stavrosk, in response to such maxims, those lofty ladies who lack loftiness, but whose lack of it is more than compensated by their arrogance and ambition, are offered to go and start working at their vocation."

I even fell out of my thoughts in response to such a comment from the always emphatically polite nobleman. However, he remained polite even now, but he wrapped it up nicely, as a professional troll I declare!

"I don't understand shit, but I have a feeling you just called me a whore." And she poked her finger accusingly so that no one would have any doubts about who she was accusing.

"You imagined it, Taria, you just imagined it." He was already in control of himself, but he didn't hide his contented smile, just out of a desire to annoy his opponent in a verbal argument.

"You're going to **** it up!" Hans's delicate mental structure could not withstand this pique and interrupted it in the most vulgar way he could think of. "Tin is staring at this house, which means there's something dangerous in it, and you're being silly!"

You wouldn't believe it, but they were really ashamed of their carelessness! The main thing is not to blurt out that I'm just staring into the wall, without any high purpose, or else Taria will at least try to tickle me. And she's covered in mud and grime, whereas my cape is relatively clean (after Shadow).

"There's a prisoner dying inside. He won't last till morning." My words arouse mixed emotions in Hans and Losius, and complete indifference in Taria, who doesn't care about anyone but herself and her few comrades (which is already progress!). "And then we are faced with the quite legitimate question - what to do with the slaves? If nothing, then most of them simply will not go anywhere from here, because they will either be devoured by beasts and the remains of the undead, or caught by the inhabitants of the surrounding villages, selling them to smaller slave traders. And we have not slaughtered them all - some of their groups were simply absent, and some are still in the other outposts, in addition to the one we cleaned."

"If they're smart, they've already left those gatehouses and are running away at the pace of the dance." The tracker shakes his head negatively. "It's obvious they've got their elite multiplied by zero. Yeah, they might decide they've repelled the attack, but for those of them smarter than a log, it's clear - if it comes to such illuminations, it's time to run, no matter what the result."

Yeah.

And we'd have had to pick off all the other guards and patrolmen before we went into battle. And what's most important is that neither I, nor Hans, nor anyone else thought of that. Not to say that it is such a failure, because to conceal the destruction of the camp in secret will not be possible without the destruction of all the witnesses, but still another failure.

"Shit. You're right, Hans. I'll run to their outposts and clear them out, and you take care of the slaves. Unseal them, clothe them, keep them in order. Also, cover your faces and keep your names out of sight, here. Oh, and I'd like to collect some trophies, too."

My hurried orders are interrupted by a soft and gentle question from Taria, who seems ready to strangle me right there, without resorting to outside help or wasting time waiting.

"Tin, I thought you decided to run through the woods, throwing all your work at us. I was wrong, wasn't I?" She doesn't really care, but she just can't resist the chance to make fun of me.

"It's still almost twenty-four hours before the potions roll back, so let the effects begin to wear off soon. I'll go now, but don't you guys get bored!" I finished the last sentence as I disappeared from sight in the activated stealth.

I did my best not to hear with shadows of Taria's screams and the synchronized laughter of the men. It didn't work, but there was nothing I could do about it -perception is so... hard to turn off.

The hunt for escaped slave traders was frustratingly simple and unadventurous. For me, with my current level and skills, killing such cadres was not something difficult, on the contrary. Catch up, assess, kill - routine in its purest form. They had not a chance, and of the five units at the outposts, two fours went towards the camp to "sniff out" what's up. Sniffed, what else can I say?

Only one was spared, an ordinary level eleven archer, from the newly recruited youngsters. He didn't like his new job, to begin with, and he didn't stain himself with atrocities. The clairvoyance told me that he wouldn't go back home to testify, wouldn't go to his friends, leaving witnesses behind, but would simply leave in the direction of the nearest adventurers' guild, where he would start a new life. I decided that since even my gut was telling me he was innocent, I might as well give him a chance.

He had already separated from his "buddies" so he wouldn't have to go in one group that could get raided, so I just interrupted the rest of the trio and slowly, slowly walked back to the camp. Why hurry. Maybe I'd missed someone important, or hadn't noticed? What if a low-level hunter had a way of hiding his presence from a developed mythical class with a unique sensory skill? Nuh-uh-uh, I can't take that chance, guys. We need to be thoroughly sure of a complete sweep!

When I got back to camp, all I could do was wipe a tear from my eye! The guys had done three hundred percent well in organizing the situation. A few of the slaves, some of the healthiest physically and mentally, were attached to the case, Ygra was driven back into the marshes along with a couple of captured carcasses. They were dog carcasses, for she must have taken a liking to the woof-woof. We should check her for Korean roots, but there's no hurry.

A pile of loot was growing in the center of the settlement, under the watchful eye of an exhausted Losius. Hans was the foreman of the third degree, swearing at everyone and everything, but forcing the former slaves to pack their valuables to one side (and not to lose some in their pockets), the corpses to another, and themselves to stomp off to a third. The mood among the slaves varied, I would even say it was opposed.

Some of them were sincerely and naively childishly glad that their tormentors were dead and believed in our goodness. Some were too frightened and more afraid than hopeful. Some of them simply didn't care - that was mostly true of those whose brains had already been worked on.

A separate line was the elite goods, as they were either broken at once or kept in chains with extreme paranoia. And while a few exotic slave girls from the deceased slavemancer treatment (including a pretty Asian girl) could be considered relatively harmless, the fighters and warriors were far more unpleasant individuals. First of all, because they generally (for the local mentality) did not believe in miracles and considered us all at best as competitors of their former masters. At worst, they considered us all as weak and exhausted owners of great trophies.

One orc (the real one) had to be killed, as he immediately thanked his rescuers with an immediate attack, clearly aiming for the green equivalent of Valhalla. Losius easily dealt with the exhausted and unarmed fighter, but the atmosphere was ruined. I was beginning to wonder what we were going to do about the crowd when clairvoyance provided the answer.

And I almost fell out of stealth with a headache - the portion of pure knowledge was too much for one bite, echoing with a resounding echo in the farthest corners of my skull.

I don't know why or how, but after only two days, the Royal Border Guard, along with the Army Corps near the nearest town, will come here for a courtesy visit. I know for a fact that the reason for this visit is not we are, but something else. I have a vague sense that the clue lies in one of the "stuff" captured by the slave trader, but I don't know who that was.

I just hope it's not a deceased orc, otherwise, it's not going to be fun.

I appeared behind Hans, now a proud level twenty-seven, and with a polite cough drew my attention to himself. To be honest, I was expecting to be startled, but I was disappointed, for Hans had just finished a sentence to some beast-man with wolf ears about his crookedness, and then, when he could no longer hear us, he turned to me, stating:

"Tin, we have a problem."

Since my face is still hidden under the mask, I indicate the question by tilting my head sideways. Instead of answering, the pathfinder, who has not yet chosen the second class, points to the same ritualist's house, where apparently the source of our problems and Taria, who guards it, is located. On the one hand, I understand that a prisoner in death is no danger to her, but still, I probably shouldn't have left the lowest-ranked of us all there.

I don't waste any time, just wave to Losius to move in the same direction and cross into The Shadow, immediately exiting next to the cabin. I pay tribute to tradition and knock on the knocked-out frame before I go inside. I didn't wait for an answer, because it was a tribute to tradition, not politeness.

Inside, I can see the windows wide open and the reason for our future problems, as well as the reason for the interest in this place on the part of those in power. This reason is literally dissected, like a fish, which is why this reason could not be pulled out of too cold and dark (after my attack) building. The limbs nailed to the floor, the opened sternum, and abdomen, the several strips of skin removed, and the signs carved into the remnants of the skin, make me regret killing the ritualist. A quick kill, of course.

The guy looks like a teenager, not even a young man yet.

Oh yeah, one more little detail, like the population of China, that adds to the spice of what happened. This kid has sky-blue eyes, an exquisite rack, and, fuck his mother, elongated ears. Congratulations, Kostya, you've finally met your first elf in the new world.

Why the fuck do all isekai get rescued elven princesses, and I've got a small male f*cker? And dying right in our arms! I'm just a little embarrassed to ask if those who come to rescue this little prick will be offended if they find him already dead.

You wanted problems, Kostya?

Take it and sign it - here they are, bitch, in the assortment.

* * *

Authors note:

Eh! 11 pages, without one page of the daily norm! I'm good, Comrade Major! Let me go home, eh?

Joking aside, there were a lot of crits in the chapter. Really, somehow there were a lot of them, and there were enough 90+ throws. And from all sides of the conflict.

I'll even point out the most remarkable ones.

Well, I think you understood about this, too: 100 and 93 pure. For 93 more bonuses added up to a hundred. And in general, from scratch, I was even a little bit shocked. A tank in the Amazon steppes and a submarine in the Belarusian jungle.

More crits: the unknown and unnamed crossbowman who almost killed Taria. He really shoots at the sound, managing to make out the sound in the cacophony of being. 50 perception and a perk on hearing.

The ritualist's preparation level is defense 100 and another 45. The hero had to twist to save his energy after the mega-strike.

The success of the search for slave traders by the relative of the "princess" (what difficulty I had in not spoiling the princess, when the correspondence with the admins in the comments!) 100, but at the expense of bonuses.

In general, that's all, the rest is not so interesting.

To be honest, it's a little infuriating: I was preparing a plot to travel together to the nearest town. Just Hero, his crew, and nearly eight dozen slaves.

And yes, there are ALSO about a hundred of them, because the next big batch left recently, and it would have been 500+ otherwise. MC could steal someone's shadow and stage a Spartacus uprising under his guise. Quite in the spirit of the MC, I think.

Thank you. Good luck to you all.