In front of us, lying broken, bloodied, and with a face of absolute terror, is Lucio. Dead, completely murdered in cold blood with no trace of dignity, dropped from the top of a tree for us to find.
Bae moves behind us and takes a step back when she sees the body, gasping. She trips over herself and falls to the ground.
"Everyone!" Aurelia yells. "Guards up!"
Meanwhile, I am paralyzed with what I am seeing. How is he dead? Who or what killed him? A cold sweat runs down my face, and my hands are shaking.
"W-who could do something like that to him?" Karina asks, who must have the same face of horror that I do.
"Aurelia, buff me. Lisa, stay in support of us!" I managed to order her.
There is something observing us, I can feel it.
Aurelia walks towards the body while I place my right hand on Bloodless, looking around.
"He was a fool..." A voice echoes through the forest, male. "All he had to do was talk... But he decided not to."
The voice comes from everywhere. My ears strain as each word pierces through the fog with no source in sight. Whoever it is, it is managing to keep themselves hidden.
"Show yourself!" Aurelia yells at the woods.
They don't do it.
I am still looking at the body. At Lucio.
I am not feeling sad about his death. It is not the same feeling as what happened with Kathrina. I was too distraught then... I feel something entirely different now.
Anger. For some reason, I am feeling extremely angry. Raw hatred. Boiling deep inside of me.
"Miss Amber." Another voice speaks to me, female. "The poor adventurer tried to stay silent, and we accidentally killed him."
"You call that an accident?" I ask, lifting my gaze and looking around.
Karina whispers something in my ear.
"Accidents happen. How many people do I count with you?" My left ear moves to scan my side. My eyes look back at the people. The female one is talking about the people of the Movers. "All of them will turn into accidents if you don't give yourself up."
...
"W-what are they...?" I hear Lazuli speak. The rest of the people are whispering between themselves.
"They are going to kill us?"
"Who are they? Why are we being attacked again?"
"Hey! But if she gives herself in, we are safe, right?!"
I hear the rest of the Movers speak.
It is easy, isn't it? Delivering myself to whoever that is, and they are safe?
"How do I know you are speaking the truth?" I ask.
"You are not considering letting them capture you, right?" Aurelia looks at me, incredulous.
"Can you tell where they are?" I give her a stern look.
I am not doing that. There is nothing that tells me they are going to follow their word if I just surrender for the safety of the Movers.
"You know... Killing Movers is not the wisest choice..." I take a step back, with a smile.
My eyes move to a rock for a second, then back to the front.
The people are still murmuring, some are praying.
I smirk.
"The moment we reach town... We are informing the Federation members that the Royal Guard is attacking Movers... Do you want that?"
There is a deafening silence. Aurelia looks back at me and chuckles.
"Oohhh... So are those bastards that wanted to cut us off and tried to kill the priest."
They do not answer immediately. Probably, they did not expect that I knew who they are. Poor idiots.
"Seeing you don't intend to cooperate... We are going to kill one person every second until you surrender." The male says.
"You will have to see them suffer! Hahahaha!" The female voice laughs.
"Run!" Someone yells, and the Movers attempt to run.
"No!" Lars yells at them.
I pull the Bloodless from its scabbard a few centimeters, only enough to make the system know I am wielding it. My fingers in the scabbard go to touch the steel blade.
I hear rustling in the leaves right on top of the people.
I cast [Firebolt] several times.
From a tree, someone jumps down. But my Bolts of Fire were already going in their directions.
He fails to dodge them. His face turns at the last moment to get hit by four of the spells, making him fall to the ground.
From the rock that I looked at moments before, the other Mage comes out, jumping over it... Only to get hit with the whole weight of Aurelia's scythe, falling on top of her with a swing from above.
"Ugh!?" She screams when her body is forced into the snow, the crushing force enough to create a crater with her body.
I move towards the one that fell from the trees and launch a barrage of spells against him. He defends and moves, but cannot hold against my barrage, until he finds himself hitting a tree with his back.
When he notices, I have a hand on his chest. And I cast [Inferno].
BOOOOOOOM!
The power of my spell is enough to push him and break the tree, carrying his body until he hits another one.
"Grey!" The female one yells, having trouble standing up.
"Hey, now. Worry more about YOURSELF!" She kicks with enough force to throw her against the tree where her companion was thrown at.
Now we are between them and the Movers, who are now silent but still in a state of panic.
"Get away from here!" I say to Lars. "We will take care of these two!"
Lars nods and then attempts to direct everyone of the Movers to follow him.
Karina gets beside me. She saw them following their souls and told me they were the two mages that attacked us out of town, and where they were. Aurelia managed to detect them, thanks to her, also. I looked at the rock, and she made a nearby branch for her to notice.
Luckily, the Dragonkin Tyrant is perceptive enough to notice the small movement caused by the spirit.
"So, who were you killing, you two pieces of shit?!"