Three hours before sunset.
---
As night approached, Caesar and Arthur, along with the kids, prepared for the night; however, unlike normal nights, this one was more serious.
"So, how are we doing this?" questioned Arthur as she stared in the direction of the band's camp.
The reason for Arthur's question should be obvious; it's to keep the rest of the mercenary band at bay. They had exactly three hours to get things as ready as possible for the days to come, and if they succeeded consecutively, their catch would count as their contribution, and Cesar could gain more favor for their group.
Glancing away from the main camp's direction, Cesar spoke his thoughts.
"We still have some traps set up from the previous test. Including those, and the ones we're going to put up, we should have a sufficient amount to at least last us two nights, including this one."
"And after the traps are used?"
Crossing his arms, he said, "After that, we'll naturally have to put up more. Do you think you can recover quickly enough for that?"
Arthur shrugged, "I don't really have much of a choice. If I can't recover in time, then we'll just have to use what little mana I do have, and then add extra handmade traps... although.."
Sighing at the slight concern she showed, Cesar shook his head, "Even if the traps are easy to bypass, it's better than just letting them walk up and grab it." Shrugging, he said, "And we hid our catch anyway, so even if they do bypass the other traps, they won't find it unless they torture us for it."
Arthur's brows furrowed at the last part, but she chose to ignore it.
"Anyway, let's get started. You take that side, and I'll take over here," she said, gesturing with her head.
With a quick nod, Cesar moved with surprising speed towards his designated direction.
As she watched his back weave between the trees, she turned on her heel and, with a sudden flicker of light springing from her eyes, she dashed away with nearly the same speed as him.
As Arthur weaved through the trees with incredible speed, she marked every tenth or so tree with a trap. As a mage, she can manipulate the mana she has in her body to do many different things, one such thing is planting a wired trap on the trunk of a tree.
By writing a specific spell on her palm, she can infuse it with her mana and place it wherever she wants, but the downside is that the spell has a cooldown, and she has a small reservoir of mana. Not only that, but the traps need to be set off manually, which also means that she needs to be alert and wary of everything she senses through her traps constantly.
Pausing her steps, Arthur huffed out a breath of exhaustion. She had spent an entire three hours marking trees in a grid-like fashion, where her camp was at the center. Now, she was marking her last tree.
With her palm on the tree in front of her, her eyes let out a subtle glow as she pushed her mana into her hand and into the magic circle that was written onto her palm. The process didn't take long at all; at best, it took just under three seconds for the magic circle to embed itself onto the tree's bark, letting out a subtle silver glow as it did so before dissapating and then vanishing like it was never there.
As she watched the magic circle disappear, she felt a sudden sharp pang in her head, which was immediately followed by a sudden nosebleed. She quickly wiped the blood away with her right hand before squeezing her nose with a gentle amount of force.
Feeling lightheaded, she leaned her head forward, and onto the tree she had just marked, unintentionally letting out a small sigh.
'Hah... seems like I've reached my limit...' she thought after a moment of silence. Letting go of her nose, she straightened, and for five or so seconds, she kept her eyes closed, attempting to sense all of her traps, and after a bit, she gave herself a slight nod.
'Fifty-six traps... not bad, I'm becoming more proficient at using magic.'
With a small smile on her face, she brought her left index finger to her mouth and blew, igniting a small flame roughly the same size as a candle onto the tip of her finger.
Although she was on the edge of suffering from mana exhaustion, she had just enough for the small flame on her finger and to increase her body's physical ability, like how she did earlier.
The moment a bright, constant lavender hue appeared in her eyes, she pushed forward, her goal to beat the sliver of sunlight that had yet to be swallowed by the darkness the forest around her cast.
...Whoosh!
As she maneuvered through the trees, flawlessly avoiding them, she kept a constant calculation of the number of steps she took. The whole time she was placing traps around her camp, she had counted every step she took. It was a habit she had been forced to teach herself due to constantly getting lost in forests when she was younger.
It had proved useful on multiple occasions, especially on those where night had already fallen. Of course, just remembering the number of footsteps she took wouldn't help, so she also learned to mark areas in a compass-like fashion in order to tell the direction of where things were accurately.
She would only do so when the entire band stopped to rest for an extended period of time, like now, for example.
The mercenary band that Arthur and friends were a part of was called Black Ink and was actually a part of a bigger group. Unfortunately, they were part of the branch that dealt with black market trades and produce, which naturally also meant that they had to move with secrecy.
Due to them having to move secretly, they needed to wait for another branch to pull some strings to let them through the gates without being hindered, hence why they had been waiting in the forest near the Kingdom of Toushnie for two weeks.
The perfect amount of time needed for Arthur to set up her markers, which were, as I mentioned, very helpful, especially when it came to locating things more precisely, one such example could be—
BOOM!
—the smoke...
Arthur had long since paused her steps by the time the explosion went off; she had sensed something amiss and chose to quickly hide in a tree.
She had simply thought that her anxiety was being caused by something watching her, a bear perhaps, she thought. But at the sound of that large explosion, it was more than enough to warrant suspicion and worry...
"No way..." She said in a near whisper, disbelief obvious in her words as she stared at the smoke rising not too far away from her.
If what her mental compass told her was true, then that smoke was rising... exactly in the camp—her camp...
...After a moment of thought, she dropped with a heavy thud and rushed toward the smoke, her glowing lavender eyes carrying a sharp glint as she weaved through the trees...