The Guardians' Throne - The First Magic Swordsman

Chapter 372 - Unlucky

              Based on what Zaos and Aleni heard while they were in the previous city, it seemed that the bandits stopped their attacks for a while when one group of them suddenly disappeared. Most likely, they will do the same again once they discover that another group of bandits has disappeared. So, they had to hurry, attack the bases and then decrease their forces before going to deal with the head of the family who was doing all that.

"Destroying the whole family because of a single greedy bastard is a bit too much," Zaos thought. "Still, unless we give a proper message, the successor will follow the same footsteps."

          Aleni guided Zaos toward where the bandits told her where their hideout was. This time, they found an abandoned house in What seemed to be a groove that was burned down. Even that hut had been burned quite a lot. Regardless, they found another hideout below the house filled with alcohol, clothes, money, magic stones, and some ordinary weapons. It seemed that they had dealt with some guards recently.

"I will put this in the wagon. You can rest for the rest of the night," Zaos said.

          Aleni silently obeyed and saw inside the wagon on the side of Milliendra. While noticing that, Zaos sighed and wondered how the heck Ameria managed to become good friends with her. She probably had a few years to do that, but… now that Zaos thought about it, Ameria knew Aleni for two years, but Aleni guarded Ameria for five...

            As soon as the sun began to rise, Zaos started to drive the wagon toward the region where the next group of bandits was operating. In theory, they knew where they could find the hideouts, but before anything, they had to sell the loot as well, So they stopped in another village at noon. Not to mention, they couldn't just attack the enemies during the day.

            Zaos and Aleni assaulted five of those hideouts during the next week, but the target was supposed to have ten of those. They stopped because on the sixth target, they found nothing.

"I suppose that they are finally aware that someone is attacking them, and they decided to stop," Zaos said.

"Are we going to attack the target right now?" Aleni asked.

"The target will be waiting for the attack, so we can't just move toward the place," Zaos said. "I suppose the guards of his city will also be on high alert for a few weeks, and given that we are not well known in this region, we might draw their attention…"

            Going right now to the city of the target seemed like a wrong move. Still, they needed to obtain more Intel before attacking him. Zaos rubbed his chin thoughtfully while he looked at the magic weapons they obtained along the week, they had to sell those, and he was pretty sure that it would be better to sell them in a big city. However, the enemy could also find them by doing that since his minions might recognize the weapons…

"According to the map, we are one week away from his city… if we go slowly, we will give them plenty of time to relax," Zaos said.

        If the bandits withdrew to the target territory, then they would be safe to do What they wanted for the time being. Aside from the magic weapons, they also had a lot of merchandise they obtained from the hideouts, after all. It was time to sell them.

"We won't need to gather Intel for a while," Zaos said. "So we can take our time selling the things we got. I will leave that to you while I continue my research."

"What?" Aleni asked. "I can't do that."

"You can. I also didn't have many negotiation skills until I arrived in this country, so you can learn too," Zaos said. "Besides, if I do both things, we will waste even more time, and we won't attack the target any time soon."

              Zaos wondered why he didn't think of that soon. By doing her work like that, Aleni will be forced to develop some social skills. While she could infiltrate most places, she could do so in order to eliminate someone. It would be the first time she would do something like that without the target being anywhere close to her. That left her speechless, but in the end, she didn't find a single motive to protest… aside from that, it would make her extremely uncomfortable.

              While they traveled around, Zaos didn't help Aleni a single time while she was dealing with the clients. Thanks to that, they stayed in most villages for three days instead of the original two. Thanks to it, Zaos could feel some murderous intent being directed at him when the work was done. Still, Aleni never showed it for too long since that always made Milliendra cry.

            In any case, since Zaos was going to learn the secrets of the magic weapon fabrication soon, he decided to focus on studying the magic book again. At that point in time, he was starting to get pretty familiar with the language, to the point where sometimes, when he was thinking out loud, he would speak using that instead of the common tongue.

"Evil eyes are pretty useful. Maybe I should learn other spells that don't leave any physical traces," Zaos thought.

                Zaos found a spell that would help Him and Aleni quite well. It was called Mist. While it wasn't an illusion-type spell, it would give them the chance to fight without being identified, even during the day. Some mages might be able to repel it, but Zaos doubted that a few of them had more mana than him.

          Speaking of tactics like that, Zaos suddenly felt a shiver when he found presences very similar to Aleni around them.. It had to be at such a moment… right when they were traveling at night. Such a lack of luck…