The moment I enter the forest, the atmosphere is noticeably corrupt. One thing for certain is that I'm not going towards the monster stampede, it's elsewhere. Following my intuition, I keep running as if my body is moving on auto-pilot until the smell of blood hits my nose. I can't even begin to describe the chaos I'm seeing. Raging Bull and Armoured Ants are not only fighting each other but a pack of wolves are also involved. On top of that, I can sense black mana somewhere in the middle of all that which means some of those monsters are tainted.
My body instinctively moves when I sense a Raging Bull is charging at me from behind. A sword appears in my hand which I swiftly enchant the blade with a purification spell and slice the monster down in one strike. Presence Detection is alerting me that more monsters are coming from all sides. I frown. Something's not right here. While thinking so, I take down two more monsters until a small blast occurs not far from where I'm standing. Suddenly, my chest hurts and my hands are throbbing in pain.
"Captain!"
"Healer, over here!"
I hear people shouting. My head jerks towards where the blast came from.
"No..." I utter.
The Armoured Ants takes advantage of my momentary distraction, screeches and is about to attack when I slice them up with multiple wind blades.
"I'm not in the mood for this," I mutter, feeling impatient.
I put the sword away since dealing with these monsters is not my priority right now and push the monsters away with wind magic until I ultimately reach where the commotion is. Soldiers are on the defensive behind an earth wall while the wounded are given emergency treatment.
"Reserve your mana! Prepare to retreat until everyone can move again!"
It's not the voice that I recognise.
A brown-haired soldier commands the rest of the soldiers in polished armours, well, now it's covered in monsters blood.
"Vice-captain, more monsters are approaching!" a different soldier reports.
I click my tongue in frustration and cast a small barrier around the soldiers. Ignoring the soldiers' confusion, I undo my concealment when I finally locate the cause of this pain in my chest - the white-haired man lying unconscious on the ground.
A soldier complains to the healer treating the unconscious man. "Why isn't the captain waking up yet?"
"The wound on his head is deep and I don't have enough mana to heal him completely," the healer speaks to the soldier. "We need to get the captain back to town right away."
"Move."
I push away the soldier and kneel on the opposite side from the healer. When I touch his still face, my hand tremble at the blood running down his head.
"How long has he been unconscious?" I ask the healer.
"Identify yourself," commands the soldier with a sword on my neck from behind me.
"We don't have time for that!" I snap back, not once looking away from him.
"It hasn't been that long," the healer answers while suspicious of me.
I take five bottles of healing potions and two mana recovery potions from my item bag and give them to the healer who exclaims in amazement.
"These are high-quality potions. Where-"
I cut off the healer by saying, "Recover your mana with the potion then treat the others. I will heal this man."
The result from diagnosis magic immediately confirms there are no life-threatening injuries but there is a sign of a concussion. He must've been close when the blast happened. I need to take care of that first. The healer is still here when I perform recovery magic on the head injury.
"One, two..."
I inwardly, nervously counted to four when his eyes slowly open.
At some point, the soldier holding the sword to my neck pulls back and expresses his relief with a prayer. "Thank the goddess."
"Can you see me?" I ask with a choked voice.
Instead of answering my question, his blue eyes look at me hazily then tries moving his hand but I stop him.
"Don't move. I need to heal your other injuries now."
With many eyes observing me with vigilance, I can't use the full extent of my recovery magic openly, instead, I take out a healing potion and help him drink it. The healing potion takes a noticeable effect as the wounds on his body disappear including the cuts on his hands. My rapidly beating heart finally calms down and I can finally breathe a little easier.
I brush the dirt off his hair and whisper, "You're alright."
Mostly saying that for myself. He clasps my hand weakly before closing his eyes. The healer then informs the soldier that the captain needs some rest before going off to treat the other wounded soldiers after seeing how the healing potions work. When I finally take my eyes off him, the brown-haired soldier approaches me but before he could speak, Armoured Ants begin circling the barrier.
"That looks unsettling," I thought.
Did I mention that an Armoured Ant is the size of a car? So, seeing the Armoured Ants' movement gives off the feeling that we're standing in the middle of a high-speed circular highway. Anyway, my guess is to find a weak spot, too bad for them, there isn't any. However, the soldiers don't know that and so they are preparing for another round of battle which proves to be unnecessary when one Armoured Ant falls on its side after being hit by a projectile, exposing its weak spot. Two more consecutive shots and the Armoured Ant is dead. Now, the rest of the Armoured Ants circling the barrier are on alert against the attacker who runs over their kin. Erissa appears right next to the fallen Armoured Ant, holding her bow.