Chapter 226: Change of mind
Yutaka led them back.
The return journey was much faster than when they were going deeper into the maze. They didn’t run, but Yutaka increased his speed so much it looked like jogging, even more so when they heard a loud screeching sound far in the distance behind them.
"Why did the Mistwalker cause such commotion?" Vacuse was confused about the reason why they would do such a thing in the first place, as it didn’t seem like the most sensible thing to do at all.
"Most likely to see the level of strength the Longleg Spiders are since the bait failed. I said it earlier. There are other monsters in the maze, and sometimes they fight the spiders.
"The amount the Mother Queen sent would be used to determine their current strength and how far the team should go."
Vacuse sighed. He just wanted to hunt his monsters and get the hell out of the territory. Why did people always try to get in his way? He knew he had already decided that he wouldn’t fight them, but he was dangerously close to changing his mind.
With gritted teeth, he asked Yutaka, "What’s the probability of a team of Magus finding someone in the mountains? How fast?"
"Very fast, depending on the power and wealth of the Magus. With enough money and influence, you can turn the whole mountains into hound hunting, as long as you get the description of the person you’re looking for. Are you looking for people?"
Vacuse didn’t answer that, but his eyes darkened. The Magus from Eboncrypt no doubt had the money and influence to move things the way they absolutely wanted.
If they weren’t careful, they wouldn’t even reach halfway through their journey before they were captured. Which meant they had to start moving immediately. Why wait until the end of the week just to kill monsters?
"Is there a penalty for killing hunters?" Vacuse asked, his eyes beginning to shine with dangerous light.
"Not really. But also, it all depends on those who did the killing and who was killed."
"Say... the Mistwalker?"
Yutaka almost stumbled in shock. "What? What? That would throw the whole Gloomspire into an uproar! Everything would be turned upside down because they are one of the strongest groups, and Lane, their leader, is a strong third circle Magus!"
Vacuse wanted to rip the cloth binding his eyes away, and he did, but his eyes didn’t shine red. They shone a bright purple. "Well, I don’t care. We will destroy the Mistwalker. Do they have any opponents? Your job in the next few hours, Yutaka, is to seek the Mistwalker enemies out and let them finish what I start."
Yutaka did stumble this time, his eyes going wide with fear, and he trembled. "What..."
He looked from Lady Slave to Vacuse, but he didn’t understand what was happening. Vacuse grinned. "You will also find us a team of hunters of our own."
With that, purple draconic energy covered his body, and with his void energy fully being utilized, he practically disappeared, and Yutaka suddenly found out that someone had gripped him, and then everything blurred into screaming winds.
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Lane was standing over the body of the scout he sent out earlier, his face filled with irritation. "This is obviously done by a human. Can the two bait be the ones to do this? But they don’t have the skill to kill him before he sent out messages, and obviously not without spilling blood.
"And a monster... a dangerous one, be out of a lair without the barrier alerting the gang?"
His hunter team spread around him, about forty of them, and most of those were heavily armoured figures, while the rest were scouts, healers, and such.
It wasn’t the full strength of Mistwalker. Far from it, as even many of their members were out hunting other lairs. Right now, what the leader wanted to see was if the Longleg Spider was weak enough for hunting.
Hence the bait, but since that failed, he came himself to see how things would go and retreat. If it was favorable, then he would come back the next day with more might or wait some more weeks.
That was how they hunted the Longleg Spiders.
But now, something that had never happened before happened, and he was still trying to guess the cause. "Everyone be on full alert! There might be unidentified enemies around. All executives should be prepared for battle!"
The so-called executives were the other circle three among them, and there were two of them, making three with Lane on the hunting.
Before long, they set up a temporary camp. They set a barrier of their own with small pillars of magical instruments that would do two things. One was to measure the magic in the air and determine the level of strength of anything approaching.
The other thing was to block attacks while allowing inside attacks to pass through.
With the earlier disruptions they made, the team waited for the reaction of the Longleg Spiders.
And it didn’t take long.
"Leader Lane! We have detected an approaching magic!"
Lane smiled. "Good. Everyone get ready. If it’s only a general, then we will engage and retreat with some loot..."
"Leader Lane! The signature I’m picking up is not of many monsters. It’s a single monster, and it’s approaching with incredible speed!"
Leader Lane frowned. Had another monster come to check? But that wasn’t usually how things went. He sighed, but then again, things like that did happen, where low monsters would come with curiosity that would kill them.
"What’s the power level?"
"I... it’s third circle, sir! The power level is third circle!"
That got Lane’s attention, and he straightened. "What the... third circle? That’s a general spider-level power! This is not..."
Apparently, the monster was close enough that Lane could hear it, and so could his other two executives.
His eyes widened. "Is that the sound of running feet?"
Now, everyone could see it. And for most, they could only see a dark smudge coming at them.
But Lane and the third circle could see something cloaked in some kind of darkness moving forward with outstanding speed.
"Is that someone on its shoulder?"