"Okay, here is what we know!" Lia met with Aurora, Louise, Simbad, and Sion in the early morning when they were about to leave and hut down the invisible attacker. "Our research shows that this isn't an isolated case!"
"So we weren't singled out because of being a Misfit?"
"Nope!" Lia clapped, "This happened multiple times in the past, going back more than four centuries! The people call the jungle there the Death Field!"
"Why weren't we notified of that?!" Louise grumbled, making Lia smile wryly.
"All local people know to avoid that part… except us, so we marched through it and… well, here we are! Look at it this way! We will solve the mystery! So far, thousands of people were affected, turning sick, a good chunk of them dying later from complications."
"With that, we can cross out the idea of it being a kid or some newbie trying to practice a spell." Sion thought out loudly.
"Most certainly." Lia agreed, watching them while they were standing at the northbound gate of their fortress. "So don't hold back if we find the assassin! We are going to get her or him!"
"Dead or alive?" Aurora asked with a small smile.
"Dead or alive! But… if we can, try to go for the alive option?" Lia grinned.
"No promises!" Louise replied first, the most eager in the group.
…
….
……
It took them more than a day to arrive at the edge of the rumored 'Death Field,' cutting through the jungle, sometimes being disturbed by the local wildlife. Even if most beasts could smell their magical energies and keep out of their way, some took their presence as a challenge, trying to scare or straight-up attack them.
"Boss…" Louise moaned, fanning herself with her hand, soaking wet from sweat, "Next time, try to find a less… humid place!"
"Don't worry; I already noted it down for myself!" Lia answered with her own moan, wiping her forehead and cleavage, wearing her shirt tied below her breasts, and letting her stomach show freely. "I'm drenched too, but we are near! Should we camp down or head in?"
"With what we learned, we can detect it either way. It does not matter if it's night or day." Sion replied, then he glanced at Simbad, "And he can also cast it now. The dude is a freak."
"Thank you," Simbad answered, unbothered by his teasing.
"That spell," Louise joined in the discussion, forgetting to complain and sounding excited, "Is something really nasty… I am happy I can now detect it, but I would not try using it!"
"We will have to remind Hajna too about that," Aurora wrote, "She is too eager to share her knowledge. Some things should not be rediscovered!"
"I kinda agree and kinda not," Simbad murmured, tilting his head slightly to the left. "It is good to know about it so we can prepare countermeasures. Come up with solutions to a dangerous predicament. But yes, some spells should not fall into the wrong hands."
"Okay, let's have a ten-minute rest," Lia said, picking out an icepack from her holding bag, rubbing it against her body, shivering with delight, "Then we move on! We will alternate to reserve mana; Louise, you start. After an hour, we switch, and comes Sion, then Simbad! Try to see with your new vision spell if you can pick up on something! If you do, use hand signals only! Don't react too much, okay?"
"We don't want to scare away the prey." Aurora nodded, looking at them singing with her hand, "Point us in the direction and wait for Lia's signal before making a move!"
"Are we going to scan the whole jungle? It is a pretty big part!" Louise asked, looking around the tall trees and thick foliage.
"No, not really." After a sip of water, Lia replied, "We will cut through, close to where you were attacked. Or where we think you were! If nothing, we will do a roundabout way before turning parallel to your original course. If we do not encounter anything for four days, we leave and return two weeks later! We don't want to give away that we know about it."
"Roger!" Louise saluted, much more excited than afraid, especially because she was with the core of the Misfits. Something she always wanted to experience.
…
….
……
For three days, they did not find anything suspicious, but on the fourth, just about when it was time to pack up their camp, Sion signaled with his hands.
"There is an invisible beam aiming directly at Simbad; it follows his movements perfectly."
"Continue as if nothing is happening." Lia communicated with subtle gestures, not stopping to put her tent away.
Simbad, in the meanwhile, circulated his energies in the way Hajna taught them to protect their organs against its effect.
"It switched… now it's targeting me." Sion signed with his fingers while asking out loud, "It seems like it's going to be a hot day, isn't it?"
"Yeah, we should head north; what do you say?" Lia asked back, questioning him from where the beam was coming.
"Yep, sounds good!" Sion nodded.
The moment they were on their way, he followed the beam with his eye, watching it land on every one of them, including Aurora, before it finally settled down on Lia.
"Boss, I think you were right." Sion whistled, saying no more, watching the invisible magic grow in intensity, clearly intending to do harm to her. "It's not a cakewalk at all… the sun's rays are getting hotter and hotter!"
"That is the jungle for ya!" Lia giggled, her senses already spreading far and wide, trying to pick up a clue where their enemy could be. Whoever the culprit was, had to be close by, watching them, guiding his or her spell by either hand or sight. At least, going by Hajna's conjecture.
"Boss," Sion spoke after a few minutes, "Do you remember my invention?"
“I… do…” Lia nodded, knowing he meant his self-made spell of invisibility. "Good head you got on your shoulders!"
She chuckled, giving a hand sign, telling them she found it. The moment Sion brought it up, Lia immediately realized what kind of energy fluctuation she should look for and locked onto her position. Whoever this assassin was, she was not as proficient with invisibility as Sion.
"25 meters northeast." She said, and then with a poof, she was gone.
Their would-be assassin flinched the moment Lia disappeared in a puff of smoke. She simply couldn't believe what she was seeing but also knew something terrible was happening. They did talk weirdly, but… it should be because they were humans.
"Eeep!?" She cried out in her thin, child-like voice when she felt space distorting behind her, and Lia's fair hands stretched out from a ball of the deep, violet ball of smoke as she reappeared.
"Gotcha!"
"Nyah?!" Came a second, frightened yelp as Lia pushed her off the tree she was crouching on, mostly invisible. By the time they crashed into the ground, the spell was broken, and it revealed a young, barely 125 centimeters tall girl with ankle-long, golden, curly hair, and bright, blue eyes. She wore only leaves as clothes on her doll-like, immaculate body that Lia was now sitting on. She forcefully twisted her hands behind her back with her right and pressed the kid's face into the ground with her left.
"Don't even dare to move or cast any spells!"
"I wasn't! I… I am just collecting fruits to eat! Please don't hurt me?! Why have you attacked me? Please don't kill me!" She cried, her eyes welling up with tears, but Lia felt something was off.
"Not an Undead…" She murmured while hearing the bushes rustle and the rest of her team catch up.
"A child?" Louise asked, bewildered.
"We'll see…" Lia murmured, feeling a bit guilty now, kneeling on her spine so hard, but one part of her mind was telling her not to let go or be lenient.
"She does not seem like an Undead… maybe she is mind-controlled?" Louise crouched down, studying her as they surrounded the little girl, who was looking to be in a panicked state.
"Why were you invisible if you are just collecting fruits?" Lia asked, somewhat loosening her grip but not enough to let her try and move.
"I am small! Many big predators eat the smaller ones!"
"Logical…" Simbad murmured but watching her like a hawk. "But now... are you a smaller predator yourself?"
"Nooo... and... It huuuuurts…." She cried pleadingly, and in the end, Lia sighed, stepping off her back, but she regretted it immediately. "Teehee, stupid! You lost; I won!" And with that, she was gone in a puff of smoke.
"Shit!" Sion cried out.
"I got her!" Lia threw a communication jade at him before also teleporting away.
"Eeeh?!" The little girl yelled like a cat whose tail had been stepped on when she saw Lia appear near her. "How?!" She cried, teleporting again, but Lia was keeping up with her.
"I'll get you, and next time, I am going to break your arms and legs!" She said coldly, no longer looking at the fleeing girl as a kid.
"You can't catch me! You can't!" She replied while sticking her tongue out and began to teleport back and forth randomly, as if she was trying to confuse Lia, making her twitch her mouth.
"Is she… stupid?" Lia couldn't help but ask because she was doing nothing but wasting her mana. "Easier for me…"
When the blonde little kid appeared next on the forest floor, proud of her confusion tactics, her feet suddenly felt extremely cold. The next moment, before she could teleport again, her mana slowed considerably, preventing her from gaining enough strength to disappear. Looking down, she saw her feet, up to her ankle, frozen in ice, locked in place.
"Go to sleep!" Lia appeared next to her, delivering a merciless chop at the back of her head, knocking the kid out. Lia caught her by her hair before she could fall forward and break her ankles which were still frozen to the ground by her spell.
"Boss!" Arrived Louise and the rest, panting because of the hot, humid air, running through shrubs and trees to catch up.
"Let's tie her up!"
"Wait!" Simbad raised his hand, and before Aurora could ask what it was, they realized the problem. At least a dozen other small kids, boys, and girls, appeared around them, coming from the trees and bushes. None of them looked older than ten, but their eyes were telling that something else was flowing in their veins, and none of them were as young as they seemed.
"Defensive position!" Lia cried, letting the golden locks free as they jumped back, forming a circle.
"They are using their light spells!" Louise cried out, her eyes blinded by a bright spell invisible to those who did not learn Hajna's technique.
"Let me!" Simbad stepped up, the only one who had not just learned to detect it but could already cast similar spells as he formed a violet-colored light bubble around them, deflecting their unseen attacks.
"..." Lia was watching seriously, holding her chest, feeling the effects of the multiple spells the kids bombarded them with. She felt sick from the start, getting hit by a multiple of them, her stomach upset and close to vomiting out its contents. "I'm good…" She murmured as Aurora touched her back, seeing her going pale.
They couldn't do anything but watch as a few of the youngsters freed their unconscious partner before teleporting away in a hurry.
"What the hell…" Sion panted after they were gone, and Simbad lowered their shields, downing a mana potion at once.
"It has to be a tribe…" Aurora wrote, unable to come up with something concrete.
"A tribe of kids playing assassins? With real, murderous intentions?" Louise grumbled, conflicted by what she experienced just now.
"I don't think they are kids… nor are they fully human," Lia mumbled, biting and licking her lips.
"Are you okay?" Aurora asked again while Sion hurried to cast healing spells on her after reading his fiance's question.
"Kinda, yes. A bit sick, nothing serious." Lia nodded but then smiled at them, "Call in the rest of the Misfits! They made a mistake by taking her away… My ice is still inside her feet, under her skin! Now I know where their village is…"
"Okay, here is what we know!" Lia met with Aurora, Louise, Simbad, and Sion in the early morning when they were about to leave and hut down the invisible attacker. "Our research shows that this isn't an isolated case!"
"So we weren't singled out because of being a Misfit?"
"Nope!" Lia clapped, "This happened multiple times in the past, going back more than four centuries! The people call the jungle there the Death Field!"
"Why weren't we notified of that?!" Louise grumbled, making Lia smile wryly.
"All local people know to avoid that part… except us, so we marched through it and… well, here we are! Look at it this way! We will solve the mystery! So far, thousands of people were affected, turning sick, a good chunk of them dying later from complications."
"With that, we can cross out the idea of it being a kid or some newbie trying to practice a spell." Sion thought out loudly.
"Most certainly." Lia agreed, watching them while they were standing at the northbound gate of their fortress. "So don't hold back if we find the assassin! We are going to get her or him!"
"Dead or alive?" Aurora asked with a small smile.
"Dead or alive! But… if we can, try to go for the alive option?" Lia grinned.
"No promises!" Louise replied first, the most eager in the group.
…
….
……
It took them more than a day to arrive at the edge of the rumored 'Death Field,' cutting through the jungle, sometimes being disturbed by the local wildlife. Even if most beasts could smell their magical energies and keep out of their way, some took their presence as a challenge, trying to scare or straight-up attack them.
"Boss…" Louise moaned, fanning herself with her hand, soaking wet from sweat, "Next time, try to find a less… humid place!"
"Don't worry; I already noted it down for myself!" Lia answered with her own moan, wiping her forehead and cleavage, wearing her shirt tied below her breasts, and letting her stomach show freely. "I'm drenched too, but we are near! Should we camp down or head in?"
"With what we learned, we can detect it either way. It does not matter if it's night or day." Sion replied, then he glanced at Simbad, "And he can also cast it now. The dude is a freak."
"Thank you," Simbad answered, unbothered by his teasing.
"That spell," Louise joined in the discussion, forgetting to complain and sounding excited, "Is something really nasty… I am happy I can now detect it, but I would not try using it!"
"We will have to remind Hajna too about that," Aurora wrote, "She is too eager to share her knowledge. Some things should not be rediscovered!"
"I kinda agree and kinda not," Simbad murmured, tilting his head slightly to the left. "It is good to know about it so we can prepare countermeasures. Come up with solutions to a dangerous predicament. But yes, some spells should not fall into the wrong hands."
"Okay, let's have a ten-minute rest," Lia said, picking out an icepack from her holding bag, rubbing it against her body, shivering with delight, "Then we move on! We will alternate to reserve mana; Louise, you start. After an hour, we switch, and comes Sion, then Simbad! Try to see with your new vision spell if you can pick up on something! If you do, use hand signals only! Don't react too much, okay?"
"We don't want to scare away the prey." Aurora nodded, looking at them singing with her hand, "Point us in the direction and wait for Lia's signal before making a move!"
"Are we going to scan the whole jungle? It is a pretty big part!" Louise asked, looking around the tall trees and thick foliage.
"No, not really." After a sip of water, Lia replied, "We will cut through, close to where you were attacked. Or where we think you were! If nothing, we will do a roundabout way before turning parallel to your original course. If we do not encounter anything for four days, we leave and return two weeks later! We don't want to give away that we know about it."
"Roger!" Louise saluted, much more excited than afraid, especially because she was with the core of the Misfits. Something she always wanted to experience.
…
….
……
For three days, they did not find anything suspicious, but on the fourth, just about when it was time to pack up their camp, Sion signaled with his hands.
"There is an invisible beam aiming directly at Simbad; it follows his movements perfectly."
"Continue as if nothing is happening." Lia communicated with subtle gestures, not stopping to put her tent away.
Simbad, in the meanwhile, circulated his energies in the way Hajna taught them to protect their organs against its effect.
"It switched… now it's targeting me." Sion signed with his fingers while asking out loud, "It seems like it's going to be a hot day, isn't it?"
"Yeah, we should head north; what do you say?" Lia asked back, questioning him from where the beam was coming.
"Yep, sounds good!" Sion nodded.
The moment they were on their way, he followed the beam with his eye, watching it land on every one of them, including Aurora, before it finally settled down on Lia.
"Boss, I think you were right." Sion whistled, saying no more, watching the invisible magic grow in intensity, clearly intending to do harm to her. "It's not a cakewalk at all… the sun's rays are getting hotter and hotter!"
"That is the jungle for ya!" Lia giggled, her senses already spreading far and wide, trying to pick up a clue where their enemy could be. Whoever the culprit was, had to be close by, watching them, guiding his or her spell by either hand or sight. At least, going by Hajna's conjecture.
"Boss," Sion spoke after a few minutes, "Do you remember my invention?"
“I… do…” Lia nodded, knowing he meant his self-made spell of invisibility. "Good head you got on your shoulders!"
She chuckled, giving a hand sign, telling them she found it. The moment Sion brought it up, Lia immediately realized what kind of energy fluctuation she should look for and locked onto her position. Whoever this assassin was, she was not as proficient with invisibility as Sion.
"25 meters northeast." She said, and then with a poof, she was gone.
Their would-be assassin flinched the moment Lia disappeared in a puff of smoke. She simply couldn't believe what she was seeing but also knew something terrible was happening. They did talk weirdly, but… it should be because they were humans.
"Eeep!?" She cried out in her thin, child-like voice when she felt space distorting behind her, and Lia's fair hands stretched out from a ball of the deep, violet ball of smoke as she reappeared.
"Gotcha!"
"Nyah?!" Came a second, frightened yelp as Lia pushed her off the tree she was crouching on, mostly invisible. By the time they crashed into the ground, the spell was broken, and it revealed a young, barely 125 centimeters tall girl with ankle-long, golden, curly hair, and bright, blue eyes. She wore only leaves as clothes on her doll-like, immaculate body that Lia was now sitting on. She forcefully twisted her hands behind her back with her right and pressed the kid's face into the ground with her left.
"Don't even dare to move or cast any spells!"
"I wasn't! I… I am just collecting fruits to eat! Please don't hurt me?! Why have you attacked me? Please don't kill me!" She cried, her eyes welling up with tears, but Lia felt something was off.
"Not an Undead…" She murmured while hearing the bushes rustle and the rest of her team catch up.
"A child?" Louise asked, bewildered.
"We'll see…" Lia murmured, feeling a bit guilty now, kneeling on her spine so hard, but one part of her mind was telling her not to let go or be lenient.
"She does not seem like an Undead… maybe she is mind-controlled?" Louise crouched down, studying her as they surrounded the little girl, who was looking to be in a panicked state.
"Why were you invisible if you are just collecting fruits?" Lia asked, somewhat loosening her grip but not enough to let her try and move.
"I am small! Many big predators eat the smaller ones!"
"Logical…" Simbad murmured but watching her like a hawk. "But now... are you a smaller predator yourself?"
"Nooo... and... It huuuuurts…." She cried pleadingly, and in the end, Lia sighed, stepping off her back, but she regretted it immediately. "Teehee, stupid! You lost; I won!" And with that, she was gone in a puff of smoke.
"Shit!" Sion cried out.
"I got her!" Lia threw a communication jade at him before also teleporting away.
"Eeeh?!" The little girl yelled like a cat whose tail had been stepped on when she saw Lia appear near her. "How?!" She cried, teleporting again, but Lia was keeping up with her.
"I'll get you, and next time, I am going to break your arms and legs!" She said coldly, no longer looking at the fleeing girl as a kid.
"You can't catch me! You can't!" She replied while sticking her tongue out and began to teleport back and forth randomly, as if she was trying to confuse Lia, making her twitch her mouth.
"Is she… stupid?" Lia couldn't help but ask because she was doing nothing but wasting her mana. "Easier for me…"
When the blonde little kid appeared next on the forest floor, proud of her confusion tactics, her feet suddenly felt extremely cold. The next moment, before she could teleport again, her mana slowed considerably, preventing her from gaining enough strength to disappear. Looking down, she saw her feet, up to her ankle, frozen in ice, locked in place.
"Go to sleep!" Lia appeared next to her, delivering a merciless chop at the back of her head, knocking the kid out. Lia caught her by her hair before she could fall forward and break her ankles which were still frozen to the ground by her spell.
"Boss!" Arrived Louise and the rest, panting because of the hot, humid air, running through shrubs and trees to catch up.
"Let's tie her up!"
"Wait!" Simbad raised his hand, and before Aurora could ask what it was, they realized the problem. At least a dozen other small kids, boys, and girls, appeared around them, coming from the trees and bushes. None of them looked older than ten, but their eyes were telling that something else was flowing in their veins, and none of them were as young as they seemed.
"Defensive position!" Lia cried, letting the golden locks free as they jumped back, forming a circle.
"They are using their light spells!" Louise cried out, her eyes blinded by a bright spell invisible to those who did not learn Hajna's technique.
"Let me!" Simbad stepped up, the only one who had not just learned to detect it but could already cast similar spells as he formed a violet-colored light bubble around them, deflecting their unseen attacks.
"..." Lia was watching seriously, holding her chest, feeling the effects of the multiple spells the kids bombarded them with. She felt sick from the start, getting hit by a multiple of them, her stomach upset and close to vomiting out its contents. "I'm good…" She murmured as Aurora touched her back, seeing her going pale.
They couldn't do anything but watch as a few of the youngsters freed their unconscious partner before teleporting away in a hurry.
"What the hell…" Sion panted after they were gone, and Simbad lowered their shields, downing a mana potion at once.
"It has to be a tribe…" Aurora wrote, unable to come up with something concrete.
"A tribe of kids playing assassins? With real, murderous intentions?" Louise grumbled, conflicted by what she experienced just now.
"I don't think they are kids… nor are they fully human," Lia mumbled, biting and licking her lips.
"Are you okay?" Aurora asked again while Sion hurried to cast healing spells on her after reading his fiance's question.
"Kinda, yes. A bit sick, nothing serious." Lia nodded but then smiled at them, "Call in the rest of the Misfits! They made a mistake by taking her away… My ice is still inside her feet, under her skin! Now I know where their village is…"
