Chapter 249: Dealt

The leader was readying his weapon in preparation to attack along with his underlings. He wasn't planning on letting go of a clear advantage by ganging up on the boy. When it came to the mission, he would do anything without considering morals. There was no space for things like that in his work.

He took out a rapier from his dimensional ring and looked ahead at the two who had almost reached Leo. As he was about to lunge forward and close the gap between him and Leo, he noticed a ball of energy forming in Leo's hands.

The ball was pretty small, but the energy it radiated seemed to instill fear in him even though he was a couple dozen meters away. The energy that was already powerful didn't seem to stop growing, making the ball bigger.

The two attacking Leo noticed this as well and were backing away from him, but they didn't have enough time.

"Fire Nova," Leo unleashed the spell prematurely before it could accumulate its full strength.

A massive eruption of intense flames radiated outward in a wave-like fashion from Leo, engulfing everything in its path. The two attackers couldn't escape in time, falling prey to the hungry flames. The heat from the attack almost reached the leader and Mira but just fell short before dying out.

When the flames disappeared, the two charred bodies on the ground became visible to the leader. He gripped his weapon in fear as he looked up at the source of the flames.

"You... you are a mage!" He shouted in shock. "What is a Viscount like you interfering in our mission? We should have been informed if the Grand Duke enlisted someone like you to guard his granddaughter."

He started muttering to himself after his initial shock. Leo shook his head and took a step forward, frightening the leader.

When he saw Leo walk toward him, he quickly thought of a way to escape. His eyes fell on the girl who was lying on the ground 7 meters away from him. He lunged toward her to take her as a hostage.

"Shadow Step."

Before he could reach her, Leo traveled through the shadows in the blink of an eye and appeared in front of Mira. The leader instinctively attacked Leo who had appeared in front of him with his sword, only to have it blocked by a magic shield.

"Intermediate Arcane Shield."

The leader jumped back when his first attack failed and tried to continue with another attack. He gathered all of his aura into his thin blade and tried to pierce the shield but only managed to create a small crack in it.

"Shadowbind Bolt."

A bolt of dark energy streaked through the air, homing onto him. It hit him in his chest and released a burst of shadowy tendrils that surged outward, ensnaring him. The tendrils wrapped around him, binding him tightly and restricting his movements.

He tried to wriggle his way out of it while pushing his aura outward to break the tendrils. While he was doing so, he noticed that the tendrils were?draining his strength. The tendrils only managed to last a couple of seconds before he broke free.

But by the time he broke out of them, a red tendril pierced him in the chest. He looked down with confusion. The tendril was made of aura, the aura of a 3rd Circle Aura Knight.

"What is this? You were supposed to be a mage," he managed to whisper a few words with his remaining strength.

The tendril faded away, allowing the leader's body to drop to the ground. Leo was about to walk to the girl, but Nefrati stopped him.

"Wait, the leader is still alive. Try asking him who it is trying to kidnap the girl," she said.

Leo was confused for a second before realizing why that was a good idea. He crouched down next to the leader and asked him the question.

"So, since you are almost dead, can you tell me who it is that's after the girl?"

"Fu... fuck off," The leader muttered.

"I tried," He shrugged while peeling off the leader's dimensional ring off his hand. He got up and turned around while shooting another tendril at the leader, this time into his face.

As he walked toward Mira, he looked into the contents of the ring. There wasn't much - a million Starcoins, a book, and a token. The sole weapon he owned was with his corpse.

"So, what now?" He asked Nefrati.

"Just give the ring to the Grand Duke. They should be able to investigate. After that, you should distance yourself from the matter entirely. Until you are strong enough to be part of the discussion at least."

"You're right. I'll keep the money though," he said. He transferred the money into the ring on his left index finger before wearing the one he just got on his right index finger.

"Now we can just walk to the capital until some amazing person decides to go on this route and give me a ride," he sighed as he walked to the corpse beside Mira. He took the corpse's dimensional ring as well before walking to Mira. They were the only two rings that still survived. His attacks burned the other three rings so badly that it broke them.

"Why don't you just use the horses?" Nefrati asked with curiosity as Leo lifted the unconscious body of Mira.

"Didn't you see at the academy? I can't use my aura with these horses for some reason. The Headmaster had to use his magic to control them. Even if there are 5 perfectly behaved Magical Beasts in front of me, I can't use them at all. Fuck my life," he cursed.

"No no, that's because you are using blood aura. The horses are innately afraid of it. You are going to be fine if you just use your magic to intimidate them," she said in response.

Leo was surprised.

"No way! Why didn't you tell me this before?" He asked her.

"What were you going to do? Use your magic in front of everyone? I thought that was the reason you didn't try using your magic," she said.

He chuckled in response. "Yeah, you are right. Let me try your idea," he said.

Leo walked up to the closest horse with Mira in his arms. He suppressed all the aura he had and only released his magic. The minute he did, all the horses around him that were restless immediately stopped moving.

He jumped up and landed on the back of the horse in front of him. Once he was seated comfortably, he let down Mira onto the horse. He made her sit in front of him in such a way that her unconscious body would lean back onto him without falling off the horse. When they were in position, he wrapped his hands around her and took over the reins to the horse.

He turned the horse around in the direction of the capital. Before leaving, he took a look back to see if he was forgetting anything. All that was left behind were a few corpses and nothing of value. Cleaning up wasn't his problem. He was leaving that to whoever was using the road after him.