Master of Minds, Master of Me

I peer into the empty canyon. Let's hope my plan goes well. First I need to make sure if there really is an ambush here waiting for me. The easiest way to do this would be to just move the army through and use my illusion magic to hide our presence until we find the people hiding. But that would mean that I would need to tell them about my illusion magic. And I don’t want that. So I need to do this alone. Convincing my troops to wait while I scouted the place was pretty hard. But of course I succeeded in it.

And of course, hiding only my presence and my horse's is much easier too. I have travelled pretty deep in the canyon, but I hadn't noticed any minds nearby. Was I wrong after all?

But not long after that, I spot scheming minds on top of the canyon. They are all in the same spot, which makes dealing with this a little bit easier. I count the minds I can find, twelve. That’s not very many. I guess they trusted too much that their little ambush would be successful. And without my pretty flower, it probably would have been. I let the electricity flow through my muscles and start climbing the cliff. Goddammit, I miss teleportation. How much easier would it be to just teleport up there? I really do hope I will eventually learn to handle my mana more properly. And since my mana handling isn’t very good after the illusion mana came into the picture, I can’t even levitate objects very skillfully. So there goes my option to just levitate myself up there. So climbing it is.

When I reach the top, I walk to find them and their little camp. They seem pretty heavily armed. Every single one of course has bows with them. Probably planning to kill me and my troops with them. It would have been a pretty perfect plan. How easy it would have been just to shoot us down from up here.

But wait. These men are not from here. Their equipment is clearly not from my country. So are they foreigners? How did they get here without anyone noticing? As I watch them, I’m pretty sure they are from Hilver. But the distance from the border to here is too long for them to get here already. So that means they came to our country earlier. And that means that they must have help from the inside. Someone who managed to smuggle them here without anyone noticing.

Duke Callum. Who else? That scheming bastard really is crossing the line. I can understand the fact that he wants the throne. But collaborating with the enemy country? That goes way over the line.

Let’s worry about the Duke later. Now I need to figure out how to kill these bastards. I can’t bring the army up here from the canyon unnoticed. Probably the easiest way is to just make them fall from the cliff. The drop-down is pretty long. They should die from that, or at least be injured that badly so that they are not a threat anymore. But in order to do that, I should somehow manage to get them to stand on the edge at the same time. I'm not that stupid that I would try to fight alone against twelve armed men. So I need to play a little dirty here.

A smile creeps to my face. Oh, this is going to be way easier than I thought. I close my eyes and focus on my magic to create an illusion in their minds. First, I focus on the scout who is constantly watching the canyon. I made him see our small army approaching, me included.

‘’They are coming! Everyone, get ready!’’

And in seconds, they are all stretching their bows to aim at my little imaginary army. I watch them running to the edge, lined up like schoolchildren in a row. So foolish. They are handing themself to me on a silver plate. I kind of feel a little bad for them. Dying by falling into the canyon is probably not the most painless way to die.

They start firing their arrows. Some of them clearly imbue magic in them. I focus on my water, gathering it on top of me. Creating a huge tidal wave above me. I kind of want to say something to them. Making them turn around to see me before their doom. To let them know how easily I just fooled them. But I know you should never joke in battle. You never know what cards the enemy holds. One second of prolonging can always be fatal. So when I’m confident that I have a big enough wave. I just shove it toward them. I slip my electricity in the water, just to make sure they are not able to fight against the water sweeping them down.

And soon, the air is filled with screams as they all get pushed down from the cliff. I run to the edge, watching them fall. There are a couple of people who managed to pull their swords and drag it against the cliff, slowing their fall. I grab my bow and let my electricity into it. I shoot all of the surviving men one by one. It really is pretty damn easy to just shoot from here. They really did have a great plan. Too bad that my pretty flower ruined it for them. My pretty flower really is the best. I should reward her when I get back. I wonder what I should get her? I still don’t know what she actually likes on top of flowers. She doesn’t enjoy luxuries, so I can’t just buy her all the fancy stuff that usually works on women.

Well, I have time to think about it later. Since this was only the beginning. The real war is probably just waiting for us ahead. And there is no time to waste. When I’m confident that not a single body is moving down there, I let out a heavy sigh.

I guess it’s another climbing trip down there. Goddammit. I should really practise more about using my water bubbles to move me around. But that also requires good mana control. But I think using that would be easier than levitating myself.

When I get down, I go fetch my horse and ride where my troops are waiting. And I find them just before the entrance to the canyon.

‘’Your Highness! Are you okay?’’

‘’Well I am here, aren’t I?’’ I smile at them. ‘’Come on, let’s go. There is some trash to pick up on the way.’’

‘’Trash?’’

‘’You’ll see.’’

I turn my horse back at the canyon and ride forward, and hear their horses and the carriage following me. When we reach the corpses, I jump off my horse.

‘’Go through the corpses. Try to find any evidence of how they got here. Sir Miro, you can teleport, right?’’

‘’Yes, Your Highness. Not pretty far though.’’

‘’Can you teleport up there?’’ I point out the top of the cliff.

‘’Yes.’’

‘’Their camp is there. Go search it, see if you can find anything. Let’s put anything we can find in the carriage and send it back to the palace.’’

‘’So that’s why we have the carriage with us?’’

‘’Yes.’’

‘’How did you know there would be an ambush?’’

‘’Little flower told me about it.’’ I smile widely.

‘’You mean little bird?’’

‘’What bird?’’ I ask, confused.

‘’The saying? Doesn’t it go that the little bird told me?’’

I just chuckle at him, and he looks confused. ‘’This one was definitely not a bird. But never mind that, go up there and bring everything you find back here.’’

‘’Yes, your Highness.’’

I watch him vanish and look at the knights collecting the bodies.

‘’Your Highness. This one is still alive.’’

Oh? That’s actually pretty convenient. ‘’Give him the sleep potion, bind him up, and put him in the carriage. Let’s hope he is willing to talk.’’

‘’Your Highness?’’

I lift my eyes to one of the knights. ‘’Yes?’’

‘’May I ask how you killed them all? There are no signs of fighting in you.’’ They all turn their heads to look at me. Probably pretty curious what I did.

‘’I was just pretty lucky. I just dropped them from the cliff with my water. They were all so focused on scouting for us to appear that they didn’t see it coming at all.’’

They all turn their heads to look at the cliff high above.

‘’Oh… I see…’’

‘’Okay, end of the story time boys. Back to work. We need to hurry.’’

They all scramble to finish the job. I really do hope we can find some evidence this time against Duke Callum. If I could just get rid of him, I could focus on my pretty flower even better.

I hope she will stumble upon my hidden spells that I left her already. I can’t wait to know how she will act or talk to my illusions. I want to see her already. But I know this trip is going to take some time. And I hate how I’m not able to dance with her. But some stupid guards are going to do that. This timing really is the worst possible. And next week my meeting with the candidates is supposed to start. But I highly doubt that I will be back then. Partly it is a good thing. Since I have no interest in getting to know any of them. Since I will do everything to make my pretty flower my Queen. But first things first.

Let’s focus on getting near the border and deal with Hilver.