Chapter 21: My precious
The mage stepped forward, while the rest circled behind him, holding their swords, knives, and even a bow with an arrow lodged into it. Each one of them was pointed at him, and they looked immensely angry. One of them had gone to look at the dead bodies.
"Boss... They... They died by fire," the man who was checking the bodies gulped. The others glanced at the corpses from the corners of their eyes, and the mage even turned his head to look at them. His eyebrows furrowed, and he entered into contemplation.
He then looked at the young man in the strange full black attire and said, "Sire, I would like to know why a high mage like you attacked us. We have done nothing to warrant such behavior. My name is Charles, and I am a mere mage who hasn’t even reached the Acolyte level."
Aric was surprised by the fire mage’s behavior. He had expected rage about the deaths, but here the mage was trying to negotiate, and from the tone of it, he seemed to be begging a bit. Aric was taken aback by this behavior, but then he realized that he was being feared because he had killed six men and even three with fire itself.
The fire had even blasted holes in their bodies, something even the fire mage couldn’t do, which invoked this kind of reaction.
Aric wanted to speak boldly, but he feared being recognized by his voice, so he remained silent. He glanced at the men for a second and then vanished on the spot. This made the men, and even the kidnapped people who had been regarding him as some kind of messiah, look as if they had seen a ghost.
"He is a high-level dual mage. RUN!" the fire mage shouted, but before anyone could run, the archer who had the arrow and the bow ready felt a light sensation on his chest followed by intense pain from heat.
He felt his body falling and was dead before he could register the last sensation. The bandits went into a frenzy, including the fire mage himself. Each of them ran in different directions while Aric emerged from the other side with a pistol in his hand.
"C’mon, guys. I thought you were powerful," Aric said, imitating an American accent, which came out very poorly. He had to do this to ensure nobody recognized him, and the mask would muffle his voice considerably. Actually, even if he had spoken in his own accent, there would have been nobody to hear him because they were frightened beyond belief.
Aric wasn’t done with them, though. He had vengeance in mind and vanished again. He used the lens and the drones to locate each and every one of them and appeared near where one had run. It became a game of cat and mouse.
The men ran around like headless flies, choosing random directions while Aric appeared and killed them with a shot. Of course, not all of his shots were accurate, and he needed to shoot twice or even thrice at one point to kill one swordsman who tried to maneuver as he realized that this man’s aim was off by quite a bit.