A Precarious Situation

Stepping out of the carriage, the composed and calm Teresa is nowhere to be seen. Instead, her face of shock becomes a face of horror as she sees the corpses of her guards, as well as the destruction of the forest.

"Who- how- what happened?" Teresa says, nearly falling backward, catching herself on the door of the carriage.

"We were attacked by a group of people, the guards and I were able to defeat them. Simple as that." After those words leave my mouth, Teresa's eyes dart around, eventually landing on the eldest guard.

Instantly, Teresa pushes past me and sprints towards the guard.

"No! Not you!" She yells, placing her palms on the back of the already cold corpse.

"Holy Lords who govern light. Holy Lords who gift us sight. Grace our souls with your might, blessings upon this sacred ground. We are unfit without your grace, we are unfit without your guide. See upon this hallowed earth that we deserve to leave our plight. Open our eyes and cleanse our souls, but only once we've passed. Push that day of reckoning back, I beg our merciful lord." As she continued her extremely long chant, Teresa's body began to glow brighter and brighter. At this point, my body has become so sensitive to mana that I can feel the insane amount being poured into the corpse. "Restore this man unto his prime so he may finish his fight. Unending Recovery." At the end of her paragraph-like chant, Teresa collapsed.

It's something I know well, as it was covered in every medical and magical textbook that I've ever read.

Healing magic, even at the highest levels, cannot revive the dead.

Based on how long that chant was, that may be a healing spell above Legate tier. However, even with that huge influx of healing mana and light, the corpse of the old guard still lies cold.

It's not like I could have stopped her, when a person is grieving it's best to let them work it out themselves. Walking over to the now cold and passed-out Teresa, I pick her up and set her into the carriage.

That was the plan anyway, but it's hard carrying a huge lump of dead weight. I could probably do it, but this would be easier.

"Surge! Get down here and help me, I need to carry Teresa into the cart and clean up these corpses." I yell, continuing the drag the corpse.

Yet no reply came.

"Surge?" I yell, the panic in my chest rising.

Did I miss something? Did I miss someone?

Dropping Teresa like a bag of sand I immediately dash towards the carriage, launching myself at the top of the carriage with wind magic.

Right through the hole, I left open in the side of the ice dome.

No.

Landing at the top of the carriage, Surge is nowhere to be seen.

Until I look down.

No.

Lodged right in the middle right of her chest, is an arrow.

I forgot to close the hole I made in the ice dome when I jumped out of the top of the carriage. There were barely ten seconds between when I made the hole and covered the carriage with a dome of stone.

Which is more than enough for that archer. She shot me when she was half dead, with barely any time to aim too.

No.

Placing my hands on Surge's chest, I funnel healing mana at my maximum output into her.

I've already healed her and I like this before. Chanting is really needed for me to cast, and it's not as if I remember that insanely long chant.

No, I can't think of that right now.

More. I need more mana output. More mana, denser, faster!

Pressing down harder and harder, I can do nothing but focus on pushing out as much mana as possible. I've never had my mana drained like this before, not this much, and not this fast.

After only ten seconds, and a near blinding amount of green light pouring out of my hands, I can feel that I've already burned through about ten percent of my total mana.

More.

Double, triple, quadruple the output.

I don't care how much my arms and hands feel like they're about to fall off.

After twenty more seconds, rapidly increasing the output, a deep chill I haven't felt in a long time shivers through my body.

It doesn't matter.

I can always recover mana.

Within the next twenty seconds, after almost a full minute of healing magic, I feel my body collapse.

--- Point of View Teresa Delarus ---

I wake up, my body aching from the mana abuse. I shouldn't have used that spell, not in front of the brat, but I couldn't think straight.

Standing up and dusting myself off, it looks like I was dragged about halfway back to the carriage and left here.

Glancing back, I could see the body of Lord Darius still lying cold. I knew deep down he was already dead, but I couldn't help it.

After Clarence took the throne, I've been given borderline suicidal missions under the guise of 'expanding our influence'. Each and every time he gives me squads of the worst guards he can get his grubby mitts on, and every time Lord Darius stepped up to act as my one true defender.

But this is unexpected.

He must be getting nervous and impatient, but I never would have guessed he'd hire assassins capable of taking out a swordsman ranked Dux in both the offensive Drago style and defensive Dano style.

I can understand his worry, and understand his need to get rid of me, but he must have drained a large sum of money to hire a group skilled enough to take out Lord Darius.

But I'm assuming me meeting the monster duo was out of his calculations.

Thankfully, after my mission here, I'll have more than enough support within the kingdom to take my rightful spot on the throne, then have him hung for treason.

The people of the kingdom already hate him, and most of them by now support me. As soon as I succeed in establishing connections with the royals of this country, the Nobles Court will have no choice but to recognize me as the true monarch.

Especially if I bring along with me a prize they could never expect. A poor orphan boy, who was captured by Tiamat's. I discovered his genius-level magical abilities, and cultivated them alongside my mission, bringing in a magician of immense caliber with zero political or shady background.

It's almost too good to be true.

Well, that's because it is, but they don't have to know that.

The Tiamat brat is one thing, but the boy is another. He's not a Tiamat, but it's just not possible that he's human. No human at the age of three should be able to kill a C-rank monster. No human at whatever his age may be now should be able to affect a battlefield to this degree either. This is obviously at minimum high-end Dux tier magic.

Yet he claimed to be a human, before badly lying about being a demonoid.

Then, he introduced himself as a Tiamat, yet that was another lie I could feel flowing from his mouth. The only time he wasn't putting on airs was when he had claimed himself as human.

Could he simply be a genius? Or is he some sort of demonoid, and doesn't know?

Either way, that brat is dangerous and too clever for his own good.

If I'm going to use him, I need to be extremely careful.

Actually, looking around, I can't seem to find him or his 'sister' anywhere.

Are they back in the top of the carriage? I can tell it's been about an hour since I passed out from using too much mana at one time, so it's entirely possible they've already left.

But then why would he maintain the ice dome?

Also, when did he create the domes? I didn't hear him chant once.

Climbing up the ladder in the back of the carriage, I skirt my way around the edge of the dome, stepping into the hole he made in the side.

There, I see the mage boy collapsed over his sister, an arrow wound still fresh in her heart.

I could tell from my own spell, but the arrows were coated in poison. Without purification magic, both the girl and Darius were dead as soon as they were struck. Not to mention the beautiful placement of arrows.

If they didn't already try to kill me, I would have hired at least the archer myself.

Either way, I move the young mage into my carriage and use a simple spell to shatter his ice dome. It seems he ran himself out of mana trying to save his sister, how quaint.

Picking up the Tiamat's body, I place it next to Darius. It's a shame really, I would have loved to employ one of the legendary Devil Spirits, but there's nothing I can do now.

Placing my hand forward, I chant the Dominus tier spell 'Flamethrower' and destroy the corpses unceremoniously.

So long, my oldest retainer.

I'm sure you'd want me to continue marching forward.