Chapter 148: Book 3 Chapter 18: Opportunists

Aerien’s POV

After Sagel reverted back to his natural form, he, Rolwen, and Gaerien took up something of a triangle guard formation. Rolwen was facing toward Levin and the caged imp, Sagel was facing toward where Logrim and the elves were spotted, and Gaerien was facing the open desolated plains that ended in the edge of the scar that bordered human territory. The only portion of the Heaven’s Scar that was not surrounded by dense forest.

Sagel looked on with a wrinkled brow as all of us except for Gaerien were keeping at least one eye on where Sarafon had come down to intercept the three, waiting to see what would happen with them. Even Levin who was well out of ear-shot of the rest of our group seemed too occupied with them to do his monitoring job properly.

“That’s… not good.” Sagel said as he was the quickest to respond when we Sarafon turn toward us, magically lifting all three members of the little group as he took off in our direction with a look of urgency. The plan was supposed to be that he would give us a nod if the three were going to stay back and we were clear to go, or look down at Logrim and then at us if there were a problem and he was going to come meet us during the experiment. For this, however. This was not in the plan, and it suggested something far more urgent than I could have ever imagined. “I believe we are going to have to postpone this experiment.” Sagel commented.

“LEVIN!!!” Rolwen suddenly shouts with a great deal of urgency. We all glance in his direction in time to see that two new figures have shown up near him. It’s too far to make out any details, but it’s clear enough they have begun attacking him.

I begin moving immediately. My flight can allow me to arrive faster than anyone here.

“NO!” Sagel yells. “He is bait! They are trying to lure you!”

Yes, he is probably right. But… that doesn’t mean I can just callously leave Levin to their mercy. Damn it! How in the deepest pits of hell did they know what we would be doing!?

As I approached, two things became clear rather quickly. The first was that these two individuals were wearing strange red fabrics, covering every inch of their skin with the exception of their eyes, making them into some kind of red-colored ninjas. An echo of a memory came up in my mind at this. These were the same people who apparently attacked and forced Dryad, the one now calling her self Sefirot, to retreat and flee the entire elven forest all together!

The second thing was that with a few gestures of their hands, the stone ground they had pinned Levin to was moving like a living thing and latching on to Levin’s arms and legs. One of the pair was pinning Levin to the ground while the other was using the stone to bind him.

These are those deep gnomes Logrim warned me about! No two ways about it!

Fine then! If my enemy is a user of magic, I have the perfect solution! This will likely kill that slimy imp, we can get another guanine pig for this test!

I eyed the ground suspiciously. There could easily be more of them hiding right beneath the surface. Well, if they are, they’re about to be trapped down there. I lowered myself to hovering around five feet off the ground as I began to focus on the image of the gate of heaven closing. “When the heaven’s gate is closed, all miracles shall cease.” I mutter the first line of the chant I developed for this effect. A chant is not strictly necessary, but the aid it gives to focus is even more powerful for a modification to my meditation like this than it would ever be for what this world recognizes as a formal magic spell.

After that first line was spoken, I felt the sense of temporary vertigo as the robe holding me up ceased to function as the magic feeding it was stripped away by the void gate that had remained open. I only just barely managed to land on my feet on the barren uneven bedrock. I stumbled a few steps, and Sagel landed some distance behind me, skidding to a stop as he lost the magic he was using in his dragon form to follow me. He was already transforming back to his natural form, and managed to get his feet under him pretty well as he broke into a sprint.

Well, there would be no reinforcement from either side now. Sarafon could not approach anymore, but any reinforcements they might have hiding underground can’t join in either. I glanced to the side in time to see Sarafon had dropped his three passengers and was now making a bee-line for Isanil’s crown. Well, looks like the game now is to stall until the full force of the fey court can get down here.

I felt a spike of intent from the enemy’s direction. It was the ping that could only be described as incited to action when one sees the opening they are looking for. I instantly cursed myself for taking my eyes off of them, and when I looked back I saw the one who had been crouching on top of Levin was now running straight toward us. I quickly assessed this threat. While still covered in that red fabric, this one also wore shoulder guards and gauntlets that seemed to be made of some rusty colored banded mail, the matte dirty red strips of metal were set in such a way that they guarded exactly the most important and vital locations. In addition, they also wore a single firm breastplate made of the same material, and the way the fabric of their hood sat I was pretty certain that they had some kind of head protection under that veil as well.

There was one last thing that occurred to me. They were a lot shorter than a normal gnome if I can use Logrim as any sort of bench-mark. I couldn’t get a clear picture under these conditions, but they actually seemed like they might be shorter than me even!

Whatever the case though, this guy’s decked out for hand-to-hand combat. And here I am unarmed. Well, that’s not entirely true, but my only weapon is not really made for formal combat. But, hey. Sagel may have proven again and again that my previous life training in traditional combat is soft compared to this world, but my style does specialize in one thing. That’s the use of unconventional weapons.

I would have to time this. It was going to be better to have this person think I’m completely unarmed. Just as I was thinking this, I saw the other guy reach for his belt and draw what must be a short blade. In that motion, I also saw them loose their step slightly as their mind diverted to their weapon.

I couldn’t help a grin from forming. This person was an amateur in personal combat. But, even so, them having a weapon just made things serious. Gaps in training shrink by a wide margin once the sharp things come out.

Well, at least it’s not guns.

I didn’t need to see the shape of the weapon to know what I was doing. I could see from how it was moving it was a small blade, probably with a significant curve to allow the sheath to curve around the wielder’s body. They were drawing it in a reverse grip, that would limit the manner in which they could attack.

They had stopped approaching as soon as they were a couple arm lengths away from me, and I could see the panic in their eyes when they realized that I wasn’t stopping. The knife was drawn and they were trying to hold it up across their body. But, defensive stances don’t work well with a reverse grip. I simply placed one hand gently on the hand that was holding the knife in order to control their weapon, and then my other hand came forward with a palm strike at the armored amateur red-ninja’s nose.

My hand smacked into them, causing the head to snap back, and then I started curling my fingers to rake the face and attempt to gouge their eyes.

“Ahh! Jhss…!” A very young girl sounding voice came from my assailant as she began to flail with the knife and clamped a hand around my wrist as she went back, knocked onto her rear, and pulled me down with her.

Not good!

I twisted myself to avoid the wildly flailing knife and landed while planting my knee into her breastplate covered gut.

Shit! Note to self, M.C.M.A.P. is not a good combat style to use against medieval armor! That will teach me to cross-train with marines.

Her grip was also still strong on my wrist! I had to break free in this moment where she was stunned. I twisted my wrist into her thumb, the weak-point in anyone’s grip, and… shit! Way too strong! She’s not good at fighting, but what’s with this girl’s strength!? She was starting to get her bearings. I had to strike back now!

I reached into my robe, covering my movement behind my struggles, and found the molded smooth lump of stone Logrim had given me way back when I’d first started these diplomatic ventures. The stone concealing the flame-forged iron spike, designed to poisonous to fey and as such it is the ultimate insult for a fey to take such an object and drive into the bark of a dryad. The ultimate statement of discontent, and guaranteed to be shocking to any member of the Cundo-associated dryads if I were to take such an action. Fortunately, I’d never had need to draw since it was given to me.

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Until now.

I felt the tension in my entire body rise as I drew the weapon, a simple iron spike with a stone head, more like a long nail than anything made for battle. Meanwhile, my attacker had managed to roll over and was holding the knife threateningly over me.

“Stop! I’ll cut you!” She said in a shaky voice that sounded almost like she was begging. Something screamed at the back of my mind that there was something wrong, but for now the only thing in my mind was getting that dagger out of my face.

As soon as she raised her arm, it opened up one of the prevented targets that decades of training had trained me to aim for. The arm-pit, a spot in the joints where the armor is weak. My arm lashed out and my iron spike found it’s target. My attacker gasped as the piece of metal was driven up into her shoulder joint, ripping apart the ligaments inside.

I took advantage of that momentary shock to deliver a heavy kick right up into her chin with all my strength, and then I twisted around and drove my knee into her fore-arm, pulled with my arm to put her wrist into a bent position in order to forcibly shorten the ligaments responsible for flexing the fingers while pulling against the ligaments responsible for lengthening them. It is possible to fight against this and flex with a weak fist anyway, but in my attacker’s shocked state her fingers let go of my wrist on their own without me needing to do much else.

Just for good measure, I kicked her in the face again. Just to keep her worried about me for a second longer as I got myself back to a standing position.

I quickly took stock of how things were developing as I got to my feet. The assailant who ran at me was yelling in pain by now and clutching her side. Sagel was almost here, he would be able to deal with this one for now, I didn’t have to worry about her anymore. And as for the other assailant who stayed with Levin… No!

I felt as though my blood had turned to ice water for the half second when I saw the other one pull their own knife, and then kneel down over Levin, holding the blade with a slow and smooth motion toward his neck while the assailant looked up to meet my gaze. There was still a lot of distance between myself and them, there was nothing I could do to close that distance before it was too late.

“Wait! I’m from Earth!” I heard the red-veiled girl I’d just left on the ground grunt out in a pained voice.

A deliberate distraction. I could see it for what it was. They were trying to throw me off my game. All it managed to do was make me mad. I wondered for a moment whether I should give her another kick to the head. After what they were doing, I honestly failed to see how such a thing would make a difference.

Well, it did explain one thing. This was why she was so small, and also bad at fighting. She couldn’t have been older than 5 years old. I just fought a child. A child who was stupidly strong for some reason!

No, her reason for saying that was obvious. I could see the curious look Sagel was casting between me and this child now. They wanted to leave us wondering what to do with her for whatever was about to happen next. He would have decapitated her in a second if she hadn’t just yelled that. He probably would still if I ordered it, and I knew I should do exactly that, but… between her obvious inexperience and our shared common origin, it really did make me hesitate on the obvious best course of action.

Great. Well, at least that injury I gave her seemed to leave her in no condition to fight. One arm was left useless, and the other was clutching at the wound to her shoulder.

“Don’t take the spike out, you’ll bleed out.” I told her. There. With that, at least we will be in the same boat in terms of tied hands on this subject. This freed me up to look up to the other threat looming over Levin.

[Hehe,] the veiled assailant chuckled with the dagger held to Levin’s neck as he struggled against his stone bonds, staring at the blade in fear. [It really is incredible, just like our lord said.] The masculine voice of the second attacker said. [A spell that cancels the use of all other magic. The arcane energy around here’s already almost fully disappeared, and if I try to cast my bloodline spells the mana is just swept away before it can even do anything useful. You truly are something that can become a great weapon with the right training, princess. Our lord would like to speak with you. We have arranged for a procession, but… you will have to release your magic before they can arrive.]

So, there really are more of these gnomes waiting down there? Must be pretty tough for them to be stuck in whatever earth pocket they sealed themselves into without the ability to do anything. Well, with that confirmed, all the more reason to stall him until the entire defense committee has filled the sky. Gotta keep him talking.

[Your lord, is it?] I ask, taking a few measured steps closer. Not enough to significantly close the distance, but good enough to get me out of this new Earth child’s threat range. [You will have to forgive me, I have been too occupied with our recent threat of an instability among the dryads since my adoption into royalty. Normally, I suspect the diplomacy committee would have had a stronger hand in my education, but at present I am unfamiliar with foreign powers. As such, I am unfamiliar with the lord of the deep gnomes. I feel it would be rude of me to appear before your liege without first knowing his name.]

[A lot of words, princess.] The deep gnome hissed. [Too many, I would say.] After saying that, I felt my heart drop as I watched the man lift his dagger. I had a moment of panic as I took a few running steps and had to watch as the blade was brought down viciously on Levin’s shoulder, cutting through the joint with a malice that seemed to be in retribution for the damage I had done to the partner this man had brought.

Levin let out a blood-curdling scream as he was dealing with the pain of the debilitating injury he was just given. After doing enough damage to make Levin’s arm completely useless, he ripped his blade back out and held it once again to Levin’s neck and met my eyes.

[Stop right there or I slit the boy’s throat!] The man said, glaring up at me. I chanced one more step before I started scrambling to break my momentum. Even with that risk though, I had only gotten about six good running steps in, which closed less than half the distance.

[Now then, we both know exactly what you are doing princess. I will not allow you the time you are trying to buy for yourself. You have until the count of five to release your spell. One]

Shit! The poor training that last girl had threw me off my guard, but this guy’s definitely not messing around!

[Two.]

[Three.]

Well, Sagel DID say magic was my strong suit. Let’s see if it’s enough to take on the greatest earth elemental mages in this world.

[Four.]

[Alright!] I said, and then focused on the feel of my meditation returning to it’s natural state.

“Aerien! Don’t!” Sagel warned.

“With Heaven’s gate open, let the miracles rain upon the Earth.” I chanted, solidifying the transition in my mind.

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