Unsealing Emptiness

“No, I will meet him later.” saying that, Clara turned around and started walking back to her cabin, but not before giving a long and deep look towards Raven.

‘Who is she? And what is her relation with him?’ Clara thought in her mind. She couldn’t help but compare herself to Raven.

The most fortunate or unfortunate, Venessa was finally relieved of the pressure that was pressing onto her a moment ago.

Venessa took that as a cue for her to leave. She hurried behind Clara with her legs still shaking. However, no one could ever know if her legs were shaking because she was terrified or due to something else.

Ozul had retracted his bloodlust only after Clara had gone away. But even he was stunned to feel the mix of emotions from Venessa.

‘What a weird woman. She was enjoying that!?’ Ozul had sensed fear from her alright, but there was also the emotion of ecstasy in Venessa when he targeted her!

.....

“Whatever...” A couple of moments later, he just shrugged it off. It had nothing to do with him anyway, so he closed his eyes.

He had aimed his bloodlust at Venessa the moment he felt that she was going to attack Blaze. He couldn’t let that happen since Blaze was only a Rank-5 mage, it could have seriously injured him.

For him, who could feel the emotions of others, it wasn’t hard to project his bloodlust on others. At least not when he had killed hundreds of people while working with Count Oliver.

Some of the mercenaries had noticed this little scene. But even among them, none of them felt when Ozul had directed his bloodlust at Venessa.

As always, Sir Hanry was hiding near Clara to protect her from any dangers. However, as trained as he was in the art of protecting, even he couldn’t notice anything.

Only when Venessa had suddenly stopped in the middle of her sentence did he feel a little odd about the situation, but he had no reason to intervene just based on this.

Even if he did intervene, he wouldn’t have been able to stop anything despite the fact that the bloodlust would have had less of a paralyzing effect on Hanry.

Other men, such as Clive and his team of hidden mages were even more clueless. However, they didn’t care since nothing noteworthy had happened anyways.

Ozul spent the rest of his night in the tent. If he wanted to, he could come out anytime without being found out by Clara, but there was no reason for him to do so. All he could do was look at people, and sleeping was much better than looking at people.

There was no meeting that night. Since the mercenaries already knew what they were going to do, Clive would just occasionally talk with the famous mercenary leaders such as Barry or Orsella.

The night passed, and morning came.

Instinctively, no weak beast dared to even come near the convoy while there were no stronger ones in this forest.

It was the third day of their journey, and Ozul repeated his routine. He would check up on the situation once in a while before going back to sleep.

Unlike before, on this day, a group of rank-5 Beasts led by a rank-6 Earth Golem attacked the convoy!

Most of the mercenaries had never seen an Earth Golem. Despite being only at the initial stage, the Earth Golem’s skin was as hard as any other monster at the peak stage of rank-6.

Known mostly because of his tough defense, the Earth Golem was a pretty rare monster. And unlike what others would expect from a golem, this rank-6 monster was almost as intelligent as a human.

However smart it may have been, the Earth Golem was not intelligent enough not to attack the convoy.

The group of rank-5 beasts under the Earth Golem’s command were some random beasts such as the Fire Snakes or the Razor Wolves.

It seemed that this horde of beasts was desperate for something nutritious and when the monsters felt the convoy’s presence, they came rushing in without thinking too much.

The Rank-6 mages immediately stepped up when they saw that the Earth Golem was a rank-6 as well. No matter how many rank-5 mages attacked, the winner would always be the rank-6.

So, the rank-6 mercenaries did not waste any time and directly attacked the Earth Golem.

Of course, even a single rank-6 mage would have been enough to deal with the monster. However, Clive gave them the order to finish it quickly.

The monster horde which could have destroyed whole towns by itself was killed in less than a few minutes by the joint attack from the mercenaries.

The mercenaries wanted to pick up the loot, but Clive was impatient as he shouted, “Hurry up! We don’t have the time to pick up this rubbish!”

‘Rubbish!? You call these rank-5 beasts’ corpses trash!?’ All the mercenaries had the same thoughts as they cursed Clive in their hearts.

However, no one had the courage to go against his orders. Some who had Spatial Rings with enough space immediately stored some of the loot before scurrying off.

Barry was a rank-7 mage, he found it beneath him to act against the rank-6 beast when others could easily perform the task too.

So after him, Orsella was the strongest among the mercenaries. She was also the one to store the Earth Golem’s corpse.

The members of Blue Petals looked smug after obtaining the corpse while Brud, who was the vice leader of Wind Eagles, could only watch in anger and envy.

For these mercenaries, doing odd jobs was the only source of their income. And it wasn’t always that they would encounter a rank-6 monster. To find them, they would have to venture into places that would endanger their lives.

And many were not willing to take the risk. So this rank-6 corpse was like a piece of a pie that they would rarely ever get their hands on.

While this was happening, the trio didn’t take part in the battle at all. Some of the mercenaries noticed this and complained, but Clive turned a blind eye to it since he didn’t want to mess with Ozul.

“Hmph! Fools. They are just digging their own graves at this rate,” Clive muttered as he looked at the mercenaries complaining about the action of the trio.

Unlike them, Clive had inside information. Moreover, he had heard the details from Rufus. So he was aware that Ozul was not there due to some rich background.

Furthermore, Rufus had also explained to him what could have actually happened in the event where Duke Edwin supposedly died protecting his men against some monster. And he wasn’t taking chances with a guy of that caliber.

Even on the 3rd day of their travel, the convoy did not reach the Old Whispering Woods. The sun began to set after they had found a place to set up the camps again.