Fear Not The Elf Who Knows 10,000 Spells - Chapter 20

Finding from Mr. Gerwin that Kolmar was there when Schroff was ambushed was easy enough. Same with finding the guard, as I already felt his

Finding from Mr. Gerwin that Kolmar was there when Schroff was ambushed was easy enough.

Same with finding the guard, as I already felt his mana signature and followed him.

"Kolmar." I called out.

"Huh? Kid," he acknowledged me with a nod. "Something happen? Schroff, okay?" He said with a glare, not aimed at me, but just the whole situation.

"He's sleeping." I said back to calm down his nerves that something bad might happen. He nodded, his shoulders relaxing slightly but still mostly tense. Mentally on duty. "I wanted to ask you, you saw the assassin, right?"

"Yeah, sneaky skinny bitch. Just sudden came out of nowhere, in the middle of the street, while Schroff was with me and the other guards on our way to the mayor's house to organize on what to do in case the Coalition tries to get here in a couple of days." He sighed with a growl. "From what you said, turns out we don't even have that."

"The assassin, you got a good look at her?" I asked, sure he probably had an idea on what she looked like. At least he should be able to point out what she was wearing.

If the attack was a few hours ago... No, that's stupid, anyone competent would just change clothes. But if I know a general look for her, that can narrow down the search when I look for people with above average mana levels compared to however old she looks.

"Kid, I get that you're pissed about old Schroff, but let it go. And hide that you're a mage of Schroff's apprentice. It seems the Coalition is sending these assassins to take out any mage in a town before their army reaches them. Meaning, you're a target too." Kolmar said, a rough edge in his tone, even while giving advice. "Besides, there was this weird thing about her where Schroff's magic stopped working when she got close. Your magic ain't gonna help you any better than it helped Schroff!" He said harshly, almost looking like he regret saying that for a second.

But I didn't care. He told me enough.

During the past months where I went to fight the Ancient Einsam in its tunnel, I learned a few things. My mental resistance and defense improved. As did my mana detection along with the use of the danger sensing spell.

I fought it almost everyday. Rope was always strengthened with magic, and I focused on that connection, to make sure that I always know the way out.

Yeah, in a sense I was playing with a monster outside of it's strike zone, but that didn't mean the battles weren't hard.

Most importantly, the one skill I improve on the most was mana reading. To tell what the ebbs and flow of mana were, their fluctuations and changes. All of that lead to me being able to read a magic I was exposed to long enough that I could copy it.

Not perfectly but good enough. I think, hope, with time this would be a more instantaneous ability.

I weaved my mana into a find thread, activated Jilwer, jumped (damn everyone being taller than me), and before Kolmar could react I tapped his forehead.

"W-what the hell, brat!?" Kolmar said out loud, frowning in annoyance.

The link formed, I couldn't control what I saw, or brought out. Not and I'm not sure if I wanted to practice this, but I primed the guard with the conversation we just had. So naturally the image of the assassin was up front in his mind.

"This is what she looked like, right?" I said, weaving my mana into an image of the woman.

"Oi! Wait, the hell?" Kolmar shouted thinking the assassin reappeared before taking her ghostly still appearance and realizing it's just a fake image. "By the Goddess, kid, how did you...?"

"Right. You recognize her. It's her?" I asked one last time to be sure before I hunted.

Red hair, a black cloak covering her black clothes. All made of hardened leather meant to work as light armor, rather than clothes against the cold. She had a round-ish face that had lost it's fat and innocence and brown eyes.

"Y-Yeah." Kolmar said. "Creepy mage shit." He said under his breath.

Another notable detail, the assassin wore necklace with a shining—

Oh.

That's how she shut down Schroff's magic when she ambushed him.

Hmm, okay then.

I cast mana detection with full sight through it.

===x===

Pétze, the Rogue POV:

The red haired assassin jumped from another building, finally landing on the streets below.

Evading the town guards was easy work that didn't require much effort. The problem is still the mission. She had managed to get all the mages found within Ackerheim. All are already incapacitated, and within a day dead.

She even managed to get the tribesman whom the Elves Shield had an eye on, according to the intelligence gathered by Vizegraf Gierig spies that masqueraded as merchants passing by these towns.

The problem was the tribesman apprentice. The boy was sadly gone, acting as a child wills, running off the moment he heard about Schwanz's fate. Pétze hoped it meant he escaped, or someone else in the Coalition's troops had gotten to him

She might be a rogue who did the dirty work of nobles, but that didn't meant she could always stomach killing children. But this world wasn't one for kindness, kids were going to die in this game between nobility, the rich and the elite that nothing could be done about it.

Elves. Demons. All were an excuse used by Vizegraf Gierig and his low ranked nobles supporting him to discount the royal family and their supporters. The royal family always had an unofficial wish to aid elves whenever they could, due to that old elf bitch who was supporting and training their knights.

Honestly, it was all so stupid. Yet in the end, it didn't matter to a 'lowly' thief turned rogue like her. She did the jobs as they came.

Pétze felt the hair on the back of her neck stand on ends. Someone used mana detection. As a rogue she trained extensively to sense when a mana was trying to sniff her out.

Yet she was suddenly faced with an odd problem. Mages generally are sensed as they use mana detection. Part of her Anti-Mage training was to use that habit to hunt them down, while appearing as something ignoble. She would lower her mana level to that of a mouse, a skill that she perfected faster than any of the other Coalition trained rogues.

It's why she was usually the vanguard sent out to towns ahead of time to scout, or more likely take care of any element that could cause trouble for the Coalition army.

Why can't I sense them?

That brought Pétze up short, and sent her instincts looking for danger into full alert.

A mage that can extend their mana detection over a whole town, while remaining hidden? How? Was there some old monster hidden in this town?

Could it be that the elf mage Vizegraf Gierig said they were hunting could be here in—

A streak of thin light zipped through the air, moving between in sharp zigzags between buildings, till it headed straight for her head.

Pétze tried to dodge, only noticing the thin sharp Zoltraak ray right when it was in her sight about to pierce her between her eyes. Yet she wasn't fast enough.

Then again she didn't need to be.

The brooch on her collar gleamed in the moonlight, as the magic spell disengaged and broke into nothing before the magic-nullifying crystal.

Pétze smirked at seeing a mages, proud magic power be vanquished before the crystal given to all the Coalition assassins.

She was about to run further into the town's shadows to hide, when she felt the air displace behind her with a wheeze.

She turned to see a sword thrown at her with blitzing speeds about to take her head.

Pétze ducked as the blade passed over her.

She tried to sense the mage that did this, her mana detection was one of the things she prided herself on, making her on of the best mage hunter around. All those proud mages were nothing before her, for she knew all their tricks—

She didn't sense him until saw him. Right there a two feet in front of her.

A boy younger than ten, blue hair, wide intensely focused blue eyes. She saw him mid-dash, arm pulled back for a punch.

Her last thought before he attack was how pitiful his efforts were. How pitiful his life was, as it was about to end at her hands. He was a young boy and no matter what magical strengthening he had, all of it would vanish the instant he was an inch away from her body.

The boy might have thought himself clever, but she didn't understand the mechanics of the crystal—

CRACK!

Pain.

Pétze could barely think. The boy punch forward, wind wrapping around his fist from some wind magic effect. Yet the wind didn't dispel. The crystal should have worked, she felt the magic spell giving the boy his speed vanish.

Yet even so all that force still hit her without lowering. How? If he had a body reinforcing spell it should have also shattered.

Pétze tried to move, spin with the momentum, react to start counterattacking.

...Ah.

She realized in horror that she can't move her body below her neck. She couldn't breath.

Her neck had broken. She was going to die shortly.

===x===

The woman rogue skipped across the ground from the sheer force of my hit. She flopped down on the ground as she came to a stop.

I extended a hand, and recalled my enchanted sword with a bit of telekinesis.

The assassin was down. I felt her neck break, yet the second the familiar heaviness of my sword returned to my hand, I cast Jilwer once more and was at her side in an instant.

The range of her magic-nullifying crystal seemed to be about an inch. Cool. I don't need to touch her.

Her eyes were wide as she saw me. Mouth trying to move and form words.

I didn't wait to see what she had to say, I stabbed her in the head.

The assassin laid dead in the middle of the street. I only now noticed people running and screaming around me.

"Trenn! Boy!" Kolmar as he and two other guard had reached me. "What the hell are you... Goddess." He muttered.

"Kid, put down that sword and—" Said one of the guards.

"That's the assassin that got to the mages, idiot." Kolmar shouted.

"Yeah, I'm sure of it." The other guard said as he went to inspect the corpse.

I pulled my blade out of her head, and stepped aside. While the guard examined her, I used her cloak to clean my sword.

The guard pulled out a badge with the symbol of the Anti-Elf Coalition on it. A sideway outline of an elf with an X over it. The outline looked suspiciously like Frieren. Brazen of these fucker to use the elf that was part of the Hero's Party as their rejection emblem.

"She's with the Coalition." The guard confirmed.

"Is she the only one?" As the other guard.

"No one else in town were hiding their mana like her, or had a brooch like this." I said as I grabbed and ripped the brooch with the crystal from her clothes.

I instantly felt my mana go... not out of wack, but sort of like it can't solidify anymore. Yet it flowed more easily. Interesting but not something to look at now.

"Kolmar." I said.

"Yeah, kid." He replied, addressing me with more focus and an undercurrent of wariness. "There aren't any assassins within the city. The army should be an hour away. You guy should focus on either evacuating everyone, and travel to Hochfeld, or wall up everything."

"Heh, kid, that's cute, but why the fuck are you acting like you're in charge." Said the first guard who tried to arrest me, or whatever middle age equivalent of it.

Kolmar dope slapped him.

"Trottel, he took out a fricking rogue all by himself. Shut it." Kolmar said.

Oh! They have a Trottel here too.

"Kid. Trenn." Kolmar said in a gentler tone. "You avenged old Schroff, you should go and stay with him. The mayor gave the order that we surrender to Coalition army. We're not an Elves Shield base, and we don't have the manpower nor the time to evacuate anyone." He said. "They won't slaughter simple civilians, their fight is with the Shields, not people."

"...That's hilarious if you believe that."

"Huh?" Kolmar was thrown off by my reply.

"Anyways, please give this to Schroff, or keep it with you till I return." I threw him the brooch and he caught it while looking at me confused. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be back in a few hours." I said as I started to fly up.

"Wha—Wait, kid, where are you going?" He called out.

Assassin killed. Next objective.

"Slaughter an army."

I blasted up into the night sky.

===

AN: Why yes, I did introduce a character with a picture just to kill her. :P