The sun began to touch the horizon, spreading its crimson hue another layer across the sky.
The sunset had begun.
Today had truly been a leisurely day, with nothing to do from morning to night.
Kasian had been sent on an errand to Deuardim, and Iliana was studying with Chloe.
On top of that, Rutina was nowhere to be seen, as if she had hidden herself somewhere.
Fortunately, reading the books Chloe had brought kept him from getting bored.
In any case, today, too, was coming to an end like this, and……
Kasian still had not returned.
“He’s late. What on earth is he doing……?”
Just in case, he had placed magic on him so that an alarm would sound if he was in mortal danger, but since nothing had happened, it didn’t seem to be that.
Most likely, he was simply late because he had gone off playing around by himself.
It wasn’t as if he was particularly worried, but……
……
……He was not worried.
◇
Kasian tore off the remaining shackles around his wrists and, with mana gathered in his fist, walked toward the guard.
With each step he took, the guard’s expression changed from shock to terror, but Kasian paid it no mind.
“What the hell are you!! Get back inside right now, kehuk……!!”
A fierce punch to the stomach.
The impact was strong enough that the sound of ribs breaking could be heard, and the guard collapsed to the floor with a brief death cry.
Since Kasian had been taught not to kill people unless absolutely necessary, this was the result of holding back just enough not to kill him.
“Then now……”
His bag, which contained the things he had bought today and had probably been taken from him, and the clothes he had been wearing.
And more important than anything else was getting Rutina back.
Ignoring all the gazes watching him from beyond the iron bars, Kasian kicked the fallen guard aside and opened the door the guard had been protecting.
What was revealed before Kasian’s eyes was a dark cavern with mana lamps hanging here and there, where rough-looking men were holding a feast with liquor and meat.
No wonder he had kept hearing noise beyond the door. This seemed to be why.
Whether it was inside the city or outside it, he didn’t know, but it seemed he had been dragged to some cave-like place.
When Kasian stepped out the door, one or two people began looking his way, wondering what the sound was.
Soon, the noisy chatter gradually died down, and the eyes of everyone in the cavern turned toward Kasian.
By Kasian’s rough estimate, there were about thirty of them.
But when he looked with mana sight, every last one of them possessed only faint traces of mana.
In other words, even if they came at him not in the dozens but in the hundreds, Kasian could win.
“Misters, I’m asking you. Where’s my bag? Is the person who dragged me here around too, by any chance?”
At those words from Kasian, an even deeper silence settled over the cavern, before it was filled with loud laughter.
Then, a bandit-like man with a bushy beard who had been sitting closest came over and grabbed Kasian’s shoulder.
“Kid, I don’t know how you got out, but you don’t seem to understand the situation. Right now, you’re……”
―――Baaam!!
Kasian did not listen to the end. He loaded mana into his legs, leapt up, and drove a knee into the man’s face.
The man dropped several broken teeth from his mouth onto the floor, then toppled backward on the spot and fainted.
A silence even deeper than before filled the cavern.
A few people nearby came over and shook the fallen body, but naturally, someone who had fainted would not open his eyes.
“Hey, Grob!! What’s wrong with you!!”
“Are you screwing around? Hey, get up!”
Kasian ignored the two of them and walked to the center of the cavern. Since he had no staff, he knelt down, placed his hand on the ground, and opened his mouth.
“Misters, you don’t seem to understand the situation. You’d better talk quickly. If you don’t want to die, that is.”
Of course, Kasian had no intention of going so far as to kill them, but that was another matter for the people listening.
“What’d you say, you little bastard!!”
“Surround him and kill him!!”
Kasian inwardly mocked them as fools and sent mana flowing into the ground.
Then the ground immediately around Kasian churned as if boiling, and dozens of sharp stone spears rose up from beneath the earth.
When Kasian manipulated them and aimed them in every direction, the charging bandits flinched slightly.
And flinching meant the same thing as becoming an easy target to attack.
The stone spears shot toward the bandits in an instant, piercing through their arms, legs, and shoulders, rendering them unable to fight.
“Kuaaaak!!”
“Kheok……!!”
He had tried to avoid their vitals as much as possible, but a few of them might die. That much, however, was none of Kasian’s concern.
Now, only five remained with all their limbs intact.
As Kasian looked around to check each of them, every one of them, terrified, began backing away.
For Kasian, they were very easy opponents.
◇
“Is this the place?”
“Y-yeah……”
Kasian had pointed at a bandit impaled by a stone spear and asked the last remaining man if he wanted to end up like that.
And that bandit had now become extremely helpful, turning into a guide who led him to where Rutina was.
The place he was guided to was none other than the room the boss was using.
“If it’s a lie, you die, mister.”
“Y-you’ll know once you go in.”
Kasian thought this might be a trap, but even if it was, he also thought he would be able to win.
That did not mean he intended to let his guard down.
After all, he could not allow himself to be taken down pointlessly again by a surprise attack like earlier.
For that reason, he deployed defensive magic in front of him as he opened the door and went inside. What he found beyond it was—
A heavily drunk, muscular man sitting at a table, clutching both of Rutina’s wings tightly in one hand.
“Wahaha, look at this. Cry more, more!”
“Kyuiit, kyuii……”
And with his other hand, he was striking Rutina, enjoying her reactions.
The moment Kasian saw that, heat surged to the very top of his head, then cooled coldly again.
At the same time, he pumped mana through his entire body to the limit and charged straight forward.
One step, two steps, three steps.
In the time it took to blink once, Kasian closed in on the bandit boss, and the fist he thrust out with all his strength rushed toward the man’s face.
“Wh-what the……!!”
A straight punch landed squarely on the bandit boss’s face before he could react properly to Kasian’s sudden appearance.
“Kuaaaak!!”
Naturally, as Kasian himself had proven during the day, a blow at an unguarded moment was fatal.
The bandit boss toppled backward in his seated position, and in the process, let go of Rutina, whom he had been holding.
Kasian did not miss Rutina as she flew through the air and caught her, holding her in his arms.
When he looked down and examined her carefully, her wing was bent in a strange direction and looked broken.
Her still-soft scales had also been torn off here and there, and blood was flowing lightly.
Even so.
“Ha, thank goodness, seriously……”
To Kasian, injuries of this level were clearly something that would be healed without issue if he took her to his master.
He had feared that she might already be dead or had been sold off somewhere, but now he could be relieved.
“Kyuu……”
Rutina, too, seemed relieved to see Kasian. She rubbed her head lightly against his body and let out a small cry.
At that moment, behind Kasian, who was looking down, the bandit who had guided him here drew a short blade and rushed at him.
He must have thought that since Kasian’s guard was down, he could kill him if he stabbed him now.
But because Kasian had forced him here with threats, he had not stopped suspecting him and had been wary of his back ever since he entered the room.
Kasian wrapped mana around his leg, turned around, and launched a swift kick.
“Khaaaak!!”
Kasian’s instep slammed into the bandit’s side, and through it came the sensation of several ribs breaking.
At that moment.
“Uaaaaaaah!!”
The bandit boss, who had been down for a moment, lifted the chair he had been sitting on and swung it toward the back of Kasian’s head.
Kasian tried to turn around at once and respond, but the speed with which the bandit boss swung was faster than he had expected.
“Ugh!”
Kasian tried to force himself to duck and avoid it, but lost his balance and fell backward, landing on his rear.
“Just die, you bastard!!”
The bandit boss did not miss this great opportunity and began swinging the chair again, this time hard toward the crown of Kasian’s head.
It was a crisis.
He had no staff, and both his arms were occupied holding Rutina, so he could not use them immediately.
With only Kasian’s own mana manipulation, there was not enough time to deploy a physical barrier sturdy enough in the brief moment before the chair was swung down.
But he could not simply let himself be hit, so Kasian deployed a hastily improvised defensive spell in front of him.
“Kuh!”
Though it shattered at once and his head rang, he was able to deflect the attack once.
However, the attack continued immediately, and just as Kasian hurriedly twisted his body to avoid it—
Rutina, held in Kasian’s arms, let out a small cry.
“Kyuiiiii……!!”
Then, opening her mouth wide, she thrust her head toward the bandit boss.
At the very moment the chair was about to touch Kasian’s head.
―――Kwaaaaaaaaa―――!!!
A pure stream of mana containing the very concept of heat burst fiercely forward.
“Kraaaaaaak!!! Aaaaaaak!!!”
Amid heat intense enough to rival the fire magic Kasian fired at full power, the bandit boss writhed in burning agony……
“……”
Before soon falling silent and collapsing to the floor.
When Rutina stopped her breath, what remained was blackened and charred, barely recognizable as a corpse.
“I-I survived……”
Still lying where he had fallen, Kasian let out a sigh of relief and panted.
The smell of burning stung his nose, but Kasian had no room to care about that.
Kasian sat like that for a while, then gently stroked Rutina in his arms and said,
“Shall we go back now……”
“Kyuit, kyuit!”
Rutina did not run away and accepted Kasian’s touch.