Dragon's Wrath: The Cursed Returnee

Ethan was very aware of how troublesome summoners could be. He faced several of them while fighting for Hedo, after all. However, they had several weaknesses. For one, to summon a single strong enough monster, an astronomical amount of mana was necessary. Even if one uses potions, if they don't have enough max mana, they can't summon certain creatures.

Some people thought of using summons to fight the ghost armor. Still, since the power of those creatures was too high, everyone concluded that relying on summoned creatures would be a waste of time. Maybe it was because of that that Isaac obtained permission to borrow the best magic staff for summoners that his country has.

Mad Oxion Summoner's Staff

Effect: It Grants the user the power to summon Mad Oxions.

Cost: 10.000 mana

Price: 500.000

Ethan never saw that staff before, but once he took a look at it, it became available in his shop. His power was as convenient as always…

"This will do, but first, we need to move to a wide area," Emily declared after checking the magic staff. "I will need some time to prepare a decent number of those creatures, after all."

"So, I assume you won't be able to do anything aside from controlling the monsters once the battle starts," Ethan said. "Our job will be to protect you, then?"

"Ian will do that," Emily declared. "In fact, he will just help me with the potions. As for you, you will protect my father if something happens, and you are better suited than Ian for that kind of task, after all."

"Emily…" Carter said and then sighed.

"Sorry, dad-... father," Emily corrected herself. "But I don't want to risk it. I am doing my best to decrease your work, but any of that won't have a meaning if something happens to you while I am away."

Although Ethan could understand her reasoning, Emily couldn't be more wrong about Ethan. He wasn't suited to protect anyone; he was only suited to run wild. In any case, since they would be even farther away from the camp, she didn't want to rely on Ian's magic item alone.

"This is odd, we are here to correct your mess up, and now you are giving us orders?" Ethan frowned. "Well, try to obtain some results, or you will lose that privileges."

"I will be counting on you…" Emily said. "Let's go, Ian. Don't try to mess around, or you will be the first target of those summoned monsters."

"Yes, yes," Ian said.

In the end, even Isaac went with them since it would be too weird if two strangers left the camp. Things got quiet in the tent for a while, but eventually, Ethan felt Carter's eyes on him.

"What?" Ethan asked.

"So… are you two competing for my daughter?" Carter asked.

"... I will pretend I didn't hear that," Ethan frowned.

"You two came to a warzone just to help a friend without any second intentions?" Carter asked, visibly shocked. "It looks like mydaughter made some good friends; I wonder why she never mentioned you two…"

"Probably because we don't know each other for long," Ethan said. "Anyway, are you sure you should stay here right now?"

"Yes. Although I am a doctor, every group here has their own medic team," Carter explained. "So, I can focus on treating Isaac's friends only. I am only a single man, after all."

Regardless, after a while, Ethan and Carter headed to the place where Carter would treat the wounded. The place was pretty well-equipped, and Isaac even hired some locals to help his friend.

"It looks my job will be pretty boring here… and I was kind of looking forward to the fight after the progress of yesterday."

In the end, Ethan readily accepted that since he was there to prevent casualties. He couldn't always get what he wanted, and that was even truer when he was working in disguise and couldn't draw too much attention to himself.

Around 02:00 PM, the first group started to retreat, and then Isaac showed up to help with the organization of the things. There weren't many guys like him in the second group, so he didn't have much choice but to do it. Since he was inside a tent, Ethan didn't have the chance to see completely the army of monsters Emily had summoned. Still, he saw when some massive bull-like monsters collided against the ghost armors. An enormous wave of dust began to spread around the area, and the people of the second group didn't know what to do since they couldn't see anything.

"Only fifty monsters?" Ethan frowned when he saw that the number of summoned monsters that headed to the combat was so small. "I guess she is holding back for now… things will get chaotic by adding the strength of monsters like that to the humans' forces."

Just as Ethan had imagined, after a while, the ghost armor finally emerged from the cloud of dust and headed toward the second group. The melee fighters ran to intercept the monsters, while the backline used long-range attacks to weaken and slow them down.

"Stay on guard. Emily said that she didn't expect that the fight would raise this cloud of dust, and unless the Mad Oxions fought that hard, they wouldn't be able to stop the ghost armor for more than a few seconds. Something might happen since now you guys are losing sight of the dungeon for a few moments."

"Got it," Ethan said.

After receiving that warning from Hannah, Ethan decided to focus even more on his bodyguard duty. However, nothing worth of his attention happened. Emily's plan was proceeding pretty well. The summoned creatures she was using completely obeyed her until their death, and she could send just the right amount of them to give the others on her side the right amount of time to rest. Fortunately, they just had to do that for eight hours… it seemed like a pretty long time. However, things proceeded so well, and the number of wounded was so low that Ethan concluded that something was bound to happen… something very troublesome.