Vile Evil Hides Under The Veil

"The logic behind your action on the female ranker seems sound. But why did you amputate the other guy?"

'To vent out my frustration of having to talk with you.'

Eren answered Ken's next question inwardly. But what he spoke out loud was entirely different than his inner monologue:

"I did that so we would get to catch these enemies and interrogate them. Haven't you realised this part of our mission here?

If I'm not wrong, then Master Marla was trailing us from a distance because she wanted these guys to attack us. That means they've been doing this for a while now.

If Adapt Marla was with us, then this E-Ranker would have never dared to come out in the open. We were acting as baits to draw these sharks out.

There can only be one reason for this set-up to have been arranged. Adapt Marla wanted to catch these criminals and take them as prisoners to interrogate them.

But the leader of this small team is enough for interrogation. We don't need small fishes that don't know anything besides their own names.

But that E-Rank would have run away as soon as things became difficult for him. We needed a strong reason to keep him here so that Master Marla could catch up with us and cover his exit.

So I gave the guy a reason to stick around with us some more; hate. His hate towards me for chopping his lackey into pieces and answering rudely to his arguments.

I did all that to keep the E-Ranker from running away for as long as he could avoid that temptation. Is this enough? Ir do you wasn't something more?

Now, if you really want to ask questions, we already have three suspects that can serve as your targets."

Eren took a long breath after answering the justice freak's questions. Then he looked at Marls who nodded at him in response.

"Eren's right. The guy would have run away long ago if it wasn't for his anger on Eren. And thanks to that, we could catch them all.

Yes. This was also part of our mission. The kingdoms of Edinburgh wants to maintain good ties with the Amazons. And these guys were creating unrest in that relationship by attacking random travellers bound to the city of Silvermoon.

So it wanted LA to take care of it. We knew they won't target veterans. So you students were perfect as bait. Hehe! I know that it is rude, but suck it up. I've also been used for petty stuff when I was a low levelled ranker like you."

Ken didn't like that he had been used. Eren didn't give a damn about it since he already knew how the real world worked and functioned. And Almera was just sad she too was roped into being used as bait with two Novices.

Marls noticed Almera's crestfallen visage and laughed before continuing:

"Almera, you shouldn't feel so down. If it had been only two F-Rankers traversing through this region, then this E-Ranker wouldn't have shown up.

First, taking care of two people with four, all of them with near equal BTP values, was a sound decision from the enemy's point of view.

And second, two F-Rankers travelling alone in these regions despite the news of it being a dangerous area already out in the public would have been too suspicious. These guys would have smelled the trap.

Therefore, you were included in the team to ease that suspicion. Of course, Eren's and Ken's sudden acts gave them more courage. And when they listened to Ken's loud mouth, they thought that you guys are just regular travellers and decided to act.

So in a way, Ken's mistake helped us catch these culprits. Good job, Ken."

"That was no biggie, Master. I just did what should have been done to catch these criminals after all."

Ken replied earnestly. But the butcher felt like puking blood by the cliched development. Where the protagonist's silly mistakes end up benefiting him.

And then there was Eren. the one poor fellow who had planned everything about the Osan Woods' incident carefully. And took every precaution he could to cover his tracks. And yet, he was still caught in a bigger mess.

If he could, Eren wanted to snatch the white knight's luck to himself. His current one certainly wasn't working too great for him.

"Now what should we…"

"Eyaaaaaaaaaaah!"

Ken was about to ask Marla about their next set of plans when he was interrupted by a loud screech. It came from the domain of mana fire created by the potion bomb.

Agatha had survived. She came out of the domain with her flesh almost burnt to a crisp and collapsed on the floor.

Soon her lava-like epidermis (upper layer of the skin) cracked and pink flesh underneath became visible. But a rapid regeneration of new flesh and skin had already kicked in. And it didn't look like it was driven by the effects of the spell. It was something that looked like a natural healing process that has been expedited many times over.

'Interesting. These guys are cultists for sure.'

Eren had this thought after witnessing that phenomenon. Ken was surprised by what he was seeing but it seemed that Marla and Almera had already expected this.

The cultist was a term used for rogue rankers who walked steadfastly on the heretic path of magic. A path that wasn't approved by the establishments running their respective lands. They didn't like to employ themselves to the kingdom just to get their hands on the higher ranking knowledge.

They thought that the knowledge on magic and ranking journeys should be given freely and without any restrictions to everyone. The cultists didn't like that the kingdoms and empires were using the knowledge as leverage to make the rankers submit to them and increase their powers.

The cultists were rebels of the society living in the shadows. They wanted to dethrone the current governments no matter which kingdom or empire they belonged to.

The establishments actively hunted the cultists by putting bounties on them. These bounties would then be issued to various adventurers' guilds so that mercenaries would take care of the hunt for the kingdoms. Various empires also had separate squads to take care of these cultists themselves.

AN: The term cultist was first introduced in chapter 34. The bounty raised on Osan Woods' butcher had been declared as a cultist bounty.