A hooded woman remained perched on a tree. Her eyes stayed on her newfound target. Slung to her back was a quiver filled with blood-red arrows, and a sleek black-coloured composite bow rested gently in her hands.

“[Arcane Barrier!] [Arcane Missiles!] [Arcane Missiles!]”

“Tch. Foolish pest.”

‘Evanescence’ couldn’t help quietly exclaiming her anger as the arcane mage slaughtered her brothers. Who would have thought that that impudent magic caster would turn out to be such a talented and powerful arcane mage?

At first, she paid him no attention, believing him to be a ‘barrier mage,’ the inferior cousin of arcane mages who only practiced the ‘barrier’ spells of arcanomancy. Instead, she focused on her immediate priorities, the clerics of the guard escort, of which there were twelve.

The threat they posed was obvious. Their ability to heal meant that enemies who were supposed to be incapacitated could rejoin the fight fresh and new. That young woman who used the spell, [Hyperia’s Light] was Evanescence’s first target. It would be utterly foolish of her to leave alone a person who could instantly restore someone on death’s door to full health.

It didn’t matter how long it took that woman to cast that spell or how many times she could perform that spell a day, she was marked for death the moment she revealed her capabilities to Evanescence.

But who would have thought that the death of some random cleric would have been the catalyst for that arcane mage’s onslaught? Nevertheless, Evanescence still nocked another arrow onto her bow and took aim at the arcane mage as he continued on his rampage.

With every passing second, the crimson coloured markings on her bow rhythmically pulsed red like heartbeats as she steadied her aim. It didn’t matter how magically gifted he was or how proficient he was in arcanomancy.

After all—

“All it takes is a single arrow, just one well-placed arrow.”

She couldn’t help but smile when she spoke to herself. She didn’t say those words to reassure herself, but rather spoke towards the arcane mage, even though he couldn’t hear her.

She didn’t even know why she did such a thing, she just knew that those words came out of mouth. And with those words said, she let the arrow go .

The tensile force of her bow launched the arrow at the mage, piercing through his skull and puncturing his brain. He died before his body even hit the ground.

Or at least, that was what should have happened.

“Grg!”

In the split-second when she let go of the bowstring, a sudden force hit her in her left shoulder, causing her to jerk backwards. Evanescence lost her balance, fell out of the tree and slammed back-first on the dirt floor.

“Guhuhhh…”

She groaned involuntarily as she laid in pain on the floor. Her back was still aching when she forced herself to stand back up soon after. Yet she ignored the aching pain in her back and instead grasped at her shoulder which now stung in agony.

What she felt was the sensation of what seemed to be a crossbow bolt which dug deep into her shoulder.

“Imp… impossible…”

She stuttered to herself in disbelief.

She was left at a dismayed state at the thought that someone managed to not only spot her hidden in the trees, but actually hit her with a crossbow too. But her moments of foolish idleness didn’t last for long.

“You!”

The shout of a man with short dark-blue hair brought her back to her senses.

In that moment, she also realised that the man with said dark-blue hair was none other than that arcane mage. She also noticed that her shot had completely missed its mark. Instead of the back of his head, the red arrow had stuck itself inside a nearby tree trunk.

Of course, the arcane mage immediately recognised the exact same blood-red arrow that took the life of that female cleric. Now his eyes focused entirely on Evanescence. His open mouth revealed his gritted teeth which seethed with anger.

With her location now revealed and her only advantage now gone, she knew that the battle was effectively lost. She never considered herself to be frontline fighter. While she was quick and agile, she still stood no chance against someone like that arcane mage, at least not in a fair fight.

With no choice but to retreat, Evanescence cursed out loud before she cast a spell.

“Damn it all! [Blood Blink!]”

In the blink of an eye, her surroundings changed. While she was still within the forest, the sight of death and bloodshed disappeared. And yet she could still hear the sound of swords clashing and men screaming in the distance.

She was still within harm’s reach.

“Tch… [Blood Blink] [Blood Blink] [Blood Blink]”

After casting the same spell three consecutive times more, the sounds of battle vanished accordingly. After confirming that she was absolutely safe, she immediately swung her clenched fist into a nearby tree trunk and cursed out loud.

“Damn it all! Damned basta—bleugh!”

She vomited halfway through her sentence, her legs collapsing beneath her as she fell on all fours. The fingers of her hands subconsciously dug into the dirt before she continued to curse.

“D-damn it! Alread—bleugh! Bleugh!”

The spell that she used, ‘Blood Blink’ was one of the very few instantaneous movement or ‘teleportation’ spells in existence. Not only that, but there was also an extremely limited amount of magic casters who are skilled enough to perform such a spell.

In comparison to its cousins, Blood Blink was actually a relatively easier spell to master. It’s just that the teleportation range wasn’t as long as its other counterparts and the spell can only be learnt by those blessed by the Crimson Gods, making it exclusive to members of the Crimson Cult.

The former downside can be easily offset just by using the spell multiple times like Evanescence just did. On the other hand, the latter could be seen as more of an advantage rather than a disadvantage since it ensures that only the Crimson Cult has access to a this considerably powerful and versatile spell.

There was also the downside of the spell only being able to teleport one person at a time but that was negligible. The only real drawback to the spell was the cost that came alongside its usage, especially when used in succession.

“Bleugh!”

The yellowish sticky liquid that made a small puddle on the floor mixed with the new sticky yellow-red liquid that came out of Evanescence’s mouth. A horrid mixture of blood and half-digested food was all she could taste in her mouth, causing her to gag as she vomited.

Such a horrendous sensation would have probably caused her younger self to vomit more, but having grown used to the side effects of the spell, that dreadful scenario had not come to pass. By the time she vomited for the fourth and final time, the puddle had nearly doubled in size and became bright yellow-red in colour, with some hints of green.

She couldn’t help scowling at this sight when she feebly sat and laid back on a waist high stump of a tree, wiping her mouth while she did so. Soon after, she bit her lip and painstakingly pulled the crossbow bolt out of her shoulder. When she did pull it out, she dropped it by her side before she proceeded to take an object out of her satchel bag.

It was a moderately sized object, and perfectly fit in her hand. It was a canteen made of glass with a glowing lime-green liquid inside. Ignoring the stinging pain in her shoulder and the blood profusely leaking out, Evanescence opened the canteen and drank of all its content in a few gulps.

In an instant, the bad taste in her mouth was ‘washed away’ and the aching pain in her back disappeared. Her wound quickly clotted up and then healed entirely without so much as a single scar. But despite fully recovering from her injuries, her body was still unable to stand back up.

All she could do was slump limply onto the tree trunk before grabbing the crossbow bolt beside her.

She felt her teeth grit together in anger the longer she stared at it. Her grip around the bolt subconsciously tightened harder until—

Snap!

…

There were only a few stragglers left by the time Walter managed to load another bolt into his hidden crossbow. Since this was literally the first time that he used one, he could only infer which actions he had to take through educated guesses.

The only thing he was slightly confident in was his aim and even then, he still had to attribute his success to luck rather than actual skill. It was obvious that, while somewhat similar, a crossbow simply could not be compared with a gun, even if it was a musket or arquebus from the 15th century of his original world.

In the end, he only got off one shot before the battle ended. Fortunately for him, it would appear that that first shot was the final straw that broke the camel’s back. His first and only target was that hooded woman perched up in the tree who fired red arrows. Although he didn’t kill her, he still forced her to retreat via some sort of teleportation magic.

Without her, the enemy quickly capitulated. For some reason, the entire enemy assault relied on her providing sniper support. Without her taking out key targets and ‘babysitting’ them, they were eventually overpowered by the guards. Even if the arcane mage didn’t completely decimate them, Walter still felt that the odds of victory was against the enemies.

During the course of the battle, he realised that the typical enemy assailant was on average, less skilled than their guard escort counterparts. Even without taking the difference in skill between the parties into account, there was still the difference in the level of protection from their armour.

In particular, that ridiculous outfit that only protected their upper body and necks. Such a set of ‘armour’ obviously did not provide the same level of protection provided by their counterparts’ gambeson which, although not as sturdy, provided more overall protection for their entire body.

The only advantage they could rely on was the element of surprise. Although they had numbers by their side at first glance, it was not by too large a margin, making their numbers more or less the same.

Despite all these glaring disadvantages, the enemy still took the initiative to attack anyway. It was both odd and intriguing. From what the others told Walter, this caravan was only transporting some supplies between two settlements.

Just what incentivised them to take such a high-risk, low-reward course of action?

“My lord.”

Before Walter could further contemplate the enemy’s motives, his train of thought was interrupted by Johnathan, who was accompanied by the arcane mage apparently named ‘Karazhan.’ Walter vaguely remembered that Karazhan was the person the hooded woman was aiming her bow before she was hit in the shoulder by Walter’s crossbolt.

That meant that Walter ‘indirectly’ saved Karazhan’s life. With that in mind, Walter had a slight idea of what they wanted to talk about. Soon enough, Karazhan’s voice confirmed Walter’s suspicions.

“I… want to thank you for… for saving my life… My lord”

“It’s the least I can do for helping me when I was in need. My only regret was that I allowed her to get away...”

In response to Walter’s reply, Karazhan only waved his hand and shook his head in dismissal as he spoke.

“Oh no no. It’s still alright.”

Karazhan paused for a few seconds, as if to think to himself before he slowly voiced out his next sentence.

“In fact… I think that I might actually… prefer it this way…”

Although Karazhan’s ominous words perturbed Walter, all it took was one glance from Johnathan to know that this was a sensitive topic that Walter should not inquire into. A few moments later, Johnathan beckoned Karazhan to leave and help the rest with the cleanup of the battlefield while he kept talking in private with Walter.

“I also have to thank you, my lord. As a token of thanks, you can have it back, I no longer need your ‘collateral.’ I’m absolving your debt to us.”