Chapter 860: The second day of the evaluation trial (part 13)

The previous two fights, in other words those of Nerissa and Camila happened before Vivian’s fight even started, then we had Vivian dealing with the enemy’s leader which was now being casually taken to where Mina was.

But if you make memory, you’ll remember that the white-haired poison princess said something along the lines of "sister Mina is waiting for the last one of their group to be taken to where she is", before letting the girls of the sect take the leader away.

So, we still won’t return to actual present, which is just when Vivian finished her fight, in fact we’ll go even further back in time than we did for Nerissa and Camila’s fights, to when the leader had given his initial orders, namely for the vice-leader and the treasurer to lead the others out of the camp, but given that you just saw those guys trying to retrieve the things from the secret storages, things didn’t go as they should have, and we’ll see why right now.

The original group that was put on the move by the leader’s initial command consisted in a total of seven people, because Alice had killed the two who were in watch duty and was then sent the third in command alongside a four man team composed of two of the former prisoners and two of the original members of the group, plus the leader who at the beginning stayed behind to see how things went and then decide his next movement, that was a total of eight, leaving seven members of the total fifteen, who weren’t "distracted" by the wild dragon princess.

The vice-leader who was leading a total of three of the original mercenaries as he advanced alongside the treasurer leading the remaining other two of the former prisoner group, stopped advanced midway through their rush towards the escape route prepared at the back of the camp, because one of the former prisoners suddenly said.

"Hey, are we just going to leave like that, let’s at least pick a few more weapons from the armory before leaving".

"Huh, the leader already gave us our orders, there are things in the temporary dens prepared by us in case we had to escape, so don’t lose time and move", said one of the three mercenaries.

As previously stated, the new group as a whole wasn’t cohesive, there was a clear distinction between the mercenaries and the former prisoners, but the previous simple occasional friction had turned into a much more tense situation, given that they were under attack and chances are that the enemy came for the mercenaries exclusively, since they were the ones who originally occupied this camp.

"Enough both of you, now is not the time to fight among ourselves", said the vice to which the treasurer added.

"Leader’s preparations are good indeed, but I would also like to bring a few more weapons, materials and food with us, we’ll need them if we want to survive after escaping, why don’t we do it like this, we’ll both stay behind and go gather a few more things as fast as possible while our respective teams will continue on their way to the temporary den?", he said.

Naturally the treasurer did this because as things were looking, he saw a chance to take over and wanted to go retrieve the poison and the metal knife from the secret storage near the tree.

"Okay, I don’t think the leader will get angry if only the two of us do it, you five don’t fight in our absence, we are already under enemy’s attack so let’s not shoot ourselves in the foot", said the vice.

The idea of trying to take the position of the leader didn’t cross his mind, but he thought that he could have peace of mind if he had the poison and metal knife from the secret storage in the empty refuge, to keep the treasurer at bay.

Because while the real self of the treasurer was a secret for let alone the mercenaries but even his former prisoner "teammates", the fact that he wasn’t satisfied with being a treasurer instead of getting an actual position of authority in the command chain of the camp, was a given.

So, as you see, those two both had their own plans in their minds, and this is where they separated from the group to which on one end developed in them meeting Nerissa and Camila and you saw how that ended for them.

But what about the remaining five guys, three from the original mercenary group and two from the former prisoner group.

Well, they didn’t disagree with the vice and treasurer’s idea in the slightest, and what they liked the most about it is that they weren’t told to also stay behind, but had those two do so, meaning that they were at a greater risk.

Of course, they thought like that because Alice was causing a ruckus in a scale that these guys didn’t believe was possible for a single person to do, so in their minds all the enemies must have charged from the front of the camp and should be having a fierce battle with those that stayed behind right now.

Unfortunately, the temporary calmness that had reigned between those five, crumbled apart when they reached a critical point through their travel after having left the camp.

"Hey, what are you doing, the den at the east has the most dried rations, so it’s the best option to go for", said one of the former prisoners.

"Bullshit, the one at the west has the most weapons prepared, with them we can hunt as many animals as we need, so it’s the best option".

"Oh really, and how are we going to hunt if we’ll be hiding from an enemy group for at least the next two days to be safe, what will we eat in the meantime, are you going to chew on bone knives like a fool or what?", said the other former prisoner.

"You guys are pathetic, if we ration it properly, the food at the den in the west can last up to four days, if the enemy comes what are you going to use to defend yourselves against them, a piece of dried fish!", said another of the mercenaries.

Both actually had a point and in case you wonder why didn’t they just prepare enough of both in the two dens, the answer is simple, they didn’t have the chance to.

The mercenaries were weakened for a couple of days after being punished by the blue flaming board, not enough to be unable to gather food and the like, but they also had to worry about their new teammates, so the ones in turn couldn’t leave the camp for long.

There were also the "abnormal" animals that started appearing not right at their door, but as they travelled further they were blocked by them, and the resources in the close vicinity weren’t abundant enough to feed their whole group, have rations at the camp and distribute more of them for the two dens.

The same applied to weapons, the bones that were apt for it weren’t enough, the treasurer assigned more food to the den at east while the vice assigned more weapons to the one at west, and that’s how this situation came to be.

"We don’t have time to waste with them, if they want to go east let them, we’ll go west", directly said the third of the original mercenaries.

"Without them, we’ll have more food than before so the trouble just solved itself", added another of the mercenaries as their group of three rushed towards west.

"Damn bastards, I hope they end up starving", cursed one of the two former prisoners.

Another reason for the decision of the former prisoners, is that while they were given enough food to not starve, it wasn’t enough to really fill their stomachs, at least not originally, until a few among them had given the information they knew about those girls to the vice, though the one who sealed the deal was the treasurer which is why he was chosen as their representative.

So, they had experienced hunger recently and didn’t want to go through the same so shortly and that influenced their decision on which den should they go to.

"Forget it, chances are that the enemies came for them anyway, so it’s better for us to draw a clear line between their group and ours, I don’t want to be chased by a camp that has the capacity to build and operate a damn catapult as mortals", said the other former prisoner as they rushed towards east.

...

A few kilometers away from the point where both groups had separated, a total of eight girls from the sect all of which were riding on horses, were waiting for two figures standing ahead of them.

"We perfectly followed them from the distance without losing their relative position, but to think they would divide at the last second", said a girl whose hair divided in half ,horizontally, the first part was of a dark grey tone while the latter was of a soft pale grey one currently, that was of course the energy constitution daughter, Tiana.

"Mm, I guess this is why sister Mina said that no plan perfectly survives the first contact with the enemy, which is why thinking in both the most possible and most impossible situations that might happen is important", said the red-haired girl who was standing next to Tiana, that was of course Iris.

And here it’s worth mentioning that Mina only asked Aster a single spyglass which was for her to use, well, the black-haired dragon youth as always was one of the few people that could take the wicked oldest of the tree sisters by surprise, so Aster managed to make four of them within a single day which was amazing, as it was a new thing and he completed them in a few hours after a single failed test, which means that he built a prototype and four fully operational ones.

However, while Mina did bring all of the four functional ones, she didn’t give one to neither of these two, which makes you wonder how did they follow the enemy group from a distance far enough so that their total team of ten girls riding horses wouldn’t be noticed.

Sure, it was still rather dim because the first rays of sunlight hadn’t illuminated the enemy camp, but the horses weren’t exactly small, and none of them were from the black horse group who would have better camouflaged themselves in the dark, in other words they simply stayed at a distance far enough to not be registered by the enemies who were rushing in parallel to them until a certain point before they outran them by a long distance in preparation to meet with them.

And the answer is simple, Tiana and Iris were leading these girls, earlier some of Iris’s innate capacities have been mentioned, but if she was only resistant to high temperatures without direct exposition and had a strong respiratory system that wouldn’t be affected by volcanic ash, then she wouldn’t be at the same level as Nerissa as a mortal.

The red-haired girl with her excellent fire attribute talent, also had the capacity to see the difference in temperature with her eyes, yup she had thermal vision as a part of her non-active innate abilities as a mortal, which amusingly respects her usual relation with Nerissa, because those two resemble a lot while also opposing the other.

Ambushes were not a good idea against Nerissa because she had the capacity to foresee the enemy’s movements through the motion of their blood, and they were also not a good idea against Iris because a hidden enemy would stand out like sore thumb for those pretty orange-red eyes of hers.

One was "water" related while the other was a "fire" related ability but they fulfilled similar functions, that being said they were also opposed in more than a sense, because Nerissa’s ability was much more fit for close range and decently illuminated areas like the camp since they had bone fires and candles in place, while Iris is fit for linger distance and large groups, like far from the camp before the sun came up which resulted in the enemy group looking like a red-orange stain moving around at the distance which is how Iris guided the group to not lose track of them.

Of course, Mina wouldn’t use a single layer plan and that’s why the energy constitution daughter was chosen to lead the group alongside Iris.

Because the fact that people couldn’t use spirit energy in this place and that things native to it didn’t have spirit energy, until the appearance of the centipedes, didn’t mean that Tiana’s innate sharp senses towards anything energy related were useless.

The participants didn’t lose their spirit energy, they were just unable to access it but it was there, and so, just like Felicia, her daughter, in other words Tiana could feel the presence of anything with spirit energy in it.

Mina did know that James’s former group members had lost their cultivation, so their bodies no longer had spirit energy in them, but the former prisoners that joined later didn’t suffer the same punishment, though some honestly deserved it, and so, Tiana’s detection ability complemented that of Iris.

And now, a situation in which each of their respective detection abilities were perfect, has appeared because the enemies had separated in two groups.

"I’ll go for the mercenaries", said Iris, their group was larger and they had no spirit energy in them, so her thermal vision was perfect to not lose sight of them.

"I’ll deal with the former prisoners", added Tiana, it hasn’t been shown in specific, but those two actually clicked rather well with each other.

Iris is pretty much straightforward at all times, while Tiana is a serious girl, so neither played around much, for different reasons though, Iris was like that by innate, while Tiana had suffered many headaches due to her muscle head of a younger brother so she took on the role of being the responsible one.

"Let’s go", said both Iris and Tiana as they jumped on the backs of their respective horses to then lead four girls each.

This was for them to show the result of their respective trainings too, those two are pretty much lone fighters, they are inexperienced when it comes to leading a group, Iris because she hadn’t had the need for it as Mina took on that role and her fighting style is as straightforward as her, Tiana because well, she didn’t have anyone to lead, she wasn’t close to anyone besides her brother from a close generation, prior to meeting Aster and the others.

"Hey, do you hear that?", and now we are welcomed by the sight of the group led by Iris catching up with the three-man team from the original mercenary group, the clip-clop sounds produced by the horses coming their way alerted the enemies.

"They are riding horses, are you kidding me!", shouted another one of the mercenaries.

Then to the despair of the mercenaries, the one leading the incoming group of enemies, namely a girl with red hair, gave an order.

"Spread and surround them", yep, that straightforward Iris who would normally have ordered to overwhelmingly rush through the enemy group head on, instead took the "right" choice for someone in her position who isn’t as outstanding as she is.

Which is to smartly use their superior mobility and number advantage to close in around the enemies and cut their ways of retreat, and that in the mind of the one who reacted the fastest, namely the third of the mercenaries who was the one that took the initiative to separate from the former prisoners earlier, was a game over for them.

"Damn it!", cursed the third of the mercenaries as he... dropped his backpack and then made a run for it.

You see, while the mercenary knew he couldn’t outrun a horse as a mortal, he didn’t need to be the fastest, he only needed to run faster than his companions which he did.

After all, that guy had noticed that the enemies didn’t come to them with their weapons pointed their way, which meant that rather than killing them all, they wanted to capture at least one of them.

That being the case, the enemy leader should prioritize securing two captives over one, as you might have noticed this mercenary had much more experience than the other two, who were speechless for a second.

"That fucking bastard!", cursed the other two mercenaries, in their mind, in a 3v5 fight they still could hope to have some chances to win, especially because that guy who just escaped was quite strong and their senior, but with their strongest fighter running away, no matter how much experience they lacked, they knew they were done.

"Sister Iris, we’ll keep an eye on these guys, so don’t worry and go after that one", said a girl from the sect to which another one added.

"Yeah, have some fun in our stead~".

Iris was already an admired senior sister for the girls of the sect, and after she guided them so skillfully through the poorly illuminated surroundings, those girls had sparkles in their eyes when they looked at her now.

’So this is the "benefit" of leading a group properly, I get why Aster always puts his best effort to take care of us’, thought the red-haired girl as she nodded.

"Mm, I’ll leave the rest to you", said Iris as she signaled her horse to move towards the direction where that guy had run to earlier.

Speaking of which, the mercenary was quite quick on his feet, but like previously stated he knew he couldn’t outrun a horse, and even with using his former teammates as bait, he knew he would be pursued, so why would he bother with trying to escape if it sounded hopeless you wonder.

Well, that’s because there was another element in play here, the terrain, a few hundreds of meters away from their former position there was... a river.

’There it is, those fools really thought our leader would make a den where one can only hide or die, of course not, if things got worse, we could all jump into the river to escape’, he thought as he saw the shore of the river appearing in front of him.

The sound of water flowing was hearable even from the distance as a sign of the relatively strong current that ran through the river, it was enough to facilitate moving alongside it, but not strong enough to drown a mercenary.

However just as the mercenary was about to jump into the water, he saw a few "trunks" floating on the surface of the river move and then slide out of the water.

"What the hell!", shouted the mercenary, as he saw the large snakes coming from the river which they had checked time after time and were sure had nothing larger than one-meter sized fish which weren’t aggressive.

"Hissss!", those were anacondas of course, since earlier they have been patrolling the river at Mina’s order, and both Tiana and Iris knew it, it was a part of the encircling that the wicked oldest of the three sisters had prepared.

Because of course she knew about their dens, though they didn’t exist during the time James was a part of the group, as they were a measure the leader came up with after they were punished by the blue flaming board, Regina had seen them carrying stuff towards them during her time espying on them.

Which is why the river that passed through the cave that was the den at west, had always been in Mina’s radar.

"I won’t say that it’s impossible to escape from sister Mina’s schemes, but you have to be way smarter and stronger than that to even have a chance", said a red-haired girl which arrived at the vicinity of the river’s shore.

And now the veteran mercenary had nowhere to escape, if he jumped into the river, he knew he would be drowned by those snakes quite easily, he was no match for them in their natural hunting ground after all.

’Damn it, it had to be a group with a fucking spirit tamer or something along the lines of it!’, cursed the mercenary to his insides as he took out the spear which was mounted on his back, which had a spearhead made out of a bone.

"I thought you were the smart type, but to think you separated from your group and came after me alone, that simplifies things, I just have to... ack!".

"Crack!", the mercenary’s words were interrupted midway by Iris casually jumping out of her horse to then dash towards the enemy and slash her sword at the spear, breaking it in half on the spot, which made the mercenary fall on his ass due to the impact.

"You’ll "kill me and steal my horse to escape", is that what you were thinking?", said the red-haired girl.