Chapter 211: Stirring Up Trouble |
The group in front of Fran seemed to discuss something for a moment. Then a tall man with brown fur on his neck urged his riding wolf slightly forward.
“Stop there. I think you would be wise not to come any closer.”
The moment she saw him approach, Fran spoke at once. She stared at him curiously. In her eyes, he was at least two meters and thirty centimeters tall, broad-shouldered and thick-waisted, like an already large man enlarged by another whole degree.
If she was not mistaken, these people should be beastmen, the kind commonly seen in other worlds.
She had heard from the records in the City of Apprentices that beastmen still existed somewhere on the continent, but she had never seen a single member of another race within the Alliance.
Only now had Fran finally seen her first one. This should have been the first non-human race she had encountered on the continent.
That said, the beastly features on his face were rather sparse. His bloodline was probably not pure enough, which was why that was the case.
The reason she had told him to stop was simple. If he kept advancing, he would step straight into the magic trap she had just set up.
Yet it was as if he had not heard her at all. He continued forward on his own, as though Fran were not even there.
There was no way she was going to announce in advance that she had prepared a trap. If he ignored her warning, then she had nothing more to say.
Launching an attack directly would be the most correct course of action.
And yet, for some unknown reason, he actually halted his riding wolf half a step before the area where Fran had laid the trap.
Jeremy stopped, raised his chin, and looked at her with a trace of contempt in his eyes as he spoke in a commanding tone.
“Shorty, have you seen a group of about six people? They were carrying a large dark-blue chest.”
Fran frowned, but did not answer him at once. Instead, she brought up something else.
“You’re too close.”
The meaning of those words seemed to go completely over his head. Jeremy, sitting atop the riding wolf, let out a contemptuous laugh and demanded,
“Shorty, I didn’t ask you to tell me how close I am to you. Answer my question right now. Otherwise, you’ll soon find out why I’m standing this close.”
Perhaps having noticed the commotion over here, another beastman came riding forward on a riding wolf and stopped behind Jeremy.
“What’s going on?” Nathan asked.
“Nothing much. This shorty doesn’t seem to understand the situation. Not only did she fail to answer my question, she even wasted precious words on some trivial nonsense.”
As he spoke, he turned his head and said to Fran,
“Shorty, I suggest you open your eyes and take a proper look. There are so many of us here. You should weigh just how much you amount to.”
Nathan, likewise, clearly had no idea that one ought to keep one’s distance from strangers in the middle of the wilderness.
He urged his riding wolf one step forward. One of the beast’s paws came so close that it nearly landed on the trap Fran had set.
And yet the magic trap still did not trigger. It seemed they were just a little short of the distance needed.
Fran let out a sigh and raised her voice.
“If I were you, I wouldn’t keep going forward.”
She had figured it out by now. These two beastmen seemed to have some kind of contrarian streak. The more she told them not to do something, the more they insisted on doing it.
And at this point, she could no longer be bothered to keep talking to them. She might as well provoke them a little more. If they continued forward and triggered her magic trap, then...
A faint gleam flashed from the magic ring on her hand as she poured mental power into it, while her other hand, the one without a spell ring, quietly prepared another spell.
Regrettably, the two beastmen did not step into her trap at once. Instead, they remained where they were and burst into laughter.
“Did I hear that right? A shorty not even as tall as a goat actually dares to talk big to us like that.”
A savage smile crept across Jeremy’s lips as he continued,
“You probably don’t know who we are. We’re Giant Axe, a famous mercenary squad from White Dragon Harbor. You should know that every one of us is a First-Tier Professional.”
Nathan seemed to notice something then, and his eyes lit up.
“Jeremy, that shorty’s mount looks pretty good! It’s actually a horse!”
Only then did Jeremy notice the black horse standing beside Fran. The horse showed no tension at all despite the impending fight. It merely stood there, looking over curiously.
“Oh! A horse that can adapt to the environment of the Northern Frontier. That must be worth quite a bit!” Jeremy licked his lips, looking as though he had just discovered a treasure.
“We’ll take turns riding this horse. Later, we can sell one of our riding wolves to the local lord.”
“Good!”
Nathan did not waste words. After answering, he turned and waved to the beastmen behind him.
“All of you, the hunt can begin. The target is that shorty right there. Be careful not to hurt that black horse. That thing’s worth a lot.”
The beastmen behind them began to stir atop their riding wolves, but none of them moved immediately.
That was because everyone in this squad understood one thing well by now. This was only the order to prepare for a charge.
The true order to attack would come only when Nathan swung his arm forward. That would be the real signal to charge.
Fran let out another long sigh, lamenting how unlucky she was to run into a bunch of mercenaries so utterly full of themselves.
In the end, she gave them one last warning.
“I am a battle mage of the Alliance. You should know what that status means.”
Jeremy froze. The body that had been poised to spring forward abruptly stopped when he heard those words, as though he truly did have some reservations about that status.
Nathan, however, kept the smile on his lips as he spoke to Jeremy.
“A battle mage of the Alliance? As far as I know, the Alliance is far from here. There’s no way a battle mage would come all the way here alone. They always travel in groups.”
“Besides, even if she really is a battle mage of the Alliance, so what? This place is too far from the Alliance. How would they ever retaliate against us?”
“A little mage who advanced from the Spirit Realm should stop fantasizing about being one of the Alliance’s mages. There is absolutely no way an Alliance mage would be walking alone in the Northern Frontier.”
What Nathan did not know was that, in recent decades, a Northern Society had appeared in the Northern Frontier, and it too fell within the sphere of the Alliance.
“That’s enough. Stop wasting words on her.” Jeremy was already itching with impatience. Still burning with the humiliation of having been bluffed by Fran just now, he fixed his eyes on her.
“I want the meat from her thighs. I bet it’ll smell delicious roasted. It’s been a long time since I’ve had proper human flesh.”