254 254 Road Trip
The leader of the visiting witches smiled at Wolfe while the volunteers were flocked with well-wishers. There was no denying that they were proper witches now. They had an aura, a Familiar, and they were growing in power at an astounding rate as their bodies adapted to the changes that Wolfe had made.
The scene was so chaotic that nobody even noticed Mary sitting along the wall, mollifying a very upset Pup, or the fact that she never went up to summon her second Familiar.
The Captain nudged Wolfe with her shoulder and gave him a wink. “You understand that power of yours is going to make you a very popular person when you get to our village, right? We might need to get in and immediately sneak out to get your payment before anyone learns what has happened here, or the local government won’t want to let you leave without making a deal of some sort.
I would say that they would try to contain you and force you to stay, but at Rank Four, I don’t think that’s a credible threat. You could take the entire village at once, even if they teamed up on you.”
Her smile was infectious, and Wolfe had to resist the urge to laugh at the thought of a village full of desperate Witches throwing themselves at him for power. It was a real possibility but also a very funny thought.
“That is true. Plus, we come bearing gifts, and that will distract them for a while if you set it up in your house and activate it. You do have a suitable location picked, right? Somewhere that nobody will try to steal it and where it won’t stand out would be best.” Wolfe asked.
The team leader nodded. “As well as my small personal apartment as part of the army, I have a large family home in the town, and most of us choose to continue to live there at least part-time, so I can put it in one of my rooms at home. I have a sitting room full of trophies and random sentimental items where one battered shield on the wall won’t gather any attention at all. It will even go well with the broken sword that is already there.”
“Perfect. I will see you in the morning, and we can make our way to your village or city or whatever it is. If you’ve got some coins, I will make you all some improved armour that will let your horses run more easily as well. It’s a neat trick that I learned from another bit of Magi legacy, just a bit of extra ability from the spell that lets you apply the Elemental Power in it to do useful things using a bit of mana.”
“They’re in our packs. Unlike Sylvan, who uses their money for their amulets, we use generic tokens so that you don’t accidentally spend an amulet when you’re out shopping.”
Wolfe considered that for a moment. “Nevermind. It will be just as easy for me to extend my spell over everyone and their horses in the morning. I will make one for you later, but making hundreds of them tonight seems like too much work.”
The other witches who overheard them gave Wolfe a confused look. “You can extend an armour spell over everyone without using inscribed runes on equipment as the basis?”
“Yeah, that’s not a problem at my level. I can do the horses as well, and we can make a nice quick jog home to drop off the new Familiars and get my payment. That’s the important part. Trying to complete my basic skills training without any resources or even a textbook has been a real pain.” Wolfe smirked.
“I don’t think that you’re doing that badly. Look what you did with all the furniture. That’s incredible. It’s just a shame that there aren’t anymore with your skills.” The witch sighed, then covered her mouth in embarrassment as she realized the implications of what she said.
The witches and their human former allies were the reason that there were no more like Wolfe, and the war was the reason that there was a Frozen Waste for them to be fighting in, to begin with.
Wolfe didn’t take it personally. It’s not like anyone here was alive when it happened, so they couldn’t really be held responsible, despite the fact that the Bloodline Curse did exactly that.
That was still a mystery to Wolfe. Bloodline Curses fell under the purview of Witch Magic, but the spell was obviously cast in retaliation for the elimination of the Magi. It was accepted as the Magi’s fault, but as far as Wolfe could tell, there was no way that it could have been a Magi that cast the spell, with the exception of a Magi Female with enough Witch blood to use high-level Witch Magic and the assistance of a number of other Magi.
That actually seemed like a plausible situation. A witch who had been raised among the Magi families, since the two bloodlines could intermingle with variable, though usually not completely positive results, would have been enraged at the loss of her family, and the surviving female Magi who couldn’t create new spells of their own could still channel huge amounts of Mana, and they would have happily helped with the spell.
By modern standards, it would be more of a betrayal from within because the Witches forgot that, for many people, Family matters more than lineage.
Everyone retired for the evening once the summoning was finished so that the new Witches and Familiars could have some quality time and because the visitors had to leave in the morning so that they could report back on what was happening in the Fae Forest and that the forest itself wasn’t a threat to the Coven Villages nearby.
It wasn’t exactly friendly to them, but other than getting lost and possibly coming across a monster, it wasn’t a real threat, even if they entered it directly.
The witches weren’t going to wait long to return and spread the good news either. It was barely dawn when Stephanie reminded Wolfe that there were eager witches waiting outside his room and that he should stop meditating and go see them.
The leader of the visitors seemed nearly overwhelmed by the mana density that had gathered in the hallways where the most powerful witches lived, but she was standing her ground and doing her best to pull it through to her aura while she had the chance.
“Are we ready to go?” Wolfe asked the Captain as he got up and activated an armour spell to get dressed as a proper Demon Lord for the day.
“We are. The majority of the team is already getting their horses prepped. Will you need a mount, or do you have some sort of transport that is suitable for a long trip?” She asked.
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“You know, if I didn’t know the situation, I would think that you were being completely serious.” The Captain laughed.
Cassie looked up from the bed with a smirk. “What makes you think that he’s not being serious? The way that they left them behind and ran away, it was practically a gift. I hope that their generosity this time doesn’t cause more problems next year when the snow makes the Frozen Wastes passable again for the winter, but this year we did very well.”
“Are any of you coming with us?” The witch asked.
Wolfe shook his head. “The rest all have projects on the go. I will bring Stephanie as our backup since she likes to travel by backpack, but that’s it.”
The team leader looked confused. “Who is Stephanie? I don’t think I’ve met her.”
Wolfe pointed at the Familiar Cat, who was already making herself comfortable in the top pocket of his backpack, and the witches in the room all laughed. Nobody would expect her to be a serious backup, but Stephanie was a Rank Two witch in a Familiar Cat’s body, and she was fully capable of wrecking any enemy that came at them, especially with the assistance of Wolfe’s massive mana pool.