248 Butthurt
Tom, Elena’s father, had told Arthur that the people had broken into their house during the night, taking Elena away.
Arthur asked him if they might be someone from the One Hundred Thunder Academy who was just taking her away to the school, but they dismissed the idea.
“No. The class for her will only start in about two months. They are roaming around the continent recruiting people, so everyone who passes it has to go on their own to the school.”
It was a fail, but that did not make Arthur hopeless. The first place he could use to look for clues was the very house he was in.
If someone normal tried to look for clues in there, they would not find it. Even a normal mage could see nothing out of the ordinary.
Whoever that was who kidnapped Elena, they were professionals. There was not a sign of a break in, nothing. Tom only knew about it because he woke up during the night and saw those people taking her away, but when he got out of the house, there was nothing, as if they had vanished.
Arthur, though, had better senses than everyone else, which meant he could see things the other could not. The first strange thing was the dust in some parts of Elena’s bedroom.
The particles were so tiny that it was almost impossible for someone to see it, but he saw it.
“This seems like the type of dust someone who explored a cave would have on their shoes. Interesting.”
That alone already gave Arthur a strong guess they were keeping Elena inside a cave, or at least that was the place they had gone just before kidnapping her, which was something rather suspicious.
With only that as a clue, there was no way Arthur would find Elena, but he had something else. Something that would make his search easy.
Scent. Arthur picked up Elena’s scent while searching her room, and now all he had to do was follow it and see where it led. Something like that was only possible because of his extraordinary senses.
“Did you find something?” Tom said the moment Arthur got out of Elena’s bedroom.
He said to him everything would be okay, and all he had to do was wait and take care of his wife. Arthur did not want to share his discoveries, as that could leave the lips of that man, which could somehow alert the kidnappers.
Arthur tried his best to keep both parents calm in that situation without telling them anything about the case itself. It worked, it seemed, so Arthur left their house after that, following the direction from which the scent came from.
The scent made Arthur leave the village and return using the same path he used to get there.
“This is leading back to the… Forgotten Forest!”
The kidnappers were hiding inside the Forgotten Forest all along, or intentionally went there just to hide Elena so that no one could find her.
It was not a safe place to be, and according to what Arthur could guess, the deeper parts of that forest were dangerous to even Official Mages. Who knows, maybe not even the rank 3 Official Mages had explored that place completely.
So, these kidnappers could not be that deep into the forest, just like where Arthur was when he first arrived in that place using the portal.
He walked through the muddy road again, passed through the same sign that warned people to keep their distance, and continue forward, entering inside that place once again.
“These bugs again? No, no, no.”
Arthur activated his invisibility spell the moment he entered inside the Forgotten Forest, as he could see in the distance some bugs already making their way toward him.
Now, though, after using the spell, he could swing around the area, and no one could notice his presence. The next part of his plan was to use the scent he got and see where it led him.
He walked, walked, and walked. After almost forty minutes of walking inside that dense jungle, Arthur found something that was likely the place where the kidnappers were.
How did he know that? Well, it was a cave, and someone in a green robe was standing in front of it, acting like a guard. The whole place had zero secrecy, which made Arthur wonder no one had to find them yet.
“Well, no one comes here. That is why.”
A place with a huge danger sign, and stories about missing people. That was enough to make almost everyone keep their distance from that place, and only a few crazy mages tried to explore it.
“How should I approach this? I am not sure if Elena is alive and well, but I cannot sense any scent of blood coming from the cave, so she is probably alive. Making too much noises in the cave’s entrance can alert the others who could kill her.” Arthur thought, gazing at the entrance of that cave.
Then, he remembered one spell he had learned a long time ago, and one that was quite useful. It was the shape-shifting spell.
After he reached the level of an Official Mage, the spell got even more powerful, making it impossible for those people to notice him.
It was even better than an invisibility spell. Arthur turned into a small flying bug that had the same color as the cave walls, merging with the surrounding area like a chameleon.
He flew past the mage, who was sitting on a rock reading a book, giving no attention to his surroundings. Then, he kept going forward into the cave, passing through more mages who were sitting on chair, beds, and some playing cards.
The entire cave was like a home to those mages who looked more like bandits! Arthur could not understand why those people would kidnap Elena.
What did she do to enrage bandits? Perhaps she had a secret that even her parents did not know about.
Arthur kept going, until he finally saw her, trapped in a cage. There was a person near it, who Arthur guessed it was the leader of those bandits, considering the aura and strength. This leader was talking to a youth who had an age similar to that of Elena.
“All of this gold just to kidnap a young lady? May I ask the reasons behind this?” The leader of the bandits said.
“She is supposed to marry me, but never rely saw me as her love interest. I never complained about it, but now she is leaving for some sort of school to learn magic, so I had to move before the chance is lost.” He said, looking at Elena, who was trapped in that cage.
With just one sentence, Arthur understood everything. That youth was someone who would marry Elena, probably because of an agreement with both families, but that agreement would probably vanish after Elena enrolled in the One Hundred Thunder Academy.
“You are just a scumbag, then. Hold on, Elena. I am coming.” Thought Arthur.