At the center of the battlefield stood the high-ranking warrior Siegfried and the two-headed ogre commander.
Siegfried was drenched in blood from head to toe, his warhorse long gone from beneath him. A gaping wound gaped on his thigh, and he could only remain standing by bracing himself against the ground with his silver-white longsword.
The two-headed ogre opposite him merely looked somewhat disheveled, with no serious wounds to speak of — though the way his chest heaved up and down betrayed the heavy toll the fight had taken, and there might well be hidden injuries as well. Several ogre shamans and ordinary ogre warriors had closed in around them.
The outcome was already decided, and the high-ranking warrior's life was in grave peril — unless someone was willing to intervene and save him, or he happened to possess some kind of high-powered magical scroll.
"Hah… hah… so this is it? I'm going to die?"
Siegfried's vision blurred as he watched the two-headed ogre drawing closer. His limbs felt as though they were filled with lead, utterly devoid of strength.
"Reina, I'm coming to join you!"
Scene after scene from his life flashed through Siegfried's mind, the last image lingering on the moment a female mage in dark robes offered her smile.
Then he saw the massive spiked hammer descend, aimed squarely at his skull.
Had everything proceeded as expected, Siegfried's head would have burst open like a pumpkin in the next instant — but the god of fortune seemed to bestow a sliver of mercy at this moment.
The enormous hammer froze in midair, the two-headed ogre's face contorted with shock and fury, and a blood-red dagger emerged from his chest.
"What — what's happening?"
A flicker of bewilderment crossed Siegfried's face before his body began to rise involuntarily.
A young man with dragon wings was gripping his arm, soaring through the sky at breakneck speed. The gusting wind stung his cheeks, and behind them came the enraged roars of the ogres, along with several fireballs and lightning arrows that fell harmlessly short.
"[Hold Person]! And [Dragon Flight]! Was I saved by a passing mage?"
A surge of hope for life bloomed from the depths of Siegfried's heart.
At that moment, the mage executed a graceful aerial turn, evading the pursuit of the ogre shamans below. He pointed downward with his right hand, and a terrifying cloud of black decay plummeted earthward, veiling the ogres' line of sight.
[Cloudkill]!
With no further worries weighing on him, Leilin flapped his wings and carried Siegfried away from the battlefield.
After a dizzying spin, Siegfried collapsed straight onto the ground. The fresh scent of soil and grass wafted all around him, and he couldn't help greedily taking a couple of deep breaths.
Only then did he have a moment to study the mage who had saved him.
"So young! He's quite young, but that magical ability far surpasses Lena's..."
Siegfried bowed his head respectfully. He knew that many spells could preserve one's youth — this young-looking mage before him might well be one of those temperamental old monsters.
"Though... his face does look somewhat familiar... Wait!"
Siegfried struggled to his feet. "You're that warrior who was with the high-ranking Knight girl...
"You actually still remember me?" Leylin glanced at him with a hint of surprise.
"Regardless, thank you for saving me!" Siegfried expressed his gratitude sincerely, and wisely refrained from asking Leylin any questions.
"Don't thank me! I just couldn't bear to waste it!"
"Couldn't bear to waste it???" In that instant, Siegfried felt an unprecedented sense of danger, but gravely wounded as he was, he had not the slightest strength to resist.
At the very last moment of his life, all he saw was a blood-red dagger slashing across his throat.
*If he wanted to kill me... why save me in the first place?* Siegfried closed his eyes with that question lingering in his mind, while Leylin felt the massive surge of power flowing through the Devil's Blood Dagger.
One two-headed ogre chieftain plus a high-tier warrior — even he felt somewhat stuffed.
At that moment, the Chip's notification sounds rang ceaselessly in Leylin's mind.
[Ding! Host has undergone two Devil's Blood Dagger enhancements! Total converted attributes: Strength 2.5, Agility 1, Constitution 2.65, Spiritual Power 0.001!]
A massive torrent of heat poured through the dagger into every part of his body, greedily absorbed by the cells throughout.
Leylin raised his right hand. His slender palm now harbored power not inferior to an ogre's, and it continuously trailed afterimages through the air.
"So close now... close to a full attribute score of 10, to the preliminary completion of genetic refinement..."
Leylin murmured to himself, gazing at his attribute panel, where things had now changed: Chapter 13: Leylin Fairu · Age: Sixteen · Race: Human · Level 10
"My constitution is already very close to the bottleneck, and a powerful physical body also makes it more compatible with Spiritual Power..."
Ordinary wizards were typically characterized by overwhelming spiritual strength and frail bodies. But Leylin was entirely different.
Beneath his formidable spirit lay a horrifying constitution and strength rivaling that of a holy knight!
"Spirit and constitution must be in harmony for true perfection — strength and agility are also indispensable. So these are the rules of the world of the gods..."
Leylin sighed. Then his hands deftly began searching the body of the slain high-ranking knight.
As a high-ranking warrior, and moreover the leader of the Pale Eagle, a large mercenary company, he should have had some good items on him.
Leylin never let such opportunities slip by, but the results left him somewhat disappointed.
"Nothing but enchanted armor and weapons — not even a dimensional bag. Are mercenaries really this broke, even at the captain level?"
From Siegfried's corpse, Leylin found only a handful of magical items and a coin purse containing several dozen gold croiss, along with a few scattered Wealth Temple cards worth roughly ten thousand gold croiss in total.
But unfortunately, all of these cards were bound with authentication. After Siegfried's death, no one could withdraw the funds anymore — unless one could fool Waukeen's divine authentication and also deal with the Goddess of Wealth going berserk. For anyone who tried to seize her gold, the Lady of Fortune would likely become madder than a raging tyrannosaurus in an instant!
Such a haul would have been a fortune vast enough to squander for a lifetime by an ordinary thief's standards, even if the cards couldn't be cashed in. But Leylin found it beneath his notice.
"Something's off! A large mercenary company like the Pale Eagle, which also has to support a wizard — their wealth shouldn't be this meager. Could there be another hiding spot? If so..."
Leylin quickly stripped the clothes from Siegfried's body and inspected them inch by inch.
At last, he discovered a clue.
On one spot of the man's undershirt near the chest, the texture was clearly different from the surrounding area — something you'd never notice without a close look.
This kind of hidden technique immediately piqued Leylin's interest.
He swiftly cut away the piece of fabric and began the delicate process of decryption.
"Merchants typically use nothing more than a bit of potion-based invisibility technique. The Chip's simulation can analyze it quickly, but since they had a wizard on hand, they might also have used arcane magic..."
This kind of precision decryption work was no challenge for Leylin. Before long, after being soaked in a solution, the fabric of the undershirt began to take on a faint yellowish glow.
[Reveal All!][Identification!]……
After a flash of spell-light, faint red lines emerged, outlining the shape of a map.
"A treasure map? Interesting!"
Leylin instantly memorized the map, and when he spotted the line of place names at the corner, a subtle arc crossed his lips.
"So it's right in the royal capital of Danbres. I might as well check it out…"
After tidying up the scene in a cursory fashion, Leylin strolled away at a leisurely pace.
"I took down the two-headed ogre earlier. With their leader gone, those remaining ogres will likely plunge into chaos just fighting to claim the position. They shouldn't have any energy left to chase me. The merchant caravan already cleared most of the road ahead — just a bit further and I'll reach Darkwood Fortress. It's a key checkpoint of the kingdom; once I pass through it, I'll enter the Central Plains, where there's no more threat from ogres…"
Leylin oriented himself briefly, then immediately set off toward Darkwood Fortress.
"Sigh… I really should have kept that warhorse back then. Now I'm stuck walking on my own two legs. Hopefully I'll run into a few straggling horses along the way — I'd even settle for a nag at this point…"
Just as Leylin was muttering to himself, his expression suddenly became wonderfully animated: "No way! It's actually real!"
His face shifted to pure excitement as he turned to the right.
Just a few hundred meters away, a black speck gradually grew larger. The rhythmic sound of hooves rang out, and a horse carrying a rider appeared in Leylin's field of vision.
However, as the figure drew closer, the grin on Leylin's face only grew wider.
"Well, well! We meet again!"
Leylin walked forward to greet the other party, but the rider looked as though they had seen a ghost.
"Oh! Damn it! No — I mean… Ley! What are you doing here?"
Standing before Leylin was none other than the human archer who had seized Raphinia's warhorse during the earlier chaos. As for the archer's name? Leylin had never bothered to note it.
The archer had apparently dared to break through in the opposite direction — and actually succeeded. That kind of luck and nerve was not to be underestimated.
But the archer's condition now looked far from good. There were wounds on the body, and the massive wooden bow that had never left the archer's side was nowhere to be found.