(If you want a bonus chapter, make sure to give Power stones. We are running very low on Power stones these days.)
Akeru reached the rendezvous position without being detected; however, he knew that his accomplices could be detected, so he needed to be quick.
At the rendezvous position, he saw Ren with Takuma chained up quite literally.
Apart from Ren, Erza was carrying Miko and the charred body of Kaiser.
Akeru frowned upon seeing that.
Out of all his subordinates, Kaiser seemed to have taken the most damage, with Erza being unharmed but visibly tired.
'Woah, this guy doesn't even have a sweat on his body. I did have sweat, but I could take care of it by converting it to vapor directly.' Akeru was amazed at Ren's status.
"Did he agree to teleport us?"
"Well, he did, but I am worried about whether he would close the rift while we are going through it," Ren said while addressing his concerns, though he was calm while saying that, seemingly having a solution.
'I am pretty sure that the solution he thought of is something complicated; otherwise, he wouldn't have mentioned this,' Akeru internally rolled his eyes.
"I have a simple method to deal with it," Akeru said while bringing his palm close to Takuma's face.
"Well, I don't know what you were told or how you were convinced to comply with us," 'I am pretty sure they blackmailed him with Miko,' "But if you are going to try something funny while creating your spatial spell, the last thing you will get is a painless death," Akeru said while showing his killing intent.
A spatial sphere was created in his palm, threatening to suck out all the matter in front of him.
Takuma, who was near it, showed fear as he knew exactly what would happen if he moved even an inch further.
Everyone who was conscious was shocked at Akeru's display of spatial magic.
'As I suspected, he must either have the ability to somehow learn things quickly or have the ability to possess multiple elemental affinities, though I am pretty sure that it's the former,' Ren thought as he saw the display in front of him.
Soon, Takuma quickly created a portal for Kiten or an area around it as the group started going through the portal safely.
Akeru, who was the last one, along with Takuma, looked back and saw Vespera, who had just arrived.
"I am taking him with me. Tell Aetheris that I said hi, if he is still alive, that is," Akeru said while winking and waving his hands as he went through the portal with Takuma in his hand.
Takuma was internally shocked at Vespera's state, as he wasn't really expecting her to be that beaten.
"We are finally back," Akeru said with a smile.
"I missed the food, though the one from camp wasn't really good. Kingdom's food is still the best," Erza said with a smirk.
"Indeed," Akeru agreed with her as he dropped down on his knees and started inspecting Kaiser.
Ren was watching over their prisoners—Takuma and the unconscious Miko.
Though it was unnecessary, as they were currently inside Akeru's mana zone; even if Akeru wasn't focusing on it, he could instinctively stop anybody from exiting if he so desired with a speck of his attention.
"What do you think? Would he be fine?" Erza asked after a few seconds.
"Well, he should be fine. He really hurt himself badly, as his flesh and even some of his nerves are burnt; luckily for him, I specialize in healing such kinds of injuries," Akeru said with a smirk.
"Right..." Erza's lips twitched as she recalled Akeru's spell, which fried nerves and could even create certain visual elements.
'Maybe boss is a masochist.'
"No," Akeru suddenly said.
'Did I say that out loud?' Erza thought with panic.
"No."
"Then how did you know what I was thinking? Don't tell me that you have a spell that could read other people's minds?" Erza asked, shocked.
Ren, who heard her statement, only rolled his eyes. 'It's written all over your face.'
"Hehe, call it a man's instinct," Akeru said with a chuckle.
"Huh?" Erza was truly taken aback by his statement.
"Anyway, let me heal him," Akeru said while focusing on the mana surrounding Kaiser.
'Mana Zone: Healer's Sanctuary'
All three people present on the scene were amazed at what they saw.
Like a miracle, Kaiser's body first got engulfed by a water bubble, and it rapidly started changing color back to his normal tone.
Not only that, but if one observed carefully, they would notice that the damaged tissues of his body were rapidly healing and mending together while the injured parts were either discarded or used to mend together.
In less than 10 seconds, Kaiser appeared like he wasn't injured to a ridiculous extent, but rather a person who was taking his beauty sleep.
"Though I usually hate to interrupt anybody's sleep, you aren't supposed to sleep at the moment, so RISE AND SHINE!" Akeru said with a grin as he touched Kaiser, green lightning dancing on his fingers.
"AAHHHHH!" Kaiser's eyes shot open as he jumped from his position, a fire phoenix already forming.
"Chill, we are here." Erza rolled her eyes at the scene in front of her.
"Oh, boss, long time no see," Kaiser waved his hand as he awkwardly smiled, or at least tried to.
"It seems he is still not fully awake. Maybe I should have tried to wake him up by firing my gun right beside his ear."
Kaiser's face grimaced as he heard her words.
"Yeah, no. The last time you did that, Kaiser's eardrums were fully damaged. It was a pain to heal it, especially due to the complexity of the task and my inexperience. Do you know how many times during treatment that I almost fried his brain just because I wanted to vaporize the blood that went inside his ear?" Akeru said with an annoyed tone as he remembered that incident.
Kaiser's hardened face turned pale as he took in the new piece of information.
"Wait, wait, you never told me that before, boss! What would have happened if you had fried my brain? I bet there are better methods to take care of that blood."
"Well, you would have died if your brain got fried, duh," Akeru rolled his eyes. "I told you that I am not a doctor. I just know a bit of recovery magic here and there. It's all Erza's fault who caused you damage in the first place," Akeru shrugged.
'That's definitely not a bit of recovery magic.'
Kaiser turned his head to face Erza, who only gave him an unapologetic expression as she 'te-he'd him.
"Anyway, let me check on this girl," Akeru said as he crouched near Miko and injected his mana inside her.
While doing that, small tentacles of water appeared and removed the shards of mage stones present on her forehead and her sternum.
"What do you think?" Takuma worriedly asked.
"She is fine. She didn't really face any damage. You can thank Erza for being gentle with her—"
The redhead in question only rolled her eyes at his words.
"And Ren for actually creating arrays inscribed on the bullet Erza used, which were able to easily neutralize the mage stones without causing harm to Miko," Akeru said while getting up.
He also touched Miko's palm in the same way as he did Kaiser moments ago.
"Eeep!" Miko yelled as a water bullet materialized while firing at Akeru, who tilted his head slightly as he dodged it.
"Uhh, where am I?"
"Miss, this is hell. You are charged for 10 years of serving old men," Akeru said to Miko, who was staring at him and had not looked at the surroundings yet.
"Wait, what?" Miko's face turned pale before she moved her head and saw the people around her- afraid that she is surrounded by old men.
Realization struck her, and then she just gave a deadpan expression to Akeru, who just shrugged.
"Anyway, we are going to the camp first. You guys would be interrogated later. Ren, seal their mana," Akeru said as the latter complied.
They both complied without protest.
After that, they reached the base quickly, and Akeru went to Rill to report on his mission.
***
A/N - Lol, I was going to write how the fight between Ren and Takuma went, but I am going to leave their current prowess for future volumes; this volume has been stretched for too long anyway, and I need to end it with the vision I have.
***
Join my Patreon to support me and get up to 20 advanced chapters:
- DESIRE96
(search it up)
Check out my other works too.
Join my Discord to talk to our community. Link in the synopsis.