True Magician

Chapter 74

An undisclosed location.

After a while.

The sun had left the firmament, giving way to a clear starry sky. A faint cool breeze blew across the green plains, through which a peculiar road passed. A caravan of four wagons, arranged in a semicircle with a decent-sized fire burning in its center.

The people around me were talking and laughing animatedly, and I was sitting on one of the logs around the fire, rubbing my temples with a headache. Why? There's a reason, and a very good one.

- "There's your food."

The next moment, the girl, whom the man I had rescued called Aria, came up to me and handed me a bowl of soup, casting a shy glance at me. Her cheeks were burning and her fingers intertwined with each other, forming the look of a shy high school girl in love.

- "Thank you."

- "N-no," she said, stammering, "It's the least we can do to thank you for your help."

And then she practically skipped away to a group of people nearby, watching the scene with amusement and giggling quietly to themselves. Aria was blushing like a beet and showing them her displeasure, which only made the giggles grow more intense. There were fifteen people in the group, including old people and children. The adults were laying out blankets and bedding, the children were helping them, and the old men were cooking. And every one of them was now nagging the girl for bringing me food.

I shrugged and took a sip from the bowl, getting a good taste.

It was a little bland, but tolerable.

- "How's the food, God?" The man I'd rescued sat down beside me. My face crinkled at the way he called me, and the events of the past tense immediately popped into my memory.

-0-

Flashback.

As the monster practically ran to the man and the snakes had time to approach the girl, two huge deadly swirls of flame erupted around them, destroying the threat and drawing the attention of everyone present.

The caged inhabitants trembled, the children stopped crying and began to stare mesmerized at the whirlwinds of fire, which, as it seemed to me, even managed to 're-light' the sun. All sounds in the neighborhood fell silent, giving way to the roar of the flames, and the movements stopped.

The cultists instantly realized and interrupted the ritual. The eyes in the circle slowly closed, taking the scorched snakes with them, and the magical formation faded away. The swirls of fire extinguished as well, focusing all attention on me.

The cultists, seeing the culprit, that is, me, began casting spells, whispering and pointing their hands in my direction. Magical circles of different sizes, but of the same color - bloody, flickered around the cultists, and a moment later a black haze flew out of them, which a little later took the form of familiar snakes. Their jaws, filled with sharp fangs, clanged ominously and threateningly against each other, intent on tearing me apart.

I clucked my tongue once more, and in the next second, a dozen levitating swords appeared behind me. More specifically, Noble Phantasms. Each of them carried a legend of victory over some form of evil and uncleanness, and of course they did their job.

The swords flew out from their positions with the speed of a bullet, completely destroying the snakes and piercing the cultists. Each one of them nailed to the ground those that almost reached a certain old beetle from the Mato family in terms of hideousness.

Frowning my eyebrows, I headed towards the cloaked men while they were gurgling blood and trying to pull the Noble Phantasms out of their bodies. Of course, they failed, and after a couple seconds, they were all dead.