Badge in Azure Chapter 157

Chapter 157: Master’s Horror (Part 2)
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Lex furrowed her eyebrows as she attempted to analyze the situation at hand. The Qin Empire had not declared war on any country, so why would a formidable bandit gang be coming after their people? Furthermore, the knights were combat-ready and it would take at least a hundred people, most of whom were swordmasters, to be able to kill them.
Technically, the bandit gang could not be considered an army. Even so, they must have reached a certain number of members to have forced the knights to retreat.
“You!” The knight who had shouted at Saleen earlier continued bellowing.
The commander immediately held him back to prevent his subordinate from exploding with anger. As he did that, he turned towards Saleen and said, “I’m deeply sorry, sir. Please excuse my subordinate’s rude behavior.”
Lex knew exactly what the commander was doing. He had risked his subordinate’s life to test the waters. If Saleen had been angered, not only would the commander have been afraid of offending the mage, but he would have also allowed his subordinate to become Saleen’s punching bag. Although it was a smart decision, Lex despised people like him who gladly risked the lives of their men just to preserve their own lives.
Instantly, there was complete pandemonium. Everyone simply panicked. “Bring all your guests to a safe place and have them hide. After that, find somebody to assist my men in bolting the back doors shut. Not to worry, the bandit gang will not harm your people. I will be responsible for any losses incurred by this shop,” the commander told the manager.
His tone was sickly sweet, which turned Lex off even more.
Just then, Nailisi suddenly spoke up. “Master Saleen, would you like me to kill the knight who was rude to you just now?”
Her voice was neither too loud nor soft. However, it was loud enough for everyone present to hear.
Saleen let out a laugh before replying, “Why would I be mad? If I picked a random person off of the streets, they would probably be just like that blockhead. Dealing with him isn’t worth the time. Just eat your food.”
His answer was enough to make the commander hopping mad. However, he knew better than to pipe up, so he tolerated Saleen’s sarcastic remark. He was good at reading people, and he knew that Saleen was not a lowly mage. The four of them emitted an intimidating aura that scared people off.
What had aroused his attention even more was the fact that the girl with her back towards him was carrying a huge club. Anybody with common sense would know not to provoke people, especially women, who knew how to use heavy weaponry.
The diners stood up one by one and were led into the back rooms by the waiters. The traders whose carriages had been destroyed did not dare have their mercenaries pursue the matter. The room had about a dozen open windows, which was a bad thing because it was an invitation for the bandit gang to put their arrows to use. Once the arrows began coming in through the windows, the knights, along with the other customers, were done for.
Once his men were finished treating the wounded knights, the commander stalked towards Saleen and his friends.
“Great mage,” the commander greeted respectfully.
“Mm…” Saleen replied without even shooting a glance in his direction. He sipped his tea calmly.
“My name is Blake, a mid-level grand swordmaster from Forest Enterprises. Could you help us defeat the bandit gang? Forest Enterprises would be happy to give you compensation for your efforts,” the commander said with an awfully polite tone to his voice. The respectful demeanor on the commander’s emaciated face was not fooling anyone. In fact, it made him look even shadier, if that was even possible.
Lex had wanted to say something but was beaten to it by Saleen. “We’re here to discuss business with Clyde Enterprises. If you want my help, you need to take the amount of remuneration you’re thinking of now and multiply it by many, many times.”
As he answered the commander, he listened for the sounds of trotting horses. As expected, the sounds were growing louder, which meant that their enemies were getting closer. In fact, if Saleen had judged correctlly, they were about a kilometer away. His five senses could actually be magnified while the rain continued to fall. However, he could not be bothered to activate even one of them in order to observe the bandit gang’s movements.
“Great mage, the bandit gang is our enemy. As a member of the Qin Empire, you are obligated…” the commander said, desperation clear in his voice.
However, before he could finish his sentence, he was cut off by Saleen, who rudely replied, “Sorry. We are not members of the Qin Empire, and neither are the three women accompanying me. Since you’ve pissed me off, you’ll need to pay four times the normal amount in order to utilize our services.”
As Saleen spoke, he took out a scroll and placed it on the table. The commander was on the verge of attacking Saleen. Since Saleen was not a Qin citizen, he did not need to be too accommodating to him. However, as soon as he saw Saleen’s scroll, he reigned in his anger.
It was very easy to tell if a scroll was a low-level one. The commander had seen low-level scrolls so many times that he had lost count. However, the scroll that Saleen had taken out was vastly different from the other ones he had seen. The scroll was fastened together with a leather rope that had intricate magic patterns. The scroll glowed a dark silver, indicating that it contained at least one mid-level spell.
“How much?” the commander asked, gritting his teeth as he spoke.
The commander had already cast aside his pride by the time he had asked that question. But Saleen, whose eyes were on the scroll, did not even look up as he replied, “Ten thousand gold coins.”
The commander composed himself and stared at Saleen before saying, “Great mage, with all due respect, please do not joke about something like this.”
Saleen shook his head before replying, “Well, I could always wait for the bandit gang to finish what they started. Perhaps I could even work something out with them. Perhaps I will be able to get more gold coins then.”
Lex suddenly understood why Saleen was behaving so coldly. Yes, bandit gangs were known for their brutality, but they would not go so far as to murder more than twenty swordmasters. After getting what they wanted, they would leave immediately to avoid attracting the attention of the noblemen. Unless these knights had something very valuable with them, the bandit gang would not do something as extreme as killing people from a huge organization like Forest Enterprises.
Forest Enterprises belonged to the Williams family. Like the Clyde family, they had many connections. The bandit gang would be courting death if they dared to provoke them. The only explanation for the bandit gang’s audacity was that the Williams family had decided to start business outside of the Qin Empire.
Saleen was not trying to extort the commander. He simply did not want to be used like a fool.
There were rules governing the hiring of mercenaries. A person’s rank, strength, and reputation, among other things, would determine how much they could be paid. Since Saleen was a mage, it would naturally be more expensive to hire him. What Saleen could not stand was the fact that the intermediate swordmaster, who was perfectly capable of paying Saleen for his services since he was a Williams after all, had tried to use Qin law to force Saleen into helping him for free.
Although the commander had flared up upon hearing that Saleen wanted ten thousand gold coins, Saleen knew that the commander was faking it. He knew that whatever the commander was protecting was worth far more than ten thousand gold coins. Otherwise, he would not have enlisted the help of Saleen, who looked like a junior mage with his white robe.
To say that the commander was angry was an understatement. In fact, he was hopping mad. His face contorted with anger as the thought of striking Saleen crossed his mind. However, he chose to resist his urges, not wanting to risk the possibility of provoking a senior mage. Plus, the girl who had the club behind her back had another weapon rested on her legs. It looked like some sort of Caucasus fighting equipment. The commander knew better than to act on impulse.
As the neighs of the battalion horses filled the air, the commander began to regret what he had said. If he had known that this young mage would be so shrewd, he would not have provoked him. Now that the mage was angry, he would probably wait for them to be killed before stealing from them. As long as the mage did not attack any Qin citizens, he would not be punished by Qin law even if he watched the bandit gang bludgeon them to death.
“Ten thousand gold coins and I’ll scare them off. Twenty thousand gold coins and I’ll kill them all. This is your last chance. They’re already here,” Saleen said, putting away his magic scroll. He already knew how strong the bandit gang was. There were forty-two battalion horses stationed outside of the wilderness shop, and among the bandits, the weakest soldier was a senior swordsman.
As the storm progressed, Saleen’s powers became stronger. He was so strong that he did not need to use too much energy to differentiate the abilities of his enemies, even those who were a few hundred meters away from him.
Within the bandit gang, there were no grand swordmasters, nor were there any mages. Even if he was outnumbered by a longshot, Saleen knew that he would be able to take them all down without a problem.
“I did not bring so much money!” The commander nearly pulled his hair in frustration as he screamed. He knew that Saleen had meant what he said. If Saleen said that he was not going to get involved, he would be watching from the side as the bandit gang tore them to shreds. The commander knew that there was really no use negotiating with Saleen. The latter was not going to accept anything less than twenty thosuand gold coins. Stupid mage! The commander thought furiously, as the realization that Saleen would not respect the Qin law even if he had lied about not being a Qin suddenly dawned on him.
“That box the knight over there is carrying seems to be the type to hold magic nuclei. I don’t mind accepting a magic nucleus as payment,” Saleen said, smiling as he pointed to the knight carrying the box on his back. Saleen did not actually want the magic nucleus. Heck, he was not even sure if the item inside the box was a magic nucleus. He just wanted to know what items the warriors from Forest Enterprises had brought along with them. If he had truly wanted to extort Forest Enterprises, Saleen knew that Lex would despise him forever.
“Okay, deal!” the commander replied hastily, afraid that Saleen would change his mind. The commander knew that if he fought against the bandits without Saleen’s help, he would only have a fraction of his men remaining by the end of the battle. He was already partially responsible for failing to ensure the secrecy of their mission. If his men perished, he would not be able to answer to his family.
Bam!
The bandits were trying to break in by destroying the door using heavy weaponry. Within minutes, thick cracks appeared on the door frame.
“I believe you said that you’d pay for any losses this shop incurs?” Saleen asked with a calm look on his face. In fact, he would prefer it if the bandits rushed into the yard. That way, he did not have to waste his energy walking to the door to greet them. Another benefit was that once the bandits were in a far more confined space, it would be harder for them to escape.
“Yes,” the commander replied, gritting his teeth. His men were already firing arrows towards the bandit gang in an effort to hold them off. If Saleen did not pitch in, they would have no more ammunition by the time the bandits scaled the walls.
Watching Saleen leisurely toy with the intermediate swordmaster was a funny sight to see. Lex wanted to laugh, but chose not to. At the same time, she realized something. Whenever they were out and about, Saleen had much keener instincts than her. Lex was good at analyzing political and military matters while Saleen was more inclined towards studying the lives of mercenaries.
“Alright. I hope you don’t go back on your word,” Saleen said. He stood up and walked into the yard with Sika following closely behind him.
The rain would not be letting up anytime soon. Saleen used it to his advantage and created a shield made entirely of water. The spell was such that his entire body was protected. It was called the Water Shield spell, to be precise. However, he did not provide any protection for Sika. He knew that even if Sika did not specialize in combat using swords, casting a spell on her would affect the other aspects of her combat readiness.
Before long, Saleen had reached the entrance of the courtyard, where he stood and waited. The swordsmen from Forest Enterprises had already scattered and were looking at the young mage apprehensively.
Snap!
A sharp object coated with a sword aura was used to break the door down. Part of a carriage that had been used to bolt the door shut was chopped through as well. In a matter of minutes, a giant hole appeared where part of the door had been, and standing behind said hole were the heavily armed bandits. Saleen simply stood there silently. The bandit that had broken down the door was the strongest over all of the other bandits. However, he was not too anxious to strike, since the outcome would be the same regardless of how fast he dealt with them.
The loud snapping of breaking wood filled the air once more. The bandit had seen the carriage through the giant hole and had broken it with just one swipe of his heavy sword. In doing that, he had created a hole big enough for his troops to rush in.
Saleen found it commendable that the swordsmen from Forest Enterprises had been able to delay the arrival of the bandits for so long. Seeing that the entrance was too narrow, the bandits dismounted from their horses and made a beeline for the door.
Saleen raised his hand, and immediately, the rain stopped as the surrounding temperature rapidly dropped. Lex was no longer shocked by the new tricks that Saleen had up his sleeve. In fact, she was pleasantly surprised to witness yet another rare spell cast by only the most skilled of mages.
Instantly, numerous icicles appeared in the air and hurtled towards the bandits. What seemed like an insignificant Grade 1 spell had become much more powerful in the hands of Saleen. In fact, it would not be an exaggeration to say that Saleen had completely modified what the spell could do. Lex decided to count the number of icicles lingering in the air.
One thousand and eighty icicles. That was stronger than a storm, or even a blizzard. Saleen had successfully imprisoned the bandits with his spell. Not even a senior mage could have possessed that much control over a particular element. Each icicle had split into thirty-six smaller icicles. If Lex had done her math correctly, Saleen had fired thirty icicles towards the bandits using the Icicle spell. This was not something that could be done simply by expending energy from one’s magic chords.
Saleen had tapped into the water elements in order to create this hail-like weather. Lex had not heard of a single archmage that had gone back to study low-level spells after advancing to a higher rank. Not only had Saleen done that, but he had done it to the level of perfection. He had utilized this heavy rain to unleash the full capabilities of a Grade 4 mage.
The swordsmen from Forest Enterprise grew pale as they watched Saleen. To be able to unleash such powerful magic in this environment was almost impossible. They dared not think about how miserable their fates would have been if the icicles had been aimed at them instead. Could it be possible that this young mage was actually a sorcerer?