A Wasp's Nest

"H-Ha, it's not like you could break this spell protecting me." The man said, still taking a step back while facing Jack. He knew that the magician in front of him was wounded and yet he couldn't help but feel small and insignificant in front of those golden eyes looking at him.

"Don't jinx yourself." The immortal laughed while walking toward his prey.

There were still a few bandits getting out of their tents, wondering what the commotion was. Unfortunately for them, they were welcomed with a cursed arrow and died painfully. Soon, the camp turned into hell for the outlaws as they ran toward their emergency exit. Some got down from the watchtowers on the other side and fled, terrified by the necromancer's actions. As criminals, they were ready to die because of their crimes but being turned into undeads scared them and shook their resolve.

While dying screams filled the atmosphere and his creations were cleaning the camp, Jack was simply strolling toward the paralyzed man in armor. He had been trying to move but his body didn't act like he wished. Like a lamb in front of a wolf, fear froze him. Seeing the necromancer raising his bloodied right arm toward the barrier, he hoped from the bottom of his heart that it would resist this monster's assault.

"Break." The immortal muttered, sending spikes of mana through the weak points of the shield like a squid sensing with its tentacles. An instant later, a shattering noise filled the air and reminded Evelyn the one she heard in the cave.

The girls had been standing behind their teacher, keeping a five meters distance since the battle looked like it had been won. Still they grimaced when they looked at the state of his body and even more when they saw the corpses of his enemies. The iron smell was so strong that they felt like they could almost taste the blood in their mouths and made them want to puke.

Yet, they stood strong and watched everything as they knew that they would have to fight for their lives in such conditions soon. In fact, they had already did but they felt less disgust when there were orc's bodies on the ground instead of human's ones.

When the barrier broke, the armored man lost the last sliver of hope he had and gave his all to stab the magician in front of him. However, Jack sidestepped the incoming tip of the blade even if his body was protesting. Since the bandit's commander pushed with all his strength he had been forced to continue in his movement's momentum and, unable to keep his balance with his heavy armor, fell loudly on the ground.

Wanting to get up again, he felt something heavy and turned his head as he couldn't move from his position. He saw Jack looking at him with quiet eyes, stepping on his breastplate like he was squishing a bug. Then, he heard the magician saying in a heavy tone :

"Evelyn, Laena. Go get the bags and join me here in five minutes."

"Yes teacher !" The girls answered, more than happy to be freed from this hell on earth. They walked in the woods again, appreciating the fresh air of the dusk while going toward the place where they had left their backpacks in order to move freely during the battle. They had heard that some adventurers fought with those on the back and Jack simply said that those were fools wishing to turn into a walking loot bag.

During this time, the immortal had confirmed the magic he had sensed earlier :

'Oh crap... This is a high level Curse. I guess that the one who put it on him didn't want any information about himself to be revealed. Maybe he camouflaged it under this crappy barrier in order to get the man's consent...' He thought.

"Tell me, who are you and who do you work for?" Jack still said, trying to probe how sensible the Curse was. Usually those worked either with keywords or with some ideas going through the man's head. If the Curse detected it, it would silence its victim.

"I-I am Berion, former commander of Roenald's guard." The soldier answered, having difficulties to breathe since his thoracic cage was compressed.

"What is Roenald?" The immortal continued. Sensing that his undeads were done with the survivors and couldn't chase the others, he ordered them to come back.

"It is a city further in the country *huff* way bigger than Dragard, around fifteen days of walk from here if you go *huff* to the north east."

"Fine. Who do you work for?"

"I-I... I can't tell you..." Berion looked utterly terrified, scared by something seemingly more impressive than Jack.

"Either you tell me or I get the information from your mind. Trust me, it hurts terribly." The immortal bluffed. Right now, he wouldn't be able to do that even if his body was intact. With his left arm nearly destroyed and his right one making him suffer, he was nearly able to cast level 1 spells.

"F-Fine..." The soldier thought after a while. After all, he wasn't going to survive. If he was going down, he was going to bring down those scums too. "They ar-"

His sentence had been interrupted by a black star appearing on his throat. He looked utterly hopeless as no sound left his mouth then seemed to be in utter pain as he started to have spasms. Knowing that he was dead, Jack ordered his Red Skeleton to cut the man's head and took it as a proof of his mission's accomplishment. Waiting for the girls to come back, he walked in the camp and threw around many torches he had found, seemingly used by the bandits to light themselves.

Soon, the tents burned down and the log walls started to heat up too. Getting out with a skeleton following him as he was covered in blood, the immortal looked like a devil with the flames in the background. Evelyn and Laena found him soon after as he was sitting in the middle of the glade, signaling his position thanks to his undead holding a torch in its hand and the head in the other.

The girls gasped when they saw what the skeleton was holding but said nothing as their teacher asked in a weak tone :

"Could I have a healing potion and some unguent please? I fear that I will not be able to heal myself with the strength I have."

"Yes !" The young human was the fastest to reach the depth of her bag and gave her mentor a bottle of greenish liquid and a small pot with a yellow paste inside. Thanking her, Jack chugged down the potion with his remaining hand and sadly looked at his sleeves before laughing :

"Well, I ruined my clothing. This is gonna cost a lot."

"Yeah, but we should have gotten a lot from this ca- Ah, it's burning... Why did you burn it exactly ...?" Laena asked, feeling her heart tightening she knew that they had some money but seeing all this potential loot burning awakened her greed, saddening her to no end.

"You also have destroyed your body !" Evelyn interrupted them, growling while gently applying the ointment on her teacher's wounds. Even if he had dodged many arrows, some grazed him and since he could only use one hand, the young girl helped in to reach parts he couldn't.

"I will heal, don't worry. And you too don't worry, you greedy elf." Jack chuckled. "We have enough money to buy ourselves a house right now, we just need a way to make this money look legit."

Seeing their curious gaze, he simply shrugged the matter off and smiled at their frustration. Still, he knew that he had something more serious to say and took an harder tone when he continued :

"And I decided to burn down this camp to give ourselves a bit of advance with our potential enemies."

"What do you mean?" Laena asked while putting her bag on her back since Jack gestured them that they had to move.

"The commander's magic barrier was a poisonous gift : Somebody had concealed a curse within it. Still, it as a blessing in disguise for me. After seeing the global level of the mages here I was starting to think that powerful ones had disappeared. Well, it looks like I am wrong since this curse is from a being quite a bit stronger than me right now."

Sensing the urgency of the situation, the party moved away from the glaze in the darkness of the night. On their way, they discussed about the possible troubles they had brought upon them :

"Are you sure that they will follow us? I mean, we just killed some bandits..." Laena dubiously asked.

"Honestly I'm not sure at all. Still, they were making commerce with the outlaws so they must be able to launder some money... It's probably a huge group of individuals so indeed, maybe those guys weren't their only source of illegal income. However, it still was one so let's cover our backs shall we?" Jack said while thinking about this whole trap they had fallen into.

'Maybe I'm panicking too much since I hadn't seen such a complex spell for a long time... Well, better safe than sorry.'

"Even if they follow us, we're only small adventurers and no one knows our power. How could they find us?" Evelyn smiled, trying to lighten their mood.

"Indeed Evy, but I want to put all chances on our side. Let's walk a few more hours and rest then." Jack replied, proud of his students. None was seemingly scared by such a threat looming over them and they had this brightness in their eyes which seemed to say "Whatever you throw at us, we will overcome it".

Panting, they finally stopped and welcomed their well deserved rest. Deciding that their teacher should sleep the whole night, the two girls were discussing who would sleep first when Jack reminded them the presence of his Red Skeleton who was still dragging around the decapitated head. They hadn't noticed him since they were walking in front of their mentor and the undead was following him in the darkness.

Happy to have a guard of this quality, they slept in two different tents since their teacher said jokingly: "I'm wounded. If I sleep next to you two you will wake up covered in blood and I won't wake up at all." Grunting, the girls accepted because they remembered the embarrassing morning they had spent together.

The whole night had been quite quiet except for the occasional creaking's coming from the skeleton's bones which gave Laena some goosebumps thanks to her excellent hearing. Jack got up earlier than the girls since he felt like he had slept enough.

The potion and the ointments made an excellent work as most of the small cuts and wounds were already closing up. However, his left arm was still scarred by many scary looking black veins and his skin was ruptured at many places. Since moving it felt like he was about to rip it off, the immortal decided to leave it like this and prepared a huge breakfast because they hadn't eaten anything last night.

Attracted by the scent of his experimental cooking, the two girls grumpily got out of their blankets as they already missed a bed again. Seeing their morning head looking like usual after such an intense day, Jack couldn't help but laugh out loud. They went on the way back toward the town in a light mood, looking like they had forgotten the wasp nest they had kicked.

However, they were still focused on their task as their teacher had them repeat their alibi while they were walking and doing their exercises. As he couldn't walk with a skeleton on the main road, the immortal had cancelled the invocation and was currently dragging the head around like it was nothing. This coupled with his destroyed sleeves revealing his bare arms and the tenacious bloodstains refusing to go away from his clothing gave him quite a terrifying look.

The guards even froze a little when they saw him but breathed a little when they saw his adventurer's ID. Smiling confidently while the sun was setting in the sky, the party went toward the guild to give they rapport.