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Chapter Two: Departure

Dashing through the forest with wind magic speeding me up and perception magic making me more aware of my surroundings, so I don't hit anything. I made it about 40 miles in an hour, but I am still in this dense forest that I have never seen the end of. I know my master told me to go this way, but it almost feels like I'm running for nothing, after using that much mana with that much physical effort I'm tired. Not only that, but I'm slowing down now. Hopefully I can make it close to the end of the forest before sundown. 

About three hours after non-stop running all I can see for miles is dense forest, but then all of a sudden I smell smoke and hear some people screaming in the distance, maybe two or three miles out, which I could hear due to my enhanced perception. I bolt, going as fast as I can right towards where I can now see the smoke. I get close, and I stop to make listening to them easier, and take cover behind a tree around 50 meters away from what appears to be a camp of innocent people being attacked by the Jōgi for no apparent reason. I can't yet make myself apparent to the Jōgi. They can not know that there was someone else living in the forest with my grandpa, especially not another mage. Luckily for me, the soldiers attacking this camp had very small mana pools and were simple grunts to the real members of Jōgi. All any of these dweebs could cast is a basic fireball or ice spear. It was going to be a walk in the park with no hassle to me at all. I jumped out from behind the tree that had provided cover and cast a basic firebolt spell, which combined lighting and fire to make a very precise shot of fire with electrical properties. It branched off the first guy into five more bolts, taking out all the low life soldiers with no power at all. While that seemed a bit too good to be true seeing as how weak they were, I believed it because they were in the clothing of footmen, and they probably didn't even have magic they were probably using mana infused gloves to do their dirty work.

I walk up to the people camping to see them terrified,

 "Hey what are you guys doing all the way out in the forest and how did those foot soldiers find you out here to begin with." 

When I got no reply I realized it was probably because I used magic and it frightened them so I needed to get close, and maybe they would realize I'm not a Jōgi and that I am a citizen just like them. I approach carefully, making sure that there are no more soldiers there waiting to ambush me, I can only sense 3 heartbeats, but that doesn't mean one isn't concealing themselves within the chaos of if you even want to call it a battle that just went down. 

"Ma'am, are you okay, did any civilians get hurt or are all of you guys okay?" 

The one girl that was there turned and yelled, 

"Please don't hurt us, we didn't do anything wrong, they were attacking us for no reason, we are just trying to live a more quiet life outside the city and away from all the chaos." 

I walked up next to her and said, 

"I am not here to harm you, I am against the Jōgi and I plan to defeat them with no mercy involved." 

She sighed in relief and went to tell her male friends, while being skeptical, they decided to come and talk to me nonetheless.

 "Hey kid, where did you learn magic and how do we know that you're not the son of a noble just toying with us having fun!" 

I in total confusion respond with, 

"Why in the world would a noble's son kill troops from the Jōgi, wouldn't those be his own men." 

Looking at me questioningly, he nods in agreement. 

"Can you guys point me to the nearest hideout of Jōgi."

 The other guy pointed me in a direction and explained that it is a small hideout, but it has to have at least a hundred footsoldiers and at least one real mage, so I needed to be weary and make sure I was rested and prepared for it.

Honestly though I could probably go do it right now considering that the last six guys were like kicking a rock across the dirt I'm sure I could take one hundred out with ease, but I don't know the power of the mage and I have never truly fought another mage before since I trained alone with gramps. 

I give them my regards and take off into the distance with one big gust of wind that knocks the guy that was standing behind me onto the ground and they are all amazed at the power I have even though I'm not nobility. Blasting through the forest, I see a small mountain in the distance, pretty sure that the base is inside that mountain, but I'll have to get closer before I know for sure. In the matter of a minute I arrived just a few meters from the mountain and I can already tell that there is a base of operations there by the metal face on the bottom of the mountain where it seemed to have been cut out. I can see two guards standing at the door with extremely nice clothes on, maybe magic users or just higher ups in the grunt army as I like to call them. Power hungry fools that weren't born into power and try to leech off of the powerful and act better than the people they are nowhere close to better than. I also used to be one of those people they thought they were better than, I am going to teach all the scum in this world a lesson. With every one of these scum I kill the closer I will become to saving this continent, the closer I become to avenging my family and my best friend. 

I bolt for the door, enhancing myself and drawing my sword with lightning magic and beheading both of the guards within the blink of an eye. Filled in rage after thinking about what had happened to my gramps and all the other innocent people I kicked open the door to the facility with brute force and just started slaughtering every single soldier I could find running down hallways until I saw a huge door the size of at least five times the size of a normal door at the end of a hallway. Slowly approaching the door I can feel that there is a decent pool of mana behind it, weak compared to my gramps, this power is practically a grain of sand on a beach compared to his power. 

I open the door and point my sword to a guy dressed fairly nice while not in military uniform, 

"Are you the magic user who dwells within these walls?"

 The fairly handsome man stands up and recites,

 "All the holy power to beseech me shall release to end my foe.''

 As he finishes his sentence a burst of icicles launch at me to which I ignore due to my lightning aura melting them all before impact. In shock, he jumps back, creating an ice wall in front of him and shooting icicles out of the other side of it, which yet again meet the same fate as those before. I move fast enough that, to him, I teleport behind him and slam him on the ground, 

"How many innocent lives have you taken with such a weak puny spell, how many citizens have you killed for no reason just because you were bored!"

 The man's face filled with fear begs,

 "Please don't kill me, I can give you money how much do you want, I can double whatever someone is paying you to do this." 

I look into his eyes with pure disgust, 

"I'm not doing this for money, I'm doing this because you're a monster you really think that when facing death you can just offer someone money, all the people's lives you have taken are priceless you scum!" 

I scream as I shove my hand through his chest and take his heart out of his body. Breathing heavily from rage, I am satisfied with what I have done. Thinking back I only remember killing ninety-eight guards, I look over to see two guards cowering in the corner, I look at them and flicker my lightning aura, and they run as fast as they can. "That's enough killing for today." I exclaim before walking out of the facility to go find a place to rest before nightfall. 

I found a nice river not too far from the mountain and set up camp there, knowing that I will be safe for at least a few days considering that those two guards are nowhere near fast enough to get somewhere in time and I know I fried all of their tech wear when I bolted through there with lightning. Setting up camp was easy, after setting up I decided to warm up a little food I had packed. I make a fire in my hand to heat the food. After a nice but small meal, I hit the sack for a good night's rest. Waking from a long, deep sleep, I was amazed to see that the sun was already coming over the horizon. In the past I have always been awake long before sunrise for my training, but this is different, I need to get going. A lot must be done and a lot of traveling will occur before I actually get anywhere. I still have hundreds of miles of forest to go before I will reach any major monument.