The First Legendary Beast Master novel Chapter 25

Chapter 25: Found

From a comfortable chair in a small hut on the edge of the Academy Grounds, the old mage watched the scene in the training grounds in a crystal ball.

"That new leader is sneaky. I like the way that he thinks, but he might be too afraid of combat." He noted.

Sergeant Rita snorted and shook her head.

"No, he's just avoiding any extra work. See the Hawk he's got up in the trees? The two of them can communicate. He's playing cat and mouse with the other team because he knows there is a timer, and they won't double back on an area they've just searched.

If they don't catch the trick, the time is going to run out with his people just sitting in the swamp." She explained.

The younger mage nodded. "His task was to protect the flag for the duration of the match, not eliminate the attackers. It is a valid strategy. It reminds me of when we collected that Grimoire from the Thalian Temple, and then just sat on the beach for a week drinking margaritas until the search teams moved on."

The older mage laughed softly at the memory. Their world had a rich history of magic to go along with the dangers of the magical beasts that lived in it, but as cultures shifted, the magically adept had gathered into their own enclaves, and left large parts of the world to rely on developing technology to survive.

When they did survive, that was. Many of the magical societies in the ancient past had believed that the human population shouldn't exceed a few million for the entire planet, in order to keep the game preserves and rare species that they used as hunting grounds and reagents for their spells intact.

So, when those left behind with no magic and insufficient weapons were eliminated, they didn't take any action to prevent the disasters.

That bit got glossed over in the history books, described as a failure of allied nations, rather than magic users banding together to the exclusion of everyone else, but that was mostly because the few powerful magic users who stayed in places like the Golden Dragon Nation were instrumental to helping the civilization survive while they developed enough technology to stand on their own.

Karl led his team south through the swamp, hiding behind trees as the attackers moved through the fog, and then waited as Hawk relayed their efforts to double-check the area, as the foggy area in the swamp was not only suspicious, it was the perfect hiding place for a group of warriors who didn't want to engage in ranged combat.

Among the four attackers, there were two group leaders, who were both warriors with ranged attacks, and two first year mages. It was a well-balanced group of survivors, but they were outnumbered by the defenders and couldn't afford to be caught from behind if they missed someone.

"They've moved. I don't sense any life here larger than a bird." One of the leaders whispered. _{frёeωebɳovel.com}

"If your skill says so, then we can keep going. But I think that they will return once they believe that we are gone, so let's circle back." The other agreed.

The mages weren't particularly happy about wading through swamp water all morning, but they got extra credit for just being part of the special training program, a reward for top-performing students, so they weren't going to complain and risk getting switched out.

The attacking group headed north to check for the hiding spot of the last defenders, and Karl prepared to give the order to move again.