"Ugh..."
"Boss... You are finally awake! We can't find you at all few minutes ago, and we just found you lying here. We are in some kind of forest? I think?"
When the black-clothed man woke up, he finally saw his subordinates standing over him.
They were a complete mess, with stray leaves caught in their hoods and dark dirt patches covering their clothes, looking clearly as though they had already explored the immediate area a little bit while he was unconscious.
"Boss... we don't know where we are..."
"We are in a very strange place too," the other subordinate said, stepping forward as he handed over a strange piece of fruit with pinkish-red and white skin, topped by small green leaves.
"The smell is very strange too. Is it maybe poisonous?" the boss, or rather the leader of the group, murmured as he turned the object over in his hands to examine it further.
But he quickly realized he had no time for that, throwing the fruit into the grass and standing up to dust off his uniform.
"Guys, there is no time for this. We have to find a way out of this place right now."
Both subordinates nodded their heads in agreement, and the leader quickly reached into his pocket, pulling out a small brass compass.
'Tsk... it is completely useless...'
The small needle inside the compass began swinging violently back and forth, refusing to stop turning as the arrow just kept on spinning clockwise in endless circles.
He quickly thrust the broken compass back into his pocket, turning to order his subordinates with a stern look.
"Everyone, we need to stay together for now. We can't afford to be careless in this place... this area is much more dangerous than we thought."
'This place... it is absolutely brimming with dense mana everywhere. Not just the specific plants we found, but the very air itself is brimming with it... we need to be extremely careful.'
He then began heading straight forward into the thick foliage. He didn't know which path was the correct one, but for now, he felt he simply needed to head straight in hopes of finding some kind of settlement or border wall in this space.
***
As the black-clothed figures began exploring the deep woods, Fainyx's small frame remained perfectly hidden beneath his invisibility magic.
He was currently floating near the branches, casually eating a piece of the exact same fruit the leader had just thrown out, though his copy was much riper and redder.
It was a strawberry, and as Fainyx took a slow bite, the sweet, juicy contents flowed out pleasantly.
"Hm... they are not bad at all~. They are not complete idiots after all, huh... at least it is much more easier for all of them to stay together than me having to take them out one by one..."
"Kyuu~"
Lumi raised his tiny paws, happily holding a small strawberry of his own as he also took a quick bite.
His white mouth was now completely stained with red juice, but he looked incredibly excited as he just perched comfortably on Fainyx's shoulders.
"Lumi, my clothes will get completely soaked by the juice if you keep sitting on my shoulder like that..."
"Kyuu~"
Lumi understood the quiet warning immediately, leaping over to a nearby strong tree branch where he just perched over the edge to watch the intruders.
Fainyx let out a quiet sigh and jumped down from the high branch, using a thin thread of wind magic to support his small weight so he wouldn't make a sound upon landing.
"Now then... finally, I have some live subjects to experiment my magic on, heh~. I originally thought about going out to the mountains to fight some small low-level monsters just to test my new experimental spells, but they finally just barged straight into my bedroom. Has my good luck finally reached me?"
He laughed quietly to himself, his violet crystal eyes locking onto the exact path where the three black-clothed figures were walking.
"I just hope they won't suddenly break on me... I still have quite a few questions to ask them."
'Huh... why do I sound like I am about to torture them? Well... never mind that...'
He then flew smoothly through the air after them, cloaking his entire presence with absolute invisibility magic.
***
"Ugh... there are far too many thick trees here. Shall we just cut them down to make a path, Boss?"
" ... No, I think it is much better if we don't destroy anything in this area, as someone or something powerful might hear us out here."
"Fine, fine~. But how are we even supposed to fight if something jumps us, Boss? Our weapons and all of our backup gear are completely missing," the other subordinate said, carefully stepping over the rough ground, not daring to step on any dry branches.
He was clearly cautious and alert to his surroundings.
"We'll need to find a way to get out of here first, but before that, we need to locate a proper hiding spot... we don't know if there is a massive beast hiding in these shadows, watching us."
The leader said this firmly, walking a few paces ahead to lead the way.
While they were walking down the narrow path, a sudden, powerful gush of wind swept across the dirt, kicking up dust and blocking their sight for a brief second.
To avoid the blinding wind, one of the subordinates instinctively walked backward a few steps.
The exact moment his boot stepped onto a patch of normal-looking grass, a sudden, bright yellow light burst from the dirt, and a massive spark of lightning flared out violently, shocking his entire body.
"Aaghh!!"
"Prim! Take cover, guys! There is an enemy mage hidden here!" the leader roared, immediately sprinting toward a giant tree to cover himself up, his eyes scanning the area where his comrade had been hit.
He saw his subordinate, who was named Prim, still laying flat on the ground and groaning in deep pain.
Prim desperately tried to crawl toward his boss for safety, but before he could even move a few inches, his hand touched a different patch of dirt.
A sudden light flared beneath his palm, and a small, violent tornado came out of the ground, throwing his body high up into the sky.
"Ahhhh! Help me!!"
Prim was thrown back down through the air, his hands flailing until he managed to grab onto a thick tree branch.
But the wood snapped right off under his weight, causing him to bang his body heavily against the hard ground.
"Aaaghhh!"
His left hand was twisted in an entirely unnatural way, and he screamed out in pure agony.
He didn't die from the impact since his physical body was naturally strong, but the magic had left him much weaker and broken, and he began flailing helplessly toward his leader again.
"P-please... Boss, help me...."
"What the hell is happening right now?!" the leader yelled, his heart hammering against his ribs.
Right now, he was seeing completely impossible things. His subordinate Prim was just walking normally when a sudden bolt of lightning shocked him, and then, as Prim tried to crawl back, a flash of green light appeared beneath his arm, throwing him into the sky and leaving him severely injured.
The leader couldn't help but feel a deep wave of fear creeping into his chest.
'Is this a massive trap? How can magic even be released from the bare ground without any magic circles being drawn or anyone standing here to cast it? This place is completely strange! We need to get out of here fast!'
But before he could even think of a viable way to escape, he suddenly heard his other subordinate scream out in pure terror, and he turned around to see something even more shocking.
"Hugh!!"
"B-Boss... please help me! I can't get out of this!"
Hugh, the other subordinate, was already halfway buried in the ground. The area beneath his feet had suddenly turned into a deep pit of moving sand, and he was being rapidly sucked into the earth.
He kept struggling to pull his legs out, but every single time he moved, his body just kept going down much faster.
"Stop moving, Hugh! You are just making yourself go down faster!" the leader shouted, panic finally bleeding into his voice.
The leader tried to look around frantically for something his subordinate could hold onto. His eyes landed on the thick wooden branch that Prim had broken when he fell from the tree.
He ran over, grabbed the sturdy wood, and held it out over the pit for Hugh to reach.
"Grab onto this!"
Hugh held onto the branch as if his entire life depended on it, his knuckles turning white as his boss tried to pull him up with all his strength.
But every time the leader tried to pull him out of the sand, Hugh's body simply would not budge. The moving sand was far too heavy, and the dirt was already pressing tightly against his neck now.
"B-boss... you don't need to pull me anymore. It's already too late for me now..."
"N-no, hold on!"
"Boss! You have to run away from this place right now! Just leave me here and take Prim with you!"
"I just... I can't do it... I can't leave you behind! How about your wife?! She is about to have a child soon, Hugh! You can't just die in a place like this!"
"Heh... Boss, just help my wife if you manage to escape with Prim... just tell my wife I died while saving someone's life... I can't let my wife know that... that we took orders to kill and kidnap a small child, please..."
"Ugh... fine... we'll leave..." the leader muttered, his head dropping as tears mixed with the dirt on his face.
"B-boss!" Prim said, his voice cracking as his uninjured hand clutched his broken, twisted arm, slowly trying to take a step forward.
"Prim, this is his final choice! ... Now let's go."
"... Fine."
The two of them then turned around and left the clearing, leaving Hugh behind with only his face left uncovered above the sand.
"Hehe... you made a good choice, Boss... sigh... so this is how I will finally die," Hugh whispered to himself, his voice sounding raspy as the sand pressed against his chest.
His eyes looked up toward the sky. It was a beautiful, clear blue, with the tops of the massive trees swaying gently in the wind.
"Heh... at least the scenery is beautiful before I die."
He then closed his eyes, his face settling into a look of deep regret as he tried to whisper his very last sentence into the quiet forest.
"... I am so sorry, my dear... I truly regret choosing this rundown job of mine... I should have just stuck to being a simple baker instead..."
A few seconds later, his mind went completely blank, and he blacked out, losing consciousness from the severe lack of oxygen.
***
'Uhh... I think I should stop the spell before he actually dies from suffocation.'
Fainyx flicked his small fingers from his hiding place on the branch, and the heavy quicksand spell immediately deactivated.
The earth shifted back to normal, pushing the unconscious man up until his body lay safely on top of the grass.
'Good, he is still breathing steadily.'
"Kyuu~"
Fainyx, who had been hiding on top of the giant tree the entire time, was genuinely surprised at how loyal these criminals were to each other, and how incredibly dramatic the entire scene had just been.
It looked much more like a high-stakes scene from an action drama than a real-life kidnapping attempt.
He let out a slow sigh.
'I guess I still pity them a little bit, so I won't kill them for now. I guess I will just have to chase down those other two guys next.'
Lumi, who was now resting back on Fainyx's shoulder, looked down at the unconscious man who had been called Hugh.
The small spirit jumped down, curiously smelling the man's clothes and trying to gently smack his face with his paws to see if he would wake up.
'For now, I will just tie this man up safely to a tree trunk using my magic, and then I will go after those two people.
There are still plenty of traps laying around this forest, but most of those spells are not dangerous like this quicksand here.'
This specific guy called Hugh was just incredibly unlucky to step right into the most obvious spots to avoid.
Fainyx had spent the past few weeks trying to get this trap spell to work properly.
He had thought deeply about how magic structures functioned, and he remembered the layout of the old dungeon games he used to play in his past life on Earth.
It was an RPG type of game where the maps were filled with a bunch of annoying traps, like slippery slopes that slid you into a hole with iron spikes, or giant boulders chasing you down a narrow corridor.
He had wondered back then... was it possible to create a magical trap spell where he could hide the mana symbol inside the bare ground, and then, the exact moment an enemy stepped on it, the magic would automatically activate?
He had researched the theory inside the Aetherium, and it turned out to be entirely possible.
After weeks of trial and error, he had finally made it work perfectly.
This trap spell functioned by using a hidden magical symbol. He would flood the symbol with his own mana and seal a specific element inside it, whether it was wind, fire, water, lightning, or earth magic.
The moment an outsider's boot pressed onto the ground, the symbol would sense the physical pressure, activate instantly, and release the sealed magic directly into the target.
For now, he was highly satisfied that his experiment had succeeded.
'But then, should I make a sensory spell that filters the targets? Something that ensures the trap only activates for designated enemies, but remains completely safe for me and my future comrades? I should definitely list that idea down for this spell's next upgrade.'
For now, he began to mentally list out what modifications to add to the magic core.
His eyes lingered on the extra boundary spells he had placed around the grass fields just before the three men had woken up in this forest.
This dimension was absolutely massive, so he had made sure to drop the group very far away from his central base and the private villa where he usually planted his coffee beans.
At their current pace, it would take them several days of continuous walking just to reach his living quarters.
'Now then... where exactly are those other two guys heading?'