Chapter 273: Off He Goes

Stephanie POV

She and her team were stunned as they watched things play out.

They all knew that things would be extremely risky considering the danger rating on this mission, but they could have never expected something quite like this.

A group of Tier 4s attacking the caravan like they did was not something you would think would happen, but it was a possibility. Being attacked by a Tier 5?

That was very unreasonable.

For what reason would a Tier 5 attack them? She doubted it was the materials they were transporting. At that tier, you don’t care for Tier 3 materials anymore. Clearing a Tier 5 rift would make you very wealthy just with the cores alone.

So why would this man attack them? She knew she wasn’t the only person thinking about this either.

She released the breath she was holding as she observed the conclusion of the whole situation.

A large number of the caravan had up and left. Most of them had been merchants who abandoned their belongings once they saw the Tier 5 show up. But there was a large number of the escort teams who ran away as well.

While she doubted that the guild would punish them too severely, the fact would remain that they ran away from their duties. It wasn’t expected for adventurers to throw away their lives for the people they protect, but there was a kind of professional integrity that you didn’t abandon your clients to the dangers they hired you to protect them from.

So although they wouldn’t be removed from the guild, it would likely be a dark mark on their records for the rest of their careers.

She doubted many of them cared. At the end of the day, reputation could be mended, but you only had a single life.

But now everything was fine. The Tier 4s were all taken care of and the Tier 5 was captured by two random Tier 5s who had shown up out of the blue.

This whole mission had devolved into a huge complicated mess.

“What the fuck just happened?” Beck voiced out a question all of them had, just in more crude terms.

“I think we got very lucky,” Matt said aloud, taking a look at all of them. “We could have all died, but we were fortunate that we didn’t lose anyone today.”

They all took a look around at the dead bodies that littered the plains. Most of them were enemies, but there were people from their side who had also been killed.

People she had seen or interacted with in previous days. People she would never see again.

This was the life of an adventurer. Death was commonplace and part of everyday life. One got used to it pretty quickly.

“I was talking about Julius fighting against a Tier 5. A Tier 5 that ripped through Rolus like nothing.”

Speaking of Rolus, she was glad to see that Adrian had gone over along with a healer to help their caravan leader. The Tier 4, while hurt and unconscious, didn’t seem to have any life-threatening injuries. It also helped that his affinity meant he had quite impressive healing skills.

The Tier 4, although missing both of his arms, should be okay. Treatment for limb regeneration was expensive for a Tier 4, but considering that the man had lost them due to his duties and responsibilities to House Easten, she expected that the man’s treatment would be covered by the noble house.

She was more worried about any soul damage. Fighting against a Domain could be dangerous, it was what made fighting against a Tier 5 as a Tier 4 next to impossible. This made her even more confused because Julius had been able to resist the man’s Domain.

“I told you that I had a weird feeling about him,” George commented to her, the man still looking over at where the boy was talking with the Tier 5s.

“You said that he could have been a traitor. I don’t know what you saw, but I can say with confidence that he wasn’t with them in any way,” she corrected him.

“No, but he was hiding something,” he tried to still point out.

Matt interrupted her before she could speak.

“Wait? You two knew that there was something off about Julius and you didn’t tell any of us?” The man didn’t sound mad, but he did sound a little hurt that the two of them didn’t share their suspicions.

Stephanie looked at their team leader with a shake of her head. “We had no idea that Julius was that strong. George found his weak aura kind of suspicious and I found his mana control to be too skilled to not be strong. But there was nothing that would indicate he could take on a Tier 4 by himself, nevertheless, hold his own against a Tier 5 and his Domain.”

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“So his aura was just a ploy to lower people’s guards?” Pamela asked quietly. “I thought he was just a weak Tier 3 who advanced too early. But that aura he showed tonight… I have never seen something quite like that, not on a human anyway.”

Beck scoffed. “Weak? Are you serious? You really believed that Julius was weak? Even I was able to tell that he hiding his strength.”

“Sure you did, Beck,” Matt said in an incredulous tone.

“Yeah, how did you know, huh?” George asked.

“I knew after the first day when he noticed the group of monsters approaching before you or Matt,” he said to their scout with a scoff. “Admittedly that could have been luck, but when it kept happening time and time again, it was clear it wasn’t.”