Playing With Fire

"Hu..." Alexei let out a deep breath before making his expression appear like he was in a trance. Soon, without blinking his eyes or moving his gaze away from the abyssal relic on the lich's bony hands, he unhurriedly spoke.

"I... I saw a witch. Overlooking a group of islands."

Dim lighting illuminated the hall. Usually, the Leader would watch attentively every movement of the boy kneeling in front. But today, the giant chose to stand near the window with his hands behind his back. This did not mean that he was not listening to Alexei though.

After a few moments of silence, the lich asked, "What does the witch look like? How did you manage to tell that she's a witch?"

To this, the boy answered in that same monotonous tone, "She has scarlet hair that resembles the flames of a fire phoenix. She wore a black dress and has a tattoo of a red scepter on her left wrist. I can see her speaking while floating in midair, above the island with ruins."

"She said, 'This place is not bad for a gift.'"

If the lich only had eyebrows, it might have already raised one at Alexei. However, it was not the first time that the boy saw some useless image so he just asked, "What else do you see?"

"Hadoania Group of Islands."

"I can see her asking a magical book about the place and it says the place used to be called Hadoana Group of Islands."

"The magical book has a daisy wheel pattern on it."

Alexei went silent after that. However, his two precious listeners suddenly looked perturbed.

"Milord."

The 8-meter tall handsome giant turned around at the same time and approached Alexei. For a short while, the earth quaked as deafening footsteps echoed. With a serious expression on his usually expressionless face, the Leader made the boy describe the witch again.

'Heh.' Although he wanted to sneer, Alexei controlled his facial muscles and obediently did what had been asked of him.

Soon, the two others began a discussion.

"It's really her." Amazement could be heard from the lich's voice. "There is only one witch who uses a spell catalyst with that pattern. It should be the Red Witch."

"Check the map."

Alexei got sent away so he did not manage to eavesdrop on any more juicy information. However, the movement of the organization after that was large. Servants saw a few black dragons leaving from the center of the front yard.

If not for the presence of the others around him, he would have giggled like a fool already. To be honest, when he said those words earlier, he was actually messing around. The image described was from a game cutscene. But who in Mavria doesn't know that the Red Witch stood at the apex of this world? And that even Sovereigns admitted she qualified to be on the same level as them?

"It seems the Leader wants to hunt the Red Witch."

In the palace, there were very few who liked to talk to Alexei. There were so many reasons behind it. But generally, they looked down on humans with no Gift yet couldn't openly do the same to Alexei since he was valued greatly by the Leader. As such, to avoid saying something inappropriate, the majority simply chose to avoid him altogether.

Actually, the one who spoke just now, a fellow servant called Juhep, also avoided him before. So Alexei was surprised when the other approached him and spoke to him.

"It has spread that it's you who divined her location. Admirable."

"Thanks to the power of the relic," he simply said.

Alexei had no intention to befriend anyone here so he usually kept silent and rarely responded to the queries of his curious 'colleagues'. If he does, it would always be short and boring. With that attitude, how could he make any friends or leave any positive impression on others?

'Everyone here, including me, has changed so much. After seeing so much malice, it will be impossible to hold a pure heart and mindset. Why bother associating when we're all bound to go our separate ways or hold opposing principles?'

"I don't like you but I'm one of those grateful for giving us a lot of free time this time. A few missing dragons and warriors mean a few masters to serve and mounts to feed."

Alexei nodded and then went back inside the palace. On the way there though, he overheard some servants excitedly talking and their topic of conversation had one common point.

Elimination Battle.

'Ah.' As if he finally remembered what he had forgotten, he stood still. His lips parted.

A chill ran down his spine when he realized what these two words meant.

The life of a servant might not be that great since they had lower rights than any regular citizen of a kingdom. But at least they had lower chances of being turned into an abomination by those crazy black magicians. They had to work twenty hours out every day, but they could sleep in proper beds, eat proper food twice a day and wear decent clothes. Not to mention, they would be given the right to watch the biannual death tournament that the Leader simply called the Elimination. In that event, servants would be allowed to place bets and the number of times won would correspond to the number of days they would be freed from their duties.

In comparison, the life of an experimental subject was really tragic. They had no freedom and were treated like dead objects from the get-go. Every six months, they would be forced to participate in a series of battles where their opponents would vary from humans to beasts.

The majority of the captives were kids.

"This damned place." He cursed in his heart and he would have cursed more using his mouth if not for knowing that every conversation held in the palace could be heard by the lich.

He never thought in his life that he would come to hate the gods. But he arrived at that point just now.

Suppressing the darkness in his eyes, he went back to work alongside the other servants. On the way to the lich's personal working room, he passed by the door to the basement. Although he did not want to, his mind subconsciously played the lifeless eyes of his former 'colleagues'. Those eyes seemingly lost all hope and succumbed to the darkness... they made him take several deep breaths just to calm his nerves.

...

The organization that kidnapped Alexei held considerable power and could definitely go against an entire country's military might.

However, while that sounded impressive, in reality in this world, there existed gods, and there also existed monsters and humans that could go against gods. Those individuals, by themselves, could destroy nations if they wanted to, and it would not take them long to do so. Naturally, the organization was nothing compared to these might individuals.

The Red Witch was one of them, a human magician who rose to power and fame through her own capabilities and talent.

Legend had it that she had lived for at least a thousand years and was currently a solid ally of the Sovereign of Wind. The latter was a really impressive feat considering how lofty sovereigns were and showed that she was either extremely smart, or powerful, or both.

Aware of this due to game lore, Alexei naturally had no good intentions when he 'divined' the location of the Red Witch in front of the Leader.

However, even he thought that at worst, the two sides would be equal since the Leader really looked confident when he sent out two platoons of dragon warriors.

But the scene that ensued above the Hadoania's Group of Islands was a little unbelievable.

Dragons known to be one of the most powerful creatures fell one by one. Blue and black blood dyed the bodies of water and land beneath them. The noisy roars and screeching of animals, humans, and beasts from earlier ceased as the beautiful red-haired witch slowly descended next to a dying black dragon knight.

The brief but explosive battle ended with all her enemies dead or on the brink of death, but the witch did not put away her spell catalyst. Instead, she curiously knelt next to the black armored knight and parted her luscious red lips.

"How did you guys find me?"