Chapter 143 Brutus 1

Lucas immediately sat in a meditative position and tried to gather as much mana as he physically could. He tried to stay calm and focus on recovery, but his mind was in a bit of a struggle.

'Even if the sound is being blocked, the vibrations should've definitely been noticed.'

'And yet, not a single response from the main target or the bait.'

'Nothing's happening, we'll have to revise our plan.'

'Could we not wait a bit longer?'

'No, absolutely not.'

"Eleven, is the barrier still active?", Lucas spoke into the void, he was certain someone would pick it up. And from the shadows not far from where the advisor's body lay, a voice answered.

"Asta's instructions on how to repair it were effective, so yes, it should still be working."

Lucas was about to be angry at revealing that they had a third partner, but seeing as the barrier is still up, everything was fine. Closing his eyes, he tried to calm down and gather energy while reaching out to his companions.

"Good, Asta, Eleven, my plan has failed, we need to rethink our strategy.", Lucas was very to the point since time was of the essence.

"What went wrong? Surely you have thought of a plan that is foolproof?", Asta revealed himself, he had been hidden since the beginning. His only job so far was to create an array capable of enforcing Eleven's spell without ever seeing it in action since Eleven wanted that spell for himself. For any other mage of their level that would've been an impossible task, but Asta wasn't normal.

"No plan is truly foolproof. I gave the bait cores that should explode when fractured, but since nothing's happening, she is either dead or Brutus found out and is observing us at this very moment."

Eleven and Asta snapped their heads at the center building, but nothing happened. Asta was the first to recover as showing any kind of fear was beneath him. Coughing away the embarrassment he felt, he questioned Lucas further.

"Would it be a good idea to make plans when he's listening?"

Lucas kept a calm demeanor, closing his eyes truly helped him focus on what truly mattered.

"Doesn't matter, Brutus is a man, a person made from flesh and tendons. If we cut his head of this mission will be over. The only thing stopping us are his shields. We need to come up with a possible combination of attacks that will break his shields."

Eleven stayed out of the conversation since tactical discussions weren't his strongest suit. He patiently waited until Lucas and Asta came up with something. He was nervous, but hid it deep inside his heart, showing his nervousness would only distract the only two people capable of saving the camp.

"Easier said than done, he's a Rank 2 mage, his magic shields will be compacter, denser and thus have a higher defense. This isn't 1 + 1 = 2, if his strength were to be taken into account, a single shield would result in 3 to 4 shields of a Rank 1."

"Correct, only a combination of attacks would be strong enough to break them."

"Then include Dark magic, that should get rid of the shield."

"Not if he anticipates that and always holds a halo of light around him. That would remove any danger Darkness magic holds."

"Then get rid of the halo or barrier before attacking him with it."

"And how do you suppose we get rid of this extra barrier? Dark magic?"

"I see what you're trying to say. Since he's a Rank 2 we'll need to consume all of our magic if we want to win, so using Darkness magic a lot without certainty will only cripple us in the long run."

"Yes, the first step would be to remove the barrier by using the opposite element to cancel it out."

"What if he doesn't have a barrier, and he just employs shields?"

"Then we're in trouble."

Eleven was starting to get confused at this point. Most of what they said made sense to him. Light and Dark magic consumed more energy than the other typical elements. If Brutus didn't use any extra barriers couldn't they just pummel him with Darkness magic and win?

Asta walked around the battlefield and picked up on of the ice shards that damaged Lucas.

"Hmm, if he doesn't focus on defense, he'll either be extremely fast or focus on the offensive or something else we can't imagine."

Lucas stayed silent while Eleven was getting scared that he might've just plunged his only companions into an impossible fight.

"Eleven, what do you know about the leader of this camp?", for once, Eleven was brought into the conversation. Seeing his chance to help out he stepped forward to announce his presence, even if Lucas had his eyes closed and Asta was inspecting the shards of ice, he told them everything he knew.

"Brutus was someone that pushed everyone to do their utmost in gathering the magic crystals. At first the children were spared, and they were sent to school or training, but something changed over time. Suddenly everyone had to start helping out in the mines. It didn't take long before the mine was starting to dry up, and we had to move to this place.

The exact same thing happened here, but this cave wasn't explored yet, so there were some deaths due to monsters coming out. Brutus's desire for more crystals was never ending, but we rarely actually saw him. He just stayed in his home, and only came out when the messenger came."

Lucas was listening attentively, there were some interesting details that piqued his interest.

"There aren't any adults in the camp, only children, how do you enter or leave the camp? And who's the messenger?"

"You get taken here by a messenger and only leave when you pass certain tests, then you get taken away to another place, but I can't tell you what happens there. But the messengers manage everything, but they always wear masks, so I don't know if it's always the same person."

Lucas took a moment to think about what he just heard. The information was sparse, but it wasn't that hard to connect the dots.

"A sudden increase in desire for magic crystals, the abolishment of the functionality of the camp, gathering slaves around the border without following the standard, the complete removal of adults.... It seems the organization that manages this place has abandoned it."

Eleven understood Lucas's reasoning and couldn't help but agree with it. If the school wasn't open, how would this be even a training camp anymore?

"Every mage strives to get stronger every day. They do this through any means possible, as long as they achieve their goals. Someone who rules over a camp with slaves and has absolute authority over everything here. Never goes out of his hidden room and just gets fed the best food and gathers crystals from poor children for a living...

We aren't dealing with an all-rounder, he'll have grown lazy in this unchanging environment. The crystals will be his path to greatness since he can't use them to buy anything."

Asta walked back from the shards on the ground, he had grown tired of them.

"So he's artificially made? Great, makes his pressure pretty much useless.", Lucas didn't fully agree with him, but knew there was some truth to it.

"If you say so, still, even if his magic won't be at the level we expect, how are we going to deal with him? Hmm, never mind, it's time for action."

Lucas stood up and stared at the main building. There wasn't any noise, but the silence made it stand out. Going through multiple situation in his head, he figured that Brutus must've been waiting for him, why else give them so much time.

Yet even after standing up and giving it some time, nothing happened. Were his calculations off? Did something else happen that he didn't anticipate? With every second passing, he felt more uncomfortable. Before he truly lost his patience, he figured the next best thing was to use the current situation to his advantage.

"Eleven, hide, Asta, please cover the entire camp in explosive arrays."

"Hmm? I don't use elements, I'm not going to start using fire runes to create explosions. That's way below me!"

"Fine, then make arrays that gather mana constantly, the moment I step on them, let them release it, so I can gather it again.", Lucas sent Asta a loose dull bolt of magic, so Asta could interpret his magic signature. Every core was unique in the way it produced pure mana without any elements, so figuring out someone's identity wasn't that difficult.

Of course, not many would be using elementalless magic if they wanted to do something out of the norm. Asta took the bolt and went to work. Lucas on the other hand started to prepare himself and move in closer.

Shields were already surrounding him, but he added another one for insurance. Slowly but surely Lucas got closer to the center most building. The moment he crossed the barrier Eleven and Asta set up all noise from the outside vanished, it felt wrong, artificial and unnatural. Something was off, not hearing the crickets or small noises the bugs made everything seem dead.

Lucas sharpened his senses, erased his presence and moved forward. He knew that erasing his presence probably wouldn't do anything since the advisor found him, but it was another measure of security, it gave him peace of mind.

He went up the stairs that led right to the doors of the dreaded building. Step by step, he advanced until he got to the doors, yet nothing happened. Leaning his ear against the doors he could hear noises and a ruckus inside. He didn't understand what was happening, but assumed that both Sammy and Brutus were busy with something.

Extremely slowly opening the door, he peeked inside, he couldn't see anyone, only a bunch of loose clothes. His eyes stared hard at the two crystals that were scattered on the ground. Since they were far apart from each other, they must've fell down somehow.

'Tch, she failed.'

'Doesn't matter, the crystals are still within our grasp, now we just need to blow them up.'

'Wasn't sacrificing Sammy just because we wanted to get close to him? Can't we think of something else?'

'No, I don't care about her. It's sad to see her go, the family will have a hard time dealing with the loss of their friend, I can see that. Still, we agreed to sacrifice if necessary, this is one of those cases.'

'Sigh, fine, not that I can stop you.'

Lucas didn't want to enter the building, as he felt that would alert Brutus, so he opened the doors a bit wider and moved back. He surveyed his surroundings and couldn't see Eleven. Asta was standing in the open, awaiting the fun battle ahead. Calming himself down he went outside.

"Eleven, shoot an explosive arrow into the opening of the main building after my sign. How many will you have left after that one?", once again Lucas had to speak to the shadows around the camp, assuming Eleven would pick it up.

"I'll have about 6 left."

"Tch, Asta, you really couldn't teach him explosive arrays? Why are you insisting on not using elements?"

Asta held his head high. "I'm saddened to hear such a poor complaint from you Conrad, elements dirty the true nature of magic. Pure mana is the only way a true mage should fight, not with elements."

Lucas couldn't understand and didn't want to either. He was just annoyed that the brilliance of Asta was lost to such a strange philosophy. "Then I hope you're strong enough to handle a Rank 2 with your pure mana spells."

"Of course! This shouldn't be that much of an issue."

Spells created out of pure mana wasn't something seen very often since elements did provide many useful benefits. Mana itself was a formless blob of energy that could be crafted into many things, but why focus on that when you can fire arrows of light or fight with fire?

Staring at the main building, Lucas tried to think of a way to win. There were too many possibilities and variables to think of, if only he was more prepared and smarter.

'If we end up failing, we should use that.'

'Do you think that's a good idea?'

'If we live because of it, yeah.'

Inside Lucas's dome, the blood-red moon covered in its own personal rune was shining down. If he used the aura created from the Scarlet Moon, he could possibly fight back, or at least escape.