Cyclops

A huge head with only one eye which was bloodshot to the extreme entered everyone's view.

'Cyclops.'

This word passed by their head instantly looking at those heads.

CLATTER!

The knights started shaking, it was apparent that they were scared.

Cyclops are monsters which are extremely hard to kill even for a peak rank knight. They have high magic resistance, which makes them a natural enemy to the mages. Only high rank mages have the capability to even hurt them in any way.

Their physical defence is also very high making high rank knights attack totally useless.

But they are known as abominations for another reason, they have three special abilities unlike other monsters who have only one.

And all three special abilities are very strong.

CRUNCH! CRUNCH!

Making their way through the trees, cyclops headed towards the knights with saliva falling from their mouths.

GRUUHHHH!

Cyclops exited the forest one by one exposing their appearance to everyone.

Only one word could perfectly fit their appearance, that was ugly.

They had huge bulging stomachs with brown and black blemishes everywhere, their faces were ugly to the extreme. Their teeths protruded out of their mouth, the positions of their teeths were a total mess going zigzag. 

Snot fell from their noses, the single eye on their eye socket was totally red as it looked at the knights.

"Food!" "Food!" "meat!"

The Cyclops were able to speak little in human language as their intelligence was comparable to that of a 3 year old kid. But because of their hostile nature to every living being it was not possible to make any friendly relationship with them. They just looked at everything that has meat as food.

'But they are not supposed to be in this place...they are not even trying to hide their intention from the beginning huh....'

If cyclops were a common monster humanity would have been long doomed. There are only two forests in the whole first continent in which monster-like cyclops could be found.

But for them to appear here near a normal forest like this was without a doubt not possible, in other words they were brought here by someone. This did not go unnoticed by Zick and the others.

Seeing the collar on the Cyclop's neck, Zick's eyes focused.

'A monster taming device and that too it is a very high quality one.....heh, I guess a lot of money has been put behind this ambush.'

CRUNCH!

The cyclops did not stop after getting out of the forest, they started running towards the knight like hungry beasts. Even the way cyclops run was a mess, they kept swaying left and right at every step.

'30....there are 30 of them in total.'

Zick started counting their number with an expressionless face.

Standing beside Zick, Vertel had a solemn expression on his face, his fists were clenched tightly.

'If this goes on, I will fail my mission.'

Vertel didn't care about his life, what he cared about was escorting Zick to the academic city. This just shows his loyalty towards the Melvix family.

The existence of the four master assassins and 20 peak rank assassins did not go unnoticed by Zick and Vertel. Only two master assassins were moving right at the moment and the other two stood their ground for some reason.

Taking down 30 cyclops was easy for Vertel but killing two master rank assassins was hard even for him. If the two master assassins cooperated with each other and attacked Vertel, his survival would almost be close to none.

Master assassins excel at agile movement and hiding their presence so a drawn out fight would also be bad for him.

'and....who are they?' Turning his head, Vertel looked at the demihuman in the distance, there were also some priests in that group.

Some of them started heading towards where he was, Vertel was not able to feel any malicious intent from them so he had been ignoring them for a while.

'It looks like they are coming to help.'

Some hope rose within Vertel, he was able to sense that one of the demihuman of that group had master rank strength.

Vertel did not order the high rank knight to retreat, he was not kind hearted to something like that. He decided to use the knight as a meat shield without hesitation.

' [Aura camouflage] [Thought acceleration]' Zick activated this magic looking at the Cyclops.

In that instant, the world slowed down in his vision.

[Thought acceleration] is just like it sounds, this magic is a self buff type which increases the thinking speed. The only disadvantage of this magic was that it would make people mentally exhausted fast.

But Zick didn't have this problem as his body recovered faster. He had created this magic to deduce new magic faster. He hadn't used it while training to increase his mana as this magic would just be absorbed by his body if he did.

[Aura camouflage] is also a self buff type of magic, it can hide the fact that Zick just used magic from everyone around him. This magic also has a limit, it can only hide till five self buff type magic and it cannot hide the aura of the magic cast out of the body.

In other words, [Aura Camouflage] can only hide the presence of Self buff type magics.

Making all the magic that he created to be auraless was hard and annoying even for Zick. So he had created this magic which would be helpful to him in this field.

The magic that Zick used to hide his vertical eyes didn't count in [Aura camouflage] magic as it could hide its presence without it.

'By using dragon fear I can control all the Cyclops easily but there is no reason for me to save them.' In the end, even Zick decided on abandoning the knights.

Zick didn't care enough for the knight to risk exposing his dragon slayer status by saving them. He instead concentrated upon the presence of the peak and master rank assassins. 

The assassin's presence went unnoticed by all the high rank knights as they were invisible. All the assassins moved right behind Cyclop in their shadows.

The two master assassins who weren't moving also started moving as the demihumans neared Zick's group.

Looking towards the carriage in the distance which was protected by the demihumans, Zick was able to see a girl with blonde hairs and blue jewels like eyes standing in front of the carriage and looking towards cyclops warily.

'this.....'

Zick remembered the incident which involved the princess of the Pheorous kingdom. He knew about the jewel like eyes as it was very famous in the continent so he was able to tell who that blonde girl was.

Zick had almost forgotten about this as it didn't have anything to do with him.

'I got pulled into an incident without noticing.....' Zick furrowed his brow thinking this.

The chance of this being coincidence was very low which made him suspicious. The most doubtful person to cause this in his head was-

'Jarvin.'

Though Zick didn't know the specifics as Jarvin had always used mana to not let any sound leak out of his room, he was still able to tell that it was him.

Zick could feel the hostile intentions coming from Jarvin through his superior instincts easily. But still he started self reflecting upon himself.

'I had let my guard down as I had a master swordsman protecting me.....It could have been bad if I didn't have peak master rank strength.'

A small smile appeared on Zick's face thinking this. The chance of losing his life was impossible, at least in his eyes.

Vertel started covering his sword with green aura while catching it in one hand diagonally.

'Its starting.' Zick was able to see everything in slow motion so he was the most relaxed person there.