Chương 50: Death and Arrival

Their gaze fell on the terrified Nick, pondering what to do with him.

"Don't kill me!" Nick wailed, his voice like a quacking duck. Kyle and Luke looked at each other with a speechless expression. Where did his earlier bravado go? Doyle pondered for a moment and said, "Let's keep him alive for now. He'll be an important piece in proving the Bloody Hand's connection to the cult." The others nodded, agreeing with Doyle's proposal.

"The issue is that we can't let him appear in front of the rest of the caravan," Luke said with a frown on his face.

"Indeed. If they knew that the reason the caravan was attacked was due to us, things could get very bad." Kyle nodded solemnly.

"This… I didn't think of it." Aaron's face turned a bit pale. If the caravan learned they had been attacked because of them, causing such a huge loss in terms of cargo and people, then getting expelled would be the lightest outcome.

"Tch! This is such a dilemma." Luke tsked and looked at Nick with a look of annoyance.

"Then how about leaving the caravan and bringing Nick back to Mirevale? We can quickly expose the Bloody Hand's connection to the cult by giving him to the president, and Mirevale is much closer to us than Velkaris." Aaron raised his hand and said.

"That would be too risky; we would be walking straight into the sphere of influence of the Bloody Hand and the cult. They might even intercept us outside Mirevale. If Garrick were to act personally, then we wouldn't be able to resist." Kyle shook his head and said. The carriage fell silent as the team fell into thought. Nick silently cowered in the corner, listening with bated breath. His fate would be decided in the next few minutes.

"It seems we can only take him with us. I'm fine with him hiding in the carriage with me. The only problem is that Tina would have to ride a horse for the rest of the journey." Doyle shook his head and said, his gaze falling on the blue-haired figure standing at the entrance of the carriage.

"I don't mind, Captain, and please don't treat me like I'm a weak young lady. The one who'll suffer would be you, since I won't be able to take care of you as much during the journey." Tina said as she glanced back. She was pouting, a bit dissatisfied at how much they underestimated her. Though she didn't like to talk much, she was still very much a member of the team.

"Hahaha! Sorry about that," Doyle laughed, scratching the back of his head with a look of embarrassment.

"Ahem! Luke and Kyle, you two have to periodically stay in the carriage. Only the two of you can keep an eye on this guy to prevent him from escaping." Doyle coughed and said with a serious expression. Aaron and Tina were a long-range unit and a support unit. They could be taken out in a moment if they stay in proximity to a rank 1 warrior professional.

'I could have easily restrained such a punk in the past. Unfortunately…' Doyle shook his head internally, a bit depressed. However, he showed none of it on the surface.

"It's fine by me," Kyle waved his hand and said. Luke also nodded.

"Now, let's quickly clean up our mess. The caravan should set off soon." Luke glanced at the adventurers and guards moving outside and said.

"It's fine; I'll take care of it." Kyle waved his hand to stop them. To their inquisitive gaze, he just smiled and injected mana into his ring.

"[Cleanse]" The dust and traces of blood on the carriage quickly disappeared, leaving just a condensed, small dirt sphere, which he threw outside the carriage. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. Feeling the surprised expression the others gave him, Kyle clapped his hand and calmly walked out of the carriage, but he was a bit smug internally. Aaron looked on with a speechless expression. It was as if he couldn't cast [Cleanse] himself.

Tina chuckled softly before turning her head to look away. Doyle's and Luke's gazes fell on the ring on his finger. Their expression turned a bit strange as they turned to look at each other. In the end, they just smiled and shook their head. The caravan quickly dealt with the deceased and bandaged the wounded before continuing to move forward. This time, they crossed the Greymantle mountain range without any mishap.

Over the next few days, they crossed a series of hills and detoured through a large marsh before crossing a large prairie. In the process, apart from sporadic monster attacks that were quickly dealt with, the only notable incident was an attack by a starved ogre, which Bram crushed before it could reach the caravan. The rest of the journey was uneventful. ** The sun gradually sank below the horizon.

The caravan had set camp near the base of a small hill, where a few guards and adventurers were tasked with night watch. Kyle was sitting cross-legged beside a campfire near their party's carriage, constantly circulating mana through his eyes, activating and deactivating [Clairvoyant Eyes (F)]. It wasn't until he felt the familiar flow of warmth moving from his mind to his eyes that he stopped.

"Hoo!" Kyle heaved a sigh and opened his eyes, blue light flashing through his pupils. The scenery before him became clearer, while the swaying grass seemed noticeably slower. Even the faint virtual image moving ahead of the grass became clearer. It was quite inconvenient to train his body and swordsmanship during this journey, so Kyle simply switched to training the skill that made the least commotion, [Clairvoyant Eyes]. Kyle placed his hand over his knee, dazedly looking at the campfire in front of him.

He went over every facet that needed training, from skills to mind to physique and mana. He realized that many aspects needed training, but training all of them would ultimately slow down his growth speed. Looking through everything, Kyle concluded that for a swordsman, apart from attack strength, he didn't lack much else. The only thing he needed to do now was to raise his physical strength, swordsmanship, and mana capacity and control until he reached the second rank.

Only then would it be the best time to start mending weaknesses.

'By training [Mana Enhancement], I can effectively raise my mana capacity and control, along with physical strength, all at the same time. While the efficiency is lower than training each one individually, the overall speed increases,' Kyle pondered, moving mana throughout his body. He raised his finger and looked at the faint blue veins as he pushed mana through his blood vessels.

'Now that I think of it, I can use the same method to train several compatible combat skills at the same time. [Superspeed Slash] and [Phantom Step]… Maybe I can combine them into one skill, combining both movement speed and attack. That would greatly increase efficiency.' Kyle's eyes shone as this thought flashed in his mind. Just as he was debating the thought in his mind, a slight commotion in the carriage caught his attention. The carriage door opened, then Luke stuck his head out and solemnly called them in.

"What happened?" Kyle asked confusedly as he entered the carriage, illuminated with just a single lantern.

"He's dead," Luke solemnly said as he pointed at Nick's corpse on the carriage floor. Tina carefully examined the body before shaking her head and stepping away. Too late. Kyle finally glimpsed his face. It was dark, his lips purple, and dark blood was seeping from his cavities.

"What happened to him?" Kyle's eyes widened. He was fine just a few hours ago.

"He was poisoned. It was a slow-acting poison that acts if one doesn't receive the antidote after several days." Luke said with a dark expression. Truth be told, that was his negligence. He didn't think of that at all.

"Don't blame yourself, Luke. No one thought of that. Even the guy himself didn't seem to know that he had been poisoned. It seems that the leader of the Bloody Hand is sharper than expected." Doyle shook his head. The carriage fell silent. Everyone stared at Nick's corpse, the weight of the situation settling over them. They were just a day away from reaching Velkaris. Tomorrow at the latest, they would have handed him over to the Adventurers Guild in Velkaris, yet he died before they could get there.

"Sigh… We can only get rid of him now. We still have to report the Bloody Hand's connection to the cult, but without this guy as proof, their response will be much slower." Doyle lowered his head, his eyes dim.

"They might not even take us seriously." Luke took a large piece of cloth from his bag and wrapped Nick's corpse.

"We can't leave a poisoned corpse in the carriage any longer. I'll go bury it." Luke said before using [Stealth], disappearing into the darkness with the bag. Kyle looked at this with a complicated expression.

'The situation has become troublesome.' Thwarting the Bloody Hand's conspiracy without proof will be much harder now. He shook his head and walked out of the carriage. After resting for the night, the caravan set off as soon as dawn. They were expected to reach Velkaris today. As the afternoon sun descended, a massive silhouette emerged on the horizon.

"Whoa…" Kyle's eyes widened. Before him stood a colossal city whose walls completely dwarfed those of Mirevale.

'20 meters? No, at least 30 meters tall!' He was dumbfounded. It was on a completely different scale compared to Mirevale. What attracted his attention even more were the towering buildings in the distance and the endless blue sea beyond them.

"We finally arrived," Aaron said with a grin.

"Velkaris."