Supreme Magus novel Chapter 4446

Chapter 4446: Lead by Example (Part 2)

’Darn, this guy is an ass, but his charisma is undeniable.’ Gelm inwardly cursed. ’He gives no speeches and doesn’t act nice, but he leads by example. Tarak is so damn competent that everyone already trusts his judgment more than mine after watching him fight once.’

Lith helped the soldiers to get rid of the bodies, and once they were piled up on the roadside, he ordered them to search the corpses.

’Now I can keep an eye on everyone.’ He thought. ’If a member of the caravan is a mole and the bandits were part of the plan, the traitor now can’t take anything from the dead bandits without me noticing.’

The bandits had very little in their pockets, mostly partially eaten beef jerky.

"They must have left their horses and belongings somewhere near." Lith said. "They can’t have reached this place on foot, and without supplies or magic, they wouldn’t have survived the night in the wilds. Wait for me here."

Before anyone could raise an objection or remind Lith of his position in the chain of command, he took flight. Lith used the Eyes of Menadion to search for something with a magical energy signature and his extra five eyes to look for traces of the bandits’ movements.

’The Eyes haven’t found anything, but that doesn’t mean much.’ He thought. ’No one would waste a powerful artifact on cannon fodder. At most, whoever is behind this gave them a letter with instructions about how to deal with the aftermath of the assault that the bandits were supposed to destroy, but they kept it as insurance.’

It didn’t take Lith long to spot the clearing where the bandits had left their steeds from above, but a quick search proved him wrong.

’Nothing.’ Lith sighed. ’This was just a crime of opportunity. Those morons must have heard about the raids and thought that they could steal the cargo and frame the professionals. I’m wasting time here.’

Yet Lith’s paranoia wasn’t so easily appeased. A flick of his wrist made the snow in the clearing float, allowing him to look for freshly turned ground.

’Nothing again. Those guys were just morons!’ Lith expanded the area of effect of his spell as far as his Tiamat eyes could see, but the result was the same.

He cursed the amateur highway robbers and returned to the caravan.

"Did something happen while I was away?" He had left for less than five minutes, but a powerful mage only needed one to slaughter an entire village.

"Yes, Karlten puked his guts out." One of the mercenaries replied.

"I’ll take that as a no." Lith snorted. "Let’s move. And remember, when the real fight starts, I expect you to form a perimeter around the caravan. Don’t fight alone if you don’t have the skills. Fight as a group. There is strength in numbers."

It was basic common sense, but after seeing many mercenaries fumble with their weapons in panic, Lith felt it was necessary.

"I’m sorry, but I need to ask." Morkan, one of the few who had "defeated" Lith, asked. "How did you react so quickly and win the fight without any help?"

"Only magicless thugs would come out of their hiding spots screaming." Lith snorted. "They gave out their position in the hope that fear and surprise would make us easy prey.

"A real professional would never do that. They would have shot poisoned arrows or spells at us to whittle our numbers before charging forward. Also, they would have done it silently to exploit the ensuing chaos.

"While everyone argued between running away and helping the injured, the bandits would have snuck behind us and slitted our throats. Why fight when you can just win?" Put it like that, Lith’s question made Morkan consider a career change.

"Since we were clearly dealing with amateurs, I prioritized reaching a vantage point to end the fight quickly. I assumed that since every Snow Thrower thinks themselves better than me, they could hold their ground against someone without magic powers for a few seconds.

’Fuck!’ Most mercenaries thought. ’A mage’s strength isn’t measured in the raw amount of mana he possesses, but how he uses it. Even if I defeated Tarak, I would still be a weakling compared to him.’

’There’s no one here, but I can’t tell them that.’ Lith thought. ’I must appear competent, not a psychic.’

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify