Chapter 317: Clean Up
Anfey went around a big tree as quick as a ghost. Black Eleven stood behind a tree, nervously looking around. Anfey told him to wait in the woods when he finished what he needed to handle. This wood was not as thick as a forest, but could cover a lot of things. He was not sure if Anfey could find him.
As Black Eleven was wondering if he should go back to the vineyard, Anfey had reached his hand out and patted him on the shoulder. Black Eleven tensed up and put his hand on the shaft of his sword with a lightning speed. At the same time, Anfey brushed his hand on Black Eleven’s elbow. Black Eleven felt numb on his arm and lost control of his arm movements. The next moment he heard Anfey’s voice: "It’s me."
"You scared me," Black Eleven said quietly, trying not to display his shock.
"Did people from Storm mercenary group leave?" Anfey asked.
"The king asked people from Storm mercenary group to follow you only because he was worried something would happen to you. Please do not misunderstand him for that. Anfey, you made my hand..." Black Eleven suddenly felt his arm return to normal before he could even finish his sentence.
"Did you get a chance to pass on the message?" Anfey asked, frowning.
"They both left, but I found a weird guy. He is definitely not our guy. He did not know I noticed him," Black Eleven said.
"Not just one. I have found five of them," Anfey said.
"How do you know?" Black Eleven asked in surprise.
Anfey smiled but did not answer Black Eleven. With his telepathy, all the branches, bushes, and grasses had been blowing hard. He could even feel their happiness and loyalty. In the plant world, he was a king without doubt. No one could enter the green world without notifying Anfey. Even when they could hide themselves very well, Anfey still could see their every facial expressions and moves as clearly as if they were right in front of him, even though they could be a few miles away.
"You should go back to the vineyard to tell them to get ready to leave soon. They will leave immediately after seeing my signal," Anfey said.
"What? We are not staying here tonight?" Black Eleven asked.
"If we are being watched like this every day, we could not do anything," Anfey said, shaking his head. "Tell Christian to take Suzanna, Blavi and Hagan in the south to the wood to wait for me. The rest of the legion will continue forward. I have talked to Master Baery. His cavalry will wait for us at the next stop. Tell Riska that I am asking him to take good control of the legion. No one is allowed to leave the legion. At least, they cannot let anyone notice we have left the legion on our own."
"How about Master Ernest and Master Entos?" Black Eleven asked slowly. "Anfey, you guys will not be very safe without them."
"They should stay in the legion. I will contact them once we settle things," Anfey said.
"It seems that I cannot go with you," Black Eleven said.
Anfey smiled, "It is more convenient to have few people working on it. Otherwise we could easily be noticed and have more trouble."
"It would not hurt to have one more person go with you." Black Eleven did not want to give up his goal of joining Anfey. His job was not only just helping and supporting Anfey, but also reporting everything about Anfey. If they were divided into two different teams, he would have no way to report anything.
"Ok, stop it. I will contact you in a few days," Anfey said.
"Anfey, you want to kill those few people, don’t you?" Black Eleven already could tell Anfey’s intention from his eyes.
"Since they are not the king’s people, I am not constrained by anything," Anfey said calmly. He turned around and ran to the woods with lightning speed. Black Eleven stared, his eyes wide, to try to see where Anfey went, but two bushes shook and blocked his view.
To the far east side of the vineyard, there were two people hiding on both sides of a trail with trees. They were about fifty yards apart. The vineyard only had one entrance and one exit. The wagon came in from the west so it could only go out to the east according to the itinerary. Their job was to send magic signals when they saw the wagons ready to leave.
To be honest, conducting surveillance was not an easy job. In addition to being alert all the time, they had no rest time. The hardest part of the job was to endure the loneliness. People in the wagon had gone to rest, but they had to continue watching them even though they knew they would not do anything until the next morning. They had rules and principles of doing surveillance, so they had to hold on tight tonight.
A big guy with sideburns stuck his head out from the left side of the woods to take a look at the trail. He stepped back into the woods, bored. If he had a choice, he would not be on this job. However, what could he do if he did not have this job? Be a soldier? Or a mercenary? It would be more dangerous than this job, but with similar pay, especially those jobs that did not give him the power he wanted. A while ago, he met a beautiful woman and went crazy for her. After doing some research on her, he found out that the woman had married a merchant. He thought about it and came up a scheme. He secretly went into the merchant’s house and hid a necromancer’s item in his house. Later, when everyone was searching for necromancers, he reported that the merchant was one of the necromancers. He took people to the merchant’s house to search. He found the necromancer’s item he hid previously. The merchant was taken to the jail. He finally could enjoy his beautiful wife in bed. Soldiers and mercenaries would not be able to do what he did. Not possible.
Once he finished this job, he would ask for a few days’ leave. The big guy looked cunning. As he was thinking about having sex with that beautiful woman, he suddenly heard a slight noise to his left, about a dozen yards away. The big guy looked tense and quietly stuck his head out to check on it.
Anfey put his arm on the guy’s neck as swiftly as a snake. He held tight with one arm on the guy’s neck. Even for those who were not assassins, like Anfey who had killed so many people, garroting and twisting the neck were skills even regular scouts would know. However, when Anfey put his arm on the guy’s neck, he discovered a leather cover that was as hard as steel.
Anfey had experienced so many dangerous incidents, his reactions had been trained well. Without pausing, Anfey jammed his knee into the big guy’s lower back and pinned him tight against a tree. He put more strength on his arm. The knee to the back was so strong that it could break that big guy into halves. It was hard to calculate, but Anfey did it. The guy only had a chance to release combat power for a very short time. The combat power released like fireworks, disappearing almost immediately. The big guy’s body was folded into an acute angle, the broken spine piercing through his stomach and the armor, sticking out of his body. His hand feebly scratched Anfey’s thigh. Such attacks were nothing to Anfey. They were nothing more than a little girl’s punches. Anfey looked cold and calm. The trees around him shook without any wind and made some noise to cover up what happened in the trees.
The big guy on the other side of the trail squatted there, watching ants fighting. He quietly stood up. He did not hear anything unusual, but he sensed combat power surges even though they disappeared so quick that he thought they were just an illusion.
This job had trained him to be very cautious. He quietly walked to the trail to check. Both ends seemed quiet. The big guy ran across the trail as fast as he could and then suddenly slowed down immediately. He slowly approached his fellow with a magic scroll in his hand. If he found anything unusual, he would just release the magic scroll and sent out the signal.
A dark sword reflection passed in the grass. The sword reflection passed so fast, so dark at a weird angle that the big guy did not notice anything unusual and continued to walk forward. He felt cold on his wrist. He turned sideways and saw a hand falling on the grass. The hand on the grass had a magic scroll in it.
A second sword light shot at the guy and swept through the back of his head. Blood splashed. As the blood pressure dropped quick, the lack of blood supply to the brain made that big guy lose his thinking ability. The shock he felt when he saw the hand on the grass got worse, which made him even forget what made him so shocked. His body fell limply on the grass.
Pushing the branches to the side, another pair of eyes could be seen. This guy nervously watched the vineyard from a place that was not too far from in the distance. He was so attentively focused that he did not notice the tree underneath him had changed. A branch flopped down and then suddenly wrapped around the guy’s neck, like a snake. The guy was startled, but he did not panic. He tried to look back to see as he took his knife out. Seeing it was a branch, he felt a little relieved, even though he did not know why a branch had attacked him. He did not dare to use combat power, worrying that those few top powers in the vineyard would notice him because he was not too far away from the vineyard.
He thrusted his knife backhanded. The guy wanted to cut off the branch with his knife. He did not expect that as his knife was half way to the branch, a long and powerful finger flicked his knife. The guy was too shocked to react to the change of the direction of the knife, even though he noticed it. He looked like he was committing suicide since the knife went directly into his throat.
He held on tight to his knife and tried to pull it out from his throat. The hand that had flicked at the knife reached out to the knife again, pushing it even further into his throat. The guy saw darkness and felt something cold had pierced through his neck. He could even feel his life slowly running away from him through his neck.
Ernest, standing at the window, smiled. He saw everything as it unfolded. The master-level martial art skills Anfey used were amazing. If it were him, he probably could have flicked at the knife as the knife moved at a fast speed, but would not have such good control of which direction the knife would go. At that moment, the only thing Anfey needed was some strength. Ernest felt that Anfey could achieve so much in the future. Suddenly, he heard knocking on the door and Christian’s voice, saying respectfully, "Uncle Ernest, Anfey asked us to pack up and get ready to leave at any time."
"Got it." Ernest responded casually.