Chapter 699 A Trap
Every city had remote and unpopulated places. Generally speaking, such places were all dangerous, because they were unusually where jobless people wandered and where gangsters made deals.
Even though Roland hadn’t approached the big house in the wood yet, he already smelled a vague stench of blood.
It was mixed with the odor of decaying bodies too.
Looking at Jakang, Roland asked casually, “How many brothers do you have in this place?”
“Seventeen.” Jakang was still terrified. “Mr. Mage, what do you want us to do?”
Roland said casually, “Johnson is already dead. I’m taking over this place. Will they be willing to meet their new boss?”
“Of course, of course.” Jakang was greatly relieved.
He led Roland forward. By the time they reached the door of the house, the stink of blood and cadavers was already suffocating. But Roland showed no unusual expression. He had fought many great battles and seen many dead men. Such a smell was nothing to him.
When they reached the door, it was finally opened, and two men dragged out a woman who was absolutely still.
The woman had a gray face and was quite slim. She was naked, and her abdomen had been opened with nothing left inside. All her internal organs were gone.
Both of the strangers were surprised to see Jakang and Roland. The creepy man who held the woman’s arm on the left side asked, “Jakang, why are you here instead of watching over Forest Fawns?”
Then he looked at Roland and said, as if he realized what was going on, “Oh, this Mage must be a customer.” “Not exactly.” Jakang put on a bitter smile. “He’s our new boss.”
“What about Johnson?” asked the man in confusion. “He doesn’t look like a man who will give away his power easily.”
“Can Johnson even compare to a Mage?” Jakang glanced at Roland and, finding that he wasn’t angry, continued criticizing them. “Stop worrying about him and drop the body. Gather everybody and let them meet our new boss.”
The two strangers looked at each other and put the body on the ground.
They were not happy to have a new boss, but they did not dare to disobey a Mage, especially one who looked quite strong.
They had guessed that Johnson had probably been killed by this Mage, as indicated by the fright on Jakang’s face. Besides, a green spider was standing on his shoulder. It was so large and transparent that it was undoubtedly lethal. Chances were that it could kill anyone that it bit.
Every Mage had a lot of bizarre items.
The two of them quickly went into the house and shouted, asking the people in the rooms to come out.
Roland walked in and found that most of the furniture in the house had been dismantled into long planks.
Those planks were all black, greasy and gross. Some even had human bodies on top of them.
Two of the bodies belonged to kids who couldn’t have been older than eight.
At a corner, there were several buckets of ice in which the fresh organs were contained.
Several people were cutting into the guts of a man who looked like a beggar.
Holding back his disgust, Roland walked to them expressionlessly and watched them take organs out of the male beggar’s chest skillfully.
“Excellent craftsmanship.” Roland praised them casually.
He found that the beggar was already dead, but probably for no more than ten minutes.
He could tell that because the blood was still hot.
The few people around the beggar, seeing Roland’s clothes, all smiled and didn’t say anything.
They didn’t stop working either.
They all had deeply-hollowed eye sockets, which indicated that they were all sophisticated.
On the buckets’ side, there was someone who appeared to be a magic apprentice. He was checking if the colors of the organs in the buckets changed.
Once in a while, he would cast a lousy Minor Healing on them. Such healing could hardly treat wounds, but it was quite effective to lengthen the activity of internal organs.
Very soon, the two people who just dropped the body gathered their accomplices who were resting in other places in the house. Jakang, on the other hand, clapped his hands and said, “Everybody, pause whatever you’re doing and meet our new master! He’d like to speak to us!”
Then, he kicked and drove those people to Roland, forcing them to stand in a line.
After it was done, he smiled obsequiously with his back half bent.
Roland counted seventeen of them, so he asked, “Are they all here?”
“Yes, boss. They’re all here.”
“Seventeen people supporting such a big business. Not bad.” Roland nodded and asked in satisfaction, “Where’s your ledger?”
“It’s here.” The magic apprentice stepped forward and gave a book to Roland from his pocket. “Esteemed Mr. Mage, this is a list of what we have earned and spent on.” Roland didn’t accept it with his hands. Instead, he snapped his fingers and opened the ledger with two small Hands of Magic. The ledger was too dirty, with red and black stains of blood everywhere.
Roland read the ledger carefully and closed it, then remarked with a smile, “Most of the goods come from beggars, but not much information about the buyers is recorded. Why is that?”
“Because most of the buyers come with their faces covered.”
Okay… Roland got it.
“Well done. It seems that I have to reward you.” Roland waved his hand.
It was the alignment test! Everybody’s head was crimson.
The magic apprentice’s head was actually black, even darker than Johnson’s.
The other members of the gang didn’t know what was going on yet, but the magic apprentices already started shivering. “Run…” He turned around while he shouted, “Run for your lives!”
He wasn’t good at magic, but he had quite a lot of common sense and knew the alignment test.
Under normal circumstances, only the people who served justice would use this spell when they wanted to kill someone but were afraid that they might kill the wrong people.
He realized that Roland was here to kill them.
But it was too late. The erupting ice froze everything nearby at a high speed. In the blink of an eye, they became ice sculptures with surprised, widened eyes frozen on their faces.
The magic apprentice, on the other hand, was frozen in the act of sprinting.
Roland walked to him and gently kicked the ice sculpture, which fell on the ground into a dozen pieces.
His head, which had been fully covered in ice, rolled in another direction.
Roland looked around and heaved a sigh. He then turned around and walked away.
After he left the house, he turned around with a big blue fireball condensed in his hand.
He was going to burn this place to the ground. However, when he was about to launch the magic fireball, a storm of arrows suddenly shot at him.
His whole body was covered.
Following the storm of arrows, four different kinds of spells were cast on him, including a blue Inferior Fireball.
The arrows were all deflected by the Magic Shield. Then, all the magic attacks, including an ice ball and a lightning spear, disappeared when they hit the Magic Shield… except the blue fireball, which caused an intense explosion after hitting the Magic Shield.
After an ear-splitting explosion, the area within a five-meter radius of Roland was swallowed by flames.
It was not until several seconds later, when the flames died away, that he was finally revealed again.
“I didn’t expect to be hit by the very fireball spell I invented someday.”
Standing behind the Magic Shield, Roland looked around. His spell had been disrupted.
At some point, a dozen men in gray robes had appeared in the wood with wolf masks.
“So, this was a trap to lure me in.” Roland looked at them. “You were truly generous to abandon a base just for an opportunity to surround me.”
Those people didn’t talk. Some of them threw out multiple scrolls.
The scrolls turned into transparent iron ropes and stabbed into the ground while they were still flying.
The space was instantly solidified.
“Dimensional Anchors.”
Roland appeared rather solemn.
Many people in this world knew how to make Dimensional Anchor scrolls, but Roland recognized the special characteristics of these few scrolls, which were Betta’s work.
Because Wetland City was suffering from austerities, Betta had been making money by making some magic scrolls every day. Roland was very close to him and could recognize his magic waves.
They had already dropped almost ten spatial scrolls. Even a genius at spatial magic such as Roland could not teleport away.
He couldn’t even use Human Cannonball, because spatial bubbles were an application of spatial magic too.
After dropping the spatial anchors, those people simply charged at Roland without saying anything
The Warriors charged, the Rogues went stealth, and the Archers and Mages attacked remotely.
Their teamwork was very neat.
Roland stepped on the ground and cast Ice Ring, freezing the ground around him into ice.
When the charging Warriors set foot on the slippery ice, they instantly fell and slid on the ice like pucks. Roland pointed his finger at a Warrior who was about to stand up, colorful light concentrated on his fingertip. But then he suddenly looked at his right side, as two arrows penetrated his Magic Shield.
Although they were stuck in the middle of the shield, they had indeed broken into the shield.
Roland observed the two arrows, only to find glittering gold on the tips of the arrows.
Anti-Magic Arrows?
Because of gold’s anti-magic feature, some Archers would make special arrows which had about one gram of gold on their tips to specifically deal with Magic Shields or Mages who had powerful barriers.
Such arrows could nullify a lot of spells.
However, they were extremely tricky to make, and very expensive.
One Anti-Magic Arrow was worth thirty of the finest regular arrows. “You are truly extravagant.”
After Roland said that, the spells that the Mages cast out had come to him again.
It was another barrage of ice, lightning, dark, and fire spells.
After an intense explosion, Roland was revealed among the flames again.
However… his Magic Shield cracked this time.
The cracks spread out from where the two arrows were stuck.
At this moment, all the Archers drew their bows. Two of them had arrows that reflected feeble golden light under the moon.
Roland’s Magic Shield would probably be broken if they shot again.
“Thank you for letting me know how I should strengthen my Magic Shield in the future.”
The leader of the men in gray robes was confused.
He didn’t understand why Roland was still so casual.
Exactly at this moment, three arrows were shot from the woods far away.
Then, someone started charging, not toward Roland but towards the men in gray robes.
