Yakuza sat down heavily on a chair by the war table, his armour clinking softly as he exhaled.

"We managed to push back the line on the front, but only by so little. Who would have thought they would send twelve high mages as backup?" he said grimly.

Tristan grimaced.

"If we hadn’t called a retreat there, the losses might have been massive."

Lena nodded.

"I wonder how the others are doing on their fronts. They haven’t called for reinforcements yet, so I assume things are going well on their end."

She paused briefly before adding,

"I’m actually thinking about going to support our heroes on the east. Unlike you two, I still have energy to spare. You should rest."

Yakuza let out a quiet breath as he glanced at Lena and Tristan’s battered bodies.

"I am curious though...Whatever happened to Sir Elion?" he asked, "It has almost been a month, no?"

At that exact moment, the tent flap opened, and Elion stepped in, just like that.

He raised a hand awkwardly.

"Hello there... You summoned me?" he joked lightly.

A brief silence fell over the tent.

"...Well, well..." Tristan said slowly, his eyes narrowing dangerously from across the table. "Speak of the devil."

The atmosphere shifted.

"Pray tell..." Tristan leaned forward slightly, his gaze locking onto Elion, "Where in the seven hells have you been?"

"Uh... well, you know... out and about, contributing to the coalition in my own way," Elion said in his casual tone, as his mind briefly flashed back to the incident with Zenith.

"And what way is that?" Tristan asked, his voice steady, but his gaze sharp.

Elion went on to explain what he had already prepared.

While bathing in the river weeks ago, he had spotted a group of demon scouts moving through the area, so he decided to follow them. That led him behind enemy lines, but once he got there, he realised he didn’t have an immediate way back out. So he thought... why not stay and gather information until an opportunity presented itself?

Because of that, he claimed, he had managed to gather some useful intel while also decimating multiple checkpoint camps along the way.

When he finished, Tristan eyed him suspiciously.

Yakuza and Lena remained silent, letting the commander take the lead.

"...And how did you stay behind enemy lines for so long without getting discovered?" Tristan asked.

A pause.

"How do we know you haven’t been compromised?"

Elion shrugged lightly.

"I have a way to disguise myself."

Without much warning, his appearance shifted as his skin darkened. A horn formed on his forehead, and his features twisted into those of a demon.

The transformation lasted only a moment before he returned to normal, but it was enough to shock the three people in the tent.

Tristan’s eyes narrowed further.

"...If I couldn’t see that the mana around you is completely pure, I would have thought you were a demon in disguise," he said.

It was clear from his tone that was the only reason Elion hadn’t been attacked on sight.

Elion nodded.

"Good work eliminating those camps," Tristan continued, his voice easing slightly, "I would like you to report whatever information you gathered while you were away, but that can wait."

He straightened slightly.

"If you still have the mana and energy to spare, I would prefer it if you accompanied Yakuza to the eastern battlefield. The other heroes are fighting there."

Elion nodded lightly.

"That won’t be an issue."

Elion glanced at Lena and Yakuza and smiled at both of them.

"Nice to see you again," he said, nodding lightly.

For some reason, they both blushed and began to squirm uncomfortably. The sight made Elion go stiff. He even shivered slightly.

’What the fuck...’ he thought.

Lena was fine. It always felt good to make the ladies suffer a bit from his charms. But Yakuza???

Yakuza was a guy, goddammit.

’Why are you blushing man!?’ He thought, almost comically.

He quickly looked away.

Nope.

He was not dealing with that right now.

He cleared his throat lightly and straightened his posture, forcing his expression to stay calm, even though his mind was still stuck on that ridiculous image.

"...Right," he muttered.

Tristan let out a low grunt, clearly uninterested in whatever was going on in Elion’s head. "Save the reunions for later," he said bluntly.

Yakuza coughed into his fist and stood up.

"Right, east front," he said, regaining his composure quickly, though he still avoided Elion’s eyes for a brief second.

Lena crossed her arms and looked between the two of them.

"Don’t die," she said flatly.

Elion smirked lightly.

"Wouldn’t dream of it."

Tristan slammed a hand lightly on the table, drawing their attention back.

"Move out immediately," he ordered, his tone leaving no room for delay. "We haven’t had any reports from them all day, so either they are doing fine, or maybe they have been preoccupied. Your being there will put my mind at ease."

Yakuza nodded firmly.

Even though he was prone to gushing over ’Sir Elion’, he was still a professional; he knew there were things to be done.

"Understood."

He turned and headed for the exit without wasting another second.

Elion followed right behind him, his expression changed to a more serious gait, as he forced himself into a stern mood,

As they stepped out of the tent, the noise of the camp hit them again: wounded being tended to, orders being shouted, the constant movement of soldiers preparing for whatever came next.

Yakuza stopped briefly and glanced at Elion from the side.

"I haven’t had the honour of working with you, Ser Elion, I’m really looking forward to it..." Elion nodded in response. "Though I am in awe of your capabilities, you really wiped out multiple camps by yourself?" he asked.

Elion shrugged lightly as he kept walking.

"Yeah, it wasn’t too much work, they are badly organised, so all their camps were like sitting ducks really."

Yakuza paused as he gave Elion a sideways glance, then he let out a short breath.

"... Still impressive nonetheless, I would never." His grip tightened slightly on his weapon. "You, however, you’re exactly what we need right now to tilt the odds in our favour. We have been in a stalemate for too long."

Elion laughed lightly.

"Don’t expect too much," he said, "there’s only so much a single person can do in a war of this scale."

"That is indeed true, for regular people like me," Yakuza agreed. "However... I have a feeling you’re not a regular person, so I’m going to keep my hopes up anyway."

"Suit yourself," Elion replied.

After that, they made their way to a makeshift pen where both ground mounts and flying mounts were chained to trees and metal bars.

"Wait... are we taking one of these?" Elion asked.

"Of course," Yakuza replied. "We definitely can’t run or walk; otherwise, it will take all day to get there. It’s a good two hundred kilometres to the eastern front."

He paused briefly, as if thinking, before adding,

"Actually... we’re taking two. One for you, one for me."

He paused before adding confidently.

"...Though I don’t mind sharing a ride with Sir Elion," Yakuza said without a hint of shame.

Elion shook his head immediately, "No thanks. I’ll ride on my own."

Yakuza didn’t push it, though the look on his face suggested that he thought about it.

He moved toward a large wyvern and began preparing it, when Elion asked, it turned out that it was his personal mount. It was also the only wyvern present.

Elion glanced at it and checked its level using his discerning eye. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

’Not too bad,’ He thought. It was a powerful mount, around the level that was the equivalent of an advanced mage.

The rest of the mounts, not so much, so Elion was limited in his options. He ended up settling for a large bird that resembled the better-known black crow. Its level is roughly at the novice rank.

Not ideal, but it was big enough to get the job done. It could fly, and that was all that mattered right now.

No doubt that its speed would pale in comparison to Yakuza’s powerful wyvern.

They saddled their mounts quickly, and soon after, they took off into the sky, as the sights of the camp grew smaller and smaller beneath them.

From above, the great forest stretched endlessly, a vast ocean of green and shadow, the canopy so dense that it looked like a single unbroken surface, with only the occasional break where jagged scars cut through the land.

They were reminders of battles that had torn through the area.

The wind rushed past Elion’s face as he rode the large bird, his hands gripping the reins tightly as the creature beat its wings steadily, carrying him forward through the open sky.

The air was cold up here, sharp, but refreshing, brushing against his skin as his hair whipped lightly in the wind.

From this height, everything looked small and distant. But the damage to the landscape was still very clear.

Sections of the forest were burned away entirely, blackened patches spreading across the land like stains, while others were flattened, as if something immense had passed through and crushed everything in its path.

Then his eyes caught something in the distance. A massive crater.

It spanned a huge section of the forest. The trees there were completely gone, and the earth itself carved inward for at least two kilometres, as if the land had been torn apart by sheer force.

"What the hell..." Elion muttered.

Yakuza followed his gaze.

"That?" he said. "There was a battle there a few days ago."

"A battle?"

"Between two powerful mages," Yakuza continued. "One of them was an elven sage mage... and the other..."

He paused slightly.

"...was a demon woman no one had ever seen before."

Elion’s grip on the reins tightened just a fraction.

"We could not verify her actual strength, but he matched him," Yakuza went on, his tone serious, "not just matched... when the fight ended, the elven sage was gravely wounded."

He paused for a beat.

"...And she was completely fine."

Elion’s eyes narrowed.

"Tristan thinks she was toying with him from the very beginning," Yakuza added, "they fought for weeks, and in all that time... he never landed a single blow on her."

Elion’s eyes narrowed as he understood something, ’It has to be her.’ He thought.

Zenith.

There was no doubt about it. The timeline matched with when she had left him to rot, and also with what she had casually told him.

’She’s the one who dominated that elven sage...’

His gaze lingered on the crater below.

’There’s no doubt about it. But, just how powerful is she?’

To even fight a sage mage in a 1v1 battle, she had to have equal strength, but to toy with one?

’Is she a saint mage?’ The thought felt ridiculous to even think about. But that is what everything was pointing toward.

If that was true, then that meant Elion had somehow taken the virginity of a powerful demon mage who had reached the peak of strength that this world had to offer!