When A Mage Revolts

Looking at the dismembered limbs of the tiger looking magic beast drop from the sky, Benjamin hesitated, but decided to still summon the water steam to hold onto them before they could fall into the river.

Frankly speaking, he has never seen such a hideous magic beast. The splattered blood also had an odd feel to it. It was overly thick, and seemed to be different from that of the common magic beast.

Perhaps... it had something to do with its taming process.

Benjamin disarmed the Moonglaive of Ice and took a glimpse at the pirate boss who was yelping in pain. He used the water steam to carry him, as well as bodily remains of the magic beast, and flew back.

Fortunately, there weren’t any other ships that used this route during this period. His battle with the pirate boss did not attract any attention and so he should not encounter any more problems.

He made it back to the Town of Ciera and landed on the same spot. The mages had already taken care of the other pirates and were waiting on the dock. They surrounded Benjamin and began enthusiastically discussing the earlier battle once they saw him returning with victoriously.

"Teacher Benjamin, you guys fought for so long... We almost thought that you wouldn’t be able to defeat the guy riding that magic beast."

Benjamin shook his head and pointed at the magic beast’s remains, "First, take care of that. Although I do not know what magic beast it is, but it might be turn out useful in the future."

They nodded and two of the potion mages walked out to pack away the dismembered body of the tiger looking magic beast - holding their breath the whole time.

Benjamin wasn’t in a hurry to finish off the pirate boss. Instead, he turned to look at the citizens that were in a corner.

When the pirate boss appeared, he almost exposed the identities of Benjamin and his group. Since the search warrant was still happily stuck on the bulletin board on this town, Benjamin had to worry about the possibility that their whereabouts will be leaked out.

He started walking towards to citizens.

"Si-sir mage, was it you who killed the flying tiger?" To his astonishment, the citizens looked at him, not with fear but with excitement.

Benjamin was surprised but still nodded.

"Sir mage, would... you be finishing off the last of the pirates?" The old man who seemed to be the mayor cautiously asked.

"Well... I still have questions to ask him. However, I will kill him after questioning him." Benjamin responded.

There were immediate signs of relief from the citizen’s, some of them were even moved to tears.

The old man stood up, walked towards Benjamin and bowed.

"We do not know who you are, and do not care what the search warrant says. But... you are the savior of the Town of Ciera, forever."

Benjamin was overwhelmingly flattered. Suddenly, he realized what this meant to the citizens of the town. After days of living in fear of the pirates while pinching food rations, how much hatred do they have for them?

If the pirates were to continue their rampage, the situation in the Town of Ciera would have gotten much worse. Those who could afford it would move out of the town, the sick, weak and old who are left behind would be killed by the pirates for not being able to fulfill the quota. The town was at the last stage of its cancer, and sooner or later would be wiped off the map of Icor.

The appearance of Benjamin and the mages helped them remove those cancerous cells. In other words, they revived the Town of Ciera.

That was why they reacted like this to Benjamin.

After showing their gratitude, the old mayor walked towards the bulletin and tore down the search warrant before throwing it into the river.

"Mayor, that was an order from Her Majesty the Queen..." Someone exclaimed.

"We have reported the pirate issue countless times but where was Her Majesty the Queen then?" The old man stooped his body at the dock, "Her Majesty did not protect us, someone else did."

Benjamin stood at the sidelines and watched their torn-up portraits float around like leaves before sinking into the depths of Fett River.

He understood where the mayor was coming from.

Benjamin and his group did not hesitate to kill almost a hundred pirates and they were ready to kill the remaining citizens to avoid their whereabouts from being leaked. To persuade them that they would not reveal this information, the old man ripped the search warrant apart and tossed it into the river.

The old man was trying to protect the remaining citizens.

Benjamin couldn’t help but sjale his head. He did not intend to kill in exchange for silence anyway. It just wasn’t something they would do.

"Everything’s alright now, just... go home." he looked at the citizens and shrugged.

The citizens all nodded and bowed at Benjamin before taking their leave.

Benjamin turned around and returned to his group. He gave a few instructions to the mages and they brought the pirate boss who was still restrained by the Pillar of Steam as well as their luggage to board the docked ship.

The pirates were already vanquished by the mages so the ship that belonged to the pirates is their victory loot.

In truth, none of them knew how to sail a ship; this wasn’t a problem however, as they could always just use magic.

After hoisting the anchor, Benjamin summoned the Pillar of Steam. The other mages summoned all kinds of wind element magic and before long the ship set sail.

Now they needed to change their direction.

Although the Town of Ciera had already made clear on their position on leaking information, the bounty reward was ludicrous, and someone might be tempted to squeel.

Using a ship, Benjamin and the rest could quickly leave the town. If they were far enough, it didn’t matter if people tried to expose them.

They dispersed their magic once they were away from land and inspected the ship’s structure. The ship was a simple one - there was a large room for everyone to sleep in, comparable to a slave-ship. There were also other rooms, such as the storage, the beast cages, the captain’s cabin... Benjamin didn’t really have time to check. It wasn’t as though they were planning on staying on the ship for long.

Benjamin pulled the tied up pirate boss into one of the rooms and closed the door, prepared to interrogate him to learn more about the art of magic beast taming. He slapped a Waterball of Healing on the pirate boss’ face to stop the bleeding which also caused the unconscious boss to awaken.

"So, how did you get the magic beast to obey you?"

The pirate boss returned to his senses and looked at Benjamin. You could tell he was suffering from the expression on his face.

"... If I were to tell you, would you let me go?"

Benjamin was simply too lazy to lie and shook his head, "If you tell me, I will give you a painless death."

The pirate boss’ tone quickly turned sour, "Forget about it. I will not tell you a single word, no matter how much you torture me."

"Oh, really?" Benjamin wasn’t the slightest bit bothered, instead he smiled, "I really want to try, with my current abilities, how many new means of torture I can come up with."

"..."

Perhaps it was the pain from his wounds, but the pirate boss started having chills staring at Benjamin’s cheerful face.