Elemental Cats

After the small commotion surrounding Toz's inclination growing died down, it was about time for Toz to begin heading out. He had nothing left to do, and it would be better to leave Yellow Sparks as a part of the still ongoing evacuation instead of waiting for the chaos that would follow Hugh bringing the Rat King's dead body back. If he left some time before Hugh could bring back the Rat King's body, there would be less suspicion around his involvement even if something else points in his direction.

There were also very few people who knew Toz and that he was still on First Ignition. Amber, who had frequently talked to him about everything regarding the rat extermination progress, was, of course, aware of what Toz was doing. But as long as he told Amber that he had noticed the Rat King's power from a distance and decided it was out of his reach and that he would evacuate, there wouldn't be any rising suspicions from her end.

But before he returned to Yellow Sparks, there was some cleaning up that needed to be done.

Toz and Nil had left a bunch of traps all over the place. Although they would eventually dissipate by themselves, they wouldn't completely disappear before Hugh would have already recovered enough to make it back to either his squad or to Yellow Sparks, and an investigation would be launched.

It was obvious from the traces spread out over the ground in a pretty large area that the traps had been used against the Rat King. In other words, evidence that countered Hugh's story.

It didn't matter a whole lot that the Rat King's blood was spread out here and there. Mostly in the pit where it had died since it burned and absorbed almost every other drop of blood it spilled. It was just further proof that the Rat King had been defeated on the way to Yellow Sparks. And if there was one scene where there were signs of overwhelming force being used to completely destroy the Rat King, even better. Proof that it wasn't one long, drawn-out fight.

If anyone discovered the traces of Hugh fighting the Rat King by the forest, he could answer that by saying he lured the Rat King away from the forest so it wouldn't get stronger or destroy the forest.

As long as Toz removed the traps, covered up the traces of his low level mana, and cleaned up the surrounding plains a bit, there wouldn't be anything that could be traced back to him.

Toz and Nil dispersed the mana that made up their traps, letting it return to nature since their pools were already full of mana. It was a slight waste, but what could they do about it?

The smaller traps that barely did anything against the Rat King only took a few moments to dissolve. But the large ones that were almost as good as the final trap they had used against the Rat King took a lot of work since they were reinforced with extra mana to make sure the Rat King doesn't take the mana for itself and gets stronger before escaping the trap and killing them.

Nil sighed regretfully as they were forced to remove a trap they hadn't gotten to use but would have been pretty epic had the Rat King triggered it. When triggered, a large pointy cone-shaped pillar would shoot out of the ground and pierce the target, and if the target was too small, it would have been split apart.

'The Rat King would have made such a nice skewer.'

Unfortunately, that trap had been located further down the line, and the Rat King got defeated before they got to it.

Nil wasn't the only one who was slightly regretful about it since all four of them had slightly been anticipating what the Rat King would taste.

Unlike the four of them, however, Hugh wasn't regretful that the trap hadn't been used. Instead, he was slightly thankful that he hadn't seen such a monstrous spike penetrate anything. Since they triggered the traps to reveal them before uninstalling them, Hugh saw the spike in its full pointy glory and gulped when he realized its purpose. And sighed in relief when it was dispelled and turned into mana.

There weren't too many traps after that one, and Toz and Nil quickly finished up before returning to where Hugh was resting and recovering.

Although Hugh had used two potions and been patched up, he was still pretty far from being in a fighting condition, and although the Rat King had been killed, it wasn't like the Rat King was the only beast in the wilderness. And despite being a fifth level mage, in Hugh's weakened state where he wouldn't even be able to swing his axe, he would be an easy target. An attractive one as well since he smelled like blood due to his injuries.

Instead of leaving Hugh to fend for himself, Toz decided to stick around at least until he could make back it back to town in one piece.

Since none of them had eaten a proper meal in a few days, and it was growing darker, Toz decided to go ahead and cook a sumptuous dinner for all five of them. He didn't have any precious mammoth meat left. But Hugh noticed what he was doing, and since he often spent time in the wild or outside without a proper kitchen, he wasn't a stranger to always carrying provisions with him. And because he was a fifth level mage that used a city in a fifth level plane as headquarters, he had ample amounts of meat from fifth level beasts in spatial rings Hugh usually kept in his pockets, that he willingly shared.

It was the first time Toz cooked with such extravagant ingredients, so he decided to do something simple, and after dicing the slabs of meat, then slathering them with sauce and putting them onto skewers, he roasted over the campfire, it turned into a pretty decent dinner after a day's hard work.