Lord of Charm

After going 2 kilometers to the south he finally heard some noises in the silent night. When he reached the noises originated, he saw 3 tents behind a bonfire with one man keeping guard.

Gale quickly planned his next moves. At the night his concealing technique was much more effective than during the day, but if he got too close to the fire he might get found out. He closed his eyes and sensed the mana around the man and relaxed as soon as he found out he was only an Advanced Magician.

Gale approached him silently, and when he was right in front of the man he covered his mouth with his hand. The man tried to shout, but the noise was almost completely silenced by the dark magic coating Gale's palm.

"Don't make a sound, we are on the same side."

Gale's eyes shone with green light as he charmed the man with a whisper. Soon after, the man stopped struggling and relaxed, affected by Gale's charm.

"I'm sorry, I was just startled since I didn't expect you to show up. Who are you though?"

The charmed man didn't see the weirdness in the situation and found it very plausible that someone from his side showed up in the middle of the night unannounced.

"It's ok, I just didn't want to wake up the others, you guys had a long day."

"I know, right? Thank you for your consideration."

"I just need to write a report on today's results, did you succeed?"

"We didn't. We were lucky enough to stumble upon a good chance to incite the wolves against Lionel today, yet he had a strong mage by his side who defeated the two fourth-rank wolves and repelled the wolf pack."

"Stumbled upon the wolves? Wasn't it your plan in the first place?"

"No, we found a treasure the wolf leaders were keeping. We cut a small part of it and gave it to our collaborator in Lionel's convoy to carry it with him and lure the wolves. It made the pack think that the convoy stole it from them."

"I see. What kind of treasure is it?"

"It's a sixth-rank rare ore with destruction lightning attributes. It could be forged into a powerful dagger that can cut through the defenses of anyone under the sixth stage and in the hands of an assassin it can be used to kill even Expert Mages if they attack quick enough. Well, at least in theory."

Gale smiled excitedly; it would complement his darkness concealment magic perfectly until he became a magus!

"Where is the ore?"

"Lady Sol has it. She said she will compensate us for taking it for herself, but I kind of doubt that."

"Oh, right. How many are you here and what are your stages?"

Gale asked the guard casually to tell him all the information about the camp and devised a plan to deal with them. Since they tried to kill him once and probably try again a few times more by the end of his trip to the capital, he didn't mind killing them and taking their belongings.

The guard told him they were a group of 5 underlings of Lady Tara, Lionel's eldest sister, who were sent to get Lionel killed on his way home. The strongest in their group were Sol and Jack, two True Mages, while the rest were Expert Magicians.

"What do you plan to do with the convoy that Lionel is part of?"

"We don't care much about the weaker ones, but the Mage might have a chance to sniff us out in the next attack, so we are planning to kill him just in case. Otherwise, our lives would be at risk if word came out that Lady Tara killed her little brother."

"Drake, are you talking with someone?"

They heard a whisper a few meters away followed by incoming steps.

"Oh right, my shift is over. It's Cole, he got up for his shift. Hey, Cole! Come see who came to visit!"

Cole heard no vigilance from Drake's voice and came out of the shadows to meet with Gale.

"Who is that?"

"Relax, I'm on your side. I'm here to take write a report to Lady Tara."

Gale's eyes shone again and Cole needed no further explanation about what was going on. Gale leaned over to Drake's ear and whispered an instruction.

"Wait for me a kilometer south from here."

"I'm going out of the camp for a few minutes; got to answer nature's call."

Drake excused himself as soon as he heard Gale's instruction; he got excited at the thought he might experience new adventures today he had never dreamed of, yet he'd love to agree if it was with Gale.

Gale chatted with Cole for half an hour when Cole remembered Drake went out.

"It's weird, how come Drake didn't come back yet? He might have been attacked, I need to go check on him."

"No, no! you must stay guard here in camp, Cole! Don't worry, I will go and check on him."

"Really? Thank you! You're really different from the other Mages who look down on us Magicians only because we're weaker."

"Don't worry about it."

Drake was leaning against a tree in the forest, waiting impatiently for Gale to come and meet him as promised.

"I hope he will take it slowly at first, I'm quite nervous."

He was busy with his own fantasies when a shadow appeared behind him and a fireball was shot out of it right into his head, leaving behind nothing but ashes in a few seconds. Nobody knew what Drake was imagining before his death, but maybe it was for the best.

Cole saw Gale come back to the fire by himself and wondered whether something bad had happened to Drake.

"Where is Drake, is he ok?"

"He is fine, he is already in his bed."

Gale's eyes shone again and Cole discarded any other questions on the matter. A few hours later the third guard got up for his shift and a very similar scene took place, leaving Gale to marvel at how easy things went against charmed enemies.

Gale arrived at the campfire for the third time that night after taking care of Cole, but this time he kept himself concealed and killed the guard in a similar fashion as he killed the other two. He looked at the leaders' tents; Jack was a water mage with wind as a sub-element, while Sol was a wind Mage with fire as her sub-element.

"Ah, I really need affinity with water magic, it's a shame it's a man. However, getting affinity with wind and a boost for my fire affinity can't be a bad thing."

Gale sighed as he thought of the loss he took by facing a male enemy. He wrapped himself in shadows and entered Jack's tent, ready for the kill.

He stayed a few meters away from Jack in order not to wake him up and canceled his shadow spell, since he couldn't multi-cast spells from different elements, before shooting a fireball at Jack's heart.

The moment mana started moving when Gale undid his shadow spell, Jack woke up. It took him a second to understand what was going on before he tried to jump out of bed and defend himself with water magic, but it was a second too much; the fireball hit his shoulder and left a hole in it, rendering it useless.

His side quickly caught on fire from the sparks that came out of the fireball's explosion, causing him a huge deal of pain, but he was completely awake by then; he used his water magic to put it out and made a small sphere of water around him to protect himself from any following fire spells.

Gale, however, already dropped fire casting and cast an earth spell – the stone pillar.

A heavy, blunt pillar made of condensed stone came out of the ground and broke Jack's water sphere, hitting his legs directly and breaking them.

"AHHH!"

Jack let out a loud scream just before a small yet heavy stone pierced through his head and left a hole inside. It'd be a tough fight if Gale didn't catch him unprepared, but sadly for Jack, he did.

Gale's ambush was over the moment Jack let out a pained scream that woke up Sol from her sleep. She quickly ran to Jack's tent and saw a tall pillar going out from the tent's ceiling, giving her a bad premonition as she knew Jack couldn't cast earth spells and she had seen this spell only a few hours ago.

-------------

A few months ago:

"Gale, what is your most powerful magic?"

"It's earth, it's the element I have the highest affinity with."

"Wrong, it's your charm abilities. You have no idea how great and unique they are; no charmer I've ever heard of can even come close to your charm."

"It's not that good. Stronger enemies always realize they were charmed and act against me soon after. I got beaten by Lena when I made her tell me something just a few months ago."

"Did you try using your charm for a very long time on someone? You might find out its effects will last much longer if you put more effort into it for a longer time, that's how most charmer's abilities work."

"I didn't, but it does make sense when I think about it. I will give it a try if I ever have the chance."

Such was a conversation between Gale and Elizabeth during one of their training sessions.