Chapter 78: Confrontation

Stepping through the doors of my bas.e.m.e.nt with the first crate of weapons in my arms, I instantly froze. What I saw on the other side was totally unexpected.

"HMM! MMHHMMMM!"

Stuck in the shadowy corner of the same room where we were attacked before, Ayda was trying to wrestle her body from the hands of people holding her down. Having both her hands and legs tied up only made her efforts more desperate, all the while she continued to try to say something despite the wet cloth stuffing her mouth.

"This is not the type of welcome that I expected."

Calmly summing the situation up, I looked at half-circle of people surrounding me. Their weapons barred, their faces tense with determination. For a moment, I could see how does the face of a human resigned to die looks like.

And then something snapped.

"Begone, you monster."

Stepping up, a young man who I already saw before attempted to regain control of the situation. It seemed as if my calm and composed reaction threw everyone in the room of the loop. Given the current atmosphere in the room, I didn"t dare to drop the crate from my hands. Standing defiantly to the young man"s words, I leaned my head to the side with a puzzled look on my face.

"How rude. Didn"t your parents teach you how to be nice to people? Also…"

Instead of dropping the crate to the ground, I simply stopped holding it up. Kicking against the floor, I jumped up, only to step on the falling crate and shove it right against the doors while ejecting myself forward. 

Before anyone could react, I smashed my shoulder against one of the two males that dared to restrain my woman. Instantly thrown off-balance, the young man let go of the rope that Ayda was bound with, crashing right against the wall. Regretfully, this kind of move put a pretty burden on my own sense of stability. By the time I regained it, the other of the man who dared to held Ayda was already pulling his sword.

"... if you continue to insist on restraining my woman, I might forget that you guys were supposed to be our allies."

There was no point to pursue further escalation of violence. While I couldn"t take the rope from the other man"s hands without risking Ayda getting injured in the process, I could do something far simple. With just a single wave of my hand, the condensed sting of repulsion snapped the bonds that held her hands. 

"Can"t you see what"s going on? Not only he refused to surrender, he even attacked already! What are you waiting for, you d.a.m.ned…"

Finally bothering to move my eyes away from scanning what state Ayda"s body was in, I took a glance at the leader of the traitorous group of witches. Just a single look from me was enough to freeze him solid. 

"And when did you even ask me to surrender? Gosh, what is wrong with you people…"

Baffled at this peculiar situation, I gently pulled Ayda closer to me, letting the other of the men who held her previously keep holding the useless piece of rope that was no longer binding anyone. With the girl"s body falling gently on top of my chest, I reached with my hand towards her mouth before pulling her gag out.

"Krist!"

Already wrapping her recently freed hands around my chest, Ayda was brushing her cheek against my breast. Her ears were filled with tears ever since I first appeared, but what was trickling source of water travelling down her face now turned into a flood.

"Sir, can"t you see he is rational? Either the taboo wasn"t broken or…"

Hearing those slight comments that some of the people that initially encircled me now uttered, I could generally understand what most likely happened. For Ayda, breaking the taboo that she mentioned was something that I was supposed not to do, not because of some backward tradition, but due to the consequences of doing so. For her, seeing that I was alive and well was more than enough to forgive my transgression. What"s more, given our connection and how skilled she was at reading emotions, I could tell that just from the lack of guilt trips on my side, there was actually a serious reason behind my actions.

But the same couldn"t be said about the other witches. As little as I knew what breaking the taboo of releasing one"s dark emotion would entail, it was easy to notice how disastrous this kind of even could be from the way Ayda"s allies reacted. The fact that they were prepared and stood in wait exactly in the place where I would appear only served to reinforce this notion. As for how they learned about the fact of me breaking the taboo…

The state that Ayda was, was more of a hint that I needed to uncover this puzzling problem.

"I"m sorry for worrying you, dear. As you can see, I am all okay."

Ignoring the problem of what was the situation of the witches gathered in this place, for now, I wholesomely hugged the girl in my arms, feeling how her frail body shook in my embrace. 

"Did you not hear me?! KILL THEM!"

With the control already slipping past his fingers, the leader of the people that dared to bind Ayda stepped up. It seemed that he was about to lead his men by an example. HIs sword reflected the spare light of the setting sun on its blade.

"Right, I have yet to punish you for restraining my woman."

As if suddenly recalling this matter, I gently pushed Ayda aside. Looking up at my face with her eyes swollen from tears, she seemed as if she couldn"t understand just what kind of important reason I had to let her go just like that.

"Don"t worry, it will only take me a moment."

Rustling Ayda"s hair while stopping my heart from melting with only the utmost effort, I once again looked at the male witch approaching me with his sword bared. From the aura of hate around him I could tell that if someone was about to go berserk due to breaking the taboo, he would be the one I would bet my money on.

"As for you, before we begin, you need to understand one thing."

Stepping a single pace to the side, I made sure that I would be directly on the line between the overambitious youth and Ayda. Given how she didn"t stop her own allies with her witchcraft, I had to be wary of some kind of restrain being placed on my own abilities of a witch.

Thankfully, outside of barely being able to use them in the first place, I was a true mage rather than a witch. That"s why, when a strange gust of wind rustled through the air, instantly clogging up all the channels that I could move my energy through, all I had to do was to increase the pressure of my own magic to break those silly seals open.

"I won"t beat you up because you tried to protect your friends. That"s something commendable, even if the execution was subpar."

With the young man approaching, most likely sure that I would be powerless to stop him, I couldn"t help but smile in a slight pity over his fate.

"I will beat you up because you dared to raise your hand against my woman."