It's just so cold... I should have asked Alex to lay down a bed of earth over the ice sheet.

  The sound of a loud thud rang right next to Damian's ear. His eyes grew large as the body of the big assassin started to convulse. In a panic, he began to shuffle his body to the side of the cart in a worm-like dance. Before he could hop off, the undead started to scream while releasing black smoke from its mouth.

  "Rheea-----!" The scream was cut short. Elaina had stabbed it through the top of the head before it could take action.

  "Ok, gather around, children, I'm about to teach you all something~." She said, as if she hadn't just killed a tier 6 undead.

  Relieved that the threat was over, Damian hopped off the cart to get away from the other dead. When he placed his foot down, his knee started to buckle, and Frey had to hold him up.

  Her grip tightened around his waist, and she was much closer than necessary to support him. They looked like two love birds on a stroll, rather than someone aiding an injured person.

  The party had now gathered around the cart, and Elaina started to drag the now-dead undead further away. She shot out a rope of blood from her hand up over a tree branch.

  As it came down, the rope picked up speed and snaked around the corpse's neck. With a tug, the body was hoisted, dangling just over the dirt road.

  What the hell is she doing? Sending a message?

  Elaina backed up toward the group, pulling the body even higher. At the flick of her wrist, the end of the rope snapped to the ground, burying itself, creating an anchor.

  "Now watch class~." She said with barely disguised excitement.

  Tendrils of blood started to exit from her hands and waved through the air. It was like she was controlling an army of thread-like snakes.

  What is she...

  A dagger fell into existence near the corpse. Before it could land, one of her tendrils snaked around the handle and pulled it away. It was then carefully set down in the middle of the road.

  Two more items fell into reality, and she swiftly snatched them.

  The items in the man's spatial storage started to pour out at an increasing speed. But still, Elaina only used about half of her tendrils to snag them.

  Another item fell, but this time the tendril whipped the sphere down the road.

  A small explosion lit up the treeline, followed by a fierce fire. It wasn't like a normal fire in the least, closer to an acid. The fire began to sink into the road, burning everything it touched.

  Elaina continued sorting the items mid-air and threw away anything she thought might be an explosive. Some things she whipped away didn't explode. However, other items she tossed aside had an ominous green or purple hue.

  One of the items she had tossed shattered into a green cloud. When it drifted toward the trees, they began to wilt. The entire group's eyes bulged at the sight of how effective these poisons were.

  "Hey Fergus... Can your heal cure poison now?" Damian asked with concern in his voice.

  "...I don't think so, and unless we have a volunteer, I'm not willing to test it."

  "I think I have some cure potions from the stash Ms. Sanderson let us keep," Donna added.

  "Those probably won't help against these... A professional alchemist probably brewed them. I doubt cure potions sold in bulk could contest." Frey reasoned.

  'sigh'

  "We're just lucky they didn't have the chance to use any of it..." Damian absentmindedly said aloud.

  A small pile of various weapons, potions, pouches, and camping gear had piled up before them. Elaina was leaning over, inspecting everything.

  Maybe she has an appraisal skill?

  As she went through the equipment, she made three piles.

  "Ok, now class~. This first pile has things I believe are safe to use or store. The second pile contains useless things we can leave behind. This last pile, I'm not sure of. Sometimes, assassins disguise poison as health potions as a farewell gift. Sometimes, they'll even sneak the poisoned potion into their target's potion pouch with a sleight of hand. Always keep a wary eye on your belongings."

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  "Amongst some of these daggers, they hold tricks to them and can harm the wielder if you aren't familiar. Also not worth the risk. I don't think that any of you would want to wield such a weapon, and they only sell to a certain clientele."

  So likely just experience, no appraisal skill.

  "So~ What do you all have to say~."

  The group hesitated. "Thank you, 'Ouch!' Big Sis Elaina." Damian wasn't able to participate in the group's 'Thank you'. Frey had once again attacked his weak point by squeezing his love handle before he could utter the words.

  Elaina wore a beaming smile at the group's thank you.

  "Ok~ How will you all do the same? Can you think of a way to prevent your loot from blowing up in an explosion?"

  "..." The group began brainstorming, but they didn't have the kind of control needed to pick out gear that was rapidly emerging.

  Donna was the closest one to being able to summon tendrils, but her control over one was tenuous at best. She could also try to store everything that was coming out, but that would pose a danger to her if she missed grabbing an explosive.

  Damian could use his Air Flow Sensitivity & Wind Movement to catch everything and toss aside the more dangerous items. If he made a mistake, he could use his Wind Form to escape. It still wasn't a great solution when compared to Elaina, but she was tier 6.

  Their last two ideas were similar. One would be that Frey would hold onto the corpse and fly it through the air. The items would drop in a wide area, preserving some while destroying others. Alex could do something similar by tethering a corpse and pulling it along the ground while it unloaded its goods.

  It was all really dark, in a humorous kind of way. To get every last piece of gear and gold, they'd abuse the dead further to increase their riches. There was no rest for the wicked, especially the wicked who would try to hide their inventory from their rightful new owners.

  Damian had asked where the items would pop out from if they destroyed the body after it had become an undead.

  The answer was that it would pop out wherever the body last existed. The body was an anchor to reality. When destroyed, the anchor would be left in the last place it had existed. Wraiths were similar in this regard. If you burned a body and then moved the ashes, the location where the body had burned would be where the wraith would form.

  The sounds of another convulsing body rang out, interrupting Damian's train of thought.

  The teleporting archer was next in line. Elaina promptly moved over and ended the undead before he could even scream. She was cutting it close with creating a wraith, but they would have also been in trouble if he had teleported away.

  She strung the corpse up and proceeded to snag items to add to her hoard. More explosions occurred, meant to take the assassin's wealth with him to the grave.

  The most notable things recovered from both assassins were camouflage cloaks. By draping it on your person and staying still, you'd become invisible. Even Elaina had lost track of Alex when she tried it on. But moving around immediately shattered the illusion.

  Thankfully, Alex wouldn't be gaining a new tool to cause mischief.

  Other than the cloak, the archer had a lot of arrows with him. Enough to keep firing for an entire day, which was disconcerting to say the least.

  Some of the arrows were enchanted with various magical effects, while others were plain. He had another, less impressive-looking bow, also with rune carvings. Again, they'd have to take it to an appraiser to figure out what any of it did.

  But enchanted items were enchanted items; it'd have to sell for a lot.

  No one in their party could use a bow, however. Damian used to wield one casually while hunting, but he swore it off after the incident... Even though they are practical, that damn bow purist had completely ruined it for him. He wouldn't want to risk getting a bow-related skill.

  But it wasn't like he could use a bow now anyway. Damian wiggled his stump arm.

  'sigh'

  "Do you think that any of the assassins would have orders on them? I mean, as long as the bodies are kept from turning to ash, we could get a seer to investigate them." Damian asked.

  "Seer-like powers are not omnipotent. There are ways to obscure what can and can't be seen." Elaina stated.

  "?! Wait... If there are ways to obscure what the Valkyrie could see... why did we risk bringing the imperial soldier's body all this way?"

  "Relax, have you never seen a seer skill in use before?"

  "Ah, no, I haven't. I've heard plenty about it before, though. It's like peering back in time, right?"

  "Not exactly, it's more of a vision of a person's or object's history. You can see what they see, but the wielder of the skill can see more. The closer the connection, the more visible the surroundings."

  Elaina continued to explain the ins and outs of this type of skill.

  1. Vision Matters - If the focus of the vision is capable of sight, all that they have witnessed will become visible.

  2. The Surrounds Are Revealed - The immediate surroundings of the focus of the skill are revealed in the vision. The focus does not need vision of them.

  3. Connections Matter - If the focus is familiar with the people in the vision, they will appear more clearly when not directly in the focus's vision. Extreme feelings of love or hate can reveal a person's identity even with their face covered.

  4. Obscuration Tools/Skills - People can wear obscuration tools or use skills to hide their identity. This will not prevent their actions or words from being shown, only their looks and voice. These tools are rare. Using them already helps narrow down who they could be.

  5. Simple Avoidance - Assassins can simply pick up letters at drop points to avoid making contact with their masters. Even if there is a strong connection, the writer of the letter would not be revealed.

  So in the end, the assassin bodies will most likely not lead anywhere, but the bodies of the prisoners from the Empire likely have seen more than enough.

  The Fire Empire was quite the journey from Gamo. Traveling from Gamo to the Empire would take about 200 days on foot, not that anyone would travel that distance solely by foot.

  That same distance could be traveled in a mere 30 days with a fast enough carriage, although it was unlikely these imperial soldiers took the fastest trip possible to make their way here. Damian wasn't even going to consider the ever-so-rare and expensive airship.

  Regardless of how these imperial soldiers got here, their bodies had a story to tell.