"yes... we found the hide of a giant magic beast in the end of the cave along with a pile of sharpened bones and failures of what looked like bone swords"

"bone swords you say?"

"yes, it looked like the former owner of this cave used the bones of a giant magic beast to make a bone sword, we found the practice attempts in the cave"

"I see... bone swords huh..."

"is something wrong lady Vanessa?"

"no it's just that I worked with a student form Destra under the golem war that used a sword made from bone...."

at this point in time a portal suddenly opened in the middle of the encampment startling everyone, quickly a soldier yelled

"enemy attack, defensive position!"

the soldiers, mercenaries and hunters all moved quick and formed a perimeter around the portal and soon someone stepped out of the portal

"...well this certainly is a warm welcome"

carrying a confident smile on his face a youth with black hair and blue eyes stepped out of the portal, he was wearing a pale suit and had a pair of bone swords sheathed on his hip, he scanned the surrounding soldiers, mercenaries and hunters and whenever his eyes pa.s.sed over them they would tremble just a bit, soon his eyes landed on Vanessa that also stared at him with her jaw hanging open, Mars gave a nod and spoke

"those clothes suit you much better than a military uniform Vanessa... guess it paid off for you, you know the whole civil war thing"

Vanessa quickly picked up her jaw from the floor while Mars looked around at the surroundings, other than some plant growth it looked just like it did before he left

"Mars... you are with the elvers?"

Mars gave a smile in response just as Alvin and the other elvers stepped out of the portal, they gave light frowns when they saw that they were surrounded and inched a little closer to Mars that spoke up

"now is this how governor Ichma's representative treat diplomats?"

Vanessa gave a sigh and quickly gave an order

"....stand down"

the mercenaries and soldiers lowered their weapons but some of the more experienced hunters kept alert and looked around which caused Vanessa to give a frown

"I said stand down!"

"miss Vanessa there's a high cla.s.s magic beast nearby, I can sense it..."

Mars looked over at the hunter, he was slightly amazed, he certainly didn't expect that kind of senses from a mortal and spoke up

"oh... that's probably Victoria..."

Vanessa blanked for a moment before she looked down at Mars' shadow and gave a nod before she looked over at the hunter that had spoken up

"that's a tamed magic beast"

"...I understand"

the hunter lowered his bow Vanessa gave a nod and looked over at Alvin and asked

"I guess you are Alvin?"

"yes I am"

"good, my name is Vanessa Ichma and I'm here to negotiate the release of our soldiers as well as compensation for the soldiers of Green river as a representative of my father James Ichma"

Alvin gave a nod and spoke with a diplomatic smile on his face

"very good, why don't we step into the cabin and talk?"

"sure"

Mars followed along and stopped by the entrance of the cabin and stood guard, meanwhile Alvin negotiated with Vanessa

"oi you"

Mars looked over and saw a soldier from the Ichma province was calling him, Mars half wanted to ignore him, but then again he was bored so he might as well play with the mortals

"what?"

"you with the elvers right? you know what happened with our troops?"

Mars gave a cold smile

"well about 2.000 of them surrendered... the rest were killed in action"

the soldier trembled for a bit before he let out a sigh and nodded to another soldier that walked away and whispered something to another soldier, Mars watched them with a cold look in his eyes, they were clearly up to no good

'are they targeting Alvin and the others?'

Mars thought for a bit and decided to let them play the first hand and save his for later, besides as long as they didn't instant kill the elvers he could fix them right up, this might seem mean on Mars' part but he simply disdained moving first against mere mortals, he saw them as nothing more than children making schemes

'this will be good entertainment...'

Mars stood with a cold smile on his face and waited for the soldiers to get into position but quickly got bored and walked into the cabin, Alvin looked over at him with a questioning gaze when he walked in, Mars sent a few hand signals to him signaling him to be careful of the soldiers before he walked back out of the cabin and stood guard, soon a group of soldiers and a few merc's walked over towards him and the entrance of the cabin

'here they come...'

Mars gave them a cold smile before he took a few steps and stood in the middle of the doorway and put a hand on the hilt of his sword, one of the soldiers saw him standing in the way and called out to him

"move aside, f.u.c.king guard dog of the elvers"

"hmm... I don't think I will, also if you call me a dog one more time I will make sure you will regret it"

the soldiers all gave an unpleasant smile before one of them looked back at one of the merc's and called out

"go test him"

"fine, but then I'll get first turn with the one of the elvers"

"sure, just kill this kid first"

the mercenary gave an unpleasant smile and looked over at Mars

"don't blame me for this kid"