Mars looked around the empty office once more before he turned and left the office and started to walk around the mansion

"you there, halt!"

"oh for f.u.c.ks sake..."

Mars stopped and turned and saw a knight like person clad in full plate armor

"who are you, what are you doing here?"

"...well I'm looking for the lord, do you have any idea where he is?"

the knight paused for a moment

"...he should be in the back courtyard"

"oh... thanks"

"you're welcome"

Mars felt his smile stiffen slightly but still gave the knight a light bow before he turned and left for the courtyard

'that was kind of pleasant...'

Mars soon arrived and walked out of the mansion into the open courtyard where he spotted Gas along with 3 people in black armor

"found you!"

"you! how are you still alive I was su---"

Mars disappeared from view and reappeared right in front of Gas and grabbed him by the neck and lifted him into the air, meanwhile the dark knight captain looked on with slight surprise on his face for a moment before he asked Mars

"....can you let him down?"

"no"

"why not?"

"he killed a few friends of mine you see, well he didn't do it himself his cousin did"

"and when did this happen?"

"about 5 days ago"

"... are you perhaps---"

"captain let's just kill him!"

being interrupted the captain let out a ma.s.sive amount of killing intent and looked at the dark knight that had interrupted him

"quiet Kim, the adults are talking"

"y-yes captain"

the captain gave a sigh and his killing intent disappeared like mist in sunlight before he spoke to Mars again in a calm tone

"where you perhaps on the sky carriage that crashed north of here?"

"yeah I was"

"...I see, how many others survived?"

Mars looked at the captain for the first time with a blank look on his face

"3 died, the vice princ.i.p.al, Chris a student and the driver"

"L....e..t...me....d...o....wn"

Mars looked up at gas that was completely blue in the face and gave a slight slime

"quiet little piggy the adults are talking"

the captain also ignored Gas and looked like he was in deep thought before he gave a nod and looked at Mars

"that's a interesting story... but I'm afraid it's just that at this point, a story. So why don't you put down the lord and we can talk about it some more?"

"no way"

"...what did you just say?"

"I said no way"

the captain gave another sigh, before he looked at the female dark knight

"I see.... Kim you're up, try not to hurt the lord"

"yes captain!"

Kim put on her helmet and readied her claws as she casually walked closer to Mars, Mars looked over Kim and his gaze stopped at the claws

"...nice claws"

"thanks!"

Kim kicked off the ground and swiped at Mars with her claws, but Mars simply took half a step back and avoided the swipe

"muuuu!"

Kim let out a unladylike sound and swiped at Mars again only to have the same thing happen again, Mars effortlessly avoided her swipe by leaning his body to the side, still holding Gas above his own head in one hand

"stay still!"

"nope~"

for the next 2 minutes Kim tried to hit Mars with her claws, the key part being that she tried

"MUUU!!!"

Kim stomped her foot into the ground before she turned to the captain and yelled

"captain, he doesn't play nice!"

"why don't you stop going easy on him then?"

"fine!"

Kim stopped for a second and suddenly runes lit up on her armor forming a complex formation across the entire dark plate body, Mars having studied formations recognized part of the formation and quickly transformed his free hand into his dragon claws

*CLANG*

'd.a.m.n she's quick now, might have to be a little serious'

"MUUU!! why do you block!?"

"because I don't like to be stabbed!"

"why don't you just die! die! DIE!"

Kim turned into a blur and so did Mars's claws as loud sounds of metal clas.h.i.+ng filled the courtyard

'I really want to use [Instant movement] and end this, but Gas would not survive it... maybe let him go for now and focus on the fight? nah that would make it hard to get to him if he runs and hides'

"DIE! DIE! DIE!"

"shut up, crazy woman!"

Mars kicked and hit Kim in the stomach sending her flying backwards in the air she flipped and landed unharmed before she kicked off the ground and charged towards Mars again with fury as she swung her claws at him again

"DIE!"

Mars used the time where Kim wasn't up in his face to draw his sword and swung it down on her

*CLANG*

sparks flew and Kim was forced to take a step back

"HAHAHAHAHA! captain he just doesn't die!"

's.h.i.+t this girl is crazy!'

"you know what? fine, I pity the one that have to clean this up"

Mars quickly loaded his left arm with 100 units of energy and activated his [Energy: discharge] on Gas that still was held helpless in the air

*SPLAT!!!*

Gas exploded into b.l.o.o.d.y mist that spread all over the courtyard, bits of flesh and pieces of organs rained down from the sky as the dark knights were bathed in blood, only Mars which had pointed Gas towards the dark knights was clean

"....captain the lord exploded! there's blood all over HAH--"

"shut up!"

*CLANG*

Mars sent a kick to the side of Kim's head and sent her flying, after she tumbled on the ground a few times she stopped moving

"that's one down, who's next?"

the captain wiped some of the blood off his face and looked over at Kim before he gave a sigh

"well now that the lord is dead our job here is done..."

"your job? weren't you working for him?"

Mars became confused, he was sure that the dark knights were underlings of Gas

"we were here to investigate him for corruption and then kill him when we found prof"

"I see then what do you want to do now?"

the captain gave another sigh

"since it would take all our lives to kill you I won't bother... we're done here, Tony pick up Kim and lets get out of here"

"yes captain"

"wait you're leaving just like that?"

"...yeah did you want anything else?"

"we were originally supposed to reinforce the front in the empire north of here, but what should we do now that our sky carriage crashed?"

the captain gave a slight smile

"there's another sky carriage in route... it should be here in a couple of hours"

"I see... thanks for the heads up"

Mars watched as the dark knights boarded the black sky carriage and took off, only when it was a tiny dot in the distance did Mars let his guard down with a sigh

"I should go find the others..."

Mars left the b.l.o.o.d.y courtyard and walked around the mansion to the gate less front where Adam and Chloe was waiting for him along with a bunch of mangled corpses, when Chloe saw Mars she gave a sweet smile and walked up to him

"are you done?"

"yeah I spread him all over the courtyard"

"...so he's dead?"

"as dead as dead can be"

"okay, so what now?"

"another sky carriage will be here in a few hours, so let's meet up with the others"

"yeah let's do that"

Chloe latched on to Mars's arm and the 2 of them followed by Adam walked into town away form the mansion...

a dry wind blew bringing with it some dried up pants and dust, this was the southern desert of the empire, normally the only things here was sand, lonely rock formations and caravans moving though but now a small town of tents was set up. A lone soldier was running through the tent town, he was heading to the middle were a large tent was set up, pa.s.sing by the soldiers that stood guard outside the tent the soldier keeled down as soon as he made it inside and called out

"reporting! a group of cla.s.s 1 golems has appeared!"

"hmm... how many? and where are they coming form?"

"a group of approximately 100, form the north west!"

"hmm... have the 14th squad of active mana armor soldiers intercept"

"sir, yes sir!"

the soldier got up and gave a salute to the beastman that was sitting in a chair before he turned and left the tent. in the now quite tent a long deep sigh was heard before the beastman stood up form his chair exposing his features, a long gray tail and 2 slightly fluffy looking wolf ears on his head showed he was a wolf beastman while the military uniform he wore exposed him as a low ranking general. The beastman general walked over to a table were a map of the southern desert was spread out, stroking his bread covered chin and mumbled while he moved a wooden piece on the map

"a group of cla.s.s 1 golems... most like from this village... that means they probing us..."

he stood there and rubbed his chin for a moment before he called out

"messenger!"

a soldier quickly ran into the tent and kneeled down

"have the 15th squad of active mana armor soldiers prepare and head out 2 kilometers to the north east to intercept"

"sir, yes sir!"

the messenger quickly ran out of the tent once again leaving the beastman general alone in the tent

"oh... that reminds me what happened to the mage reinforcements form Destra?"