Marked Ones: Advent of the Demon Prince

Rena sat next to Marie quietly waiting for the signal they agreed upon with the advance team. The assault team was a little further away, waiting for the mages to do their job.

Rena was slightly distracted with thoughts of Lucius fighting out in the woods without her there to fight with him. Ever since they were children they have never been separated. She was very worried that he might go a step too far and face off against someone stronger than him. Losing him would devastate her, so much so that she would probably just give up on the battle for the spot as heir.

It just was not worth it if he wasn't around…

She quietly shook her head to dispel those negative thoughts and feelings. Rena was aware that the timid woman, Marie, was watching her the entire time. Honestly, she probably looked very weird just sitting there and shaking her head back and forth for no reason.

"You aren't like most nobles." Marie whispered.

"You know I'm a noble?"

Marie nodded. "It's the hair. Not a lot of people have red hair, and you live in Pelith, so I just assumed you were a Petra."

"You know about my family then?"

"Yes…I was in the military before we were allowed to become adventurers. All of us were, except Mia…she was a runner before this… a-a-anyway, everyone in the army knows about the Petra's. Your family is filled with powerful warriors." Marie continued. Rena could tell there was a hint of admiration in the woman's voice as she spoke.

Marie probably ran into a number of extended relatives of Rena's. The Petra's were a massive family. In fact, her own father was the strange one of the group because he only had the one child: Rena.

If she were to try and count them, the number of cousins and second cousins she had probably numbered in the triple digits. Most of them were not eligible to be part of the generation competing for becoming heir due to their ages. They were either too young or too old when the time of selection came.

"Yeah, my family loves to fight, that's for sure… Say, Marie, are you guys going on the Grand Raid?" Rena asked, swiftly trying to change the subject.

"O-o-oh. I think Mia said that was the plan? Are you guys going to go too?"

"Yeah, that was what we settled on as a party. Though Lucius and I had planned on doing it from the moment we became adventurers." Rena said with a proud grin.

"Why?"

"Because I want to get stronger, and I need to accomplish something great to prove my worth as the next heir to House Petra." She proudly placed her fist over her heart .

"What about Lucius? Why does he want to go?"

Most of Rena's act of pride crumbled instantly. "He wants to gain the strength to survive the war with Alorek…or die in the dungeon."

Marie was about to say something when they heard the signal that the advance team had cleared the forest. Both of them stood up and ran straight for the camp. This was the first time that Rena had seen the camp in question. It had ramshackle walls made of roughly tied logs and bits of scrap metal nailed in various places.

Unlike city or some large town walls, there did not appear to be a platform behind them from which to walk along them on patrol. Instead near the openings of the walls that served as the entry and exit points, there was a single tower that was so poorly constructed it looked like a strong wind would blow it over.

Atop this tower was a pair of people who saw the approaching mages and started pointing and shouting something. Marie broke off from Rena to head to the second gate. Mia had done some follow-up patrols around the camp and found that there were only two gates and the rest of the camp was surrounded by this wall.

"[Glacies: Ice Wall]!"

Rena channeled all the mana she could muster at once into the spell and erected a solid wall of ice that blocked off the gate. The wall extended a little past the opening on either side, partially enveloping the wall itself to make sure that there were no gaps.

Off in the distance she heard a small voice shout, "[Terra: Earth Wall]!

Rena felt a surge of mana from the same direction and watched as a giant wall made of dirt and stone covered the other exit. At this point the two people in the lookout tower had begun panicking and were shouting down to the people in camp.

She felt a burst of wind rush past her as she caught a glimpse of Jen and Lethen run by. They quickly approached the wall and began to scale it. Rena watched as the people in the tower drew their bows and started to take aim at her party members who were defenseless while climbing.

"Not on my watch! [Ventus: Gust]!"

Though she could not spend too much mana or focus on casting the wind spell without losing concentration on the Ice Wall, it was enough to throw the bandits off balance. One even tumbled backwards and fell off the tower. Though she could not hear or see it, based on the height and how he fell…he probably did not survive the landing.

The distraction was enough for Lethen and Jen to finally get over the wall. She then got prepared for the next phase of her task: keeping an eye on the walls for any enemies trying to escape. If they did, she was to either push them back into the camp, or use a spell to take them out.

The one restriction placed on her and Marie was to not use fire magic. Because if they did, they risked setting the wall itself on fire, which could defeat the purpose of the walls they made in the first place.

Not to mention the fact that their allies would be fighting in a literal ring of fire and smoke. While Rena did not see them because they approached the camp from closer to where Marie was, she figured that Renton and Lynn were already inside and fighting alongside Jen and Lethen. She heard a number of shouts and screams as people began to fight to the death.

For both the bandits and them, the only way out of this now was to win or die.