Now that everyone was away from the assassins, they all had some time to breathe and treat their wounds. Kai’s group was unharmed because they were that good, but the same couldn’t be said for Seaweeds’ group.
Two of the swordsmen were injured, Karol was dead, and the sorcerers were out of mana. Even Seaweed himself was panting heavily.
"Y’all need to work out more. You’re out of breath and out of mana after that little encounter? Crazy." Kai shook his head.
"W-We just aren’t monsters like you!" One of the sorcerers retorted.
"Fair enough."
"You said you were Gold III mercenaries? No way that’s true with your skills and power. You have to be at least Platinum I." The swordsman wasn’t stupid. He knew skilled people when he saw them.
"We are, wanna see our license?" Kai tossed his own to him.
The swordman frowned. "You just happened to forget to mention that you’re also a Primal Hunter and an S-Rank Advenurer?"
Everyone turned to Kai and his group.
Kai shrugged, not seeing it as a big deal. "Hey, you asked for our Mercenary rank, not our other ranks. Besides, I’m the only primal hunter here. The girls are just S-Ranks."
"Yeah, only S-Ranks." A sorcerer scoffed.
"So, why are people after you?" Kyana turned her attention to Abigail. "That annoying guy said you’re the daughter of a magic tower master? Why do you need an escort if you have a powerful parent?"
Everyone frowned and turned to Abigail. She slumped in the chair she was sitting on, not answering the question.
"Our tower was attacked." Seaweed spoke up.
"Hang on, you’re a swordsman, why are you working at a magic tower?" Gwen asked
"Although the magic tower is a place for studying magic, creating new magic, and getting stronger with magic, they still hire Torrents for security and guards." He clarified.
"What’s a torrent?" Amaya asked
Seaweed looked at her with a confused expression. His facial expression sought help when he turned to Kai and the other girls, but they all shrugged.
Although Kai assumed a Torrent was a martial artist in some capacity, he still didn’t know what it truly meant.
"It’s another name for a knight or warrior." He explained
"So why not just call yourselves knight or warrior?" Sasha asked
"Right. Torrent means a strong and fast stream of water, not a warrior." Kai followed up.
"Well, it’s because we practice water arts. Since we’re an Island nation, we’re surrounded by water, inside and outside the nation. Because of that, martial artists practice arts that can have them fight on water."
"Ahh, that makes sense." Gwen nodded.
Kai couldn’t help but laugh at the explanation. "Do you call the hero a tsunami or something?"
"What? No. Why would we call him that?" Seaweed asked
"Never mind. Anyway, you were saying that you were attacked?"
"Ahh, yes. We were attacked by the tower master’s former friend. He was originally set to become the master, but it was revealed that he was conducting human experiments, and he was kicked out of the tower and had his magic license revoked."
Nadya tilted her head. "Magic license?"
"Y-Yes. Do you not know what that is?"
All of them shook their heads.
"Ha, are you from some rural village or something?" One of the sorcerers asked
"Yes," Kai responded with a straight face.
"O-Oh, my bad."
"A magic license is the documentation that permits someone to practice the art of mana." Seaweed explained
"You have to have permission to practice mana? What kind of bullshit rule is that?" In the Sarkylla kingdom, you didn’t need permission to practice mana. Sure, Kai knew that all countries were different, but he thought this rule was dumb.
"You all have licenses, and that’s your permit. Not everyone is that fortunate, and even if they are, they might not have any talent in magic and have to learn martial arts instead. Such as myself." Seaweed looked at his hand, clenching it from his lack of talent.
"Wait a minute. Do you classify raw mana as magic? Like this?" Kai shot a beam of raw, untransformed mana from his finger.
"What? No. That’s just mana being thrown, or I guess, ejected. Magic is the transformation of mana. Fire, teleportation, runes, and so on. Pure mana is what Torrents use."
"Weird! Where we’re from, we call this raw magic." Kai explained.
"I see. Well, here, it’s not classified as magic. If you cannot transform your magic, then you have no talent for being a sorcerer and can only be a torrent. Sorcerers rule society. All of the most prominent families in the kingdom are Sorcerers, the king and queen are Sorcerers, the church is full of Sorcerers, and the magic towers control all Sorcerers in the kingdom."
"Ohhh! No wonder people were so polite to us when we went to Pearlwind Island." Now everything was making sense to Kai.
"But as I was saying, the tower master’s friends broke into the tower, slaughtered the sorcerers who didn’t turn to his side, and imprisoned the young lady’s mother."
"So where are you headed to?" Gwen asked.
"We’re going to rescue them!" Abigail shouted.
"Pwahahahahaha! Yeah, sure. Good luck with that." Kai laughed at him.
"You don’t have to be a jerk about it." One of the sorcerers grumbled.
"We are not blindly going into battle. We have allies waiting for us and waiting for the young lady’s return. We were on a mission to gather a rare herb when the tower was attacked, and now we need to hurry back. It’s already been a month."
Kai stood up and patted Seaweed on the back. "Don’t worry, we’ll make sure you arrive safely. We’re probably the best people you could have hired."
"Uhh, guys, we have company!"
Coming directly at them was a ship that had a skull on its sail and flag. The crew on the ship was loading cannons, and their captain was pointing toward Kai’s ship.
"Oh no, they found us!"
"Who’s they?" Kai asked
"It’s the crew of the man who stormed the magic tower, the Garbagio Pirates!"
Kai’s eyes lit up with excitement. "Pirates? Holy shit! That’s fucking cool!"