Beta followed the trails with Johann in tow, carefully analyzing his surroundings all the while in order to not walk into a trap. Hours passed without anything happening, when they suddenly heard voices from up ahead. They swiftly crouched down and scanned the area before them. The source of the voices came from behind a group of houses that were mostly intact. Beta signaled Johann with his hands and they both sneaked closer to take a look. Both climbed up some plants to reach the roof of a house where they first looked out for any sentries. On a roof opposite of them, Johann spotted a person who was holding on to a bow while taking a cursory glance at his teammates below, every now and then, before going back to watching the vicinity. He seemed to be pretty relaxed as if nothing could possibly be there.

"How and when are we going to get him? I don't want to stay out at night again... It was hard staying alive and we couldn't even separate him from his team! By now, they are most likely already back at the camp!", a scrawny guy complained.

"We'll just wait for them to come back. If we don't finish this task... I don't even want to think about what might happen to us. Too bad these shadows got into our way or else we might have already finished up here.", a man next to him said. He was looking in the direction of the camp with a slight smirk.

"Are you sure? They seemed pretty though. It wasn't so easy to survive that.", the only woman of the team chimed in.

"Hahaha! Do you think they could win against us, Elise?", the scrawny man answered in disdain.

"Of course not, Dennis. But we may end up with a few losses.", Elise said unsurely.

"We'll see that soon enough. If you're afraid of one of us dying you better heal us properly!", Dennis retorted.

As Beta listened to them, he wasn't quite sure what to think. Are they strong or just idiots? But he didn't miss the most important messages. Someone sent them. Plus, the woman is their healer. That's what Beta cared about right now. He carefully inspected every single one of them and noted their weapons or possible fighting styles, down in his mind. He quickly saw that they were a normal squad of ten people with a standard formation where the healers and ranged fighters were placed in the middle and the melees on the outside. Simple, but effective. It was an ideal formation that made it hard to ambush those members that were easy to kill.

"Are you ready to bet your life on this fight, Johann?", Beta asked with his warmest and confident smile, showing that no matter what, he'd definitely fight.

"Do you even need to ask? Two against ten? Of course, I'm in! I wouldn't want to miss this opportunity!", Johann answered with a slight suppressed chuckle. He didn't want to be too loud as to not alert the enemy.

"There's no need to hold back now. We will kill them anyway. I'll sneak over to the archer on the opposite side and kill him silently. After that, I will jump down to them. While they are distracted, make sure to shoot the woman. Once she's unable to heal them, you can act according to your estimation so don't hold back. I'll keep them busy for you.", Beta said quietly, showing more and more anticipation for what's coming.

"Understood!"

Beta slowly got down from the roof, making sure not to let any of the roof tiles fall, circled around to the side the archer was on, and climbed up quickly, but quietly like a lizard or spider. The mountain climbing training truly showed its effects here. As he arrived at the top, right below the roof, he waited a bit and listened.

"Crack"

The noise of a roof tile cracking gave Beta the signal. Before going, they had studied the archer's movements closely. He only moved when he turned around to look at his teammates behind him and when turning around to do his job again. Beta got on the roof and used his Soul River Steps to swiftly and silently arrive next to the archer. His hand shot up and the tips of his fingers that were covered in void elemental soulpower went through the archers back into his lungs, disabling him from letting out any sound.

Beta quickly followed up by pulling him to his side and used another attack to his throat, swiftly beheading him. Even in death, the archer wasn't even able to let out a gurgling noise. He was instantly killed. Due to the tilted roof, Beta wasn't able to hit his head directly, but like this, he was still able to solve the problem silently.

Although, this would not have worked if the archer was prepared and had his soulpower defense up. The archer only got to know that he was attacked when his lung was already not a part of his body anymore and the shock prevented him from acting after that.

It really was too fast of an ambush, plus, seeing their mission's target hunting them now was also a factor as to why he was too shocked. But then again, it was too late for him. He could only die silently without anyone noticing the cold-blooded killer which has a face and body of a kid.

Beta, with the corpse in his arms and covered in blood, stood up and looked into the direction of the enemy squad, slowly walking closer. Soon, he stood on the archer's position and looked down upon them.

"Who are you?! What the hell have you done to Kevin?!", one of the men below shouted in disbelief.

"Me? Oh, I'm Beta, nice to meet you!", Beta answered with a warm smile covering his face.

If it was just for his smile, anyone would think that he is just a nice passerby, but with his clothes covered in blood and a beheaded corpse in his arms, it just made an unbelievable bloody sight.

"What do you want? Why are you here?", the scrawny man asked, stepping forward.

"Why I'm here? Isn't it obvious? Earlier at night, you said hello to me and my squad. So, it is only polite for me to come and say hello as well. Sadly, the distance didn't allow me to do it earlier, I'm sorry about that!", Beta answered with a natural hearty laugh.

It was such an innocent and warm remark that people would think that the kid was a good seedling with good manners, but the horror behind what he just said, caused all the members of their group felt like exploding from raging anger. Especially when they recognized who the corpse once was.

"Ah yeah! This is the one that shot the arrow, right? Sadly, your friend is not so talkative, hence I'm saying hello to you now! He's also kinda heavy so here.. catch!", Beta added, while throwing the corpse down.

Several men instantly ran up to catch the falling corpse and barely caught him, staining themselves with blood in the process. When they checked the area of fatality, they were also speechless by the ruthlessness of how clean the cut was. All members noticed the weird looks on their faces so they also checked and then they all showed shocked faces with slight traces of fear in their eyes.

"Sorry guys, I almost forgot this!", Beta shouted again.

This time, no one was fast enough to react and the head Beta threw down reached the ground, splattering its surroundings with blood and brain matter.

"Gaaaaah! I don't care about the task anymore, I'll kill him! This little devil doesn't deserve to be captured! I must cut him until nothing is left behind!", Dennis said, clenching his teeth and fuming in rage.

Kevin, the archer, had been one of his dearest friends. Seeing his headless body and head explode in front of him, even being covered in some of his brains, left him with nothing but rage.

"With how enraged you are, you must have truly loved him, huh? No worries, I'm a good person after all. I will reunite you soon so that you won't have to live without him!", Beta shouted righteously.

Now, Dennis' eyes became a scarlet red as they looked at Beta murderously. He couldn't hold back anymore so he rushed forward to the house where Beta was on, but then he suddenly heard him say something even more ridiculous.

"Just wait down there, I'll come down to play!", Beta said as if he was having fun looking at their enraged faces.

At the same time that he said that, Beta jumped down from the house, making everyone rush towards him with the intent to kill him on the spot.

"Swoosh!"

"Thud!"

Suddenly, an arrow came out of nowhere, hitting the healer's leg. If it wasn't for the intervention of the man that stood right next to her, her head would've been hit instead. She was only lucky that her teammate was vigilant enough to notice the sneak attack but wasn't fast enough to completely help her avoid the arrow. Usually, something like this would definitely not happen, but Beta had successfully drawn almost all of the melees away from her and the mages by throwing the corpse and angering them.

Johann had expected something like this to happen and prepared another one of his little fortes. The arrow went through her leg into the ground, quickly growing into rambles that held on to her, constricting her body in a way where she can't move any of her limbs. Beta, who was still falling with what looked like a belly flop, suddenly laughed maniacally with eyes shining brightly.

"Let's go at it for real now, this will be reeeaaallly fun!"