Rogue Villain-Chapter 230: Captive

The dragonling mage’s blades of wind easily cut through Ackster’s skin and muscles, drawing blood that spread through the blades before being sprinkled through the air. However, they met fierce resistance when coming in contact with his skeleton.

Ackster felt the blades cut through and try to cut through his limbs for a moment before losing power and dying out. He opened his eyes and looked at his wounds. He used his hands to investigate the bone-deep cuts on his arms, legs, torso, and throat.

Ackster couldn’t help but grin as he felt that his skeleton only had scratches and thin groves where the wind blades had struck.

Seeing Ackster rifle through his bleeding flesh to touch his skeleton terrified the dragonling mage even more than if he had just let his wounds recover in a flash. His grin while jabbing his fingers into his bleeding throat only worsened her fear.

The dragonling mage’s legs trembled, and she gripped the wand so hard it cracked, and her reddish-black scaled knuckles changed color to a lighter orange. But she didn’t lose heart. There had to be a reason why this monster was letting her attack him. Maybe it would let her live if she satisfied it.

So, when Ackster recovered, the dragonling readied another spell. This time, she concentrated all of her power into a single large scythe of compressed air in the hopes that it would be enough to dice Ackster.

It wasn’t.

But it did more damage to him than the previous spell. Ackster gestured for her to continue. He could see she was getting tired. But with as much time as she needed, she could prepare much stronger spells than the one she had used against the lava slime.

Ackster even felt his life threatened a couple of times as he continued squeezing the dragonling mage for magic attacks. Of course, during the entire process, Ackster’s Overhuman Senses were sharper than a scalpel as he analyzed his body’s reaction, his skills’ activity, and the mage’s condition. Surprisingly enough, he could tell that the mage was improving.

Thanks to receiving the rare opportunity of fighting for her life while also having the leniency to draw out her full and complete strength in rapid succession without fearing her target’s demise or her surrounding’s destruction, the dragonling furthered her understanding of her magic.

She was doing the same as Ackster and advancing by stepping halfway into the land of the dead. It was just that she wasn’t suffering mortal injuries. The dragonling mage was just standing in front of the greatest threat to her life since birth. It had the same effect.

Ackster had a feeling this dragonling mage had an affinity for this kind of training. Since she still had enough power to threaten his life while severely exhausted, Ackster brought her along instead of disposing of her.

She still had value as a magic training dummy, and although he had steeled his resolve, Ackster did feel a little guilty about possibly taking one needless life when he couldn’t confirm if they would have led trouble back to him. But that uncertainty was exactly why he had killed the spear-wielding dragonling.

When the mage passed out from mana exhaustion, Ackster simply picked her up before taking her and Mio along with him toward the next volcano he could find. He also killed and stored all monsters and beasts he came across to use as nourishment for his healing skills. He also had a feeling that the mage would be pretty hungry when she woke up.

Coincidentally enough, or maybe due to the thick fire mana around the volcano, he found, Ackster’s mage woke up when they arrived at their destination. She immediately panicked and tried to scramble free of Ackster’s grip until Ackster slammed her into the ground with enough force to knock the air out of her lungs and made her realize her position. She was a captive, and he was the captor.

The mage was scared out of her mind, but she saw hope of survival, so she nodded to indicate her acknowledgment of the state of things.

"Can you understand me?"

The mage tilted her head at Ackster’s unfamiliar language before getting worried that he would get rid of her since they couldn’t communicate. She began panicking and raising her arms to defend herself.

Ackster pulled her arms away from her face and forced her to look at him. He then took out a piece of food he had prepared especially for her since he doubted she had the same eating habits as him.

Ackster held the plate between them. He then grabbed the mage’s wand, pointed it at himself from her direction, and waved it around with accompanying sound effects. After that, he slid the plate of food over to her.

"Do you understand?"

Even if she couldn’t understand his exact words, Ackster hoped the mage would be smart enough to understand his charades. Fortunately for her, she nodded. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

Ackster was about to encourage her to start eating and regain her strength when he sensed something in the depths of the volcano and whipped his head around to look at it. Just like he had sensed the owner of the volcano, the owner of the volcano had sensed him.

’Good. I needed something stronger to fight.’

Ackster hadn’t encountered something that could force him to push his limits after entering the Land of Dragons unless he willingly put restraints on himself or let them attack him as much as they wanted. So, he hadn’t had an opportunity to grow his cohesive combat ability, only one part of his strength at a time.

After having a stare-off through the lava against the creature, slowly making its way up, Ackster gave the mage a stern glare. He gestured with his fingers that if she were to run while he fought, she would lose her head.

The mage nodded fervently as she felt the presence drawing closer from inside the volcano and how the pressure Ackster gave off didn’t lose in the least.