Kai ignored all the vibrant substances, and approached a stack of wooden crates in the corner of the room. He used his rifle to open the lip, revealing hundreds of gray packets tied together by a stringle. He untied it, and spoke to us.
"This is it."
"So, this is the enuim," I said, looking down at the blue-white power. It was not like the small dust-like particles that I had expected it to be when I first learned it was a powdered drug. They were large clumps of powder, that didn’t break into smaller parts even when I poked at it. "How do people even use these things?" I asked curiously. "Do you eat them or something?"
"You don’t consume them in this state," Kai explained. "You mix it with a liquid— any liquid, but preferably water— and you boil it. Then you inhale it."
"And it was prescribed as a medicine for the Noxeus?"
"Yes," he said, turning away from the drugs in disgust. "They told them it would cure the body from the inside, starting from the lungs. And people believed it because it muted your pain receptors— it’d make you think you were feeling better. I don’t understand why anyone would bring it over to this continent, let alone our country. It’s just so…"
"Terrible?" I suggested.
He snorted. "That’s one word for it.
Shrugging, I looked back at the boxes of enuim, lining the sides of the room. "Well, that’s not going to be a problem anymore since"— I pointed a finger, and a sphere of flames slowly came into existence— "we’re destroying it all."
And the Fireball exploded.
It took us almost two hours before we returned to the docks. Lisa was there waiting for us, and ran to us.
"What happened? Did you guys manage to do it?" she asked, showing genuine worry in her voice as she inspected Jack. "You’re hurt! You were—"
"I’m fine," he said, then gestured behind him. "And we succeeded. Just look."
The young woman raised an eyebrow. "I don’t see anything." She narrowed her eyes, looking in the direction we came from.
I piped up from the side. "That’s because it’s dark and cloudy. You can’t see the smoke billowing up in the distance."
"But shouldn’t there at least be a fire?" She gave me a confused look.
"No," I said, shaking my head. "We only destroyed the enuim. Nothing else. We want to leave the Elise a message."
"And the message is clear," Kai added, stepping onto the boat. "They’re not getting any more allies, and they aren't going to be ruining peoples’ lives anymore."
"What does that mean?" Lisa asked, frowning.
"It means exactly that— we’ll be doing a lot more of these raids in the next few weeks."
Chapter 32: Thoughts and Actions
For the next few weeks, I continued to aid Ginah’s Crew in carrying out systematic strikes against the Elise; we specifically targeted only their enuim depots. Or at least, I only took part in those attacks.
I was pretty sure Ginah’s Crew did other such strikes against them, but I took no part in those. I was concerned with one thing and one thing only— as per my deal with them.
Unlike our initial strike however, we did not carry out similar scorched earth tactics where we left no one alive; that would simply be cruel. That was done to sever the potential for alliance between the Dark Crusaders and the Elise before anything substantive came from it. And so far, it appeared to have worked.
Our attacks now were short, and much less bloody. Without any spellcasters to combat, I did not have to use my magic either. We often let those who wanted to flee, flee. And we even spared most of those who stayed to fight.
"You—"
The thug swung his axe at me, and I barely ducked under the swing. I brought my dagger low, slicing at his feet as I pivoted to his back. He jerked, but even that did not elicit a scream. He turned back to face me, his face burning red, and the veins in his pupil bulging… blue?
That was right. It was one of the side effects of the enuim; that was how you knew someone was taking them. Another indication that someone was high on the drug was their incredible pain tolerance. Which was why he was still standing even after I had cut his legs open.
"Listen," I said, trying to project my voice as assertively as possible. "Put down your weapon—"
"Give it back!" he screamed, charging at me once more.
I rolled out of the way of his attack. I was exasperated; the enuim supposedly also put you in a state of mind where you were more likely to agree with others. So why wasn’t it working?
He whirled around, bringing his axe down wildly at me. I stepped into his attack, slashing at his arms. He could not feel pain, but his body— his muscles— were unchanged.
The thug dropped his axe as I went to knee him down below. He barely even registered the hit, and grabbed for me with his remaining good arm. I pushed at him— trying to get him off me. And I managed to do that, just in time for Braz to reach him.
"I got you!" The pirate grabbed the thug by the neck, and pinned him to the ground, choking him out. Sighing, I watched as the thug finally passed out after squirming on the ground for a good five minutes.
I cleaned my dagger of the blood on it, before sheathing at my waist. "Thanks Braz," I said, nodding gratefully at him as he shot me a thumbs up. "I was worried I’d have no choice but to kill him for a moment."
"Well, we wouldn’t want that would we? Good thing I was here to save the day!"
