When A Mage Revolts

The next morning, Benjamin left the City of Snow and headed towards the rumoured area of rebel activity.

The spies of the church that hid within the castle had been completely eliminated; Benjamin had personally witnessed how the General had captured all of them throughout the night. He even told the System to secretly scan the confidential documents within the castle; the result of the scan showed that the General and the Prime Minister did not once again lie to him.

There were no conspiracies nor inside stories. This time, the transaction was transparent. As long as Benjamin could finish the last part of the deal - dealing with the rebel army - then there would be no problems.

But, on the topic of the rebel army….

Honestly, Benjamin suspected that these rebels were the ones that he had coached in the past. However, he did make the General and Prime Minister a promise, so he couldn’t back out now. If the rebels were familiar faces, this would be a more difficult job. After all, if they were not, then he could just solve it with brute force.

Benjamin was quite fast as he flew in the air. He arrived at the red area plotted on the map in approximately two days. He was now in the mountains near the borders of Ferelden.

The endless mountains and the thick layer of forests sheltered thousands of flora and fauna. Not many people took shelter within these lands and Benjamin had to acknowledge that this was indeed a good place for guerrilla warfare. Benjamin did go past this area with the mages when he first left Ferelden.

Now it was time to find the rebels.

It sounded very difficult on paper, but it was actually easier than he had imagined. There were no other signs of human activity in the mountains and the System would be sure to pick them up. Thus, the only thing Benjamin needed to do was fly around in the sky, his ‘radar’ would the rest for him.

Of course, this ‘radar’ did not seem terribly happy with his title, and Benjamin needed to suffer through its constant nagging as he flew. The System would threaten to go on a strike every few minutes.

But with the System’s analysis and guidance, they managed to find the base of the rebel army after just 30 minutes. The process went abnormally smoothly.

After Benjamin peered into the camp, he decided to just land descent directly into it from the sky.

"Remember, we’re not bandits nor thieves. We are not doing this for profit or gold; instead, we have a mission! Ferelden is now in the hands of the greedy, they…."

The base of the rebel forces did not seem to be a base, instead, it looked more like a village. As Benjamin landed softly, he saw quite a number of people standing in the middle of the village, with the leader shouting at the crowd, as if giving them a motivational talk.

The soldiers were clad in leather armour, their faces caked with dirt. They did look quite a bit like bandits.

All of them were stunned when they saw Benjamin descend from the sky. Only the leader was oblivious to the situation; his saliva was flying all over the place as he reached a particularly exciting part of his speech. He did not seem to be able to stop even if he tried.

"There’s…. There’s a mage…." One of the people who was standing quite near to the leader tried to interrupt him. He pointed at Benjamin, his voice clouded with disbelief.

"Mage? Where?" The leader of the rebel army was taken aback.

"Uh… Behind you."

The leader immediately turned and discovered that Benjamin had landed just a few metres away from him, and was now waving at them as if he was sending them a warm greeting.

At that moment, the face of the leader was exceptionally interesting. It morphed from shock to wariness, and finally to confusion. He then realized how familiar the mage looked when he studied him closely.

It did not take him long to recognise the mage. "Is…. Is that you? Mage Benjamin?"

Benjamin’s smiled.

Apparently, he managed to leave a lasting impression on these people even though they had only met briefly. Benjamin could only recall the face of the leader when the System reminded him.

This was a good sign.

Judging from the delighted look on the leader’s face, these people really did take his words as a mantra, and were now carrying out his "will". Thus, when Benjamin appeared before him once again, the leader of the group of rebels was understandably very excited.

An unexplained feeling of pride filled Benjamin.

There was a possibility that he could resolve this solely through communication.

Of course, aside from the leader, everyone else in the village looked dumbfounded.

They had never met Benjamin before.

There was at least a few thousand people, maybe even ten thousand of them. It was massive compared to the scrappy gang that Benjamin had first met in the town, it was obvious that the majority of the members had joined later and thus, would not be aware of who Benjamin was.

This added another layer of complexity to Benjamin’s speech.

"See? This is Mage Benjamin, the man who I’ve been talking about every day!" The leader turned to speak excitedly to his subordinates. "He was the one who taught me how to strategize and use tactics to deal with the army. See, he actually exist; I did not make up stories about him!"

"...."

Benjamin was speechless.

"Mage Benjamin, how did you manage to find us?" After the leader explained to the crowd, his tone changed swiftly as he turned to speak extremely politely to him.

"I have my ways." Benjamin shook his head. He scanned the crowd of curious onlookers and swiftly switched the topic. "I’m here to tell you something very important."

The leader was puzzled, "What’s wrong?"

"I think we should talk when we are alone, maybe in the house over there."

"O-Oh, okay…."

And so, the motivational speech was interrupted by Benjamin’s appearance. The leader dismissed the crowd before leading Benjamin to a hall.

"Mage Benjamin, we are really grateful for your guidance." As he walked into the hall, the leader turned and talked to Benjamin. "If it wasn’t for the words you gave us back in the town, we would probably have been dead a long time ago."

Benjamin smiled, but it did not engage the topic.

Compliments felt amazing, of course, but did not travel here for them.

He needed to ‘resolve’ the rebels.

Thus, he started to speak solemnly, "Leave Ferelden as soon as you can. Or else you might really perish here."

The leader paused, the smile frozen on his face.

"....Huh?"

"I have gotten news that the General plans to set the mountain on fire." Benjamin’s face remained unchanging as he continued to spout nonsense. "Your presence is too much of a threat to them. Thus, they prepare to wipe you off the face of the Earth using any means necessary."

"R-Really?"

"Of course. Think about what I’ve told you in the past. Did I lie about anything then?"

The leader was silent, obviously eating up Benjamin’s lies.

"Then….. What should we do?" The leader asked Benjamin in a daze. He probably already saw Benjamin’s word as final.