"Barry Danton! You idiot!"
One of the older, heavily bearded Wizards suddenly began swearing, directing his curses not at his companions, but at the enormous mushroom.
Ruger immediately perked up. Seated atop a mushroom far away in the darkness, he listened closely.
It was not that these people lacked the means to hurt the mushroom. Rather, whenever it was damaged, the mushroom, as large as a small hill, rapidly recovered, and the little people pouring out of it seemed impossible to kill off.
"We've been trapped here for three years! Our patience has limits. Don't think we wouldn't dare take you down with us. Those Bearers aren't to be trifled with, and there are more and more of them. You're no match for them. This is a fight you can't win."
When the older, long-bearded Wizard received no response, he furiously launched into another stream of curses.
His words were fiercer than his spells.
Listening to him, Ruger merely thought these Wizards were rather clumsy with their tongues. They had reached such an advanced age without learning more than a handful of insults. Perhaps they had spent their childhoods meditating and training, with no time to encounter the profound art of swearing practiced in streets and alleyways.
Ruger carefully distinguished their spells, gauging the strength of both their spell fluctuations and their mental power fluctuations.
Their mental power was much stronger than his, but it remained at the level of a One-Ring Wizard.
That put him at ease. The other side merely had numbers on its side. As long as he found Mahama and they worked together, a few extra opponents would be no problem.
He also silently memorized which face went with each person's favored spells. A crucial part of a clash between Wizards was catching one's opponent off