He paused as his eyes gleamed curiously while examining me from head to toe, “who the fuck are you, masked guy?”
Miss Archer Elf was right when she said they were swift. I acted as soon as I heard her warning yet they still made it here just in the nick of time. The elves’ supernatural senses in the forest allowed them to feel their surroundings in a wide range, however, there were only five of them. It was possible that Kai and Co were approaching from just the right angle which was obscured due to the large patches of land the five of them had to surveil, or they had some artifact or other spell that allowed them to hide their presence until they got close. They didn’t sense Vex either when we were traveling to the outpost for the second round of the Phenom Trials.
Either way, musing about such things would have to be done once I was not in a 1v8 death battle against such powerhouses.
On the bright side, Kai was a hopeless hedonist who wanted to be the superstar of his party, so the slave ladies were at least a few levels below him.
I elected that buying time was in my best interest. “If I wanted to tell you my identity I wouldn’t be wearing a mask now, would I? Instead tell me what could a fabled adventurer like yourself have to gain from doing business with outlaws? Aren’t you afraid of losing your hard-earned rank?”
Kai chuckled but pride was written all over his features, “oh, I didn’t know I was such a household name to be recognized this easily! Maybe I should start wearing a mask as well, can you hook me up with your seller? Yours seem to be quite well-made.” His entirely non-serious tune told me all I needed to know about how in-control he felt, and I had to give it to him; the odds heavily favored him.
“Brrrotherrr! What the hell was that?!” Blackjack made a strange noise with his mouth as if he were a car’s engine that restarted itself as he shot to his feet and examined Kai. “And who the fuck are you? I don’t like you.”
“I just saved your life a few seconds ago…” Kai grumbled but the madman wasn’t having it. “I was in full control but you butted in. So who are you?”
“… Sure.” Kai accepted his words with complete disbelief evident in his tone. “I just said, I was hired by the Blackthorn family to protect them and their interests. I came here to check your little hidey hole and gang of lowlives out, but to my great surprise you were in the midst of getting pummeled.”
“I’ll admit that this guy is a strange one. He must have some rare class that lets him cast water elemental spells and also fight in melee range with his blade. A truly enviable fighting style.” Blackjack murmured under his breath.
“Wait, the water spells were cast by him?! But I just deflected his mighty saber attack!” Kai was shocked to his core, eliciting a smug smile from me. Naturally, I was not just standing around listening to their conversation like a donkey.
“Yeppers, egotistic old dude with a harem of beautiful babes to compensate for something. Wait, don’t tell me, are you packing a baby carrot down there? Anyhow, my masked buddy had surprised me greatly as well.”
“None of you bitches dare snicker or even smile!” Kai bellowed his insecure order which was aimed at his followers who for the first time since I knew them showed emotions that were not in the depressed, dejected, miserable categories. His command did its job though. They quickly reigned their emotions in. Continue your journey with empire
Seeing his success, he turned toward Blackjack with an ominous, strained face. “First of all, you seem to be around my age-” before he could continue his lecturing session the madman interrupted, “nah, dude. I was captured and continuously castrated, healed, castrated, healed, and so on and so forth for years on end by my ex-wife when she learned that I cheated on her. That woman kidnapped a healer just so she could achieve this… Somehow an Arch-Priest stumbled upon us, captured my wife and burned her at the stake for what she did to the healer, not to me…Anyhow, that’s my way of saying that I’m not as old as I look, I’d just seen and experienced some shit.”
Yikes. I couldn’t help but wince at his admission. Now I could much better understand how he became insane. Gilbert, Iris’ father, was a certified sadistic menace but at least he left her privates alone. I couldn’t even begin to imagine the things he’s had to go through to get to this point.
Also, can I just take a moment to make the acute observation that the women of this world love castrating the men they despise?! It’s like they’d reached a collective understanding that this is what the worst men deserve. Iris cut her father’s pecker off, Ayame did it to Ian and the old slaver man who helped me take ownership over Blossom, and now this woman…
Kai was similarly flabbergasted at his words, so much so that he forgot to continue lecturing him. Instead, he coughed into his palm awkwardly, “my condolences. Let’s work together to kill this guy and his allies and then we can share some rum together.”
“Meh… I still don’t like you, I don’t want to share a drink with you. However, I shall accept your help. I’m not an honor-bound nerd who would give up on life in order to conduct a fair duel. Furthermore…” His grin widened as he hungrily eyed me, “I believe this man can still give us a fun challenge even if we gang up on him. Isn’t that right, brother?”
“You might be strong, but you’d surrounded yourself with a lot of nobodies. A grave mistake if you ask me.” My secretive answer earned a puzzled look from Blackjack, that is until the ambush I’d been preparing happened.
From the shadows of the trees and rooftops, five elven rangers unleashed a deadly volley of arrows at them. The chaotic battle I conducted with Blackjack had provided them the perfect cover to sneak into the stronghold and take up their positions unnoticed. The arrows came from five separate directions.
Kai was the first to react with his sword flashing in quick, practiced arcs as he deflected each arrow aimed at him. His movements were fluid yet forceful, signifying him to be a lot more of a traditional swordsman than Blackjack and his crazed fighting style.
The gang boss on the other hand dodged with minimal effort, each of his movements were but a hair’s width from the arrows that shot past him. His lazy expression gave me the impression that he wasn’t taking the threat seriously, yet not a single arrow found its mark.
But that was only the first part of my counteroffensive.
From the shadows Blossom emerged like death incarnate. Before Kai could even register her approach, she pounced onto his back and carved a deep, gushing wound along his spine.
“Gah!” Kai’s shout of pain was laced with fury, but he remained standing. His high level and Vitality stat kept him from succumbing to the assault.