Souta swept his eyes at the remaining knights around him. He counted their numbers and found that the number of knights was twenty-three. Fifteen of them came from the Vidrato Family while the rest were from Asvares Family.
The civilian already left this area when the battle between Souta and the knights started a few minutes ago, so right now they were the only people in this place except for the few ones that choose to stay.
Souta guessed that the one that stayed here have some power to protect themselves. They have the confidence to do that that's why they choose to stay in this place.
He clenched his fingers around the handle of his sword and he slightly bent his knees. Souta was about to charge towards the knights of the Vidrato Family when an oppressive aura hit him.
Boom!!
"They finally arrived..." Souta muttered as he turned his head and saw two groups of knights.
They were the elite knights of Vidrato and Asvares Family. They were emitting a powerful aura that could rival his own.
"It's legit... They really are powerful to the point that each one of them could rival my own." Souta smiled while looking at these newly arrived knights.
The elite knights of Asvares Family had five people in their group while the Vidrato family have seven members.
'This number is sufficient to take me down but the Gale Group will arrive here soon. I just have to hold on for a few minutes.' Souta thought while observing the elite knights.
It's quite lucky that they didn't send out more of them. The two families only sent out one squad.
'But we'll they wouldn't be able to take me down easily.' Souta smirked as he circulated his mana around his body and he tightly gripped the Vajra sword in his hand.
"There's no need to hold back."
Souta casted [Agility Boost] and [Strength Boost] on himself. He then stomped his feet on the ground and several tentacle-like shadows emerged.
Swoosh!! Swoosh!! Swoosh!!
The knights quickly pulled their sword and tried to cut down the shadows.
But they didn't manage to.
The shadows were tougher than they imagined, they didn't think that they couldn't cut those shadows.
After finding out that they couldn't cut the shadows, the knights quickly moved their bodies and jumped away.
"Quickly restrain him!" One of the elite knights of the Asvares family shouted.
Two of his comrades used their combat arts that could increase their power and speed.
Swoosh!
In an instant, the two of them appeared in front of Souta. Both of them slashed their swords at him.
Souta stepped back and raised his sword to block their attacks.
Clang! Clang!
Souta was pushed back as he felt the power from that attacks.
Then, the Vajra sword emitted a red aura. Without wasting any second Souta used the [Crimson Moon] skill.
The two knights already anticipated it when they saw the red aura around the sword, so they managed to avoid the skill.
Swoosh!!
Suddenly, black spikes emerged from the ground. It was about to pierce the body of the two knights when the spike broke into tiny particles.
"What?!" Souta was surprised when he saw this. He jumped backward to gain some distance and he looked around. He saw one of the knights in the was casted a spell.
"[Light Barrier]..." The knight muttered while looking at Souta.
The shadow attribute spell was weak to light and holy attribute spells. So a level 1 [Shadow Spike] broke immediately when it made contact with the [Light Barrier].
'Really, the difficulty increased when a knight that could use light attribute spell appeared.' Souta thought while glancing at the knight that could use light attribute spell.
It seems that he needed to prioritize eliminating this knight. But the problem was that this knight came from the Asvares family so he couldn't kill him.
Souta squinted his eyes and glanced at the elite knights of the Vidrato family. These knights were just watching him and the knights from Asvares family. He wondered why they didn't attack him up until now.
'Just what are they planning?' Souta thought.
...
The group of elite knights that Asvares family sent has five members. The two knights were ten meters away from Souta while the remaining three were in the back.
One of the knights in the back stepped forward and asked, "Where's young miss Lumilia? Where did you hide her?"
The knight frowned when he saw that Souta just glanced at him and remained silent.
"Do you know that it's a crime to kidnap a daughter of a noble?" The knight said in a loud voice.
Souta smiled when he heard the words of the knight. He said, "So you're saying that it's fine if it's not a noble."
"I didn't say it..." The knight gritted his teeth.
"Fine, but you know that I'm just following the order of your young miss," Souta said and he opened his arms. "You know, I'm an adventurer and I will always follow what the quest that I've taken, and right now your young miss wanted to leave this city." Souta recalled something so he added, "But I'm not an assassin that will do everything for money."
'Money couldn't make me move but it's a different matter when we're talking about skill points.' Souta thought.
"So you're saying..." The knight seemed to know what Souta what about to say.
"Yeah, she doesn't want to be tied by her family. She has her own life why must you people force her to marry someone she doesn't like." Souta slowly said to the knight. He then shrugged his shoulder and added, "So my job right now is to let her escape from this city."
"Even if it means going against the whole Asvares family?" The knight did while looking straight into Souta's eyes.
"Who cares about that? I'm just doing my job, that's all." Souta answered back as he opened his palm as if feeling helpless.
"Then, how about we pay you triple than the money that young miss paid?" The knights gave him an offer.
"I'm sorry but I'm still in the middle of my job. We will talk later after I completed this job." Souta said as he smiled.
"There's no point in talking to him. My squad will handle this so stay out of it."
Suddenly, an elite knight from the Vidrato family said.
The elite knight of the Asvares family looked at the one from Vidrato family and nodded. "I'll leave it in your group."
He then looked at one of his comrades and said, "Ray, go back to our lord and report what this adventurer said."
"Understood." The knight nodded and he quickly left the area.
The elite knights of the Asvares family stepped back and currently, they didn't have a plan to attack him.
Souta glanced at them and knew that they were going to wait for the order of Lumilia's father. Since they knew that Lumilia left on her own, they knew that they should report it to their lord.
They don't have any idea that Lumilia's father already knew what's happening here. He just wanted to know why her daughter chose to leave the mansion.
'Right now, I don't need to worry about them. I need to take care of these knights from Vidrato family.' Souta thought as he shifted his gaze to the elite knights of the Vidrato family.
One of the elite knights of the Vidrato family stepped forward and pulled out his sword. He said, "You know Our Lord forbids us from killing you but Our Lord also said that we have to make sure to break the bones from your limbs."
"Why don't you try it and see if you can really do it?" Souta smirked and he casted [Shadow Bind] without hesitation.
Several shadows emerged from the ground and it quickly chased after the elite knights from the Vidrato Family.
The sword of the knight before emitted a blue light. The knight slashed it towards the tentacles-like shadows.
[Six Fold Slash]!!
He used a combat arts and managed to repel all the shadows that were coming towards him and his comrades.
The knights from the Asvares Family were shocked when they saw this. They focused on the knight's face and recognized him.
"That's Madan...!"
Madan was one of Gregory's direct subordinate. He was stronger than elite knights as his power was just a bit weaker than B-rank Adventurers.
"To think that Lord Gregory would even send out one of his direct subordinates..."
The knights from the Asvares Family were stunned and didn't know why Gregory sent Madan out here.
"The difficulty once again became harder. Well, that doesn't matter to me as your power is still in the realm of C-rank." Souta said with a smirk and he continued to cast spells.
[Shadow Bind]!
Even though Madan was powerful, he still couldn't cut the shadows of the level 10 [Shadow Bind] spell. Only those who entered the realm of B-rank or monster that formed monster orb could break this spell.
The best he could do was to fend it off using brute force or counter it using light attribute spells.