But the fire wasn’t gone from his eyes yet. Seeing his fighting spirit alight beneath his rage, I readied my blades again to wear him down further.
“Enough, both of you!!!” came a shout.
Ten new beastmen were standing on the edge of the battlefield. When had they gotten here? Most of them were Rank 3 and below, but two of them—flanking the small, elderly wolf beastman who had shouted—seemed to be about Rank 4.
The elderly beastman, with eyes and mouth covered in pure-white hair, glared at me sharply for a moment. Then, his gaze shifted to Batil, who was frowning and breathing heavily.
“Elder...” Batil muttered.
“Doing as you please, I see,” the elderly beastman said. “Jobs are one thing, but killing willy-nilly will only cause problems. Keep your claws off that young lady.”
“What are you saying?!”
“Jilgan has marked her, but that’s not the only reason. Surely you’ve noticed she’s trouble.”
I observed them in silence but kept my weapons at the ready and didn’t drop my guard. So this man was an elder of the beastmen? And Jilgan... That was the Rank 4 dwarf from the Adventurers’ Guild. How much did this old man know?
“I don’t give a rat’s ass! She killed my pack! I can’t let her live!” Batil roared.
“Even if that means leaving the Munza pack?”
“Yes!”
So he was willing to cast aside his position for his pride and honor. Packs had to be important to beastmen. Batil’s face had gone slightly pale at the threat of expulsion from his main pack, but his pride had won out, and his expression had steeled somewhat.
“Girl,” he spat, readying his axes again. “Use that power from before.”
He wants Iron Rose?
“The power you killed the Fang Brothers with. Why are you holding back? Are you mocking me? I’m their leader. I can’t lose to some random woman! Fight me for real!”
“So demanding,” I muttered, keeping my blade ready.
I glanced at the old man for a moment. He was grinning, tacitly approving Batil’s actions. What did the Hogroth have to do with any of this? I couldn’t risk asking. Still, I didn’t appreciate these people interrupting Batil to try and gauge my power either.
But I would let Batil keep his pride.
“All right. I’ll kill you with everything I’ve got, Batil,” I said. “You better be ready to put your life on the line.”
He scoffed. “Cheeky little brat.”
Batil abandoned his defenses and took a purely offensive stance, maximizing his Boost. In turn, I sheathed my knife and drew back the dagger in my left hand.
“Where’s the power?” Batil asked.
“That power is one of my weapons,” I said. “And I decide when to use my weapons.”
“Ha! Whatever. Won’t use it now? Suit yourself.”
Batil twisted his body to pull back his right arm and launched himself forward like a coiled spring being released.
“I’ll just kill you before you get the chance!!!”
In an instant, he raised his axe high and struck down directly from above.
“Fury!”
Fury was a hand-axe combat technique. It was similar to the dagger technique Critical Edge in that a single direct hit could be instantly lethal.
The moment before he’d unleashed his technique, I’d flung out a pendulum from my left hand and, at the same time, used a full-power technique of my own with my raised dagger.
“Cyclone.”
Batil’s eyes widened. Cyclone was a sorcery-type technique with low offensive power. Matching his lethal technique would’ve at most resulted in us killing each other. Cyclone hit a wider area and could slightly deflect Fury but not reduce its power.
Still, that was sufficient.
Since we’d both used combat techniques, our bodies were momentarily stunned. But the momentum of my weighted pendulum shifted my motionless body slightly sideways.
“Argh!”
Fresh blood gushed from my right shoulder. Batil, unable to dodge my technique, groaned as his own spraying blood blocked his vision.
“Iron Rose.”
My hair changed to the color of burnished iron. I broke free from the stun effect a moment before Batil did, and kicked off the ground with my left leg. Leaping over Batil’s head, I wrapped my pendulum’s string around his neck and used the momentum and my full weight to snap his neck in one motion as I landed back-to-back with him.
Crack.
As the string loosened and Batil took his last breath, I thought I heard him click his tongue. “Tsk...”
I pulled back the pendulum string as his corpse collapsed. The beastmen watching the duel let out mournful howls.
“Still coming?” I asked, glaring and pointing my dagger at the elder.
All of his guards readied their weapons.
“Stop!” the elder commanded. “Fools, deceived by appearances. Have you forgotten how inaccurate combat power is as an indicator of strength? You can’t handle this one.”
He smiled benevolently at me, and I narrowed my eyes. What did he know? Why was he so wary of me when we’d only just met?
“I’m an old friend of Jilgan’s,” he told me. “Anyone he’s wary of at a glance isn’t ordinary. I had the feeling I should come here, and lo and behold. Arrived just in time to avert a crisis with the Hogroth.”
I stood there, radiating silent menace, and the elder grinned.
“I’m Kushum, the Munza’s Elder of the West. I have an offer for you, young lady.”
“An offer?” I echoed.
“Indeed. We’d prefer not to deal with a rabid dog like you, but killing someone Jilgan’s got an eye on would be worse. So, I propose a truce. You sell your potions to the Hogroth. We’ll handle things with the Kiluri. Fair?”
“What?!” some of his guards blurted out.
That an elder of the Munza, a pillar of one of the four ruling factions of this town, would bend over backward for an adventurer like this was incomprehensible. But Kushum only glared sharply at the younger beastmen.
“You don’t get it, do you? Strength isn’t power. It isn’t technique. It’s will. Until you get that through your thick skull, trading blows with her is pointless.” He turned back to me. “So? How about it?”
“I accept.”
As settlement for attacking me and laying hands on someone marked by the Hogroth, the Munza would offer us a way to off-load our potions. The Hogroth, in turn, would gain our high-grade medicine.
“Then that settles it. You have a good day, young lady.”
With that, Kushum turned on his heels and began to walk away with his companions in tow.
Then he stopped and turned back slightly. “Ah, yes! Young lady, have you heard of this ‘Cinders’ character? A merchant from Kal’Faan told us of this little girl in a distant land, who’s made enemies of their Thieves’ and Assassins’ Guilds, massacring entire branches. Supposedly, she wears ashes in her hair. Just like you.”
I didn’t respond. Had my infamy traveled this far? Was that why Kushum was wary of me? Perhaps that was why Jilgan had been too.
Kushum had stopped Batil, seen through my identity, and avoided hostility with me while making me into a pawn for the Hogroth. I couldn’t be sure whether they also knew of Elena, but as I watched Kushum and the others leave, I made a mental note to be warier of the Munza—no, of all four of the factions of Cutlass.
Two days later, I heard rumors that the Reezan had attacked the Munza and Kushum had been killed.