“Arius, the SSS-rank adventurer, are you in here?” he shouted. “Show yourself. If you don’t…I’ll just have to mess this place up!”
This guy was definitely bad news.
“Sorry to tell you, but Arius hasn’t been in Carnell for a while,” Allen said. “What do you want with him? Depending on your answer, we might not be able to show you mercy!” He moved to stand in the gold-plated man’s way.
“What the hell? Hmph. You’re just a pathetic little S-rank adventurer. I’ve got no business with small fry like you. If Arius isn’t here, then tell me where he is. If you don’t want to die, you shouldn’t get in the way of me, the great Chris Brad!” he yelled, pulling the gold sword from his back, showing off a unique dragon carved onto the hilt.
“Are you insane, drawing your sword in an Adventurers Guild without reason?” Allen demanded.
Shedding blood in an Adventurers Guild was a great way to make yourself a criminal. Besides, there were so many witnesses that it wasn’t like he could talk his way out of it.
“So what? I’m special. Killing you doesn’t matter,” he brushed off as a wave of hostility rolled off him.
Looked like he was serious.
“I don’t know what’s so special about you, but there’s no way I’m telling some dangerous guy like you where Arius is!” I shot back. Not that I actually knew where Arius was, but I didn’t think he’d believe me if I told him that.
I drew my trusty bastard sword and moved to stand next to Allen to glare directly at Chris. Allen nodded and drew his great sword. We knew our enemy was in a different league, meaning we were going to take this seriously from the start.
The others leapt into action. Marcia cast Invisibility and Silence, then circled to Chris’s back. Mike and Sarah ran through the incantations of their spells, then held them, ready to cast at any moment. Gale’s party spread to flank Chris, putting themselves where they could go straight for him.
And yet, despite being surrounded, Chris just sneered at us.
“Huh, the small fries think they’re something now. Fine. I’ll kill all of you!”
He rushed at us, his golden blade slashing out with a horizontal strike. Allen stepped forward and tried to block the attack with his mana-filled sword, but instead got blasted backward and slammed against the wall.
Thanks to Allen’s attempt to block, I was able to dodge the attack, but it still hit two members of Gale’s party. They didn’t take severe damage, but Allen’s great sword broke in half. The slash had cut his abdomen, smashing straight through his armor.
This guy was seriously powerful!
“Allen!” Sarah cried, reacting immediately to cast Full Heal.
“We’re over here too!” shouted Gale as he threw a knife at Chris, creating an opening in Chris’s guard that let me slip through.
Getting up close and personal was a standard tactic for someone using a large sword since they couldn’t handle small, quick attacks.
I gripped my bastard sword with two hands and swung with all my body weight and mana poured into it. Marcia attacked at the same time from behind, using her short sword to target the gaps in his plate armor. At the same time, Mike cast the tier-eight spell Forked Lightning.
“I said, you’re all small fry!” roared Chris.
He handled the attacks with ease. Chris canceled the multiple branches of Mike’s lightning spell with one flash of his golden great sword, then kicked up to hit me from below while also slamming Marcia with the back of his gauntleted fist. With his suddenly faster movements, he flung me and Marcia away before we could land a hit.
Chris’s kick shattered my breast plate, taking my HP down to less than half in an instant. Marcia looked like she managed to take her hit better, but she was still knocked back, and there was no way she had taken no damage.
What the heck was with this guy’s power? He had both strength and speed, and even a group of S-rank adventurers rushing at him was getting nowhere.
“Jessica, Marcia, I’m sorry to make you wait so long,” said Allen, now fully healed. He drew his backup great sword and stood blocking Chris’s path again.
“You’re weak, but you don’t seem to learn. Next time, I’ll split you in two!” shouted Chris, but Allen clenched his jaw and refused to let Chris egg him on. One bad move against an enemy like Chris, who was so overwhelmingly more powerful, could actually end up with Allen being split in two.
Mike was now ready to cast his next spell and was waiting for the right moment. After Chris so easily canceled out his last spell, it was going to be hard for him to find the right timing.
“Please stop, sir!” interrupted a soldier who came rushing into the Guild. “Killing people in an Adventurers Guild won’t end well. Your only goal is to bring back Arius, the SSS-rank adventurer, isn’t it?”
“Shut up! That just means I can kill them all after I make them tell me where he is!”
“Please, be rational! There’s a crowd outside as well. You’re not intending to kill all these witnesses, are you?”
“Silencing onlookers is your job! But if you can’t handle it, then I’ll just have to kill them all!”
It was no good. This Chris guy was absolutely off his rocker.
“Jessica, heal while you have the chance,” whispered Gale. His party was regrouping, putting some distance between themselves and Chris and taking defensive stances. It was the logical choice, seeing as it was reckless to make a poorly planned attack, but still…things were only going to go downhill from here.
If I, Marcia, and Allen attacked at the same time while Mike and Sarah attacked with spells, then just maybe…
“Don’t lose your cool, Jessica,” Gale cautioned. “We’ll attack with you, but an adventurer’s first priority is making it out alive.”
“He’s right,” Marcia said. “It’d be stupid to let someone like him kill us.”
I nodded, listening to them while Sarah cast a recovery spell on me. It seemed I had started to lose my cool, and I hadn’t even noticed. These were exactly the kind of situations where you needed to remain calm.
Chris was saying he’d kill everyone, but no one was dead yet. Considering how much stronger he was, you would’ve expected a death long before this point.
He was just enjoying messing with us. Chris wasn’t going to immediately start killing people just to get us to tell him where Arius was.
“Fine,” I said. “I’ll tell you where Arius is. Will you lay off us then?”
“Wait, Jessica! What are you saying?” cried Allen, but Marcia silenced him with a knowing look.
“So, the small fry got scared and finally feels like talking, huh?” said Chris with a sneer, but I wasn’t about to let a pathetic taunt like that get to me.
“We’re surrendering because we know we can’t beat you, but I don’t actually know where Arius is right now. If you promise me we’ll all walk out of here alive, I’ll send him a Message and get him to come here.”
The soldiers wanted Chris to stop too, so they were definitely going to be on board with this plan.
“Are you saying you’re willing to sell him out to save yourselves?” Chris asked.
“Say whatever you want, just promise me we’ll all live!”
Chris agreed, and so I sent Arius a Message. But it was a lie when I said I’d get him to come here. What I did instead was tell him Chris came to Carnell looking for him, but that we’re all right, so he should stay away for a while.
That meant Arius wouldn’t come to Carnell and accidentally bump into Chris. Even if Chris found out I lied, he was after Arius. He couldn’t exactly kill us, seeing as he thought we knew where he was.
And based on what the soldier was saying, Chris couldn’t actually get away with as much as he seemed to think he could. He couldn’t occupy the Guild and keep us locked up in here forever. That’s why I was thinking I could buy us time and—
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Jessica.”
It hadn’t even been five minutes, and Arius had already arrived at the Guild.