The tables had been turned, and it was their turn to be scared. But the thugs refused to back down right away; maybe my appearance was so unassuming that they didn’t want to surrender. They should’ve fled at this point, but their decision-making skills were pretty poor. Unlike them, I would’ve run away as soon as I’d realized I couldn’t deal damage to my opponent.
Unfortunately for these guys, I needed to give them a beatdown. They were here to coerce potion-meisters into pulling out of the event, so unless the guards were coming, someone else had to stop them by force. I had to hurt them until they could no longer mess with others, or else innocent people would suffer because of them.
“These guys are monsters,” I muttered to myself under my breath as something in my brain clicked like a switch had been flipped from normal mode to dungeon mode. “Yep, monsters, just monsters that look like humans.”
I couldn’t let these guys go free; I’d need to be decisive and use magic, my specialty. I wouldn’t need to accelerate or buff myself since they were just humans at level 5 or lower, and I could easily slap them around in my current state.
I set my sights on one of the bewildered thugs and rushed forth, stepping right in front of him. I then drove my fist, full force, into his wide-open abdomen, making him bend more than ninety degrees and vomit. Not wanting to get covered in the disgusting contents from his stomach, I ducked and got out of the way.
I wasn’t sure what came over him, but thug number three decided to charge at me. I’d just proved their punches and kicks didn’t work on me, so his foolhardiness was pretty shocking. He’d probably lost his ability to make rational decisions. He screamed incoherently and kicked at me, so I grabbed his foot by the heel and raised it even higher, making him fall backward onto his head.
I immediately began working on casting my spell. I felt a presence behind me, but I continued working without facing my opponent. There was still some distance between us, but that wouldn’t be an issue for my magic.
“Secondary Magic: Ameithys Slash!” I called out, and my right arm was enveloped in a purple glow. Immediately, I spun around while swinging my arm sideways, causing the purple light to branch out into forks of lightning that pierced thug number four. The thug shuddered once, then crumpled awkwardly onto his knees.
Even when holding back my power as much as possible, my lightning shocks should cause quite a bit of damage. Magic suited me much better in combat after all.
And so, I’d defeated three more thugs with ease.
“Ah! Weapons! Use your weapons!” the remaining thugs shrieked.
“Do you really think I’m not expecting that?” I asked as the thugs surrounded me, weapons in hand.
In any case, I didn’t want to get hit by those weapons, so I decided to use Force Esoterica, a technique Sensei had taught me. It allowed me to surprise my opponents and impede their movement by unleashing charged-up mana. I hadn’t gotten a chance to use it last time in front of the ranking chart because Scrael had taken care of the situation for me, but it was finally time to show off the power of the technique for the first time.
I compressed the mana inside my body and unleashed it all at once, sending everyone flying away with incredible force as if a bomb had gone off. I couldn’t even hear their screams since even the sound had been blown away by the shock wave.
“Whoa.”
This was pretty incredible. And useful. I could use it against weaker opponents to take them down in one fell swoop without having to flee from battle. Sensei really knew her stuff.
Meanwhile, the guy with the nasty face stood frozen in place, his mouth hanging open. Now that all his men had been defeated, the situation finally seemed to sink in for him.
“Th-This isn’t over!” he shouted as he prepared to flee.
“Oh? Is it not? I’m going to remember your face, then. Maybe I should shoot magic at you next time I see you in town. I won’t hold back. Are you sure?” I asked.
“Eek! Never mind! Forget it!” he said pathetically, and he tried to run away.
I couldn’t just let him go though. I had to do what I had to do.
Using my level 34 powers, I sped forth and cut off his escape.
“Listen up. I’m not done talking with you,” I said.
“Aaaaaargh!”
“Don’t mess with Melmel anymore, or any other meister for that matter. Got it?” I said.
“O-Okay! I got it!”
“Are you sure? If you’re lying...” I trailed off.
What would I do? I had to threaten him enough to actually deter him. Humans were forgetful creatures, after all. Even strong emotions would fade away over time, whether it be joy, sorrow, or fear. I needed to plant fear deep into his mind, so powerful that he’d never forget.
Listen, Akira, at times like these... Sensei’s words echoed in my mind, and I knew what I had to do.
By directing my malice along with mana toward my opponent, I could inflict a PTSD-like trauma in them. It was ten thousand times worse than what Scrael had done to her enemies. It made your stomach and family jewels tighten up, and it caused so much stress that it could invoke ataxia. Sensei had used it on me in the past in an attempt to fix my timid nature, but it hadn’t helped at all. I’d ended up taking the hit for no reason, so it was a pretty awful memory. Doing things like this was probably easy for people like Sensei, who could kill people as easily as she breathed, but it was super difficult for me. I had to push through this though.
Okay, I have to do this. Now... Please die, please die, please die. How’s that?
“Ah... Ah... Aaah...” the guy with the nasty face groaned.
I seemed to have learned how to manipulate metaphysical concepts like Sensei and Scrael did.
His eyes were open so wide that I thought they were going to pop out of their sockets. Cold sweat gushed out of every pore on him, and he looked like he was experiencing withdrawal symptoms for some sketchy drug. I wondered if I’d overdone it and thought maybe I shouldn’t try this when I wasn’t used to doing it.
“P-Please...sh-shpare...my life...” he sobbed incoherently, snot running down his nose.
Yeah, I’d definitely overdone it. I felt bad.
I stopped sending my malicious mana at him, but the guy with the nasty face had fallen to the ground, unconscious. This should keep him from causing any more trouble, at least.
With my work now complete, I turned toward Melmel but noticed she was somewhat pale.
Ah...she’s kind of weirded out. Can’t blame her.
“That was...incredible,” she said.
It wasn’t a compliment but more like a mixture of surprise, respect, and gratitude.
“Oh, that was nothing special,” I said.
“That wasn’t?”
“Yeah. Just the other day, I followed Lion-Maru on a dive, and the Night Soil Swamps was bad enough already...but then he took me to this ridiculous depth level 46 area, and... Heh, ha ha ha...”
Whenever I thought back to that day, it drove me temporarily mad, and I’d blurt out a torrent of jumbled nonsense. I’d learned my place that day. I was still nothing but a fledgling, seriously.
As I muttered to myself, Melmel looked at me, her eyes shining with wonder. “You really are a high-level mage.”
“W-Well, I guess so. Aha ha...”
Her gaze, which had had a tinge of fear to it, had turned into one of admiration. I was glad she didn’t seem to be afraid of me anymore.
“Well, no point hanging around out here. Let’s go inside,” I said.
“Sure.”
As we walked into the Colosseum-like venue together, a thought came to me.
“Hey, is running a small-scale workshop difficult?” I asked.
“Huh?” She seemed taken aback by the sudden question.
The thought had come to me because of my conversation with Torpaz and what had just unfolded with the thugs from earlier. Torpaz seemed to have said what he’d told me out of consideration for small workshops, and that guy with the nasty face had been blatantly trying to sabotage the presentations of his competition. It seemed to me that smaller workshops were in a tight spot in terms of management and dealing with such attacks.