Jason breathed heavily and clutched his side.
If glares could kill, Jason was positive that the old man opposite him would already be dead.
He wanted to take a knife to that cunning smile so hard...
Well, that's what he was about to do, anyway, so.
He still couldn't believe he had actually been ambushed.
A despicable move.
Jason seemed to be learning about the grosser sides of human nature the more time he spent in the [Tutorial].
"Just hand over the book, dear boy, and this will all be over."
"I'll even spare your life."
Jason scoffed.
As if it was a service to him.
He checked his health.
Health: 615/638 (1.02/minute)
Jason decided to cast a quick [Lesser Heal], bringing himself back to full health.
It was always better not to fight impaired if possible, though Ramesthes had given Jason a bit of training on fighting while wounded.
Still, Jason was irritated at his own ignorance.
One of the weaknesses of having 'Speed' as an attribute compared to, say, 'Agility' was that even if Jason was significantly faster than others, his perception wasn't nearly as powerful as Otto's or Jeremy's.
His training was also still lacking compared to Elliott and Julia.
All of which made his 'sixth sense' a bit underdeveloped.
Which meant he wasn't able to detect the ambush in advance.
And had taken a hit dead on from the so-called 'strongest' man in the city.
Honestly, Jason thought Commander Zeller was stronger than this old dude.
He had a feeling that if the commander had hit him with the same full force punch, he'd already be half dead, desperately clawing on the ground while casting his healing spell.
Not merely holding his side and feigning weakness under Darius Brenner's watchful gaze.
Now, 10 men slowly surrounded Jason under the old man's lead.
Perhaps this had been Darius's plan all along.
Had he sent his grandson to die just to gain the 'moral justification' to snatch the Temple's prized book from Jason?
Well, too bad for Darius.
Jason was no pushover.
Even if he couldn't win, he would never hand it over to someone like this!
Also, he wasn't planning on losing in the first place.
Jason's eyes turned upwards.
His gaze met Darius, his expression nakedly disdainful.
Darius's remained calm.
What kind of enemy hadn't he seen after his many years of 'ruling' over Bront?
Without needless words, a [Mana Bolt] shot out from Jason's finger at rapid speed.
Darius's reaction was also swift.
His body tilted to the left.
But he didn't expect the [Mana Bolt] to swerve at the last minute!
Jason's face was scrunched in concentration as he used his mental power to slightly adjust the path of the spell.
It rammed into Darius's shoulder, hard.
Jason's magic power was nothing to sneeze at after all, a whopping 31 points, which was almost too high to be in the [Tutorial] at all.
The bolt carved out a small crater in the old man's shoulder.
But Jason had to admit, the way that Darius kept his calm was praiseworthy in itself.
He hadn't even flinched from the pain, even if his eyes burned with fury.
Darius couldn't even remember the last time he'd been hit!
He raised his other hand.
Ten mages from his family quickly shot out half baked magical projectiles aimed right at Jason.
Darius also charged at the boy.
But by now, Jason was prepared.
He parried each projectile with a mana bolt that shot out of his finger.
They whizzed through the air, meeting each enemy projectile with perfect precision and exploding with a small show of fireworks before the mana fizzled out.
Jason hadn't broken a sweat.
It was due to one of the features of his [Dimensional Interfacing Combat/Kinetic Suit].
[Aided Cast]
Cast times of all 1st circle spells decreased by 1.5 seconds.
Which meant that the 0.83 seconds it typically took for Jason to cast [Mana Bolt] were reduced to 'instant.'
And [Mana Bolt] was a spell that even Jason could get darn close to casting in very little time…
At the last second, to be safe, he decided to use a principle he'd learned from Ramesthes: to test out his enemy's power without placing himself at risk.
A magical projectile grazed his finger.
Jason smirked.
It couldn't even breach his defense!
Then, Darius was on top of him, his right fist extended for a powerful punch right to the side of the head.
The old man moved at a speed belying his aged body.
Jason quickly evaded the first punch, and promptly reached out to strike back with a kick to the abdomen.
But as if Darius had expected it, in the next second, his body moved into the next form of his stance.
Jason could see a vague distortion of the space surrounding Darius.
He narrowed his eyes.
Was this a precursor to gaining Energy?
Without the [Tower] to guide them, was it possible for [Tutorial] denizens to learn themselves?
Jason dodged Darius's kick as he pondered, but it wasn't long until he eventually had to place his full focus on the fight.
Two figures intertwined, exchanging punches and kicks as they came together and separated in a matter of seconds.
Darius was much slower than Jason, but his experience made him far more skillful in attacking and parrying.
Jason also noticed that Darius could use maybe a kilo of force to parry and redirect his own ten kilos.
Plus, Darius brought ten others as back up.
For the moment, they were on par.
Until Jason sneakily conjured a mana bolt and slammed it into Darius at point blank range.
There was no avoiding it.
The old man shot backward, flying meters in the air, such that he had to be caught by one his followers.
The ten mages of the Brenner family stood there in sheer horror.
"M-monster!"
A kid no older than 18 was able to beat up their patriarch, who had been practicing martial arts for decades?
One woman gathered her courage.
"Who are you?"
Her hand shook as she instinctually prepared another magic projectile.
Suddenly, a pungent, acrid smell permeated the air.
Jason promptly discovered a small puddle below one man's feet.
The man stood there frozen in fear, unable to react.
Jason wrinkled his nose in disgust.
He slowly advanced on Darius's location, where the old man sat bleeding in a heap on top of one of his family's followers.
Jason [Inspected] him.
[Darius Brenner]
Tutorial Denizen
Health: 19%
Jason's footsteps squished as he walked, creating small craters on the muddy ground of the clearing.
Not a single person attacked him as he strolled towards Darius.
Perhaps they were still unable to believe it was possible to best their glorious patriarch so easily.
Jason knelt down and knocked on Darius's head.
The old man's face was filled with shock and fear. He finally realized that he was not at all a match for this young boy.
Was Darius about to die from his greed?
Darius had imagined that, just like in the past, this boy was merely a genius grown in a greenhouse; that he'd gotten lucky in killing that wolf general.
It was only now that he understood he'd really kicked an iron plate.
Darius was at a loss for words.
Should he put down his pride and beg for his life?
Should he remain resolute and keep his glory as a noble to the bitter end?
He slowly schemed in his heart.
No, this brat was so young, and what was pride in the face of his life, after all?
Blood had seeped down from the wound on his head to cover his teeth and tongue.
Darius revealed a smile that was uglier than crying.
His voice was hoarse.
"Young man, spare me. You won't regret it. You could have access to wealth you wouldn't imagine!"
Seeing that Jason was silent, Darius continued,
"Let's let bygones be bygones, what do you say? I'll give you my word as a noble, and…"
"Here."
He took out a small bar of gold.
"You can take this in advance."
Jason inspected the gold and saw with disappointment that there was indeed no [Tower] screen.
It was worthless to him.
Not that he would have spared this poisonous old guy anyway.
The ambush operation was so well-executed, Jason would have trouble believing that Darius had never done something like this before.
He couldn't feel pity for such a bad dude.
A [Mana Bolt] appeared in his hand.
"No, wait! Reno-"
The bolt smashed into Darius's head, cracking his skull into large shards as blood and brain matter coated the already wet ground.
Finally, one of the other mages regained their wits.
"AAAAAAHHHH!"
His scream started a chain reaction as the rest of them fled in deep panic.
Jason couldn't be bothered to find and kill all of them. Nor would they pose a threat to him anymore without their leader.
Unknowingly, as his experience increased, his thoughts were aligning further and further with those of his older brother…
The area cleared out of people.
Jason was prepared to sigh and walk away, when suddenly, he saw a woman sashaying towards him from the forest.
The woman looked to be somewhere around middle-aged, though Jason couldn't quite tell how old she was.
Despite this, her appearance was exceptionally beautiful, and she clearly paid great attention to her figure as well.
Jason instantly understood that she must be a noble.
His body tensed once more. He looked carefully towards his surroundings.
He would forever be warier of ambushes.
He'd also prefer not to use any more mana before his inevitable fight with the Wolf King.
His nose crinkled. Was this woman also after the book?
It would have to be physical combat, then…
Jason smoothed out his combat suit before he turned his face away.
"What, you also wanna fight with me?"
His tone was resigned and slightly impatient.
Honestly, Jason would rather not have to fight any humans at all, if possible.
It just seemed that killing people was all he had been doing lately…
To his relief, the woman shook her head.
Her gaze contained complicated emotions that Jason couldn't quite read.
But in the end, she slowly closed her eyes and bowed at a 90 degree angle.
"I owe you my thanks for avenging my clan, young hero."
"My name is Renora Nosk."
"Truthfully, I came here along with a small contingent of my fellow clansmen to steal the book from Darius once it was in his hand."
"However, it seems that I can only express my gratitude to you for killing that vile man once and for all."
Jason's brows rose sharply.
What in the world?
Then, he exhaled.
"It's fine, ma'am. I'm Jason. He was the one who ambushed me in the first place, so just take it as me settling my own grudges."
At those words, Renora looked rather embarrassed, but she bit her lips and didn't mention that she'd been waiting here for some time.
But the longer she looked at the boy, the more she found him pleasing to the eye.
She took a deep breath and extended her hand towards him.
"Actually, young man, uh, Jason… if you don't mind, I'd like to propose a cooperation."
Comments