The winding portal slowly closed behind Rastel as he walked out of the dungeon and into the chilly forest night. It had appeared immediately after he received his rewards. He had put the core back into a very offended Amba who ignored him completely as he tried to communicate with the construct.
Now that he had the recognition of the immortal, he felt a faint connection to the golem. A connection that although very faint, felt very terrifying!
The amount of power he could sense through that connection was something he could not imagine! As he hadn't seen much of the game, he had nothing to compare it to, but knowing it was a personal golem of someone named "Immortal sculptor", he guessed he should have expected a very high threshold of strength. He concluded that Amba probably had his strength limited for the quest to take place.
Even though Amba grumpily ignored him, he was still able to transform him into a miniature figure to put into his inventory. Together with the previous golems he had crafted, he had quite a few, about a dozen. He had assigned his stat points focusing more on his agility and stamina. He wanted to have the ability to put in enough distance between him and his opponents when in a fight and not have to be forced into a fist fight like the time with the monk. Although now that he had golems, it wasn't much of a problem to use them as tanks while he shot spells from behind.
As soon as Rastel stepped out of the portal, he heard low footsteps and voices that sounded quite a distance away. He immediately crouched while activating stealth as he quietly approached the disturbance. He heard the voices of two men seemingly in an argument with themselves.
"I'm telling you it ain't right! Having us trudge through the forest at night looking for a little muan! Pwah!" one of them spat in irritation
"You better shut your mouth and listen to orders if you don't want to offend the bosses" the other whispered harshly.
"I don't take orders from no summoned!" the first man frowned
"Well the big boss orders them, maybe you will like to go tell him that eh?" the second man sneered at him.
"I swear to Mara herself I would not be here if my crew was not attacked by those damned summoned! At the very least then I would be sleeping in a warm tent with a stomach full of beer even if there were no easy pickings to be had" the first man gritted his teeth in regret.
The second man was now feeling sympathetic for his friend and their situation.
"Look here man, don't go swearing to the devil's goddess and get cursed for nuthin'. I heard this from bron in the guards that finding the muan and his pals are not really important you see? We're just doing this to pass the time so that the bosses can get their revenge. If after a few days nothing is found, we will be on out of here to the city where the beer flows aplenty and with lots of fine women in the red lights district! How do you like that eh?"
"Are you sure of what you are saying mate?" the first man sounded excited now
"As sure as the day I popped out of my mother!" the second man swore.
As Rastel observed them blundering through the woods with no attempt at caution, he sized up a nearby tree that seemed suitable enough. With the muan's natural dexterity and balance, he scaled up the tree with seeming ease relishing the freedom of such movement. His long tail swishing behind him almost life like, he followed the men above the trees for a few minutes before he found himself directly above them as they investigated some bushes all the while listening to their conversation for any reasonable intel.
He had already realized that they are part of the men that were involved in the beastman kidnapping scheme he scattered with old man Oron and Mary. And it seemed like their bosses wanted revenge! Since it had reached that far, he didn't mind dealing with the entire thing or at the very least, blowing the operation wide open so that someone else would take care of it. He had no idea how strong the person behind them was.
Both the men were level 3, a piece of cake for the now level 10 Rastel, he wanted to end it as quietly as possible as there might be reinforcements nearby, and hopefully take one alive. He took out the sculpting knife he got from the quest and held the grip with the blade facing inwards and took a deep breath. The men were still searching the bush, all he had to do was jump down and slit one's throat while knocking out the other, seemed simple enough.
Rastel held the knife while staring down but ultimately hesitated. Even though he had killed a lot of animals and fought a couple of the men from the kidnappers since he started the game, he had never killed another human before, at least not so directly with a blade. His body was subconsciously rejecting the notion of having to take another human's life that he hesitated, lost in thought.
The men suddenly started to move and Rastel's dazed look suddenly cleared. He put the blade back into his inventory and jumped down instantly while activating lightning blast!
The light crackle of lightning made one of the men raise his head in confusion as he questioned.
"Hey mate is there gonna be a stor... UGHK!"
"HEY...GHFK!"
Rastel had landed directly in the middle of the two men and attacked them with two sharp jabs to the neck with lightning blast activated effectively knocking them both out cold.
They crumbled to the ground like sacks of potatoes as Rastel dragged them quickly into the bushes they were previously investigating and wiping out his tracks afterwards. After securely gagging and tying up the men with strips from their clothes, he blasted one of them with water and waited for the man to slowly recover.
It was the man who was consoling the first man with stories of booze and women. He shook his head groggily as he blinked several times trying to see properly. He immediately tasted the dirty cloth in his mouth and slowly realized that he was tied up. His eyes shot wide open in alert as he tried to identify the enemy.
Rastel sat cross legged right in front of them, his tail swishing back and forth behind him like a cat's. Since when he got accustomed to controlling the extra 'limb', he enjoyed moving it as much as possible. He gazed silently at the alert man who was looking horrified while his eyes darted around as if searching for a way to escape. Rastel tapped at the screen in front of him as he summoned out his knife and held it threateningly in front of the man.
"One word from you without my permission and this kisses your throat, understand?"
The man nodded vigorously to show his consent.
A while later, Rastel walked out of the bushes with the men tied up some more and knocked out again just to make sure. He didn't get much from the two men, just that their bosses were looking for him and his team that attacked them and that the group were planning to escape to the administrative city of the western province of Gorm. There was one piece of information that angered him a bit though, that was the fact that some of the beastmen were recaptured! He was worried that Lou and her brother were among the recaptured ones.
'Seems like I should head back to Laron and meet up with the old man first, he might be willing to help if he knows. After that we'll storm their base in the village hall and end this before they get to escape!' he thought as he rushed up a tree and began moving through the foliage.
He could see the path from the top that led back to Laron, he would follow through the trees to prevent any un-wanted action that might draw attention to him. There were a lot of men around here looking for him if the information he got was right, them and the three summoned he saw before. Seems they were given a quest by the leader to search for him.
He moved quickly through the trees with surprising agility. He passed by many unassuming soldiers diligently searching for him through the forest floor never thinking to look up. As he neared the outskirts of the village, he laid eyes on a large clearing, a campsite that was basically a large fire surrounded by a few dozen tents. In the very middle sat the three players, Gai, Ann and Marco. They were conversing in low tones by the campfire with Marco occasionally waving his arms as if in exasperation, Ann looking meek and scared and Gai looking as stoic as ever.
Even with Rastel's improved natural hearing given by a muan's sharp ears, he still couldn't pick up their conversation. After a while of thought, he decided to slowly close in so he could hopefully get some valuable intel. The more he knew, the less likely he was to walk into a trap.
As he closed in near the outer tents behind the players, he noticed a few soldiers patrolling among the tents and promptly evaded their sight, the light from the fire made it easier to be caught. As he neared closer through the treetops, he could finally hear a bit of their conversation.
"We should not be making powerful enemies this early into the game, we are too weak!" Marco whispered fiercely!
"I – I think so too Gai, we don't really have much to gain you know? If we fail the quest, we would only loose a few exp points. With our strengths we can easily build our levels…." Ann fumbled with her words
"We already received a generous gift from the leader and accepted his quest, do you think we would not be offending him by deserting the mission?" Gai frowned a bit.
"We can easily evade someone like him! The other side of this is a whole kingdom, Gai!" Marco was getting tensed up!
"If you tell me you still think the organization these people are working for is simple then you have disappointed me. Do you think beastmen are pushovers?" Gai replied calmly.
Marco kept quiet at this point, thinking about it now, the group had been kidnapping a whole lot of beastmen and transporting them somewhere. Even without any upset, it would be noticed sooner or later. Which meant the organization felt they had the power to deal with the repercussions. And they already knew that this was only one branch, how many branches were there? Did the operation cover a few kingdoms? The entire world maybe? They didn't know!
"What do we do now? We can't run and we can't stay?" Ann whispered in a low voice and they all fell silent.
As the silence ensured for a while, Gai suddenly perked up his head as he looked into the trees behind them!
"Muan!" he growled.
As the rest of his team quickly went on alert, Rastel realizing that he had been made decided to make a break for it! He jumped to the next tree as he quickly tried to dash through the foliage.
"Light the flares!" Gai suddenly yelled.
Bursts of light suddenly went rushing towards Rastel's direction! He ran and dodged a few that got too close as he noticed that even though they felt hot, they didn't set the forest on fire. The lights brightly illuminated the surroundings like daylight as a multitude of men quickly surrounded the place!
Rastel looked around him as he saw dozens of men, archers included surrounding his position, it didn't take a while for the players to come over as Gai stared at him as he growled deeply
"Muan!"
"Monk" Rastel replied with a silent chuckle as they faced off.
In a small shack near the entrance to the village, a sinister shadow moved quietly as it slid through the open window. A red robed mage was sitting silently with his eyes closed inside the room. The only source of light in the room was a candle in front of the mage which let out a dim yellow light as the shadow quietly sat down in front of him with the candle between them.
"What did you find out?" the mage asked impatiently as he opened his eyes to stare at the shadow.
"They are still talking mutiny, but are too scared to actually carry it out" the shadow's voice sounded out low and raspy.
"Heh, it seems they are not that stupid after all, but it doesn't matter! They need to go if my plan is to work out." The mage laughed to himself.
"And I thought you might be interested, they caught sight of the muan, they are probably almost done with him by now" the shadow's voice echoed about again
"The muan!" the mage was clearly agitated.
"Ka…Kahahahahah! Good! Wonderful! It really seems the heavens are on my side! I would get my revenge too it seems! Kahahahaha!" he laughed heartily.
"Wonderful! Really wonderful! Let me get going then, I can't attend the ball after the dance has ended now can I?" the mage smiled as two figures suddenly appeared behind him.
The shadow was already moving out as he replied.
"Well bad fortune to you then, I will be on my way"
The mage glanced at the retreating shadow but ultimately ignored the comment. His eyes flickered as they reflected the candlelight.
"Let's get going then" he motioned to the shadows behind him.
"There's a double picking to be had!"
BOOM!!!
Rastel flipped to a nearby tree as a ball of fire landed in his previous position. He had been jumping from branch to branch in the past few minutes without been able to make a decisive move. His enemies never gave him time to rest and compose himself and he was already growing weary of constantly evading.
He was biding his time though, his greatest threat was the mage, Ann. He was waiting for her mana to eventually finish so he could use the opportunity to either attack or escape.
BOOM!
CRACK!!
Rastel dodged once more as this time, the branch he was previously on cracked and broke off. He tilted his head to dodge an incoming arrow from one of the archers as he jumped to another tree before another fire ball was aimed at him.
There was no attack this time though, and as soon as he noticed it, he smiled. He turned to face the players as he saw the mage retreating with the monk and warrior coming forward, fists and sword drawn.
He fired off a fired ball of his own at them but Gai countered it with a rippling wave which barely scattered half of it before the rest continued to barrel towards them!
Gai's eyes widened considerably as he saw the considerably larger fireball fired off by the muan, it wasn't this big before!
SLASH! SLASH!
BOOM!!!
Marco quickly appeared in front of the fire ball as he delivered two quick slashes towards it which made it implode! He moved back just in time to avoid the backlash of the explosion but the surrounding men were scattered from the remnant blast wave. Gai and Marco quickly realizing their enemy was actually stronger than them went on guard but Rastel was already upon them!
He emerged through the explosion with a lightning blast activated and was about to slam it into Marco's face to knock him out when a fire ball seemed to appear out of nowhere right in their middle!
WOOSH!
BOOM!!!
They were both thrown back as the fire ball exploded!
"Kahahaha! Seeing you're all gathered here fighting fiercely, you won't mind me joining in do you?
"What do you think you're doing!" Gai turned over angrily!
The red mage was standing there with a sneer on his face flanked by two people, a woman and a man. The woman was a tall young looking elf with average looks and blonde hair. She had on tight leather armor with a bow and a full quiver of arrows resting on her back. She had a slight smile of scorn on her face as she looked at them.
The man on the other hand was a human with a very large build wielding a sword and shield. He wore leather armor but had an iron breastplate on his massive frame. He had short brown hair and a stoic face as he stared at them.
"I heard a bunch of mutineers were fighting an enemy of ours and decided to come clear out the trash once and for all! Oh you thought I didn't know?" the mage chuckled as he saw the faces on Gai's group fall.
"I knew about all your mutinous thoughts long ago! We have no place for you anymore! Men! Take down the summoned!"
The remaining men recovering from the situation followed their boss's order and charged the players!
Seeing the situation turn for the worse, Rastel dashed towards a tree and made a break for it, he had no allies here!
"After him!" the mage motioned at the elf. She chuckled as he jumped gracefully onto a tree branch and chased after Rastel!
In the village hall, the huge swordsman was practicing his swordsmanship with the moonlight shining through the windows reflecting on his massive broadsword. The female elf as always was laying half-naked on the bed, watching him silently as he practiced. The scene looked calm and peaceful. A shadow emerging from the windows unnaturally twisted as it moved towards her and whispered a few words before exiting just as quickly. She nodded her head a few times as she spoke to the swordsman, her voice sweet and mellow.
"The mage went after the summoned as you suspected, what shall we do?"
The man didn't stop his movements as he thought for a while before replying her.
"Nothing for the moment, none of them pose any threat to us so it doesn't matter who wins"
The elf nodded and continued watching the swordsman as he trained, the moonlight still gently reflecting off his sword.
Back at the battle, Gai and his companions were already cornered by the mage. They looked tired and weary but their eyes still glinted with fighting intent as the mage walked towards them with a haughty laugh.
"Kahahahah! I can't believe you thought you could fight us off!" he walked in front of Gai with the warrior standing closely behind him hefting his shield.
Gai couldn't help but stare at the warrior, the man was terrifyingly strong as they had figured out eventually, none of their attacks worked!
"This is the end of the line for you bastards! Don't worry, I'll personally send you to your graves!"
The mage had already lifted his hand to cast a spell when a fire ball came rushing out of nowhere towards him!
The warrior behind him sensed it and quickly went to his side while raising his shield to block the attack!
BOOM!
The warrior stumbled a bit but still held his ground from the attack. Lowering his shield, everyone saw Rastel looking down at the scene while standing on a high branch with a weird glint in his eyes.
"I dare you."