Pushing away the branches that covered the view, out came a smiling chubby young man. Gerald finally recognized the owner of the voice, meanwhile, Sera lightly sighed. From her face, it was clear that she did not want to interact with this guy.
"It must have been fate, ordained by the gods, for us to meet here. From all the places we could go, it just so happened we bumped into one another right-"
"Soo? How long did you wait here for us? A few days?" Gerald got tired of listening to him, and just cut in with his questions.
"What?"
"I can clearly see smoke coming from behind you, I assume it's from a campfire. Also, there are tents there so I guess you were waiting for us for a few days, right?" he pointed at the woods behind Adelard.
Adelard was suddenly at a loss for words, "You… Nonsense! We just came here and decided to camp here for the night! It's always good to be prepared."
Gerald lifted his eyebrow and said with a mocking smile, "Is that so? You are so afraid of the dark that you made a camp when it was only just noon? Interesting."
Adelard became red in the face and he was almost ready to explode with anger. The humiliation like this was something new for a son of a noble like him. His story-telling ability was also subpar.
"What do you want, Adelard?" Sera cut in their arguing contest. She was well aware of what was going on and she wanted no part of it. She and Gerald were both tired from the hunt and now she just wanted to jump on a bed and relax for a day. But instead, they had to meet this crazy guy, that can't take a no for an answer.
"Hmph! I'm a gentleman so I won't argue with you," Adelard said to Gerald. Then he turned to Sera and said, "I came to offer you a place by my side. You will barely have to do anything and I will take care of all of your needs. You will be like a noble, with power and influence, you just need to say yes."
Adelard tried to say all that with a sweet voice, however, his vocal cords somehow just made it sound like a creepy old man trying to lure kids with candy.
"No thanks, I'm not interested," Sera quickly turned him down.
However, Adelard did not surrender that easily. He started fawning over Sera and offer her many benefits. Gerald was listening to all his blathering and was cringing while also slowly getting ticked off.
Finally, he couldn't stand it anymore and he erupted in anger, "Piss off, boy! She is not interested, so step out of the way and stop wasting our time!"
"You- Good, good!" Adelard was now shaking with anger. "It seems we will have to do this the hard way. Boys!" From the camp came five big guys and spread in a half-circle around him.
"Young master," they all respectfully called.
Adelard now got a cocky look o his face as he turned to Sera and said, "Let's try this again. You will join me or…" He turned to look at Gerald and gave him a wicked smile as he continued, "Or I will have my boys beat him until he's half-dead!"
"What!?" Sera was shocked to hear that. She would never expect that Adelard would actually resort to violence just to get her.
She looked at Gerald and sighed, "I'm sorry Gerald, it seems like our travels end here. I can't have you suffer just because of me. Farewell, we might-"
Paf!
"Ow, what was that for?" she exclaimed as Gerald slapped her on the back of her head, surprising her in the process.
"Chill out, will ya? Don't give up so fast just because of a few empty threats. At least wait until they capture me before you start thinking about it." Gerald glared at Adelard and his henchmen. He was not afraid of a fight, especially when the enemy was right in front of him.
If it came down to it, he could probably dispose of all of them. After all, killing humans was not exactly a difficult thing to do. And besides, they didn't wear any armor, just fancy clothes, the arrogant pricks.
"Hah! Brave words," Adelard laughed. "Are you actually trying to fight all of us? Let me tell you one thing. All my boys here are experienced warriors at Iron 3 rank!"
He then proceeded to look at Gerald like he was looking at an idiot. Smuggnes was all over his face as he mocked, "I asked around and I know you are only at Bronze 8 rank. With just your little bit of strength do you really think you can fight against my five guys? In your dreams!"
"Iron 3, huh? Sera, what was the rank of that Silverback?" Gerald did not let Adelards talk get to him and casually asked.
Sera was getting more nervous as time went on, but she still tried to answer the question. "If I remember correctly, the strength of a Silverback usually starts at Iron 3 and it then continues to increase with age. Wait, does that mean they are like five Silverbacks at once?" she opened her eyes wide in horror.
Gerald got a wicked grin on his lips after getting the information. It was about what he expected. "Well, not exactly. They might have the same strength as the Silverback, but their speed is much slower. And they are lighter too."
"What does that have to do with it?" Sera asked, confused. 'They are lighter? What does he mean?'
Gerald just chuckled and didn't answer. He just slowly took a fighting stance and placed his right hand in the potion pouch on his belt.
"This is your last chance guys. Let us go and we can forget about this incident. Otherwise, don't blame me for accidentally breaking your bones," Gerald warned.
To the five thugs behind Adelard, all of the arguing and threats seemed extremely comical. They were adults, after all, some even close to thirty years old. But, they still had to carry out the orders from their young master.
"Don't think you can bluff me! Grab him and beat him up so he won't be able to get out of bed for a month!" Adelard ordered. He was not used to things not going his way, especially as the guy before him ruined his plans twice already.
The five guys slowly spread out, forming a circle, and tried to cut off any escape paths for Gerald. The guy in front cracked his knuckles and said, "Sorry kid, nothing personal. We will try to be gentle as we beat you up."
Gerald laughed as he pulled two potions out of his pouch, Swiftness and Greater Mana Potion. "Sure, whatever. I'll also try not to kill you guys. Wouldn't wanna be considered a bandit, hahaha," he laughed and drank the potions.
"Get him!" Adelard roared.
They were all ready for a bloody fight and when the order came, all five guys jumped toward Gerald. What did they not expect, however, was that Gerald simply squeezed through the gaps like a slippery eel and ran away.
They thought he will try to do some shenanigans since he was a Spellcaster so they didn't jump after him immediately. Unfortunately for them, Gerald just kept running further and further away, leaving all of them behind in the dust, including Sera.
Adelard was now fuming with anger seeing his henchmen just stand there staring blankly at the running Gerald. After all that verbal exchange at the beginning, they were sure he would fight like a tiger, but instead, he just ran away like a rabbit.
"You useless sacks of meat! Stop standing there and go get him!" After their young master's harsh order, the five warriors quickly gathered their wits and ran after Gerald.
Although they were much higher in strength than him, they could not sprint indefinitely. This, combined with the dense undergrowth in the forest, made it so that they couldn't catch up with Gerald.
Gerald glanced back to see Adelard's lackeys running after him at a high speed, they were already pushing themselves to the limits.
"Haha, people are so predictable. They are much better opponents than those mindless beasts. Divide and conquer! What can you do, now that you are far from your master?"
He decided to lure them further away so that he could more freely fight. Without Adelard giving them further orders they would be a much easier target.
Gerald suddenly turned around and started running back towards where he came from. That greatly shocked the thugs and they thought he was again going to try and slip by.
Not wanting a repetition of the previous embarrassment, they all aimed for him and tried to grab him. But when they came just a few meters from each other, they realized something was wrong when they saw Gerald grinning with satisfaction. Unfortunately for them, it was already too late to change anything.
"Fist of Wind!" Gerald triggered Fist of Wind with each hand, less than a meter from their chests. The strong gust of wind that followed was too much for the unprepared warriors to withstand. They got blasted backward, some rolling on the ground, some flying through the air and landing heavily on their backs.
"Nothing personal boys. I'll try to be gentle while I beat you up," Gerald laughed and returned the kind words.