Upon entering the Guild, I felt a strange oppressiveness in the air. Strangely enough, no one else seems to be aware of this oppressive aura, not even Lia. Looking around to try and trace the feeling to its source, I see a man sitting at a table, he has several transparent tails, it's him. Without any second thoughts, I begin running over to beat him down, but as I approach from behind with my fist in the air, my vision begins to warp... no more like the space around us has begun to warp.
As things begin to stabilise, I find that Lia and I are suddenly in a wide open field with that piece of shit nowhere to be seen. In the far distance, I think I can see Lofinium and the slowly setting sun behind it. And from seemingly nowhere, a voice comes from behind us.
"Can ya at least think of the time n' place before picking a fight? I believe this is a much better place for a fight, not that your current strength is good enough to do anything."
Turning around I see two people a little ways away standing leisurely behind us. I recognise the man as the one from the Guild, that shitty god Akkre, but I don't recognise the woman next to him.
"Cory, I don't think you should do what it is your thinking of," Lia says with a grave expression.
"Why not!? It's one of the biggest goals in life to beat this guy dead!"
"Just try to inspect him and I think you'll get where I'm coming from."
True enough, even if I am unwilling to halt my attack, I should check his status before anything. I was letting the blood rush to my head and let my anger get ahead of my reasoning again. Since neither of them seems to be terribly interested in fighting, I don't think I need to worry about a surprise attack, but I keep my guard up anyway while using my Draconic Insight.
"The targets you are trying to view exist outside the System and can not be identified. Your level of authority is insufficient to receive an estimate on the target's abilities."
"... What? Actually, this kind of makes sense now that I think about it. Perhaps I did jump the gun a bit."
"Oh, so you learned how to properly reason. I guess sending you here did some good for you after all, I wonder if I can use this as an excuse for sending more people here?"
"Syke!" I yell as I release my Freezing Flame Breath on the two in front of us.
"Cory, I really don't think that was a good idea. I'm getting a really bad feeling from the two of them."
"Not like they can do anything now, since they are just statues of ice. Besides, he completely deserves it."
But my good mood over freezing him doesn't last long as the ice quickly turns to dust and reveals that the two of them are completely unaffected by my attack.
"If you really want to do it this way then I'll entertain you," Akkre says, but makes no moves as he's just standing there, menacingly.
I'm momentarily confused as nothing happens, but in a sudden outburst, Lia yells, "Cory, your arm!" and quickly begins to shoot our several spells at Akkre.
Looking at my left arm, I find that it is slowly turning disintegrating and turning to dust. "Just what did you do!"
With no warning at all, a pair of chairs form and Akkre takes a seat while waving his hand causing Lia's attacks to fizzle out. "The Authority of Eternity. As long as you were paying attention when you first met me several years ago when I first killed you then you should remember my title, the Keeper of Eternity. My power is the creation and destruction of all things in all forms. Reducing all that is into their base chemical elements is one of the things I can do and is what happened to your arm. Take your ice for example, as it is at its core just solid water, I returned it to its most basic form of hydrogen and oxygen. Using that same core process but reversed is how these chairs came to be. Of course, when being used against an individual, the stronger they are the more they can resist my power. You, however, are not yet strong enough to even contend with me. So just keep getting stronger and I'll play with you again."
"Go fuck yourself! I ain't playing shit with you, I swore that I would kill you and I don't care how long it takes, but I'll make you regret looking down on me!"
"Why not come fuck me yourself you coward."
Hearing his words, both Lia and the woman next to Akkre are giving me a look that plainly says, 'don't you dare', I think they are taking our words a little to literally. Ok, I set myself up for that one.
"Jokes aside, I don't get why you're so upset with me. You yourself wanted to be reincarnated so I did exactly as you asked."
"Let's see, you hit me not once but twice with lightning from nowhere for little reason at all. You don't apologise. You consistently do things for the sole purpose of annoying me. And I know that you knew I meant that I wanted to just be revived and not reincarnated. So far you've given me practically no reason to actually have any favourable thought about you."
For the first time since this exchange started, the woman next to Akkre speaks up, "She's right you know. Even I would have at least apologised for killing her, even if I didn't mean it at all. Oh, and by the way, my name is Tsuki."
"It's not like I've done nothing for you. I mean sure, I may or may not have directed Cetus in your direction once or twice. And I might have given you an absolutely worthless title. But if I didn't send her to Grauntia, then you wouldn't have that little girlfriend by your side, and let's be honest, with your personality your not getting into a relationship with anyone sane person on Earth."
I don't even think he's intentionally doing it anymore, he's just a naturally annoying person. Even when he is trying to say something half decent, he manages to slip in some questionable things and insult me.
"I don't really understand what's going on right now, but Cory, is your arm ok?"
"Now that you mention it, I feel perfectly fine. No pain at all despite half of my arm being gone, seems like he stopped destroying it too. I didn't even notice anything until you pointed it out."
"Oh, I'll fix that for you. It wouldn't be fun for me if you were handicapped," Akkre says as my arm begins to restore itself. "Now then, Tsuki send them back to the Guild." Akkre continues.
With the snap of Tsuki's fingers, the space around us begins to warp and before I we know it, I'm standing where I was previously in the Guild with Lia right next to me. And as things stabilise, I receive a notification of the System, and from the looks of it, Lia does too.
"Let's play again some time. But I hope you aren't still a weakling the next time we meet."
Someday, I swear it, I'll beat that guy till he cries for mercy and end him. But as much as I hate to admit it, he's right. As I am now, I'm far too weak to be his opponent.
"Hey, so, what just happened?" Lia asks.
"We should turn the quest in first and then return to the inn. I don't think this is something I should talk about openly and it's a bit of a long story."