Loke watched how the woman that was in front of him before vanished into the thin air, without him didn't anything. Looked like the woman used some kind of artifact to escape from there, and surprised Loke completely. Yeah, it must be the work of an artifact, because he already cast Jester World before. That's mean no magic spell can be use inside the spell's area, except for magic from artifacts.
What made Loke more surprised was how did they know the weakness of his magic when they had never encountered it before. His enemies before could not even possible cracked the weakness of Jester World even though they had faced it a few times, but the human could do it in the first time. Who the hell is this man?
Loke watched the man in front of him, still looked shocked after his partner vanished, leaving him alone at this place. A smile appeared on Loke's face as he looked at the man's face, as if he was being betrayed by his partner.
This is one of the few traits that Loke likes about human. Human are usually selfish by nature. Most of human that he met before were really selfish and willing to betray their friends just to save their own life.
He still remembered a group of human had already found the treasure room in this dungeon before and he trapped them there inside without any way out. Loke promised them that he would let only one person escaped from there. And then, they started killing each other without any hesitation.
"It seems your girl had betrayed you." Loke opened his mouth.
Ren shifted his gaze towards Loke when he heard Loke speaking to him. However, there was no word coming out from his mouth for the response. Only the face of despair was shown. But, Ren's face changed from disappointed look into the calm one. The sudden change made Loke confused a bit.
"How you still calm?" asked Loke.
No response. Ren still kept silent and just looked directly at Loke. Then, he chuckled before spoke to Loke. "How's my acting? Is that good?"
The response coming from Ren's made Loke became more confused. "Acting? What acting?"
"Acting like I'm shocked about my partner's 'betrayal'."
"Do you mean you are not actually surprised she left you and escaped alone?" asked Loke, still looked confused.
"Yeah, not surprised at all."
"Why?"
"Because I ordered her to do so. I can play with you more freely if there's no one I need to worry and protect."
Loke let out a long laugh after hearing what Ren said. After that, he spoke to Ren. "It seems your words implying that you can face me one-on-one. Is that so?"
Ren smirked at Loke and nodded. "Yeah, so lets make a bet."
"What bet?"
"If I can escape from here and at the same time steal one of the artifacts, I win and you will grant one wish from me in the future."
"If you lost?"
"If I can't escape from here, you can do what you want to do to me before. Kill me."
"So confident, didn't you? Let me tell you, if you think you can pull the same thing what your partner do before, you are mistaken. I didn't know what she did before, but now I know what that artifact capable of, you think I will let you use it?"
Loke told the truth. He's not familiar with modern artifact like Teleport Crystal and definitely never saw one before. That's why when Elena used it before, he didn't react at all. After he learned its function, there's no way he would let Ren used it without any interruption from him.
Ren snorted. "That's hurt. There's no way I would do the same trick twice, not to the great God of Mischief."
Loke pissed when Ren mocked him to his face. He launched himself towards Ren and swung his cane-turn-spear to Ren. Ren responded by blocking the attack using his dagger from before. There's a small spark formed when the two blades collided to each other.
Loke pulled his spear back and swung it to Ren in the opposite direction. But this time, Ren dodged the attack by ducking before the spear could hit him. Ren then tried to kick Loke on the gut but hit Loke's shin instead as the latter raised his leg to block the kick.
However, the kick still knocked Loke back and made him fumbled a little bit. Ren used this opportunity and tried to slash Loke on the face. But, Loke quickly regained his balance and blocked the attack using the middle part of his spear.
After that, both Loke and Ren exchanged a few more attacks before distancing themselves from each other to catch their breaths and gathered the wits. Even so, it's more like Loke need to catch his breath as Ren still looks fine, although he was slightly tired.
"Tired?"
"Of course you idiot, I am not grow as a warrior." This was first time he had difficulty fighting human, let alone a mage. Usually when he used Jester World, the mages before more or less already gave up fighting him. If not, their combat capability was not well honed. But this time was different, the man in front of Loke was not only great in melee combat, but also know how to use Aura Manipulation.
"Let me ask you an honest question." spoke Ren. Loke turned his attention to Ren, waiting for his question. "What would Monkey King react when he knows his staff has been stole by a human from you?"
After Ren said that, he quickly dashed towards the golden staff. Loke quickly blocked Ren's path towards the golden staff. On his mind, he already imagined what could happened if he let the golden staff be stolen from here. For sure, he would be beaten by Monkey King.
Loke already standing in front of the golden staff and readied to guard it from Ren's attempt to take it. Ren, seeing the God of Mischief already in front of Ren's target, tried to pass through Loke by moving slightly to the left and hope the God of Mischief could not catch him.
Loke already read Ren's movement and quickly moved his body to the right side to block Ren from passing through. As Ren noticed Loke's action, he quickly changed his direction to his right. He was actually trying to trick Loke by going to the left, but when Loke followed, he quickly changed the direction so that Loke could not caught him.
However, Ren's plan could be smelled by Loke. Loke pretended he was caught up by Ren's trick but eventually he was preparing something. When Ren's dashed to his left side, Loke followed him not because he was attempting to catch Ren but he was readying his strike.
When Ren changed the trajectory of his dash, Loke raised his leg and did a roundhouse kick towards Ren. Fortunately, Ren noticed the kick in last minute. He then raised his arm, to block the kick from hitting his face.
Although he could blocked the kick using his arm, the impact of the kick still made Ren flew and hit one of the wall there before falling on the ground. After a few minutes, he got up and held his arm where the part hit the wall before.
"Oh, that's hurts," complained Ren.
"Trying to use trick against me, the God of Mischief. I think you should think twice before do it." Loke told Ren. He was smiling.
Ren just smiled faintly as his response. "But I already succeed though."
He then raised one of his hand and showed Loke an artifact on his palm. It looks like kind of box or case that made by stainless steel. Loke was surprised when he saw the thing on Ren's palm.
Ren was actually aiming for that artifact instead of Monkey King's golden staff. He knew that od he went directly for the artifact, Loke could stopped him. That's why he pretended to aim the golden staff. He already planned how to trick Loke so that the latter could shoved Ren towards the location of the artifact. The artifact was hanging on the wall nearby where he was kicked into previously.
Ren had grabbed the artifact from its place just before the moment he was collided into the wall without Loke's knowledge. Ren then brought out 'Trinket of Pursuit' that was inside the pocket of his pants.
"This is Trinket of Pursuit. It doesn't have any function like Teleport Crystal you saw before. But this thing comes in a pair, and I can use this to teleport to the other one as long it was not too far. Guess who hold the other pair?"
Loke's expression turned sour when he realized that Elena must had the other. "That girl."
Ren smiled. "That's why I sent her out first."
As Ren said that, the gem that was embedded on the trinket glowing in red. Loke reacted by throwing the spear on his hand towards Ren, in hope it can disturb Ren from teleporting out of there. He knew if he ran to Ren, he could not catch Ren on time because of distance between them quite far. That's why he decided to just threw the spear.
However, his efforts was not fruitful. Ren had teleported from there just before the spear could hit him. After he saw Ren vanished from there, Loke screamed as loud as he could. He was so pissed as a mere human could ever tricked him completely.
*****
The view in front of him was completely changed. He was no longer inside a dungeon room with Loke, but rather on the outside of the dungeon. He could see the entrance of the Abandoned Dungeon from far. Near him, he could see Elena Elsgard with astonished face looking at him, probably shocked with his sudden appearance there. That's mean he had succeed escaping from the dungeon.
"Do you get what you want there?" asked Elena, now much calmer than before.
"Yeah."
"What is it?"
"I will show it to you later," answered Ren. "And, sorry for let you come home with empty hand. I should snatch one or two artifacts there."
"It's okay. I already got one." Elena showed the artifact she took before. It was the same artifact she took an interest before, the Ring of Thalia.
"Ring of Thalia?" Ren was surprised. He was not expected Elena had time to take Ring of Thalia from there.
"Great. This ring is really suitable with you."
"I know."
Ring of Thalia was one of the most valuable artifact inside the dungeon. It was a ring that previously owned by Thalia, the greatest water mage in the history. The ring could help the wearer boost their water magic, which the wearer needed less mana to activate water spell and the power of the spell would be stronger than normal. So, this ring was something that Elena needed for her to train her water magic.
As the sun was slowly moving towards the horizon and the sky became more darker, Ren got up from his seat and ready to go back home. "Looks like the sky getting darker. Let's go home before the night comes."
Elena looked at the dark sky. Then she looked at Ren and nodded, agreeing with Ren's suggestion to go home. They walked back to the city together as they needed to use the travel portal to go back to Hortas City.