"Lets play "
as the thugs they were already on guards but seeing ruth's confidence and as soon as ruth said this the thugs started to have doubts about their target ,
Not only was this guy not scared of three people attacking him in the dark but he is smiling and talking as if its a game for him.
The most scared was the guy named josh , he was the weakest and the youngest of the three and the other two just had some doubts but not to the point of being scared .
Their boss , anthony just thought of it as a bluff and with his eyes gestured the other two to attack their prey ,
Josh and jeral instantly held their swords in proper manner and lunged towards ruth.
Josh was on the left and he targeted ruth's legs while jeral was on the right and he targeted the torso.
The two were decently fast and were almost invisible to aria who was standing at the very edge of the alley .
She wasn't forced in here like ruth and while she followed behind her master , she was pretty useless in a fight and hence was standing away from the battle and even with her measly strength she would have still tried somethings but her master had said not to interfere and hence she was just following master's commands.
She was sure her master would win by his confidence but she still had some lingering doubt in her mind but all of that was cleared soon enough.
The two thugs lunged towards ruth and ruth's smile increased even more but he didn't move from his spot or even move his sword but ,
*clank*
Ruth didn't move but the thugs' swords didn't reach him , the two thugs' swords were stopped midair by a floating piece of stone .
The stone wasn't there before but was now here out of thin air , the thugs were surprised when they saw this , they were sure it was a skill or most probably a item given to him by someone but how could it be so powerful to stop two attacks.
Though these guys were almost there , they didn't understand it fully . The stone slabs were not a skill but a attribute but the natives who didn't have a attribute didn't knew something like that even existed because remember how the natives can only feel the faint connection to their powers and not access the system like a keeper .
But that wasn't all amongst all this there was one thing everyone missed and it was how the slabs were floating in air . Even with the power to create stone it couldn't float and for that air control was used .
And air mana was also responsible for the complete stopping of the attack , even if the slabs were made to be floating , with their attack would have at the very least moved from their place with the inertia but that was cancelled with air mana.
Though the world was magical , it wasn't as if physics didn't existed and just disappeared , it was always there its just not mentioned every single time .
Only a few moments have passed after the attack from the two thugs , after the recoil they got from hitting the hard floating stone , they moved back only to strike back again.
This time both the thugs targeted ruth's torso , they swinged their swords with power and speed but the already floating slabs moved form their positions and intercepted the swords 'strike.
The slabs were made to intercept the swords before the strike was complete simply because an incomplete strike will carry less power and hence less mana was needed to counter it .
The thugs' faces changed , if before they only had hints of doubt , now they had fear written all over their face.
The child in front of them not only stopped the hidden strike from jeral in the start but also two strikes from the two simultaneously .
After a bit of shuddering they forced their foot on the ground for the powerful grip and again with even more power , their full power lunged forward for the attack.
Just like the last time they targeted ruth's torso , their swords swings this time from before to atleast get to decent power if ruth somehow managed to intercept their strikes this time too.
Though he would have done that he didn't because he was just enjoying his time here , after a very tiring day of window shopping he was having battle with some thugs and he was completely overwhelming them . It was like a isekai dream come true.
The two swords charged forward targeting the torso but at different angles and position from the last time , the stone slabs moved and managed to stop the attack .
The attack though , was too strong unlike the attacks from before and with that much power the stone slab couldn't last and cracked majorly but still managed to stay intact .
The thugs' hands shivered from the recoil of the attack being stopped ,
Ruth who was standing in front of them if he wanted to could kill the guys that completely forgot that even though he is using magic to fight doesn't mean he can't use sword ..
suddenly something else happened which even the two thugs weren't aware off , suddenly from the shadows to the back of ruth anthony somehow appeared ,
he had his sword in his hand and the sword was already in a swing , he was ready for the surprise attack .
the two thugs also noticed their boss' attack but didn't say anything or more like everything was happening so fast they had no time to even react , and to the side of the battle there was aria who was also watching the battle from the sidelines and when she saw a shadow suddenly appear swinging a sword to hit ruth , she also tried to inform her master but she just like the two thugs was a bit too slow and before she could even open her mouth to say something ,
*clangggg*
sword struck sword , the high pitched sound spread across the whole alley and beyond ,
the sound came from ruth using his sword to stop anthony's attack , though he didn't do anything to anthony when he was fighting the other two thugs didn't mean he forgot about him ,
from the very start ruth had focused on the three and knew everything they did and that wasn't all he was also using his senses to check if there was some other hand behind these thugs with some ulterior motive but there was nothing like that.
ruth knew anthony's position and even the exact time he went into hiding and how he moved in the shadow almost making him invisible but those cheap tricks didn't work on ruth and he just laughed ,
"Hahahaha" ruth laughed crazily but not towards the two thugs but the last thug , their captain anthony whose attack ruth stopped with his sword.
"Tch." Anthony tch-ed ruth after his surprise , well the not so surprise attack from behind failed ,
Ruth obviously knew his attack as he never forgot any of the three and always had focused on them simultaneously .
And the boss was the reason ruth even moved his sword , not because he couldn't stop anthony's attack with magic but because he made himself look like he forgot about him and was only trying to kill the two thugs and it worked.
Now ruth was standing across the three , the two were scared shitless as even with their full power they couldn't even got close to ruth and anthony was also worried , but he was currently looking at his surroundings.
To ruth it was very clear what anthony's objective was , he wanted to run away and he will most probably use his goons to distract him.
And ruth was right , commanding the two goons to attack from different sides he stealthily tried to move through the shadows and run away but alas he wasn't so lucky,
Ruth felt it was enough fun he had and instantly made spikes of stone and with air mana increased their rotation and also with air mana launched them towards the thugs.
"Aghh" "agghh" "AAAAGHHHHHhhhhh"
Came three screams from the three goons , the two thugs were only hit in the thigh to hurt them and make them unable to move but their boss however was hit with not 1 but 4 spikes ,
Two spikes to his thighs and two to the foot , blood spilled all over the alley but ruth was safe , his clothes were clear without any stain of blood.
"Hahahaha" ruth laughed like a little maniac and ignoring the two goons he walked towards their boss who was on the floor struggling with spikes in his legs.
With the amount of blood gushing out from his injuries , if not healed will probably kill him in a few minutes .
Ruth got near anthony's head and squatted down and holding his hair pulled his head up and said ,
"Now now mister no need to be so wary , dont worry you won't die but tell me who is your leader"
Anthony didn't speak anything and kept struggling and jerking his body trying to get free from ruth's hold but in his current state he wasn't even able to pose any challenge to ruth let alone get free .
Ruth looked at anthony and just shook his head in disappointment but stopped looking there and turned his head towards his maid aria that was standing on the very end of alley just on the road.
"Where do we dispose dead bodies around here?" ruth spoke with a straight face as if talking about murder and disposing bodies was a very normal thing to do.
"…" aria was just a little shocked from her master's words but she thought for a while and said,
"I do not know master , I only knew about the crematorium but I don't think they accept murdered bodies"
"Hmm.."
"See How much hassle it is to kill you , so do yourself and me a favor and speak who is behind you or I have my own methods to know the answer" ruth spoke this time in a annoyed voice.
But even then anthony didn't spoke anything and just kept growling in pain ,
"Fuck , aria get me some cloth to cover his mouth " ruth spoke again without looking at aria but looking at the guy in his hands .
Aria heard her master but where was she supposed to get cloth from , she looked around and the only clothes she found were the thugs' , so got near the two unconscious thugs and tore one guys red shirt and walking a little she got near ruth ,
Ruth didn't take the cloth and said , "when I signal tie the cloth to his mouth"
Saying that ruth pulled out a vial of his blood from his inventory and with his other hand forced anthony's mouth and dropped a few drops of blood .
[1 new target under mind control]
[mind control : 1%…..14%...25%…..41% ]
"Now" ruth said and hearing him aria got near the thug boss and tied the cloth to his mouth .
Anthony was struggling and doing his everything to not let the two do their things but he was far too vulnerable right now .
"I don't really feel anything but just to tell you , you brought it on yourself" ruth said and saying that he pulled a few iron knifes from his inventory.
Aria had heard of her master's methods from goblins before but she hasn't seen them in person ever so it was her first time but even she could tell it wasn't going to be good for the guy.
Ruth saw aria's face and the way she was behaving a little scared ,
"I would have made you leave normally , but since you are now my maid you should know everything I do and be able to do them yourself on my orders" ruth spoke looking directly into aria's eyes.
Aria slightly nodded but she was still a little scared for what was coming for her to see and she wasn't wrong ,
Ruth in the very next moment picked up a knife and stabbed it into side of anthony's waist .
"Aaggghhhh"
"Oops , forgot to heal you can't have you dying" ruth spoke with a very silly face .
[heal][heal]
The knife and the spikes were forced out of his body due to heal and they dropped on the floor under him .
'I haven't used it for a long time now but it should work perfectly now' ruth thought and used ,
[mind read]
[anthony : hold it in , hold it in , hold it in , I can't tell him about the red skulls or the boss will definitely kill me and my juniors , hold it agggghhhh]
"Haha , whats your connection to red skull ?" ruth spoke
Anthony was now scared and worried beyond belief , 'how does he know about red skull I haven't said anything to him and josh and jeral don't know anything about them, then how can he'
"How can I ? Well lets just say I am strong"
[mind control : 51%…..78%]
'What the fuck , me just telling him that line did more than chopping his insides huh , well thats even better' ruth thought
"Tell me everything you know or beginning with josh and then jeral they are going to die and very painfully so" ruth spoke and slowly walked towards the unconscious thugs ,
"Aypp , biww wtll bont fo aniyht" heard ruth and he turned his head to see it was anthony who trying to speak ,
"Oops , forgot to remove the mouth binding , aria remove it"
"…"
Nothing happend , a little confused ruth turned his head again this time towards where aria was standing and saw that aria was standing straight and thinking …
She wasn't scared or weirded out from the blood but she was just thinking about something ,
"Aria !" ruth spoke again this time a little louder and she was instantly brought back to her senses,
"What were you thinking about ?"
"If master uses these type of torture methods then I thought that using a solution that burns and dissolves will be the better option" she said
"Now that you say acid will definitely be a good thing"
"A-acid ?"
"Nevermind , so what do you mean to say ?"
"I could try to create something similar to that after my lab is finished"
"Haha I knew it was a good choice making you a maid"