Nick thought:
(Good for you.)
Nick only wanted the swords that he was promised as well as a little combat experience, after all, he only ever fought goblins in a simulation at the academy and he now wondered how real goblins would measure up. Nick focused on the entrance and tried to sense if any magic energy was coming out of it but after two minutes, he sensed nothing.
(It seems that the only way to know what's going on down there is to enter myself.)
Nick sighed and said to Clarissa:
"Let's go back to the camp, this hole is creepy."
Clarissa replied:
"Yeah, that's true."
Clarissa led Nick back to the camp at which point Nick once again met Mike, Nate and the rest at the wooden round table and said with practised indifference:
"I want the swords before the raid begins. Who knows how nasty things will get down there and if you all get killed, I don't want to waste time having to look for you."
Mike frowned at Nick's attitude but thought for a moment:
(He is unlikely to go against his word because we will all have to eventually return to the same town, not to mention that he would have to face the constant pursuit of all of us if he did. Fine, I'll give him the swords before hand to show him our sincerity as well as a subtle apology for attacking him earlier.)
Nick was not surprised at Mike's sudden pause to think of a reply as wisdom path Magicians were said to be most adept at scheming.
(He's still to green, though. I can already tell that he is scheming against me.)
Mike replied with a snap of his fingers and a few words:
"Erica, give him the three swords."
The blonde young woman with long, curly hair sitting at the table spoke with a mischievous grin:
"Right, no problem."
Erica tapped the space band on her right wrist and three sheathed swords appeared on the table. Their designs looked much fancier than the sword that Varrow gave Nick but Nick knew that did not necessarily mean that they were better.
Nick unsheathed each sword one by one and examined them closely.
(I don't know much about weapons so its hard to tell what kind of materials these swords are made from.)
Nick looked at Mike and asked:
(What are the specifications of these sword?)
Mike said indifferently:
"Don't worry, they are the real deal. A man from the Tate family never goes back on his words. The sword with the silver sheath is called Blind Crest and its blade is made from basic apprentice grade alloys, the sword with the blue sheath is called Sky Piercer and is made from the steel like bones of a flying giant magic beast and the final sword with the yellow sheath is called Wicked Thorn and its blade was made from the spine of a rank 2 metal path magic beast. They are all basic apprentice grade swords."
Nick thought for a moment:
(All the swords have names? That's so cliche. I guessed I should have expected all of them to be basic apprentice grade. I'll test them out later, I don't think that these guys will let me out of their sight now that I've accepted these rewards.)
Nick rubbed each of the swords a bit then stored them in his space band and then asked Mike:
"Why do you have these swords with you, do you use them in combat?"
Nate who was sitting at the table grinned because he knew the answer.
(Mike is a wisdom path Magician in training and hardly has much combat ability but he likes to carry around swords to make himself seem tough.)
Mike slapped the round table and replied with obvious pride:
"Because they accentuate my greatness."
Nick looked at Mike for a moment with a blank stare, then responded:
"...Okay."
Erica and the rest seemed like they were trying their best to hold back their laughter. Slade told Nick:
[He probably doesn't use them in combat since, generally, sword path and wisdom path greatly conflict with each other.]
Nick already thought that was the case and said:
"Well, I'll just mind my own business until the raid starts. Come get me then."
Nick tapped his space band and his steel container safe-house appeared within the camp. Nick went inside and locked the door behind him. Many of the students gasped at Nick's clear affluence.
Erica's grin seemed to sombre a little bit; she spoke openly:
"That's a Genex safe-house from The Maximillian company and it's their newest model. It looks like we have a rich loner in our midst."
Everyone at the table including Mike and Nate nodded. They could tell that Nick was a loner because despite having a high end space band, he did not have any companions with him. Their group had twenty plus members and they had to pool all of their allowances to purchase an inferior space band compared to Nick's and now after seeing this safe-house that cost a large sum of money, even in their eyes, their opinion of Nick solidified to that of a rich loner.
Nate asked hurriedly:
"Shouldn't we include him in our discussions about the raid tonight."
Mike shook his head slowly, saying:
"If he wanted to be part of our discussions, he would not have brought out that safe-house and entered it. We don't need to discuss anything more with him anyway, his job is just to kill all the goblins that he sees."
Everyone at the table agreed but the other students around the campfire were a little pissed at the newcomer for not taking the time to get familiar with them. Erica saw this and took the initiative to walk up to Nick's safe-house and ring the door bell. After a few moments, the steel door slid open and Nick appeared, asking:
"What?"
Erica smiled and said:
"We are about to do some spars to prepare for the raid, mind if you and I exchange a few moves?"
Everyone looked at the interaction, waiting for Nick's response which made Nick feel uncomfortable.
(What? Do they want to see a show of my strength. It looks like my confrontation with Mike wasn't enough to impress them.)
Nick sighed and replied:
"Fine, lead the way."
After Nick stored his safe-house within his space band, Erica led Nick to an area that was a few meters outside of camp; the other students all followed them to see the show since Erica was the third strongest member of their group. The other students wanted to see her humble the arrogant Nick a bit.
Nick stood six meters away from and in front of Erica; he summoned his trusty morning wyvern bone sword and waited for Erica to begin the match. A few seconds later, she shouted:
"Ready!"
Erica clasped her hands and a torrent of magic energy was exuded by her.
(Glacial Surface)
Beginning at Erica's feet, a layer of ice spread out on the ground towards Nick at a speed that he could not keep up with; the ice spread towards him in a wide area which made it difficult for him to even dodge by using Blink because the ice would probably cross a few meters within moments. Without much surprise, the layer of ice spread to Nick's feet and kept him in place.
Nick felt a bone chilling cold penetrate his legs and retaliated by making a slashing motion with his sword towards Erica, exuding a fair amount of magic energy.
(Vision of the Blade.)
While Erica still had her hands clasped in concentration, she suddenly felt her head droop down and fall to the ground, the rest of her body still standing upright.
(What happened?)
The next moment, however, the scene changed back to that of her fierce offensive before she lost her head. Erica became confused.
(Was that an illusion?)
Nick didn't care what Erica was thinking since he just wanted to disrupt her concentration for a bit and he was successful since the ice layer on the ground mostly cracked apart the moment that Erica was affected by his blade and wisdom path method. Nick stretched out his left hand towards Erica and cast:
(Soul Attraction.)
Erica's feet slightly left the ground, separated from the partly shattered ice that had also kept her in place and her body was pulled at running speed towards Nick who was waiting to strike again. Erica shouted:
"Not so fast, hun!"
Erica pointed her right index finger at Nick and cast:
(Ice Spears.)
Two meter long poles of ice were suddenly generated by Erica and the sharply pointed ends were directed at and flung towards Nick using magic energy. Nick sneered and retaliated by casting Reinforce With Soul on his sword and swung it in the direction of the approaching spears.
(Cleave.)
The ice spears were simultaneously cut in half from their tips to the opposite end and shattered. By the time that happened, Erica was already only a meter away from Nick and coming in fast. Assuming that she would be crashing into Nick very soon, she cast one of her strongest spells:
(Myself As A Blizzard.)
A torrent of ice and snow suddenly generated around Erica and swirled at an incredible speed, creating a small blizzard within the area and its epicenter was about to collide with Nick, probably freezing him solid. Nick felt the cold air approaching him and sighed.
(This was only supposed to be a spar but she is using such a method, most of my strongest attacks are geared towards inflicting heavy damage and I do not want to injure her in consideration of tonight but I can't be lax in the face of this attack.)
Nick cancelled Soul Attraction and the small blizzard fell to the ground only a few feet away from him but the cold wind and ice was still moving towards him. Nick's black-red eyes became a complete pitch black as he activated his spells one after the other:
(Half A Kilometer.)
(Spirit Quake.)
(Soul Pulse.)
The movement of the spreading cold wind and ice seemed to have slowed to a crawl because under the effect of Half A Kilometer, it had to now cross five hundred meters of distorted space to reach Nick. Erica who had transformed herself into a miniature mass of ice, snow and wind felt her soul shake as a result of Spirit Quake which greatly decreased her concentration.
(Lucky for me that Myself As A Blizzard is a transformation path and ice path spell so it requires minimal concentration to maintain. Hmph, you're counter failed!)
That's what she thought until she was hit with the full brunt of Soul Pulse at which point her concentration was completely shattered and her spell broke apart. Since she was only a few feet away from Nick, the explosive force of Soul Pulse sent her flying like a rag doll and the damage to her soul from Nick's attack as well as the backlash from the forced cancellation of her spell caused her to spit out several mouthfuls of blood. There was a trail of red blotches along the path that Erica flew over as she fell to the ground harshly almost two meters away from Nick.
Erica lied on the ground, her face covered in the blood that oozed out from her eyes, mouth and ears; it was a pathetic sight to say the least. Nate opened his eyes wide as he witnessed the seen, not believing that Erica was beaten so badly; the other students looked on with just as much astonishment and a little pity for Erica. Mike hurriedly ran towards Erica and stooped down to feed her a bright red liquid from a flask sized glass bottle. Nick thought:
(Oh, they have healing potions on hand, that's good.)
After drinking the entire bottle of red liquid, Erica still grimaced from the massive headache that she was experiencing but the potion had mostly healed her physical injuries. Mike looked up at Nick and said with a tone that was a little more respectful than before:
"That's enough, you won."
Nick shrugged his shoulders and returned his sword to his space band; he then proceeded to walk back to the camp with an indifferent expression, leaving behind a few words:
"Notify me when it is time for the raid."
********************************
Nick sat at a desk in his safe-house that he had summoned once again when he got back to the camp. After having a meal of butter bread and sausages, he began reading his electronic copy of a book on common magic beasts, paying special attention the the section on goblins. After spending an hour and a half reading about them, Nick turned off his laptop and said:
"This raid will probably be a little tough..."
Nick sighed and began studying his inheritances until it became night time and his door bell rang. Nick opened the door and came face to face with Clarissa who spoke with nervousness in her tone:
"It's time to go out to raid that goblin den."
Nick nodded, left the safe-house and stored it within his space band and then followed Clarissa to group up with the others who had already stored their tents and other items within the communal space band that Erica wore. Nick walked among the group, soon coming face to face with Nate, Mike, Erica and a young man that Nick had not seen before; the young man had a mixture of gray and black short hair on his head and had a white complexion.
He looked at Nick with a gleam in his eyes and asked Erica.
"My sweet, is he the one that tuned you up so badly?"
Erica avoided looking into Nick's eyes and replied:
"Yes, Saul."
The young man who was apparently named Saul walked up to Nick at which point Nick became tense, feeling a strange magic power coming from the young man but surprisingly, the young man did not try to get into a conflict with Nick and simply patted him on the left shoulder:
"I hope we can kill many goblins tonight, my brother in arms."
Nick brushed Saul's hand off of his shoulder and responded:
"Sure, I hope so too."
Everyone else except Erica breathed out a sigh of relief after seeing the calm interaction between Nick and Saul. All of them knew that Saul was very popular among the second year women within their academy and Erica was one of his favorites so they half expected a brawl because Nick had caused Erica so much pain but it turns out that Saul was more reasonable that they had previously thought.
Saul turned away from Nick and started leading the group towards the underground passage; Nate walked beside Nick and tried to get him to relax:
"Don't worry about earlier, it was only a spar and Erica asked for it. We're all good."
Nick replied with disinterest:
"Sure..."
Slade remarked with a grim tone:
[You felt it when that boy touched you, right?]
Nick didn't have to guess at what Slade was referring to and replied:
(Oh, you mean the disguised malice, like prostate exam.)
[Then I don't have to remind you what to do if things get funny, do I?]
Nick smiled lightly.
(Send them to their graves laughing.)
******************************
Shelter Town, inn number 4...
A table in the small dining area was over thrown by a burly man with a Raylam Priest Academy insignia pinned to his chest. One of the students sitting at the table frowned and asked in anger:
"Who the hell are you? Why did you suddenly flip over our table?"
The burly man replied with blood shot eyes:
"I am Clide Wilson of Raylam Priest Academy and I want to know where your associate Nick Capitol is!"
The people at the table frowned even deeper when they heard that; one of them stood up and responded:
"Nick Capitol, are you stupid? He is not our associate. Do you think that because we go the the same academy that we must know him or his whereabouts?"
Clide knew that they were correct in what they were saying but he was so angry that he did not care.
(That bastard humiliated me in front of the group, even more so, in front of Lissan. I won't stop until I teach him a lesson.)
As Clide was about to make more trouble for the other students, a woman sitting at a distant table with a man asked Clide sweetly:
"Hey babes, I know Nick Capitol and you could even say that we are best friends but he's been real mean to me lately. What's your gripe with him?"
The man next to the woman frowned and said to the woman:
"Marsha, don't get us stupidly involved in some conflict because you have an old grudge."
Marsha frowned at hearing that and gave a sharp look at her companion before responding:
"It's not an 'old' grudge Greg and if nothing else, that Nick still owes me an explanation."
Greg sighed, he had no problems with Nick and suspected that the man was formidable since he tended to attract attention wherever he went but Marsha has been obsessed with getting revenge on Nick for quite some time and he has found himself being dragged into it since he and Marsha had already made a pact to help each other during exams no matter what.
(It also doesn't help that I've been fucking her recently.)
Greg shook his head and smiled bitterly. Marsha focused on Clide once again and spoke sweetly:
"Now babes, just tell me all that you know about my bestie, Nick Capitol."
*****************************
Nick frowned as he and the rest of the group of students had almost reached the underground passage. As they got closer to their destination, Nick's frown became deeper. He turned to Nate who was walking beside him and asked:
"How long have you people been in this area?"
Nate didn't know why Nick wanted to know the answer but he replied anyway:
"We actually rushed to this area this morning to flee from a pack of hyena like magic beasts. We were a little surprised that they did not follow us here but we assumed that they did not like to leave their territory."
Nick asked another question:
"How many magic beasts did you encounter while being in this area since this morning?"
Nate thought for a while, then said:
"About a dozen, why?"
Nick's frown persisted and he replied:
"Don't you find the lack of magic beasts roaming around a little strange? In addition, goblins are said to have human like tendencies, meaning that they hunt in the day time and rest at night, which is why you guys waited to raid tonight, right?"
Nate looked confused and asked:
"What are you getting at, Nick?"
Nick squinted his eyes and asked:
"Why haven't the goblins come above ground to hunt and where are the other magic beasts? This is the second time I have walked on this route today and I see no signs or traces that anything else but us are currently inhabiting this area."
Nate shrugged and asked:
"Why ask questions that you nor I can answer, Nick?"
Nick sighed and shook his head, saying:
"Forget I brought it up."
Nate responded simply before going back to minding his own business:
"Okay."
Nick asked Slade:
(Are you also getting a bad feeling, uncle Slade?)
Slade replied:
[You might be on to something , kid, but I have too little information to make a deduction.]
Nick sighed again and became silent, continuing to move towards the underground passage. The group arrived at their destination ten minutes later. Saul spoke with authority at this time:
"You know the rules, the strongest people will take the lead during any battles and they will also get first pick of the rewards. Is anyone in disagreement?"
No one objected and Mike, Saul, Erica Nate and Nick were positioned closest to the front of the group as they descended the staircase to the underground passage. Nick thought:
(How comes Saul did not say anything about rescuing the captured students and only talked about rewards?)
Slade guessed:
[The students can't be permanently killed, right? So he must consider the retrieval of the peppermint crystals a bigger priority]
(Hmmm...I guess.)
This is why Nick was never interested in groups; the leaders often saw the group members as tools and cared little about their well being no matter what they said. The students that had been captured by the goblins had been missing for more than twelve hours and Saul only mentioned rewards when he came down here. Nick looked to his side and could see a frown on Clarissa's face.
(She must have noticed the indifference too. Sigh.)
When the group finally came to the end of the stone staircase, they were met with a flat, dry floor made of rough limestone. There was only one direction that they could move in, where the passage was wide enough to fit a group eight times the size of theirs but it was dark. Saul commanded:
"Erica, take out the LED lights from the space band, it doesn't matter if the goblins see us coming. That's better than us being caught unawares in the dark."
Erica tapped the communal space band that she was wearing and ten high powered, battery powered LED lamps were released from the space band. Five students were given the responsibility of carrying the lamps and lighting the way, two to a man. The group walked a couple dozen meters forward in silence with nothing suspicious happening.
One of the young men carrying a LED lamp suddenly alerted the group with a shout and everyone turned to him to see what was the matter. He scratched the back of his head and said.
"Uhhh, I actually just wanted someone to hold these lights while I go take a piss."
Saul frowned and asked someone else to take hold of the lights while that young man went to a section of the wall a few meters behind them and relieved himself.
The young man walked about two meters away from the group and unzipped his pants, beginning to urinate at the base of the wall. He lightly whistled and moved his head around while he carried on his business.
Suddenly, he kept his head straight as he noticed something strange about the wall in front of him, this section of the wall was dimly lit since the lights were mostly positioned towards the front of the group. The young man spoke uncertainly.
"Why is this section of the wall so wrinkled?"
As if responding to the young man's words, two glowing, blood shot green eyes suddenly opened in front of him. The young man was so shocked that he let go of his penis and some of the urine sprayed unto his shoes. Before the young man could even scream, a wrinkled, light brown complexioned figure emerged from the shadow cast on the wall and stabbed into his throat with a stone dagger.
The young man held his throat that was now bleeding profusely; some females within the group began to scream, at which point dozens of shadows cast on the walls began to squirm, child sized, brown goblins emerging from them. The goblins had wrinkled skin and sharp, yellow teeth with almost no hair on their heads. The unfortunate young man soon went limp and fell to the ground, becoming specs of light and disappearing.
By the time that happened, Nick's group was already surrounded by goblins who were smiling fiendishly at them. Nick summoned his morning wyvern bone sword and readied himself, remembering what Slade had previously said to him: 'If you can kill one, kill one, if you can kill two, kill two.'
Nick shouted from among the group:
"Kill them all!"