Aiden stood there, shoulders square and waiting in stance.
Rometo, as much as he did not like to admit it, enjoyed watching the boy work. Currently, he held his sword in a reverse grip, the gentle steam of mana rising from him from whatever buff he had placed upon himself. That was another interesting thing about the young lord’s class. It granted him what could arguably be called a slew of infinite buffs. They timed out, yes, but they were there, a buff always ready for when he needed it.
Is it just skill or is there knowledge in there? he wondered as another [Runner] slipped through the crevice as if he’d been oiled up and completely immune to the clutches of friction.
Aiden moved the moment the woman went through the cracks. He stepped to the side, no hesitation in his stance, slipped out of her stabbing motion and the spear that increased her range, and struck her in the back of the head with an open fist.
Rometo commended the move in his mind. It was a blow of precision. It was also Fjord’s turn.
“Fjord,” he ordered and the boy darted out with the alacrity of a soldier. He’d slit the woman’s throat in the space of a breath, treating her like an animal.
He lifted her head by her rough ponytail, pressed the blade of his dagger against her neck and dragged it along with the efficiency of a man accustomed to killing animals. The only problem was the mild hesitation at realizing she was a woman.
It was an interesting thing to watch. Aiden Lacheart knew so much about the Order and seemed to believe that it was not fitting for the rest of his team. In fact, he probably believed that it was the worst place for any of them.
But he could not even see what he was already doing to them.
Beside Rometo, Zen was clearly doing his best not to throw up all over the ground. He was sick to his stomach but holding himself together for one reason or the other.
He’ll make monsters of them, Rometo thought with certainty. Then again, the [Demon King] title was one that was only set aside for the truly lacking in emotions. From the stories his father had told him as a child of their history, the [Demon King] while not evil, was not necessarily good.
The [Demon King] was in a way the truest of rebels. Enemy to the gods they were the type of being that could only be birthed on Nastild and grown there.
Aiden’s ear flicked slightly. It was an involuntary move, an action that told Rometo that he had heard something he had been listening for.
The next [Runner] slipped through. Aiden moved, then two more slipped in with an urgency that said they were currently trying new tactics under the same strategy.
Aiden slipped the first attack, driving his knee into the gut of the young boy. He turned then, grabbing the boy by the arm that held his dagger for a weapon and disarmed him. The weapon went flying from his hand in the same smooth motion.
Rometo watched it as Aiden turned, sending the boy staggering into them at the back.
“Zen,” he commanded while the thrown dagger was deflected by one of the new [Runner]s, forcing the man to stagger to the side, ultimately ending his burst of speed.
Zen ran straight into the staggering boy, driving his blade into his chest. At the same time, Aiden drove his shoulder into the third [Runner]. The sound of bodies meeting was quite. What echoed through the space instead was the sound of bones breaking as Aiden’s shoulder connected with the rib of the third man.
Has to be a critical blow, Rometo thought.
Then Aiden stepped past the man, sweeping him off his feet with a vicious kick to his legs. The man hit the ground so hard his head bounced of the surface.
Aiden had the last man’s head slamming into the wall before the man could even think to do anything else.
The efficiency was beautiful. Had Rometo seen better? Yes. By miles even. But Aiden was good for his age, too good. The kingdom of Bandiv had made a monster of the boy in the skills that they had taught him. However, in his mindset, Rometo could only accredit any accolades to the boy’s home world.
“Fjord,” he instructed, Fjord darting out. “Zen.”
In mere moments, all three who had entered had become corpses. The new problem now was that every corpse Aiden helped to create was one more body added to the room.
Aiden had returned to standing in place, sword still held in a reverse grip. The hand holding the weapon hung carefully by his side so that the length of the blade was hidden by his entire arm. It was not the sword that the master of the Order had given him. Rometo assumed it meant he did not consider his enemies worth the time. He’d also seen the hesitation when he’d placed his hand against the blade of his sword.
“I think I may have figured out their strategy,” Rometo said. And if he was right, then it meant that whoever was leading this specific mission was to a certain degree a degenerate of a sadist.
“They are no longer testing us?” Valdan asked.
Rometo’s gaze swept over to the knight for only a moment. He wondered what Aiden had in store for him.
“Not anymore,” he answered. “In fact, I do not think they even care at this point.”
“They do not,” Aiden said, his relaxed back still turned to them, his attention still on the entrance. “They wish to smother us.”
Rometo smiled a little. The boy would make a good [Demon King]. Not morally speaking of course. “If they pile in enough bodies, we won’t be able to stay in here for too long. And even if we wish to, something tells me that whoever is ordering this, has a plan for when this hole is full of bodies.”
“That is very worrying,” Ted said, not sounding worried at all. Rometo still couldn’t get a read on the brother. There was something about him that he masked with his jovial nature.
“Then I say we make a break for it,” Telma snarled, ever the rabid one. Then again, she had been timid for a while. “I think we can take them.”
Melvet snorted in amusement. “Have you ever fought during a mountain climb before, child?”
Telma hesitated.
Aiden rounded his shoulders, loosening them as he waited for the next person to come through the entrance.
While he waited, Rometo strategized, not for the team, but for the Order. It would take far more kills than this for Zen to finally learn to kill without remorse. The problem, however, was that this method of killing would not make Zen learn to kill without remorse. It would simply make him empty, a shell of a man. The Order did not need shells.
As for Fjord, his problem was in killing the fairer sex. He hesitated when he was faced with an unarmed woman to put down. It was natural, it was human. Boys grew up in puberty realizing that women were weaker and somehow gentler. It was always in the nature of the strong to protect the perceived weak. Things became wrong when the nature flipped and the strong simply wanted to prey upon the weak.
It will take a while to rub it out of him.
Aiden Lacheart, however, had no such flaw. Male or female, he would kill them without batting an eye. That was the kind of ruthlessness that was needed.
However…
Someone else came through. This time, when Aiden clashed with them, he did not dispatch of them immediately. There was an exchange of blows. Three strikes to be precise before Aiden won with a kick to the man’s groin.
Rometo saw at least three members of the group wince when it happened.
“Fjord,” he said calmly as Aiden cracked the man’s jaw with a backhanded blow, stunning him and giving way for him to fall.
Aiden’s movements were not so flawless. Not the way he was right now. Rometo had suspected for a while now, but it looked like he had too many stat points just hanging around unused.
Is it arrogance?
He doubted it. Aiden was a confident person, that much was true, confident and precise. He did not seem like the person to fall away into his own hubris. At least none of the hubris he had shown so far.
There was a reason it was not advisable to keep stat points pending without using them. It was like storing fat. Or walking around with a pot belly. It was like a [Mage] with a new mage staff. The body fell under the weight of mana. It made movements not so fast and precise. There was a lag between the brain’s command and the actual action. Normally, it was at a rate so minute that it was near imperceptible. But when a person was at levels much like Aiden’s even the slightest millisecond counted in a fight.
If he was faster would he have escaped what happened? Rometo wondered.
Nobody had said anything but he knew as well as Aiden that everyone was wondering what had happened to him when he disappeared and how he had returned. But, true to form, nobody said anything for one of three reasons. They either believed that he would talk about it when he was ready, didn’t know how to bring up the subject or simply thought they would be told if it concerned them.
For every unallocated stat point that Aiden was not using, there was a delay in his action. The question was if he knew. Rometo craned his attention a little, spreading its reach the moment he sensed a new person joining their assailants outside.
“They’ve stopped moving,” he said.
“Yes,” Aiden agreed. “Someone’s joined them. A message from whoever is spearheading the kamikaze mission, perhaps?”
Rometo had no idea what the word kamikaze meant. He figured given the context it meant a mission that was considerably stupid. He did not allow his lack of knowledge to bother him. It was what was to be expected when dealing with someone from another world.
“Do you think you can hear them?” Aiden asked.
Rometo shook his head. “Too far out, too many rocks between us.”
“I see.” Aiden remained standing in place. “Then we wait.”
“While I do enjoy the concept of standing around,” Melvet said, “would it not be a better idea to have a counter plan of our own?”
“I’m with the broad on this one,” Telma said.
Feira shot her a scathing glance for the disrespectful method of addressing her and it quite frankly did nothing.
“We are already working on a plan,” Aiden said. “Isn’t that right, Ted?”
“I got something, but I’m not there yet,” Ted said. “I’ll need you to buy me some more time.”
Rometo had at no point feared for his life so he had not worked on a counter plan, being more than happy to watch how everything played out.
To hear that Ted was already working on a plan and only Aiden was aware of it without any form of noticeable communication between the two was quite interesting.
Something slipped into Rometo’s range of awareness and he knew the moment Aiden sensed it. his shoulders stiffened slightly, growing more alert and less relaxed for the briefest moment.
“Teddy.” For all the gentleness in his voice, Aiden’s frown clearly creeped into it. “How much time do you need?”
“Four minutes?”
“You think he’s a [Runner]?” Rometo asked, sensing the new addition to the team.
“I significantly doubt it,” Aiden answered, his shoulders relaxing once more. “They wouldn’t waste someone like that if he was a [Runner].”
Rometo was in agreement. The thing about having a heightened perception was that it was easy, if your perception was heightened enough, to tell just how powerful the things in your perception were. Rometo could tell that the new addition beyond the crevice, slowly and carefully climbing his way down to join the assault was strong. The man was not as strong as him, but he was probably as strong as Aiden.
“Think you can take him?” Rometo asked.
Aiden shrugged. “There are too many of us for him to survive. He probably knows that, too.”
“And yet, he’s coming.”
“Someone check the bodies,” Aiden said to everyone and no one. “I need a confirmation that they have green pendants hanging from their necks.”
Fjord moved to the corpse nearest to him—the male corpse nearest to him—and dipped his hand into the man’s vest without hesitation. His eyes sharpened and he ripped something free.
“They have,” he declared holding the pendant up.
It was night so there was no sunlight to hold the pendant up to to see if it was one that held on to any life force.
Rometo hoped Aiden knew that there were possible side effects to leveling up the way he wanted to with the pendants. For example, a person could only use the pendants twice in their lifetime.
“Teddy,” Aiden said, his voice a little worried. “Please hurry up with that plan.”
Rometo’s brows furrowed. Why the sudden worry? What was… Oh.
Whoever the person coming was, they were no longer climbing. They were levitating all the way down to the entrance to the crevice.
Rometo took a step forward, understanding Aiden’s new fear. There were only a handful of classes that allowed a person to simply hover or, in this case, levitate.
“Almost there,” Ted called.
“Everyone,” Rometo said kindly, “please stand further back while Aiden and I have a conversation with our new guest.”
For the first time since the attacks began, Aiden looked back. His eyes met with Rometo’s as Rometo walked up to him.
“What?” Rometo asked. “You thought I was going to leave you to just figure this out when I just now found you?”
Aiden made a sound that looked like a half-laugh. “I thought you worried the master was orchestrating all of this.”
“Doesn’t really matter much if he is right now, now, does it?”
Aiden looked like he was thinking about it before shrugging. “I guess not.”
Their new assailant stood on nothing outside the crevice. The full moon cast him in its gentle blue light, giving him a visage. Rometo picked out a bad eye and a hard face.
“Looks like he’s got some experience on those levels,” Aiden deadpanned.
“Looks like,” Rometo agreed. “Want to know just how much?”
The man opened his mouth even while outside and spoke in a voice that carried within, a voice that Rometo heard as if the man spoke at his ear.
“My commander would like to have a word with you.”
He had a voice like gravel, the kind you added to a full and perfect choir if you utterly wanted to ruin the harmony.
“Tell him we’re not interested,” Aiden answered. “Ted?”
The man looked within without moving his head.
“A sound spell,” Rometo nodded. “You think that’s his specialty?”
Aiden shook his head. “I doubt it.”
“Is this the decision of the group?” the man asked in the same voice.
“Ted?” Aiden called.
“A minute,” Ted answered, completely unhurried. “I promise.”
Rometo sighed and his interface popped up in front of him.
[You have used skill Detect]
He frowned at the result in front of him. “Would you like to know what you are about to force me to deal with, Lord Lacheart?”
“I already know,” Aiden answered. “Who do you think he’s frowning so deeply.”
Rometo almost laughed at how calm the young lord was in the face of their current problem. He returned his attention to the man in front of him and looked at the information above his head.
[Mage Lvl 204]