NOVEL NEXT Chapter 201: Cornered.
We walked down the alley into a darker part of town, which helped my eyes, but not the ominous feeling that bled from the walls. The alleys twisted and turned as the buildings only seemed to grow taller, and the shadows deeper. As it turned out his wife actually was sick and my suspicions seemed to be completely unfounded. ‘Maybe I watched too many movies in my past life.’
I gave her the food and sent some manna into her body to try and see if I couldn’t speed up her immune system the same way I would speed up the normal healing process. I held myself back to not make it obvious what I was doing, but it seemed to work well enough to stabilize her at least.
“I can’t thank you enough.” He said as her breath seemed to slow.
“No, it’s fine.” Out of curiosity, I checked his stats, still trying to get used to the fact that I could just do that now without nearly as much focus as before. To my surprise, he was on the same level as that of the five knights. “How did you end up in this position to begin with?”
He sighed. “We’re runaway slaves from the South. No one would trust a foreigner to join their work, with how valuable knowledge of their trade is, so we haven’t been able to afford food.”
‘A runaway slave is basically a refugee, which could be a boon to the economy if we handle it properly, leading to more people migrating towards this area and more growth… Interesting.’
Just like all my other senses had been rapidly expanding, this time it was my mind, catching fire as my thoughts sprinted through my brain, my head heating up until sweat began to coat my hair.
‘The main export we have here is the special wood we harvest from the bay, and all the products made with it, most notably our naval ships, which are the strongest in the world as far as we know. It would make sense that the secret to working with that wood would be well-kept.’
“Is there a food shortage? Or is it just the refugees having trouble, due to lack of work.”
He told me there was indeed a food shortage. Apparently, they had been here for a while… The taxes were raised in the area, so to make up for it the workers needed to produce more and produce more profitable goods, the ones that couldn’t had to cut costs creating even fewer jobs. Fishing was dangerous due to monsters and not worth the risk when harvesting trees from the lake paid much more. The farmers would pay their tax in grain, and keep what they had left for themselves, and so in the end they didn’t feel like they could afford to hire help and everyone was struggling. Of course, this was all just hearsay… But Considering my father was the one in charge of it all… It was easier for me to believe things were going poorly rather than not.
‘I should find Air and help sort this out… It might not be a big problem yet, but stuff like this tends to cause revaults doesn’t it?’
Running two trains of thought at once I quickly turned to back to the man one last time. “Your wife should rest, so don’t move from this spot. I’ll need to find you again soon anyway.” ‘With a build like that, even without skill with weapons, he would make a good soldier, and I’m sure he’d love the work.’
As I started walking away my brain crashed and I nearly fell over. It was like the electrical pulses running through my neurons all ran out of juice. I managed to stay on my feet, but the extreme reactions coming from my body were starting to twist my stomach. ‘I hope this ends soon…’
I trudged down the alleys back toward the barracks but in a haze got turned around and ended up going in the wrong direction, by the time I realized it I was being cornered by thugs. “Hey boss, how much you think the knights would pay us for the lord's daughter.”
A giant of a man walked out from behind me. “Quite a bit I imagine. They would want to settle things before he found out after all.”
‘Ok, so I have to fight... The guards were easy enough, but how about these guys? If something goes wrong I should have a knight near–’ I couldn’t sense him anymore. ‘There's no way, are there more of them around here? Could they have jumped him already?’ all the haze surrounding me cleared in an instant as my eyes began to spasm, switching between tints of white and orange as if the dragon's eyes were fighting with the blessing from the Nog I received in the dungeon. As crazy as it felt I was still able to process, maybe even more clearly than normal, just who I was up against.
I leaned against the wall to support myself. ‘I should still be fine, they seem a bit scrawny, even if they’re tall. They aren’t very strong or fast. First, let's convince them to underestimate me.’ I lifted a hand to my head, and with the sweat still dripping from my skin it was pretty easy to convince them I wasn’t feeling well. “Who are you?” I asked, still trying to calm my eyes, but it was like they were trying to escape and fight the thugs on their own.
They didn’t respond. ‘I need to take out the man behind me first and create space, that way they would all be coming from the same direction… But if they really do have reinforcements it might be better to just run. I should at least get somewhere with more space to move around.’
They were getting closer but I felt cold as ice, what little feeling I did have was excitement. For once I wasn’t fighting demons, zombies, or starving wolves. For once I was fighting an enemy I knew how to deal with, one that wouldn’t even kill me if I lost. Even in my past life, I had been in more than one fight, if not only because my sister would start them so often.
‘Just a bit closer… And’
With a quick punch to the man's liver, followed by a back handspring that sent my foot into his jaw, I was sure he wouldn’t be waking up any time soon. Just like that the battle started. Blue streaks of light showed me every move my opponents were trying to make, and I didn’t even need to stop time to properly react.
“TO SLOW!” I yelled, unable to hide my smile as I darted over to the man blocking my path. He may have been over 7 feet tall, but he was weak. I avoided his hands as he tried to grab me, and jumped up to wrap my hands around his head, bringing his face down into my knee.
He fell to the ground and I took off. I didn’t know the area, but I could see everything and perfectly calculate how best to move, what paths I could take, and where I would be better off avoiding. I could feel my dress slowing me down, but I was dusting them. With every step, my back started tingling more and more, as if waking up from being asleep. ‘Up, if I go up I’ll be able to figure out where I am.’ I had a rationale for it… But in reality, I just felt an inexplicable need to go towards the sky.
I grabbed the hem of my dress and hiked it up as I approached a dead end, but again my eyes guided me, and for some reason, I followed them. Step-pivot-jump. I ran around the corners working my way up to the small ledge of someone’s stone balcony. My muscles were already burning just from the intensity of it all, losing myself in the run and completely forgetting about the people behind me. I just wanted to reach the top, what that even meant well… I wasn’t thinking about that either.
I pulled myself up and leaped to the ledge above me swinging around to the side railing of the balcony where I jumped again to another wall, twisting off of it and ending on the balcony's ceiling. ‘How am I moving like this…’ I ran across the balcony roof and Without pausing vaulted across a gap to another roof just slightly below me. ‘I’m glad this dress doesn’t go down any lower at least…’
I dashed across the sun-worn wood and weathered stone tiles effortlessly leaping over a narrow gap before a series of chimneys rose up in front of me. Vault-twist-pivot. Without even fully understanding how I was on the other side of them and sliding down a curved roof, leaping to another and landing with a roll, following along the top of a narrow wall. ‘Where am I running to?’
I climbed up a building on the other side and with one hand down vaulted over a short slab of stone, suddenly all of my focus locked squarely on an archway that stood even above the rooftops. At that point, I couldn’t stop myself even if I wanted to. My whole body shuddered as I ran as if I was about to take flight. I sprinted as fast as I could and jumped farther than I thought possible, landing with my hands just barely grabbing the top.
I pulled myself up and paused for a moment, breathing heavily as I stared at the sky, felt the wind brush through my hair, and felt the fire inside of me finally calm. I took in my surroundings, and somehow, I happened to be above one of the remaining thugs, as if I had run in a circle.
The moment I looked down though I started to feel nauseous. ‘This is… Really high up…’ My eyes began to twitch again, and the same inexplicable sensation told me to jump, once again I listened. The moment I began to fall through my other instincts kicked in and froze time, as if half of me wanted to fly and or die, while the other half wanted me to survive… It was fairly obvious which one I felt the need to listen to.
‘Ok… Calm down… It’s only… A few stories… I’ll just toughen my body and hope for the best…’ I felt myself suddenly wanting to cry as I shut my eyes tight and pressed play. ‘Even if I break my legs I’ll probably survive…’
The ground cratered when I hit, my knees nearly buckling under my weight as I started to shake after landing just behind the thug.
He slowly turned around, white as a ghost before passing out on the spot. Meanwhile, I was still so scared I couldn’t even stand, my legs locked in a crouched position and my body covered in chills as I regained control.
I chuckled nervously to relieve the tension and slowly managed to stand up again, shaking out my legs to make sure they were ok. “You guys know that all the nobles in this country are absolute freaks of nature right? Why on earth would you think you could fight one?” ‘Oh… Right, they can’t hear me… I knocked them out already. Wait, no there’s one left right? Whoever took out the knight that was following me.’ I cracked my knuckles and shook out my shoulder. My ears sharpened and I picked up the footsteps softly coming towards me. ‘Is this the boss fight then?’