Reflections on the Warpath - [An Isekai Progression Fantasy]

They marched on, trailing after Caruso and his crew from the safety of the far away treeline. Jay saw more tree-like lookouts as they walked, each one filled him with unease. From the outside, all he had was a tiny slit to see into the lookouts and check if there was anyone inside. He meticulously searched each one as soon as he spotted it, not getting close to the structures until he could confirm they were empty.

Their increased caution meant that the archaeology team pulled away from them, but Jay didn't mind. They couldn't realistically follow Caruso into Red Rock, so he felt that intel on the passage was more useful.

Corinne yanked Jay's cloak back, choking him like a garrote.

Jay's head swivelled, searching for danger before he let himself get annoyed.

When he turned to face his partner, she was pointing at a nearly invisible string tied between two trees.

"Some kind of trap," she said, "I only saw it a few seconds ago."

"There's probably more up ahead," Jay replied. A quiet thought chided himself for almost tripping the wire, but Jay had a mission to focus on. He wouldn't let his irritation affect it.

"Yeah… let's head back. I don't want to risk it."

A flash of steel ripped Jay's attention from Corinne before he could reply.

His fists instinctively shot upwards, streams of liquid metal rolled up Jay's forearms as his fingers curled together.

Eye of the Storm helped Jay assess the situation before it unfolded, an arrow hurtled towards his chest, but it wasn't as fast as Zara's or even Davad's. Jay traced its trajectory. Twenty paces ahead of him, a man wearing all black perched atop a tree, still aiming his bow at Jay. Below him, Jay saw two more similarly dressed men running towards them each holding twin daggers.

Guards?

Probably. Too uniform to be gladiators… too weak too.

Jay relaxed Eye of the Storm, smiling as he met his opponents' charge. Electricity surged into his fists, heating up the metal that coated them.

Does that change anything?

The two men ran forward.

Jay pointed his left arm at them.

The clockwork bracer, which had gone completely unused since the advancement tournament, poked out of his moko as he aimed it at his closest opponent. He shot the rope at the man's legs, wondering if he was quick enough to dodge.

He was, but Jay had a contingency for that too.

As the Quicksnatch stuck to the ground, Jay sidestepped. The rope pulled taut, catching one of the guards legs and sending him tumbling into his partner.

Corinne shot past them both, running towards the archer.

Jay left him to her and ran towards his opponents, releasing the other end of the rope.

The two ambushers had recovered fast enough to stay standing, but not enough to react to Jay's attack. He planted his left leg and wound up a straight right.

Jay didn't need to think like a fighter against these two, but he wasn't trying to.

The storm sage had advised him to merge his fighting style with his elemental essence. Jay had already learned how to fight like a gladiator, now he had to fight like electricity.

Jay unleashed all his power in an instant, smashing his fist into the guard's nose as he turned to face him.

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The second guard had more time to react. It didn't matter much.

Jay instantly transitioned into his next attack, sliding his left foot forward and driving his right leg forward from behind. The guard stared in disbelief at his fallen partner before diving backwards, barely escaping Jay's range as his kick loomed closer.

Jay opened his hips, twisting his planted left foot and pushing off the ground to stretch his kicking leg further. It negated all his power, but electricity didn't need power. Sometimes speed worked just fine on its own.

Jay's toe grazed the flailing arm of his opponent for a split second.

That was all it took.

Jay sensed a torrent of electricity rush into his opponent's body before he could even react, his nervous system collapsing before it had the chance to fight back.

He dropped to the dirt, muscles still spasming.

Perhaps the instant decisiveness of electricity was what Jay needed. He'd need to train with more powerful opponents to find out, but it was a start.

Jay began to rummage through his opponent's pockets. If they were guards, then perhaps they had information on them that could help Jay get to the vault.

"What do you think you're doing?" hissed Corinne, dragging the third ambusher towards Jay.

"I'm searching for information. What if they can help us learn more about the guard patrols on the Red Brick Road."

Jay didn't bother telling Corinne about the Vault, it wouldn't help his argument and only made him look more selfish.

"And what about when someone finds the bodies? They'll find out that someone was here and snooping on them!" she replied.

"Well it's a bit too late to do something about that! What was I supposed to do, convince them not to attack us?"

"That was unavoidable," Corinne waved her arm at Jay. "This isn't. We leave the bodies untouched, I make it look like an accident, and nobody suspects we were ever here."

Seriously?

Jay wanted to argue with Corinne but they'd already agreed she was in charge. He didn't want to earn a reputation within both Kestrel and Limitless Ascent as insubordinate.

It stung him to leave a potential advantage behind, although Jay silently knew that these three probably had nothing useful on them.

But it was more about the principle.

Regardless of the tangible advantages, Jay was beginning to get annoyed at the rigidity of being in an alliance. He understood now why Lyra and Vega had never joined one in all their time at the coliseum.

"Fine," he said, trying to keep the irritation from his voice. "How are you going to make it look like an accident?"

"There's a species of snake on Miranda whose venom causes aggressive psychosis. I'll make it look like one of them got bit and turned on the others."

"How will you find one?"

Corinne smiled and held up a finger.

The first time Jay had seen Corinne's Harmony up close, he'd expected a gruesome transformation of bubbling flesh and rippling skin as her body grew more animalistic. In actuality, the process was far cleaner.

A shimmering film wrapped around her hand, compressing it into a fist. Her skin grew darker until it became almost black.

Corinne began rolling her wrist around until eventually the movement became its own. Two serpentine eyes opened where the woman's knuckles once were, although there was no sign of a human hand anymore.

The snake unhinged its Jaw, baring its venomous fangs as it hissed at Jay.

Corinne walked over to the man Jay had electrocuted before letting the snake bite his ankle. She then took his knife and stabbed the other two several times before slotting it back in his hand.

"Let's head back," she said, barely batting an eye at her callous brutality.

Jay nodded, annoyed that he couldn't search the bodies, but grateful that he'd avoid Red Rock for tonight.

Jay entered Red Sands through the same secret passage was that he'd exited it by. Based on the sleeping guard squad manning the city's northern gate, he probably didn't have to, but it was better to be safe than sorry. Night had already fallen and Corinne didn't want another fight to get in the way of them leaving tonight.

As expected, the streets were far quieter now than they'd been during the parade. Almost too quiet. Jay barely spotted a single reveller as he walked through the spilt refuse and clutter that marked the parade's trail.

The only ones patrolling the streets were the unlucky sods forced to clean them.

Red Sands wasn't completely robbed of vibrance though. Jay still heard music emanating from the grand hall as he and Corinne walked past it. Lights still shone out of its vaulted windows and guards still stood outside its doors, staring at Jay and Corinne until they turned off the street.

They kept the wealthy district to their backs and headed towards the harbour they'd arrived at. They couldn't see Ricard moored there, so opted to head back to Nelly and Mia's apartment through the Ugly Duck.

The once empty bar now had all its lights on, raucous cheers spilled out from inside to the drum of stomping feet and pounding fists.

Glasses clinked into each other between thumps against wooden tables. If the Ugly Duck was like this every night, Jay understood how it had ended up in such a sorry state when he'd first arrived.

"Sounds fun, should we go inside?" he asked Corinne.

"After you."

Jay walked over to the entrance, noticing the bar grow strangely quieter as he neared the door. He pressed his palm against it, pushed it open, and began to walk in.

He made it two steps before someone tried to punch him in the face.