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I already knew that they had realized that I was the one who had, albeit inadvertently, killed three of their members.

Of course, they wouldn’t believe me if I told them that I had been jumped or that the Lion members had refused to deliver on what I was paying them for.

No, in their eyes, I had killed their guild members, and that was that.

Although they hadn’t recognized me previously, I could only hope that it would still be the case.

I couldn’t think of any other reason there would be so many out there unless they had somehow caught my tail or were after Bernard and Velle for some reason, but…

It wouldn’t hurt to at least try.

They stopped and we stared at each other through the snowy field for a few moments, light flakes of powdery snow still drifting down from the early morning sky.

Cold air permeated my nose and made smelling anything difficult through the chilly pain that seemed to burn my mucous membranes and lungs with each breath, and my extremities were still numb from the cold.

The three of them were still too far away for a proper conversation. Instead, the leader of the little group examined something set around his wrist before pointing to me.

I don’t know what it was that he said, but the person he spoke to knelt and pulled a crossbow out that had been slung over his back before loading a bolt into the string and pulling it back with ease.

While that alone didn’t confirm anything, it was enough to cause me to scramble up and half-trip over my numb limbs as I stumbled behind the nearest tree trunk, luckily only a short stride away.

…

Silence.

I peeked out from behind the tree, only to duck my head back behind cover when the crossbow bolt filled my vision and whizzed by my head.

If I hadn’t raised my AGI scores, that bolt would have killed me. Its speed was the product of some skill that launched it far faster than it should normally have flown.

Crunch, Crunch.

Footsteps sounded from just on the other side of the tree and slightly to my left, which still left one of them unaccounted for.

They weren’t even allowing me time to negotiate or plead my case, determined to end me based on whatever they had been told, which I could only guess at.

Judging from the way the man in the lead had looked down at something on his wrist before they attacked me, I was guessing that he had tracking magic similar to the one I had been using at the party.

I could already guess what their plan of attack was, as no further bolts came flying my way after that peek that I had made.

It was an ambush tactic.

Back in the city, I had often heard of similar tactics being used in hunting quests against hard-to-catch targets.

An archer or someone with ranged attacks would shoot at something and cause it to go into hiding, someone else would approach, and then the creature in hiding would try to bolt again, only to be struck down by the archer’s readied weapon.

It was effective in that there wasn’t much you could really do even if you knew about the attack.

At least, that was normally the case.

I sensed the heat of their torches, still back where they had dropped them to ambush me, so heat sense wouldn’t help me.

Summoning the earth around my fist in a gauntlet again, I waited.

Crunch, crunch.

The next steps were much closer, probably only a couple of steps past the other side of the wide trunk.

HMPH!

[[«Strike»!]]

I exhaled hard as I used the skill and struck the tree with the earthen gauntlet and the base version of the «Eruption» skill.

CRRRACCKKK!

The tree splintered and the base of it exploded outward where I had struck it, showering splinters of wood everywhere.

WHISH!

The next bolt whished by my ear, not much more than a blur, and the tree continued to fall from the suddenly missing section of it.

It would have been fortunate if the trunk had fallen toward the men approaching me, but of course, I was not so lucky.

The trunk fell towards me, and I had to scramble through the snow as it fell towards me until it thumped into the snow and sent a powdery cloud up next to me.

Taking advantage of the moment, I ran with the snowy cloud between me and the archer as another bolt whizzed past me.

It was then that the final member of their party appeared as a blur of motion from the edges of my vision.

He was a stealth-type and had been creeping around to ambush me from the other side so that I couldn’t run away.

If I hadn’t acted when I had, then it probably would have been too late for me.

His dual daggers swung down at me, and I used my gauntlet to deflect one of the daggers, bending at an angle as much as I could to dodge the other one, which still sliced a thin line of crimson down my face.

KSSSS!

A sound akin to a rising firework pierced through the air as the leader of the little group sent up a flare that would alert the others to our location.

The stealth-type continued to chase me, though I had lost the other two.

Even while being chased down through the woods as I was, I could occasionally feel the faint heat of a torch just at the edges of my new heat sense.

After running what I felt was a sufficient distance, I turned and blocked another attack from the stealth-type, who had been hot on my tail.

KLANG!

One of his daggers bounced off of the gauntlet again, and I was fast enough that time to dispel and resummon the earth as rough armor along my neck just as his second dagger was honing in for the kill.

KLANG!

Before he could recover from the initial surprise of having his second attack—which he had likely assumed was going to be a sure kill—blocked so suddenly, I stepped forward with a «Strike» uppercut to his stomach, recalling the image of a boxer in a close-quarters fight from an old match I had seen on TV back on earth.

[[Mana: 50/100]]

With the movement mimicked perfectly, I poured my stamina into the blow as well, desperately trying to end it as fast as possible.

Even still, I refrained from using the piercing capability of «Eruption», still opting for the base concussive enhancement because I had a loose plan in mind that required the armor to be left somewhat intact.

WHUMP!

The resummoning of the earth around my fist just as I made contact, accompanied by «Strike» and «Eruption», sent out a small shockwave that blasted the drifting snow away from us and kicked up the loose powder on the ground.

SNAP!

My fist hit his stomach, and the stealth-type attacker—who had likely neglected attributes that would toughen him up—was liquified from the inside, blood spurting from his nostrils and ears as he died before he even hit the ground.’

[[+100 XP

Current XP: 4075/4000]]

[[Level Up!]]

[[Level 4!

Reward: +2 STR, +2 END

1 Free Skillpoint]]

Hesitating just long enough to realize that my attack had actually killed him in one hit and that I had leveled up, I got to work on putting my plan into action.

A few minutes later…

Koise, the leader of the Lion Guild expedition to catch the criminal that had previously backstabbed and killed three of their members in a shared party, looked at the scene of the fallen tree and scattered bark while speaking to the scout party leader.

“And three of you weren’t enough to take him down because…?”

He was clearly upset. Three Lion Guild scout members—who were supposed to be known for their tracking and ambush skills—had failed to catch a single backstabbing adventurer. What’s more, one of their members had gone missing, and they hadn’t even given chase.

The party looked fairly nonchalant at Koise’s words.

“Gil was after him, he’ll probably be back in a minute or two. He was fast, I’ll give him that.”

Koise could see the two bolts that the archer—who was standing by, idly checking his crossbow in an attempt to avoid eye contact with Koise—had fired at the adventurer as well.

“…He was a cripple and gained use of the System only a few weeks ago, yet you still couldn’t catch him?”

The party leader shrugged, still not seeming to realize that anything was wrong as Koise kept himself barely restrained.

“He probably specced all into speed or something, I dunno…”

‘Idiot…’

The guild was filled with incompetency.

Koise had been lamenting over the slow downfall of the once prestigious Lion Guild for a while at that point. Everything seemed to go to shit after the guild leader prioritized expansion over actual hunting.

Koise stared at the tree that had been blown away during the ambush on the adventurer, something that approached the levels of superhuman and couldn’t have been done by even a level 5, which was known to be at the border of superhuman.

“Specced into speed, huh?”

The party leader wisely remained silent, only scratching at the back of his head in response.

“You’re relieved of your scouting duties, go back to the guild for a new assignment.”

Koise wanted to do more, but his hands were somewhat tied. It wasn’t like he could kill someone for incompetency, even if he wanted to, and the man had to at least be somewhat skilled to be a scout leader, so it would have been a waste to kick him from the guild.

“…You can’t do that, the guild leader himself put me here.”

The man finally snapped into a serious attitude at hearing that he was going to be demoted.

Koise stared into the man’s eyes as if daring him to challenge his authority again.

“I just did. Go complain to the guild leader if you have any issues.”

They both knew he wouldn’t.