The next three days passed without much of an extra action as they got used to living in forest. They still didn’t have any good clothes but there weren’t any people around to see their disheveled state. Bob seemed to prefer not wearing a shirt after it was almost compltely oblitirated by the mole anyway.

  Maxwell used the first day to carve their repertoire of gym tools. He stood on the rocky area for hours, which was more useful to him as he got plenty of levels out of it.

  Bob went out to hunt some beasts while he was busy, but the boy was the same level as Maxwell, so he couldn’t find any worthwhile prey. They still ate met thanks to him though..

  In the next two days, they trained their bodies for a couple of hours every day and just chilled after training rigorously. Maxwell was finally getting used to this body, as he had been feeling a bit clumsy since coming to this world. It turns out that having a different body with different age could impact your coordination.

  In the fourth of their monotonous days, their peace was interrupted by something irregular thanks to Blueberry.

  Maxwell was sitting in the river watching the water attribute mana when Blueberry landed on his head. It was more alert than it usually was so Maxwell was a bit excited.

  ’’Chirp! Chirp.’’ Blueberry said as it sent what he found to Maxwell. As before, Maxwell was absorbed into a memory.

  Memory started with Blueberry flying above the trees. Maxwell was a bit concerned about the bird in these days as it was quite possible for a higher leveled bird to notice Blueberry but it seemed sure of itself.

  After some flying, he could see that Blueberry had located something in the distance. Around a hundred meters further, Maxwell could see a flurry of movement as something traveled at high speed among the trees.

  Maxwell was surprised to see that these somethings seemed to be people instead of animals. There was a lightly armored figure running away at the front as other 4 very angry figures chased him.

  Maxwell wasn’t sure what was the dispute but they were coming directly towards the river. With the state of the area right now. Maxwell was pretty sure that they would be quite curious about who he and Bob were.

  Bob, we'll have company in a couple of minutes, he sent Bob. He could see him get startled a couple of tens of meters away as he was working out with a giant halter. He was still not very used to the idea of telepathy.

  He jumped up from the bench and walked towards him, quite excited. ‘’Good kind?’’ He asked. He seemed eager for both types as he cracked his knuckles.

  ‘’We will see,’’ Maxwell said thoughtfully. He hardly had any interactions with people in this universe, let alone the world. He couldn’t say he was afraid but he was curious about how the natives behaved.

  Around a minute later a figure jumped out of the forest. Maxwell now could see that the figure was a young man. He froze for a moment, apparently spotting them, before starting to run directly towards them.

  Maxwell guessed that the man probably was trying to pull them into the situation to cause some distraction. He observed the man to get an idea of the situation

  Swordsman - Lvl-15

  He was decently leveled, considering that this was barely a second-tier world for now. This fact could be seen from Blueberry not being able to find any high-level beasts around them for three days.

  As the man was running, he could see his pursuers also getting outside the forest to their clearing. He observed them, too, and their levels ranged from 14 to 18. He was still a bit curious about the language problem. He eagerly waited for someone to talk.

  When the running man came beside them, he saw him open his mouth to talk. At once, he slowed down the world, completely focusing on the man. The man started making a sound, and he watched in slow motion.

  He waited patiently but could detect nothing as the man continued completely naturally. Maxwell really wanted to see if there was a delay between translation and real language, but he couldn’t detect it even if there was.

  He lent his mind back to geometry as his world turned back to normal speed.

  ’’Friends! I will have to pull you into this conflict for my survival. Help me and you shall be rewarded.’’ The man said as he pulled a sword and faced his pursuers.

  Maxwell was not sure why the guy was speaking so weirdly, but he seemed decent enough in a way he supposed. He gave him a vibe of a rich kid.

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  ‘’Why are they chasing you?’’ He asked. Bob meanwhile positioned himself in the front smiling like he was in heaven. He was streching his arms excitedly.

  ’’They were searching for something in the forest. I saw them, and they apparently don’t want that to spread.’’ The man said in a frustrated voice. ‘’I told them I would keep silent, but they were quite insistent in seeing me dead.’’ He added humorously.

  ’’How original,’’ Maxwell commented. Throughout his previous life he needed to kill people only a couple of times. This world seemed to be quite determined to make him a murderer however.

  He could clearly see the pursuers now. They were wearing non-assuming armor and looked quite ordinary. They probably didn’t want to stand out too much.

  ’’So… I suppose you guys wouldn’t be convinced to let us go?’’ Maxwell asked laxly to the group. The group was taken aback when they could see him and Bob from close distance as they wore only rags looking like cavemen.

  ’’Savages! Are you going to help him? Prepare to die if you will,’’ the man on the front shouted as he unsheated his sword..

  What is this? A play? Maxwell thought exasperated.

  ‘’Do you usually talk like this?’ He asked the man. ‘’I think that would be very exhausting,’’ he added sympathetically. The man seemed not to like that answer as he gave a snarl as a answer before he pounced on Maxwell.

  Or rather, he tried as he was welcomed with a punch in the face promptly as he closed on Maxwell. Bob shook his hand as they watched the man fly back into the forest, leaving a trail of blood in the air.

  ‘’Huh… Armor is pretty hard.’’ Bob said under the flabbergasted gazes of the pursuers. Maxwell just shook his head in amusement.

  ‘’By the gods! What a strong punch!’’ The man on their side shouted, not sounding any more original than the enemy. It made Maxwell remember the high society back in Zephyr. You could probably navigate the society of the rich just by memorizing about a hundred sentences.

  He was not eager to make his telepathy common knowledge, so he chose not to defeat these guys with it—not that they needed it in the first place. He was a bit curious about their secret, though.

  ’’Could you just tell me what you were looking for?’’ He asked hopefully.

  The remaining trio didn’t seem to take this very well, as they rushed towards Maxwell and others with renewed vigor.

  Maxwell sighed before creating a flat mana projectile shaped like a wall. He infused it with metal mana and launched it at the trio.

  One of the pursuers was surprisingly a mage like Maxwell. This guy was forced to watch helplessly as his friends joined the first guy in the forest after getting hit by a wall of mana with breakneck speed.

  He looked at the mana bolt he created in desperation, before looking at Maxwell and the others. He then chose the smart thing as he knelt on the ground shouting, ‘’I surrender’’.

  From their perspective this was probably a very tragic event but Maxwell couldn’t find it in himself to care. He approached the man as he sent Bob a message telling him to watch over the guy on their side. No harm in being careful.

  ‘’So, what was this about?’’ he asked the terrified guy.

  ’’We were hired to scout the area.’’ The man said, not showing any resistance. ‘’I have children, please don’t kill me’’ he added in fear, explaining why he was not resisting.

  Am I that scary… Maxwell thought. These guys seemed odd in their behavior. He discretely opened a soul channel between the man and himself as he asked the man a simple question.

  ’’Why were you scouting the area?’’ He asked calmly, looking at the man’s eyes.

  "We don’t know! I swear! We were sent here to gather information.’’ The man said unhelpfully.

  Maxwell meanwhile could see what the man thinking when he was asked the question through the channel. This was a basic usage mainly used for honest communcation back on Zephyr. Though peolple there knew how to close their minds to telepathy when they needed.

  Of course nobody thought in a way that was clear to understand but he could see couple scenes suggesting that they were hired by someone looking rich. They were supposed to find something like a puppy?

  Maxwell doubted himself for a second as he was examining what he was seeing. He could clearly see that the mission giver was holding a drawing of a golden puppy.

  ’’Whatever,’’ he said, like he didn’t care as he left the man’s side. The man took a deep breath in relief.

  ‘’So, who are you?’’ He asked their new friend. He was not sure if leaving those guys alive would cause them any problems, but he couldn’t really be bothered to care. From what he have seen from the guys, the average was pitifully weak in the city.

  ‘’I am Darve of House Leyn. We mainly do trade business but I work as a mercenary.” The guy said, coming a bit awkward.

  So he has daddy issues? Maxwell thought.

  “Bob, can you bring the others? I don’t want them attacking us out of nowhere, " he told Bob and watched him walk away towards the forest, whistling.

  “How do these guys scale up in strength?” he asked. Even though he was pretty sure that he and Bob was quite powerful, it was better to ask to be sure.

  “They are very high-level when it comes to system levels.” The guy said as he unsheathed his sword.

  “I sense a but.” Maxwell urged the man to continue.

  “Ha! I like smart people.” Darve said. Once more, reverting to retardese. “They are high-level system-wise but they are quite bad fighters. I could probably take on 2 of them by myself even, and I’m barely trained.” He continued.

  Maxwell nodded contently as this was what he thought too. Gendor a couple of days before was just level 10 but he was clearly stronger than the tier 2 enforcers on the ship because of his better training. This gap would widen even more as higher tiers got better class options as they went.

  “That makes sense,” Maxwell said as he watched the pursuer’s bodies fly toward the cave, apparently thrown by Bob. He had a bad feeling about this.

  The flying pursuers impacted the ground a moment later with a sickening crunch a couple of seconds apart from each other.

  Maxwell sighed as he heard three notifications before turning towards Darve.

  “So… Would you like some tea?” he asked.