Chapter 57

  Badul had seemed too aware of his surroundings even while keeping up with Valar. His eyes constantly searched around, expecting a second intruder like an experienced warrior. The same wasn’t true for his companions.

  I aimed for the girl who stood a good two steps away from him, a bow clasped in her hands. She’d proven a touch useless against Valar, since there wasn’t really an opening wide enough for her to take a shot. If she did that, she’d be putting her comrades at risk. Clever girl, surely.

  A Wind Spear whipped her out of balance and sent her rolling on the ground. Beatrice squelched into her stomach shortly after, drawing blood and a pained hiccup. My sword sucked greedily at the pouring blood for a while. The girl was gone by the time I turned and found an angry Badul glaring at me.

  “This is nothing personal,” I said, trying to manage a smile before gesturing at Valar, who blinked up at me through a pair of bloody eyes. “I just couldn’t help it.”

  Valar grinned at me with a few broken teeth. “Some bones to his meat, I’d reckoned. Turned out I was right. We can make fast work of these three, then handle the other fools. The big guy’s mine, though. Can’t have him.”

  “I came here to rescue you from your suicidal operation, and yet all I get is this?” I asked with a tired sigh.

  He just shrugged.

  Really?

  There was something in this guy that constantly yanked at another personality within me. I could never, back in my first life, say something like this to a man who’d just fake-murdered a bunch of people, but now, the words basically spilled out on their own.

  Well, technically, I was no less a murderer here, but this was just a test. Nobody would really die. All this blood and aggression was nothing serious.

  “It’s that Runemaster,” said the last remaining girl beside Badul, her hands around her spear trembling. “What should we do, Badul?”

  “Cut his head off!” said the other one, a broad-shouldered man who’d had his ear chopped off by a passing blow from Valar. “This is a damned test. We don’t have time to consider the implications!”

  “Stop,” Badul said, raising a hand. “You’ll do no such thing.”

  “I don’t have to take any orders from you!” the young man raised his chin. “We’re not in Farhorn anymore. We’re in the Creator’s Academy!”

  “I’m not ordering anyone, but you will listen to me, Mertan, for your own good,” Badul said, and turned toward me. “Friend, it’s rather unfortunate that our paths crossed here, but I’ve been meaning to pay your room a visit to introduce myself. I’m Badul Urlak, the one true heir of The Mountain Fell’s Legacy, the only son of the Celestial Hammer, Garran Urlak. I’d like to invite—“

  The sound of the axe was so crisp that at first I thought someone had whistled. It cleaved halfway across Mertan’s shoulder blade, down deeper toward his side, making a bloody, fleshy mess out of his chest. He crashed down wheezing beside the young woman’s feet, breath choking out of his throat.

  Valar finished him off with another blow.

  “This ain’t the place to make introductions,” he said, pulling the axe from Mertan’s shoulder with a crunch. “You do that somewhere else.”

  The side of Badul’s mouth twitched, but he didn’t lose himself to anger right away. He had a pair of green eyes and a muscled body barely fitting into that Knight’s uniform, but what surprised me most was this guy’s patience. I’d never thought I’d be impressed by something like that.

  “I’ll get rid of the distraction,” Badul said, his voice low. “Then you and I can have a talk.”

  “That distraction happens to be someone I know,” I said, making Badul pause. “Write me a letter, I guess? I’m not taking any orders at the moment, but I’m thinking of going over the offers once I have some time on my hands.”

  “You’re being too unreasonable,” Badul said. “A Runemaster should know where to stand and how—“

  “I’m in the middle of something.” I shook my head. “I have a difficult Master to please, and that means I have to be something of a jerk. But then, you people give us no other options with all your groups and underlings. What’s a single man supposed to do? Just wait to be run over by mobs? That’s not happening.”

  “It was your friend who attacked us first!” Badul’s mouth twitched once again. He was getting worked up now.

  Good.

  Whenever you see a big man, always undermine their ego. That was what Radek had taught me. I might not have been blessed with a Heart Mage’s talent, but I’d got years of education from one hailed as the Silver Chiper.

  “It’s only fair,” I said. “You should’ve seen it coming, the one true heir of Mountain Fell’s Legacy. What’s with that introduction, anyway? I guess you expected me to be impressed, but it didn’t work. If anything, you got your friend killed. That’s not how a leader should treat his people. You’re making them look bad.”

  “Enough!” Badul raised his hammer. “If it takes having you kiss the ground before me to get you into Mountain Fell, then I’ll beat the spirit out of you!”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  He came at me at full tilt, the giant hammer making a painful arc down toward my face. That sort of move could crush a Silver Knight’s skull, so I managed a Quick Step and got away from the blow, letting the hammer fall heavily to the ground.

  In the corner of my vision, Valar had already begun pressing into the girl with the spear. I gave her five seconds, six at most, judging by how each blow cracked the spear’s shaft further with force, which meant in a moment, Valar would be here to take on Badul the Hammer with me.

  I didn’t need him.

  The Undying kept me energized as though I’d just eaten the most generous dinner of my life. My body boiled with strength, and my hands were itchy around Beatrice’s handle. Larmack and Joaak had barely been a challenge since they were pretty much spent after that fight. Badul, however, seemed healthy as an ox. He’d been clever enough to spare his strength during the fight against that daggered assassin.

  No matter how much I wanted to test his strength, I wasn’t a fool enough to take the hammer’s brunt in full. So I swatted it aside when Badul swung in an overhead blow, then stepped around and aimed Beatrice at the man’s open ribs.

  He let the momentum of the hammer drag him sideways, which saved him from Beatrice’s bite. He grasped the hammer with both hands before turning it around horizontally. I nearly got my stomach dented right there and then, but I threw myself back and let the blow pass harmlessly before me, sending a forceful wind splashing into my face.

  What a strong guy!

  Even with Runes, I didn’t think I could match him blow for blow. It was in part because of that hammer, but the guy himself was a beast, too. I supposed he had a strength-based Manual like Valar. Belfray had warned me to be careful against these types.

  I might have to get a bit creative.

  Badul, to his credit, moved with the elegance of a rhino and was back at me before I could catch my breath. The hammer gleamed wickedly as it whistled down toward my chest. Hey! That was not the way to go if this guy wanted me to kneel before him! A blow like this one could send me into a second afterlife!

  The giant thing crashed into the ground, rupturing the soil like a magnified fist of a giant. It nearly sent me stumbling back, but with a Soft Anchor, I nailed myself to the spot and refused to budge. Then, with a deep breath, I unleashed one of my trump cards.

  “Bind!”

  The second that word left my mouth, roots rose from the ruptured ground like thick earthworms stirred into action. I was deliberate with my positioning and stood right before Badul so as not to leave any opening in the Rune sequence. It was, after all, a simple thing that went something like this: “Bind the person’s feet standing right before me.”

  Soul energy boiling in my chest, it took nearly a quarter of my reserves for the roots to wrap around Badul’s feet, catching him off guard.

  “What?!” he yelled, looking around him instead of at me. “There’s an Earth Mage here! Whoever you are, stay out of this, or you’re going to regret it!”

  The guy thought we had a Mage behind us. I didn’t blame him. Mages were known for tricks like these, especially in the low grades. It wasn’t until they became Golden or Diamond that they started spouting high-fantasy magic.

  Instead of clearing the air for the heir of Mountain’s Fell, I dove in. I didn’t want to use another Wind Spear because that thing consumed way too much soul energy. I could at best manage another one, and I liked to keep that one in the bank for the second group.

  Not that I needed a Wind Spear. Beatrice had already consumed a great deal of the first girl’s blood, and the circular rune patch on its surface sparkled with a mean crimson. I could feel her strength coursing through my arms as if I clasped in my hands a weapon eager for slaughter.

  I hacked at Badul with growing satisfaction as the famous heir tried to rip his feet free from the tangled web of roots. He was mildly successful, but not enough to regain his balance when I reached him. Beatrice chipped softly at his upper chest, then cut deeper still and hacked a bloody gash across his ribs.

  Badul winced and flailed with his hammer flying, trying senselessly to swat me off. I ducked under the blow and turned Beatrice around, planting her tip right through the man’s chest with ease.

  A pained gurgle came from the back, which told me Valar was done with his as well. The girl and the heir both fell, holding their chests, widened eyes full of cold fury.

  “He’s going to hate me, isn’t he?” I asked when golden lights sparkled alive across the stretch, focusing on the dead bodies of Badul’s group. “Is it wise to make an enemy out of Mountain Fell’s heir?”

  “You don’t think about what’s wise or not in a battle,” Valar said, pulling himself wincing to my side, looking every bit the bloody Viking I’d imagined him to be. “You show no mercy to your enemies, or they’ll make you pay for it. It ain’t that complicated.”

  “I mean, this is a test, right?” I said, glancing at the other group, who kept looking at us like we were freaks. “This is no place for politics, isn’t that so?”

  “That it is,” Valar said. “We ought to kill everyone in this forest.”

  “To earn a visit to the Wilds, right?” I asked.

  “What visit?” Valar scowled. “I don’t care about any visit. I don’t need a reward to get bloody in the din.”

  “Right,” I said, my head aching. I forgot. Conflict alone was enough of a motivation for this guy to get worked up with excitement.

  I, on the other hand, was busy trying to silence the part of my brain that questioned this whole thing. Cleaving through people didn’t feel good. It didn’t necessarily feel bad, either. It was something of a mixture of the two, which, to my Earthly values, proved a tough bite to chew on.

  But then, what was I supposed to do? My inferiority complex was too heavy to be ignored, and the best way to get over it was to push myself into action. I couldn’t be a spectator and feel good about myself. I had to be active, damn it. Be a fake-killer if that meant I’d be recognized in this academy! I wouldn’t have these people think of me as a fragile little Rune-guy. I was a Knight and a Runemaster both!

  “Wow,” I muttered, looking down at my hands. They were clean thanks to Beatrice sucking what blood was available around us. “I’m even surprising myself. Who thought I had this sort of maniac in me?”

  “Maniac? No,” Valar said with a smile. “There ain’t nothing wrong about enjoying a gory battle. That’s the truth of it, don’t it? Embrace it, and you’ll feel as light as a feather.”

  “Embrace it, you say?” I said. “Be a true Knight, is it?”

  “Something like that,” Valar said, and raised his axe to the other group. “We got more work to be about.”

  “You don’t look good, though,” I said, indicating the numerous injuries and wounds that riddled his entire person. “Maybe we should consider a tactical retreat. I can hold these guys while you—”

  “I’m not running away like a scared dog!” Valar wasn’t having it. “We deal with this lot with our chests. Earn our rest like true warriors!”

  Well, I supposed a fake death here could be considered a form of rest as well. By that logic, Valar’s words had some merit to them. I wasn’t about to argue with him about his general worldview. You can’t change people until they want to be changed, and you don’t go around telling people what’s right or wrong when you don’t even know who the hell they actually are.

  “Okay,” I said, my grasp around Beatrice’s handle tightening. “We’re doing this, then, but to be safe, you should follow me—”

  Before I could finish my sentence, Valar was already off, his axe cleaving the air and his roar rattling my chest. He looked pretty intimidating like this, so I did what was sensible right away. With a breath, I followed after him. At least seeing him this way made me feel a bit better about myself.

  .......