Chapter : 44

  Naomi rolled her green eyes. She focused her mana into her right leg. A bright, swirling green light wrapped around her combat boot. It was her wind magic, gathering tightly to create a massive amount of pressure. She took a deep breath, pulled her leg back, and kicked the center of the rusted iron door with all her might.

  BANG!

  The sound was incredibly loud. It echoed off the concrete walls like a bomb going off. The crude magical locks shattered instantly. The heavy iron door flew off its hinges, flying through the air and crashing loudly into the basement room.

  Sayma and Naomi charged into the room. Ken slowly peeked his head around the corner to see what was happening.

  The basement was rge and dirty. In the center of the room, there was a heavily fortified, rusted iron cage. It looked like an old bank teller window, but made of scrap metal. Sitting behind the cage was the primary drug dealer. He was a greasy-looking man wearing a thick leather jacket. He was busy counting a massive pile of dirty coins and organizing small cloth bags filled with the cursed drugs.

  When the iron door smashed into the floor, the dealer jumped out of his chair. His eyes went wide with pure panic. He looked at Sayma and Naomi, seeing their dark combat uniforms and the serious looks on their faces. He knew immediately that these were not normal customers. He knew he was in huge trouble.

  "Cops! Or Royals! I don't care, I am out of here!" the dealer screamed.

  He didn't even try to grab his money. He turned around and sprinted toward a small, broken window at the very back of the basement. He was moving fast, desperate to escape before the girls could get to him.

  "Oh no, you don't," Naomi said. Her voice was cold and sharp.

  Naomi’s eyes glowed with a bright green mana. The wind magic wrapped around her entire body. In the blink of an eye, she moved. She didn't just run; she moved like a total blur. To a normal person, it looked like she just vanished from the doorway and reappeared on the other side of the room.

  Before the drug dealer could even reach out to grab the window frame, Naomi was already there. She grabbed him by the back of his leather jacket and smmed him hard against the brick wall.

  "Ack!" the dealer choked, the breath getting knocked out of his lungs.

  In less than a second, Naomi pulled out her sharp daggers. She pressed the cold, steel bdes directly against the dealer’s throat. She pressed just hard enough to let him know she was completely serious, but not hard enough to cut him.

  "Going somewhere?" Naomi asked, giving him a terrifying, angry smile. "Because I think we have a few things to talk about."

  The dealer froze completely. He held his hands up in the air, shaking violently. "Okay! Okay! Just don't cut me! I'm just a low-level guy! I just sell the stuff, I don't make it!"

  Sayma walked calmly into the room, stepping over the broken iron door. She looked at the terrified dealer and the piles of cursed drugs inside the iron cage. "You are going to tell us exactly who makes it, and exactly where they are," Sayma said in her polite, yet firm voice.

  Ken finally shuffled into the room. He looked around the dirty basement, whistling softly. "Man, you guys really need to hire a cleaning crew. This pce is a total mess."

  But the easy victory did not st long. The incredibly loud noise of the iron door crashing to the floor had not gone unnoticed.

  Suddenly, the sound of heavy boots stomping on the concrete floor echoed from a hallway on the right side of the basement. Heavy doors banged open.

  "Hey! Let the boss go!" a loud, rough voice shouted.

  The dealer's heavy muscle had arrived.

  More than a dozen armed thugs rushed into the basement room. They were big, angry men wearing mismatched armor. They looked like hardened criminals who had spent their entire lives fighting in the streets. Half of them were holding rusty swords, heavy axes, and metal pipes. The other half were gripping crude magical staffs. The staffs began to glow with messy, unstable red and purple magic. They were getting ready to cast fireballs and dark magic bsts.

  The thugs quickly spread out, completely surrounding Sayma, Naomi, and Ken.

  "Let him go right now, little girl," the leader of the thugs growled, pointing a rusty sword directly at Naomi. "There are a dozen of us, and only three of you. You walked into the wrong basement today."

  Naomi did not take her daggers away from the dealer’s throat. She just turned her head slightly to look at the thugs. She didn't look scared at all. She looked annoyed.

  Sayma calmly adjusted her thick gsses. She raised her hands, and a faint golden light began to glow around her fingertips. She was fully prepared to defend the team.

  And Ken? Ken reacted exactly how everyone expected him to react.

  The moment the dozen armed thugs rushed into the room, Ken’s eyes went completely wide. He let out a high-pitched, incredibly loud scream. He threw his hands up in the air, waving them around in total panic.

  "Oh no! Bad guys with big swords! This is the worst day ever!" Ken yelled at the top of his lungs.

  He didn't try to stand his ground. He didn't try to pull out a weapon. He didn't even try to stand behind Sayma for protection. Instead, Ken looked around the room frantically. He spotted a massive, disgusting pile of smelly bck trash bags piled up in the corner of the basement.

  Without a second of hesitation, Ken ran as fast as he could toward the corner. He threw his entire body forward and dived directly behind the rge pile of smelly trash bags.

  He curled up into a tight little ball on the dirty floor. He put his hands ft over the top of his head to protect himself. He squeezed his eyes shut and continued to yell so loudly that it echoed over the voices of the angry thugs.

  "Please don't hurt the potato boy! I bruise like a peach!" Ken screamed from behind the garbage. "My skin is very sensitive! I just ate breakfast, I am too full to fight! Just pretend I am not here!"

  The thugs stopped for a second, looking at the pile of trash bags in total confusion. They had fought many battles in the slums, but they had never seen a Royal servant dive into garbage and scream about being a peach before. It completely ruined their tough-guy entrance.

  Naomi’s face turned bright red with pure embarrassment and fury. She was trying to look like a cool, terrifying elite warrior, and her teammate was currently crying behind a pile of trash.

  "Ken! You are an absolute embarrassment!" Naomi screamed at him across the room, not moving her daggers from the dealer. "Get out of the trash right now and help us!"