Or at least, she had thought she was.
An echoing clang rang out as the brass knuckles struck her shield with enough force to stagger her. Her eyes widened as the enchanted arm pulled a sizable chunk of her Mana reserves to maintain the enhanced shielding. The metal held, but it was clear he was much stronger than she had been expecting, and he didn't even go all out on that swing, either.
Alexa twisted her feet to better support her weight against heavy hits and allow smoother dodges at the cost of offensive mobility. Just in time, as another two blows instantly followed the first. She ducked the first and turned the second into a glancing blow off her shield. Still crouched, she brought her dagger up, but the blade caught nothing but cloth as Jeremy pulled back.
The two sized each other up for the briefest of instants. Alexa wasn't used to fighting with a dagger, and its limited range meant she would be forced to push in close, where Jeremy would be the undisputed superior in any exchange. She ignored her first impulse to charge in anyway, tanking the blow in exchange for an opportune jab of her own. Instead, she gritted her teeth and pulled back, building some range.
"What were you thinking?! Are you to get me killed?!" shrieked a voice only she could hear. The fighter felt movement as a minuscule figure pulled itself out of her breast pocket and flew off to the side, getting as far away from the fighting as possible. "A little warning would have been nice. Not the most pleasant wakeup call I've had." The small blue fairy rubbed her head with a grimace. Jeremy couldn't see the tiny, hungover illusionist, of course, and only tilted his head imperceptibly at the sight of Alexa's shawl shifting oddly as the fairy made her escape.
Alexa chided herself for completely forgetting her companion's presence but didn't vocally acknowledge the fairy's words as she continued to snarl at the bounty hunter across from her.
"What, scared already? After only a single exchange?" Jeremy scoffed, sounding almost disappointed. He idly fingered the new hole in his shirt. "You almost got me, too. Come on, you can do better, yeah?" He grinned.
"Oh, screw you." Alexa grabbed a half-full mug from a nearby table with her free hand and chucked it at him while scanning the room for any better-range weapons but found none.
Jeremy easily dodged the mug, but the alcohol left his outfit drenched. His cocky grin twitched for a moment before his expression returned to one of casual eagerness.
"Alexa, who is this guy?"
"Hells if I know," she whispered back to the fairy, who was still struggling to focus through her migraine.
Lacking any better options, the second the stranger began moving forward, Alexa charged. She grimaced as one punch struck her abdomen, but she twisted enough to make it a glancing blow. The pugilist had clearly used a skill of some kind as Mana flowed out of his hand and sharpened into miniature razors at the tips of his brass knuckles, drawing a trio of shallow gashes along her stomach. As she took the scratch, her own blade raked across his arm, instantly drenching his sleeve with blood.
"Shit!" The man hopped back with a pained shout before glaring at her. He swung to the side and kicked a chair into her path as Alexa made to capitalize on her momentum and follow.
The fighter lept over the obstacle and plowed forward, shield first. She used a simple [Shield Bash] skill; her shield came forward with force and boosted her own speed for a fraction of a second. The small buckler slammed hard into the man's chest before he could dodge, the sudden movement catching him off guard. There was a wheeze as all the air was knocked from his lungs.
Nonetheless, he kept his battle wits and struck Alexa's exposed side at full force. There was a slight cracking sound from her ribs as she was bashed away.
"Alexa!" Pandora flew forward at the sight of her newest friend being injured, her butterfly-like wings flapping furiously. Ignoring her pounding head, she made to assist. Keeping herself invisible and audible only to her human companion, the still-slightly-tipsy fairy began to tweak the appearance of the room for Jeremy alone, making the position of the furniture and miscellaneous mugs and eatery on the floor appear slightly offset. She took care to only move things when they were out of line of sight so he wouldn't notice the change. Knowing the unfamiliar opponent had a Mana sense of some kind, she also took extra caution to cover the evidence of her own skill usage and mask her own Aura as much as possible.
Alexa, still reeling from the broken rib, hit the ground in a roll. She let the momentum carry her away as she regained her bearings, just in time to block a punch aimed right at her face.
"What the fuck do you even want from me?"
"I told you, I want your source."
"I don't have one!"
Alexa barely blocked another heavy punch before giving the pugilist a hard kick to the shins. He grunted in pain, giving Alexa a chance to slide back and bring her dagger to bear once more. Still on her back, she swung the dagger in an arcing stab at his foot, only missing by a hair.
Jeremy kicked her in the side, sending her vision white as the broken bone twisted under the flesh. Her level prevented her from passing out, but it was a close thing. Just as he made to kick her a second time, he tripped over a mug that he could have sworn was a few centimeters to the left.
Alexa took that second of reprieve to send a mental command to her arm. Stored within the base of the arm was a small internal reserve, just large enough to fit a single dosage of a potion. At her command, the reserve was emptied, injecting the high-tier healing potion directly into her veins, and restoring the fractured rib near-instantly. She wheezed in a gasp at the sudden pain of the bone shifting back into place before letting it out in a sigh of relief.
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Alexa managed to regain her feet at the same moment as Jeremy did. The [Swordswoman] snarled at the man, pulling her shield once more, blocking three heavy punches from Jeremy, each hit strong enough to push her back a step.
She bumped into a table as she pulled backward another stride. The woman slid to the side, trying to find an opening to strike. Just as Jeremy struck her shield once more, she threw her golem arm wide open and knocked his fist away, leaving them both exposed for an instant. She stabbed forward with all haste, scoring a very deep wound in his gut. Unfortunately for Alexa, Jeremy also had a spare weapon at hand. His brass knuckles collided with her extended elbow, shattering it.
"FUCK!!!" She howled in pain as she pulled back, hiding behind her shield as she quickly retreated.
Jeremey placed his hand over the stab wound, putting pressure on it and grimacing. "You really had to make my job that much harder, huh? Fine."
Still gritted her teeth in blinding pain. "The egg was a mistake, okay? It was a mistake! I needed the money!"
The persistent asshole came for her again, his mask of forced casualness coming undone, showing the genuine fury buried beneath the surface. Almost instantly, he stumbled over a chair leg, misjudging its position, then tripping over another mug and sending him sprawling.
Taking advantage of the seconds she had gained, Alexa wasted a heartbeat to grab her bag and made for the window, bashing through the thin glass pane shield-first and landing on the wooden walkway directly outside. The tavern was located on the second story of the building, so her options for escape her limited. She glanced down the path, spotting a nearby bridge crossing, and made to start sprinting in that direction. But before she even took three steps, her pursuer had already caught up, chucking several pieces of debris at her to slow her down. She easily blocked the flying dishes, but they had distracted her enough for him to close those last few meters of distance.
She pulled up her shield, but without a functional arm to attack with, Jeremy pounded against her shield relentlessly, without fear of reprisal. Each strike brought her closer to the guardrails, and all too quickly, she was out of room. Even with him only using a single hand, his other hand trying to keep his guts on the inside, the rain of punches and jabs drank up her limited Mana reserves like water in the parched desert sand. There was a shift, and he let go of his wound, using his left hand to batter aside her shield. Quick as a flash, his right hand came up and struck her jaw with a nasty haymaker.
Her head snapped back, and she hit the guardrail with force, easily snapping it. Stunned, she fell backward off the edge, dropping four meters and hitting the packed dirt and loose cobblestones of the city streets with a wheeze as air escaped her. Her vision cleared just enough to see Jeremy leaping over the balcony, feet-first.
Alexa twisted to the side, barely avoiding having her chest caved in as Jeremy landed with a stomp. The man pulled his foot back to kick her in the side once more before he saw a dozen crossbows pointed at him. He froze, his hands slightly lifting as he took in the small array of guards surrounding him. He winced and dropped his left hand to cover the stab wound that was still bleeding profusely.
"Don't move; keep your hands where I can see them!" Shouted one of the guards, wearing a fancy-looking sash over his plate mail.
Alexa rolled to her feet, biting her tongue as the sudden motion sent her shattered arm ablaze. She looked around, confused for a moment as to why Jeremy was staring at a blank wall, his hands raised. A tiny weight landed on her shoulder and shrieked in her ear.
"Move!"
Alexa blinked rapidly and obeyed, swiping her fallen bag off the ground and slinging it over her shoulder. She took off down a random street and ducked down a nearby shadowy alleyway. Cradling her broken arm as she ran, she took turns at random and aimed for shadows as frequently as possible.
"I'm dry," Pandora panted. "It'll take hours to recover enough Mana for even simple illusions, so I can't hide us, Alexa."
"Looks like we're doing this the old-fashioned way," she grimaced.
The adventurer scanned the streets as she sprinted, bulldozing through the crowd. She ran on and on, weaving through the city for another ten minutes before finally ducking into a shadowed underpass and instantly slumping down, exhausted. She quickly glanced around and made sure the coast was clear.
"Pandora," she wheezed, "go scout."
The tiny fairy saluted and zipped off.
Before anything else, not even letting herself catch her breath, she dug inside the pack and pulled out her second and final healing potion, downing it without hesitation. The pain of her eviscerated elbow had brought her to the verge of vomiting, and recovery was her biggest priority at the moment. The light-headedness slowly faded as her bones reknit themselves.
Alexa let out a sigh of relief and leaned back, slowly recovering from that hellish encounter. Sometime later, Pandora returned, giving the all-clear.
There was a long silence as the fairy gave her some time to process.
"It seems I was more out of practice than I had thought." Alexa stared at her metallic arm, memories of another time drifting through her mind.
The silver arm was an alloy of mythril and steel, cheaper than pure mythril but stronger than pure steel. She gazed idly at the vitresteel windows that coated her forearm, giving her a preview of the inside to check the delicate gems and ultrathin wires for signs of damage. One of the metal plates glowed a faint yellow, showing minor damage but not so much the repair enchantments couldn't do their thing. She flexed her fingers, noting how the golem-style joints hitched slightly as they ran on the fumes of her non-existent Mana reserves. She sighed again, wishing for the millionth time to go back to that horrible day and make it all disappear.
"Who was that?" The fairy's tone was gentle and considerate.
"I don't know. But he seemed to know me. It appears my past has finally caught up to me."
Pandora was already well aware of Alexa's delicate story and didn't push for more details.
"So... what are we going to do now?"
"Same plan as before. We're heading to the far north. That was part of the bargain, right?"
"So soon? Are you sure?"
"A bit ahead of schedule, but not too much. I've been dragging my feet for a few weeks now. Might as well pull the trigger." Alexa put on a forced smile. "Besides, I'm getting tired of pulling your tiny, drunk ass out of trouble for sneaking into brothels and strip clubs."
Pandora's face went bright red. Needless to say, her illusion magic didn't work quite as well when passed out inside a random mug of ale. It made sneaking of said establishments much harder for her than sneaking . Both times.
She huffed and looked away. "The coins are bigger than my head! What else am I supposed to do? I can't exactly carry a coin purse."
Alexa chuckled but said nothing.
"... I think he might chase us. He looked pretty... intent."
"I know."
"... Are you going to say goodbye?"
Alexa was silent for a moment before shaking her head. "We haven't been in contact for some time. They've made their peace, and I've made mine. I did everything I could."
"Do you regret it?" She didn't need to specify.
Alexa considered it before finally shaking her head. "I fulfilled my promise in the end. Meribelle is fully recovered and living life to the fullest. Lucia may not have taken the money, but I snuck some to Julia, and she's been helping them from afar these past months." Alexa gazed up at the bridges casting their shadows from high above. "I did my part. I'm done."
There was a long moment before Pandora spoke up once more. "It'll be nice to get out of this place and head back home. Been a year..." She sighed.
Alexa nodded solemnly. "Yeah. It has." She smiled softly. "I'm supposed to be an adventurer, huh? It's about time I got back to acting like it."
Minor announcements:
First off, I added a new book cover for Volume One of this series: Nature vs Nurture. Now, I don't currently have plans of ever publishing this series, but organizing the series into volumes of roughly 100 or so chapters seems practical for hard delineations in the story. Plus, more art to play with, so it's more fun this way.
Second, the poll results for the addition of the square brackets are currently fairly clear. I'll still let the poll run for another week just to be sure, but I can imagine the outcome will be fairly obvious. So, yay! Square class and skill brackets! Feels more like LitRPG already.
Third, I'm surprised that the public response to the interlude chapters wasn't nearly as negative as I would have expected. I'm sure there were still some silent grumbles, and I'll do my best to respect that. Nonetheless, this is encouraging, as it opens up many more possibilities for the story development. Don't worry; I won't spam interlude chapters, and I'll make sure that the majority of future chapters still focus on Rythica, but I don't feel as skittish about non-Rythica chapters anymore. Thank you all for sharing your thoughts and opinions on this!
Fourth, minor retcon: Jeremy is now a [Dreadtracker Pugilist] to better reflect his class. Chapter 30 has been updated.
Lastly, it was pointed out that the discrepancy between the city's description and the lackluster comments about the city in previous chapters gave some conflicting imagery for how the city was perceived by readers. This was mostly due to terrible planning on my part and pushing out chapters early on before I had enough of the world fleshed out. To help remedy the issue, I've got back and tossed in some small references to the city, as suggested by `eric_shadow` in the previous chapter. For those who don't plan to go back to check, here is a compilation of all the changes made:
Chapter 14 - A Cold Trail
in this arid landscape
Especially with a city this... vertical.
Chapter 17 - Origins of Magic
The fact that it was so far from the overcrowded complexes of the commonfolk was not as accidental as the city seemed to imply.
Thanks for reading! I really appreciate all the amazing feedback and support. I hope you're enjoying the story so far and are having a wonderful day.
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