The leader of the criminals took a few steps towards Arthur with his meat cleaver pointed towards him. Arthur almost lost his concentration when the criminal called him little. ‘I am easily three or four inches taller than this fool and yet he still calls me small, but he is correct about being outnumbered. My force armor is strong but won’t last forever, so I will need to take them out quickly.’

“And if you think your fancy magic is enough to stop us then I expect you to reconsider. There are more than fifty of our allies waiting for us to return, if we don’t they'll be coming right here to get you. Not even you can take on fifty people at once.” The criminal continued walking towards Arthur who appeared to just be standing there.

After a moment of silence the criminal took it as a sign of Arthur submitting and extended his hand for the silver coin he demanded. “If you're gonna stay quiet then I suggest you pay up to.”

Arthur snickered at the comment as he raised his hand and impaled each of the criminal's subordinates from behind. Two fell to the ground dead from a thin earth spike sticking out of their backs while the other two screamed out in pain as they tried to clutch at theirs with little success. The leader turned back to see half of his subordinates deal and the other half disabled and likely to bleed out, when he turned back around to look at Arthur he was met with the flanged end of Arthur mage staff.

The criminal fell to the ground with blood pouring from the side of his head, Arthur took a basic healing potion from his bag and poured it into the criminal's mouth. The potion temporarily stopped the bleeding and brought back some of the color in his face. “Where are your friends hiding?” Arthur brought the man's face up close to his as he asked the question.

The criminal felt light headed from the blow to the head, but he still could understand and answer the question, though he chose not to. “Screw you, my allies will be here to tear you apart, alchemist. I don’t know how you did that, but it won't be enough to stop them.”

Arthur sighed in annoyance at the answer he was given, he wanted to nip the problem in the bud and if the criminal wasn’t willing to give him an answer he would need to resort to more drastic measures. ‘Normally I would hand him over to the city guard, but with all the rumors and fights between them and those rouge mages they have too much on their plate.’

Arthur retrieved a second basic healing potion from his bag and placed it on the ground nearby, he then dropped the criminal to the ground before he proceeded to repeatedly kick him in the face, chest, and even the groin a few times. By the time Arthur stopped the criminal was barely holding back tears from the pain.

Arthur force fed the criminal the second basic healing potion and asked again. “Where are your friends hiding?” But this time the anger in his voice was far more apparent than the last time. The criminal was far more willing this time as he answered through his sniffles and tears. “Th -there in the o -old tavern just down the st- street and to the left.”

Satisfied with the answer Arthur dropped the criminal again and raised his right hand to cast a spell. “Fulmina terrae.” Arthur conjured three bolts made from earth that he sent into the crying criminal's head through his eyes, killing him. The other two criminals were still writhing in pain as they tried to remove the earth spikes lodged into their backs, Arthur helped them out with the same method he used for their leader. “Fulmina terrae, fulmina terrae.”

**********

After relocating the five human corpses to somewhere safer than his lawn Arthur checked over his home for any signs of damage. Aside from what came from the door barricade made from earth that he used to create the earth spikes there was none. With that out of the way he could now focus his attention towards the tavern the rest of these criminals were hiding out at.

Before he set out, Arthur considered wearing the plate armor he usually wore when he hunted bandits in the forest, but he put that idea aside. The weight would be too much and would make him stand out far more than he needed to, it would be preferable to remain as inconspicuous for as long as possible before he started killing them.

From a distance Arthur could see the tavern had been worn down throughout the years without much maintenance. Although despite that, there appeared to be a decent clientele that even had a guard standing by the door, the guard was wearing clothing similar to that of the five criminals that tried to shake down Arthur, but was armed with a proper spear and had some basic leather armor covering his chest area under his coat. Clearly they weren't doing that bad in terms of money.

As Arthur approached the guard just gave him an interesting look for a moment but did not prevent him from entering. The interior looked just as bad as the outside along with all the furniture, about half the tables were occupied and about half the patrons were wearing the “uniform” of the criminal gang. The bartender was dressed like a normal civilian alluding to the fact that he was not a part of this gang, just housing them.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Arthur walked right up to the counter where said bartender was cleaning cups and sat on one of the stools. Everyone else had chosen to sit at one of the tables to talk amongst themselves. Arthur placed his dimensional bag on the counter where drinks would normally be placed, the bartender eyed him suspiciously but said nothing.

But that changed when Arthur reached in the bag and opened it up to reveal the corpses of one of the criminals that tried to shake him down for money. But the bartender was somewhat used to dangerous and gruesome situations and only his eyes gave away that he was terrified by what he saw. He looked to Arthur wondering what he wanted.

“Are all the ones dressed like this one a part of the same gang?” Arthur whispered his question as he closed his bag and slung it back over his shoulder.

“Yes, and a few are upstairs discussing something.” The bartender gestured towards a set of stairs just off to the side, his eye betraying how anxious he was.

“Are there any locks I need to worry about?”

“No, just a large room that they have been renting out every so often with increasing frequency.” Arthur smiled at that answer, this would make things easy.

Arthur took a quick look around to make sure he wasn’t being watched and slipped up the stairs. The stairway was small but it allowed Arthur to reach the second floor without alerting anyone, at the top was a short little hall only about five feet long that was immediately followed by a doorway without a door. On the other side Arthur could hear several voices arguing over something, taking a quick peek Arthur saw about ten or so people were sitting at a round table all wearing clean and new versions of the clothes their underlings wore.

‘Looks like the leaders of this gang. I suppose I can try and convince them to leave me alone or I can just kill them… I’ll try convincing them first, then if they don’t like that I can kill them.’

**********

Seated at a large table were all four leaders of the remaining gangs of the southern distinct that were either too small to be recruited or even noticed and those who understood something was going down and decided to lay low for a while. Once the smoke cleared they all came scurrying back out and decided to group up. Collectively they called themselves Black Eye, but in reality there were seven gangs all here with three of the seven holding two seats to themselves.

At the moment they were arguing about what they should pour their resources into, the two big ideas they had at the moment were protection money, and drugs.

“We need to expand our businesses into larger untapped markets! Since the purge the entire underworld has become a no man's land, we need to be there first before we lose out permanently!” A Scorchmen human shouted at the others at the table. His name was Kelile and in the past his gang had small dealings within the drug trade, they would normally traffic drugs on behalf of other larger players and he wanted to get back into it ASAP.

“That is a foolish idea Kelile, we have barely gotten back onto our feet and you already wish to use everything we have on a venture that might not ever take off.” An older woman said in response to Kelile’s idea, her name was Eveline and her gang was well known for its robberies. After the purge many of her associates had either been captured or fled the city leaving her with only a fraction of the power she once had, this forced her to join up with those she considered to be power hungry fools like Kelile.

“But thankfully for all of you my men have experience in the trafficking and selling of drugs. Given enough time and we will have so much money we won’t even have enough things to spend it on.” Kelile smiled and looked around at the other members of Black Eye, a few that had dealings with drugs in the past nodded in agreement with his words, but more than half were still quite skeptical of the idea.

“And how exactly would you suggest we keep everything under wraps? An operation of such scale would be very visible to just about anyone, even a blind man would be able to see the impact we would have on the area when people start getting addicted. Unless of course you are suggesting a cheap and less addictive drug.” A middle aged gentleman by the name of Pius Valgus, a former noble whose gang was one of the few that held two seats.

Kelile chucked and presented a small bag from under the table. He then handed the bag to the person to his right. “Take one and pass it to the next person.” The man was a little confused but he complied and reached in pulling out what appeared to be a weed, but he did as Kelile said and passed it to the next person. This continued until everyone at the table had a steam of this strange weed.

“What is this plant Kelile?” Pius asked the moment everyone had one. Pius was quite well versed in plants as it was one of the ways he managed to get by after he lost everything. Yet the plant before him was unknown to him, that left two possibilities, either it isn’t native to the area or it is a new strain of an already existing plant.

Kelile smiled. “This is what is called swamp weed, to smoke it you must dry the leaves and wrap it with some paper.” Kelile waited for everyone to take a second look at the plant and praise him for his genius idea. Instead Pius immediately stood up and said “This isn’t swamp weed, It's far too large! And even if it was, how exactly do you expect to grow it here? Antium isn’t exactly built on a swamp.”

Kelile frowned but wasn’t quite so annoyed this time since it was actually a good question, the rest of what Pius said on the other not so much. “This is a new strain of the plant that can grow in the present climate, in fact the plants you hold right now were grown and harvested just a week ago.”

The room erupted into intense debate with that information, not only had Kelile provided a possible stream of revenue but he also had proved the feasibility of procuring it on a regular basis. At the bare minimum they would need a few minutes to perhaps even an hour to debate it and come to a proper decision Meanwhile Arthur who was watching and listening from the doorway just out of their line of sight was having a bit of an inner conflict.