After dropping off that noble’s men as a gift, I shut myself in my house.
Why, you might ask?
Well, Hovington had said that he has several A-rank adventurers working for him, and that he himself is also one. While I can deal with one A-rank, no matter if they are High A, or Low A rank, multiple could give me serious problems if they catch me unprepared. Thankfully, I have a place where some of the deadliest weapons in the city are gathered, and it’s protected by several powerful wards, the like of which would normally keep out even the Low S-ranks. I still have no idea how those two managed to bypass the wards, given how difficult it should be. Oh well. Point is, as long as I can control the engagement, I won’t worry too much about what the nobles send at me. And then, after they send what they will, I can give them a good example of why they should start leaving me alone. Of course, afterwards I’ll start bothering them, taking away those nice and shiny weapons I made for them. A bit hypocritical, after telling them to stay away from me, but then again, I don’t like playing fair.
I went ahead and inspected some of the weapons I’ve made, looking for those that would be useful against the people I presume Hovington is going to send after me.
The first thing I found wasn’t even a sword. It was an arrow, something that I had forged in a pique of curiosity, when I had wondered if I would be possible to create arrow that exploded on impact.
As it turns out, the answer is yes. Yes, you can.
And then I have the crossbow that fires the thing—A weighty construction of pulleys and metal, designed to fling it’s explosive payload at the speed of sound. I made this after finding out that the faster the arrow is flying, the bigger the boom for some odd reason. I’m not complaining, but it sort of irks me that I can’t figure out why it is that a faster traveling speed turns a projectile capable of making a small crater in softly packed dirt into something able to blow up houses. Yes, more than one. I have to be very careful with it.
Though it’s less destructive that another projectile weapon I made.
I call this one the boomstick. Why? Why not. It uses the same principles as the crossbow, but on a smaller projectile that goes around seven to ten times faster. —Boom.
And, it looks like a stick, or rather, a tube with a shoulder rest on it. There are very few people in this world who would be capable of realizing just how dangerous the thing is.
The rest of the weapons I set to the side as useful were slightly more conventional. Well, I mean, Ancient's Respite was one of them, as my so called ace-in-the-hole. If things got really bad, I could use it to at least escape. And since it was still in it’s knife
form, I’m able to easily slip it into a sheath under my coat, for quick retrieval.
The others were less powerful as far as effects go, but had the same utility levels.
A while back, I made a spear that would lock the space around whoever it had stabbed, preventing them from moving. It was a great concept, but the product had it’s limitations. I would only freeze the space for five seconds, and wouldn’t work on anyone with an amount of mana above 500 or so. Most semi-competent mages have at least that much, so the spear won’t work on them, though I could still use it to stab them to death.
Against warriors, however, the spear works fine, since they rarely start using large amount of mana until the late A-rank areas, or early S-rank.
Another fun toy I made will constantly drain mana at a slow pace, as long as it’s touching the target. Since it’s difficult to ensure constant contact with anyone while fighting, I shaped it into a conveniently hard-to-notice form. At the moment, I have several of these useful things, in a leather band meant to be strapped to my wrist. I could quickly grab them that way, and fling them at my opponents, and watch as the tiny silvery needles sink into any exposed skin. They don’t have much in the way of penetrative abilities, and can be countered with clothing, though, so it's more of a hidden weapon than anything.
They are extremely useful against mages, due to the mana drain they inflict.
I also have a set of four knives that set up a barrier between them, once they’ve been sunk into the ground. This is useful for crowd control, and making sure that I only have to face a manageable number of opponents at a time, sealing off the others for a short time. It’s a state where they can’t hit me, and I can’t do anything to them, once the barrier is up. Though, I have found ways around that.
Of course, my go-to weapon will be Twilight. It’s the purest form of offensive power that I have, save for the boomstick, which I save for special occasions.
Lastly, I have what could be my magnum opus.
It’s not a weapon, but the absolute best utility item I have. I named it Shadow.
Shadow is a dull looking metallic sphere, with tiny and intricate lines etched into it’s surface, and complex magical formations built into it, just under that surface. The lines are actually meant to contain the dense mana emanating from those formations, bottling it up inside the sphere and slowly charging it naturally.
It had taken me a week to charge it by pumping all of my considerable mana into it, readying it for one use, before it had to be charged again.
So what does all this mana accomplish? Well, that’s part of the genius of the design. The hint’s in the name—Shadow.
The sphere, upon activation, creates a shadow dimension of the area a kilometer around it, and can maintain said dimension for thirty minutes total. In the shadow dimension, nothing that happens will affect the real world, and the real world cannot affect the shadow dimension. I can pull others into the other dimension, as long as I go as well. Once inside, I can fight without having to worry about property damage or innocent bystanders getting hurt.
In other words, I do not have to hold back while using Shadow. On the flip side, neither does any of my opponents. While I have my own devastating trump cards, so do any of my enemies. It should also be noted that in the shadow dimension, time is twice as slow, so the thirty minutes I can use it for is equal to one hour outside of it. While inside of it, it’s could be very easy for people to set traps against me, for when I exit it. They could also call for reinforcements, surrounding me before I’m aware of it.
That makes it so that I have to be sure that I’ve dragged all the enemies to at least within a kilometer of me, so that I can bring them into the shadow dimension when I activate it.
It’s also disorientating as all hell to be dragged to what could technically be another dimension without any prior warning, so I would have a few extra seconds to take advantage of, before they regain their bearings.
I gathered all these useful items, and put them inside a large bag, making sure to properly portion of parts of it, to keep the weapons from banging together. Especially the arrows and the boomstick projectiles. I don’t know it they’d explode with careless handling, but I really don’t want to find out. I prefer my limbs intact, thank you very much.
I kept some of the things on my person, like Twilight, the needles, Ancient's Respite, and Shadow, which I would deploy after making sure that the conditions were optimal. Then, I set myself to waiting for the inevitable counter-attack from Hovington and the A-ranks.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
I grinned, happy at the prospect of burning off some of my large amounts of anger on this completely willing to fight group.
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(POV Lord Hovington)
I’ll show that little pheasant why us nobility are the superior people!
I swear it!
After punishing those four men who were returned by the short and infuriating blacksmith, I call a certain group of people into my study—An A-rank Adventurer party named Frost Fangs. While they do cost a good bit of money to maintain, it exactly for times like this, for when I have some...Plebeian disrespecting me and besmirching my honor and great dignity, that I keep them.
The door opened and the seven adventurers entered, not even knocking or waiting for my permission.
They were all wearing my house colors—Silver and green, and they all were well kept, as I certainly didn’t want anyone to have the impression that I was keeping a party of barbarians under my payroll. Their leader, Claus, was a short man wearing a long robe and carrying a staff. He is a mage specializing in fire magics, and capable of overwhelming my enemies with large and powerful spells. His second in command was known as Reaper, and preferred approaching unseen from the flanks, and using daggers to finish things off. He always had his face in shadow due to the half-mask he wore, coupled with his large hood. There was another mage in the party named Jural, specializing in healing magics, along with three heavily armored tall men providing some degree of protection to the others, and specializing in close combat. They had picked up an archer a few days ago, who didn’t quite meet up to their standards, but I was assured she would soon reach them. I think her name was...Samantha or something?
Oh well.
I told them who to go bring back to me—That they would find their target near the pleasure district in a small building with a forge at the front. I told them about the wards, and they left, ready to bring back to me Kai, who I would teach better for disrespecting his betters.
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I think the A-ranks are here. I could feel six strong presences outside my smithy, and one weaker one. The group split into several groups, with three heading to my wards, two standing back, and charging their mana, likely to try and break through my wards. One presence broke off from the others completely, and started circling around to the side of my house. The weaker presence stayed back with what I assumed to be the mages—The ones charging their mana.
Just as they had finished charging, I grinned, and marked all seven of them with my mana signature. They were all well within a kilometer when I activated Shadow, dragging them in behind me.
The world lost it’s color, turning into shades of grey. Sounds could be heard faintly, distorted and broken. There was a spot in the sky emanating light, though it had a black circle in the center of it, almost like there was always a solar eclipse. No matter how much time was spent in the shadow dimension, that spot of light never moved, staying disturbingly constant.
There was a faint bit of residual nausea welling up inside of me, but I quickly shoved it back down, and took the cross bow out of the bag, loading it up with an arrow.
I walk outside the version of my house that exists in this space, and see those three people who had been approaching my wards on the ground retching. They really shouldn’t feel bad about that—I did it the first time I activated Shadow as well.
Shouldering the crossbow, I took aim at the space between the three—I had to act quickly since my wards only exist in the other world. Here, they’re free to attack me as soon as they regain their bearings.
I pulled the trigger bar on the crossbow, and the metal arrow shot off, a blur even to my enhanced dynamic vision.
A deep —thud— resounded as it impacted the ground, and a dome of purple flames expanded form the center, followed by large concussive forces that battered the three armored people. They were thrown in every direction, parts of their armor cracked and breaking off, the force having exceeded the magic protections embedded into the armor.
I dropped the crossbow, and pulled out a few needles, tossing them at the hunched over figures of the mages and that one weaker person. The needles struck exposed flesh one one of the mages, and the weaker person. The other mage’s long robe blocked the needle.
The needles would now slowly leech their mana out of their bodies, cutting down their combat potential greatly.
The first person to recover from the jarring shift between space was the one who had first broken off, to circle around the side of my house. He had on a hood and half-mask covering his mouth and jawline, and held a dagger in each hand. He was likely an agility type, who used speed to overwhelm his opponents before using a well-placed final blow to end them.
I threw the four daggers I had also grabbed from my bag at him, and they landed two in front, and two behind him.
He continued running forward, only to crash into the barrier which had been activated around him as soon as the last dagger hit the ground. He fell onto his back, and jumped right back up, prowling around inside the barrier, trying to find it’s weak points. He wouldn’t find any, and will just have to wait for the barrier to expire.
I started walking toward the mages, and the unidentified third person, now that the would-be assassin person was taken care of.
Four down, three to go, I guess.
The mages were mostly recovered by now, but the other person was still on her knees, dry heaving what was left in her stomach. I was now close enough to tell that it was a women. The mages were both men. The one that I had hit with the needle attempted to cast a healing type spell on the three people I had taken out first, and his chant sounded fairly high level, so it would have likely succeeded, and left me outnumbered six to one again, if he hadn’t run out of mana right in the middle of it. The backlash from a failed high-tier spell over-drafting on his mana caused his eyes to roll back, as he fainted from a very real case of mana exhaustion.
The other mage saw that everyone but him was taken care of, and panicked, seeing me walk closer to him.
He started chanting a fire aligned spell, one that was easily superior to the healing spell attempted by the other mage in both raw mana input and effect.
(Mage) “Oh spirits of fire, hear my plead and lend me the fury of the sun to rain down upon my foes—Inferno Realm!”
I patiently waited for him to finish his nice little spell, and after the long and impractical chant was done the temperature of the surrounding air started rising rapidly. Little tufts of fire appeared on the ground, turning the loosely-packed dirt surface into a glassy substance. The man looked considerably drawn out from that spell, which I would safely assume was his most powerful.
I smirked under the mask, and cast my own magic, using a quarter of my monstrous mana pool and Twilight as a conduit. I only spoke a fraction of the chant as well, omitting all but the key word.
(Kai) “Niflheim.”
The shadow dimension froze over in a circle of one hundred meters, the extreme low temperatures causing even the flames from the mage's spell to freeze over.
Now that that's done, let's get on to serious business here.
I grabbed the limp forms of the adventurer party, and brought us all back to our original space, including the assassin guy, who had wet himself a little.
Oops.
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