"I hate you," Karak gasped as he collapsed onto his knees once more while I chuckled.

"You think you do, but it's just the beginning, boy," I said, chuckling in amusement. "But, I'm impressed. Barely four hours, and you can stop yourself from completing the attack in almost every attempt. You're learning faster than I expected. We might start the fun part sooner than I expected."

Karak looked at me, with pride, but also with frustration. He could hardly describe the time that had passed as barely. It was filled with thousands of attempts, most of them ending with a sharp hit to stop him. If it wasn't for allowing him to use his health occasionally to recover, he would have collapsed from interior bleeding long ago.

Still, he looked exhausted.

"I can't imagine that there's a training method like this? Is this how the knights and other nobles train?"

"Not exactly relevant, with their fancy skills," I admitted, not willing to commit to an answer either way. I didn't know exactly how it worked for nobles, my exposure was limited to that horror show in the castle, and I didn't want to lie in a way that could be caught in the future.

Near future, if the deal between Zolast and the young noble worked as intended.

"Now, let's move. You're on the critter duty," I ordered.

"You think I can handle that? Just by a few hours of training?"

"No, but you have to start trying somewhere, and it's not like we have anything better to do," I answered as I gestured for him to move.

He gave a stiff nod, and took the forward point. As he started to move, I watched him. He wasn't exactly a model of grace and efficiency, but after he started to get used to the pattern, he started to give a surprisingly good performance. The delays between his attacks got smaller, and his cuts and slashes got smaller.

Of course, not every attack of his was as smooth, his skills taking control often, but as he repeated, the number decreased as well.

Meanwhile, my halberd was still out, showing up whenever there were too many beasts attacking or one of the bigger ones showed their presence. The caravan had gotten away, but without the carts to slow us down, we would catch up with them barely in twenty minutes.

… unless there was an ambush waiting for us, I corrected as I noticed a few shadows near a rock far away from us. Interesting, I thought as I frowned at the sight with a frown, but I didn't say anything to Karak, who was too distracted with his hunt to pay attention.

I didn't say anything, because I didn't want to change directions. It wouldn't help.

Now that I had noticed the presence of the ambushers, their surprise advantage was gone. There were two possibilities about their capabilities without that advantage. The likely possibility was that they were weaker than me, so the ambush wouldn't end up as something that was threatening. Instead, I would be able to interrogate them about the reason.

And, if the rare possibility that they were strong enough to rival my combat capabilities — not the one I displayed for the camp, but the true one — I was in bigger trouble than I predicted, and it was likely that running wouldn't help.

Not unless I immediately started running into the river and hope that it would be able to shelter me even when I was being actively sought. But I wouldn't run away at the first sign of trouble, not when things were just getting good.

We continued jogging and killing, the ambush getting closer. Karak, following my order, tried to minimize his health usage, sticking to it even when his breathing turned torturous, gasping repeatedly.

Even in his exhausted state, he noticed the presence of the ambushers before they moved, and to his credit, rather than shouting in alarm, he turned to me, trying to alert me silently. I nodded, signaling to him that I had seen what had been going on.

He was tense, but hopeful as well. Clearly, he was hoping that the ambushers were not here for us, and it was a coincidence.

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He hoped in vain.

I held my halberd tight as I caught a flicker of shadow from our ambushers, ready for an attack. Surprisingly, that didn't arrive.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here," the man that appeared from behind the large rock said, holding a dagger. I recognized the man. It was one of the Blacks that I had a big confrontation with during the debacle of gambling debt, but he hadn't been important enough to even speak during that, so I didn't know his name.

A horribly reckless move, one that contrasted greatly with the whimpering coward I had seen during the debacle, who did his best to get lost in the crowd as I was beating his friends until they paid me what I owed.

Suspicious, certainly, but not surprising. Not when I took all the details with a glance, three, in particular, giving me a very clear feeling. First, his weapon, a new dagger, and clearly magical. My Perception was too sharp to miss the soft blue glint around the edge, though quality-wise, it was nowhere near the sword I had in my possession.

Second, the way he moved. His balance was considerably stronger compared to the time I Had last seen him, and the way he held the dagger changed as well. Several new levels at least, probably with a promotion, and at least one new skill.

Yet, neither of those two fully explained the smug sense of invincibility as he faced me. No, that honor went to the third aspect.

A subtle pressure, coming from Charisma.

Karak held his dagger, ready to move forward as bait when I shook my head and gestured for him to stay behind. I didn't need bait to face him.

"Oh, do I know you?" I asked, doing my best to look surprised, knowing it would be all it would take to trigger him, and I wanted to goad him to understand the sudden presence of Charisma.

"How dare you!" he exploded, acting like a king who just got disrespected — showing that he was nothing more than a thug with delusions of grandeur, with a sense of power behind him. "Kneel!"

Just like that, the pressure from his Charisma got stronger several times, and enveloped us. Of course, against me, it was as effective as a gentle spring breeze, but the same couldn't be said for Karak. "Impossible," he murmured as he looked toward our ambusher, battling against the order the best he could, his legs trembling badly, already bent halfway.

I didn't particularly enjoy being challenged by an idiot thug. And, if we were not in the center of a huge plain, I might have reacted to his disrespect in a different manner. But, we were in a visible location, and I couldn't afford to reveal anything. Not when there could be observers…

Instead, I copied Karak and started to make a show of trembling hard, doing my best to act like I was being affected while ignoring the temptation of counter-attacking in the same manner.

It would have been a good way to relax … too bad I had noticed two more groups of observers, one close, the other far away.

The presence of two teams confirmed one thing. I was being tested. For what, I had no idea, nor did know the observers worked for the same person. Either way, they assigned far more people as observers than ambushers, showing they were there to take stock of my abilities rather than actually dealing with me.

If they wanted a show, I would give them a show. "H-how dare I! How dare you, daring to give me an order, you cowardly dog," I answered even as I made a show of trembling even worse, but stretched my charisma to touch him, using it to examine the way he delivered the orders. "I now remember you, you're the one that slinked back with your tail between your legs when I humiliated your masters."

"I have no masters! Not now!" he gasped, and the charisma pressure got even heavier. "Kneel!"

The order was even heavier, and Karak, despite his great performance rejecting the order until now, succumbed, his exhaustion not helping him to keep a clear mind.

I made a show of collapsing as well, but I didn't let my knees touch the ground, still making a show of resisting. I could have rushed to him to kill him, of course, but why would I, when that would show observers just how easily I could resist the power of Charisma.

It felt like a dangerous thing to reveal.

Instead, I resisted as I looked at his eyes, and spat on the ground. "That's it, old man. I don't care what they want to ask you. You're dead," he growled and rushed forward, his dagger raised… At the distance, I saw one of the two observer groups move, while the other stayed watching — which made me think that they were two independent groups, or at least, the first group was unaware of the presence of the second, but it might just be them realizing they were too far away to intervene.

That was true, but not in the way they were thinking. The moment he walked close enough, I swung my halberd. It wasn't a particularly good swing, the halberd trembling badly as it moved, but it still had enough Strength to decapitate him.

He could have dodged, but, confident in his victory, he didn't even make an attempt … a mistake that he only realized when his head went flying.

"W-what was that?" Karak gasped as he suddenly took a deep breath. At that moment, I was already using my Halberd to kill the beasts, rushing now that the intimidation factor of Charisma was gone.

"Not a question you should be asking, or talk about with anyone but Jertann and Zolast," I said, and he nodded. "We are just going to treat him as a bandit with an overinflated sense of importance and walk away. Understood?"

Karak nodded, once again silent as I leaned and picked the dagger, smiling. It was much worse than my sword, but unlike that, my enemies already knew I possessed it.

It would be nice to walk around with a magical weapon, giving me an excuse to act a bit stronger if the situation called for it. Then, I glanced at Karak, thinking that it would also make a nice promotion gift…