I walked out of my house and sneaked out of the village as usual. Levi floated next to me as we entered the canyon. I could not detect the presence of the other fairies but according to Levi, they were still following us, keeping their distance.

Once we entered the slimes’ territory, I heard Levi’s wings buzz loudly behind me. The fairy came to a stop and faced the empty landscape. “Yrelinna! Desei! You two can come out.” He said calmly; his voice was unusually loud and powerful.

I took a step back and carefully observed the situation. ‘This is going to be interesting. Even the fairies can be serious sometimes.’

Levi stood still, waiting for something, but only the wind answered his call. It was only after a couple of minutes went by that two small silhouettes appeared. It was dark and although my eyes got used to the darkness of the night, I had trouble seeing the fairies.

“What do you want, Levi? Why did you call us out in front of this human?” A high-pitched voice sounded from one of the silhouettes.

“We already said we won’t leave. Our hosts have generously given us some points to tail you two.”

Levi floated silently, facing the two other fairies. In the darkness of the night, I could not see his expression, but it was clear that he was unhappy. “Well, I am also getting paid for making you two go away. This is my last warning. Please leave!”

“Levi. You are still so arrogant. But what can you do if we refuse to leave?” One of the fairies chuckled. “Are you so desperate to do such degrading tasks for a few points after you failed to even get anything out of your host in the previous rooms?”

I did not hear Levi’s response. Instead, all I heard was a loud rumble; the ground suddenly shook, and a large dark mass emerged from the ground, smashing into the female fairy. She did not even have time to react; as her body ungracefully fell on the ground, the small pebbles and rocks around her suddenly rose from the ground and all flew toward her at an unbelievable speed. It only took a moment before her body was buried under a pile of rocks.

I was unable to clearly see exactly what happened, but I could deduce the two spells used by Levi. ‘Earth Punch followed by Rock Prison. Levi has already reached the third circle?’

“Yrelinna!” The other fairy, Desei was shocked by Levi’s sudden attack. “Levi! What are you doing? You will attack one of your peers for just a few points from a human? Even though you are strong, we are not any weaker than you. Can you deal with the two of us together?”

The sky suddenly became brighter. A lightning strike fell from the sky, aiming for Levi. However, despite the speed of the lightning strike, Levi easy evaded it. He flew next to me and faced the other fairy.

For the first time, I was able to properly see the features of the other fairy. His body was now covered with sparks, illuminating his immediate surroundings. He was just as ugly as Levi but with an older and wrinkly appearance.

I frowned lightly. “Levi. Don’t get near me.” I said, revealing a faint trace of panic in my voice. I could see Desei forming lightning spears in his hands.

“Don’t worry.” Levi chuckled evilly. “He won’t dare to attack. As long as I stay next to you, he won’t dare to use lightning attacks.”

“Coward!” Having seemingly heard Levi, Desei grumbled angrily. He swung his lightning spears in frustration but did not dare to throw them at Levi who was floating in front of me.

I did not like the idea of being used as a meat shield, but I understood Levi’s decision. He was facing two fairies and needed to squeeze as many advantages as he could for the battle. Fairies were forbidden from harming the humans and in this situation, as Levi was standing right in front of me, if he was to dodge an attack, I would be instantly hit. While I did not know the clauses of the fairies’ contract, I knew that breaching a contract could lead to severe punishments.

Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

Levi grinned. “So what?” The ground around Desei trembled as two giant hands made of Earth emerged and attempted to grab him. He quickly flew upward, dodging the Earth Hands but they did not let him escape so easily and chased after him.

“Annoying!” Desei snorted and a few seconds later, the two Earth Hands collapsed. At their roots, several large vines emerged from the ground and wrapped around the earth foundation. The vines applied enough pressure to cut off the foundation of the Earth Hands.

Desei proudly floated up in the sky, his silhouette illuminating the surroundings with his lightning. After the vines got rid of the Earth Hands, they turned their attention to Levi and shot toward his small body.

“Time Bender.”

I heard Levi whisper quietly and magically, the vigorous and large vines suddenly seemed to become weaker. The vines became thinner and slower. Their outer layer started peeling of naturally. Before it was even able to reach Levi, the vine’s thickness shrunk to that of a thin rope. It lost its vigour and fell on the ground before turning into ashes and scattering across the canyon. The whole process took less than a second.

‘He has at least two elements; Time and Earth.’ I thought as I glanced at Levi to check on his condition. He only used a few spells, but the fairy looked exhausted. He was panting hard and even his flying was not as steady as it usually was. I frowned lightly.

At the same time, I heard a faint explosion. A dozen of meters away, a pile of rocks exploded, revealing the silhouette of the third fairy. The female fairy’s body was surrounded by a large protective water bubble.

“That’s enough. Desei. Let’s retreat.” Yrelinna cautiously said as she floated toward the fairy. Although she was protected by her water bubble, her body was covered with bruises.

“What do you mean?” Desei replied aggressively. The lightning on his hands crackled loudly. “Why do we need to retreat? Together, we can defeat him!”

Yrelinna shook her head. “No. Open your eyes and look at how much mana he has left. Does it look like somebody who only used five spells?”

“What?” Desei furrowed his brows and stared at Levi. The latter was breathing heavily. He let out a taunting smile and met the other fairies’ gaze.

“I don’t know about you, but I am not willing to risk it. It is said that Levi can already fight against people of the fourth circle. You should understand what he is capable of.” Yrelinna spoke with a low voice.

Desei cursed loudly. His eyes turned cold. Nevertheless, the lightning surrounding his body gradually disappeared. The canyon became dark once again. “Count yourself lucky. We will report this to the others. You openly attacked another fairy.”

Levi shrugged. “Do what you want. It is not forbidden to fight with another fairy and is not too unusual either. Although it is frowned upon, it is also frowned upon to have a fairy spy around the host of another.”

Desei and Yrelinna cursed but eventually left the scene, heading back to the village.

I stood still with Levi, waiting for his reaction. He was breathing loudly, forcing himself to calm down.

“We need to move quickly. The encounter was brief, but it must have attracted the attention of the monsters nearby.”

“Yes. Give me a moment to catch my breath.” Levi said weakly. “In fact, you should go ahead. These two are not returning to the village yet. They are just pretending to and are planning to tail us again after a while.”

I paused and stared at the exhausted fairy. “I see… Then, I’ll go ahead.” After one last glance at the weak silhouette of the fairy, I left and headed toward the entrance of the tombs. After coming here regularly, I could more or less recognise the path even in the dark.

Behind me, Levi straightened his back, putting up a strong front. Then, he turned his attention toward the direction the two fairies left.

I fell into deep thoughts as I recalled the scene I just witnessed.

‘Time Paradox… The Time Element spell that allows the user to anchor himself at a specific point along a timeline. Then, simply by using the spell again, they can return to their anchor point as many times as they want in exchange for mana… My sensitivity to mana is still too low, if it was not for the female fairy’s comment, I would not have known that Levi had already depleted a large portion of his mana. Adding in the factor that he suddenly became exhausted and that he has the time element, it is safe to assume that he used that spell.’

‘I can’t blame the two fairies for retreating. Time Element users are extremely annoying to fight once they reached the fourth circle. Everyone would hate fighting against someone who already knows the exact sequence of their spells and knows how to perfectly counterattack.’

‘Levi should be fine since he chose to chase after these two. Earth and Time, what a strange combination of elements. The only question I have though is how many times did he used Time Paradox when he tried to get me into debts? It was rather unusual to have him disappear between the earlier rooms.’