Lucas had a decision to make: on one hand, going to any public space or guard would quickly put an end to Harry's pursuit. On the other, that wouldn't properly resolve the situation and Lucas would just have to deal with it again later. He had to handle this himself. But how was he going to beat an opponent that was older, larger, and had higher stats and levels? Even now, Lucas could hear the older boy gaining on him.

It turned out the answer to that question wasn't long in coming: Lucas would do exactly what Harry had intended on doing to him, and lay an ambush. Based on how he still hadn't caught up, Harry must not be the type of [Hunter] that invests greatly in their physique, and uses traps instead. That would help Lucas in this endeavor but unfortunately, there wasn't a single [Hunter] in this world that couldn't track their prey, and Lucas wasn't posing much a challenge on that front at the moment. The muddy ground now worked against him by clearly marking his tracks.

Well, let's change that then.

Without warning, Lucas took a hard left down another path. He'd already resolved to deal with this on his own, but in order to do so, he turned his sprint in the direction of a more populous part of the village. A hard right followed immediately after the first turn, then he followed the path past a few intersections before turning left once more.

Harry had demonstrated his speed already, but it was Lucas's hope that the indirect route he was taking would prohibit him from taking full advantage of his higher stats. So far, it was working.

"Keep running! I have no problem being patient--I will catch up eventually," Harry hollered roughly from a couple buildings over and behind.

At least he's an idiot, makes this so much easier. You'd think he would have a higher estimation of me after the skaven.

Lucas shook his head and kept running. Once he got to an area well-tread enough for his purposes, he continued only a little further before stopping. His chosen location was another intersection of two paths with an unlit building on each corner. The entire intersection was unlit, as a matter of fact. Two of the corner buildings were two-storied, an uncommon sight in the village and one that limited his choices to the other, low-ceilinged ones.

Time was of the essence, so Lucas quickly chose the closest of the two and went around to the side hidden from the direction he'd come from. He found luck in a shuttered window placed at the perfect height to allow him access to the roof, once he climbed it. It was the work of a moment to do just that, though he nearly slipped a couple times thanks to his muddied boots, then he took position in the shadows near the apex of the building's tiled arch to lie in wait.

With the charged state he was in, the wait seemed an eternity, when it could only have been a minute at most. It was plenty of time to wipe a majority of the mud from his boots, at least--he definitely didn't want to slip during what happens next. Moments after Lucas resettled, Harry came charging down the straightway before and below him.

The [Hunter] got to the intersection and halted his pursuit to stare at the ground, finding only an unintelligible, churned up mess.

"Shit," Harry panted a curse. He started pacing the mouths of each path in a circle, but eventually stopped near where he started after finding nothing actionable. "Can't hide forever, Lucas!" Harry yelled into the still air. "The village isn't big enough to hide forever, and no one is going to help you when I haven't even laid a finger on you yet!"

Lucas wasted no time now that Harry was in a suitable position. While he continued to call out challenges, Lucas saddled up to the lip of the building's roof, lined up his trajectory with Harry's back, and leaped into the open air. He tucked his legs under him just before he made impact and hit the other boy's upper back knees-first. Together, the two of them crashed to the ground--Harry's face in the mud, and Lucas pinning him from above.

Neither of them moved for a couple heartbeats, their respective falls having left them stunned. All too soon, Harry started squirming beneath Lucas and groaning in a mix of anger and pain into the ground. Crashing down on his knees had left Lucas with a few pains of his own, but there was no more time to dwell on that now. He roused himself and calmly, albeit quickly, placed a hand on the [Hunter]'s neck.

In the fight against the skaven, Lucas managed to kill it in one brutal, mana-enhanced blow. It had been just as powerful as it was uncontrolled, and precisely why he didn't do something similar now--he wasn't trying to kill anyone. He could do something else, however: before Harry could get his bearing, Lucas pulled the slightest trickle of mana from within himself to the surface of his hand. He didn't bother altering its form all that much from its neutral, [Regeneration]-influenced state. A little unbalancing of the flow removed the mana's healing aspect, and the effect was immediate.

"Aggghh--," Harry jerked beneath him and collapsed back into the mud.

Agh, that stung me as well, Lucas shook his hand. Mission accomplished, but if he ever intended on using that move again, he'd need to come up with a proper formation to shape his mana into. A quick look at his status showed it only took a couple dozen MP though, so it was still viable.

Beneath him, Harry recovered enough to try to say something, but the aftereffects of the shock and the fact he was trying to speak around a mouthful of mud made it all but unintelligible. Still, Lucas could guess what he was trying to communicate.

"I won't get up till you stop trying to fight me," he sighed. From the other boy's renewed struggle, his words were received well enough, if not heeded. Lucas put his hand back on Harry's neck. "I suggest you lie still," he coldly spoke.

Those words, at least, were heeded.

"You are older than me, higher level than me, and have many other advantages," Lucas acknowledged, "and yet here we are." He pressed his hand down a little bit harder. "Picking this fight was beyond stupid, and even if you did beat me up a bit, it would have gotten you nothing but trouble when other people eventually found out."

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

He eased up on his hold on the back of Harry's neck before continuing. "I don't know what sort of trouble you got in for the help you gave Regan, but it is not. My. Fault. Instead of picking fights, you should be trying to make up for what you did."

The [Hunter] shifted slightly, but when no other sudden moves were made, Lucas raised his hand and allowed him to turn his head to speak.

"I had no choice!" Harry spat his words, as well as a bit of earth to the side. "She didn't leave me with any other option than to help her, but no one seems to care about that!"

"You made the choice to be here, today, though," Lucas pointed out. "Not exactly a shining example of your innocence."

"Fuck you," Harry spat again.

Lucas sighed. "Look, I'm not going to argue with you over this. Are you going to try this again?" Lucas asked, referring to the whole ambush situation. Harry opened his mouth to speak, but before any words could come out, Lucas replaced his hand on the [Hunter]'s neck. "Give it a moment. Think over your words real carefully."

Silence reigned in their little corner of the village, and Lucas looked up while Harry took a few moments. It was getting dark, and the wind had started to pick up. A storm was blowing in and the last of the villagers that had still been wandering around outside would likely be seeking their homes soon. He wanted nothing more than to do the same--Lucas was tired and the day had honestly been a bit of a disappointment.

"Fine." Harry eventually said.

"'Fine', what?"

"Fine, I won't try this again," he irritably clarified.

"Good choice." Lucas finally rose from his perch atop the older boy's back. He grabbed onto the collar of Harry's shirt and helped him back to his feet, but he did not let go when Harry tried to step away.

"What are you doing?"

"Making sure I got the point across," Lucas answered. Then he extended his other arm to their front and side, and pulled once more from his mana currents. Near instantly, a fulminous rush of mana struck out and into he ground--there one moment, and gone the next as Lucas sagged with a sudden exhaustion. "I don't need help. Not with a fight like this," he managed to keep the exhaustion from his voice.

Without another word, Lucas pushed Harry forward. The older boy stumbled at first, before he started walking, but in a few moments he was running off as fast as his legs could take him. Once he rounded a corner and went out of sight, Lucas gave in to the exhaustion and collapsed down onto his backside.

"Ugh," he groaned, and he felt the first few raindrops fall from the incoming storm. He needed to get back home, but for the moment he could only summon up the effort to move over and rest his back against the very same building he'd recently jumped from. A headache was starting up in companion to the exhaustion, and though this was the first time it had happened to him, Lucas had a feeling he knew the source of this issue.

With a thought, he opened up his status, and the flood of notifications that came with it.

[*ding Congratulations! [Vigilance] has reached level 7-10!]

[*ding Congratulations! [Stealth] has reached level 7-10!]

[*ding Congratulations! [Regeneration] has reached level 9!]

[Lucas]

[Free Stats: 0]

[HP: 201/220]

[MP: 3/330]

[STR: 18]

[DEX: 24]

[VIT: 22]

[WIS: 33]

[INT: 31]

[Class: Child of Mana]

[Level: 10]

[Skills:

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

[General Skills:

* [Identify: 6]

* [Healing Arts: 10]

* [Basic Combat Training: 10]

* [Vigilance: 10]

* [Stealth: 10]

* [Cooking:10]

* [Fitness: 10]

* [Learning: 10]

* [Regeneration: 9]

* [----------]

Despite his reason for opening his status, the massive increase in Skill levels immediately arrested his attention. The level in [Regeneration] was great, but one relatively short fight managed to get him four levels in both [Vigilance] and [Stealth]! He was almost upset at the time he'd apparently wasted borrowing things at the market, but the satisfaction of maxing out two more Skills prevailed in the end. In total, he only need five more levels till he was ready to evolve his Class.

Finally, Lucas turned his attention to the source of his exhaustion and headache: his MP. It was all but dried up, and with the rate at which it regenerated, he probably had completely exhausted it. It explained his sudden weakness after his parting threat to Harry, and Lucas had known this could happen, but still it caught him by surprise.

In a real, serious fight against an enemy that wasn't so easily intimidated, that kind of mistake could get Lucas killed. It went without saying that he needed to keep better track of his mana expenditure in the future. However, out of curiosity he looked over to where the lightning bolt he'd conjured had struck, and beheld its destruction. In a circle on the ground, about as wide as his foot was long, the mud and top layer of dirt upon the ground had been blasted away, forming a small crater that was just starting to fill in with mud and rainwater.

So that's what 330 MP can do. It would probably look a lot more dramatic with a monster as the target.

He took note of it almost passively before resting his head back against the wall and closing his eyes. There would be time to seriously consider all that later--he just wanted to rest at the moment.

Lucas sat there, in the mud and rain as the night grew dark and cold. He breathed in the chilly air, and he listened to the wind whistle between the surrounding buildings. Not a single thought crossed his mind as he sat there, taking in the moment.

Eventually, however, the cold and wet brought him back to full alertness. He was greeted with an unexpected notification.

[*ding You have received the General Skill [Meditation]!]

[Meditation: attune to the world around you and the world within.]

Huh, well that's not confusing at all.

Lucas had no plans of replacing any of his Skills at the moment, and this one didn't seem like it did all that much so he just dismissed the notification. He'd ask someone about it later. For now, he rose up from his position on the ground and felt the rainwater run off him. It was time to head home.