Lock swung around Harald's sword in the air in an attempt to get used to it. It was a well-made sword. Perfectly balanced (as all things should be), lighter than it looked, and so beautiful that watching it become an extension of the arm made the wielder's soul cry out in aesthetic ecstasy.

But, they were working under a time constraint, and so the time that Lock spent familiarizing himself with the sword was kept short. After only a few dozen seconds he stopped, letting the weapon rest at his side.

“Are you sure about this? It is four on one.” Harald asked worriedly.

Lock waved him off.

While it was indeed a bit of a stretch taking on all four by his lonesome, it needed to look like it had been one person doing the deed. And since Lock was no crime scene specialist, the easiest way of achieving that was, by actually fighting them one on four.

In addition to that. Claiming that the ambushers had set their sights on Harald had been a gamble, directed at getting the not so unsubstantial experience that four iron rank adventurers could grant him, while getting none of the blame. It needed to be Lock cutting them down, because he didn't trust the other two to not halt in their slaughtering if the victims tried to plead with them and explain the possible misunderstanding. And while the other possibility was simply the fact that they were attempting to ambush Mia and him instead, Lock needed Harald to completely believe that Lock was his saviour, and had absolutely no ulterior motives beyond the good in his heart. Only then did he trust the man unquestioningly to turn himself in to the adventurer's guild and confess to his crime of self-defence.

“I'm going in.” Lock said simply. Harald and Mia staying in their spots as he approached the door.

Harald still looked worried, while Mia seemed to be trying to burn a hole into the door. She must have still been hoping for a different conclusion to the scenario. Cute.

He shunted those observations aside however as he entered the room. The door swung open to the inside, and the first thing he had to do was dodge a wild shove coming from his right. He did this by tipping forward, his heel smacking against the door, closing it, during the move. Couldn't have them escaping could he.

His eyes locked with those of Butch, who was standing in the middle of the room, or they would have locked, had Butch not been staring horrified at something behind Lock.

Lock allowed himself a glance backwards since, after noting that the third hooligan, the second was standing next to Butch, was stationed at the other side of the door, right where Lock would have landed had the fourth hooligan's push been successful.

Talking about the fourth hooligan, his bisected corpse lay on the ground behind Lock, an almost artistic splash of blood now covering the door.

Lock looked down at the sword in his right hand.

It had blood on it.

Huh, he hadn't even noticed that he'd struck out during his dodge forwards, odd that. Those were the thoughts flitting through his head as his arm once again lashed out, the other living hooligan by the door being just close enough, and frozen in what appeared to be shock and fear, that the tip of his sword managed to reach and cut through his internal and external carotid artery just above the thyroid cartilage. Blood splashed again, and the owner of the liquid grabbed at his neck, as if he could somehow staunch the bleeding.

Lock heard him fumble with the doorknob as he rushed forward, towards the last two of the would be ambushers. One of whom, not-Butch, was fleeing. Couldn't have that. Thus when he reached Butch, who shouted something, drew his sword and took a swing at him, Lock simply rolled underneath it, continuing to run towards the escapee. Thankfully he managed to reach him before he opened the door. Lock subsequently killed him with a slash through the spinal cord right above the cauda equina.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

He crouched down as he finished the action, feeling something, a sword, most likely, lightly being deflected off his helmet.

He heard Butch shout something, but ignored it, as he sprang up in a spinning back slash. Butch somehow managing to dodge it by quickly blitzing backwards in a move that left behind a trail of bright light.

Lock followed, assailing the still shouting teen with series of three slashes, the first of which broke his guard, Butch's sword being mispositioned above the teens head, the second of which cut off the arm holding the sword, and the third of which decapitated him.

The body fell, and the head smacked down onto the ground with a thump, not rolling anywhere, Lock noted.

A soft whimper reached his ears, and Lock turned around. The runner who'd managed to get the door half open was making some odd sounds. Oh, right, Lock hadn't killed him, he'd just turned him into a quadriplegic. “Silly me.” He muttered as he walked and finished the job with a precise stab to the heart.

Then he just sort of stood there, thinking about what had just transpired. After a few moments he came to a terrifying conclusion. A shade living within the sword could be unlocked for one month by sacrificing one point of Endurance, but it wasn't necessarily the wielder that had to be the one to give up his attributes. The shades were unlocked, for now, anyone who picked up the sword afterwards would have access to it.

This meant that the sword once again had value, but well, Lock chuckled as he made to return to the door that he'd entered from. Being basically used as a puppet by the shades living within the sword wasn't particularly fun, and he wasn't the type of man to simply steal from people he knew without a good reason.

The sword, he thought as he kicked away the two corpses blocking the door and opened it, was a shortcut, and a man who had access to an infinite amount of time had no need for shortcuts. Especially shortcuts that he would not enjoy taking.

While he had set himself up a goal to reach, for men without goals rotted away, Lock would not go as far as to throw away his own morality, the transgression of which would harshly impact his enjoyment of the journey, for the achievement of the goal. It was a mostly arbitrary goal anyway, something he'd picked because immortality was what he'd been chasing for most of his existence already and he didn't feel like switching directions in such a sudden manner. One needed to swerve lightly, enjoy the full spectrum of what each direction offered.

Lock coughed once he'd noticed he'd been standing at the door staring at nothing for several seconds and walked over to Harald, to whom he held out the bloodied sword, handle first.

The teen took it, sat down, and promptly pulled out a rag from somewhere to start cleaning. “Thanks.” He said.

“Journey before destination.” Lock replied, nodded at him, and was just about to bring up the now planned move of Harald turning himself in when he heard loud retching and the sound of something wet and chunky splatting onto the ground.

He turned towards the room he'd just exited with a sigh, and as expected, saw a shaking Mia barely managing to stay on her feet by holding on to the door frame with one hand, as she retched onto the ground. A not insignificant puddle of bile gathering at her feet.

This was the moment where Lock completely discarded the thought of him being the boss of anyone. He was a glorified babysitter at most. The twins being his ill gained charges for the duration of the job.

Lock hesitated for only a moment, before walking over to Mia and starting to rub circles on her back, the scene reminding him very vividly of a more innocent time. When his younger sister had gotten very drunk and he'd been the one to hold up her hair as she hugged the toilet bowl for dear life.

At least Mia had had the foresight to bind her hair into a ponytail. Mia 1; Victoria 0.

Almost unnoticed Harald had walked up next to him to gaze into the room. Throwing a disdainful glance at the still retching Mia, he entered, walked over to the torso of the bisected corpse lying face down, and turned the torso around so he could see the dead man's face.

“Jonny.” He said, and gave a loud sigh. Sneezing, probably from the smell, he turned around the corpse that had gained a large secondary smile on its neck and gave another sigh. “Kasin.” He didn't bother going over to the other two corpses, apparently being able to tell who they were from afar. “Martin, Butch.”

“Don't worry,” Harald said, suddenly turning towards Lock, “I haven't forgotten my part of the deal. I'll go turn myself in now, not like there will be much of a punishment. Four people ambushing one.” Harald shook his head. “Bastards.”

“Wait,” Lock said, causing Harald to halt on his way towards the rune stone. “I should tell you how exactly I killed them in case the questions get too in depth.” And thus he did, in excruciating detail, Mia having found herself within his embrace in the lead up to his exposition. After a minute of recounting his experience in gory detail he was done, and there was nothing more holding Harald here, and thus he left, but not before giving him, or Mia, he could not tell, a few parting words.

“Mercy is for the strong, I don't like what happened here, but it was necessary. Anything else would have been risky. I think I'll be leaving for the front lines for now, my adventurer license being suspended soon and all. Goodbye.”

Lock and Mia watched him leave, the rune stone porting him away the moment he touched it, body dissolving in a burst of blue sparkles.

“Only that there was another way, you're definitely strong enough for mercy.” Mia muttered into Lock's collar. Well, no actually, her misconception about his strength was clouding her view of the situation.

But Lock nonetheless replied. “When maggots appear in your food, do you kindly let them go instead of killing them?”, eliciting a disgusted snort mixed with a laugh from the girl in his arms.

Lock gently stroked her neck in response, for a moment it was as if he could actually feel her body heat through his gauntlets.

“Don't worry, I know my place.” She muttered awkwardly.