Reno narrowly dodged a gust of wind that felt like it would put him out of commission.
He was carrying the unconscious guard on his back which made this task no easy feat.
‘Damn it! I thought Trista was dealing with the druids. Why is one here!?’
‘More importantly, though, why won’t this bastard wake up!’
A few minutes ago, Reno listened to Trista’s instructions and went over to wake up the guard.
Reno knew in a situation like this, the more hands on deck the better.
The unconscious guard had dark brown hair and his uniform had five marks on it.
Showing that he was a rank 5 guard.
‘From what I remember, rank 5 means being around D to E rank.’
‘Meaning if this guy got dealt with this easily then I’m of little help as well.’
Reno tried everything he could, from slapping the guy to a family jewels kick but nothing worked.
‘Damn it!’
As he was about to try some other method, Reno heard a noise.
When Reno turned around to check out the noise, however, he didn’t see anything.
Turning back, Reno was surprised to see one of the druids sitting on the guard.
This druid was the one that had a green and amber flower with some purple at the bottom of her forehead.
She looked exactly like any lady except for the forehead marking and also being fully green.
The druid looked at Reno with a scowl on her face.
“Fucking pests!”
“I can’t believe one of you was able to not only injure my spirit but also kill them.”
“I’ll slaughter every one of you I see until I feel satiated.”
“Nothing more than overgrown worms!”
The area around the druid’s chest then became undone, revealing a fully green staff with a red gem at the top.
“Haha! Most humans don’t have any method to strengthen their souls”
“They have developed a way to guard against it with energy, however.”
“I can’t sense a sliver of energy from you though, so I guess you’d be worse than a worm.”
“An ant? No… lower than that if anything.”
[Soul Magic: Astral Vision]
The druid’s eyes turned fully white.
‘Let’s see how weak this one’s soul is.”
‘Huh? What’s up with this human?’
‘Why is his soul not leaking!?’
Druids were one of the only races that could see the soul of any living being.
The common thing that all druids were taught when using this ability was that any and all souls leaked out of their container.
The container is the body of said person or thing.
This was a tried and true fact proven from the days in which druids were a fresh new race.
How soul magic worked was that druids would attack the part of the soul leaking out which would affect the entire soul of the target.
All a druid needed was a minuscule leakage of one’s soul and they could attack.
Other races had different ways to counterattack the soul magic of druids.
How humans did though was by masking their souls with energy.
Unless someone reached a high level of this, however, then the best bet was to just have energy run through your body faster than usual.
Which would help to disrupt the soul magic as well by lessening the effects caused by it.
Normally this was something that one like Trista would do but she had chosen not to do it and tank the soul magic head on.
To the druid, she could still see Reno’s soul but none of it was leaking.
Not even a drop of it, making it so none of her soul magic could affect him.
“You! Why is your soul so strange!?”
Reno was puzzled as he didn’t know what the druid was on about.
“Everyone’s soul leaks out of their vessel, it’s what druids have proven since the birth of our race.”
“How can some stupid less-than-an-ant human be some exception to that.”
The druid was getting frustrated.
Numerous veins were popping out of her head due to a mix of anger, frustration, and annoyance.
In less than an hour, not only did someone she considered less than kill her spirit but another one she considered even worse than that defied the logic part of her life was built upon.
“Haha! I don’t care anymore, I still have a mission to complete.”
“Die, you annoyance!”
[Enter, Hands of Many Trades, Hotch]
[Kill all those lesser than me]
A mass of the hands of many different species appeared right next to the druid.
It consisted of burly green arms, slim green arms, red arms no bigger than a twig, yellow arms with jewelry on them, and more.
The druid also took up the unconscious guard and threw him at Reno.
“Here, take your companion.”
“Don’t say that a superior race such as myself didn’t give you a fair fight.”
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“Not that it matters.”
Upon catching the guard, Reno immediately started sprinting away from the druid.
He wasn’t sure where to go but anywhere apart from there was a viable place for him.
“Hotch, kill him. Only one ogre arm should be enough.”
Hearing instructions, one of the muscular green arms swiped in the direction where Reno was running.
This caused a gust of strong wind to blow at Reno.
Noticing the gust of wind in time, Reno was able to dodge and continue running away.
‘Damn it! I thought Trista was dealing with the druids. Why is one here!?’
‘More importantly, though, why won’t this bastard wake up!’
‘She sat on you and then started a fucking monologue.’
‘Talking something about souls and whatnot.’
The druid lady then sat on one of the numerous hands that her spirit had.
“I hope you don’t expect that bug to wake up. One of our own has already destroyed his soul you know?”
“His body might still be working but it will never wake up again.”
The druid then started hysterically laughing.
“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HAHH HAAHH!”
“Like I thought, humans are fun to watch suffer.”
“Tell me why the fuck would I help you out, I want you dead!”
The druid then wiped some small tears that she had from laughing
“Hotch, two arms this time.”
This time, one muscular green arm and another burly arm with some golden bangles on it clapped together.
Generating a whole torrent of wind that was much larger than the first attack.
‘Damn it!’
Reno wanted to dodge this one like the first one but with the extra luggage on his back, he couldn’t.
The torrent of wind and Reno collided head-on, launching Reno a whole 40 meters back into the lucky wheel stall.
When Reno and the wheel collided, the wheel spun for a bit before stopping on a black X.
{You lose!}
Reno’s vision had started to blur a bit, due to the pain and blood loss.
Getting up and checking out his injuries, Reno realized that he had no broken bones.
‘All the attack did was blow me away while leaving me with some minor injuries.’
‘She must be trying to play around with me like some toy. This is better for me as I can at least try to get help.’
The spirit that the druid was riding on had 10 arms in total.
If two were able to blow away him away then he stood little to no chance.
Reno squatted on the run and then ruffled his hair a bit.
‘Damn it! I thought this would be peaceful for once. I swear I’m going to go off the rails!’
Taking some deep breaths, Reno was doing his best to calm down.
‘Calm down, this is what that bastard wants.’
‘Now think. She said that druid magic wouldn’t work on me because I have no leaks in my soul or something.’
‘As such, she decided to summon her spirit instead of fighting me using druid magic.’
‘From that I can infer that her spirit is the strong one here and not her due to her lack of soul magic.’
‘If I can get the drop on her then I should be able to find a way to kill her.’
Listening to what he was saying, Reno became a bit hesitant.
Reno shook his head in an attempt to shake away his hesitant thoughts.
He then got up and went to search the unconscious guard’s body.
Looking at his spoils, Reno tried thinking up a plan.
‘We have a healing potion, a Glock 17 handgun with a whole cartridge of bullets but no energy in them, some candy bars, and also a coupon for some grocery store.’
“Human scum! Where the fuck are you!”
Hearing the druid’s voice, Reno hastened himself to come up with something.
After some seconds, Reno did come up with something but thought it was just borderline insanity to try.
The druid then yelled out, “I see some bloodstains, he must be at the end of them.”
Hearing this, Reno wanted to cry or beg or do anything. As long as he didn’t die.
Unlike his past life where he had no one, here he had lots who cared for him.
Losing all of that was the thing that scared him the most.
Thinking about this, Trista’s words from some hours ago flashed in his memory.
“Reno, what do you think power should be used for?”
Now that he was about to die, he finally realized why he didn’t want to stay weak.
‘I-I don’t want to lose anyone due to weakness, I want to be able to protect those I care about.’
‘I don’t give a fuck about saving innocent people, or the powerful, or the rich, or who the fuck else.’
‘I want to keep those who I care about beside me. If anything, I’d say this is more childish than becoming an elite combatant.’
Making up his mind, Reno loaded up his gun with the cartridge, tore off a piece of the unconscious guard’s clothes, and took off the healing potion’s cork.
He then stuffed the potion in his mouth while putting the cloth over his face and lying down.
Reno then took off the gun’s safety and offloaded around 5 of the gun’s bullets into the left of his chest.
‘FUCK! IT HURTS SO MUCH! I’M GOING TO DIE! I DON’T WANT TO DIE!’
‘I CAN’T DIE WITHOUT SEEING NONE OF MY FRIENDS EVER AGAIN!’
‘I WON’T DIE!’
The left side of Reno’s chest then began to bleed out onto the guard clothes he had on.
Along with his head going down on the ground due to the blood flow to his body starting to be cut off.
The moment that Reno’s head reached the ground, the druid arrived at where he was.
Upon first seeing what Reno had done, she burst out in laughter falling to the ground.
“I can’t! Hahahaha! Humans are so pathetic.”
“To die without so much as putting up a fight.”
“I despise people like that the most too!”
“At least you ended up giving me a good laugh.”
Reno was biting his lip and doing his best to stay awake.
Due to the amount of strength, he was biting the glass healing potion bottle with, it had begun to crack.
‘This fucking weed bastard!’
“Oops, I need to make sure he’s dead before I continue. I’ve heard of humans pulling tricks like that to survive before.”
“With all the blood loss I’m seeing though, the chances are slim.”
The druid got off one of her spirit’s arms and then walked beside Reno and was about to activate her astral vision.
The second that the druid stopped moving, Reno gulped down all the remaining healing potion in the bottle.
Reno had put the healing potion in his mouth so that it would help heal him as he was dying.
The meager drops of healing potion that he had been drinking were enough to keep him teetering on the brink of death.
Immediately after drinking the potion, Reno tried to empty the rest of the bullets into the skull of the druid.
With only 2 out of the remaining 5 making its way into her cranium.
“Fuck! How are you alive!?”
The druid then saw the bottle of healing potion that had rolled to the side.
“The hell!? Are you mad?”
Reno put his hand on Grieving Maiden, activating the skill as soon as he unsheathed his blade.
{Never-ending Sorrow}: The entire blade and its user will be engulfed with flames that reduce damage taken by 15% while increasing the damage dealt out by 15% for 1 minute]
“Fuck mad. I’m pissed right now.”
Reno and his sword became clad in bright blue flames, causing the druid to fall back a bit.
After all, it was common knowledge that flames and heat were the weakness that druids feared the most.
[Cut]
Not wasting a single second, Reno tried to cut the druid down.
“HOTCH! SHIELD ME!”
The spirit did its best to make it in time and shield the druid but still fell short.
The druid’s head had split into two with blue flames coming out of the center burning her face and body into ash.
“Ahhhhh! Fucking Humans! Die! Kill him Hotch!”
The 10 arms of the spirit started waving all about the place causing all sorts of phenomena.
Whether it be lightning, wind, or the earth shaking in an attempt to kill Reno.
‘Humans value their lives don’t they, move away so I can’t heal you pest.’
Reno took up the druid and used her as a shield so that the spirit wouldn’t attack.
“You damn spirit! Don’t attack me! Attack him”
“Also, you less than an insect human, PUT ME DOWN!”
Reno was getting tired of hearing the druid talk. As such he held her head with his hand and smashed her into the ground.
Doing her best to struggle out of the ground, she was barely able to turn a bit and catch a glimpse of Reno’s current state.
He had blood all over his uniform, scratches, and bruises all over. Even so, the look on his face told her along with all his tensed-up body muscles told her all she needed to know.
That he wasn’t letting her leave, even if the spirit ended up killing both of them.
A gaze such as this freaked the druid the hell out.
She was used to seeing humans and other races struggle and fall beneath her no matter how much she tried.
The one thing that she found common between them was that they would always try to preserve their sorry lives in the end.
Reno wasn’t doing that, which made him an anomaly in her book.
Like humans, even druids feared what they didn’t know.
“Unhand me! Yo-”
Hearing that the druid was starting up again, Reno raised her head off the ground and then slammed it back into it with further force.
This was concrete and Reno was putting his full force into slamming her into the ground.
This caused a crater to form around where the druid’s head was being slammed.
Reno looked around and noticed that the druid’s spirit was gone.
“You’re spirit is gone, does that mean you’ve surrendered or have you run out of energy?”
The druid lost all hope.
Due to the fire burning her body, she had to switch to using energy in order not to die so she had to un-summon her spirit.
No matter what conclusion she reached, she realized that she was going to die.
‘If it was against any other race I wouldn’t mind dying but my pride won’t allow me to die to a damn human.’
As the druid was about to begrudgingly start begging for her life.
Reno unhanded the druid, stomped on her back, and turned her horizontally.
“What!? What are you doing human?”
“You can't ki-”
[Cut]
With this, Reno beheaded the druid with her head rolling beside the unconscious guard.
The green blood of the druid also filling up the crater that was made.
Reno then unsheathed his blade before kicking the druid’s head away from the unconscious guard.
“Sorry, but this is all I could do.”
Reno was unsure of the face he was making nor did he want to know.
He had killed someone after all, something he thought he would never have to do in his life.
Even though, he felt like shit. He took up the gun, put it in his holster, and then started running to where Kenric was.