She is toying with me

Our duel starts with both of us whacking our swords on each other’s shields. I’m mostly probing her defenses right now. Trying to see if she has a flaw in her shield techniques. She is doing the same to me. Her sword comes at me high and low, aiming for my head, my hips, she even goes for my legs from time to time. But all she can learn is my shield technique is just as good as hers.

After some probing Merlara switches her game-plan. She starts by putting her foot on my belly and pushing me away. After creating room between us like this, Merlara raises her sword above and brings it down on me. I kneel while also raising my shield above my head and block the attack. Then I push my sword foreward, straight to Merlara’s chest, but her armored leg kicks it away. Then I receive a knock from her shield against my helmet. From my experience, I remember the best thing to do is let the momentum of the impact carry me and rotate my body along with the blow. This way I quickly bring my shield between myself and Merlara. Just in time too, because Merlara brings her sword down again already. She brings her sword down a 2nd and a 3rd time. After the 3rd, I feel it is time for me to start using some magic.

I cast my [Divine Chains] spell and aim the chain at one of Merlara’s feet. Then I walk back a bit. The magic spell prevents the chain to lengthen and makes it so Merlara is pulled to me. It is a good way for me to get her out of balance. The trick works perfectly and Merlara falls over. Time for me to bring my sword to her throat and demand her to surrender.

Merlara suddenly raises her sword hand to me and all of a sudden, I start hearing people scream. It is loud and they are coming from everywhere. I look around, worried that the guild is under attack, but they are just staring at us patiently. What is going on? Then my shield suddenly starts burning! What the hell?! I quickly drop it. Then my stomach starts rumbling and I feel something coming up. Oh no. I fall on my hands and knees and start puking. Where is all this coming from? Finally, I receive a kick in my stomach and I roll over on my back. Merlara is standing over me, her sword pointing at my throat.

“Your swordplay is quite good, I’m impressed. But you lost the moment you made this a duel between magic users.” Merlara explains. The she sheaths her sword and walks away.

I glare at her as she walks away. She used a fire spell on me. So, does that mean she is a crusader? But I don’t know of any fire spells that make you hear screams, or fire spells that cause you to puke. Is she some kind of mage who wears armor and uses a sword to throw people off? Yeah, losing to Jason, I can accept. He at least plays a game to measure my strength. Merlara instead toys with me.

I pull myself up and walk out of the arena to sit on a bench for a while. My stomach is still upset from that last bit and my mouth tases sour. This is when one of the clerks comes to me with a request to guard a warehouse overnight. I take the paper it is written on and tell her I’ll take care of it. After calming my stomach and having a light snack, I let Ari know about the quest. Then we both went to our respective rooms for some rest.

I would have overslept, except Ari came to wake me up in time. After getting dressed for combat, we move to the warehouse. The owner is there and I tell him that I will guard the warehouse on the inside while Ari is going to guard it on the outside. I also let him know that since he gets his rats once every two days, it is unlikely we’ll get results today. I just want to make sure.

Over the coming night, I spend a lot of time walking around inside the dark warehouse. The owner gave me a lit candle so I would at least not be in total darkness. I could have used my light magic to illuminate the room, but that might scare off whatever happens to cause the rats to come. I will instead use the illuminate spell as a warning for Ari.

Being alone like this does give me a lot of time to think about that duel with Merlara. I am convinced she used multiple magical elements on me. But I have my doubts about her being a mage or a cleric. I also don’t think she cheated. Perhaps she has skills that resemble magic? Regardless, as long as she has the upper hand in magic, I will never beat her. If I am to put that bitch in her place, I’m going to need to learn more magic spells.

The next morning the warehouse owner comes to find me and I have to admit to him that nothing happened last night. But like I told him the night before, it was to be expected. I suggested him to hold on to that token for now an I will come to guard his warehouse again this evening.

When Ari and I get to the guildhall we start with a hearty breakfast. As soon as I can, I search for Kiara and ask her for the best way to train some light magic spells.

“Personally, I feel the best way to learn is from your fellow guild members. I’m sure there’s a lot of them that are willing to share some of their knowledge with you in the arena.” Kiara says.

Kiara then finds me a couple of guild mates who can use light magic, including that woman they keep calling healslut. Yeah, her simply being here already made me flatten my ears a little just because. Though surprisingly, the most useful new spell I learn is from her, [Dispel]. It quite simply cancels any spells that are having an effect on a person or object. If I manage to learn this one, Merlara will no longer be able to make me puke. [Sunlight Charge] is another interesting one. That’s the spell Kiara used on me in the early days at the castle. If I could blind Merlara like this it will certainly help a lot. The next spell they bring up is [Flare]. That one sounds much more interesting than what I was planning to use in the warehouse last night.

They help me practice the spells, but [Dispel] and [Sunlight Charge] prove to be harder than I thought. They also feel less important than [Flare]. Eventually I manage to get a decent [Flare], but then it is time for me to rest.

Like last night, when it is time to head out for the warehouse Ari comes to wake me again. Again, I guard the inside of the warehouse and Ari guards the outside. This time I am a lot more focused. This is the night it’s supposed to happen. A mass of rats is supposed to come in here from … somewhere. I keep my ears up to catch every little sound. Whenever I hear something, no matter how small it is, I head over to check it out. But every time, I get nothing.

When I get to where the cheese is being stored, I get a bit distracted. There are so many of them and all of them are coated in wax. It makes me wonder just how many beehives were melted for just these cheeses.

It is then that I hear a loud sound. Like a metal grate sliding over the floor. As I walk to where the sound comes from, I manage to pinpoint its location. It’s from right next to the bathrooms.

“Alright, I’m in. Hand me the torch.” I hear someone say.

Burglars? I quickly extinguish the candle I’m holding and hide myself between the shelves of cheese. Wouldn’t want them to notice me and run away before I have my information.

“Ok, I’m in too.” I hear another voice. “Pass me the rope.”

So, there’s at least two. But what would they need a rope for? I hear some groaning, a pause, and then some more. What are they doing? After a short silence I notice a light source approaching from behind a wall. Eventually some guy holding a torch comes into view. The torch is bright enough to illuminate himself and his immediate surroundings. This allows me to see him but he can’t see me. Shortly after him are two people, both rolling a small barrel. After them is another person with a torch. They appear to know where they are heading to. I wait until they have passed another corner. Now it is finally safe for me to use some of my magic. I create a small ball of light in my left hand and walk to where the burglars came from. There I, indeed, find a metal grate which lies next to the hole it is supposed to cover. As I stare at it, I see a rat crawl out and scurry into the warehouse. So that is how the rats are coming in. Shortly after another rats comes crawling out. He sniffs the air a bit, then scurries boldly past me straight for the cheese. I pick up the grate without making any sound and place it back over the hole. I will find whatever rats came in after I take care of the burglars. It goes pretty easy with my A rank strength. Based on how difficult it was for them, I recon they are either of far lower rank, or even no rank at all.

I take a few steps in the direction of where the burglars went until I am close to some windows. It’ll be necessary for when I signal Ari. Then I wait, with sword and shield in hand. The burglars have no idea I am here, so they are expecting to escape the same way they got in. All I need to do is wait and they will come to me.

Like expected, they are coming back the same way. I can see them approach by their torches. Once they are close enough, I cast the [Flare] spell I learned this morning. A large bright ball shoots up from my hands to the warehouse ceiling and slowly starts floating down while illuminating the large room. The light shines through the windows to the outside. I am fully expecting Ari to see it and come rushing to me. In front of me, I see the four burglars. Three men, two of which carrying a torch and one rolling a barrel, and a woman, also rolling a barrel this way. The expressions they have on their faces are of both fear and confusion.

“I am with the Dark Dragon guild!” I announce in a commanding voice. “You four are trespassing and by the looks of it, also stealing! You will hand over your loot and surrender to me immediately. If not, there will be trouble!”

The guy in the front replies with, “Take the girl and get her out of here. We’ll hold her off.”

I was worried they’d fight back. At least they are smart at splitting up. Though they didn’t count on my [Divine Chains]. As the man and woman rolling the barrels abandon their loot and try to escape, I cast this spell on the guy. Now he is chained to me. The woman tries to pull him loose, but she will fail.

The two men wielding torches each pull a sword and attack me. Their form sucks and they swing their blades wildly, creating large openings in their defenses for me to take advantage of. I parry the first guy’s sword and when he strikes at me with his torch, I bash him with my shield. The other guy thinks he’s going to be smart by throwing his torch but I deflect that with my sword as well. Then both attack me with just their swords. I gracefully dodge their attacks and slash the one guy’s calf. He screams and falls and is out of the fight.

Someone then attacks me from behind, but I am prepared for that. I dodge under the incoming weapon and knee the attacker in the side. Looks like the woman gave up on saving her friend and grabbed one of the torches to attack me with. The impact of my kick sends her rolling across the floor. She remains there while clutching her side.

I get attacked from behind again, this time from the guy who is chained by me. He jumps on me and tries to hold on. He must assume he can weigh me down with his weight. Others have tried that before I got my awakening and they failed. I quickly move backward towards a wall and throw myself with my back towards it. The impact causes him to loosen his grip. The second time I do it has him letting go of me.

The second fighter then decides to give up and runs away to the grate. He stops dead in his tracks when three knives land in the wooden floor in front of him. When we look to where they come from, we see Ari, except we see her 5 times. I get it of course. She has used her [Bunshin] skill. It allows her to copy her body and makes it appear as if there are more of her. Each of her copies disappears then they come into contact with an opponent, though. Either because of her attacking them or them attacking her. As long as her copies remain untouched, they will persist. These burglars of course, don’t know that.

“Those are the Ari sisters.” I tell them. “Quintuplets from the Oido province. All 5 of them are Rogues and all 5 are B ranks. You might as well give up already. You won’t be winning this.”

My lie is apparently believable enough for the burglar and he throws his sword down. Ari then dispels her clones and starts tying up the thieves while I collect the torches. One of them already has a few flames jump over to the wooden floor, so I make sure to extinguish those quickly. After all four of them are tied up, we mend the wound on the guy whose calf I cut. Some healer can cure it after daybreak. There, that should be the end of the rat plague. Come to think of it, a few did get in tonight. So, with the mystery of the rat plague solved, I decided to spend the remained of the night hunting down some rats.

The next morning, the warehouse owner is quite happy with our results. Not only did Ari and I make it so he can stop paying for rat hunts, we also prevented him from getting his wine stolen. We even got the burglars to talk. They explained how the first day they just took 2 barrels, used ropes to lower them into the sewers and then rolled them home. Once there, they emptied the barrels by filling up wineskins, and refilled the barrels with water. Then they sold the wineskins in their neighborhood and brought the water filled barrels back here so nobody would notice. With the warehouse already keeping about 50 of those barrels around, nobody would notice 2 barrels missing. They even put a small mark on each barrel they brought back, so they would not accidentally steal a barrel twice. With this information, the warehouse owner is able discover which barrels need to be taken out of circulation.

The warehouse owner sends one of his men to the city guard. Shortly after they arrive to arrest the burglars. Among them is a cleric who heals the one burglar’s leg wound. Ari and I then return to the Dark Dragon guild and collect our 2 silver reward. I keep one for myself and hand the other to Ari. I take the silver coin to my room and add place it in the little lockbox the guild has in every room. In it I have the 124 copper coins I’ve earned this week, the 3 silver from the dungeon we did while training in the castle, 2 silver and 76 copper I had on me as I came here and this new 1 silver from catching the burglars. Subtract from it the 2 silver I have to pay the guild at the end of the month, and that means I have 6 silver spending cash. I don’t think I can get enough armor for that. With my monthly expenses covered now, I feel it’s high time to get to that. But first, I’m going to take a nap.