Chapter 12.

Quest event

Trip to the Capital.

…

Help the police defeat the actual criminals that are the merchants.

Quest reward: Exp. The capital’s police will be a little favorable towards you.

Quest will fail if the police force gets wiped out.

The quest message popped up just as we entered the forest.

And as if right on cue, people jump out from behind the trees and bushes.

“It’s like they’re crawling out of the woodwork.”

I don’t feel that comment by her was necessary, but oh well.

“Okay, you know what to do, right?” I ask her just as I’m about to open the door to the carriage.

“Do what?” She asks with a clueless gesture.

I suppress a sigh trying to escape my lungs.

“Just, follow me quietly and don’t do anything to attract attention.”

I quickly open the door and leap outside, running straight into the bushes.

It came in quite handy that our stagecoach was at the end of the caravan.

I look back to find Vera right on my heels. Saying she’s fairly quick would be an understatement. Even compared to my relatively high, speed stat.

But as I practically run up the wall that was the tree, she isn’t able to keep up. Eventually she’s forced to climb up the tree bit by bit.

“How did you do that?” She asks as she sits down on the branch, breathing slightly faster than before.

What should I tell her? I just have too much experience climbing up trees? What kind of a meaning would that convey? Now I’m scared of telling her anything…

I just decide to not comment on that for now. As I look towards the caravan to see how the situation plays out.

The driver to our carriage finally turns around to check on us, and realizing we’re not there, he quickly goes to tell the trade union leader who just came out from his carriage as if to negotiate with the police.

But I can’t hear it that clearly because it’s quite far away from this tree.

I look around, the trees aren’t that densely packed that it’d be easy to jump from one tree to another.

There aren’t any vines that I could use to swing either…

Wait. If there aren’t any vines naturally, how about I create my own?

I take out Valentine from my inventory.

“What are you doing?”

A cheesy one liner comes to my mind, but it’ll be more impressive if I just do it directly.

I leap towards another tree. But it’s a few meters short, I won’t make it.

While mid-air, I swing my hand towards the tree, Valentine extends out and stabs straight into that tree’s branch, wrapping around once like a grappling hook.

Wait, I don’t know how to retract it. Just pulling back doesn’t retract it quickly.

I swing under the tree that I was aiming for, but as I was thinking about it, Valentine contracts, pulling me towards the branch. The previous momentum leads me to perform a backflip as I land on the branch and it lightly shakes. Though not making too much noise.

I turn around to look at Vera, as she makes a speechless expression. But I could practically see the stars in her eyes as she opens her mouth in an exclamation.

I quickly gesture by putting my index finger on my lips, to tell her to not make any unnecessary sound.

By using Valentine for a while now, you’ve come to the realization that it uses mana to quickly extend and retract.

To use a weapon with mana, you just have to transfer it through your hand. Transferring mana into objects is a basic technique that every wizard learns.

Then how did I do it before? I try to recall that feeling.

Wait, there’s no time to be doing that. I look towards the union leader who seems to still be negotiating with the police.

Using his shouts, which are lightly audible and looking closely at his mouth, I attempt to do a little bit of lip-reading.

“I can offer you -” The next words aren’t that clear. It may be something I haven’t heard before.

The representative from the police responds, “You criminal scum! How dare you try to bribe us?”

“I can also offer _ if that is what you would like.”

“Your sins cannot be pardoned! For trying and accomplishing to get multiple police officials addicted to your drugs, it would be the death penalty for you.”

“Information. I can also give that!” He seems a little desperate now.

“We already have found a better lead. Men! Capture him if possible but don’t let him get away alive!” He commands the other policemen as they start to charge towards the place the leader is at.

The leader curses and starts to run towards the forest. Coincidentally, towards the same side that we’re on. That would make it easier.

As he runs, a few archers shoot towards him, though the arrows are deflected by the mercenary captain and his mercenaries who also block the others from pursuing him.

Though a few are able to get around the mercenaries and chase after the union leader.

Who… Seems to be taking odd hops while running. That’s weird.

“Come, we need to at least delay them so that he can get away.”

I say towards Vera as I jump to the ground and run towards where the police are chasing that union leader, to intercept them.

There’s only 2 policemen, but even at a glance, they seem a little stronger than the ones last night.

Police Swordsman.

Approximate level, 30.

The chainmail under their outer wear and gives protection against cuts, but is weak to blunt attacks.

They are also trained in imperial swordsmanship and archery.

Enemies that you have fought against previously will be easier to identify.

Ah, so they got special training. But certainly, they shouldn’t be that proficient in it because they would have been in a higher rank if that was the case.

Taking a glance behind me to find Vera isn’t that far away, I whip out my sword and lash it towards one of the swordsmen, trying to remember that feeling of transferring mana.

Valentine extends out about 6 meters and, because it extended too much, instead of just hitting the enemy, wraps around him. Though, thankfully my strength was enough to hold him back and not get carried myself. As I pull him towards myself, his head hits a tree that was in the way. Knocking him off balance.

Though his HP didn’t decrease more than 10%.

It seems that using mana with Valentine does increase the damage slightly. Though that might be an illusion.

As I’m able to attract his attention, I leave him here for Vera to deal with, and rush towards the other one, who is now dangerously close to the union leader whose hopping seems to get weirder and weirder since there aren’t any obstacles he needs to jump over.

However, my speed is fast enough that I’m able to catch up to them in a little bit.

Once again, using Valentine as a sort of grappling hook, I whip it towards a thick tree branch. And then, as I’m close enough to the policeman,

Double-Edge used. (FS -50)

And as soon as I start charging and my speed increases slightly, I try to break through the skill movements and jump instead, using Valentine to help redirect my momentum.

Eccentric used.

A faint silhouette of myself crashes into the policeman chasing the union leader. Knocking him into the ground since there wasn’t any tree nearby to stop him from falling.

You receive recoil damage. HP-10

The enemy is stunned for 5 seconds.

Now, quickly climbing onto the tree so that I’m relatively safe, I wait for Vera to show up. While I continuously whip my sword towards the policeman to whittle down his HP. It isn’t cowardly to do that, not at all.

The union leader seemingly oblivious to all this, continues running towards somewhere. I keep an eye on him so that he doesn’t get away. When I spot him, for a moment, a yellow dot pops up in the minimap, but disappears if I look away for more than a few seconds.

So, I need to be aware of someone for him to be visible in the minimap. Makes sense, otherwise wouldn’t stealth classes be instantly pointless if I could see everyone in the minimap?

The policeman quickly gains consciousness and instantly spots me in the tree. Well, I am constantly peppering him with hits after all.

He jumps up, trying to swing at me, but I’m too high up.

I see him trying to prepare an attack, as if charging up. Not giving him an opportunity, I continue to hit faster and faster, though the attack gets lighter and the damage caused isn’t high.

But as if by a miracle, he manages to slash with whatever power he was charging up.

“Sword beam!”

A skill. A reddish tinted beam of light comes out from his sword, straight towards me.

Quickly ducking and using the tree branch as cover, I manage to avoid damage as the tree shakes heavily.

HP-5

Well, mostly.

In the distance I see that union leader hopping away from sight, but to my rescue, Vera comes at the appropriate time.

I jump down from the branch, which is only possible because the skill that guy used provided a very obvious opening in his defenses.

Because I jumped using the tree branch, lose as it had already gotten, it isn’t able to take further force and breaks free and falls, faster than me somehow.

To dodge that branch, the policeman steps backwards, and comes right under my feet, as I use his head as a platform to land on.

I won’t be surprised if some force of nature or something is laughing while watching this happening.

Head hit, critical.

Enemy is in shock, but manages to hold onto his weapon.

Enemy stunned for 5 seconds.

He still has about 30-40% HP left.

Well, she can handle it I think.

“Deal with this here or that guy might get away.”

“But-”

“I’ll chase him since I’m faster anyways. You can come find me using the minimap or something once you’re done.”

Not giving her a chance to reject, I sprint towards where that guy was hopping away.

I do feel a little bad now that I’ve led her along this far.

Or did I only succeed because she let me lead her?

Probably a little bit of both.

I once again swing my sword towards the tree branches, trying to run on top of the trees. But this time the sword doesn’t extend that far.

More practice is definitely needed.

My mana has also decreased by about 10 points, so, only 30 of 40 MP remaining.

The minimap shows the previously disappearing yellow dot, now clear again. I can see a silhouette of him running away with all his strength into the distance.

I now try to remember if I did tell Vera to not kill the police again here or not? But would they run away this time that they have reinforcements since they’re closer to the capital?

About that, it somehow seems like the direction that guy is escaping towards, is near the capital too.

Since he’s a bit further away, I keep trying to find him in the distance then look at the minimap towards which direction he’s going.

But suddenly, the marker disappears.

I rush towards the place I last saw it at, in the minimap. Though it doesn’t show much at all. Since it can only show things that I’ve already seen or can see. In a moment I reach there.

It’s a relative clearing in the middle of the forest.

And there’s a pond.

Suppressing my urge to simply take off all my clothes and jump in. Instead I try to think about where that guy could have disappeared to.

Either he teleported or something, which I don’t know if that is even possible here. He died, though I don’t see his body or any evidence of a fight. Or that there’s something hidden here.

For which I look around and try to find. While there are a few interesting things here, I don’t tamper with them, for now. Maybe it’s in the bottom of that pond again.

It’ll be better to wait for Vera here, I’ve been taking advantage of her enough lately. Don’t want her to miss out on this.

And she might not be able to enter if I go there first. Thus, leaving me defenseless.

And while waiting I should also practice this ‘mana transfer’ thing with Valentine.