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Ch172-Out Of The Frying Pan

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Sylver had lost it for a couple of seconds…

A couple of minutes…

What had happened was that one of the bandits accidentally teleported down into the space where the dark elves were hiding, caught a woman Sylver didn’t know the name of, and teleported back up, and tried to threaten Sylver into surrendering.

After that, Sylver appeared right in front of the man, and stabbed him so hard in his dumbfounded mid-sentence face, that the dagger, and Sylver’s hand, came out on the other side. After he washed the grey matter off the dark elf woman’s face and opened a hole for her to get down, Sylver summoned his ax and struggled to recall what exactly had transpired right after that.

He assumed he killed a couple of people, and used the ax, as opposed to magic, on account of the fact that someone’s small intestine was wrapped around his left boot, and that he was drenched in blood.

The only reason Sylver came out of his frenzy, was because he calmed down and focused, as he felt the presence of a mage significantly more powerful than him appear nearby. Sylver let go of the head he had apparently been in the process of bashing against a rock, grabbed his slick-with-blood silvery ax, and stood up from his crouch, as he turned to face his first real opponent.

There were 3 of them, two men, and a woman.

One man was dressed in dark red, a simple long-sleeved tunic that looked unnaturally shiny, with matching dark red trousers. He had a short sword in his right hand, but it was rectangular and looked more like an elongated cleaver than anything else.

The other two stood behind him and were visibly terrified as Sylver’s form finished turning to focus on them. Both were wearing identical dark grey robes, with hoods enchanted to hide their faces, even from Sylver’s eyes. The man was armed with an odd-looking walking stick that was pulsating with mana, while the woman was armed with a small ball of yellow fire that seemed to come from some sort of silvery coin.

[Human (Warrior+Fencer+Blade Dancer+Rogue) Defeated!]

[Swamp Lord] has reached level 28!

+5AP

[Mirage (III) Proficiency increased to 54%!]

[Draining Blight (V) Proficiency increased to 100%!]

[Draining Blight (V) rank up available!]

[Necrotic Mutilation (III) Proficiency increased to 46%!]

The lightning-fast messages from the system further threw Sylver off, as he altered his stance for a feint with his slathered with blood ax, and-

“Lola?” Sylver asked, as his soul calmed down enough to feel the connection he had been following to get to Arda, suddenly standing mere inches away from him.

Nobody moved, and it took Sylver a good while to remember he was wearing a mask, and that his [Necrotic Mutilation] armor was sticking out in some places, particularly the thorny helmet covering the back and top of his head.

He felt, as much as he heard, a collective sigh, as he pulled his mask off, and felt the familiar chill on his chest of his status being read by someone. The woman looked down at her hand and moved the coin to the left. The flame emanating out of the coin adjusted itself, as if affected by an invisible wind, and continued to point at Sylver.

“When we first met, what two rings did you say you used to wear?” the woman, now almost certainly Lola, asked.

Sylver lifted his right hand, which now had a small wooden ring on it, and answered with a smile.

“Bone and wood!” he shouted.

“5 tattoos, where were they?” Lola asked.

“There were only 3! Left wrist, over the heart, and one covering the back and neck,” Sylver answered, and let go of the ax in his hand, which disappeared, and caused the blood and gore previously stuck to it, to fall to the muddy ground.

“You mentioned-”

Sylver snapped his fingers, and the coin in Lola’s hands went from burning with the intensity of a small candle, to bright enough that it caused the man standing near Lola to recoil from it.

She put it away into the fold of her robe.

It was a good thing Sylver had calmed down because he wasn’t sure what would have happened if Lola had teleported at him, the way that she had.

Sylver had expected something more dramatic. A slap across the face for leaving her for so long, maybe a kick between the legs, but instead, Lola just wrapped her arms around Sylver, and hugged him.

“I missed you,” Lola said quietly, as Sylver somewhat awkwardly hugged her back, and for just a moment felt oddly safe.

Lola was weak, physically, but there was a warmth to her and her mana that made Sylver think of a crackling fireplace. He just stood there, and for reasons he couldn’t comprehend, had to physically force himself not to cry.

Sylver made Spring make a note to seal up his tear ducts, as Sylver felt droplets form on the corner of his eyes, and had to resort to using [Advanced Water Manipulation] not to let them fall down his face and onto the top of Lola’s head.

“I missed you too... You look well,” Sylver said, as he caught the crack in his voice before it had surfaced, and managed to prevent it. He coughed into his fist, more to clear his head than to clear his throat.

Was she always this small? Sylver thought as he let go of her, and the two of them took a step back and away from each other.

It was only now that Sylver was looking at the tiny frail-looking high elf, did he realize how much he had left on her shoulders.

“I take it there aren’t any survivors of the Silver Tip?” Lola asked as she looked around, and Sylver’s eyes followed hers.

Corpses were spread out all over the place.

Some impaled on tree branches, some sticking out of the loose ground, some on their knees with mushrooms growing out of their eyes and mouth, a large pile that looked like someone had gone at them with an ax, and hadn’t managed to kill them with the first 10 swings, and many more that simply had had their throats slashed.

The most recently killed person was unceremoniously tossed into the pile of those that had had their throats slit.

“I forgot to ask for the name,” Sylver replied, as Lola finished turning around and went back to looking at him.

“Of course you did,” Lola said, as the two men who had accompanied her gradually made their way towards them. The one with the large cleaver hid it underneath the back of his tunic, while the man with the cane used it to help with his limp.

“This is Romeo, he’s my bodyguard,” Lola said with a gesture towards the man wearing the red tunic. He was shorter than Sylver by more than a head.

“And this is Bravo, he’s my expert on spatial magic,” Lola said, and didn’t have so much as a single air quote around the word “expert”.

“Sylver Sezari, [Necromancer], pleased to meet you,” Sylver offered and extended a hand towards the two men.

Romeo was the first to shake his hand, and Sylver couldn’t help the smile that formed on his face.

“Nice to meet you, hello,” Romeo responded and sounded nervous in more ways than simply being afraid of Sylver.

“Yes, very nice to meet you, I apologize for being curt, but we would be best to leave as soon as possible,” Bravo said, and his intonation confused Sylver more than Romeo had.

“Why? I already killed everyone, if you’re worried about monsters, I-”

“This far south the warlocks are powerful enough to trap us, we should leave before they notice we’re here,” Bravo interrupted, and Sylver raised an eyebrow at the man.

Lola caught onto Sylver's confusion and answered before he could ask.

“Since you were away, the Krists have spread out, the entirety of the south is under their control. Every second we’re here increases the risk of having to fight them off. It’s best to leave right now,” Lola explained, as Sylver waved his hand towards a slightly raised mound of dirt.

At Spring’s suggestion, the dark elves half ran out of the passageway Sylver had created, with Zelvash and Ruslana standing at the very front, confused, worried, and with their focus split between Sylver and Lola.

“I need to house them somewhere until I can find them a permanent place. Ron’s Rest should be able to stretch out enough to accommodate them,” Sylver explained, as Lola just watched as more and more dark elves walked out of the hole.

“Where did… We’ll talk later, could you all bunch together please,” Lola instructed, and it was only when no one reacted, that Sylver repeated what she had said in elvish.

Sylver felt every inch of his skin crawl, as Bravo’s magic engulfed him and the dark elves.