What Lurks Under VI

As Kies walked away, he heard sighs of relief from the two. They were thankful to be alive but didn't say anything to express their gratitude to him for sparing their lives. They were afraid of speaking since they didn't want to say something wrong that would make Kies suddenly change his mind about not killing them.

Kies made it to the top of the hill and went away without looking back. He had made his decision. He didn't want to kill humans just because they killed his kind. He also had finally separated from the two demons. This was the perfect time to figure some things out. The first thing that Kies needed to do was to find out about his past and what happened to his memories. It hadn't even been a month since he found out about his identity and yet he had already forgotten all about his previous life here in Silverfield.

Kies began by looking around at his surroundings and trying to figure out where he was. After a bit of exploring, Kies decided that he saw that he was somewhere on the opposite side of where he started. Just like the slums, the entire place was empty other than for a few people walking the streets. They were all criminals who needed a place to hide and Kies figured that he had probably just wandered into their territory.

Well, this wasn't good. Kies needed to get out of here as soon as possible before people caught on. There were already a few people giving him strange looks since they had never seen him before. Even though he had something covering his face, it was fairly obvious that he wasn't one of them. Unlike everyone else who looked like they had a purpose or something to do, Kies was just aimlessly walking around trying to find a way out.

Kies was starting to gather too much attention. One group of people had already pulled out their weapons and were watching him suspiciously like he was a spy or something.

"You there!" a voice called out. Kies looked behind him and saw a woman approaching him. Kies pointed at himself confused. Was she calling for him? "Yes, I'm talking to you," the woman told him. She was spinning a sickle around in her hands. "I haven't seen you around before. Are you new?" she asked, sounding very skeptical.

"I just got lost. If you could tell me how to get out of here or point me in the right direction, I'd happily leave without any trouble," he told her. This probably wasn't the best response to her question, but he had to try. It would be great for him if he could get out of this place without making a commotion like he had done back in town.

"I see." The woman stopped a few feet away from Kies and smiled. "Well then, why didn't you just say so. To get out of here, the first thing you need to do is... to leave all your belongings here you filthy mole." The tone of her voice abruptly changed and all around, people emerged from the houses with weapons in hand. They were all smiling and sneering at him.

The woman tapped the blunt side of the sickle against the palm of her hand and said, "If you are going to spy on us, at least be more discreet about it."

"I'm not a spy."

"Sure you're not. Anyway, enough talk, it's time for us to bury a knight." She wasn't buying it, but it was expected. Who would believe him when he said that he accidentally got lost and wounded up in one of the most dangerous places in the kingdom. Even an idiot would know to stay out of this territory.

"A knight ey? I want to test my luck against him," a man with an eyepatch shouted out from the crowd that was still forming. He looked around at the others to see if there were any objections.

"Feel free to give it a try," the woman told him as she walked away to give the two of them space for the fight.

Of course, Kies could easily just escape from this situation since there were very few people blocking the path behind him, but he decided to stay since these people probably knew what he wanted to know. They were the type of people who went around doing a bunch of illegal things. They definitely knew a lot of things. If he could beat enough of them, he might be able to scare the rest off and get some information off them.

"Don't mess him up too badly. I wanna give it a go as well," another man said as the one who challenged him began to walk towards Kies with a worn sword in his hand.

"Don't worry. I'll try my best to leave him in one piece." He swung his weapon a couple of times at the air in front of him to warm up before grinning and charging at Kies. But before he could even take a step, a strong blast of wind blew the sword from his hand. "Huh-" Another blast of wind knocked the man off his feet and fell head-first onto the hard floor, knocking him out cold.

"Magic!" Everyone's smug expressions quickly changed into serious ones as they all drew their weapons and glared dangerously at Kies. None of them had expected for him to be able to use magic, which they should have considered. They even thought that he was a knight and the majority of knights could use magic, so he wasn't sure why they were so surprised to see him using it.

No one moved for a moment and everything was quiet. Eventually, one of them lost patience and charged at Kies while yelling, "Die you bast*rd!" The man didn't make it very far before he was blasted with a torrent of wind and was sent flying back into one of his comrades, causing the both of them to hit the ground.

The rest saw what happened to their two friends and didn't dare make a move. They all looked at each other, waiting for someone else to make a move first. Although Kies restricted his magic so that it didn't kill, it was strong enough to break bones and leave nasty bruises.

Kies continued to have a standoff with the thieves. He wasn't sure if they were really thieves, but he didn't know what else to make of them. Most of them had outfits that made them look like thieves so he assumed that they were thieves, but he could be wrong.

Seeing how all of them were too scared to do anything, Kies decided to make the first move and chanted Wind Vortex. The thieves all watched him as he did so and none of them tried to stop him for some reason. When he finished the spell, he looked up at where he wanted it to appear and created it high above the ground. This was so that the thieves wouldn't get sucked into the vortex and get killed but the winds would still be powerful enough to pull them in a little.

The vortex appeared above the heads of everyone and they all looked up with concerned faces. None of them knew what it was they were looking at until the vortex grew to full size and strength and began to suck everything around it. Cries and surprised shouts filled the air as everyone except Kies fled from the vortex, trying to get as far as possible away from it.

The unfortunate few that happened to be right under the vortex when it spawned were unable to run away from it and struggled with all their might to not get lifted off the ground. Weapons and debris flew up into the air and into the vortex. Getting sucked into there would mean certain death.

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