Swan Hunter(9)

This one was the most impolite and daring of the three, without even asking for my permission or informing me, he came sauntering in with a loose robe, tied black hair, and a gleaming blade in his hand.

His eyes radiated a cold hue and a sense of urgency that I couldn't dismiss.

This guy probably thought that it would I would be having a tough life-and-death battle with the rich guy and therefore came quickly without announcing to snatch as many advantages as he could.

This was the worst kind of person you could meet on a random day. He was an egotistical delusional leech, probably someone that just 'happened to stumble' upon two beasts having a brawl to the death and came here after yanking those beast cores out of their cold corpses.

How did I know all this? Well, there were a lot of signs. First off, his blade was still dripping with fresh blood and probably brain juice. Secondly, the egomaniacal shine in his eyes that wanted me to submit and apologize to him could be felt from a mile away.

But did I have time to study all these characteristics from his look, gestures, and movements? No, but two fresh red and blue beast cores hanging from his waist were enough to enlighten me.

So anyway, the guy was also a low-level mage, but unlike the rich idiot, this was someone that has definitely been through more dangerous battles than me and came out alive.

After all, it was one thing to make fun of people with a protagonist fantasy but leaving their characters and personality aside, their strength warranted them the seriousness that respect that made them like that in the first place.

Moreover, this was the guy who had come in barging with a murderous aura and a blade dripping with fresh blood. How were we supposed to do anything other than fight to the death?

My aura as a high-grade mage acolyte burst forth, which was like a gentle breeze to the face of my murderous opponent.

I could feel minute scorn adorning his lips and understood that this guy was probably confident in his strength and could even fight people a small grade or two above him.

That little scorn, however, didn't stop him from trying to kill me off quick. With a quick succession of instant cast fire and water blades, he managed to keep me running here and there.

His aim was scarily accurate for some reason, I had to twist my body in the weirdest ways to avoid some of those blades, and I could see from the movements of his eyes in the shadows, that he wasn't even giving it his best until now.

Now and then, he would peek at my belongings, the scattered golden and gem-embedded clothes and accessories of the rich guy, and Swan A and Swan B.

It was beginning to irk me, but I had to wait for my chance to strike and win this in one fell swoop, otherwise it would be a really long fight.

And so I kept waiting by dodging left and righting consuming my stamina to exhaust his mana reserves. When around 15 minutes had passed, I was beginning to pant for breath.

The third hero now stood in front of Swan B to protect her from any collateral damage. Swan A was also comfortable lying behind him, still acting as the fainted maiden.

Because he was trying to protect those two, it stuck him to that same place and gave me a lot of room to maneuver around and hide from him.

As for the other two tied-up heroes, occasionally they would wake up when a searing fire blade or a sharp water blade glazed them but they would also quickly lose energy and faint again. The third hero only cared about his future wives, he couldn't afford to add two additional burdens on his shoulders.

At first, I was thinking that instant casting would at most last him 5 minutes, it did take a toll on one's mana after all, but when I saw the hero persevering, I increased my expectations to 10 minutes.

Now, more than 15 minutes had passed by and there wasn't even a drop of sweat on the hero's forehead, while I was occasionally stumbling after dodging madly for so long.

What sort of sorcery was this!?

I soon found out, as I was crouching on the ground to catch my breath, I noticed that the beast cores that were hanging from his waist were now a size smaller than they were at the beginning. The chaotic whirlpool of mana within them was somehow directly being absorbed by this guy.

For the first time since the beginning, I cast a little fireball at him as well. Of course, after fighting for so long, he was just as amazed as me at my stamina but what he didn't know was that I was pretending to be more exhausted than I really was to catch him off-guard.

When he calmly dodged my first few spells, subconsciously he observed my weak attacking power, and his scorn grew and I took that chance to draw close to him.

As I was trying to find an opportunity to pounce at my opponent, another wind blade appeared at the entrance of the cave.

Until the blades my previous opponent was casting, this one was multiple times bigger in size and multiple times quicker.

This was a spell cast by a Mid-Grade mage, the strongest opponent I had ever met. I twisted my body and my waist cramped up in my attempts to avoid that attack.

"UNCLE DARRYL, YOU DARE STEAL MY PREY!?"

Well, as it turned out, my opponent was even more enraged at me being sneak attack than me. It was quite amusing.

"Kekeke, little nephew, you're still wet behind your ears if you want to slaughter this bandit quick. Those seniors of mine were afraid for those two little girls and therefore, stopped me from going in, but now that they've left me in charge of this cave for a few hours, let me show you how things are done.

You do have your merits for lasting this long, dear bandit."

Creepy laughter and a villainous speech resounded in the cave as a pot-bellied, balding middle-aged mage came in and delivered some more exposition while informing us unsuspecting kids of his devious motives.

Hmm, he was clearly evil. He was clearly a Mid-Grade Mage that posed much more of a threat to me than my earlier opponent, but the confident tone of my earlier raging opponent told me that he wasn't scared of the guy.

Now, that made me think, even if no other mages were guarding the entrance outside, could I afford to release my full strength and fight the pot-bellied mage as a warrior?

The answer was, no. Because, if I did that, then the leech hero standing to the side would strike me at the most crucial moment of the fight and leave the cave with everything I had ever owned.

I didn't want that, and so I tried my best to minimize my presence, recuperate my stamina and health and let the two of them sort their internal differences out.

Without even considering me a serious threat, the leech hero, and his domineering uncle kept talking and threatening each other.

As it turned out, the leech hero was an orphan that was adopted by the brother of the fat mage, but when his brother died, only his sister-in-law was left to take care of this guy.

And so, he was bullied by the kids of the fat mage for years.

After some years, the guy had broken through a few times and had begun to make a name for himself, hunting bandits, banishing evil, and earning rewards.

He even beat his cousins that bullied him earlier, which led to the verbal confrontations between these two.

However, at a time like this, when they found themselves alone, ignoring me and the swans, of course, their verbal confrontation ignited once more and was on the verge of erupting into a fight.

All this time that both of them were shouting exposition and expletives at each other, my plan was ready, which was just a simple sneaky eye-roll to the bitchy damsel, Swan B.

I could see shame and humiliation in her eyes when she hesitatingly stared back at me but she didn't make any more moves and very lightly nodded her head.

I threw a little fireball at the senior mage and dodged his flurry of wind spears while moving in his direction so that some of the fireballs that the 'hero' had cast would end up distracting him.

Well, it didn't distract or divert him enough but it did manage to annoy him. His brows were scrunched up as he gritted his teeth.

The guy, on the other hand, was also fired up after a few wind blades hit him.

After using this same tactic a few times, both of them were openly showing each other their hostility.