Challenge, second class!

(Lex POV)

"I've found you~"

The chilling voice reverberated in the halls above, sending chills down my spine. My father shook beside me, and my memories of his calm demeanor when holding business deals and in daily life nearly shattered as I looked at his exhausted and pale face. I calmly observed my surroundings finding a place to hide. A coldness suddenly entered the storage room as the door we blocked with various shelves and chairs shook from the door banging.

Suddenly all the furniture flew to the tiger side of the room, and the door shattered. My father hid behind a box but had a look of determination that contradicted his previous fear. Holding a metal bat each mischievous sounding person, didn't make any purposeful sounds except for the creaking floor, it only added to the suspense of the situation.

A skinny and hunched figure entered my view. He had a strange Mohawk hairstyle that reached to his upper back. I remember seeing him being one of the more vile bandits of the group. He was one of them who to advantage of the poor girls who were with me on the carriage. This sudden reminder made me pissed and I started to create an idea using the cards I'd been dealt.

I looked my father directly in the eyes and waved at him to stay put. I walked into the hall and confronted the man. He looked me in the eyes with a lingering madness in his, there wasn't a word spoken, instead, his legs suddenly transformed into those resembling a horse his top half stable and rope in his hand.

I was expecting some sort of villain monologue of him introducing himself and whatnot but I guess seeing one of your victims presumably come back to life leaves no room for error. He galloped loudly in this narrow space I took a step back and pivoted behind a shelf. With a quick gesture, I yelled,

"Now!"

Lucas swung his bat low and hit the man in the shin, his one leg hopped up in surprise but by then he was already falling, he used a rope and latched it onto a pole on the edge of the room, regaining his balance and having a light bruise on his legs he glared in my direction.

"You freak! Come back here I don't have time for these games."

He swore at me and his eyes turned bloodshot. He pulled the pole out of the ceilings foundation causing some part of it to fall on me.

(Angus POV)

I pulled on the pole and the ceiling fell on the questionably immortal freak. The others especially the tiger were extremely alert in regards to this boy, but to me, if he was immortal, he's still weak like his father, then it means I can have so~ much~ fun~ torturing the sanity out of him... is what I feel but it couldn't do any harm to remain a little cautious, my [Partial mighty steed transformation] artifact will last, but my [Lasso of Barbaro's replica] sucks out a lot of energy when I hold on to it.

"Lex!!!"

The boy's father, our target, yelled in despair at the sight of his son seemingly being crushed for but a mere second, but suddenly all the shards of wood cake flying in all directions a splint hit me in the eye and a large piece pierced my right shoulder... my good hand no longer worked. I scream in the agony of losing all feeling in my stick-like arm as the blood slowly dripped down my skin.

The boy's father was completely safe as his placement was right behind an old wardrobe. I glare at the figure who came from out of the rubble unscathed, his grey eyes pierced me withal a deathly silence and for some reason, tears fell down his eyes. I almost instinctually felt sorry for him, after all these years of bringing despair to friends and families why would I suddenly feel sorry now? Why was he crying? Perhaps there's some sort of physical backlash for what he did, this could be a chance, and with my shoulder pierced I really~ wanted to kill this fucker.

However, he dashed at me and a high speed a speed of an athletic person, perhaps nearly a village level knight. I swung my lasso hoping to latch into him and throw him away, but an unexpected outcome resulted instead the lasso experienced sudden inertia and latched onto my chest. He grabbed the centre of the rope and yelled ferociously

"Graaaaah!"

Suddenly I was pulled and thrown out of the window I had no gear to stop the fall and so from the second floor, my head first slammed on the ground

*Crack!*

My neck cracked and it all went dark...

(Lex POV)

"Graaaaah!"

I yelled like a shonen protagonist hoping to use what little energy I had left. This semi-centaur looking fuck of a man got tossed out the hole in the ceiling he made and I saw him land awkwardly on his head, and blood splattered across the pavement and what little people remained on the street yelled horrifically at the sight.

I tried my first attempt at using [Broken reflect] and it worked splendidly, well it wasn't really my first try, against the beast from before I tested it as I got hit but it doesn't work on living creatures... To time the use of it correctly I actually spammed saying it in my head before the ceiling crashed on me so when it came into range it would launch as it pleased, I got lucky that it hit only the bandit and not my father,

"Hugh! hugh, phew..." I panted heavily I've used up a lot of strength to fight the one guy, I could only hope the others are occupied and can't get to us.

My father looked at me with surprised eyes, once again but as he looked at me with scrutiny like trying to pry my secrets, he stared at me while I lead him to another part of the house, his office where he took care of work.

We sat down silently at the end of the room behind the table and closed the curtains to see inside here. With shuddered breathing, we sat quietly as father deemed to contemplate something, I took this moment of silence to review some notifications I received,

[[You have fused two compatible skills! you have fused [Death glare Lv. 3] and [Crocodile tears Lv. 1] the new skill name is [False eyes of vengeance Lv. 2] or [FEV Lv. 2] for short teehee~]]

This new skill seems to both frighten opponents and also could be used to earn a different type of pity or confuse the onlooker...

Another very nice thing to see is... a new class!

I was very interested in seeing the new skills I acquired but before I could do so Lucas spoke

"So... son, do you have anything you need to tell me?"

I looked at him a bit guiltily, he just heard his son died but then he wasn't and he also came back with abilities or artifacts he didn't have before... So what was I going to say to him? The truth? A lie? Well obviously I'm going to follow the secretive protagonist route by providing him with a half-truth, I would have lied but Lex Armine's memories had a strong impact on the amount of faith I had in him.

A long time ago, Lex Armine was subject to a lot of abuse from his original parents, Lex ended up having a dissociation disorder where he felt like he watched his life drift away from afar constantly. The world felt like a nightmare that only ended when he got those tempting times to sleep. The world felt so surreal and so even the pain was feeling less real every passing day. Then feeling left on the edge of a cliff, the fear of pushing away every feeling was crawling inside of him till one day a single winter night.

A man with red hair and charming brown hair looked at me kindly and carried me to a warm place the night I had run away from my nightmare family. He took me home for one night and fed me the tastiest meat dish I had the pleasure of having. The next day when he took me to authorities my parents had run away after being associated with a group of dangerous drug dealers. I kept these painful memories of Lex Armine because it would be very helpful in establishing his character but now I knew of hunger, cold, and a different form of loneliness than Kim Oh-Jins.

I looked at my father and fed him what I hoped was a white lie. That I did in fact die, that I received a few gifts from some mysterious higher being and that I now possessed some blurry memories of another world. The man looked at me both in both a stupefied and accepting manner, though he desired time to think and hope we get out of this situation alive.

To raise his hopes I told him Arlan though, for now, to avoid be lectured I didn't mention the whole slave bit yet. He seemed over the moon when he heard that we were receiving help from a top 10 mage of the continent, though he worried about payment as well.

I vaguely reassured him that I provided sufficient payment and he'd receive it from me when this is all over. Lucas realised my desire to keep the details secret, so he nodded and moved on. We stayed silent and on occasion opened up to speak out ideas about the Zodiac bandits and the man who hired them, the rival merchant company, that's been on our asses or rather my dad's for over a decade is a man name Chester Callaghan, a vain guy for sure but he's been competing with father in various things since they were being homeschooled by their parents. The previous generation of merchants.

Even though he was vain he was never aggressively on our tail like this, as I've mentioned before it's unlikely he could afford the illegal services of hiring all twelve Zodiac bandits. We only received this news because an acquaintance of mine that worked in his company said that he hired some dangerous people supposedly to kill us.

Well, whatever the mystery is behind this whole situation there's no time to think about it or any clues to lead to the answer. So like that in silence and bouncing a few ideas around two hours passed and the evening arrived...