Mayor

A week quickly passed by and the time to meet the mayor came. Ray had not been slacking off in the meantime, he had made preparations. They weren't physical improvements, as there isn't a whole lot you can do in 1 week of time. Rather he made improvements in the social aspect of strength.

Sometimes it is optimal to temporarily focus on increasing your strength beyond your own powers, using other people to become stronger. But all external strength is only there for the final goal of increasing your personal strength!

In the past week he visited a few of the knights to give them advice on their training. After talking to Rob, Ray realized they knew very little themselves. Having the guidance of a much higher level technique from Mythri, he could easily teach a few things here and there to the knights and gain their trust. If he got into trouble later, he could more easily rely on these knights that he had a small connection with.

Ray walked with a couple of his new found friends to the mayor's house.

"I'm excited to meet the mayor again!" A short man standing to the left of Ray said.

"Why's that?" Ray asked him.

"We've already come so far, I'm sure he will give us new things to make us stronger."

"Shut up George. He said when he first invited us that he was checking on our progress. Don't be so expectant, you will be disappointed when reality hits." The other person in their group said.

"Why do you have to be so negative Mason? You're always like this." George complained.

"I'm just putting you in your place, I don't know why you're complaining." Mason calmly replied.

"Stop arguing we're almost there." Ray said.

"Right - right. We have to put up a good impression on the mayor." George said, although not as happy as before.

They soon arrived at the courtyard to the mayor's house, although it is more accurate to call it a mansion.

The rest of the knights were all at the courtyard too; nobody wanted to disrespect the mayor by not coming. However it can be seen from their attitude that they already started to develop some arrogance. How could they not? When their strength is many times the average human's, it is only normal.

After waiting around for half an hour for the rest of the knights to show up, the front door finally opened. A tall and handsome man with broad shoulders opened the door, just one look at him and you could tell he was a knight.

"Welcome… again." He spoke in a normal voice, but everyone could clearly hear him. "Come in, the food is getting cold."

'Food? I wasn't told about this,' Ray thought.

Everyone went through the door and followed the Mayor.

The inside of the mansion was quite plain. It was as if he just moved into it and is yet to put any furniture or decoration.

"I made dinner just for you all, I hope you will eat it." The mayor said. Although he said this nonchalantly, everyone understood the message. To refuse his food was like disrespecting him, nobody would do that. Nobody didn't trust him, after all he gave them all the tools to become stronger, they were in debt to him.

After everyone came to the table and had a seat, the mayor started getting down to business. He sat down at the very front end of the table, clearly showing his status, then said, "When I saw all of you I was very impressed, your progress is very fast! Much faster than mine when I first became a knight." He started by praising everyone.

"I'm truly in debt to you, I would still be a regular human if you didn't show me the ways." One knight immediately said.

"What he said is true, if not for these potions and techniques you gave us, we would all be nothing!" Another knight quickly added.

"Thank you, but before I talk about my next little gift to you all, let's eat. I waited quite some time for this meal, and I'm getting hungry."

Everyone nodded in agreement, they didn't want to get on his bad side right when he was going to give them something. They were all trying to get on his good side because they could tell he is much stronger than them, even after training for a month and a half.

Many servants came into the room and set down piles of food on the table. The smell of the food was enough to make some of the knights visibly hungry, and the sight was even better. But while all the knights were busy drooling at the sight of the food, Ray's suspicion was increasing further.

'What should I do now?' He thought to himself. 'I can't do anything in this situation as all the knights will gang up on me. The only way is to wait and see what happens, I'm sure something will happen. If nothing really happens, I can wait till the end and try to be alone with him where I will quickly kill him. He is just a knight afterall.'

Once the food was ready, everyone started eating it; they had no reserves. The mayor also had some food he ate himself to keep up the atmosphere. On the outside, Ray was also eating the food, albeit at a very slow rate. In reality, he was slyly putting the food down his sleeve while fake chewing his food.

After the initial awkward phase, the knights started talking amongst each other. With the food and wine, the atmosphere quickly became joyful.

The mayor suddenly stood up, breaking the chattering amongst the knights. "I forgot to mention my good friend Zay. Come here Zay, it's time."

A white haired man with blue eyes walked inside the dining room and stood beside the mayor. "We will start now." Zay told the mayor.

"Who is that?" One of the knights blurted out.

The mayor didn't say anything, and instead unsheathed his sword. Unlike Ray's artifact, it wasn't very strong. But it still did the job at the knight level. "I will show you a magic trick." He announced. Everyone watched the mayor intently as he walked towards the closest knight to him. Before the knight could react, he smoothly chopped his head off with a single swipe of the sword. "Poof! He's dead." He said with a grin.

Everyone stared at the blood spurting from the now dead knight's neck for a full second before reacting. "What do you think you're doing?" One of the knights bellowed.

All the other knights quickly stood up, before realizing that most of them didn't have their swords in their sheaths, they had left it to be polite when eating. They also quickly realized that it was hard to move! Moving around felt sluggish, as if they were drunk.

"He poisoned the food!" One of the knights shouted.

"You are too overconfident! Don't you see how many of us there are, and there is only you!" Another knight exclaimed.

The mayor ignored the knights and asked Zay, "Are you going to stand still forever?"

Zay nodded his head and released his aura. Ray instantly felt the aura pass over his soul. Luckily he had his own aura retracted, so Zay couldn't discover him yet. The power of a level 4 apprentice mage swept over everybody present; even if they didn't know exactly how strong Zay was, they could still tell he wasn't somebody to be messed with.

"Be careful with that Zay guy, he feels powerful." One of the knights shouted.

Meanwhile Ray's face started to frown. A level 4 apprentice mage was beyond his expectations. Luckily he didn't decide to pull any moves yet. 'Highest power being a knight my ass'.

A couple of the knights already tried escaping the mansion, they didn't want to risk their lives for no reason! Right when they tried to leave through the doorway, a black spike shot up through the ground and skewered the 2 knights in half.

The entire room turned silent as the knights watched the organs spill out from the dead knight's body.

"Is-is that a mage?" One of the knights stammered.

"It's a mage!" Another knight yelled, as if to confirm the previous knight's question.

Before everybody could panic further, Ray shouted, "Everyone, don't panic. We still have the advantage in numbers. They want us to panic, don't follow what they want to happen."

"It doesn't matter, he's a mage." A knight replied in a gloomy tone.

"He may be a mage, but he doesn't have infinite mana, we still have to try!" Ray retaliated, trying to encourage everyone to fight.

"He's right!" Mason added on after hearing Ray. "We can't let them kill us without a fight!"

The knights' morale recovered a bit, and a few charged at the mayor. The mayor swung his sword in response to the knights in an attempt to quickly get rid of them; but when the knights are aware of what's about to hit them, they aren't so easy to kill. One of the knights got slashed by the sword leaving behind a gash on his arm, while the other couple knights took the opportunity to punch the mayor.

"Take this!" One of the knights arrogantly yelled. He punched the mayor in the gut, forcing him to take a step back and cough wildly. However the mayor had a lot of experience in fighting, he swung his sword again ignoring the pain in his gut, smoothly cutting off the head of the knight who attacked.

Meanwhile, Zay was still standing in the same spot, watching the knights' reactions and the mayor being punched in the gut as if they were all below him. He said his first words to the knights, "Nobody is allowed to leave."

Ray used this moment to reassure the other knights, "Some of you may die, but this is a do or die situation, we have to kill them to live!"