Chapter 14 – Problem resolving.

The two looked at each other. On one side stood a boy that wasn’t even eleven years old, on the other side was a tall man with long chestnut brown hair. He had a bushy beard that didn’t look like it was trimmed in months. His eyes were bloodshot as if he didn’t get a good night’s rest in quite some time.

“Wait, you’re the one that the Baron send to keep watch over me,… he didn’t order you to kill me, did he?”

The man furrowed his brows at what Roland had said, he straightened out a bit while snorting the throwing knife dancing between his fingers.

“So you knew… It doesn’t matter, no one has to know… there are a lot of dangerous beasts in this forest.”

Roland kept backing away while the man continued to approach. He was clearly going against his initial orders and wanted to kill him for some unknown reason.

“Are you sane? Do you really want to kill a nobles son? Even if I’m a bastard, I’m still a noble you will hang for this!”

There was a clear rule against killing nobles. If a commoner attempted such things they would be imprisoned and maybe even killed even if the noble was guilty of a crime. The nobles liked to keep to themselves and didn’t like it if other people took the law into their own hands.

“Shut it you bastard, do you know how long I’ve been here… so much time spent just watching some ignorant brat! You were supposed to go crawling back within the week! Why do I have to babysit a little bastard like you, if you’re dead I can finally go back! I’ll never become a knight if I stay in a shit hole like this!”

Roland’s eyes widened as he finally understood what this was all about. The man was hired by his father, he was probably a soldier from the army. He was ordered to keep an eye on Roland, probably to protect him if something happened. The problem was that no one expected the ten-year-old boy to last this long. He had no problems living in this town now, from this man’s point of view the short temporary job became a full-time thing.

“That doesn’t have anything to do with me, you can just quit, they could just hire someone else!”

Roland looked around while he was trying to find a good route of escape but the man was much faster so that was a big problem.

“Hah? Look at this little shit, you think I can just refuse a direct order from the commander? If I return without a good reason he will just send me right back or kick me out. On the other hand, if there is no reason for me to remain here anymore…”

The man grinned while licking his throwing knife. There was one thing that didn’t make sense for Roland in that statement, why was he not afraid of getting made an example of if he let his target die.

“Wait, won’t you get punished if I die? Weren’t you hired to protect me?”

The man just laughed while moving closer.

“Protect you? Do you really think that man cares for you that much? No, I’m just here to keep them informed about your whereabouts, they never told me to protect you in any way, if you die well… some people would even be glad… but I’ve already said too much…”

Apparently his dear old dad didn’t think he really needed any protection. This guy was only here to keep tabs on him and to exchange information. The big problem here was that this man had some high aspirations, he wanted to become a knight. This wasn’t an easy endeavor though, you needed to achieve a lot of military merit for that but instead, he was stuck here not really doing anything worthwhile.

The last sentence that the man muttered echoed in his mind, did someone coax this man to do this. He made it sound like he knew who that person was. Maybe the man didn’t go crazy after spending half a year in this small town, maybe there was more to this than meets the eye. It was also strange that the man wasn’t afraid of hurting a noble’s son, maybe he had someone backing him. Why anyone would want him dead was quite a surprise. He didn’t think he had enough worth for someone to go out of his way for something like this.

Roland moved his head to the side as the man threw his throwing knife. It grazed his cheek while slicing his flesh apart. The man charged forward, his hand going for his rapier. The pointy weapon’s tip shone in orange light as he plunged it forward, luckily for Roland, there were many trees to duck behind.

The moment the tip of the heavy rapier was inserted into the tree, the area around the weapon’s tip exploded. Splinters of wood shoot out into all directions while the man continued with his assault. Roland could only duck down and run, hiding behind large trees in hopes of getting away.

‘Goddammit, not now!’

One level in dodging wouldn’t aid him too much and the sound of the system announcer was just distracting. He was sure that there was no reasoning with this person anymore, his only way out was to escape. He didn’t have enough time to chant a spell as the man would use this chance to throw a knife at him or stab him with that enchanted weapon of his. It didn’t look good for him at all.

He wasn’t even sure where he was going anymore, he was busy with dodging everything. Thanks to his smaller build and nimbleness he was able to survive for now, but it was mostly thanks to the trees covering his escape. That is when the problem arose as he found himself in a clearing with no trees around and only green grass.

He bolted to the side, trying to get back into the forest and away from the wide-open space but before he could, he felt a sharp pain in his leg. He tumbled to the ground while groaning a throwing knife stuck in his calf.

“Finally got you, nowhere to run now you little runt.”

The man apparently had more of those throwing knives hidden in his robe. Roland looked at his leg and quickly yanked the blade out. The pain was intense but he was pumped so full of adrenaline that he could power through it. He tried standing up and running again but instead, he limped forward. He was now unable to make any reasonable space between himself and his enemy. In a last-ditch effort he decided to pull out his short sword while turning around, he got into his fighting stance and faced his opponent.

“Heh, well at least you have some backbone kid.”

The man approached while grinning, his teeth shown off as he approached. Roland wasn’t idle, he tried backing off while chanting a mana arrow spell, his own short sword raised in an attempt to block any incoming attacks.

The man was too fast though, he took a regular fencing stance and quickly plunged his sword forward. Before Roland could even react to defend himself with his sword he felt a sharp pain in his right shoulder. The man jumped back after his attack went through, blood leaking from the tip. The spell fizzled out even before the youth could utter more than one word.

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“You think a tier 1 can win against a tier 2? You never stood a chance brat, we live in different worlds.”

Rolland was baffled by the display of speed, he wasn’t able to react at all. He had thought that he was strong for a tier 1, never really having troubles against the goblins or the dungeon monsters all that much. Even though he was a mage, he at least thought that he could somewhat defend himself. Apparently, he was wrong in that claim.

There was a big difference between tier 1 and tier 2, mostly due to the fact that a tier 2 class received a multiplier to their stats. The moment they managed to get through the class up a 1.5 times multiplier would be added to all of their stats. They would go through a qualitative change that would increase their power by a big margin compared to the lower tier 1 classes.

“Don’t think you can get away with this! Someone will find out the truth!”

The man stopped while pointing his rapier at the boy.

“The truth? You overestimate your worth brat, no one cares about you and those three adventurer girls?…I’ll take care of them soon enough, he he. Adventurers get wiped out by monsters all the time.”

The man was really chatty, he had spent a lot of time in seclusion and without anyone to talk to. He just had to reveal his big plan like a villain of the week. As always, such behavior proved to be the downfall of most of those types. The moment he ended his sentence and was about to plunge his rapier into the boy’s chest, he noticed something.

He jumped back while an arrow whizzed past his eyes. Then, from another angle, a dagger came flying aiming at the spot where the man had dodged the initial arrow. The man bent his body at an awkward angle and managed to stop his momentum and evaded this one as well. He propelled himself backward while turning, his eyes going to the spots that these two attacks came from.

“Who is there!?”

It didn’t take long for a small group of girls to appear, it was Roland’s adventurer party that had came to his rescue. The first one to appear was the large muscular tank of the group, she charged at the rapier wielding man while holding onto her great hammer, ready to split his head. Slightly behind her was the wolf girl, she was half a step behind her party member one dagger in her hand while the one that she threw was picked up along the way.