Sir Joram's eyes narrowed as he regarded him. Despite the fear he could see in the man's eyes, he still seemed unwilling to let Greg off the hook. Greg could remember Zarra's description of the man. As someone who had grown up with nothing, Sir Joram had grown up into a man who was always looking to gain more and more things. Such a man wouldn't be willing to take a loss on anything. Even if he knew that there was a very real risk of death in an altercation with him, as someone who had been born and raised in poverty, he probably was no stranger to risking his life to protect what was his. He probably wouldn't have made it to where he was in life if he was the type to back down in the face of danger. Greg suspected that if this was only about him being his wife's servant, then the man would have backed down. He, however, had found his wife in another man's arms. He wasn't willing to see Greg go scot-free.
"If you are such a powerful mage, then why did you run away from the thugs that chased you through half the city!" He posed. Despite the fear Greg had seen in his eyes none of it could be heard in his voice. Like him, the man was hiding his fear. The altercation hadn't been averted. Instead, it'd just been moved to a verbal and psychological realm. Both Greg and Sir Joram were targeting the other four men present. Greg had been trying to get them to lose the desire to fight. Sir Joram, on the other hand, was trying to downplay the threat that Greg posed and to rouse the fighting spirit of his men. Whoever won in this verbal contest, would determine how this scenario played out. "If you really are that powerful, then how did a solitary female take a priceless gem from you?" The man further asked.
The smile on Greg's lips widened even as his gaze grew even colder. "For the same reason I didn't kill you the first time you questioned me," He replied. "Unlike you, Sir Joram, I don't feel the need to kick every dog that barks at me," He stated. "When said dog insists on trying to bite me, however..." Greg let the sentence hang for a second before finishing. "Then I have absolutely no qualms about putting it down!" He growled even as he pulled back on the string of the bow. If Greg hadn't been consciously trying to portray confidence and thus keenly aware of his expression, then his eyes would have gone wide. The same, however, was not true of the men before him. Their eyes were wide, not with shock, but with cold fear.
The moment Greg had drawn back the string of his soul bow, it was as if he had roused a terrible beast. There weren't any drastic changes visible to the eyes. If someone were to paint the scene, it'd just look like a young man pulling on an empty bow while facing off against five men. Everyone in the situation, however, could viscerally feel both the bloodlust and resentment that was coming off the bow in waves. If Greg could put words to it, it was almost as if the bow was resentful of those before him for being alive and wanted nothing more than to remedy this situation. So thick was the bow's desire to kill that even Greg wasn't too confident that he wouldn't become one of its targets as well.
As wary as the men seemed to be of the bow, Greg was even more on edge than they were. The reason being that he could feel something that the rest of them didn't. In addition to the aura of bloodlust, the bow seemed to be slowly gathering power. It was like watching a trap being slowly wound back before it sprang forth and caused absolute carnage. The longer Greg had the string pulled back, the more power it seemed to be accumulating. The reason Greg could feel it and not the others, was because the bow wasn't pulling this strange power from the air. Whatever this power was that the bow was accumulating, the bow was drawing it from Greg.
When Greg had drawn the string back, his intention had been simple intimidation. He had wanted the men to think that there was some invisible ammo that he could call on to damage them. Now, as he stood there holding the drawn-back bow, there wasn't even the slightest doubt in Greg that if he aimed the bow at someone and let go of the string, a lot more would happen than just the twang of a bow. Greg didn't know how much damage the bow would do in the final analysis, he, however, was certain that it wouldn't be nil. If anything, the longer Greg held the string the more power it drew and the more damage it seemed to promise to deliver.
Eventually, the pressure seemed to be too much for the group and one of the three men with a spider tattoo under his left eye stepped forward. As soon as he'd moved, Greg had raised the bow in his direction, ready to let the string go. The man had immediately raised his hands in what seemed to be a sign of surrender even in this world. Much to Greg's surprise, with his hands still in the air, he bowed low at the waist towards Greg. "The spider gang apologizes for this misunderstanding!" The man spoke in a gruff tone of voice.
Before Greg could even make heads or tails of this sudden turn of events, Sir Joram's angry voice was heard. "What the hell do you think you are doing?" he barked at the man. The spider gang member that had stepped forward, however, completely ignored the man's outburst. His gaze remained fixed on Greg awaiting his response to his apology. Looking at the two other spider gang members, Greg could easily pick up on the relief in their expressions at the fact that this guy seemed to be trying to pull them out of the altercation. The man that had bowed must have occupied a higher rank than the rest and had been the one to make the call. "The spider Queen will hear of this!" Sir Joram, who hadn't stopped talking, started to threaten.
Without looking back at Sir Joram the man replied. "If I were to make a mage an enemy of the spider gang, she'd do much worse to me than anything you might think she'll do to me for avoiding this fight," He declared. With slow and deliberate movements so Greg could see everything that he was doing, the man pulled a small golden card out of his pocket and threw it onto the pile of gold before them. "Show that card to any member of the spider gang and they won't bother you," The man said. "If you wish to meet the spider queen, just tell them that you wish to find the center of the web. The meeting will be quickly arranged. The spider gang would be happy to host you," He added before offering another bow and turning around. "Come on," He ordered his two subordinates and in short order, they had made their way out of the garden and probably out of the house altogether.
The look on Sir Joram's face was an ugly mix of anger and despair. No matter how strong, a one-on-one fight between a mundane human and a mage had almost zero chance of going the mundane human's way. If Greg had been a mundane human, then his bodyguard alone would have been enough to fold him like a cheap rag. Now that he turned out to be a mage, even if Sir Joram himself joined in the fight, things didn't seem likely to go their way. The man's bodyguard by his side had an equally ugly expression on his face. The man looked like he was almost about to cry at how the situation had turned out.
Greg didn't feel any pity for the bodyguard. He knew that if the man found out that he wasn't actually a mage, he wouldn't show him any mercy. Still, Greg had to be smart about this. He may have succeeded in deceiving them, but if he was taken in by his own deception, his ending wouldn't be a good one and he'd deserve every bit of it for being so stupid! The real danger to him wasn't the mountain of muscle that was Sir Joram's bodyguard, it was Sir Joram himself. The more he could isolate that threat, the better for him. "Does your contract require that you save your employer's life?" Greg spoke up, a cold and pitiless gaze fixed on the man.
The man seemed to shrink under Greg's glare, still, he nodded in the affirmative. This first question had been a test by Greg. Anyone with even a bit of intellect would of course require their bodyguard to save their life if they can. Greg's only intent had been to figure out if the man would speak the truth even though it would put him in more danger. If he had tried to lie, Greg would have attacked right there and then. He couldn't make any plans relying on a man that he couldn't trust. Now that the guard had spoken the truth, however, Greg could move on to the next part of his plan. "Does the contract require you to do this at the cost of your own life?" He asked.
For all his muscles, the man clearly didn't fit the stereotype of a muscle-brain as his eyes went wide with an immediate understanding of what Greg was trying to drive at. A bit of life seemed to return to the man's face and voice as he answered him. "No! It doesn't!" He asserted. "If there is no chance of saving him without losing my own life, then I am allowed to preserve my own life," he revealed.
A wide grin spread across Greg's face as he regarded the bodyguard with a maniacal gleam in his eyes. "Then I guess the only question you need to answer is whether you think there is a chance you will survive fighting me?" He offered in the cold tone of one that was ready to kill.
