The Sixth School

Author's note.

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All Characters in the story are 18 years of age and above...

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Chapter Thirty Four: Problematic Bow...

Of course, it was a lie.

Out in the real world, Greg could use a storage ring to carry arrows around. As such, even if he wasn't carrying a full quiver, he could still take out an arrow at any point and shoot with it. Inside the dungeon, however, the same was not true. Right now, Greg was just an idiot with a bow and no arrows. Not only had Greg messed up by being overconfident in his abilities and thinking that success was assured, but he also didn't have the opportunity to go looking for arrows. Back at the tailor's shop, when Greg remembered the soul bow, he'd realized that he'd need arrows. He, however, couldn't exactly walk away from Zarra to go looking for arrows. Partly because it would have made Zarra suspicious and cautious of him, but mainly, because he wouldn't have even known where to start! Greg still didn't know much of the city of Torrin. Had he gone off looking for arrows, chances are that he would have gotten lost, and even more likely, run into members of the spider gang. Something he hadn't at all been looking forward to. And even if he found the place to get the arrows, without a storage ring, Greg would have nowhere to keep them. He couldn't exactly serve as a servant with a quiver full of arrows slung around his back.

His enemies, however, had no way of knowing that Greg didn't have any arrows to shoot. He was counting on them believing that just as easily as he had summoned the soul bow, Greg could summon the arrows he'd need to shoot them down. That's why Greg didn't allow even an ounce of fear to show on his face. The success of his plan depended on how well he sold the idea that he was a lethal threat to the men before him. If he could get a few of them to tuck tail and run, then he would have better odds of surviving this. If he didn't and this turned into a fight, Greg knew that his dungeon run would end here.

The trick worked!

In fact, going by the way color drained from the faces of all the men before him, it seemed to be working much better than expected. Greg had been hoping to scare off one, maybe two, of the thugs before him. But by the look of things, he might just pull through the whole situation without having to fight anyone. "Y... you are a mage!" The words were stammered by Sir Joram. The man's eyes were fixed on the bow in Greg's hand. Part of him seemed to want to reject what his eyes were seeing. At the same time, however, he couldn't deny it. Where there had been no bow before, the boy had conjured one out of thin air!

With an amused smile, Greg tilted his head to the side. "Weren't you just about to break the contract?" Greg posed instead of answering the man's question. "Go on, I'm waiting," He mockingly encouraged, even as he brought his free hand to the string of the bow like he was about to shoot an arrow. Greg could see in the eyes of the men around Sir Joram that they clearly didn't want this to turn into a fight. Even the mountain of muscle that had previously been chomping at the bit for a chance to get at Greg, now seemed to be quietly sweating while he did everything to avoid Greg's gaze.

In truth, Greg hadn't expected such an exaggerated reaction from the group before him. The longer he considered the situation, however, the more he understood why. The result of a fight between five strong men against him, a single individual, was a foregone conclusion. The math, however, changed drastically when this single individual turned out to be a mage. To begin with, they had no idea what tier of mage he was. Even at just the second tier of magic, they would be completely wiped out. And should their lucky stars all shine on them and he turns out to be a first-tier mage, then the outcome only changes from a complete wipeout to some of them dying. None of the men had any desire to be the one dying in an attempt to take him down.

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.

There wasn't even a moment of hesitation in the man as he turned around, practically ready to flee from the scene.

"If you run away, then you better leave Torrin altogether!" Sir Joram growled at the man who was about to pass him by. Though he did his best to hide it, everyone present could hear the slight panic in Sir Joram's voice as he uttered the threat. In short order, Greg had taken away every ally that he'd thought he had in this fight. If this last ally left, there was very little doubt as to what his fate would be. Unfortunately for the man, his bodyguard didn't even falter or break stride at his threat, if anything, he broke out into a sprint as if he couldn't leave Torrin quickly enough.

In the end, it was just Greg and Sir Joram left at the scene, with his wife off to the side worriedly looking between the two men. Greg tilted his head to the side slightly, a mocking smile playing on his lips as he regarded his foe. "Well?" He mockingly asked. "Weren't you about to annul my contract with your wife?" Greg posed in a voice dripping with provocation "Go on then!" He urged.

There was a look on the man like he'd been forced to swallow a fat fly. Both men knew perfectly well that if Sir Joram ended the contract, it would be his last act in this life. Or at least in this current dungeon trial. Despite being from the twenty-first century where the rule of law was paramount, Greg wasn't as averse to killing as one might expect. He wasn't a psychopath. He didn't take any pleasure in the pain of others. The altercation with his uncle, however, had driven home to him that this was a new reality with new rules to it. Here there was no jail, and no cops were coming to the rescue. There were no courts, presumption of innocence, or rights to speak of. The strongest fist simply carried the day. If his uncle had succeeded in beating him, then he wouldn't have hesitated to kill him. If Greg hadn't pretended to be a mage, then the members of the spider gang would have unflinchingly tortured and killed him. If he didn't outsmart this man before him, Sir Joram wouldn't have shown him any kindness for it. This was a dog-eat-dog world and Greg wasn't going to be the dog that got eaten out of some misbegotten sense of morality that only works in a different world. To those who were kind to him, he would be just as, if not more, kind. To those who sought to do him harm, however, Greg would give no quarter!

Even though he'd thoroughly lost in this altercation before even the first blow was struck, the man didn't seem even a little bit apologetic. Greg could see it in his eyes that if the man got another chance to come after him and thought that it had a relatively high chance of succeeding, he wouldn't hesitate to do it. Unfortunately for Greg, with him not having broken the contract verbally, it was still in place, and so Greg couldn't do much of anything to him. The same contract that had been protecting Greg thus far was now the shield that kept Sir Joram safe from him. A fact that frustrated Greg to no end!

"You can't do anything to me and we both know it!" Sir Joram spoke, his lips twisted in a sneer.

Rather than be caught flatfooted by this provocation, Greg smiled, having already thought this far. "I might not, but I'm curious what my teacher will do when he finds out that you tried to have me killed," Greg wondered out loud with the self-assured tone of one who already knew the answer to their own question. "I guess we'll find out tomorrow," He added with a shrug, his smile widening as Sir Joram's face once again became pale.

Greg needed a way of keeping the man from attempting something else in the remaining time that he had within the dungeon. He may have succeeded in fending off this first attempt, but there was no reason to believe that the man wouldn't make another even more concerted effort to kill him. Greg wasn't going to make the same mistake again of thinking that just because his enemy was pacified for the moment he wouldn't strike at him in the future. That's where his fake teacher came in. If Greg was the man's sole target, Sir Joram would probably still have enough confidence and motivation to make another attempt. Especially because he'd come upon his wife in Greg's hands. With a mysterious teacher brought into the picture, however, the whole scenario changed.

Of course, the man knew that there was a chance that Greg was lying. He, however, just simply couldn't take the chance. Mages in the lower tiers rarely if ever took on students of their own. After all, they too were still pursuing higher tiers of magic. As such, whoever this mysterious teacher was, they would at the very least be a third-tier mage or, more than likely, higher than this. For a mundane human, making an enemy of someone like this would be no different from begging for death. If the young man did indeed have such a teacher, then Sir Joram would either have to make amends or join his bodyguard in leaving Torrin and finding some remote corner of whatever kingdom this is, to hide in.

"I will give you double this amount as a token of my apology," The man spoke after a while of silence had passed. His shoulders were slumped and a thoroughly defeated look on his face.

"Ten times," Greg countered mercilessly causing the man to look up at him in outrage. "And before you ask, the answer is yes! This time I am extorting you!" He declared in an icy tone. Although Greg just wanted this whole issue to be over and done with, he knew that, to people like the man before him, to show kindness was to show weakness. He had tried to be reasonable with the man and all that led to was the man bringing in even more thugs to deal with him. Now, he planned to take a chunk of flesh out of the man, just so he would think twice about what it would cost him to make another attempt at his life.

"Are you crazy!" All the fear seemed to have been forgotten as the man looked at him bug-eyed. "The most I can do is thirty thousand and not a single coin more!" he declared in the tone of one who was being asked to cut off a limb.

"Now it's a hundred and twenty thousand!" Greg countered coldly.

"Fifty thousand!" A vein was bulging on the man's forehead as he forced himself to utter the words.

"Suddenly, I feel like a hundred and fifty is the right amount!" Greg replied without missing a beat, his gaze as unyielding as ever.

"Seventy thousand! That's the best I can do, otherwise you might as well just kill me right now!" The man said, a real desperation now clear to be heard in his tone of voice.