Chapter 65: The Travelling Merchant Arrives (02)

The last attempt with Mia made it pretty clear that there was no way for me to damage him physically.

To win I would need to use magic... the only problem is that as long as he can see it coming, he'll be able to dodge by teleporting out of the way.

Merchant: "...So, are you going to do something or...?"

I surrounded him with 5 houses and hid in one of them, then I started to rapidly change their position.

All the while, he just sat on the ground, with the most casual attitude, completely ignoring that I was trying to attack him.

This kind of behavior checks out with what he has been doing since we started. It would be incredibly easy for him to destroy all the houses in here, if he put his mind to it there would be no way for me to hide...

Well, this much is expected...

Miwen: "Yo!"

I came out from one of the houses that was behind him and matched his attitude.

Merchant: "Are you done? I was about to go get something to eat..."

Miwen: "I'd be glad if you did, even more so if you never come back."

Merchant: "Ouch. I see... so you plan on dealing emotional damage... I'm sorry, but it's not gonna work. My mind is a fortress."

I wouldn't be having so much trouble if I could defeat this guy by telling him off.

With daggers in hand, I prepare myself to face him.

Merchant: "You're coming at me head on? That's disappointing. By now you should already know that it's not gonna work... At least that's what I would say had I not noticed you meddling with magic all around..."

If being a merchant doesn't work out for him, he could for sure become an actor. He looked pretty hurt there, only to turn a genuine smile while exposing me.

It was hopeless from the beginning, with how much information he has access to, I wouldn't be surprised if he could see even the mana I'm spending in real time.

But that's fine, as long as he doesn't know exactly what I did, there was still a chance it would work out.

I could only improve the effectness by acting fast, and I ran towards him at full speed.

As I approached him, I threw the first dagger, hoping that he would teleport out of the way so that if he chose a location near me I could still try to slash him.

When the dagger was about to hit the Merchant, he disappeared from my sight.

SInce I was already expecting that to happen, I turned around, trying to hit him, but that was to no avail either.

No matter how fast I acted, his reactions were just too quick, and he would just vanish right away.

Ellie's method of predicting where he'd go and spamming him with attacks seemed pretty solid, but mimicking it ended up being way too costly for my stamina, as I kept slashing at him everytime he appeared somewhere new.

All the while, my target in question didn't even seem to break a sweat.

Merchant: "I told you that wouldn't work. You see, even if that toy managed to hit me..."

I was getting out of breath, but in the last attack the Merchant chose not to teleport, instead, he took the full brunt of it.

Not a single drop of blood came out of him even though I had hit his arm for sure. I could feel his skin pushing back against the dagger, but no matter how much force I put into it, I simply couldn't even scratch him.

Merchant: "It's nowhere near strong enough to damage me. But I can respect respect the effort... So how about you drop that and-"

That was enough. I dropped the dagger in my hand.

Merchant: "Oh? That worked? I thought you were more of the obstinate type."

In a moment, he appears right in front of me. I couldn't even put up my guard before he grabbed my neck.

Merchant: "You may be running out of time."

Miwen: "I thought... you weren't interested..."

Merchant: "Who knows? Maybe I've changed my- gh.... khhh...."

As soon as he opened his mouth to speak, I used wind magic to flood him with oxygen, creating a barrier in his throat...

I was expecting to be able to kill him internally or at least suffocate him like that. Sadly, despite a initial choke, he was quick to break the wind barrier I made inside his throat.

It was enough for him to let go of me for an instant, and for the first time I could see him in actual danger.

Miwen: "If our levels were close, you'd be dead by now."

Even if he teleported away, as long as the barrier was there, I could maintain it by spending mana. The only way for him to survive was to break that barrier, which would be near impossible to do in time if we were the same level.

Merchant: "... your mana is almost running out, it will be your loss when it does."

Miwen: "It won't. You're not the only one capable of teleporting away. The moment I managed to get the girls out of here, it was your loss. I come and go as I please, and whenever I have a theory to kill you, I'll be sure to come try it out, that is, unless I become strong enough to defeat you head on first."

It sucks to lose the Kingdom like this, even if temporarily, but his event has no restrictions, aside from not having access to the kingdom anymore, it wouldn't provoke any change to how I've been doing things.

And if he decides to leave, the invasion should end, so, the moment we found ourselves here alone, there was no way for him to win.

Merchant: "I see... alright then, you've dirtied my clothes and tried to choke me a few times but... if I bullied a bunch of kids anymore than this, the others would surely start to belittle me..."

Miwen: "...You're not as good an actor as I thought."

Something was off with him since the beginning... the way he acted didn't match his words and his words didn't match his appearance.

A calm and friendly looking guy... who makes threats about killing everyone.

Even though he had plenty of chances to do so, he never actually hurt any of us.

If you take his words out of the equation, what you're left with is actually just an innocent guy who was defending himself against us.

As soon as he noticed our levels, he didn't even bother actually counter attacking and just treated our attacks as some sort of entertainment.

The last event and even how strange everything around this one was made us on edge... the way he got to our backs so casually had our danger alerts on maximum... and his words only confirmed what we were already thinking...

If not for that, everyone would've noticed how poor of an actor he really is.

Merchant: "Oh, did you figure it out?"

Miwen: "I told you I wasn't going to sacrifice myself. This is a worthless fight for me, there's no reason to risk my life. But it's a good opportunity to go all out and test a few things..."

In the end, I relied too much on trying to suffocate the opponent since I knew how essential oxygen is for living creatures, and while it turned out to be effective, maybe the girls would've come up with something different.

Merchant: "... you're really interesting. Since there's no need to keep up the act anymore... shall we talk business?"

Miwen: "Finally acting like a merchant I see."

Merchant: "You've proved to be worth of my time after all... There's a lot I'm interested to know about, so I'm willing to exchange some information with you, at the very least."

In other words, he wants to talk.

Yeah... the way he's acting now is way more fitting. Seems like hiding your true nature is hard even for someone so strong.

Miwen: "Let's head inside then, there's also a lot I wanna know about too."

I guess I didn't really manage to win like I was expecting to... but somehow I'm not too mad that I fought to a draw against this absolute monster.