058. Establishment - 05

058. Establishment - 05

"I hate you," Karak gasped as he collapsed onto his knees once more while I chuckled.

"You think you do, but it's just the beginning, boy," I said, chuckling in amusement. "But, I'm impressed. Barely four hours, and you can stop yourself from completing the attack in almost every attempt. You're learning faster than I expected. We might start the fun part sooner than I expected."

Karak looked at me, with pride, but also with frustration. He could hardly describe the time that had passed as barely. It was filled with thousands of attempts, most of them ending with a sharp hit to stop him. If it wasn't for allowing him to use his health occasionally to recover, he would have collapsed from interior bleeding long ago.

Still, he looked exhausted.

"I can't imagine that there's a training method like this? Is this how the knights and other nobles train?"This chapter is updated by nov(e)(l)biin.com

"Not exactly relevant, with their fancy skills," I admitted, not willing to commit to an answer either way. I didn't know exactly how it worked for nobles, my exposure was limited to that horror show in the castle, and I didn't want to lie in a way that could be caught in the future.

Near future, if the deal between Zolast and the young noble worked as intended.

"Now, let's move. You're on the critter duty," I ordered.

"You think I can handle that? Just by a few hours of training?"

"No, but you have to start trying somewhere, and it's not like we have anything better to do," I answered as I gestured for him to move.

He gave a stiff nod, and took the forward point. As he started to move, I watched him. He wasn't exactly a model of grace and efficiency, but after he started to get used to the pattern, he started to give a surprisingly good performance. The delays between his attacks got smaller, and his cuts and slashes got smaller.

Of course, not every attack of his was as smooth, his skills taking control often, but as he repeated, the number decreased as well.

Meanwhile, my halberd was still out, showing up whenever there were too many beasts attacking or one of the bigger ones showed their presence. The caravan had gotten away, but without the carts to slow us down, we would catch up with them barely in twenty minutes.

unless there was an ambush waiting for us, I corrected as I noticed a few shadows near a rock far away from us. Interesting, I thought as I frowned at the sight with a frown, but I didn't say anything to Karak, who was too distracted with his hunt to pay attention.

I didn't say anything, because I didn't want to change directions. It wouldn't help.

Now that I had noticed the presence of the ambushers, their surprise advantage was gone. There were two possibilities about their capabilities without that advantage. The likely possibility was that they were weaker than me, so the ambush wouldn't end up as something that was threatening. Instead, I would be able to interrogate them about the reason.

I didn't particularly enjoy being challenged by an idiot thug. And, if we were not in the center of a huge plain, I might have reacted to his disrespect in a different manner. But, we were in a visible location, and I couldn't afford to reveal anything. Not when there could be observers

Instead, I copied Karak and started to make a show of trembling hard, doing my best to act like I was being affected while ignoring the temptation of counter-attacking in the same manner.

It would have been a good way to relax too bad I had noticed two more groups of observers, one close, the other far away.

The presence of two teams confirmed one thing. I was being tested. For what, I had no idea, nor did know the observers worked for the same person. Either way, they assigned far more people as observers than ambushers, showing they were there to take stock of my abilities rather than actually dealing with me.

If they wanted a show, I would give them a show. "H-how dare I! How dare you, daring to give me an order, you cowardly dog," I answered even as I made a show of trembling even worse, but stretched my charisma to touch him, using it to examine the way he delivered the orders. "I now remember you, you're the one that slinked back with your tail between your legs when I humiliated your masters."

"I have no masters! Not now!" he gasped, and the charisma pressure got even heavier. "Kneel!"

The order was even heavier, and Karak, despite his great performance rejecting the order until now, succumbed, his exhaustion not helping him to keep a clear mind.

I made a show of collapsing as well, but I didn't let my knees touch the ground, still making a show of resisting. I could have rushed to him to kill him, of course, but why would I, when that would show observers just how easily I could resist the power of Charisma.

It felt like a dangerous thing to reveal.

Instead, I resisted as I looked at his eyes, and spat on the ground. "That's it, old man. I don't care what they want to ask you. You're dead," he growled and rushed forward, his dagger raised At the distance, I saw one of the two observer groups move, while the other stayed watching which made me think that they were two independent groups, or at least, the first group was unaware of the presence of the second, but it might just be them realizing they were too far away to intervene.

That was true, but not in the way they were thinking. The moment he walked close enough, I swung my halberd. It wasn't a particularly good swing, the halberd trembling badly as it moved, but it still had enough Strength to decapitate him.

He could have dodged, but, confident in his victory, he didn't even make an attempt a mistake that he only realized when his head went flying.

"W-what was that?" Karak gasped as he suddenly took a deep breath. At that moment, I was already using my Halberd to kill the beasts, rushing now that the intimidation factor of Charisma was gone.

"Not a question you should be asking, or talk about with anyone but Jertann and Zolast," I said, and he nodded. "We are just going to treat him as a bandit with an overinflated sense of importance and walk away. Understood?"

Karak nodded, once again silent as I leaned and picked the dagger, smiling. It was much worse than my sword, but unlike that, my enemies already knew I possessed it.

It would be nice to walk around with a magical weapon, giving me an excuse to act a bit stronger if the situation called for it. Then, I glanced at Karak, thinking that it would also make a nice promotion gift