Chapter 187

187 Watch your back, please! part “You need to understand, all I could think about was you passing away in front of my eyes. I felt helpless”

“Is that how you justify going all out on a defenseless girl?”

“It’s not like she didn’t deserve it, you know what she wanted to do to Sera but, do you know what she did to me?”

Anne kept looking into Ryu’s eyes and he took it as his queue to further explain

“She blessed me”

“How is that a bad thing?”

Ryu sighed, he too couldn’t properly understand why exactly was it a bad thing that Lea got rid of his curse. He didn’t understand yet the nature of curses and blessings but he knew there was a lot more to it than what people knew.

“I don’t think this is the right time to speak about this, we should focus on what to do next instead”

Sera said after passing Ryu a watersking. They were tired after their escape, and they knew time was not on their side. Anne fell silent for a couple seconds, then her mood shifted, she had a look of determination and stared right at Ryu in the eye.

.....

“What’s the plan leader?”

“First tell me how are your health points”

Ryu could have simply used his consider skill, but it might end up triggering another side effect, he couldn’t control it so he always tried to avoid using it on allies.

“I’m somewhere about 70% of my max health points but...”

Anne made a pause thinking on wether she should tell them about it or not, but ended up deciding to do so. Even if Ryu lost control for a while, it was only in order to save her from a certain death.

“My maximum health diminished”

“Miss Anne!”

“Don’t worry too much about it Anne, you just need to get some rest”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I know most people don’t have the consider skill and are only capable of knowing their own health points, but Luke and I can see people’s health points all the time. Sick people often lose a part of their maximum health, even after healed they can’t regain it, but if they get enough rest it will recover eventually”

Anne was relieved after hearing that, but it didn’t change their situation in the slightest.

“So, who’s that guys chasing after us, you seemed to know him”

“He’s Lorenzo, our former instructor”

“Is he strong?”

“He is, but he’s also sort of a... what was the word Luke always used...”

Ryu, who for a while had picked up luke’s bad habit of swearing without even noticing it, was trying to remember the exact word his blond companion always used.

“I believe he said he was a douchebag”

“Now, who are you calling a douchebag?”

Lorenzo appeared as if summoned by Sera’s name calling. His towering figure riding on a pseudo dragon left an impression on Anne who didn’t know much about him. All she could do is judge by his weapons and armor, and that scared her a little because everything looked to be high quality.

Ryu stood in front of his former instructor, wielding his bastard sword with both hands. The grip on his weapon was so tight his gloves creaked.

“Sera, you know what to do”

Sera nodded at Ryu’s words and took off. She was instructed beforehand to lead the amarok and Anne to safety if they were caught.

“Do you really think you can beat me kid?”

Lorenzo brandished a thin longsword that Ryu had never seen before. It didn’t look that dangerous, but on the hands of a B class adventurer even a kitchen utensile could become a killing device.

“The real question is, do you really think you can escape from this alive?”

Ryu glared at Lorenzo and his eyes shimmered faintly as he used his consider skill. Lorenzo now felt the same pressure Risa felt when she faced Ryu, but he already knew about this ‘trick’ of his.

“That’s not going to work on me”

That’s what he said, but his voice was unusually low and his hand became shaky.

“Tell that to your hands”

With a smirk, Ryu stepped in to launch the first strike.

A clanking sound made both swords collide in equal strength. Not being able to overwhelm his former student only added to the primal fear that was coursing through his mind making him lose focus. He expected to be able to defeat Ryu in no more than two movements, he had seen him train with Risa and had an Idea of how far his skills and stats could take him, but he never saw Ryu after he became stronger.

Thanks to Lorenzo’s mishap Ryu was able to scratch, yet again, his armor with the tip of his sword, this time drawing a little bit of blood that brought lorenzo back to his game.

“Do you know what kind of weapon is his?”

Lorenzo said after waving it in the air a couple of times. Ryu, feeling a little angry about his former instructor trying to play the teaching card to distract him, attempted to move in for another strike, but Lorenzo plunged forward aiming his sword at Ryu’s heart.

The young adventurer knew it was useless to try to parry the attack, he was able to see that Lorenzo utilized his ‘bash’ skill increasing his speed and defense for a short while, so he turned on his back instead.

Lorenzo’s sword slipped on Ryu’s cape, passing by his side allowing Ryu to grab Lorenzo’s wrist and take the sword directly from his hand.

“This is a rapier”

He said after analizing it.

“That was impressive, I didn’t know you were so strong, but when I heard you killed Ryota I knew something weird was up”

Lorenzo said as he rubbed his hand to numb the pain he felt after feeling Ryu’s powerful grip on his wrist.

“Tell me something kid, why the hell did you go as far as pretending that you had trouble facing a goblin?”

Lorenzo was at a loss, he couldn’t wrap his head around Ryu’s behavior. Ryu didn’t answer at all as he was still trying to familiarize himself with wielding two swords at the same time.