Chapter 61

They were about to leave behind the crowd when the red headed Elf who had tried to force power leveling for a bet on Lyra pushed and shoved his way free from the throng. He stepped in front of the sheep girl spreading his arms, forcing her to a stop.

“Hey!” he exclaimed, before lowering his voice to a whisper and getting closer. “You know I can help get you out of this. That monster, I figured it out, it’s threatening you right? Forcing you to stay by its side, it’s the only thing that makes sense, there’s no way you could control it when you are even lower level than me. Just say the word and I can whisk you away, no more scary wolf monster or nasty little Goblins, I promise.”

“Uhm, I want to be here, I- I think? I think I do? Would you mind moving? I’m uh, trying to get by.”

“You need to listen to me. You have less levels than I do, you know, and I know that you need to do what’s best for you. It’s best for your safety that you don’t stay with that thing. You should come to my home where you’ll be safe.”

Lyra was beginning to feel a little uncomfortable especially with the way he was looking at her.

“I- I need to stay with Fitz, for my safety. You don’t want to get involved with my problems, it won’t turn out well for you.”

The Elf gave her an assuring smile and put his hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t worry, I am wealthy and strong enough that I can protect you from anything. Just say the word.”

Lyra looked at the hand holding her and furrowed her brow.

“I’m not looking to- no, I said no, get your hand off of me.”

“But-”

The Elf was cut off however by a massive paw wrapping around his hip. He blinked down at it, not quite understanding what had just happened. To his shock the paw suddenly shifted, gripping onto him and hauling him up, quickly accelerating away from the ground and full body flinging him into the air with a mind boggling strength. The Elf cried out as he was physically launched skyward, and then grunted he came crashing down on the nearest rooftop, three stories off the ground. He scrambled around on the angled top on all fours, desperately scrabbling at the tile to stop from falling and slipping off the edge of the roof.

A crowd of faces looked up at him but the eight foot tall wolf monster wasn’t even looking in his direction, just walking away with the unconscious leveler slung over his shoulder.

“H-hey! You can’t just put me up here and leave me!” screamed the Elf shaking his fist. Rain simply ignored him, that a full adult Elf had just been picked up and chucked on a roof seemingly a complete non-concern to him. The crowd didn’t think it was such a small matter however and were staring bug eyed between wolf monster and suddenly vertically positioned Elf.

Lyra hurried to catch up to Rain.

“Y-you didn’t need to do that!”

“You would rather I killed him?”

“No! I- I could have handled it...”

“I’m not waiting. I got what I wanted, and maybe a little more.” He glanced back at the damaged rune on the outer wall. No one seemed to have realised the enchantment had been destroyed. “And now we are leaving. Come.”

Lyra hurried behind as Rain turned down an alley and the crowd disappeared from view. He wasn’t reducing his stride for the girls and they had to practically jog to keep up with Rain, an obnoxious metallic racket coming from Opal’s pack as they made haste.

It didn’t take long with Rain’s detailed knowledge of the town’s back alleys and soon they were approaching the gate they had entered through. The traffic was far greater this time and Rain’s sudden emergence onto the street caused abrupt chaos. A number of people fled seeing him and more dramatically several horses pulling carts went into full blind panic mode, rearing up and braying in fear, backing up the carts they were pulling until they either collided with other carts or ran into buildings. Furious red faced merchants shouted and fought desperately to keep things under control as Rain passed. They did not have a lot of success. Horses did not like giant wolf monsters apparently.

Rain ignored them. He really just wanted to get outside, kill Adlen, and eat. He was sure he was going to start eating horses if he waited much longer, as it was he made a beeline to the gate. Fortunately the same guard as last time was still there although he looked significantly less happy with the situation if that were possible.

What they hell do you think you’re doing?! Wait, what are you doing with that man? You, you can’t just come in here and kidnap someone! Are you insane!?”

Lyra paused by him. “We acquired this man by law of dueling, all above board and quite reasonable I assure you. Nothing to worry about.”

“A monster is walking away with a wounded leveler on his shoulder in broad daylight, of course there’s something to be bloody worried about!”

“For you perhaps, you did after all explicitly endorse this business endeavour, albeit a particularly aggressive endeavour. I wonder how your boss will feel about your responsibility in this? Taking bribes that caused such an issue, tsk tsk.”

The guard’s face dropped. “N-no! You wouldn’t dare!”

“Wouldn’t I? This is just business after all mr guard guy, and we paid you handsomely for your cooperation,” said ruthless business sheep Lyra.

“B-business?”

“Business!” Said opal, giving the guard a double thumbs up as she passed.

A number of extremely angry merchants were fast approaching the guard, clearly on a warpath, and before the guard could interfere further he was swamped by yelling and shouting people. Rain and the girls were already in the woods and quickly moving away from town as the guard was lost behind a small crowd.

Rain carried Adlen a ways into the woods, far away for prying eyes, privacy to eat and find some kind of closure for his deep seated trauma at long last. He flipped Adlen off his shoulder and dropped him by a tree. The leveler was clearly heavily injured; his wounds harsh, broken bones all over his body. He wasn’t waking up anytime soon.