While Jayson was finishing up his first mission successfully—
Garrick, Dustin, William and Richard were currently facing a very different challenge.
"Wh-what do we do Garrick?" Dustin asked in fear of what might await him.
"Get ready to fight. They're clearly intent on killing us."
William and Richard were already on page with him.
'Shit. I didn't sign up for this.' Richard thought.
He had never faced an actual person before. Richard was just a hunter until recently and was fortunate enough not to have encountered someone dangerous like this before, despite his other misfortunes in the past.
William stayed composed thanks to a couple similar situations he experienced before, together with Osric. But he still lacked experience in facing humans and especially in killing them.
'Why are they after us?'
On the other side—
Some of the group of ten Stoneclaw Gang members also looked unsure.
One of them asked the group leader. "Hey Klinger. The boss told us to get rid of that old mercenary called Garrick. We followed him here assuming that only that weak looking kid was with him. But now there are two more. Are you sure we shouldn't go back for now?"
"Pow!"
Klinger punched his subordinate with his left fist.
"You fucking coward! They have four and we have ten. You wanna tell Luke that we ran away just because of that?!"
"You might not know because you didn't come up together with Luke, but our boss is the scariest piece of shit I know. He'll kill us all if we come back empty handed."
His right hand tightened on his large axe.
"Everyone get your shit together. Start surrounding them and attack when I give the signal."
On the other side. "Hey archer. Shoot the one next to their leader, with the long hair and sword in his left hand." Garrick told Richard quietly.
'I think he's the only guy with some weapon training among them.' He thought.
Richard didn't hesitate. He quickly pulled the bow's string with the arrow attached and released it.
"Twang!"
"Whoosh."
"Thud!"
The arrow pierced through the long haired thug's eye with pin point accuracy. No one in their group could react in time.
His sword drop first and then his body quickly followed without making much sound.
"What the fuck?!" One of them yelled.
"Hubert, Riko! Raise your shields!" Klinger shouted at his two subordinates with shields.
"Yes!"
Garrick didn't even need to tell William to do the same, because his shield was already raised along with his iron one-handed bearded axe.
"Good job Richard! Keep shooting at them." William shouted.
Richard however, wasn't as calm as before.
His eyebrows tensed as he looked at the corpse not too far away.
'I just killed someone. How did I not hesitate to do that? Have I always been so ruthless?'
His usual cold and calm demeanour was barely recognisable.
William frowned. 'Crap. I forgot that he's probably never killed anyone before. His cold behaviour shouldn't have made me forget. I took a huge mental hit when I first killed someone.'
He couldn't afford to be considerate right now. William kicked Richard once and hard.
"Wake up! Draw another arrow and focus on our enemies right now!"
Richard came to right away.
He did as William told him without complaint or much thought.
Garrick had already started running at the group of nine enemies.
He glanced back shortly. "Hey William! Stay close to Dustin!"
"You got it!"
Klinger was already ready for Garrick, along with the two shield users in front of him and the other six armed men with him.
Garrick didn't look intimidated.
'They clearly have no real training in weaponry or group combat. They also don't have any archers, so my only targets are the two shields users to make things easier for our archer—
And their leader, who seems like the only guy with some strength.'
'Let's see whether he's actually skilled though. He doesn't have a trained stance like the dead sword user.'
These last few seconds from where he stood before to the group in front of him, felt very long.
But Garrick arrived and thrust his spear with full might at one of the shield users.
He pretended to aim for the shield but dropped his spear in the last moment and pierced right above the knee.
"Arghh!"
He was about to follow up with a swing for the neck—
When a large axe came down at him.
"Clang!"
Garrick blocked with his spear.
'Damn. That's got some strength behind it.'
Klinger shouted. "Riko! Take four guys with you to take care of those guys with the archer. The remaining two stay with me to kill our target!"
"Yes!" They all shouted.
'Shit. Well at least they only have one shield left. William can take him down and our archer will have it easier.' Garrick thought.
"Whoosh!"
"Ugh!"
One guy was already shot in his throat by Richard.
'One guy can't guard four guys behind him.'
"Nice one Richard!" William shouted.
Dustin just stood anxiously behind William with his sword raised.
'I'm scared.'
"Clang!"
"Clang!"
Meanwhile Garrick was facing off against Klinger with the large axe and two of his subordinates at the same time.
'I've gotten old.'
'These guys would've been nothing to me ten years ago.'