Arad looked at the fairy with a passive face, neither she nor the hunters could see his face thanks to the cloak. "Can you use size magic? I want to learn it."
"Yes, I know it. But sadly...can't use it while locked here." She tapped the cage and her eyes shifted toward Balon, "Can you convince him to let me go?"
"This little one was supposed to lead us into the den of an earth tyrant, she instead lied to us and led us into an empty pit with nothing but vipers and death." Balon looked at Arad, "We had paid the fairies first, and she is our insurance."
"Yeah..." The woman wizard sitting at the side sighed, "We needed to kill the tyrant and get some material, now thanks to that disappointment we're in the red and need money to feed our members. People have families and mouths to feed, you should know that."
"We'll sell this little lying gremlin to recoup our costs." The other man sitting on the opposite side of the table to Arad added.
"An earth tyrant?" Arad looked at the fairy, "A monster attuned to earth magic, like an elemental but a bit weaker, right?"
"Pretty much, they can be a dog or a titan, doesn't matter as long as they can cast powerful earth magic." Balon sighed, "Their core is desired by earth wizard, they'll pay mountains of gold for it." He looked disappointed.
"Hmmm..." Arad thought about it for a second, "Those vipers, did they have a source of food?" Arad looked at the fairy, "Strange, all of them living in one pit, no food, no water, just on luck? Doubt it." He reached with his hand and lifted the cage.
"Put my purse down." Balon growled with a raging face.
"The pit is the earth tyrant, no doubt. Those vipers are its minions. The fairy didn't lie, she saved your lives." With a single clench of his hand, he crumbled the cage and freed the fairy. "She led you to the tyrant, saw it's powerful enough to kill you all, so she didn't elaborate or explain that to you. Am I right?"
The fairy looked away, "Mind your own business."
Balon smacked the table with both of his hands and stood, "Wait! Is that true?" He glared at the fairy with a raging face, "What was it?"
"A genius loci; that pit was his gaping mouth, the snakes are only there to clean his teeth." She replied, sitting on Arad's shoulder. "Go if you want, but you'll end up wiped out." She then glared at Arad, "Why butt in? Spill the beans?"
"I didn't spill any beans." Arad looked at the ground, "I know a fairy, and she is quite tricky to deal with. Always has several meanings behind her words, just thought you might've had a different reason to scam them."
He looked at Balon, "I don't know if this applies to all fairies or not, but from my experience, they don't lie, they mask the truth and mislead people, but never say a flat-out lie." He turned to leave with the fairy, but a barrier blocked his path.
"Not so fast." The wizard woman had lifted her staff and cast her spell. "We already returned to the city, wasting our money and resources. I don't care what the fairy's intentions were, she still cost us a fortune."
Arad glared back at her, but she kept talking.
"We either sell her and get back to our usual work, or get stuck with shitty jobs for at least a year to rebuild our funds and resources." Her eyes were burning with magic.
"Not her problem." Arad said with a deep voice, almost a growl, "She saved your life by preventing you from jumping into death. You are the ones owing her."
"Doesn't change the fact she misled us." The woman charged a spell, a spinning stone drill that started heating up and swirling the air in the whole guild.
"Drop it!" Balon growled at the woman, but she wasn't listening.
Thud! Arad suddenly disappeared, relaxing all of his muscles and remembering what he learned from Nina and Kayden. Relax your muscles and launch an explosive attack, accelerate in a fraction of a second.
With one foot on the ground, Arad sent a kick straight toward the woman's torso. Shattering her spell and stopping his foot right in front of her large breasts. This was the kick that Nina kicked him within the guild in the past, a swift yet deadly attack aiming straight at the heart to stop it.
If this was his true body, the sheer shockwave would's ripped half of the village apart. But in his human-limited self, it only looked like a lightning-fast kick strong enough to send a man flying.
The woman looked down with a sweaty face, seeing Arad's foot hovering right before her nipples, one inch further and she would've been sent straight into the grave. "If you're wearing a wizard's robe, at least cast spells effectively." Arad said as he pulled his foot away. As he turned to leave, he said with a passive face. "You aren't worthy of that wizard robe you're wearing. I've seen far better wizards in nothing but common clothes."
The woman was a very experienced wizard with almost two decades of battle experience, tens of original spells a power that made most hunters quiver. Arad had unintentionally insulted her entire career, challenging her pride.
She watched him walk away with boiling rage, he only had the range advantage. Everyone knows that wizards would lose to a martial class in close combat. Even though she can't explain how his kick destroyed her spell, he had the advantage and that was a fact.
"Huh." She giggled, "You got your advantage, now it's mine." She pointed her staff at him again. This time they were meters apart, a perfect distance for her to cast a multitude of spells.
Arad sighed, looking back, "Don't bother, you'll lose. I can tell by how your previous spell cracked."
"Oi, my slap king..." The fairy was rubbing her face on Arad's cheek. "She isn't worthy of a wizard, how about you rip that robe of hers, and give her a few painful slaps on the butt as a bonus?" She giggled, "That should put her pride where it would belong if I didn't mess with them, down to fucking earth."
"Can you stop talking for a second?" Arad sighed as his gaze quickly shifted toward the woman pointing her magic at him. "Give up. You're used to having people protect you, those around you." He pointed at Balon and the rest, "As long as they got your back, you'll never feel the need to empower your skills with magic."
"Let's see if you could speak with your head blown off!" She growled, firing five spinning drills of stone and fire, racing toward Arad like canon shells.
Arad ran straight toward the woman with the fairy hanging for dear life on his shoulder. He dodged all the spells like a master, closing the distance in the blink of an eye.
The woman was surprised, but she had more plans lined up, two more spells. As Arad approached her, less than two meters away, spikes burst from the ground in front of him.
Arad had expected such an attack as he was smarter than a charging horse. He sidestepped the spikes and stood at the woman's side, swinging a left hook straight at her face.
Arad's fist clanged on a magical barrier that surrounded the woman's whole body. With such powerful magic, his fist won't be able to pierce it. As the woman smiled, about to blast him, she heard something shatter behind her head. In the next moment, she felt Arad's right hand grabbing her neck from the back.
"Barrier magic is good and can block attacks several tiers higher than them, but they have one flaw. To block an attack they must gather all their mana in one spot and harden, this leaves the rest of the barrier vulnerable to simultaneous attacks, especially from the exact opposite point." Arad explained as he had the woman in his hand like a cat.
He had used his large size and wide arm to throw two hooks at the same time. One with his left hand toward the woman's face, and the other one with his right arm toward the back of her head. Since he threw the left hook first, it made contact with the woman's eyes and diverged the barrier's mana, opening a path for his right hand to enter and catch the woman. "How did you dodge my spells? You aren't faster than them." She looked at him with a
"Aim to dodge, it's a basic skill. I see where you're aiming, and get out of the way." Arad let her go and started walking away, "If you can't compensate for that, you should start learning
the basics once again."
"Why didn't you punch her?" The fairy asked.
"She's just lucky. My wife would kill me if I attacked a defenseless person." Arad replied with
a passive face as he approached Mary and the guild master.
"Wait! You're married! No one told me anything about that!" She cried... but immediately
looked at Arad with a smug face. "I'm not the one about to get cheated on, so it's fine."
"I'll pluck your wings off..." He sighed.