66: The Art of FAFO
She didn’t know how long she was out. By the time she woke up, pain assaulted the back of her neck and head. Clearly, they didn’t bother holding back on knocking out a young girl.
Though at this point, she was lucky that was all they did. She searched her surroundings to find herself in a dark room, the air musty with age while surrounded by several crates filled with an assortment of items she didn’t bother identifying. Though thanks to her higher level, she could sense a certain something radiating off the items. Was it mana? Her Intelligence attribute did increase a bit lately, so it made sense that she was starting to get a feel for this type of stuff.
Recalling what happened before she was put to sleep, she already hazarded a guess on where she was at. She tried to stand, but found herself bound, her wrists tied behind her back and her ankles equally wrapped in tight rough rope. There were bruises here and there on her body, probably from being treated roughly while on the transport here. They ached, sure, but it was nothing compared to her mental state.
Her emotions ran rampant, but she forced herself to be calm, recalling her brother’s words whenever her anxiety reached its zenith. He always said to stay focused no matter the situation, and no matter what happened, always think of yourself first before anything else.
She wasn’t in any position to cry or call for help. The best she could do was to ensure that she wouldn’t get into any deeper shit than she already was.
Unfortunately she ran out of time to make a plan on what to do before a door opened up to reveal two men walking in. Neither of them were the men who assaulted her brother and kidnapped her. One stood tall while wearing a glaring red jacket, his wild mane of dark hair flowing behind him. Another was a rather pale looking old man who seemed really pissed for some reason, his jaw tightened.
Haley stood up, trying not to look even remotely arousing no matter how small the chance was. The last thing she wanted to do was give these old men any ideas while she was bound.
“Hey there, looks like you’re awake,” The man in lead spoke up, kneeling down in front of her with a casual grin. “Sorry about the way my boys handled you. They really don’t know how to treat a lady right, I know.”
Haley kept quiet, but she really wanted to speak up on how he was the one who sent them to her house in the first place. Not only that, but ransacked it and beat her brother into a pulp. She had nothing but pure hatred towards the man, clearly a leader from the Red Riot.
“Let’s start from scratch. My name is Volburn, and as you can imagine, I’m the one in charge of this place. The man beside me is Bosnier. I assure you–we only want what’s best for us. If you work with us, I promise you that nothing will come to harm you.”
“Volburn, hurry and ask her about Nina!” The pale man beside Volburn, Bosnier, growled. “Ask her where that bitch is hiding! She’ll pay for destroying my greatest treasure!”
“Easy,” Volburn rolled his eyes at the pale man. “I’m getting there. Can’t you see she’s still roughed up?”
“Like I care!” Bosnier snapped. “Come on and hurry it up! Even she knows where she’ll end up, so there’s no point in denying the inevitability any longer!”
Haley pursed her lips, really not liking the current situation. It was clear that they don’t see her as any threat at all, and they’d be right. But she had no clue on what got this Bosnier guy so bugged out. She knew it was Nina’s fault, and frankly that was all she needed to know.
Volburn only just sighed, looking more than tired from dealing with the old man. “Well, you heard him. So? Any idea?”
Figuring that there was no need to keep quiet any longer, she spoke up.
“Do you really think I know where Nina is?” Haley scoffed. “She forced me under her contract and made me into her slave! Then she just dumped me to watch her store! All I was trying to do is keep my head down and not get killed.”
“Yeah, I figured,” Volburn said. “But there has to be something you know about her. Where she usually goes, what she might be doing now. She must have told you something. Come on, don’t make this any more difficult than it already is.”
Haley wanted to spit at the man, but she had enough brains to know how risky that was. Still, she was pissed at what they did to her brother more than anything, and she wanted to do something to give them a headache.
It might be a long shot, but if she knew him well enough…
“Honestly, you’re really screwed here,” Haley smiled. “Nina’s a bitch, but she’s someone you shouldn’t have messed with.”
“Ooh?” Volburn scoffed. “And why’s that?”
“Because there’s someone who’s even scarier than Nina. Someone that you just made an enemy.”
This time, both Volburn and Bosnier reacted to that, offering raised brows. Volburn raised his meaty hand and grabbed Haley’s face hard, cupping her cheeks to leave a mark. Haley grunted, pain easily flaring on both sides of her face.
“Explain. Who’s this someone that’s supposedly really scary?”
“Heh…” Haley let out a haughty laugh. She would admit that she was enjoying seeing the man look so serious at her threat. “Someone that single-handedly cleared the fifth floor of the dungeon, that’s who.”
“What?”
Volburn exclaimed, which surprised Haley a little that her threat actually worked. Bosnier didn’t look clued in on it, showing a raised brow.
“What is she on about?”
“I knew you weren’t paying attention cuz’ you keep bitching about your relic, but I heard rumors that someone went and cleared up to the halfway point in the Crystalfang dungeon,” Volburn explained, letting go of Haley with a toss. She was pissed but was more than glad that her cheeks were left in one piece.
“So? Who cares about some mongrel dungeon?”
“You don’t get it,” Volburn shook his head. “We found the Merunian laboratory off in the deep corners of the fourth floor. We never got around there because the monsters got stronger the deeper we went. We figured there was something more valuable that the Merunians left behind, probably deeper down into the dungeon.”
“...So you’re saying this bitch’s lackey is somehow stronger than your entire gang?” Bosnier sneered. “Impossible.”
“Wouldn’t it also make sense that if it was the same one that somehow protected Nina from that curse of yours?” Volburn added, and it looked like it hit a sore spot as Bosnier’s face scrunched up in response.
“That is…”
“Tell me,” Volburn ignored Bosnier’s attempt to make something up, turning his full attention to Haley again. “Who the hell is this guy? Where did he come from? And what does Nina have on him that’s making him follow orders?”
Haley couldn’t help but chuckle, which was thankfully only adding in more offense to the two. They were so out of the clue on what they were facing, it was enough to make her laugh.
“All you need to know is that once he finds out what happened to me, he won’t like it. And if he doesn’t like something, he’d do something about it. So if I were you, I suggest that you don’t lay another finger on me. I’m doing this for your own sake.”
This was the entire crux of the whole ‘acting like she was hot shit’ plan. She hoped she made Aidan out to be as much of a threat as she could so that the two wouldn’t do anything else to her.
Now whether or not Aidan would actually come to save her was another thing. For all she knew, Nina might order him to stay down, ignoring her entirely. She hated the idea, but she also had to consider the worst possible outcome for herself. Worse still, it was possible that Van himself would come in ready to save her or die trying. The latter is what she feared the most.
However, Volburn let out a heavy sigh, as though he expected such a thing to happen. “Seriously? All that bluster? You really think I’m gonna get scared in my boots? Who do you think you’re talking to?”
His tone changed, and the air around him became heavy. Haley instantly felt the cold gripping her insides as it became somehow hard to breathe in his presence. It took all she had to not let out tears of sheer fright to put up even a smidgen of resistance.
“I’m the leader of Red Riot. I raised what was just a damn bandit group into the most influential gang across the entirety of Forontia. Even the higher-ups that live in their fancy little cottages and waited on hand and foot have no choice but to come to me for aid, for trades. Money, power, people–I have everything I could want, and I can always get more whenever I deem it necessary.”
Volburn lowered himself, his eyes growing sharper with every breath she took.
“My level isn’t the only thing that you should be afraid of. It’s my influence, my utter control over everything. And this Nina decided to come along and play her little games, take my products, and pretend to be a big fish in this little pond of ours. She doesn’t recognize what it takes to truly take control. And whoever this fucker is that you’re so dependent on… don’t bother. Nobody will come to save you. I’m only being realistic because we’re not in some story where a hero would come and–”
“Boss!”
“What?!”
Volburn let out a harsh growl that sent out a small shockwave, making Haley yelp in fright. Even his voice was powerful enough to send a boom across the air as some lackey came running by, interrupting his speech.
“S-Sorry boss, but there’s something going on outside!”
“Well, spit it the fuck out!” Volburn shouted. “What is it?”
“S-Swords!” The man exclaimed, sounding a bit off-put himself. The two men in front of her only stayed silent as he continued. “T-There are swords all over the sky!”
Hearing that, her heart lifted as Haley felt energy invigorating her veins, and a smile plastered on her lips.
“Isn’t this the part where the villain gets his ass whooped when the hero comes to save the day?”
Both Volburn and Bosnier turned to her, seeing her smile excitedly. Yet they didn’t dare to do anything to her.
Because she knew now that her words struck them to their core as they hurried out of the room. Left alone, she let out a big breath, as if the whole world’s weight was lifted off of her shoulders.
“Aidan really came to get me… thank the heavens..!”
She really felt like crying then, out of sheer joy and relief.
…..
What awaited the gruff Red Riot men above was nothing like they have ever seen before. In this incredible world where monsters and magic exist, they often saw things that were off the norm compared to the regular citizens of the now deceased planet earth.
But even they couldn’t believe what they were witnessing firsthand as the night sky above, shining with the brilliance of the full moon, became shrouded in shimmering flying swords.
Dozens, hundreds of them. They crowded the sky above, each one pointing their sharpened tips straight down upon the Dark Zone where the Red Riot currently resided. Each of the men just looked up with their own weapons in hand, figuring that some attack was about to occur.
Yet they stood there in shock at the amazing number of swords floating in the air, completely still as if the weapons were currently deciding their fate.
Eventually more men came up, some looking more powerful with higher levels as the higher-ups of the Red Riot came out. Volburn himself came out, unwilling to believe the girl’s words before finding it out for himself. He came outside to find his men completely dumbstruck from what they saw above.
Eventually, he spotted the one responsible for all of this. Floating above in the sky, right at the center of the moon, was a man wearing a flowing cloak, the air carrying him as if he were a lord served by the heavens themselves.
Aidan assessed the situation now that he finally arrived in the Dark Zone. Throughout his way here, he continuously used Craft to make as many weapons as possible. He wasn’t going to go about this in some roundabout way, sneaking in and taking down one guy after another to eventually find his friend.
No, he was going to go all out right from the start. With Sense Vibrations, he filtered through the trash crowding the ground below, eventually finding the lovable soul he came to recognize as Haley’s. Through it, he could tell how hurt she was, finding it riddled with anxiety and a small sense of relief.
Just seeing her in such a state left Aidan completely blank with… something. He knew they were playing a dangerous game, often fucking around with literal criminal gangs that could easily take lives as well as make them a living hell. But it was the first time he ever felt truly harmed after all of his leveling.
Harmed, as in knowing that someone he cared for could get affected without his knowing. He thought all he needed to do to stay ahead in life was to get as strong as possible while keeping himself safe. He failed to recognize that there were other ways to hurt him.
He already had his own world taken from him. His family, gone without a trace. His friends, vanished without a single word to remind him of. Every single precious memory made from his home world destroyed in a blink of an eye, without a single thought left behind to remind others of its existence.
Aidan just floated there, lost in his own memories as he heard several men roaring and shouting at him. They demanded him to leave, or better yet, to come down and face them himself. He looked down, seeing the one he recognized as the leader in charge of the whole group.
Volburn walked up, bypassing his men as he stared with clear hostile intent at him.
“You the so-called bodyguard for Nina?” He shouted, getting his attention. He didn’t need to shout that much despite the distance as Aidan’s high Perception managed to catch each word. “Well now, you really got a lot of balls to come up here and scare my men like that. You know what’s gonna happen from here on, don’t you?”
“No, I don’t,” Aidan answered. His tone was still and devoid of amusement. “Enlighten me.”
Volburn let out a hearty chuckle, a seemingly genuine one before his face completely changed to a frown. “Nobody fucks with the Red Riot. And you only got yourself to blame.”
With that, several sharp flashes of light aimed toward Aidan before a massive explosion took place. It was at such a level where it left behind shockwaves that shook the earth beneath. The men shouted and cheered at the sudden attack launched at Aidan, causing a ruckus and jeering at the man who came for them.
Though they quickly quieted down when the smoke cleared to reveal that nothing really changed. Aidan still kept floating in the air, his swords still prepped and ready as he scanned his surroundings to find the people that shot at him.
Several mages from the looks of it, wearing their robes and staves with several accessories that were probably enchanted to boost their power, stood off to the side of the building up on the second floor. It was fast, but Aidan could tell that they shot off powerful fireballs, or equally burning sources of power equal that to bombs, all while being completely silenced. It was a surprise attack that would’ve worked if Aidan hadn’t already sensed their mana charging from their souls.
As for how he managed to get away unscathed, it was easy. No matter how much power they wielded, it was nothing compared to a full powered combo of Magic Focus, Magic Boost, and Infused Craft of air that completely disrupted the spells apart. More than that, he took control of the dregs of the spell with Craft, easily being an element he could control, to further scatter them away before reaching him.
He knew he could only have that level of control and power thanks to the recent upgrades from his latest dungeon run. Despite their high power, the mages that attacked ranged from level 30 to 40, which in comparison to the lasers shot at him from the Merunian Hell Hound, were just puffs of hot air that he could easily manage.
Now he really had no reason to hold back. Perhaps there was some part of him that felt guilty for what he was about to do, but he kept reminding himself that these were criminals. They would do whatever it takes to get what they want, ignoring everything else.
He was going to have to do whatever it takes as well. Just to send a message.
“Same to you,” Aidan said, his own soul rousing in response. “You fucked around. Now you only have yourself to blame.”
With a flick of his wrist, the swords rained down upon the Dark Zone.