Chapter 73: Playing with Fire (Patreon)

The first thing I noticed was that neither Martin nor his lieutenants were here. That was good. Even if the others were calling for help right now, they’d still need time to get here. The bad part was that the men in the room were all serious fighters carrying serious weapons.

Oh, and the outside of the building was still on fire.

I haven’t decided yet on whether that’s a positive or a negative thing.

Still, ten warriors in an enclosed space was a lot, so I ran for the boarded-up window. I dove at it shoulder first, hoping to smash my way through and get outside. Instead, I bounced harmlessly off of it.

The men chuckled. They hadn’t used ordinary wood to board the place up. With my stats, I would have torn through regular wood like tissue paper.

One of the men moved to block the door, which I noticed was made of the same material. It made me wonder if they’d taken it from the building itself. If that was true, then there was no breaking out of here.

“I don’t suppose there’s anyway I could talk you out of this?” I asked. When they didn’t respond I kept going, “money? Access to the residential floor? There’s not a ton of beds, so some of you would have to double up, but I’m sure you could work it out amongst yourselves.”

“There are couches too,” Hugo added helpfully.

I nodded. “Right, you guys could rotate or do like a lottery system.”

When they still didn’t sound interested, I got frustrated. “Come on, why are you even following Martin?”

“He freed us!” one yelled.

“Shut up!” shouted another. “Let’s just finish it and collect our reward.”

That explains why they hadn’t fled the burning building and why they’d been stuck waiting up there for who knows long. I wonder what it was that Martin was offering them? Whatever it was, it must be impressive if he can split it among so many. There was no way that I’d be able to match it.

I drew my knives. I guess the only thing left was to fight.

Despite their earlier enthusiasm, the others approached warily. They’d been waiting all day to ambush me, but nobody had come up with a plan on how to do it. Now they weren’t sure on who was going to attack first.

Out of everyone, it turned out to be Hugo. He launched off my shoulder and summoned two other crows in mid-air at the same time to fly into their faces. Their talons went straight for the eyes of the three closest men who were caught off-guard. Their hands tried to swat them away but they’d always be too slow.

While they were distracted, I sprang at the closest one and used Savage Rupture. Blood sprayed everywhere, restoring my energy, but it also motivated the others to move in.

Sword, knife, hatchet, and fist all came for me. There was barely any time to process them. My eyes would register a new threat coming and I’d fluidly moved out of its path. With my grace and speed, they struggled to pin me down, let alone touch me.

It also helped that the tavern’s bedrooms were never that deep. Knocking down the connecting walls had just created this narrow, long rectangle of a room. Great for hiding a lot of people but it made ganging up on someone harder.

One man who was getting attacked by a spirit crow pulled a wand out of his inventory and blasted it with fire. It killed the summon instantly, but it also kept going and hit the wooden ceiling.

Predictably, it quickly caught on fire.

“Idiot!” one of them cursed.

The fire was spreading fast, but no one tried to leave. There was too much at stake for them.

Hugo’s second spirit crow didn’t end up faring much better. It ended up getting grabbed by a brawler type Class and thrown down on the ground where it was then stomped on.

Hugo could see where this was going and retreated by flying back and landing on the lap of the man still chained to the chair.

Meanwhile, the others kept the pressure on me, and I continued dancing between weapons. They must have thought me weak, but every time I moved, I was leaving shallow cuts on arms and torsos as I passed by. For some of them, I was notified that the poison in my knife had activated and for some, it did not. I can only assume that some of them were carrying a Class or ability that made them immune to poisons.

A pity.

Still, once the Viper venom really took effect, it would more than halve their numbers. I just had to stay in the fight long enough for that to happen or wait long enough for the ceiling to collapse.

It was difficult to mark out who had resisted the poison at first as I kept dodging and weaving. Never staying in one place long enough. Though I did notice the guy with the fire wand had backed off. Evidently, he realized that more fire might not be the best solution in a cramped space.

Smoke was starting to build. It wasn’t thick enough to hide in, but it did make some of the men cough, inadvertently further hiding who had the poison. I started to cough myself and had to keep rapidly blinking to stop my eyes from watering. Whoever thought fighting in a burning building would look cool is lying to people. There’s way too much smoke for that to happen in real life.

Two men less affected by the smoke than the others came at me. One with twin knives and the other with a sword.

I tried to spin away from them and gasped as I felt a blade slice across my back. It had been a while since I’d felt their blood and now, I was starting to slow down too. Fortunately, the wound wasn’t deep but I still cursed at myself. I shouldn’t be so stingy with my abilities when there’s so much blood at hand to replenish myself with.

Ignoring the pain, I used Heart Strike and plunged my goblin blade into the knife wielder and then kicked the swordsman squarely in the chest. One died at my feet and healed me, while the other went flying back and smacked his head against the wall.

There was no notification, which meant he was unconscious instead of dead. Not that I had any time to pay attention to the notifications that kept flying into the lower corner of my eyes.

A brawler stepped up next and sluggishly threw a punch at my head. I ducked under it and used Savage Rupture to cut his throat.

Looks like I wasn’t the only one slowing down. It had taken a while, but the poison was showing results. Many were coughing constantly, and some had stopped fighting altogether and were choking on the smoke.

I cut down several of the more active looking fighters and left the others to asphyxiate on the rising smoke. Most of them were disabled or dying and the door was now clear. I figured there was no better time to grab Hugo and get out of here.

But before I could turn around, a chain snapped itself onto my wrist and hand. It wrapped around them tightly and then was pulled taut, locking my arm in place. I glanced back to see the chained man still sat in the chair, only the chains that were around him weren’t binding him. He held Hugo in one hand and the chain connected to my wrist in the other. I didn’t know if it was a magical enchantment or extreme strength, but that entire arm was completely disabled.

So the chains really were magic? Some kind of weapon or special Class ability.

The chain man pulled a small chain off of himself to wrap around Hugo and then tied it to his chest to free up his other hand. He stood up and pulled out another section of chain. He casually swung it in slow lazy circles, likely readying himself to trap my other arm. If that happens, then it’s over.

Desperate to keep him back, I threw my goblin knife at his head. The chain man dodged it easily while smiling. So he was fast too. That pointed more to a magical enchantment with the chains. Not that that would help me right now.

To make matters worse, the swordsman I’d kicked unconscious had woken up. He seemed very upset with me as he stumbled to his feet. He also looked a little shaky, but it wouldn’t take much skill to stab a man held in place.

I tried to get to my Viper Fang, but the chains over my hand were too tight and felt burning hot when I tried to touch them with my other hand.

I was trapped with one swordsman coming at me from the front and the chain man closing in from behind. I didn’t know what to do. It felt like I was out of ideas. I needed assistance but there was no one close enough who could get here in time.

As death started to draw closer, my mind raced until I realized I had one desperate move left to play. It was really more of a cry for help, but I didn’t see another way.

The portable shrine appeared in my free hand and in my mind, I shouted, Yakeshi, I seek an audience!

And then everything went black.