Zich stuck close to the closest bandit beside him. The bandit looked terrified and swung his knife, but Windur had already dug into his neck.
Slice!
A head floated in the sky, and blood shot up like a fountain. The body continued to swing its arms without realizing its head was gone, but Zich had already lost his attention towards it. He easily evaded the knife and moved towards his next target. Perhaps, because he had seen his colleague getting killed, his next opponent was better at responding—but that was all.
With a sharp sound, the sword that the bandit was holding crushed into pieces. Windur pierced through the scattered sword pieces and sliced the bandit’s body into two.
‘Next.’
Zich’s eyes coldly searched for his next target. He saw the next bandit standing closest to him. The bandit appeared terrified, and his pupils shook, but Zich showed no mercy. Zich’s Windur shot out like a flash of light.
Crash!
There was a big commotion. Rather than feeling the sensation of cutting flesh, Zich felt resistance. Unlike the time it sliced through bandits' bodies smoothly, Windur was blocked by a large sword.
“Who are you!” a man with an angular face barked after blocking Zich’s attack.
‘He is quite good.’
The man’s sword was filled with strong mana. He wasn’t an easy opponent like the guys Zich had just killed. Zich felt bloodthirst behind him—two bandits were aiming at his back. Zich placed more strength into his arms and pushed his opponent’s sword back. He saw the angular-faced man’s expression filled with surprise.
‘This bastard! How could he be so strong…!’ the angular-faced man thought. He was pushed a couple of steps back by Zich’s strength.
After freeing Windur, Zich swung his sword fiercely. The two swords coming from behind him bounced off and exposed the chests of the swords’ wielders wide in the open. Windur dug into these openings.
“Ahh!”
“Urgggh!”
The slash ripped two chests ripped apart and revealed white bones and a beating heart. The two bandits screamed and pressed the wounds on their chests, but it wasn’t an injury they could block with such a simple method. They both toppled down to the ground.
“You bastard!” Outraged, the angular-faced man rushed in. He let out a vicious aura that seemed formidable.
‘He clearly is far stronger than the others.’ Zich thought the man was the leader of the bandits hiding inside this firm. ‘But nothing more than that.’ This man was stronger than the other guys, but it didn’t change the fact that he was just the leader of a group of wandering bandits.
Thud!
Zich firmly planted his feet onto the ground and gripped his sword guard tightly with both hands. Then, he swung it towards the angular-faced man hard.
Craaash!
The angular-faced man’s body bounced off. Blood shot out from his hands that gripped his sword. The impact that Zich’s attack made onto his sword caused his palms to tear.
Bam!
The angular-faced man broke through the wall of the storage room, flew, and fell to the floor.
“Boss!”
“What happened!”
There was shouting from the outside. It seemed like the bandits raiding other storages gathered after hearing the commotion. Although the number of his opponents had increased now, Zich remained unconcerned. Instead, he was happy.
‘It’s more annoying if these pests run away.’ Zich sliced the rest of the bandits left in the storage room. Then, he went outside. The angular-faced man got up with the support of his subordinates.
‘Hm, there’s about 60 of them.’ It was a considerable number. Additionally, a couple of them looked quite strong; they were probably leaders of the gang. Yet, Zich still didn’t feel any sense of danger.
“Kill that guy!” the angular-faced man shouted. The bandits rushed forwards and surrounded Zich.
“The one who manages to kill that guy will get all the items in one of the storages!”
“Waaaaaah!” The bandits let out cheers at the declaration the angular-faced man made. The worth of ‘all the items in a storage’— especially one that belonged to a firm that supplied precious metal, was enormous. Passion flared up in an instant. Fear or nervousness flew away from the bandits’ eyes and was replaced by bubbling greed.
‘As expected of bandits.’ Zich understood their change of heart but laughed at their stupidity. ‘They don’t seem to think about why their boss declared such a great reward for defeating me.’
The reason why the angular-faced man declared such a great reward for Zich’s head was because he knew how much of a danger Zich posed. Yet, the bandits didn’t seem to consider this in their fixation of the reward; considering their past idiotic actions, there was also a high possibility that they were simply too dumb to realize it.
The bandits rushed towards Zich at once. In fear that their target would be taken by their colleagues, they competed against each other. Yet, the skilled fighters among them didn’t join in, including the angular-faced man.
‘They are planning to wait until I get worn out.’
That was clumsy thinking. Their difference in strength compared to Zich wasn’t something that could be overcome by such a simple tactic. Zich lifted Windur.
Crash!
He blocked the knife aimed at him and sliced around him.
Slice!
He cut off the head of a bandit with a greedy face. That was how the battle officially began.
* * *
There were corpses all over the floor drenched with blood, and the weapons that belonged to the corpses obstructed people from moving freely.
“Huff, huff!” Zich’s breathing was rough. Although he was bleeding in some places, it seemed like his injuries weren’t restricting his movements. He had made most of the bandits into corpses, but there were still some left.
“You bastard!” The angular-faced man gritted his teeth. He glared like he wanted to kill but didn’t approach Zich rashly; too many of his subordinates had turned into corpses under Zich’s sword for him to act without thinking.
‘Where did a monster like that suddenly pop out from!’ Thankfully, this monster looked tired now, and the only ones left among the bandits were the most skilled fighters.
‘We can win!’ The angular-faced man made eye contact with the rest of his remaining subordinates and approached Zich cautiously.
“Dieeeeeee!” The angular-faced man ran to Zich first. Two subordinates supported him from both sides and rushed to Zich. The three of them were the strongest members with mana. Yet, they weren’t strong enough to reach Zich.
Whoosh!
Zich barely escaped the sword the angular-faced man thrust and flicked away the sword coming from the right side with one of Windur’s blades and pierced his sword in.
“Kuh!”
Windur penetrated the opponent’s chest and shredded it mercilessly. Blood spilled out from the wound. However, Zich didn’t even have the time to celebrate killing one of his opponents and jumped immediately. A sword swished past the place Zich was standing. It was an attack from an opponent to his left. Zich fused a lot of mana into Windur, which was covered in blood, and swung it.
Whoosh!
A mana-filled swing headed towards the bandit to his left. The bandit wasn’t able to retrieve his sword from the recent attack and received the full brunt of Zich’s attack to his shoulder.
“Ackkk!” His whole arm fell off. A tremendous amount of blood flew out from his injury. If left untreated, he’d probably die from blood loss.
‘Low-level bandits won’t have precious items like potions either.’ And if they did have potions, only the boss probably had it.
“Y-you bastard…!” The angular-faced man trembled in anger as Zich landed lightly on the ground. Only he and Zich were left now.
Tap!
Zich took one step towards his last remaining enemy. The angular-faced man took a step back. When Zich took another step forward, the man also took another step back.
“D-don’t come closer!” Even though the angular-faced man pointed his sword towards Zich, the tip of his sword trembled. So, he didn’t look scared at all.
Without changing his expression, Zich coldly decreased his distance from his enemy.
“Ah, ahhhhhh!” Did fear paralyze his senses? The angular-faced man raised his sword up high and rushed towards Zich. It was an attack with no skill or technique; just literally a stupid charge in fear.
Zich swung Windur.
Slice!
The sound of flesh being cut apart rang in the room, and blood spurted out again.
“Agh!” A short scream rang in the air. The angular-faced man’s legs slowly began to lose strength.
Thud!
He collapsed to the ground; blood began to spread and wet the ground. His mouth that used to order around his underlings no longer moved.
“Ack!” This was the last sound the angular faced man made in this world.
“Huff! Huff!” Zich calmed his breathing. He seemed to have strained himself as his legs were slightly loose. He looked exhausted from his recent battle. But the battle was over. As if to clean up the mess, Zich was about to begin moving but then—
Zich quickly raised Windur.
Crasssssh! A loud explosion erupted. Zich’s body floated up and crashed through a wall next to the warehouse and fell down. Boxes broke and all kinds of precious items fell on top of Zich’s body.
“Oh? You were able to block that?” An easygoing voice came from nearby.
Zich stared at the owner of the voice while he was buried under pieces of wooden boxes and precious accessories. From the hole on the warehouse’s wall, the ambusher’s appearance came into full view.
“…Tim.”
“Yep, it’s your friend, Tim Platt. We see each other after only one day, Zich.” Tim smiled brightly and waved his hand. His behavior was unimaginably friendly for someone who ambushed Zich.
“Were you surprised? I hope you are. This is my surprise present for you.”
Zich did not reply. He cleaned up the pieces of wood around him and stood up.
Tim clicked his tongue and said, “I wanted to start our fight by hurting you badly, but as expected, you’re not an easy opponent.”
“…I’m just making sure, but since you attacked me, I can label you as my enemy, right?”
‘He’s not surprised?’ Tim was slightly puzzled as to why Zich’s face was so calm. Didn’t he just get attacked by someone he collaborated with and became his friend in a short amount of time?
However, Tim suppressed this question and said, “Of course. It’s not a misunderstanding, and I don’t have a secret backstory. I attacked you with my own will.”
“Is that so?” Zich pointed Windur at Tim.
“I’m giving you a warning as a friend, but you shouldn’t think about fighting me when you’re out of breath after just beating those fucking losers. For me, those guys are nothing more than a warm-up…” Tim shut his mouth and quickly swung his arms. Before he knew it, Windur’s blade was right in front of him.
‘He’s way faster than bef…!’ Before he could even complete his thought, Windur made contact with his arms.
Crash!
An unbelievable sound from a collision between an arm and a sword rang out in the air. Contrary to before, Tim was the one to fly away this time. His body collided against the warehouse next to them, and a huge hole appeared. He became buried under wooden boxes and precious items. It was the exact same treatment Zich just received.
Step. Step. Zich walked towards the hole. Tim was throwing the wooden pieces and precious goods in frustration.
“I’m giving you a warning as a friend.” With a sly voice, Zich copied what Tim said earlier and continued, “You shouldn’t look down on me. I was just pretending to be tired before.”
“…Pretending to be tired?”
“Yep. If I showed you all my strength, you might get scared and run away.”
“Get scared?”
Zich seemed to have scratched Tim’s ego as Tim showed his teeth and started growling.
However, Zich was calm. “Yep, scared. I already expected you to stay hidden and watch me fight.” Zich playfully kicked a wooden piece on his side towards Tim. He crushed the wooden piece in anger.
Zich shouted, “I already knew a long time ago that you were going to target my money and ambush me, you bandit thug-pup, son of a bitch!”