10th Guild Master, Brak

Darn me!

How could I allow that to happen?! Those two are Taffy’s children; darn me if I know how the woman got – or made – them, but if there was something that I knew, was that if they fought with a normal adventuring [Party]… disaster was certain.

Closing my hands into fists, I glared at the human-looking woman, Taffy, from behind, as I followed her, the challengers, and the two purple-skinned twins from behind while they led a crowd of enraged and adventurers waiting to see a bloodbath. Was that part of that woman’s plan? Darn me, did she even had a plan to begging with?

As much as I wanted to stop all of that craziness there and at that exact moment, there was nothing I could really do. So, I changed my attention to the twins, analyzing them, measuring my options: they shouldn’t be older than 19, and while the boy’s armor was simpler than his twin, the brown leather and was clearly of high quality, the protection showed signals of battle everywhere, some bizarre scratches of unknown origin even to me, and even more, under his armor he seemed to be wearing an expansive black cloth that must have coasted 100s of axes at least; on the other hand, his sister displayed way more protective pieces, and of equally high quality, the most impressive piece being her cape with a horned hood, which anyone with eyes could tell was a piece of high-quality equipment, on top of the expansive black garment underneath.

I wanted to take a glimpse at their weapons before the fight, but the boy didn’t seem to have any, and the girl’s weapon was concealed under her cape. Anyway, it wasn’t hard to tell why they were being called pampered rich kids (plus the terrible disaster it was the impression Taffy and I passed just before).

I compared the duo with the challenging [Party]: even if they didn’t display any fancy equipment, but just their tight muscle defining tight clothing, their hardened bodies and the points that they invested exclusively in [Strength] and, to a lesser degree, [Resistance] made up for it; they were really so good at killing monsters.

Those four challengers were somewhat infamous in the city, always boastful, always getting involved in fights within the city so they could steal the best paying quests from weaker groups, just to spend all the money in expansive restaurants and other futilities. Darn me, even if they technically had the necessary [Tank] and [Healer] skills/spells to get their [Party] approved by the guild, everyone knew that all four of them were effectively [Fighters], two of them having just manually learned the needed abilities – like one was able to acquire spells/skills unrelated to their [Classes], if they practiced or studied it enough; and, with enough dedication, even someone’s [class] could change entirely, so they would become able to learn “artificially”, instantly, with the help of the [System] and the points it gave at each level up, the skills/spells of the new [Class].

I’d have the problematic [Party] banned myself, but it was a problem related to gild politics…

Finally, we all reached up the sparring room, and those who were training or solving their differences quickly understood that something big was going on, and emptied the arena, and joined the crowd behind me.

I asked myself: would I be able to do anything once the fight started, before anyone ended up dead?

“[Enhance Legs, Greater Speed, Eagle’s Eyes, Manager’s Eyes]”, I whispered under my breath, silently preparing myself for the inevitable bloodbath.

“I can’t believe the Guild Master is letting himself be ordered around by some rich woman…”

“Yeah, but at least we will see her spoiled brats’ blood being spilled today!”

The adventurers behind me commented. Darn me, were they trying to make me more nervous on purpose?! If they were, then, congratulations: they managed to do so! …For they would have exactly what they were waiting for.

“Okay, mommy’s babies, I will be generous and give you a chance to give up, and forget this adventuring story”, the leader of the four challengers commented, getting some laughs from the audience. The twins stood in silence, however. “I get it, you rich kids never experienced defeat, right? Your instructors were always too scared to take you seriously, and always let you won. But, hear me now: you’re gonna die. You won’t be able to take a single punch from us, and you will die. So, I will give you two one more chance, one that won’t hurt your pride so much: pay someone else to fight for you… like you’re planning to live your entire lives as adventurers”, he suggested again, and again the audience laughed.

“Hey, I like money!”, someone in the crowd behind me screamed, raising his hands, but the twins didn’t pay attention.

“We’re gonna fighting by our own”, the boy replied, and the hundreds of adventurers squeezed inside the sparring room cackled a third time.

“…Very well. I warned you”, the leader of the [Party] of four turned to me. “Now, Guild Master, I’m not trying to kill them…”, he smiled. “But accidents, especially when it comes to such weaklings, happen.”

I only frowned in response; as much as I wanted to stop that, I couldn’t, for it would anger both Taffy and the rest of the adventurers beyond what I had already pushed them.

“Ah~ wait, wait!”, a mage-looking guy came out of the crowd, and everyone turned to him. “The twins can be too strong, so let me put a protective barrier around the fight to guarantee everyone’s protection~”, he concluded. And the hundreds of people inside of the sparing room exploded in loud chuckles and humored shouts like never before, finding the joke suggestion of the mage (who, even if smiling, actually put the barrier around the arena) the funniest of their lives.

Once a green dome fell around the arena, and created a floor covering even the ground where the fight would happen, the challengers stepped forward, and in unison, they conjured their buffs:

“[Swollen, Tough, The Rock, Knucklers]”

Stopping midway to the twins, the leader of the challengers said:

“Let’s start.”

“Yes”, the purple-skinned girl replied pushing away her cape, and revealing an impressive-looking spiked fail, an item worthy of a lord. As she gripped the weapon and brandished it upwards, she conjured before the spiked ball touched the ground: “[Weapon Soul]”, and the flail started to shine in an angry red.

No one paid much attention to the girl’s buff, however. Until, that is, her weapon touched the ground, and the magical protection around the entire arena… and broke it immediately; shattered fragments of a translucent magical barrier falling all around and vanishing.

“Hey, maybe you are too strong, mage?”, the leader of the challengers joked, and though he got some smiles, not everyone found that as funny.

For some had finally started to realize what they had got themselves into:

“I- I put a real barrier, though?”, the joker mage from before replied in a whisper that I could only hear because of my enhanced senses.

As the four challengers strode, confidently and smugly, forward, the purple-skinned brother, slowly, raised a hand, and the few within the crowd who had get what was happening, just like myself, stared at him expectantly, sweating buckets.

“[Rule Bender]”, he simply said.

And a hundred green torches filled every empty space within the sparing room, and from them: monsters. All kinds of monsters, dinosaurs, beasts, flying creatures, and small humanoid creatures who mounted on their summoned companions; there must have been at least 50 monsters creeping, walking, and flying around the room and between the leg and over the heads of the audience already, and they were each around (Level: 10)! But the purple-skinned boy didn’t seem to have finished his move just yet, for he conjured again:

“[Summon: Thunder Idolater]”

“A- An 80+ leveled creature?!”, even if I was prepared to see what kind of aberration that woman had brought me, I stuttered witnessing something that simply shouldn’t be possible. “He can’t possibly summon anything else, right?!”, I lost any semblance of self-control, as I prepared to jump into the battlefield and save the life of the fools who defied the children of Taffy, for, just like the audience expected, blood would be spilled. But it wouldn’t be the twins who would bleed. “…Right?”, I repeated myself, for I couldn’t believe in my own eyes.

The boy still had more spells on his sleeve.

“[Make: Boss]”

“Uh…? Isn’t this a… a [Dungeon] exclusive spell?”, a pale adventurer of eyes widened, asked no one, as we all observed the [Thunder Idolater] getting taller, with sparkles of electricity flying all around its body.

“Its level is over a 100 now…”, I pointed, and hundreds of adventurers held their breaths in.

The twins, however, seemed to have been holding their trump to destroy everyone’s morale to the final, however: only after the impressive display of absolute power, the purple-skinned couple released their aura. And it was twice as strong as mine at full power… individually, that is, and they were in two.

All around me, because of my [Manager’s Eye] buff, I could see the [Fear] status being inflicted in hundreds of adventurers: some were totally frozen in place, some fainted, some dashed out off the room, some started to desperately conjure protective spells and skills, and some could only pray to whatever [God] they followed. The aura was so intense around those twins, that their image had been distorted into something dark with glowing eyes, and a cold wind blew from their position.

Darn, me, I couldn’t let myself get distracted!

I turned back to see the duel, and once I noticed the boy’s mouth opening up, as he was just about to give his summons the kill order, I lowered my stance, compressed the vines that served as muscles inside my leg, and-!

“Wait!”, the challenger’s leader said, raising the palm of his hands to the twins. He exchanged a glance with his [Party] members, and looked back to the couple he defied. And nodded, smiling.

Without saying any other word, the four challengers awkwardly gave their backs to Taffy’s children, and walked with their legs too much apart… in the direction of what, I knew, was the bathroom, letting a confused couple of purple-skinned twins behind.

And I let out a deep sigh, finally relaxing.

Well… it was better to pay someone to unclog a few toilets, than to clean pools of blood and entrails inside the guild rooms?