“Leave me alone you musclebrain, I won that money fair and square it’s not my fault that you are too dumb to understand a simple card game!”

“Shut up you runt, give me back my money!”

Roland’s eyes were drawn away from the two familiar-looking men down on the ground to a voice that he found suspiciously similar to someone he knew. Yet where he expected to see that person instead there was another.

‘Is that something like a halfling? She is really short…’

Finally, the mystery was cleared up, the barbarian woman had lost money in a game of cards. While perhaps cheating was involved it didn’t seem that Grisalde had any proof. Probably after losing enough games in a row she finally snapped and started chasing the small girl around. While she did look young her age was unknown to him, the number of magical races in this world was quite staggering and hard to section off.

‘Well, it would be too much of a coincidence if she was the one here, those two did form a team if I remember…’

While the chase was going on he turned his head towards the two men that had been clobbered. Both of them were slowly getting up, one was rubbing his chin while the other was holding the eye that he was popped in.

Name:

Dalrak L 84

Classes:

T2 Halberdier L34

T1 Shield Warrior L25

T1 Warrior L25

Name:

Orson L 86

Classes:

T2 Swordsman L36

T1 Sword Warrior L25

T1 Warrior L25

‘They did make progress in all those years, looks about normal.’

When he met these two all those years ago they were still steel rank adventurers, now they advanced into tier 2 and were approaching level one hundred. Yet his own speed compared to others was staggering as he had around forty levels above them.

Grinding the schematics and in high level dungeon areas while living in the city had truly put him above the average adventurer that did things slowly. The two probably went from one job to another without really paying attention if they were optimizing their leveling potential.

The ones that progressed faster weren’t the ones that worked harder but ones that did things smarter. One method, in particular, was to find bunched-up monsters and kill them in bulk for quick experience. It was similar to exploits in games where a player just pelted mobs from range without them being able to reach him.

‘Now what? Should I stop that idiot for old times sake?’

Roland was looking at the two get up from the ground. It was obvious that the person being chased belonged to their party. They would probably involve themselves with the barbarian woman that was just swinging her arms around while trying to catch the halfling.

If it was the old him then walking away would have been the most natural thing to do. Why would he get himself involved in a bar fight where he didn’t have anything to gain. But now after mellowing out at the city he realized that it wasn’t that bad to foster some bonds with other people.

Even now if he didn’t meet Elodia he would not be able to take this task without revealing his true class. Others would think that he was a runic mage and a runesmith instead all thanks to his connections. He was only one man in a vast world in which the strongest could exert their will over the weak. Without any help from others, it would be a truly hard task to progress further.

Yet fostering good relations had its downsides like this one. The two warriors were on their feet and slowly looking towards their party member that could get herself killed by one punch from the barbarian woman. He was already a member of the caravan party and the large woman was a temporary party member.

While he didn’t know her too well if things continued like this it could jeopardize the mission down the line. Working together with someone like this that started fights in cities they didn’t know was not something he was looking forward to.

“Hey, giant woman, leave her alone!”

Before he could make a decision though, Orson started shouting in Grisalde’s direction. The small person was quick to hide behind the two warriors from her party after seeing them recover from getting smacked down. It was three against one but he couldn’t see the two being able to overpower someone that was over thirty levels over them.

“Yeah, leave me alone, you tell her Orson.”

“I see you two didn’t have enough, now give me back my money and I might not break all the bones in your body.”

Grisalde snorted after seeing the two men put themselves in front of the halfling girl he didn’t know. This would have been a good moment to run for them but it seemed that they had their pride hurt and were willing to engage in some fisticuffs. Their weapons were on the ground which was good as then lives could be lost.

“That’s enough, I think you have caused enough damage.”

After assessing the situation he finally made his move. His voice was enhanced by some magic which caused the shouting onlookers to look towards the man in the shiny armor. From the outside, he looked like an armored knight wearing a dark robe over his body. The people standing directly next to him quickly stepped to the side, it was clear to them that something was about to happen.

“Oh, it’s you? Stay out of this tin head these bastards owe me money and no one steals from me and gets away with it!”

“We need to focus on the job, the caravan is going to leave in a few hours, you should get some sleep, and…”

She cracked her knuckles while glaring at both him and the two warriors that were barricading the way towards the halfling girl. To make things even worse she peeked her head out from behind Orson while sticking her tongue out which Grisalde noticed.

His reply was met with deaf ears as she just bolted towards the location of the halfling girl. Both Dalrak and Orson looked at each other while nodding, it was clear that they were ready to take her on with the help of cooperating. While she was stronger they outnumbered her, if they treated her as a boss monster then perhaps victory could be achieved.

“For the love of…”

Yet Roland had enough of this charade and decided to step forward to place himself between the two feuding parties. A large fist was heading his way though as the large woman clearly didn’t respect him enough to listen to his advice. But what she did not expect was that the person that was supposedly a runic mage moving his hand up to catch the fist.

Mages were considered one of the physically weakest classes of them all. They almost never received stat boosts in their strength stat while scoring minor gains with vitality and endurance. Thus she was quite surprised by the amount of grip strength that Roland was able to exert after he caught her strike mid-swing.

“I said that’s enough.”

While he managed to stop her hand from colliding with his face he needed to use quite some of his own muscles to hold this fist in place. The woman had a similar level to his own but all of her classes were strength-focused.

Roland on the other hand only had his blacksmithing classes that gave him a moderately high amount of that stat. While his runesmith lord class had slightly better progression than regular tier 2 classes he still was held back by his mage and runic scribe class that didn’t add much to his physical stats at all.

Without his better stat multiplier, he would be unable to make this muscular hand budge at all but at the time being, he was managing to hold it steady. That is until skills started being involved, after a moment he felt himself being overpowered. Her digits interlocked themselves with his fingers as they put themselves into an old-fashioned grip strength duel, one that he felt that he was losing.

Regretfully for the barbarian Roland was wearing his specialized armor that could boost him past what was humanly possible. The chest area of his armor started shining as a rune appeared that glowed blue. The people could not see this phenomenon due to his black robe but the magical light caused more runes to appear, their purpose was to amplify his strength beyond his body's capabilities.

This was similar to his first runic armor where he utilized colored mana stones. Now with the help of his aether alloy, he was able to make the whole process more inconspicuous. The stones had clear color patterns which showed his enemies which buffs he was using, now on the other hand his armor would always only produce pale blue light which only signaled that he was utilizing some kind of spell.

The crowd started cheering from the sides as they witnessed something spectacular. At first, it looked like the armored man was going to get his hand broken by the large muscular woman but after a moment the tables were turned around.

Even though the woman’s muscles started to expand she was getting pushed back by his power alone. Yet even then she did not just surrender instead she reached out with her other hand. Roland was quick to intercept it with his own as the two continued to wrestle.

‘Why do I always end up in these strength contests with muscle-brained idiots…’

He thought back to the time he fought with Armand and his brother Robert. For some reason even though he was a casting focused class he did get himself into these wrestling matches. As always though, he was on the winning end due to people underestimating his power.

‘Will she go for a headbutt or for a kick… oh here it comes…’

But thanks to those encounters he already knew what was coming. When a person started losing in this type of struggle there were a few things they could do. Most of the time it was one of two things, either a kick towards the groin or a headbutt.

A rather mad-looking face was coming his way as the woman decided to hit his metal-covered head with her forehead. Normally this would be considered a stupid thing but with her current class, her head was probably as hard as iron. Yet, the moment it collided with that helmet a faint blue glow followed soon after.

Grisalde expected her opponent to be staggered back but instead, she felt her head spinning from the shock she received. Instead of his deepsteel helmet the headbutt connected with a magic shield that could counter kinetic attacks like this. When activated at the right moment it caused a rebound on the attacker that would suffer almost a double damage attack on themselves.

“Oh, she’s down! Who is that person?”

“Sounded like they know each other, should we use this chance to escape?”

“Did you hear them talking, they are part of the caravan…”

“Shit…”

After the headbutt, Grisalde staggered back and had to go down to one of her knees. For a moment she was dazed. If he really intended to hurt her, he would have now sent a jolt of electric energy down her entire body to knock her out cold. But she was part of this expedition he was taking and part of his temporary party, this was enough to show her that he was not someone to be taken lightly.

Thus after she went down to the ground he decided to release his grip and let her go. With a step back he held his hands up to indicate that he did not wish to continue with this silly bar brawl. The words the people behind him muttered didn’t go unnoticed either, it seemed that all of them would be seeing each other a lot more.

“Have you calmed down?”

“...”

She didn’t answer him, instead, she started rubbing her wrists along with her head which was probably making her world spin. Her recovery was fast though as within a few seconds she was back to her feet and looking at him.

“I have misjudged you, you aren’t half bad tin head but…”

“But you want your money back?”

He asked while turning to the three people that were standing behind him. From the conversation, he overheard they were probably part of the caravan as well. They were supposed to meet up with more people and take a couple more wagons towards their final destination.

“Let’s have a talk then.”

Roland said to the three while turning around, it seemed that the woman had cooled off after hitting her head hard but she was still dead set on getting that money. Thus it was best to see if the other party really did cheat or not and he would probably be the best middle man for this occasion.

“Hey guys, this doesn’t look good… shouldn’t we run?”

The halfling said while inching away but behind her was a group of people blocking the way. The entrance was also tightly packed as a lot of people had arrived to see the tavern brawl. Perhaps the smaller girl would be able to get away but the two men now had two high-level people to contend with. One was the scary barbarian lady and then the man that managed to push her down to the ground with what looked to be bare strength.

“I don’t think we have an option now…”

“No, you don’t. Now, how about we flip a table up and sit down?”

Roland replied while looking around, soon enough everyone realized that the fight was over which prompted them to finally go on their way. It really seemed that this wasn’t anything out of the ordinary even the innkeeper wasn’t complaining. Instead, the workers quickly moved in to turn the tables over, and with some help from the bystanders, the place was back to looking like a half-star restaurant.

‘I managed to get us here but now what…’

There was a small problem here, Orson and Dalrak were people that knew him from his old adventurer days. Then he went by his normal name of Roland but now he switched over to Wayland. If he revealed himself to them then there was a potential threat that could be tied to his location.

But on the other hand, he was starting to believe that the cult had already forgotten about his existence. With no threat from those lunatics, the only people giving him trouble would be his family members which these two would probably never had the pleasure of talking to.

“So, my money.”

“It’s not your money, I won it fair and square.”

“You still haven’t learned your lesson, pipsqueak!”

While he was contemplating his next words the two girls started arguing. It was quite a strange thing to see such a small halfling going against someone as big as this barbarian woman. Orson and Dalrak even had to place a hand over her mouth to make her stop screaming, she really did remind him of another over-expressive person he knew.

‘Are people of the smaller races just like this?’

He asked himself while also moving his hands towards his helmet. Before the talk started it was time to reintroduce himself to these two. This motion did not go unnoticed by everyone as they started to quickly stare at the mysterious metal man that was finally revealing his appearance.

“Hey not bad, I expected something more scrawny.”

Grisalde let out a whistle after seeing Roland's rather handsome face that she probably did not expect a rune mage to have. The people on the other side didn’t seem as impressed though, which caused a slight pause before Roland spoke up.

“Well?”

“Um, excuse me but do we know you from somewhere?”

“Huh? Don’t you recognize me?”

The two men looked at each other before going over Roland’s facial features again. Yet even when they continued to look they didn’t figure out who he was.

“Sorry, I don’t really care about other men that much…”

Replied Orson while the dwarf just nodded. It seemed warrior types didn’t have enough intelligence to keep track of all the faces they had seen through the years. Roland had also been a lot younger back then and not even achieved his first tier 2 class, so it was somewhat understandable.

“It has been some time but…”

It was time to give a short explanation to jog their memory…