Hirrus' axe caught the man in the polished breastplate on the elbow right before he could throw another punch. The rough padded sleeve of the man’s armor meant he only carved a shallow cut into the limb, but it still dealt twenty-four hundred and ninety-eight damage.

After being struck, the adventurer almost fell over, instinctively hurling himself away from the pain. There was a howl of surprise at the sudden attack.

“What the fuck?” The taller man still held the would-be recruit. “What is this shit?”

“It’s him,” the man with the breastplate snapped. “The asshole running around trying to find the guild. Hey, idiot NPC, what are you doing here?”

Hirrus tried to control his anger at the insult. “Where’s Juri Thorpe?” he demanded. “You know the deal. You tell me, you live. We don’t have to do this part again if you don’t want to.”

“I sent you to Kevin. Kevin knows about Juri.”

“He didn’t know,” Hirrus said slowly, “but the last person I talked to said that whoever was here would.”

“Well, whoever told you that was lying,” the man with the breastplate said matter-of-factly. “We don’t know anything.”

“Just like you didn’t know who Juri was when I last spoke to you?”

The man’s hand went to the spot on his breastplate where Hirrus' axe had cracked it open. It had been repaired, but the psychological effect of the attack was still obvious.

Hirrus felt a slow smile cross his lips. “If you want me to trust your lie now then you needed to be honest with me the first time.”

“What the fuck even is this guy?” the taller man asked. He turned and slammed the recruit against the back wall of the shop, sending him into a tangled heap of limbs on the street. “Part of a quest or something?”

“I don’t fucking know, he’s like a rogue dungeon boss or something.”

Hirrus made a disapproving sound. “I’m here for revenge against Last of the Strong. But my quarrel is with those responsible for what happened at Yenon.”

“Yenon?” The tall man scoffed. “You mean memetown? Who the fuck cares? It’s the worst quest hub in the entire fucking game. If the place burned to the ground, nothing of value would be-”

Hirrus sprung into action. He smashed his axe into the man’s clavicle, dealing two thousand, four hundred, and seventy-eight damage. The man was wearing mismatched leather armor, and the blade carved through it like a serrated knife through roasted fowl.

The man ducked away, grabbing at the wound with a surprised cry.

“I told you,” the man with the breastplate said. “He’s no fucking joke!”

The man touched the wound on his clavicle and grimaced. When he took his hand away from it, he looked at the blood on his fingers for a moment before fixing Hirrus with a glare. “No one makes me bleed my own blood!” He reached over his shoulder and grabbed at nothing for a moment before hesitating. Hirrus realized he was using his inventory to equip a weapon. After a few seconds, a big two-handed hammer appeared, fastened by a strap across the man’s back. With it in place, the man’s hand closed around it and he ducked his head to whip the weapon off.

“The fuck are you doing?” the man with the breastplate asked. “We’re not fighting him!”

“What are we going to do, spend the rest of our life running from him? He’s not going away.”

“All you have to do,” Hirrus said with a patience that was wearing thin, “is tell me what I want to know. Then you never have to deal with me again.”

The taller man shook his head. “Fuck that. The guild will take our tags away faster than you can say ‘Juri Thorpe’ and we’ll be out on our asses.” He turned to his companion. “The idea that he knows Juri’s name is likely enough to get you kicked to the curb you fucking traitor.”

The smaller man in the breastplate looked like he wanted to argue but Hirrus interrupted before he could. “You would sooner choose death? For a bunch of murderers who elected to destroy an entire town?”

Neither responded.

Hirrus raised his axe. “Then death is the fate I would choose for you as well!”

The man with the hammer stepped up, raising the weapon high above his head before bringing it down. It was a telegraphed attack. Easy for Hirrus to step aside from before lashing out with his axe. It cut across the mismatched armor at the chest. But the boiled leather there was thick enough that it didn’t deal damage, only leaving a thin mark behind.

“Shit,” the man with the breastplate said. He leapt up with his own weapon - a scimitar with a gaudy red gem in its hilt - and slashed at Hirrus' unprotected flank.

The attack dealt nine-hundred and twenty-four damage, but Hirrus met that moment of victory with a vicious backhand blow. It sent the adventurer staggering back with twenty-five hundred and seventy-two damage. Hirrus lunged at him with a follow-up strike, hitting him with a cut that landed solidly in his lower abdomen, just below the bottom edge of the breastplate. The impact alone doubled the man over with pain.

Hirrus was aware of something new.

As the blow landed, he benefited from something called a ‘critical strike’ which caused the attack’s damage to be increased. He dealt thirty-one hundred and forty-two damage, well outside what he should have been able to do.

The man with the breastplate slumped to the ground with a groan.

He was still alive, but the wound had opened his gut up so severely he would likely require medical attention before he could swing his blade again.

Turning back to the taller man, Hirrus caught a face full of Arcana. A cone of flame blasted from the adventurer’s mouth, engulfing Hirrus. The initial blast did one thousand nine hundred and twenty-eight damage, and he was aware of a burn effect being applied to him. It slightly reduced his Attenuation and dealt damage over time to him.

Attenuation didn’t matter to him and the damage over time was barely more than a tickle.

Hirrus jumped towards the flames, sweeping his axe towards their source. He caught the adventurer on the jaw, sending him reeling with two thousand five hundred and sixteen damage. The attack pointed his face away from Hirrus and sent the blast of flame up and away.

He tried to bring his hammer to bear as the jet of flame guttered out, but Hirrus' follow-up attack came first.

A gauntleted fist lashed out, smashing against the man’s gut. The boiled leather chestpiece of the mismatched armor was tough enough to stand up to Hirrus' axe, but it wasn’t thick enough to pad the bludgeoning of his fist. One thousand five hundred and fifty-nine damage got through his defenses.

There was a clatter of the man dropping his hammer, and he coughed and retched.

Hirrus recognized that the man had been adequately disarmed. He should have been allowed to surrender. It was the honorable thing to do.

But something about the man’s words earlier - along with the fact that Hirrus had been set slightly on fire - made him disinclined to engage in mercy.

With a snarl he brought his axe straight down. Onto the downed man’s exposed back. Two thousand five hundred and twenty-one damage finished the job.

A physical blow came from the side of him. It was a series of smaller impacts that rattled his chainmail like high-speed hail. The attack dealt fourteen hundred and ninety-eight damage to him. It had enough force behind it to force him to stagger back.

The man with the polished breastplate was employing an Arcana of his own. Both hands were raised and tiny purple pellets flicked from his palms at Hirrus in a continuous stream.

“Ha ha!” the man laughed, “you don’t have anything for this, huh? I equipped it after that first encounter. Can’t fight what you can’t approach!”

Hirrus tried to push through the stream of pellets, but found that they struck with more force than was indicated by their paltry-feeling damage. It was like trying to swim upstream in a raging river. No matter how he struggled, he just kept losing ground. He thought the attack would end, but after a second, he took a subsequent one thousand two hundred and seventy-seven damage.

“I have you now!” the adventurer panted. The Arcana was obviously putting a physical strain on him, especially with the deep wound Hirrus had inflicted only a moment ago.

Hirrus only had two options. He could keep pushing and hope that the man couldn’t keep it up forever, or he could run away and try again later. If word was getting around that he was out here hunting for Last of the Strong, though, then he couldn’t allow a similar message to get around that he could be entirely neutralized with some specific Arcana effect.

With nowhere else to turn, Hirrus had only one remaining option.

He pelted the man with snow.

Activating the Arcana felt no different from using his missing Cleave attack. A moment’s attention, and he knew what to do, raising his hands. But instead of moving his axe in a very specific path, he raised his hands. From them came a blast of ice and snow. It only dealt fifteen hundred and twenty-seven damage, but it had an additional effect.

“What the f-f-f-fuck,” the adventurer stammered. The reduced cast speed inflicted by SnowBarrage meant that the hail of purple pellets paused. “You can’t do that!”

Hirrus lunged forward three large steps. Another hail of pellets stopped him in his tracks with fifteen hundred and eleven damage, but it only lasted for a moment. The pause between activations meant that Hirrus' next lunge put him right on top of the adventurer.

“What are y-you?” the man managed to ask, even as he was trying to force the Arcana through his palms again.

“Right now?” Hirrus smiled thinly. “Your death.”

Two thousand six hundred and thirty-six damage smashed into the man’s neck, killing him instantly.