Chapter 60: Temporary Solution

Teo was surrounded by the four at all sides

Despite Elon’s promise, Teo did not let his guard down.

Ever since the tournament when the headmaster clearly rigged the match ups, Teo had thought that the Rizon faction was truly shameless, and would could resort to anything.

“Teo you cheeky bastard, today is the last day you are allowed to be arrogant around us!”, Kristofer shouted from behind.

He was thoroughly humiliated from their previous encounter, if he did not get his revenge after his hellish training, how could he ever sleep at night!?

“Zachery, have you forgotten ‘his’ oath?”

Teo asked the person who would surely know about this incident. He did not name the headmaster because he was unsure if the three others knew about it or not

Zachery’s eyebrow raised as he heard Teo’s question.

…..

The Rizon branch family performed divination rites to youths at a very young age. After Zachery had taken his at the age of 5, Zachery had always been respected within the Rizon branch family. Although his parents were not too high up within the social hierarchy within the family, he alone was held with in high regard.

His parents spoiled him rotten, and many of the other kids respected him. The family head even went as far as recruit other youths to become his followers in such an early age. Loyalty was grown with time, and many tried to gain his favor.

Zachery was the second elementalist that had appeared in their branch family within a 10 year gap. The first one was Daniel, but Zachery was different from Daniel and many relatives gave him gifts and spoiled him rotten before he enrolled at Mirth academy.

Once enrolled, the ones that attempted to curry his favor was his grandfather and the rest of the Rizon faction that lived in the academy. His standing as an elementalist was far greater than Daniels as he was a Triad.

Everything he wanted was given to him, everyone he hated was punished to his heart’s content, he became cold and lofty to others, uncaring and apathetic. Many family members praised his regal personality as if he was royalty, and his ego inflated to its limits.

It was not until his encounter with Teo that his brilliant and lofty countenance was slowly shattered away.

….

“That oath? What does that have to do with me?”, Zachery smirked as he subtly revealed his sleeves to Teo.

Teo noticed Zachery’s gesture and saw an empty spot where the guild badge was suppose to go to. He looked at other three’s sleeves as they were missing as well. The Rizon badge was missing!

When Teo thought that his airtight analysis was perfect, it had more holes than his stone prototype.

Teo immediately knew that these four had left the guild, and was not bound to the promise.

Normally, a prideful individuals like them would never resort to lowering their status just for revenge, but with Zachery’s special position, temporarily leaving the faction was of no consequence to him.

If it weren’t for the fact the Erin pointed this loophole, none of them would’ve noticed it at all, but Erin was probably the smartest of the group, so she quickly noticed it soon after.

As for why they waited this long to exact their revenge? It was because they knew that Teo was surprisingly tougher than the previously predicted. They used this time to train themselves so that they could overpower Teo and humiliate him.

This was their ultimate goal; to humiliate Teo in front of the whole academy! They wanted to make Teo feel what they have felt a hundred times over!

Despite being intimidated by this shocking revelation, Teo quickly finished the last piece of meat on that tiny skewer. This time he did not have enough time to savor it and quickly wolfed it down.

The four who saw this action became slightly displeased. Even now with the four of them, Teo did not seem to be taking it seriously at all.

Instantly, all four of them drew their weapons!

They pulled out wooden wooden swords instead of the actual swords on their waists.

This was because that although they wish for revenge, it was not to the point of risking their lives. If they accidentally maimed or killed Teo within the academy grounds, no matter who they were, they would be severely punished.

Without warning, they simultaneously attacked Teo!

Their strikes were coordinated and left very little space for Teo to maneuver. Although Teo’s agility improved in the past few months, he did not have eyes at the back of his head, and could not dodge all of it.

Erin and Kristofer swung their weapons towards Teo’s shoulders and legs. Teo, who was distracted with Zachery and Ash’s attacks, did not notice it in time and could not brace himself and was struck heavily by their blunt weapons.

“AHH!”

Teo cried in pain but did not fall. Although it was painful, he had already reinforced his clothes with basic strengthening inscriptions. This basic inscription somewhat helped mitigate the blows on his body, but the longer he stayed enclosed by these four attackers, the more damage he would have to succumb to.

Within a slight opening, Teo quickly grabbed an incoming blow from Ash’s wooden sword with his his open palms!

-BAM-

The strike was hard and should’ve injured Teo quite a bit, but by taking advantage of the tattoo on his chest, he easily blocked the power of the blow.

With his left handing holding the wooden sword, he quickly tugged on it and the surprised Ash was caught off balanced. Teo stabbed Ash with the skewer he had.

“ARGH!”, Ash felt pain from being stabbed.

“Watch out! He’s gonna escape!”, Erin shouted immediately recognizing Teo’s intent

Blood flowed from the puncture wound and he was temporarily disabled due to the pain it brought. Teo took advantage of this, and quickly ran through the opening that Ash had left!

“Don’t think you can get away!”, Zachery shouted

They quickly chased after Teo like wild dogs.

Ash also followed as he quickly regain himself, he took a paper packet within his pouch and crushed it above his wounded hand. Medicinal powder dropped down from the paper packet and stopped his wound from bleeding.

He felt slightly relieved from the pain as the medicine also had a numbing effect once applied to a wounded area.

Teo dashed through the street as he briefly glimpsed at his pursuers.

Some people were alerted by them but this was not an uncommon sight within the academy. Fights can break out, and lynching lone students were often seen.

Teo’s speed was quite fast, but surprisingly, he could not easily lose his pursuers.

Zachery and the rest were filled with blood thirst, but they were enjoying the chase. They enjoyed seeing their prey panic.

‘Hmph, even if you are quite faster than before, these new boots we recently obtained should be more than enough to deal with you’, Zachery said in his mind as he chased.

The boots that Zachery had was something he specifically purchased after seeing Teo’s speed during his battle with Kristofer.

They initially planned to keep Teo trapped in their four man formation, but if they failed, they knew that they had to somehow be able to chase Teo down. These boots were expensive and only Zachery was able to afford it for the moment, as for others, they were merely borrowing similar but lower ranked boots from members of the Rizon faction.

Although they “quitted” the faction in order to attack Teo, it didn’t mean that they couldn’t rejoin the faction later on. It was the loophole that Erin found. Although they might get criticized by this action, they thirst for revenge was more important right now!

With the enchanted boots they had and the wind elemental attribute that Zachery, Kristofer and Ash had, they were able to maintain good speed to chase down Teo, but to their surprise, Teo it was still not enough for them to be able to close in!

Teo was running at full speed, but maintained the technique that Rowen had taught him. It was a movement technique that utilized one’s full speed and momentum while carefully controlling one’s steps. This allowed him to sustain his speed a little longer than normal by reducing the stress that his legs would’ve endured.

He ran deeper into the southern district. There were many stalls and shops within this district and often many visitors. By using such a crowded place, Teo was able to slowly increase the gap between them.

‘I have to find a place where I can deal with them, but if I kick their asses, it might bring more trouble’, Teo contemplated.

Teo wanted to pacify them without making too many waves. Although he might be able to take them on one by one, he could not predict what troubles such actions might bring.

The only choice was to lose them!

‘Gah! This is so annoying!’

He quickly changed direction multiple times and with his small size and agility, he easily moved through the crowd of people.

“Where did he go?”, Kristofer who followed behind Zachery asked.

The others soon arrived but they had no clue the direction Teo escaped. There were many people, and someone running at a very fast pace would be easily be noticed, but for some reason Teo disappeared.

Zachery briefly lost track of Teo and quickly jumped up on top of one of the wooden stalls to get a better view of the area.

‘Goddammit that bastard is too fast! Even with these boots I couldn’t catch up to him’, Zachery inwardly cursed

“Find him, he must be hiding around the area!”, Zachery concluded

The team of four slowly scoured the area, looking for their prey.

….

Teo took a quick glimpse outside the shop, to see if he was found out. Luckily he was not caught entering the shop and was able to buy some time.

After running for a while, Teo decided to best way to lose them was to hide in one of shops. Although fighting might be allowed on the streets, if it interfered with other people’s businesses, the academy guards should take action.

But Teo did not rely on the academy guards too much, and went deeper into the store.

He didn’t go just to any store, he chose a specific store to hide in. The clothing store sold many different clothes. Several clothes could be seen hanging on the walls and a large number of clothes out on display tables and racks.

Teo grabbed a straw hat, and a black hooded robe that was for sale.

“Can I try it on?”, Teo quickly asked the clerk to use the change room.

The robe’s size was a little large for the short Teo.

He looked at himself on the mirror but he was quite satisfied with the disguise. He tied the excess robe onto his thigh but it still look quite long. After a while he stepped out of the change room

“I’ll take them, oh and do you sell masks here?”

…..

Erin and Zachery positioned themselves at the two ends of the street.

They guarded Teo’s path of escape hoping to find Teo sneaking out, and as for Ash and Kristofer, they looked at one shop after another, looking for Teo.

Kristofer bumped suddenly bumped in an old man with a hunch on his back.

“Excuse me”, he quickly apologized.

The old man whose face was masked and wore a straw hat. As he walked his legs would shake ever so slightly as if he was about to fall, but he held himself up with a small walking stick.

“No problem young master”, they old man said with a hoarse voice and bowed as he left the shop

This old man was exactly Teo in disguise!

He placed his crumpled up shirt into his back and bought a cane from the store. He hunched back down to lower his height even more and with his tired legs and dry throat, his disguise became somewhat believable.

The only problem was that his hands exposed his youthfulness and thus he specifically hid them under the long black sleeves of the cloak.

He looked over the street and noticed Erin and Zachery’s positions. Even if his disguise fooled Kristofer, it wasn’t guaranteed he could fool the others. As he noticed the direction in which Kristofer investigated each shop, Teo simply entered a shop that he had already investigated before.

Teo waited there for them to leave and looked around the shop as if he was shopping.

‘I spent so much money on this disguise, hopefully they don’t find me’