Day arrives, and I go through my usual morning routine.

This environment was still much more peaceful when compared to my original life.

Doing some light meditation in the morning, I feel that my mana has been increasing gradually each day.

At this rate, I might just be able to fire ‘Hidden Beam’ twice.

Well, that’s not going to happen for a while though.

The realisation does give me a faint smile on my face as I sit on the carriage as usual.

I go through the plan with the merchant again, informing him.

“Is this going to be safe?”, he suddenly asks hesitantly.

I look at him with raised eyebrows, not replying.

“I-It’s not that I’m doubting our previous conjecture, but… his battle prowess might not lose to the other 3 mercenaries.”, Guan Tong says, clearly worried.

I let out a sigh.

Shrugging my shoulders, I tell him straightforwardly, “It’s not like we have much of a choice, are you going to let him leave with the merchandise in exchange for our safety?”

“That’s obviously out of the question.”, Guan Tong seems to have picked up a whole bunch of courage at once, stating firmly.

Expecting an answer of the sort, I say helplessly, “We don’t have another choice then?”

“Haiz, you… you’re right. Please ignore what I said earlier.”

“I’m concerned about our lives if we fail too, how about I join in the battle for support.”

“Ah! No, you’re the customer, how could we make you do that!”, he says boisterously. He obviously wanted me to do this from the start, how could I not see through his intentions?

It fits in well with my plans, so I’ll just go along with his charade.

“If we lose, none of us will survive in any case.”

“That is true, I’ll have to trouble you with that then, esteemed sir.”, he says quickly, almost as if wanting to prevent me from rethinking y suggestion.

Any fighting power he can gather now would help in the attack.

We are still away from the main road as well, so there’ll be a lot of danger waiting for us even if we do subdue the Ogre man but leave the party saddled in injuries.

“I’ll just use this if anything goes awry.”, I say cheekily, holding up the potion I took from him earlier.

“That’s…”, he has an awkward expression on his face.

“That’s fine. One won’t matter too much if compared to the safety of everyone.”, Xuan Tong promises.

“I’ll be off then, I’ll see you in a few hours.”, I say as I exit the carriage.

We’re preparing to set up the camp for the night.

In about 4-5 hours, once the Ogre man has retreated to sleep, Zhe Yun would give us the signal, while we try to assassinate him in his sleep.

The rest of us, besides Zhe Yun, are essentially on standby.

If he were to succeed, we would all be useless here.

“There’s no way he will though.”, I raise the corners of my lips slightly.

We gather outside our tents, after we had all went in respectively and pretended to rest for a bit.

Zhe Yun walks on tiptoes, trying to silence every trace of sound or movement.

As I stand beside Sylvia, she gestures for me to bend my neck down.

I do so, and she whispers in my ear while chuckling, “Isn’t his pose funny now?”, pointing at Zhe Yun.

I take another look at him, and he does indeed look comedic.

He’s tipping on his toes, while his hands are facing the ground, leaning forward.

He sort of looks like a cartoon image of a burglar.

I chuckle softly, but quickly reprimanding her, “Be serious!”

Everyone watches cautiously at Zhe Yun, as he approaches the tent with his short sword unsheathed.

A bead of sweat flows down from his forehead.

He lifts the flap of the tent casually, as if he were simply returning to rest.

We’re all outside, filled with trepidation at the fact that we can’t see anything that’s going on inside the tent.

Currently, Zhe Yun was approaching the Ogre man who was sleeping without a care in the world.

He closes his eyes for a brief millisecond, as he stands over the Ogre man’s helpless body, as if thinking of his departed party members.

“I’m sorry.”, he says softly, but clearly.

He lunges right at the Ogre man’s neck with the sword,and closes his eyes in a moment of respite, upon feeling that the sword had made contact with his skin.

However, he quickly opens his eyes again, noticing that the stab has not went as deep as expected.

He opens his eyes widely, only to see that the Ogre man had managed to block the sword with his hand, and the sword as simply lodged into that palm of his hand as it bled.

The Ogre man looks at Zhe Yun, with a complicated expression.

He quickly uses a basic skill, ‘Pushback’, to push Zhe Yun away from himself with his active left hand.

Zhe Yun is pushed away, stumbling right outside the tent.

Seeing this, all of us surround the tent more closely, staring at the entrance.

The Ogre man punches out a hole in the side of the tent, before looking at Zhe Yun again.

He still didn’t say anything.

However, at this second where he stopped moving, we took the chance to close the encirclement, and Wind and Sylvia rushed forward to join the fight.

Zhe Yun regains his composure, dashing straight for the Ogre man using the advanced skill, ‘Bloodrush’. With this, he quickly shoots past the rushing Sylvia and Wind who had already rushed forward.

The advanced skills of the adventurer class are all extremely strong, but they come with extreme drawbacks, usually featuring the permanent loss of a stat point. That’s the same for this skill as well. It grants the user godly speed that few can match, at the cost of the permanent loss of certain stat points.

The duration is long too, since as the name implies, it burns the blood of the user’s body. If one were to not lose any blood during a fight, he could continue using this skill for a few days.

His reaction speed has not increased, however, but he relied on the terrifying speed of ‘Bloodrush’ to strike with the other short sword he had equipped on his back.

The Ogre man had already grabbed his weapon on his way out, and realising he couldn’t escape this attack, he quickly swung his axe towards the sword.

*CLANG*

The 2 weapons clash against each other, with the Ogre man’s hand left shaking from the intense recoil.

The Ogre man looks shocked at the power behind that attack.

He remained shocked, as Zhe Yun took a step back, preparing to lunge forward with that terrifying strike again.

This time, he’s more prepared, however, the Ogre man quickly uses the skill, ‘Shield Domain’, parrying the strike with more effectiveness.

This all happened in the span of a few seconds.

He realises that he can’t continue in this way, since he’ll be attacked by Sylvia and Wind soon enough.

He looks around, before charging in the opposite direction as Sylvia and Wind, ignoring the incoming strike of Zhe Yun.

Because of this, the fierce strike of Zhe Yun lands on his back, tearing apart a chuck of his flesh.

“ARGGHH!!”, he howls in pain.