“Gi, look what I’ve found.”

Nubram’s voice was heard just as Renma got out from the main building of the post to meet Flick. He saw Nubram grinning menacingly. Nubram was just grinning, but the menacing part was due to the scary undead form, near the camp’s eastern exit. The wizard’s left arm was strangling an orc bigger than himself.

The orc had a leaf green skin colour, wore equipment from leather, and a helmet shaped like the head of a monitor lizard. He was none other than the infamous Macepaw, who entered Steven’s blacklist but magically was on Rosdan’s recommended list.

“Ohohohoho~ look who we have here, finally joining us, eh, blockhead,” Rushvatte approached the two with such a ragingly happy yet mocking laughter. It was rather complicated to explain what his exact intent was.

Flick almost jumped to greet Macepaw but Renma stopped him.

“I need to do a mission, alright, important one, I don’t want him to mess with it.”

The handsome rakhs only answered Renma’s request with a chuckle. He hopped on his rhino and asked Renma to lead the way.

“Have fun!”

Renma yelled at his three friends and quickly dashed away with his ride to avoid Macepaw unleashing any protest or even worse tried to join Renma and Flick. This way, the shaman must go with Rushvatte and Nubram.

However, Renma kinda regretted that he didn’t ask Tier and Manna to wait for him. Dealing with a potentially deadly demon might be better if he had a paladin doing the tanking job.

At least Flick is supposedly good at one on one. Unless he messed things up again.

By the way, Renma took the wrong exit, the northern one instead of the southern one. It took him and Flick several minutes before realising that and caused them to go a roundabout way to the south without passing the outpost again. Renma needed to minimise the chance of Macepaw mocking him.

As its name implied, Wicked Spirit Forest was one hell of a disturbing place. There was an overwhelming eerie feel in the area. Since Renma would need to wait until night time in Zurefgar to fight Arg’ish, they stopped at a small post located at the western cliff of the forest. The post was housed by mostly rakhs and a few orcs. There they took some missions to help the small outpost in defending itself and clear out the area.

They gathered some herbs, cleared out mutated animals, tried potions to heal sickly animals, and also faced off some demons. Two most abundant demons around the area were some kind of hellhound with lots of spikes on its body and gargoyles.

Despite being weaker and easily dispatched by Flick by a few hits, gargoyles were pretty annoying to fight against because they could fly around outside attack range and wait for the best opportunity to strike. Which then would cause Flick to need to wait for the cooldown of [Sleek Strike] to finish in order to reach those pesky gargoyles.

When night comes, which is not exactly visible since the Wicked Spirit Forest was always covered in everlasting overcast so Renma needed to check based on time, they went to the location pointed by Renma’s class quest.

As if the developers knew that the gargoyles were among the most annoying demons, there were many gargoyles on Renma’s way to the quest location. More gargoyles were even stationed at the location of the quest.

There, at the edge of a cliff that protruded towards the southern seas, Renma saw an indistinguishable mouldy statue of some kind of an animal. The problem was, there were many gargoyles staying here.

Flick didn’t bother much and went into a rampage to kill those demons. The best part of the fight was when Flick spammed his [Backpace] to somersault between gargoyles, thus he didn’t need to really wait that long for [Sleek Strike].

After taking a break to use restorative items, just to be safe, Renma finally walked towards the statue. He felt something was amiss since he definitely didn’t see a demon named Arg’ish. But, whatever, maybe there was a bug anyway. Him touching the statue won’t result in anything calami….

“Uargh!”

Renma was thrown away. Half of his life points disappeared just like being snapped by a purple intergalactic supervillain.

“Bow to me, priest,” said a creature who was definitely not the said supervillain, but still a villain nonetheless, named Arg’ish.

The demon had a humanoid upper body, but bigger, more buff, and taller. The lower half of his body was akin to the rear legs of a goat or deer or something along that line. It had a long tail with spear-like ends and big dark wings like those of bats.

Renma was pretty sure those were batlike because they didn't have feathers.

“[Ambush]!”

Without warning, Flick suddenly slashed the demon’s back. Causing it to roar in anger.

“Don’t you dare interfere, rogue!”

Arg’ish turned, unleashing a flaming fist towards Flick. Renma managed to block it with [Guarding Radiance], but the demon continued to attack with a front snap kick causing Flick’s body to fly past the cliff edge.

“[Flash Mend]!”

“[Sleek Strike], over here!”

As Arg’ish parried Flick’s thrown axe, the rogue appeared and performed a horizontal slash from behind. He then jumped to take back his axe and performed a vertical slash with the help of gravity.

Flick tried to get away with [Backpace] but the distance was once again rather awkward, giving Arg’ish chance to launch a powerful punch.

“[Shield of Faith], [Heal]!”

Renma managed to reduce the incoming damage and tried to restore some of Flick’s HP. Meanwhile, Flick threw both his axes purposely to get deflected, then took the axe midair and continued with a diagonal slash from the chance.

The demon and the rogue were locked in a brutal close combat while Renma kept his best to unleash any shield and healing abilities whenever he could.

Flick’s axes danced and shifted through savage combinations and slashes. He tried valiantly to evade then commence a quick brutal strike before taking some distance away to get himself some breathing room. He would also quickly close his gap using [Sleek Strike] or reverse [Backpace] whenever he got hit and thrown too far.

If those two female elf who giggled at Flick’s handsomeness saw him now, they would definitely scream hysterically like seeing an idol.

“Enough!” Arg’ish roared accompanied by an explosion of green fire. It gathered the fire above its head then drew a big iron mallet and slammed it.

Flick managed to use [Backpace] properly to avoid the mallet, but an explosion happened as Arg’ish’ mallet hit the ground. The impact was strong enough to smash Flick to the animal statue, and also reduced his HP bar to short dark red.

“[Flash Mend], [Diffracted…].”

Renma casted a small but quick heal then, as his casting bar started to get filled, drew a light octagram with his index and middle finger. In the meantime, Arg’ish were running towards Flick, giving Renma just the perfect angle.

“[...Judgment]!”

Renma pushed the octagram with his palm. A light beam shot across the gloomy land, stabbed Arg’ish, and diffracted to cover Flick. The demon roared in pain while Flick got a rather big amount of shield. To be exact, around 50% of the damage done to Arg’ish.

“Exa nice, Ga! Now, Racial active, [Warcry]!”

The two rakhs howled in trance. Renma felt the burning desire to fight had been set ablaze within him. He quickly unleashed a series of spells to heal and add some buff as well as shields to reduce damage taken by Flick.

The rogue himself moved so fast and brutal like he didn’t care about anything else in the world. Curiously, he was much faster than Warcry would normally give and even the extra speed lasted longer.

Was there another ability at play? Whatever, at least they were about to win if this keeps up.

“You will not abolish us, filthy rakhs!”

Arg’ish stomped the ground angrily. Afterwards, he began to unleash waves of green flame to the surroundings in a certain interval. The damage itself was not something to laugh at despite Flick’s tendency to keep fighting without giving a single care about it.

Knowing that spamming shields and healing won't help much, Renma took a gamble and casted, “[Righteous Devotion], go, Than!”

Realising he was being supported by continuous healing, Flick grinned nastily. He drank a clear liquid from a small flask he took from his pocket and continued his relentless assault on this fierce fight.

“It’s futile!”

Arg’ish angrily kicked forward, Flick took the chance to roll forward through the gap made by its raised foot. He slashed its other leg twice while raising up before using [Backpace] to evade right when Arg’ish turned around swinging its mallet.

Arg’ish charged forward, Flick rolled aside then lunged from the demon’s side. The rogue performed a spinning slash while running past the demon, evading yet another strike from its mallet.

Renma might be imagining things, but Flick seemed to gain more expertise the longer the fight happened. He rarely got smacked by the demon’s physical attack, more often it was the constant flaming that damaged him.

“[Sleek Strike], over here!”

Flick appeared behind Arg’ish when the demon blocked both of his thrown axes. Weaponless, Flick struck a dropkick at the demon. However, it was not meant to deal damage, but to propel himself upwards to take his axes back. Dropping himself to the ground, Flick used the momentum to cut Arg’ish’s right wing.

The demon howled, a bigger explosion of green fire blasted from him. Seeing the demon was almost dead, Flick started to ignore everything else and slashes repeatedly at its left wing.

“Than, don’t!”

“Uagh!”

Renma knew it was a reckless move. But, he was too late to warn Flick. The demon took the chance to perform a fiery kick that blasted Flick up to the air, causing massive damage. Arg’ish then soared quickly past the rogue, then prepared a flaming fist from above to meet Flick’s body and finish him.

Things seemed hopeless for a moment. Renma wondered if he should’ve asked Manna and Tier for help.

Glancing at his remaining MP, a mere 150 points left, Renma decided to take another gamble. Continuing to heal with [Righteous Devotion] is pointless as he couldn’t cover as much as what he predicted Arg’ish could do.

“[Guarding Radiance]!”

The light shield conjured right when Arg’ish unleashed its furious fist. The shield shattered as it absorbed all impact.

Now, everything is up to Flick.

“Tera nice! [Backpace].”

Flick kicked Arg’ish, expelling the demon higher to the air while he somersaulted downwards. Both axes were ready in his hands.

“[Extreme Collision]!”

Right when he landed, Flick dashed upwards, performing brutal strikes which he finished with a spinning slash passing through Arg’ish.

Renma’s heart sank. The demon was not dead yet.

“I beg your pardon,” Flick said with an annoyingly confident tone. He suddenly picked the massive two headed axe on his back and hurled it at Arg’ish. Finishing the demon once for all.

Renma was dumbfounded for a moment. All this time he kinda ignored the massive axe on Flick’s back because the rogue never used it. He never thought that it was some sort of secret weapon to be used at times like this.

“X-treme!”

It was cool nonetheless, therefore Renma joined Flick to form the ‘x’ pose.

Renma didn’t want another trouble, so he decided to restore HP and MP before finally touching the statue to finish his mission.

A spirit of a panther appeared before Renma. He thanked the priest for defeating the demon then unleashed a light pillar that pierced through the dark sky.

“What can I do for you, young priest?” the spirit asked.

Before Renma could answer, Ril’Dil’s puch glowed. Renma then took it and offered it to the spirit.

“I understand,” the spirit bowed its head. The pouch broke open. The concoction flew around the spirit, forming the original shapes of items that created it. They and the spirit glowed before transferring their light to Renma.

Before disappearing, he told Renma, “Part of me shall always be with you, as well as the essences of these materials. Farewell, young priest. We spirits will always be watching over you.”

Quest completed. New ability acquired.

Renma sighed in relief. The mission was finally finished without any of them dying. He was also glad that even just the two of them were enough to finish the mission.

But, it was a rather quick assumption from him if things already calmed down.

Incoming whisper from Tier.

[Ega, run! Lyra’s gang is probably going towards you guys!]

Just as Tier warned him, there was a shot heard. Renma coughed some blood as a bullet shot through his stomach.

“[Murderous Slice].”

A familiar voice was heard moments before a barrage of slashes had lacerated Renma’s body which finished with a sharp stab right at his egipastrium.

In front of Renma, the view of Slicer’s disgustingly degrading smile was displayed.

“Hell-o, trash.”