First thing in the morning before going to the Academy, Soma alone went to the open market. For the past week, the open market was attacked by the hunters and thugs working for the nobles almost every day. Every time that happened, the mercenaries from Elk who are guarding the area would stop them, but today is different. There is no one guarding the area. Usually, mercenaries are guarding the place, and when the attackers come and try to ruin the open market the mercenaries would fight them while holding back just enough to make them think they can win next time.

“There is no one guarding the open market!” is what the hunters and thugs were told by their scout who was keeping an eye on the area till sunrise. Last night, the scout heard the mercenaries guarding the market grumbling about how not worth their time guarding the market was, and how afraid of the nobles they were before leaving the place. To avoid it being a trap, the scout didn’t leave his position and remained there the whole night. Usually, there should be another group of mercenaries that come and guard the place at night, but they didn’t come. At midnight, the scout went to look for the mercenaries and found all of the mercenaries from Elk along with their employers the merchants of Elk’s Merchants Guild partying in a pub. After that, the scout went back to his position and kept an eye on the market just to be extra sure of them not coming back. And with sunrise, the scout went to check on the mercenaries and found all of them sleeping on the ground just outside the pub, and at full speed, he went to inform his companions the hunters and thugs of what happened. Seeing it as their chance, all of the hunters and thugs working for the nobles made their way to the open market with the intention of breaking the whole thing down and after that, they are planning to kill every one of those who worked in the open market. The scout was very excited to find out about this chance, and he overlooked an important point. Why did they stop guarding the open market today of all days? He was so excited by the prospect of receiving a lucrative reward from the nobles upon destroying the open market.

The scout and most of the hunters and thugs are guys brought from the capital just before the start of the one-week vacation, that’s why none of them knows about the nightmare called Soma. All they were told is that the guys before them were very weak to the point of not being able to deal with a single man standing in the way of those glorious nobles. They were promised great rewards after they successfully erase everything accomplished by that man. Their employers, the nobles were too arrogant to admit that they were defeated by a single man and that he is more powerful than them.

The group of hunters of thugs numbering more than 100 went straight towards the open market with their weapons drawn. They wanted to make it clear that they were going to massacre everyone they find at the open market, customers, workers, and bystanders EVERYONE. On their way there, anyone who sees them would avoid looking at them and avert his/her face. The hunters’ and thugs' morale kept increasing seeing the reaction of the people, but all of them failed to notice the cruel smirks on the people’s faces. Even peaceful and regular people can turn cruel if you just push them hard enough. The people who averted their faces did that to hide their smirks, they knew about Soma’s return and that he is there at the open market. They heard about everything from the mercenaries who guarded the open market for the past week.

Having the nobles ruining their lives for years without them understanding what was going on, and then Soma came and started solving their problems and fixing their broken lives. And then explaining to them what was actually going on and then giving them the chance to retake their rightful lives made the people of Akud way more than just happy and thankful. And then Soma leaving the town for just a week was more than enough to remind them of what was taken from them and how much harm they were subjected to. That was enough to cause them to stop seeing the nobles and those working for them as human beings, they now see them as nothing but pests that needs to be removed. Is it the influence of Soma’s way of thinking? The answer is YES. The same thing happened in Elk with the family of spies sent by the Love Church. Just remember, if you push people hard enough they will become cruel and twisted in unimaginable ways.

Upon reaching the open market, the group of hunters and thugs were welcomed by a single white-haired young man sitting on a chair by the entrance of the open market area. They proceeded towards the open market intent on cutting the man to pieces as an appetizer just before the main meal. Soma stood up from his chair and unsheathed his sword and started walking towards the first line of the attackers, there was no need for words. They are here to massacre everyone and that’s why Soma will kill the lot of them.

The first one to attack was a woman holding a spear with both of her hands. The woman stabbed at Soma’s face with her spear, but Soma used his sword to redirect her spear upwards and the spear passed just above his head. That was enough to break her posture and then Soma swung his sword from its raised position down at the woman cutting her in half. Two other women and one man who were standing next to the dead woman were surprised, but Soma wasn’t going to stop because of that. From the sword’s lowered position, Soma swung his sword once again but this time diagonally upwards to the right separating the surprised man’s head from the rest of his body. That gave enough time to the two women to come back to reality and they both moved to Soma’s right and left and stabbed at him with their swords. Soma evaded the two swords by taking a half step back, and instead of stabbing Soma, the two women almost stabbed each other, but they were able to evade each other’s swords just before impaling each other. Soma just swung his sword at their crossed arms cutting them off before separating their heads with second and third swings.

“ “ “………” ” ”

In the span of just a couple of seconds, four of their comrades were killed. The group of hunters and thugs were stunned for a moment, but they came back to reality instantly and proceeded to surround Soma. Soma just swung his sword to the side to remove the blood from it even though his enemies are surrounding him. Seeing the calm Soma irked the hunters and thugs to no end, and this time they decided to attack him as a group instead of one-on-one the first woman tried to do screaming “Don’t underestimate us, brat!!”. Soma just stabbed his sword through the mouth of the man yelling in front of him. Seeing Soma’s sword stabbed through the man’s head, a woman next to him thought that it's her chance to attack and slashed at Soma with her dagger after crouching down, Soma didn’t miss that and twisted his sword to point the blade’s edge downwards and swung his sword diagonally down through the man and the crouching woman in a single motion.

Seeing that Soma was busy with the first liners, many of the hunters and thugs went towards the open market, and the people working there…. Or that was the plan, those who changed direction from Soma to the open market were all impaled by a chain that appeared out of nowhere. There was more than one chain and all of those chains had small blades at their end. The blades were moving by themselves stabbing through the chests of anyone of the hunters and thug that changed direction from Soma to the open market. The blades moved and impaled the hunters and thugs one after the other and the chains kept them in place as they writhed in pain till they died. Of course, there were those who tried to cut the chains, but strangely their weapons passed through the chains as if they weren’t there and the same happened to those trying to block the blades, they just passed through their weapons and impaled them through the chests. Even though the blades and chains seemed to phase out of existence whenever the hunters and thugs tried to block or cut them, they were fully materialized when impaling them one after the other. Seeing that, all of the hunters and thugs tried to look for the source of those chains, and soon enough they found the source, Soma’s closed left fist.

Some of the hunters and thugs seeing that they were no match for Soma they tried to run away but sure enough, they were impaled the moment they turned their backs to him. Killing Soma being their only way out of this hell, the hunters and thugs rushed past each other to kill Soma. Seeing his enemies clamped together, Soma started slashing at them killing multiple hunters and thugs with each slash. Many of them gave up and started begging for their lives, ignoring those who gave up, Soma kept killing the others till only those who gave up remained alive. Those who survived were a mere 12 from the group of hunters and thugs that had more than 100 people in it and the whole battle was finished in less than an hour.

Seeing that Soma was done cleaning the trash, the town’s guards came forward saluted, and said in a strong voice “Thank you for your hard work! We will take it from here!!”. Soma nodded his head and went towards the Academy.