85 Moment of Relief

Galahad grabbed the roof gutter mid tumble and nearly pulled his arm out of his socket in the process. Luckily his months of body evolution made the one-handed grip strong enough to keep himself from falling four-stories onto the cobblestone.

While hanging from the edge of the building, Galahad managed to see two of the three phantoms flailing as their mist forms were actually burning like an oil vapor. They erupted into big gusts of fire that disappeared as quickly as they came.

Yet the one farthest in the back, closest to the ball of fire was unharmed and still following.

'Why the hell does the fire work on only the two? And who the fuck threw fire ball at me?'

Galahad's second question was answered by the sounds of a guild officer speaking through his karmic plate.

"Officer Puilly reporting, two fire-weaks removed. One unknown remaining. Bring in water or air elements for final clean up on the west side of the shopping district."

This time, Galahad heard a buzzed murmur coming from the man's Karmic plate, but the curiosity about such a function wasn't the current priority. He was stuck between a rock and a hard place, the rock being the phantom get closer, and the hard place a slab of pavement.

Without much time to think of a better idea to escape, Galahad was searching with his toes for a ledge for any kind of footing. Hoping he could drop lower and make his fall less likely to be lethal and maybe less painful.

In an attempt of digging for silver, he ended up finding gold. His boot touched something much more useful and made his mischievous grin appear in the night.

*****

Puilly could not believe tonight of all nights he was climbing up the buildings of Diagon and hunting down a cluster breach of demons. He had specifically requested the night off for a blind date his brother put him up to; which had been going well until he ended up having to leave her at the restaurant, having to foot the bill.

A threat of this level was the only thing that could pull him out of his night off, and it just so happened, the guild was specifically requesting magician classes like himself for the event.

All he could think about while chasing after the monsters, was how he was going to apologize to the poor lass and hopefully not have to see she left the dining establishment before he returned.

That meant he was probably going to have to wait for her to scry back a rejection later in the week. It was unlikely that she would forgive the half assed excuse of a low level breach tearing across the city, demanding he leave just before paying. So he really put in the focus when trying to get the job done and coming up with the right words.

His luck turned for the worst when he was told to go after the phantoms floating above the market district, testing if his magic would do them any harm.

While chasing a few down, he managed to get at least half of them and identify any stragglers. He was left only with three that decided to slow down for some reason, and threw a massive fireball at them.

It may have seemed a bit like overkill, but he was willing to hurry up the process. Only one survived unaffected and called in for a different elementalist; his abilities only involving fire meant the phantoms were no longer a problem and he could hurry back to his date.

After making the call, he was about to turn around and head back to the restaurant, but something stopped him.

Puilly could have sworn he heard a grunt of effort right after the two phantoms erupted in flames, but it also could have been any random sound.

Just before leaving, He peered over the side of the building and found no one splattered across the pavement, just some partially opened windows and pigeon dung.

Despite not seeing anything, he still made a cautious call.

"Fair warning," He states through the karmic plate fixed to his wrist. "We might have a civilian roaming during lockdown, possible breaking and entering."

After that, Puilly disconnected his communication line and booked it towards the restaurant.

Had the dense clouds of the phantom's bodies not been in the way, he would have gotten a clear view of Galahad fleeing for his life. Then proceeding to fling himself through an open window of someone else's warehouse floor.

*****

The room was dark and unlit, but Galahad only needed to wait a few seconds before his pupils dilated to pins. His sight quickly became decent enough to figure out that he wasn't in anyone's home or with anybody else. It was a storage room full of trinkets and tools, scattered about crates with no people among them.

A couple light crystals were strung up along the ceiling, but were inactivate. Galahad believed it best to leave the room as untouched as possible, knowing he would definitely get in a lot of trouble for breaking into someone's property to hide from the monsters and the guild.

While waiting for the guild officer and phantom to pass, he could hear more people talking out on the street. Pretty soon after, a wave of light flashed across the windows from the outside and the phantom let out one more screech of agony before dying. The streets were then silent, leaving Galahad to contemplate his current situation in peace.

'Alright, it was definitely a mistake to see what was going on. I should have figured my luck was shitty enough to be the cause of all this. Well . . . it seems this would be my chance to catch a breather.'

Galahad slumped himself between two crates and let his heart settle. He began searching his pockets for anything of use in case more phantoms chased after, but knew it was hopeless.

After his fight with the mimics and Sladdus, his boots and pants were the only things to remain intact; he was still wearing them since yesterday, with a cotton shirt he tossed on before letting Terra in his house.

There was no way he planned on letting her in while he was shirtless and still soaked in his own blood. So he hid what he could in the living room and lead her to the kitchen just before eating.

Unfortunately he hadn't left the magic sword on his belt, he took the heavy blade off to carry crates out to his new neighborhood. Attached to his belt were still the mana orbs he obtained the night before, and a deployable light crystal inside a pouch.

'Well shit, all I have are the mana orbs and a napkin in my pocket. I still don't even have an idea on how to fight back against the damn things.'

Galahad looked up at his experience bar and sighed.

[ 120 / 2900 XP ] lvl. 29

He was on his way to level thirty, but a few extra points in agility or strength were not going to save him.

'This isn't going to help me, one level won't solve the problem of fighting phantoms alone. Not unless my next level up is gonna conveniently unlock at thirty. Even then, I don't want it to be wasted on magic class; a magic summon would definitely be more useful for the long-term than just a single elemental attack.'

Galahad stood up to start making his way down the stairs, but something felt wrong. His body was suddenly refusing to respond correctly, like it didn't want him to act in such a way.

"What the hell?" He blurted out before grabbing a crate for support.

His legs were almost seizing him to sit back down, then he realized his left arm was doing the same. At first he thought he was having some kind of seizure, but then he realized his body was fighting him, not losing control.

He accidently bumped a box over, making a lot of metal mallets clatter across the floor. The clattering ended at the same time of the spasms, making Galahad wonder what the hell was going on with his body.

Soon after, a pair of footsteps were loudly clambering up the staircase he was about to sneak down. Seems the building wasn't as empty as he hoped, leaving about five seconds to either jump out the window to greet the phantom and guild, or confront the owner.

He chose the secret third option that seemed ridiculous, but possible. With a quick burst of the remaining Chi in his body, Galahad seemed to have disappeared from the room.

The door to the staircase bursted open with a burly looking man in a blacksmith's apron on and red-hot poker in hand. His face gave a clear message that he was there to ask questions after beating the intruder to a pulp.

The grizzly looking forger was originally tempering some kind of metal on the lower floor, but the racket in his store room meant an interruption that triggered his rage, common trait it seemed between blacksmiths. The heavy tools he carried were clearly meant for bashing by the way he was holding them, and in no way was he inexperienced with them.

'Good gods, does every forger have it out to hit people with their tools?' Galahad thought while dangling from the light fixtures he boost jumped to.