10 Syndicate

'So painful! I never knew a sword was so painful!" Rastel gasped as the man pulled out the sword and punched him in the face.

He went down under the impact and almost passed out from the pain.

Even though the game reduced pain by default by 50%, it was still extraordinarily painful for normal people who would get traumatized by ordinary knife cuts. A real sword wound was a thing beyond their imagination.

A bunch of more men came out of the forest. The man that took him down caught Lou and pushed her to them.

"Mister! No! Please leave him alone!" she cried.

"Get the little beasty out of here, and get our wounded men too, this muan fucked us up really bad!" the man said

The wounded men were taken by their friends as Lou was dragged off into the forest.

"What are we gonna do to this here muan"

Two of the men stayed behind to deal with Rastel.

"Kill him, we don't need any witnesses that'll cause us problems in the future". The other one replied.

Rastel was still moaning on the floor, he heard them but was in too much pain to react.

"Your stupidity caused your death, you shouldn't have interfered with us" the first man said as he aimed his sword to stab at him.

Boom!!!

A blast of air came out and slammed the man into a tree.

"Who's there!!?" the other man turned only to see another blast of air smashing into his face as he was knocked unconscious.

Rastel turned his head to the side as he saw an old man with a girl walking up to him.

"You seem pretty done in kiddo, guess we're fated after all" the man laughed heartily.

The girl bent down and handed him a small potion.

"Drink it, it'll help relieve the pain and heal the wound." she said smiling.

"Thanks" he managed to mutter as he downed it in one gulp.

He felt the area around his stab wound getting hot then it suddenly went numb. The wound was closing slowly as he watched his HP bar refilling. The wound was actually healing!

He cast Insta heal a few times on himself just to make sure then stood up and flexed his body a bit.

"There's practically no pain at all, this is some wondrous stuff old man! Thanks!" he smiled at the old man.

"It's just a low leveled potion don't worry about it, when you get rich enough it'll be easy to get your hands on them. Besides, I wouldn't want to see you die so early now would I? Respawning your character after death is so expensive! Ai! Those CORIM guys have no joy." the old man mumbled with a sad face.

"So tell me boyyo, what happened here?" He became serious again after finishing his complaining.

Rastel took his time to tell him all Lou told him before she was taken away.

"I want to go save Lou old man, thanks for your help." he said as he started moving into the forest.

"Wait a minute boyyo, do you even know where you're going to?" the old man called him back.

"Following their trails?" He answered him almost sarcastically.

"That may be good and all but, you'll be walking straight into enemy territory without even knowing what you're looking for, how many men you might face, and potential threats to your strength. Doesn't sound like a good plan does it?" the man asked.

"Well that's true but what am I supposed to do, the only way now is to follow them." He asked perplexed.

"You still have these fellows, we only knocked them out and they're not dead yet. I'm sure they'd be obliged to answer a few questions" the old man said pointing at the unconscious men on the floor.

One of the men woke up with a splitting headache as he felt water splash on his face. As he slowly regained consciousness, he realized he was bound with his hands tied up at the back of a tree. He saw his companion beside him tied up similarly.

He was about to whisper something to him when he noticed something weird. His companion was looking straight ahead with an almost terrified look in his eyes. He turned to see what was making him so scared when he saw the muan.

Rastel propped himself on a tree facing the bandits as he toyed with his dagger. The old man and the girl stood in the background as they watched. He had a light smile on his face as he addressed them.

"Well you see I just got stabbed in the gut, not a very nice feeling. And it has left me feeling very irritated. You won't happen to be interested in it, are you? Disembowelment I mean?" his smile suddenly turned malicious.

The bandits never knew that a muan could be so terrifying as they vigorously shook their heads.

"I don't know, maybe I should really gut one of you. I'll feel a lot better if someone else shared my pain." he sighed as he continued toying with the dagger blade.

"No, please! We will tell you everything we know!" one of the men croaked in fear.

"That's very nice of you I'm sure, by all means, tell away!" Rastel said with a full smile suddenly on his face.

Twenty minutes later, Rastel with the old man and the girl were hiding in some bushes overlooking a warehouse of some sorts in the middle of the forest. Bandits were going about doing one thing or the other. And they were two drawn carriages outside the warehouse.

"Probably what they use to transport the people they kidnap" the old man pointed out.

"I count 20 of them just outside, there should be more inside the warehouse if we're to believe what those bandits told us. The victims are probably in there too" Rastel said worriedly. This seemed like it would be hard.

"Well we can take care of the people outside, but the problem is for you to get in there and free the victims." the old man said. He seemed quite confident about their strength.

Rastel decided not to doubt them and nodded. He was about to start forming a plan with them when he saw faces he recognized coming out of the warehouse.

"Wait I know those guys" he whispered to the old man.

Three people, two boys, and a girl came out of the warehouse and started talking to one of the bandits.

There were definitely the ones. The team of players he had spied on in the forest!

'What could they be doing here? Are they being hired by the boss of these goons or are they the boss themselves?' Rastel thought.

"Are they going to be much of a threat?" the old man asked.

"Mmmm, they're strong" Rastel nodded.

"And more so I think their levels should be up to level 5 by now. I'm still level 4. But the guy we should be wary of is the guy in the middle. He's called Gai and he's a really strong monk."

"Well, we should take care of them first then, all the better that they're outside. We'll create a distraction and hold them off here while you sneak in through the back and get the hostages out." the old man laid out the plan.

"But would you really be alright?" Rastel was now concerned

"Haha don't worry about that boyyo! Mary!" the old man nodded at the girl

She smiled and nodded back as she stood up and waved her arms wide open in front of her. Five large globules of water appeared above her head as the men around suddenly noticed her appearance.

"What the fuck!!?" One of them screamed.

Rastel stared with wide eyes as five streams of water blasted out of the water lumps into a group of the men below. Chaos ensued as more and more streams of water kept on blasting out from the globules slamming them into walls and the ground. Gai and his group were dodging the streams as they started approaching her to take her down.

"Come on boy, retreat through the bushes and circle around to the back. We'll hold them off for as long as you want!"

Rastel lightly chuckled as he silently retreated into the bushes. This old man was super crazy!