11 Chapter 11

"Are you sure we're at the right place?" Curtis asked.

Akagi stepped back outside the door way, looked at the cheap unassuming facade of the building and stepped inside once more to stand next to Curtis.

"I think so... yeah.."

They'd left a perfectly running tavern for 3 hours or so and somehow...

Returned to the aftermath of a tornado.

The Three Barrels was a mess, the kind of which resembled the result of a shoot out in those old westerns on TV.

Tables were smashed, deep craters littered every surface that formed the very structures of this building. Worse still was the mysterious liquid dripping down from the ceiling, glistening from the light rays shining down from the new skylight that had suddenly appeared in the roof.

Their noses were stung by the strong stench of alcohol lingering in the air as they atempted with great difficulty to keep their eyes from watering.

Cautiously they tiptoed their way towards the office where they found an even more surprising.

Arthur was sitting on top of an iron base in the center of a wreck of an office looking absolutely defeated.

There were no open wounds visible but he had a few bruises here and there on him.

"Art! what happened!?" Akagi asked, her brain was already speeding through all the possible scenarios.

They had quite literally just come from a meeting where they were told that there were countless dangers surrounding the boy, maybe they sent someone at the level of Curtis's attacker to deal with Arthur.

And even though Arthur didn't seem injured, Tasha was nowhere in sight.

As soon as he heard her voice, with distraught still written all over his face, he bolted up and ran towards them.

Their minds raced, trying to figure out what could cause an Arch Mage to be in such distress.

For some reason, the next thing that happened was Curtis tilting her head to the right, slipping Arthur's right cross that came out of nowhere, puncturing the wall behind her.

From that position her eyes creaked until it was looking at the arm had punctured itself into the wall.

Despite his title of an Archmage few people knew him as such around these parts. Which was weird, considering how Archmages were a glorified existence everywhere else.

It was the same reason why when Thanis came, he was absolutely taken by surprise when he found out there was an Archmage working a tavern here.

Most big families like their had extensive knowledge about any and every Archmage whether it was in this state or in other countries around the world. How they missed one that was living quite literally under their nose was a mystery only a few knew.

As it was the rowdiest part of town, one needed to have a certain level of strength to even survive down here much less run a business. You could throw a rock into the crowd and almost always hit a mage around here.

And yet Arthur who made a living smack dab in the middle of all this, had almost never used any spells as long as he'd lived here. Of course there were rumors about his level but no one could ever actually tell.

It all came down to the fact that, any problem, magic or not, he could deal with those arms of his.

Rumor was that, even without enhancement from magic, one of his punches could break through level 4 spells before tearing a man's head clean off. And another rumor has it, that the first rumor wasn't just a rumor.

And that punch had just been aimed at her head.

"Why'd... you.. dodge..." He said, his tone the mixture of a sob, a growl, and somewhere in there, a death rattle.

'What the heck!?' Curtis thought, looking at Arthur's face so close to hers.

"What are you doing!?" Akagi took action, trying to pull Arthur away.

"And you!" Arthur said, training his glare at her instead, stopping her in her tracks. "You brought her and that demon-spawn in here!"

She started to inch backwards as Arthur advanced on her. "Now now, whatever happened we can talk about this..."

"That kid.. he forced my hand!" Art in anguish.

"What... what did you do to him!?" Akagi shouted.

"What'd I do to him?... WHAT'D I DO TO HIM?" He screamed as he stood up. "WHAT ABOUT WHAT HE DID TO ME!?"

...

45 minutes ago.

'Man one day with Curtis and the others treat me like the plague.' Arthur thought as he moved the stuff from Orkea.

Right then he heard something clatter in his office.

"Huh? Would you look at that, the trouble maker is awake." He said to himself. 'Maybe the injuries weren't as bad as I thought.'

As he entered the room however, he found out that that was probably the farthest from the truth.

Tasha's collarbone was still not in the position it was supposed to be, while he himself acted like there was no problem at all as he frisked the office in search for something.

"Hey kid, you're not supposed to be up yet." He said as he advanced on Arthur trying to get him back into the spell.

The next thing he found himself doing was using his arm to block a wind blade that came out of nowhere that left a faint mark on his skin.

"Huh?" It took him a second to figure out that he was just attacked by the boy.

A second too long evidently, because when he turned back to face his attacker, he had disappeared from his previous spot...

And gliding above his head ready to bring his arms down...

...

55 minutes ago

Tasha woke up in a stupor.

Sitting up to the sight of glowing runes in an unfamiliar setting was to most people, a reason to hyperventilate.

Most adult people..

This was a 12 year old boy.

A 12 year old boy, who's last memory before being introduced to this scene, was a fight against several adults including the woman who was supposed to be his care taker.

One that ended with him feeling like he was hit by a truck.

And then he heard it.

"Fine..." someone grumbled outside.

Before heavy foot steps moved towards this very room.

The door opened in the next moment.

And a familiar hulking figure entered.

But a familiarity that in no way lessened the agitation Tasha was feeling as he hid under the table.

His only interaction with the man had been one of him almost being hit by a great sword thrown by him after all.

If he'd continued with his advance after his first attack towards Thaddeus, he'd probably be skewered into the ground and forever be a part of the tavern's display.

Not a nice mental picture to think about when the man who attempted it was standing but a few meters away from him.

"Crap, guess I have to withdraw some money to buy the ingredients for tomorrow." The man said as he moved past.

The man opened a safe in the wall before picking something up and heading back out.

Even if he was out of the room, the pressure on Tasha was not any less.

There was only one door in and out, and the man only missed his disappearance previously because he was preoccupied.

If he actually took even a second to stop and look, he'd be able to notice.

And in such a small room.. there wasn't exactly a lot of places Tasha could hide, small as he was.

Best thing he could attempt was find something to give him an edge, and that safe looked like the perfect place to search.

But he only ended up disappointed.

Besides some cash, there was only a pendant with with some ornate markings on it, most eye catching was three dragon heads stretching out from it's center.

But it didn't give off any sense of mana, even after he touched it. Nothing more than a gaudy accessory or paperweight unfortunately.

After a disappointing search, he attempted to pull his hand out quickly to begin scouring the rest of the room.

But this quick action actually aggravated his injuries which caused his arm to spasm for a moment, shifting some of the money just slightly... but still enough to knock them down from the safe and thump on the floor.

Immediately his sharp ears heard a murmur from beyond the door as the man outside arrived almost immediately after.

Their eyes met, but only one of them had made a decision about what their next move was.

The man was saying something but Tasha couldn't be bothered as he knew there was only a small window of opportunity for him.

Immediately his fingers formed a claw and he scratched at the air, forming the wind blade as quick as possible.

He didn't have anything to help him in this fight, and ability wise he was far below his opponent.

So right now his only choice was to take the initiative, that way he'd at least get some momentum to start with.

He hadn't been fighting humans for long, but he found that it was much better to make the first move, especially when they were stronger than you.

Especially for humans, increased grades meant increased casting speed.

As long as one was of a higher grade, they'd be confident in activating their spells to counter their opponent. Even if they started much later than their weaker counterparts.

Tasha's targets were always men like these.

People who barely registered him as a threat before their carotid artery was split open.

It didn't matter how powerful your spell was, if you hadn't cast it, the flesh being cut was the same as everyone else's.

But the gap had never been this wide.

His greatest trophy up till this point was a particularly stupid primary mage.

That was worlds apart from an Archmage, especially the one standing in front of him.

He had already expected the man to block with his arm. In the fight against Thaddeus, the man had reacted in time to save the boy's life from so far away after all.

But he hadn't expected that it would just glance off the man's flesh.

Either that man's muscles were tough as steel or he was always keeping some form of defense magic on throughout the day.

Neither of which was even within the ball park of simply extraordinary. At the very least it was on the threshold of inhumane.

But the move still gave him some thing to exploit.

With him covering his own vision, when he opened them, the man would be looking at the position Tasha was just at, drawing Arthur's line of sight low enough to level with his short height so that Tasha could create a blind spot right above Arthur's head.

Even if the man was able to train his muscles to that level, there was no way he could train his facial muscles to do the same.

It would at least let him discern if the man was using magic or simply tanking his attacks using his own body.

If it was muscles, there was a limit to how strong those could be.

If it was magic, then chances were that he was definitely screwed..

He was good at what he did because his level and age gave him the the element of surprise.

As long as he attacked before that person was able to cast anything, it was basically like fighting against a normal human.

Cut them, they bleed, cut them deeper, they die.

But put a spell between him and his target and he would have an extremely difficult time matching even The weakest Ascetics.

...

"And after that he jumped around the room and kept looking for opportunities to attack." Arthur protested. "At some point, he must've figured that there was some kind of opening or weakness that could be exploited, and there was one I didn't even know was there."

"What was it?" Curtis asked fervently, it wasn't every day an archmage would spill their weaknesses.

If Arthur wanted to share, who was she to stop him.

"He... he..." both of them stared at Arthur in anticipation gulping as they felt this delicious little morsel of information come to light for them.

"He found the special bottles I kept under the bar."

Arthur's eyes began to glisten...