29 - Confrontation And Threats

Jim's sword sliced downward, intending to cut through Val, but to his dismay, he felt no resistance. His sword had failed to cut Val, Jim had witnessed Val suddenly disappear right before his attack landed.

Jim was utterly confused, not knowing how Val had disappeared from right in front of his attack. He wanted to look around and see where Val had gone, however, he noticed his sword hit the ground making a thumping noise.

This further increased his confusion because he did not intend to drop his sword. It was only when he looked down at the sword which he had suddenly dropped that he realized there was something attached to the sword, it was his hand. It was at this exact moment that an excruciating pain traveled straight up his arm. It felt like it was on fire, and was a worse feeling than anything he had experienced before.

Jim's party members had been watching the exchange and had their mouths open wide. They were astonished at what they witnessed.

Right before Jim's slash was going to hit Val, he had disappeared and reappeared to his side, slicing down with his own sword and cutting Jim's hand off. He then disappeared again as Jim's mind was processing what had just happened, reappearing a few meters back.

As the 4 party members watched on, Jim was experiencing the worst pain of his life.

Jim had lived a fairly privileged life, his parents were well-off merchants, they were not extremely successful and rich, but they earned enough for the family to live comfortably in a fairly large city.

His older brother was 4 years older than him and became an adventurer, which influenced Jim to become one too. His brother was pretty talented and was doing well as an adventurer, neither Jim nor his brother had the intellect to become successful merchants so their parents supported their choice to become adventurers.

As Jim's brother was an adventurer and was currently exploring the dungeon near Loka Town, Jim decided to follow his brother to Loka Town when he became an adventurer. Jim's older brother always looked after Jim, and if Jim ever had an issue with someone that he could not handle, his brother would sort it out.

Jim was used to people bowing to him, not because they feared him, but because of his brother. Jim's older brother was one of the strongest adventurers active in Loka Town. The town was popular because of the low-ranking dungeon, which was only useful for low-ranking adventurers. Jim's brother was a D-Rank adventurer, and there were no adventurers in Loka town above D-Rank.

Having no other newbie adventurers go against his arrogance and idiocy, Jim began to believe he could do whatever he wanted and no one would stop him.

Jim had been able to be the leader of the party because all the party members were younger than him, and had lesser equipment, and fewer skills. His parents had been able to afford a few low-ranking skill orbs for him and decent equipment which was better than what a normal green-horn adventurer would have.

Due to Jim's arrogance, he did not believe that anyone would have the audacity to go against him, especially not a boy younger than himself. Therefore when Val cut off his hand, with skills that were significantly superior to his own, he became shocked and scared. He had never felt like this before, mixed with the excruciating pain he had never felt before, creating a feeling of true fear.

He could feel Val's eye's piercing through his soul, and he slowly turned to look at the boy, who was making him feel this way, when he saw the boy staring at him nonchalantly as if looking at an insect, he realized that he had made a mistake. He had only acted so aggressively because he was already annoyed by the way Val had acted, and the way he looked at Lizzy, who he was in love with.

He realized he could not defeat Val, so he tried to call his party members for help,

"Why are you guys just standing there, help me!"

Everyone just looked at him like an idiot, Lizzy was the one to speak for the group, explaining how they all felt,

"You antagonized him, you threatened him, and then you attacked him unprovoked. You have broken the rules of the adventurers guild. Why would we then attack him? He could have killed you if he wanted, but he chose to just cut off your hand which could be used to attack him. He has followed the rules to a tee. If we attacked him, we would also be breaking the rules and may be expelled by the adventurers guild, like you probably will be."

Jim was shocked after he heard Lizzy's words, he could not believe that they would go against him,

"I am the party leader, you have to listen to what I say."

The four party members frowned, they had realized just how delusional Jim was. He thought they would obey him regardless of what he demanded, he had become so arrogant that he thought he could do whatever he wanted with no repercussions.

Lizzy responded to Jim, speaking on behalf of the four of them,

"After witnessing your actions, we no longer wish to party with you and are officially disbanding our party. We will not support you and break the rules."

Jim could not believe what he was hearing, the party he had led and done so much for (at least that's what he thought) was just going to abandon him. Jim became enraged,

"You want to betray me, fine, let's see what you do when I tell my brother about this, you lot will be done for HAHAHAHA."

Val observed the conversation between the party and watched as Jim finished his threat with a cliche evil laugh. Val found it very pathetic, he hated when people had to rely on others because they were too incompetent to do what it is they wanted.

Val was about to say something when Jim finally stopped laughing, but before he could, Jim continued,

"And you, when my brother finds out about this, he will kill you, you don't know but my brother is a D-Rank adventurer."

Val listened to Jim's threat which he found to be rather basic, when Jim finished he couldn't help but let out a laugh.

The laugh angered Jim even more, but before he could further threaten Val, Val retorted,

"I know a few D-Rank adventurers, and I can confirm they aren't strong enough to beat me, let alone kill me. Besides, you will be a criminal when the guild finds out about what happened, so I wonder if your brother is willing to join you in being a criminal to get your revenge."

Val did not know if what Jim did was actually against the rules and laws, he did not know what they were after all. But he had heard the others saying so, so he decided to utilize that in his verbal assault.

When Jim heard Val's retort he just gritted his teeth. He had been losing a lot of blood and needed to rest and stop the bleeding. Jim pulled out a vial from his spatial pouch and drank the liquid inside. Val assumed it was a healing enhancement potion or something similar but he was not sure. Val doubted it would be capable of reattaching his hand but it should be able to stop the bleeding and stop him from dying of blood loss.

Once he was done drinking the potion, Jim picked up his hand and sword and began walking off, he did not say another word to anyone and headed toward the town.

Val thought about blocking his way and fucking with him a little, he was still pissed off after all, and his anger towards this arrogant brat had not been quenched. But he decided it was better not to.

Jim slowly walked away and when he was out of sight, Val decided to start a conversation with the four people remaining, however before he could speak Lizzy spoke to him.

"We should head back to the town, we should try and get there before him. He will definitely spread false rumors and lies to try and get us in trouble with the authorities. He will also tell his brother, who might try something before we arrive at the town."

From Lizzy's warning, Val understood the predicament he was in. He was not too worried though, he knew he had the crest of Jamal if the worst situation arose. Jamal may be only a knight, but because he was a direct knight of a Duke, he was considered a noble who served the Duke. Even the Count who ruled this area would not want to piss off a noble who directly served the Duke, even if they were of far lower nobility, especially not for a peasant like Jim with a horrid reputation.

Val agreed with a nod, then explained,

"Okay, give me a couple of minutes to pack up here and then we can head to town. We can chat on the way, there are a few things I want to ask you guys."

Lizzy felt the same, so she agreed,

"Me too, I have a lot of questions for you, I hope you will be able to share a little about yourself with us."

Val just looked at her but did not respond, he quickly went to where he had been resting and eating before and cleaned up the area, storing the rabbit corpses which had been hanging up to drain the blood.