Begone, Thot Pt2

QTPi was none too pleased by my last remark and scowled at me for only an instantly before smiling and loudly calling out, "A duel it is!"

Even as she was speaking she was drawing and slashing a single shortsword in the same motion. She was clearly an Agility player based on the fluidity of her movements or at least an expert at a couple common skills but her speed was still not that great in my eyes.

I could have turned sideways at the waist and dodged or simply slapped her sword aside. Instead, I just let it strike and slide up my body with a skill-animated glare of the smithy's orange light. Stabbing at me in an angle from the draw, the sword swept smoothly up my body while ruffling my cloak.

Despite the glare of the skill and obvious speed-style strike, I could clearly make out the wavy pattern-welded patterns on her tapering triangular blade. It was a nice steel and a nice skill, but my cloak was apparently nicer.

Only the outermost layer of the silk canvas had been punctured and then cut. However, as the blade had traveled up, the slice gradually faded into a roughened fabric streak as the blade lost power. Even though I lost about a hundred HP, the actual effect of the skill was not that great.

The Strength behind it was not even at two hundred and my cloak only lost a tenth of my damage in durability. My body did not even lean back a full inch from the pressure of the skill. Because of our level difference, though, I could not tell if that was from just stats or just my body.

The so-called enchantress was briefly stunned by the overall lack of reaction from both me and my fancy silk cloak, almost forgetting to follow up, but I continued to have no reaction at all even as she swept her sword back down in a full-on scything motion down the other side of my torso.

She even crouched low into the blow to apply her own weight. The damage intake was roughly the same as before, shaving off a hundred health points but this time a long and thin line was left on the front side of my cloak from having been cut into. As for myself, I was simply pushed slightly sideways from the blow so that my body turned a bit with the attack.

By the second strike my followers were already closing in on our position while everyone else had already started slowly exiting the area after he exclamation. She once again paused at this time with widened eyes after seeing the minimal combat effect all over again. However, she briefly stepped and drew back as if she knew I would not move at all before lunging forward into a thrust.

Her sword glowed a dark orange different from before, deeper in coloring from magic being channeled into the weapon. Not only was the blade heating up, though, but bright orange-yellow arcs were dancing all around the mana infused weapon. The other people approaching seemed familiar with such an attack, once again showing how familiar they and the others in the smithy were with scenes such as this.

What was taking place was class-act bullying and market manipulation, suppressing the new generation of players under the pre established second-generation. Behind them, though, were parent groups in the capital who were undoubtedly from the first generation.

They were even forcibly enlisting low leveled people to be crafters whose characters might end up stuck in such positions. Under the right environments and contractual agreement, they could still make life hell for anyone who did or did not take them up on their offers. With a name like Marketplace, though, I was only now wondering who their parents were.

At this instant the sword was already striking my body to cause more than two hundred points of damage on contact, but even with the heat and skill the blade only stabbed into the cloak and burned a hole across my uniform. The electricity simply loosened up my body and sped up my forcibly slowed reactions.

Once the sword point pressed against my skin and started zapping me, my body just jolted sideways twice as far and fast as the reaction to the previous blow. This action caused the point of the sword to burn a broad laser-like hole across my Delai family uniform from the left side of my solar plexus all the way along the closest neighboring rib.

My cloak, however, was only run through in one spot and was slowly cindering with only a few glowing sections around the puncture. On my skin was only an ashy streak left behind from the pressure against my near-vaporized costume. All of the was also plainly visible from the sword's position raising one side of my cloak away from where I had been standing.

"What are you waiting for?! Help!" She suddenly cries out, being the only one to realize how ineffective her combination of attacks had been. I had not even lost a full ten percent of my health from three different skills of differing grades. However, the others had stopped just outside of reach in expectation of what was probably one of her best attacks.

As she hurried back while snatched her sword away from me and out of my cloak, they responded to the call and jumped forward while drawing their weapons.

"What the hell is wrong with you people?" I ask even before a single weapon was fully drawn. The closest person led with a drawing slash like this lady had done but I simply reached out and grabbed their sword almost faster than my own perception.

"I just came to the smithy to prepare for hosting an event," I add while easily snatching the sword from the player's hand with a deft twist. Simply flicking the sword aside, causing several people to backstep in fear, I attack for the first time by simply slapping the first guy who had attacked faster than he could even see.

He was not the only person to attack because a large hatchet or tomahawk hacked down on one shoulder while a large knife was stabbed down on my back and were the main people to back up when I tossed the sword. Each of them were also promptly slapped in the face in the same second that the first guy's feet left the ground.

Their three bodies were still upright as they suddenly flew off to the sides, crashing into their closest neighbors and creating more room around me. Their health bars appeared just like my own that was now missing fifteen percent but theirs instead were rendered critically low from the Open Handed critical strikes to the head and face with my overwhelming Strength unburdened by any equipment.

The only person still standing after those three slaps was then promptly kicked square in the chest as the others were just rolling about the ground. This fellow flew back like a marionette without strings right passed the lady who had cried out for a duel and then for help.

Landing in a forge well, the few percent of his HP he had left were swiftly burned away with a sharp but short scream followed by the smell of charred flesh. I only got about a thousand experience from the guy but everybody else in the smithy were all suddenly shocked and awed as if something impressive had happened.

If these people were at a level where they would be worth ten thousand experience per kill, then they would have gotten to see something impressive. As it was, I simply maintained eye contact with QTPi while sharply 'nudging' the few people on the ground in critical condition while asking, "Are you okay? Sir? Can you hear me? Sir? This is why you do not interrupt a duel."

Leaving these freshly killed players lying on the ground, I simply walk forward and finally lower my hood and mentally revealing my name, level, and clan to the enchantress. Smiling in the same false cheerful fashion that she had used originally, I say, "Hi, I'm the last person you should have tried to poach. I don't know what racket you've got going on here and I don't care, but you caught my attention."

Walking up close to the lady as she hesitantly backed away just slightly too slow to make any distance, I say, "Now, would you like to continue our duel or would you like to have a little chat? Just because I've gone easy on you so far does not mean I won't dropkick your pretty face and post it on the forum."

She had still been backing away less than a foot away from my while I moved and talked just fast enough to maintain those incredibly close quarters, but now she was shocked once again and stopped moving. As soon as she stopped moving, even I stopped moving with just one foot an inch above the ground.

For a brief second I actually thought she had caved and I could start questioning her, but instead she suddenly backhand slashes her sword straight for my throat. Knowing it would be a critical strike as she leaned back to make room, I simply let her sword flow across my neck while leaving a trail of frost in its wake. Three hundred HP down the drain.

Under the frost was a thin line of red so dark it appeared black that stretched from one side of my throat to the other. That thin line was nothing more than a paper cut that momentarily warmed the frost and then froze over. All in all this was the most impressive attack yet but it was fairly useless like the rest.

Left stumbling back from the recoil of slashing my immovable body, the lady takes less than a second to realize how little damage I had taken before simply dropping her sword. "You win. Let's talk."

Unlike when I had said those words, I could tell she was not lying because the bodies of the players I had killed went away with only a couple of random items and money left in their wake. Some of which burned away in a forge well. I had finally won and maintained my dignity as a man at the same time.

Stepping back and upright, I leisurely clasp my hands behind my back and wait a second in silence. As expected no sooner had I relaxed my posture than I was suddenly attacked from behind by one of the remaining individuals. His sword charred a streak across the back of my cloak and shaved away little more than a hundred HP.

Calmly flicking around at full speed, I backhand slap the unprotected head and face of this unlucky individual with Force Strike, killing on contact by cratering the entire side of their head. Before their head even finished bursting and they started falling to the ground, I whipped back around to look down at their leadership figure.

"Girl, I'd like to know who your parents are," I say at last without actually asking. "I need to have a word with whatever trash could raise a kid like you into a situation like this. Talk."

"Thirteenth Incorporated," she replies quickly without even hesitating as the man's dying animation continued playing out behind me. "Please don't kill me, I haven't died yet and I might lose one of these skills."

"Skills you can lose? Interesting…" I muse softly, wondering what kind of skills those could be. They were probably related to an item or probably not even real. However, I did not want to be a bully.

"I need to have a talk with Little Thirteen," I sigh tiredly, realizing I had just found something annoying to deal with. Originally I had not even wanted to get involved in this crowd of hawkers but then they turned into craftsman poachers and outright attacked me! This crazy broad even tried to make it look like a duel even though she brought in others to attack!

However, it was not necessarily about this clan that I was going to talk to them about. It was about somebody trying to drag their name through the dirt. There was now way Little Thirteen would allow such an unprofessional and reckless player group like this even say his name no matter how scared of me they were.

If a player could not die with dignity then they would not be allowed to run an operation like this.

"Right now, I'm actually really curious about how you could be at risk of losing skills but that's not important," I reply with an almost reassuring wave of my hand. "What I want to know is why you're trying to use Thirteenth's name as a scapegoat. Your clan crest is black and white, so now I wonder if I really even need to ask."

At these words she simply looked above my head and above my refilled health at my name as if looking for something. After finding whatever it was, she suddenly lunges up from the ground with a dagger from behind her back. The dagger had an incredibly long, slender, and thin blade that was probably made to be a disposable penetration weapon.

Specially designed or not, this weapon also found itself ineffective as it was stabbed dead center at my solar plexus. The blade broke above the handle on contact and simply flung away to the side. "This kind of childish operation can't really run this deep," I sigh tiredly, wondering why there would be a monochrome faction in my noob city parading around as a Thirteenth faction.

They were probably being intentionally insolent and public trying to make the other big clan look bad. My clan was clearly based in Sierra on its front page when it was made so it was public information that I came from here. So why they were in my yard with this drama was explainable but why they were doing this against Thirteenth was ridiculously.

Their methods were downright retarded. The only thing I could come up with was a petty ploy to create a rift between our groups but that was just ridiculous. They should know that I was simply smarter than that. I also knew Thirteenth Incorporated too well. Even if they were going to step on my toes or stab me in the back even, they would wait a hell of a lot longer than this to stir the pot!

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