How to Pay Your Debts with Style

Alex looked at the screen in awe while smirking. 

Quest: [Fight and draw blood!] - Concluded

Reward: For the next 10 minutes, your strength is upgraded to Rank F9

Good timing, my devil's hand friend. He thought to himself, clenching his fists. He felt his nails digging into the palm of his hands and flinched on the spot. He was now way stronger than he had assumed. The other hand, holding the dagger, was intact.

The enemies didn't give more time to Alex to assess his strength and rushed towards him. The corridor fit both of them side by side, but just by little. Not much room to dodge. 

Alex decided to face the encounter as a boxing fight. He changed the hilt of the blade to face the outside of his hand and lifted both hands. One foot slightly on the front of the other while he swung slightly from one side to the other.

Speed was his bigger attribute, and now strength, too. He would take advantage of both.

First came a punch from the big guy, and Alex dodged to the side. He swinged his right fist into the belly of the giant elf. Alex retrieved his fist while slashing the elf's skin under the shirt. The big guy doubled up, holding his belly with the impact and the cut. Alex was ready to finish the muscular one when the other's fists came in his direction.

Alex ducked the blow with his head in a circular movement, already performing an uppercut, but this elf was fast. He dodged to the side and connected a kick on Alex's belly. The young man felt the pain in his guts but snatched the leg of the elf with both hands, pushing him to the back. He fell with the skull on the ground with a huge thump. Not wasting time, Alex cut the man's Achilles tendon with his dagger. The elf screamed to the roof.

This one is going nowhere now. 

Releasing the leg of the wounded enemy, Alex took two steps behind and almost stumbled on Tina. He looked over his shoulder and saw she was once again in shock.

"Get back!" He hissed at her while watching the big one once again rushing towards him, with the big wound covering his whole chest. The elf was furious. Alex smiled at him and relaxed his posture. That made the enemy even angrier.

Time to have some fun, Alex thought. Beating bigger guys had been the history of his life. No matter what orphanage or what home he was sent to, there was always someone bigger trying to take advantage of the small guy. Alex always met these men with his fists. Valther seemed to be seen as the small guy, too— a punching bag for bigger guys. Alex wasn't.

The first hit came from the left, and Alex dodged to the right, only moving his torso. Then came a horizontal swing, and Alex ducked it, feeling the speed on his legs. He gave two steps back, and another hit came from the right. As Alex dodged, the big man struck the wall, and after one second, he screamed in pain. Alex scoffed at the big elf with a laugh.

"That's it?" He asked, and the elf snorted like an angry bull and delivered another punch, and then another, and then another. Alex kept dodging until the elf tried a punch with a following kick and hit the void, almost falling to the ground. This time, the window was just too good. The whole right side of the big guy was available to him, and Alex took the shot.

Alex punched the elf with his right fist in the jaw with all the strength he could muster. The sound of crackling bone was immediate and loud. The brute's head collided against the corridor wall, and he fell like a sack of potatoes. There was no movement whatsoever. Completely out.

"Good. Stay down," Alex muttered slowly between breaths. He then walked towards the big man and snatched his bag of coins back. Holding it with his left hand, the young man slowly walked towards the other elf, who crawled on the ground, trying to reach the stairs. 

There was no mist this time, and Alex wondered if it was because none of them were dead or because his attributes didn't upgrade. Shoving these thoughts away, Alex crouched beside the lean elf who was about to burst into tears.

"Please, don't kill me." He pleaded, standing a hand to Alex, but he shoved it away. "Please…" He said again, and Alex just stared at him for a couple of seconds. The piece of crap tried to kill him one minute ago and now acted like a grounded child. There was no room in Alex's heart for mercy towards this kind of man.

For one moment, Alex thought about prolonging the elf's suffering, but he was too tired and really wanted to sleep.

"Why would I kill you?" He asked slowly. He inclined his head slightly to look at the man's eye. Alex found no response in his gaze. "Remind me how much I owe your boss."

"One thousand coins…twenty payments of fifty coins." He gulped and continued, "This is the first payment, and you're late ten days." He said, stuttering and closing his eyes at the end of the sentence as if expecting a beating.

Alex opened the bag of coins and looked at them. They were made of silvery metal, beautiful and simple. Carved on one side was an elf— that Alex assumed was a dark one, and on the other, a big tree.

"I'll pay you two months now. One hundred coins, right?" The elf nodded, and Alex started to pick one coin after the other and shove it inside the elf's mouth, who didn't protest. But didn't stop crying in the process. When Alex counted the last one, not a single coin fit in the bully's mouth.

"I'll give you one more coin for the dagger and your watch. Does it seem fair?" Alex asked, and the elf just nodded slightly, a tear leaving his right eye. "Okay, then. You are free to go. Tell your boss I don't want any trouble and that the payments will come on the due date. Alright?" Another nod. "Good. I think this is the beginning of a good friendship."

Alex nodded to a still-in-shock Tina, who was holding the wall with two hands at her back as if holding a life jacket inside a sinking ship. He nodded again, and she started moving, passing by the unconscious brute and the crying elf.

She searched in her dress pocket for a key and opened the door, trembling visibly. Alex didn't say anything, letting her process the situation. He could've maybe been a little less… violent with the guys and shocked her less, but they had asked for it. They were ready to kill and rob them. A little beating was way less than they deserved. 

Tina went through the door, and Alex followed her. He was expecting the place to be a mess, but what he found surprised him. Yes, it was small, like a studio apartment, but it wasn't terrible at all. The room had cushions on the ground, a small table in the middle to eat on it, and a shelf with various books. The books would be the first thing he would use to search for information since he couldn't ask directly without looking suspicious. Looking at the walls, Alex realized that even a painting of a beautiful green plain adorned the place. In the far wall of the room was a big window that let the red moon bleed its light into the apartment.

Walking further into the apartment, Alex found the kitchen. Inside it was a sink, a stove, and a shelf, but there was nothing inside it. Looking at the place made Alex's stomach growl loudly.

A small door led to a bathroom with a hole in the ground covered with a wooden board. Not everything can be perfect, I guess. A bucket of water was also in the small room, with a cup inside it. Alex would take a bath as soon as possible.

He walked to the other room and found a bedroom with two beds. Not a single bed, okay. So, we are probably cousins or just friends. For the way Val'Tar talked in the dungeon, being brother and sister seems to be out of the picture. There was no wardrobe. Thinking about it, he realized they needed one, but soon they would. Alex wasn't going to walk in tattered clothes forever, nor was Tina if he was going to stick around her.

All Alex could discern was that despite their being poor, their living situation wasn't that bad. Living there would not be such a problem as he had assumed before.

When he left the bedroom. He found Tina in the kitchen, gulping water from a clay filter. Her face was a strange mix of relief and anxiety. Alex extended a hand, and she gave a cup to him, who drank the water in one big gulp. He asked for more, and she promptly delivered to him.

She waited for him to finish, and her hands were still trembling when she asked with a serious expression, "Okay. No more trollshit, who are you? And what did you do to Valther?"