Second World

”Hey, old man! Why are you no longer spouting any nonsense now?” The Real Man enjoyed adding insult to injury. ”Did cat get your tongue? Wahaha!”

Goliath scorned his young leaderʼs childish behavior, but he did not say anything to criticize him. The guy did bring a lot of benefit to the guild with his new methods which were more efficient and ruthless, compared to the previous leaders who held too much idealism.

The game business had evolved into something of a high profitability money-making avenue, and the old fools still treating it as an old-fashioned entertainment outlet. But he was just a grunt, he had no voice in the direction the guild chose to take. Thatʼs why when The Real Man came and declared his stance, he joined the young manʼs camp at once.

Bowler, Flame, and The Manʼs HP kept on falling. They could not find a path to retreat to, as they had been encircled. They could only fight as best as they could, trying to take at least a few of their opponents down with them. But their opponents were cunning, whenever one of their HP fell by even one-third, they would retreat and let their comrades took over. They then drank their recovery potions before re-engaging. They totally abused their advantage in numbers.

The Real Man was laughing his ass off and Goliath was wearing a smug smile on his face, both enjoying a deep sense of superiority watching their men bully their three prey. They were so absorbed by the show that they did not notice a movement from behind them.

Goliath, whose sense was sharper finally became aware, but it was too late. He brandished his large mace in front of him when he turned to his back, trying to use it as a shield. The mace did indeed block the sudden sneak attack, but the impact surprised him. His heavy mace bounced up due to a tremendous force, leaving him completely open.

He caught a glimpse of the ambusher, it was a man in fully garbed medium armors, using a one-handed black longsword. Which confused him, how was that one-handed longsword contained the monstrous force to threw his heavy two-handed mace aside as if it was a simple wooden stick?

Before his consternation was over, he was presented with another unreasonable occurrence. His ambusher twirled his sword with incredible speed. The sword slashed onto his armor without him managed to react.

He did not think much of it at first, he was preparing to swing his lifted mace down to bash his opponentʼs skull when the person slashed at him. But when the sword struck, he felt as if he had been hit by a fully loaded speeding truck. His body flew away at high speed.

His eyes were wide with disbelief as he watched his attacker getting smaller and smaller. His attacker completely ignored him after sending him away and turned his attention to The Real Man that was beside him just a moment ago. He was feeling an intense unwillingness before his vision trembled when his back crashed heavily onto the trunk of a large tree far away from where he stood a moment ago.

After sending the large man who appeared to be more of a threat away with Power Strike, Jack turned to the smaller guy who seemed to be the leader of the group. He had arrived a few seconds ago but did not immediately dive into the brawl. He listened to the two people standing a distance away and deduced from their conversation that the smaller one was the one calling the shot, and decided to attack them instead.

The Real Man was caught completely off guard. His facial expression was still pausing at a laughing position when he saw Goliath flew away without any warning. When he turned to Goliathʼs prior position, he saw a stranger coming at him.

He was about to shout a warning at the stranger to tell him who they were and how foolish he was to go against them, but the strangerʼs black longsword was already swinging before him. The thought of pulling out his weapon had never crossed his mind because the act of a lone player attacking him amid his gang was so absurd that it was borderline insane. But as the longsword cut through his armor, he was forced to accept the reality.

He was about to laugh at his attackerʼs stupidity and asked his minions to punish this irrational ambusher, but he was stopped short again when he noticed the HP he had lost from that one slash. The damage number above him indicated that he had lost 96 HP, but it did not make any sense. He did not feel the pushback force from Power Strike skill, the slash just now should only be a normal attack, but how come the damage was so high? With his fully geared armor, even Goliathʼs attack would not give him such high damage.

He looked again at his remaining HP to make sure there was no mistake, but it again decreased drastically as another two slashes swiftly carved through his body. His HP bar was less than half already by now. He was beginning to panic, but his body did not move until the fourth slash hit. By then, his HP pool had only 43 points left.

As The Real Man started to react and tried to move away, Jack used his left hand to catch the guyʼs shoulder and utilized his overpowering strength to pull him down and keep him in place. His long sword stopped close to the guyʼs neck. The fellow only had 43 HP left, one stroke was enough to send him to his grave.

”Everyone please stopped,” Jack uttered.

Some that saw Jackʼs action had already stopped when they saw Goliath got sent flying with one hit. But many others were still unaware and were still fighting with The Man, Bowler, and Fierce Flame. The sequence of Goliath and The Real Man got attacked was so fast that not even half a minute had passed. The ones that were aware nudged his friends who were still attacking to ask them to stop.

”What,” Those others grumbled unhappily. Why disturb them when they were so enjoyingly bullying people? Their friends made an eye signal telling them to look in the direction of their boss.

”Everyone, stop now! Or your boss goes bye-bye,” Jack called out in a louder voice as some players were still continuing to be unaware and kept on attacking.

The last shout finally attracted the remaining ones. They stopped and looked at Jack in bewilderment. The Man, Bowler, and Fierce Flame were finally able to catch their breath and assessed the situation.

”B–boss!” The Man called out. He was as surprised as the members of Warriors of Solidarity.

”Boss?” Goliath who had just managed to pick himself up, looked at The Man in confusion.

Fierce Flame was more decisive compared to his other two comrades. She backed away at once and took out a basic healing potion to replenish her lost HP. Bowler and The Man after seeing Flameʼs action immediately followed suit.

The members of Warriors of Solidarity who saw what the other three did, wanted to intercept, but Jack quickly reminded them again of his hostage, ”careful! You donʼt want to be responsible for your bossʼ losing all his levels and equipment, do you?”

”W–who are you?!” The Real Man who was being constrained, finally could speak up. His face was red as he was fuming with rage. ”Do you know who I am?”

”Oh? Who are you?” Jack asked calmly.

”I am the co-leader of Warriors of Solidarity! You will apologize and let me go now, and I will let you compensate me and then will I probably forgive you and not have all my members coming after you!”

”Why would I do that?”

”Why… What do you mean why? I am the co-leader of the famous guild Warriors of Solidarity!” The Real Man repeated his words, assuming Jack did not hear him correctly the first time.

”What about it?” Jack replied with the same relax tone, as if what was happening now was no big deal at all.

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