Gathering Husbands with a System in a Game Like World [BL]

The Guild staging point sat at the edge of the eastern warehouse district, half-hidden behind a row of closed storage buildings.

Kai arrived with Elias at his side and the letter still folded in his cloak. The air smelled of river mud and rusting iron. Three adventurers waited under a weak lamp.

The team consisted of a brute, healer and a shield.

The shield was a broad human woman with a scarred tower shield strapped to her back. The healer was a quiet half-elf man carrying a staff marked with green runes. The brute was a heavy beastfolk with thick arms and a massive war hammer resting on one shoulder. They looked competent, not friendly.

The shield woman nodded once.

”Ren Arclight. Vesper Cain. Seris said you both are the lead on this. We clear the building, you handle whatever’s inside that needs handling. Simple.”

Kai returned the nod.

”Any word on the merchant?”

”He’s the one who rented the space. Name’s Gorran. Mid-level trader, deals in ’specialty goods’. He should be inside with the buyers tonight. If he’s anything like the rumors then we should be skeptical he might have a few tricks under his sleeves be ready.

Elias smiled without warmth.

”Then we don’t give him time to be smart.”

They moved in under cover of the district’s poor lighting. The warehouse was a long two-storey structure with barred windows and a heavy main door. Two guards stood outside. Elias handled them quietly before the rest of the team even reached the wall. The bodies were dragged into the shadows without a word

”Let’s use the roof” Elias said gesturing upwards.

The Elf nodded and sunmoned a bubble to enclose them all and floated them to the rooftop..

On getting there, they moved across the rooftops in silence. Below them the eastern warehouse sat dark except for a single row of lamps burning on the upper floor. Voices sounded faintly through the open skylights. Kai counted five men inside from the sound alone. Elias held up three fingers, then pointed down. The shield woman, the healer and the brute nodded.

They dropped together.

Glass and wooden framing shattered under their boots as the five of them crashed into the middle of the exchange.

The merchant Gorran and a hooded man in fine clothes froze mid-handshake. Four armed guards spun around with weapons already drawn.

Elias landed lightly, already twirling a plain dagger between his fingers. His voice was almost pleasant.

”Surrender or die. Choose one.”

Gorran’s face went white.

”You said we were secure!”

The hooded buyer snarled under his breath.

”You said they wouldn’t find us!”

Kai straightened, hood still up, and felt the System flicker at the edge of his sight.

[Multiple hostile signatures confirmed.]

[Anomalous energy traces present on several crates.]

The buyer recovered first. He stepped back and barked the order.

”Kill them! All of them!”

The guards moved.

Elias moved faster.

What happened next barely looked like a fight. He stepped into the first guard’s swing, caught the wrist, and drove the dagger up under the chin in the same motion. The body had not yet fallen when he turned, slit the second guard’s throat from behind, and kicked the third into the fourth. Two clean thrusts ended them. The last guard tried to run for the stairs. Elias threw the dagger. It took the man through the back of the neck and pinned him to the wooden post. The entire sequence lasted less than ten heartbeats.

Silence fell.

The shield woman let out a low breath.

”Damn. He really left nothing for us.”

The brute stared at the bodies, war hammer still half-raised.

”And here I was thinking I was the brute. This guy is more evil than I would ever be.”

The healer looked at Elias with open caution.

”You sure that guy is a security informant?”

The shield snorted.

”Obviously he isn’t, dummy.”

Kai felt an unexpected flicker of something that was almost pride. He kept his voice dry.

”That’s an S-Rank Assassin named Vesper Cain for you.”

Elias glanced back at him, eyes gleaming, but said nothing. He turned instead to the two men still standing. The buyer had gone rigid. Gorran was shaking.

”You monster,” the merchant whispered.

Elias smiled without any warmth.

”Start talking or you end up like them.”

Gorran’s hand darted under the table. A mechanical click sounded. Metal shutters along the far wall slammed upward.

Heavy cages rolled forward on tracks that couldn’t be indetified and the doors sprang open at once.

Then a succession of growls sounded in the room from the open cage.

Suddenly, Corrupted dogs poured out of them , the size of ponies, violet light pulsing under matted fur.

Behind them came larger shapes: long-limbed cat beasts and one heavy black-and-white form that looked like a panda twisted by the same wrong energy. The air filled with low growls and the sharp stink of corrupted mana.

Elias rolled his eyes, stepped in, and casually drove his dagger into the buyer’s heart without looking at him. The man dropped. Then he turned, pinned Gorran’s foot to the floorboards with a second blade, and left it there.

”Here. That way you can’t run.”

Gorran screamed.

Elias flexed his empty hands and smiled at the approaching beasts.

”Finally. Some sport.”

The room exploded into motion.

Kai met the first dog with a full-strength punch that caved its skull.

A second dog latched onto his forearm; he pried the jaws open and slammed the creature into a support beam hard enough to crack the wood.

The shield woman locked her stance and took the charge of a large cat head-on, boots sliding. The brute’s hammer rose and fell, crushing ribs and limbs. The healer’s staff flared green, sending minor attack spells to incoming beasts.

Elias waded through the pack like he was taking a stroll. Fists and knees did most of the work. A dog tried to take his throat; he caught it mid-air and broke its spine over his knee. Another he simply punched so hard the body folded around his arm. He looked almost disappointed by how quickly they fell.

Kai drove his shoulder into a cat beast and felt claws rake across his back. He gritted his teeth, grabbed the thing by the neck and one hind leg, and tore. Dark blood sprayed. The System noted the kill without comment.

Then suddenly, there was a change...the temperature in the room seemed to drop.

A much larger shape unfolded from the deepest of the cage. It had to duck to clear into the opening. The body was wrong in every direction: thick wolf-like shoulders, elongated feline hind legs, a cluster of mismatched horns, and a head that still carried the ghost of the Mistfang Tyrant’s skull. Violet energy leaked from cracks in its hide like liquid flames.

The air itself distorted around it, the pressure shifting in waves, creating a mirage effect you could only get from intense heat.

Kai’s breath caught.

”Wait... isn’t that—”

[Correct. Identification suggests this is the Mistfang Tyrant from weeks ago in Emeraldwood.]

”He looks different.”

[Confirmed. The subject has been heavily modified. Chimeric restructuring detected. Power level significantly elevated beyond previous record.]

The brute never even saw it move.

One moment the big man was raising his hammer. The next he was on the floor in two pieces, the chimera already standing over the body. Blood spread across, everywhere.

The shield woman shouted. The healer stumbled back. Elias’s head snapped toward the creature, eyes wide for the first time that night.

The chimera turned. Its gaze locked on Kai. Time seemed to stretch. Kai saw the massive clawed hand rising. He saw Elias already moving, face set in something close to panic, still too far away. He heard Gorran laughing wildly through the pain in his foot, the sound high and broken. The claw came down.

Bang.

A dark shape slammed into the chimera from the side hard enough to drive it through a stack of crates and into the far wall

The pressure in the room shifted again to something more bearable. Dust and black mist filled the air.

When it cleared, Dexter stood between Kai and the rising chimera, one blade already drawn, fox ears flat to his skull, tail low and still. He did not look at Kai. He did not look at Elias or the remaining two.

His eyes stayed fixed on the thing that had almost ended the fight in a single blow.

The chimera pushed itself free of the wreckage, violet light flaring brighter along its cracked hide. It opened a mouth full of too many teeth and screamed.

Dexter rolled one shoulder and settled into a loose stance.

The real fight had only just begun.