Blacksmith vs. the System

"What do you see?" Eleanor whispered two minutes later, as we stood a distance away from them. Finding them hadn't been too difficult, as they retreated back to the canyon they previously wanted to use as an ambush spot.

"As far as I can tell, all of them are here, and they look tense," I said. "My best guess is, they are afraid of another attack."

"Good. They should be," she added even as her sword — well, technically my sword, but the more I watched her, the more I was convinced that it wouldn't matter — flashed, and another monster died without making a sound.

Her ability to kill the monsters silently was one reason we had managed to stay concealed despite our relative closeness. Two hundred yards wasn't close, but it wasn't that distant either. Luckily, without their scouts, it was much harder for them to hear anything.

Also, it helped that most of the monsters in the immediate vicinity had already been killed during either the earlier swarms or their return, and the few that remained fell to her attacks easily, her vitality attacks cutting the monsters' shells like butter.

"I would have said that we should return to the first floor and get some reinforcements, but I don't like their attitude," I said.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"They are tense, but not really fearful. It feels like they are waiting for something."

"Maybe reinforcements?" she asked.

"Maybe," I said, then paused, thinking for a moment. "Actually, it might be risky, but I have an idea," I said. She looked at me questioningly. "I need you to attack them, but retreat just as quickly."

She smirked. I was glad that I was not the target of that smirk. "Well, I was looking for an excuse to test my sword properly," she said.

Her unilateral declaration would have been annoying if the sword was actually a rare commodity, but considering I merely require half a day to forge another, it turned into something endearing. "Unfortunately, no," I said to her. "You need to use your old sword."

"Why?" she complained, her tone uncharacteristically childish. Luckily, she had the presence of mind to not shout.

"Because we don't want to give out precious information during a probing attack," I explained. Despite not having the strategic awareness of a general, even I could recognize the fact that, with the System in play, every battle was like a puzzle game. A tense, deadly puzzle game where both parties held certain cards, and a surprise could be the difference between a win and a loss.

"Fine," Eleanor responded. "I'm going to attack first, then retreat, right?" she asked.

"Yes, just wait for my signal," I said.

"Which is what?" she asked.

"I'll attack them by throwing spears from the other side," I said. "Once you hear the cries of pain, attack unless I shout for you to stop, but be careful not to be surrounded," I said. "We need to make it look like a botched assault. And, I'll smash a rock with my hammer when it's time to retreat, which should still trigger a swarm. That way, you can retreat easily."

"Is it really necessary?" she asked.

"Humor me," I responded. "It's suspicious that they are staying in place rather than trying to escape. It doesn't make sense."

"Maybe they are over-confident. They might believe that, as long as they are in a group, we can't defeat them without reinforcements. Not that we will have any worthwhile support. Maria is not in town today, and none of the guards would be of use."

"Assuming some of them weren't bribed by them in the first place," I commented, and Eleanor nodded. "They would probably have agents at the dungeon entrance, ready to warn them if that was the case," I theorized.

"That's probably why they are overconfident, and think that they can survive. We have the advantage, we should press on," she said, and then her smile turned vicious. "With my new sword, I could carve through their armor easily, so their tactic wouldn't work."

"Still, if there's one thing I learned from chess or other games, it is that assuming the enemy is making a mistake without checking can backfire badly. And, since they already expect an ambush, we're not really losing a big opportunity," I said.

I was glad that I had taken the opportunity to destroy the ballistas, or such a probing attack would have been impossible.

Too bad they had already collected the wrecked ballista. Currently, they were at the side of the canyon, discarded like garbage. Their enchantments were still in place, and I could repair them just as easily as I destroyed them.

I should have dragged one of them away when I had the chance. A pity. Just as I was about to move, my instincts, which had been used intensively during my days as a professor, had tingled in warning. "Try to be on the side of caution. It's just a probing attack. No making excuses to test your new sword," I warned her.

"I wouldn't do that," she hissed, but I was sure that I didn't imagine the guilty look on her face.

"Then, we have no problem, and I don't need to threaten you with not forging you a matching dagger," I smirked back, enjoying her affronted expression. Now that we were on a more equal footing, she was surprisingly easy to tease.

I carefully circled the group before I once again pulled my atlatl, and released three short spears in quick succession. I aimed all three to their heads, as just because it was a probing attack didn't mean I was against thinning their numbers a bit.

Unfortunately, ranged attacks were much harder to land without a battle to distract them. The first spear was the closest it came to hitting the target, but even then, the guard was able to deflect it with a shield. The other two missed completely.

Meanwhile, from the other side, Eleanor charged silently and engaged with four guards. I expected the rest to respond immediately. Instead, the guards retreated back like they were overwhelmed. It was an obvious bait.

My attention was grabbed by Thomas' bodyguard, who, rather than joining the fight, had moved away from Eleanor before he pulled some kind of device and activated it. The resulting mana flare reminded me of the other attempts to communicate through dungeon floors, turning into a straight blue line before it stretched away … only significantly more intense.

Following that, he went forward, and called for Eleanor. "It's fun to see a familiar face," he called loudly as he removed his helmet. Too bad he was too deep into his camp for me to hit him with a spear.

"Georg," Eleanor called even as she stopped fighting and took a few steps back. "I should have known it was you from the smell."

"Well that's uncalled for, Eleanor," he said. "Just because we are working for different bosses doesn't mean we need to be rude to each other. It's just business." Eleanor snarled mockingly. "We're not here to hurt you, but to kill an enemy of my master. We were just trying to keep you distracted."

As they spoke, I circled the group once again, standing behind Eleanor in a position where she could see me, but the others could not, and gestured for her to continue talking, hoping that they would reveal something.

"You were just trying to kill my ally. Oh, that makes things so much better," Eleanor snarled in annoyance. "I should be thankful to your snotty master, then?"

For the first time, Georg looked angry. No, he was furious. A religious zealot fighting with another one style furious. He clearly took the insult to Thomas personally.

It didn't surprise me too much. I already had enough evidence to conclude that Charisma had an insidious effect. And, Georg had probably spent the majority of his time glued to Thomas, constantly under his Charisma. Add in the fact that he followed his orders daily, which was a good way to foster loyalty and dependence even without mixing in a supernatural pseudo-drug like Charisma.

I had a feeling that it would be useful. However, while he might have been zealous enough to defend his master's honor, that didn't mean he was foolish enough to rush forward recklessly.

"If you insist on intervening, I'll treat you as an enemy as well," Georg said in a chippy tone, acting like Eleanor wasn't the target for assassination in the first place. It wasn't convincing, but he was too angry to act in a convincing manner.

"Like you weren't going to before," Eleanor scoffed as she rushed forward to attack again, going further into the formation than I had requested. I signaled her, but she ignored it, moving deeper into the formation, where the enemy could surround her if they wished. I tightened the grip on my hammer, ready to rush forward if needed…

But, to my surprise, they only defended even as Eleanor pushed her luck. The reinforcements they had called must have been even stronger than I feared for them to miss such a golden opportunity.

Facing an unbreakable defensive line, Eleanor pulled back less than a minute later, and returned to my side. Together, we retreated enough not to fear them eavesdropping. "Did you find what you were looking for?" she asked.

"I might have found even more," I responded. "They called for reinforcements, and I feel that it's not good news."

"What do we do? Retreat?" she said, her distaste clear.

While that was a tempting idea, there was one problem. My guild was still there. They hadn't targeted it yet, probably because it was just a bunch of farmers, which made them a low-value target, not worth risking the ambush. But, if we tried to retreat … they had already shown that they had no problem killing hundreds of unrelated people just to inconvenience Maria.

"No," I said, my voice sharp enough to surprise myself. "They still don't know I can see through the mist. We go and intercept their reinforcements."

"That's more like it," Eleanor smiled viciously. Any other time, it would have been worrying. This time, it was the opposite.

I could acutely feel that I was changing, a scary concept in and of itself.