“A**hole! You are looking down on us!” One of the members shouted, but was soon shut down by a punch from Bigarm’s fist. “Control yourself!” He said.
He then returned his gaze to Jack. “You sound pretty full of yourself.”
“For people who only have a mediocre ability, saying things like what I said indeed sound full of themselves.”
“So you are saying you are not?”
“I’m saying I have the right to sound full of myself!” Jack exclaimed with an imperious voice.
Bigarm was slightly taken aback by Jack’s confidence. This was the first time someone came up looking to join their guild with such cockiness. Usually the ones that came to join had to beg and even paid for it, and that will only get them to the entrance test.
To be honest, they actually did recruit members actively at this time. Due to them being stationed in Bay city which was only a branch of Death Associates, those that came to this city were only a small fraction of the actual Death Associates guild. They were badly outnumbered by guilds such as White Scarfs. Hence, they needed to increase their number to be able to compete.
After they registered their guild into the formal system of this world, they found out that there was a limit to the member counts. The guild also had levels. At the start of their level 1 guild, they could only have a maximum of 500 members.
White Scarfs which was currently the largest guild in terms of member counts, immediately filled up their maximum number once the formal guild was formed. There were even some that cannot be included as formal members so they had to continue to stay as unofficial members. While for their guild, they were only a little over 300 members, that were already included many new recruits from over the past few days.
“Everybody can say what they want,” Bigarm said. “you will need to show me your ability if you want to join our guild.”
Jack smirked, “I’m not that interested anymore after seeing this rabble, but I wouldn’t mind showing off my ability so you lot can understand what a true expert is.”
He could clearly see many of those guild members’ faces were red with anger from his words, but they kept their mouths sealed after witnessing the previous one that voiced out his discontent got smacked. The expression on Bigarm’s face himself was also dark. Could he have overdone it? Jack thought.
“You!” Bigarm pointed at one of his members who was wearing a magician robe. The guy came forward.
“You will race with him and compete to hit the most targets that we had set up.”
Bigarm then instructed the others to start setting up the targets. It appeared that they had chosen this park as their gathering place because they could use it to set up trials for testing the new recruits.
“Race? Don’t make me laugh!” Jack snickered. “What are we, toddlers? If you are gonna give a test, just throw people for me to fight. I don’t mind tackling three or five of you at the same time.”
Bigarm was speechless with him, he said helplessly, “dude, if we do that, the guards will be swarming at us.”
“Then let’s go outside the city,” Jack said without hesitation.
Bigarm was hesitant, they did need strong recruits, but this man was a little too full of himself. Was he for real or was he only a show-off? After thinking about it for a while, he said. “Fine, let’s go. But let me warn you. Don’t expect us to let you go unharmed if you turn out to be a weakling and wasting all our time.”
Before they left, Bigarm sent a short message to Scarface explaining the situation. He then led the lots towards the nearest city gate, Jack walked together with them. The sight of them walking on the street was pretty intimidating,. It was like those gangster movies from the olden days.
Whether they were NPCs or players, those who saw the crowd coming would immediately part way to let them through. Some guards who noticed them also decided to derail from their regular patrol routes and followed them. Such a crowd could easyly incur problems, thus they needed to be there if it happened.
Many players who saw and identified them as Death Associates started to have their curiosity picked, and followed after them.
“Isn’t that Bigarm from Death Associates?”
“Where are they going?”
“Are they on some kind of a quest?”
Jack could see Bigarm was enjoying the walk and the attention, it was evident from his face. With so many people following him from behind, he would feel like a big boss or a king in a parade. After traveling for some time, they finally arrived at the city gate. The city guards who were following them could finally let out a relieved sigh after seeing them walking out of the gate.
The crowd had actually become bigger due to those players who were curious about the procession. They formed an outer ring at the open field outside the city gate while the Death Associates people formed the inner ring. Jack and Bigarm stood at the center.
“What are they doing exactly?” The crowd who came due to curiosity said. They couldn’t see what’s happening inside due to Death Associates members blocking the view.
Bigarm picked three people from his lot, a Fighter, a Ranger, and a Magician. A complete set of the basic classes. Jack scanned the three, the Fighter was level 16, while the Ranger and Mage were level 15.
“You want to prove yourself, ain’t it? So you wouldn’t mind going against the three of them at the same time, right?” Bigarm said with a mocking grin to Jack.
Jack was amused by it. The guy must be thinking of him as a fraud and wanted to teach him a lesson. Very well, he needed to defy their expectation in order for them to treat him as an important asset. Otherwise, even if he managed to join the guild, being an ordinary starting member would be pointless.
Bigarm and the other Death Associates members moved back, giving the four some space. The empty space soon became a circular ring for them to do the sparring.
“There is one thing I need to say,” Jack said to Bigarm.
“What is it?” Bigarm asked. He was annoyed by Jack’s arrogance, he couldn’t wait to see him getting beaten to a pulp. “If you are thinking of pulling out now, you can forget about it. We are not walking all the way out here just for fresh air.”
“That’s not what I wanted to say. I just want to tell you that I am not in the habit of easing off. I won’t be held accountable if the three of them died during our fight.”
Bigarm’s mouth twitched after hearing it. His mind was blank for a moment. That’s it! This guy was asking for it!
“That’s what I am about to say! Actually, this fight is to be to the death. No one is allowed to leave if the opponent is still alive. You three! If the three of you fail to take him down, don’t bother to come out, I will put the three of you down myself!”
The three Death Associates men inside the ring shuddered when hearing it. Bigarm was known to be brutal when he was angry. This arrogant stranger had provoked him, and the three of them were the ones that got scolded. They looked at Jack with hate in their eyes. They would make sure to not let him leave this place alive.
“Squid, you stay at the back and blast him with your spells. Us two will take him on at close quarter,” the Fighter of the group said.
The Mage called Squid nodded his head.
“Let’s teach this motherf**ka a lesson!” The ranger rushed ahead.
“Hey, wait for me!” The Fighter chased behind.
Squid began the fight by casting Energy Bolts. His bolts were surprisingly only four. So there was still a Magician at level 15 who did not invest their skill points to bring the Energy Bolts to at least level 8. The four bolts rushed past the two incoming melee players and arrived at Jack first.
Jack twirled his staff as if it was a sword and slashed at the incoming bolts. His movements were so fast that he slashed at the three bolts with one fluid movement, while using the round shield on his left hand to block the last bolt.
