‘He can already kill A-Rank monsters by himself? Is he bluffing or… No, the Saintess is here. He wouldn’t lie so blatantly before her, and she would definitely call him out if he was lying.’ Khrome swallowed nervously.
Since Camille wasn’t saying anything, that meant Leo was telling the truth when he claimed to have killed A-Rank monsters by himself.
‘This guy can already hunt A-Rank monsters at his age… Just what kind of background does he have? Only powerhouses like the Scarlet Family and the Light Family would have such talents…’
Sometime later, Khrome tossed a steel sword that weighed around 90kg to Leo.
“Can you handle it?” He asked.
Leo casually swung the sword around and nodded, “No problem.”
“In order to make this as fair as possible, we’re going to use the same weapon. Any complaints?”
“None.”
“Great. Then as your senior, I will let you make the first movement— No, I will only defend for the first three minutes.” Khrome said with an arrogant-looking smile on his face.
“You better not make any excuses when you lose.” Leo said.pᴀɴᴅᴀ-ɴ0ᴠᴇʟ.ᴄᴏᴍ
“Don’t worry, that won’t happen.”
“Then here I come!” Leo confronted Khrome the next second, taking a step forward while swinging his sword at the same time.
Clang!
Khrome perfectly blocked his strike.
pᴀɴᴅᴀ-ɴ0ᴠᴇʟ ‘Heavy!’ The smile on Khrome’s face widened when he felt Leo’s strength for the first time in two months since their last spar.
“Looks like I can finally have some fun, pipsqueak!” Khrome laughed out loud as he proceeded to block many more of Leo’s strikes.
However, the smile on his face would slowly become a nervous one, eventually disappearing completely.
‘This pipsqueak… Not only is he executing the combos perfectly but he’s even improved on some of them!’ Khrome didn’t recognize some of Leo’s combos but they felt similar to the ones he knew.
Over the next three minutes, Khrome would not only block all of Leo’s strikes, he would assess it and try to learn from it. His experience may be more than Leo, but he had to admit that Leo had better technique and movement than him. pᴀɴᴅᴀ ɴ0ᴠᴇʟ
Once the three minutes was up, Khrome stopped being on the defensive and went on the offensive, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing since he had more room for mistakes.
Because Khrome was focused on defense, Leo had a hard time breaking it. However, now that he’s also attacking, Leo could find a chance to counter.
“C’mon, Leon! Is this all you got?! Your words had more power to it than your actual strikes!” Khrome suddenly began provoking him.
A slight grin suddenly appeared on Leo’s face.
Khrome instinctively shuddered when he saw Leo’s grin, but before he could react to it, Leo’s speed exploded out of nowhere, taking him by surprise.
“What?!”
Leo’s sword struck Khrome’s body several times in the blink of an eye, sending him flying afterward.
Khrome collapsed on his back a couple of meters away, and for some reason, he didn’t get back up. Instead, he remained lying on the floor while staring at the ceiling with a blank gaze.
“Are you okay?” Leo walked up to him and asked.
“Not bad, pipsqueak. You purposefully weakened yourself during the first three minutes to mislead me into thinking that was all you’re capable of. You really had me fooled.” Khrome said with a smile on his face as he sat up.
Ding!
[+10 Magic Points]
After defeating Khrome, who was an A-Rank Adventurer, Leo finished his quest that required him to defeat an F-Rank Adventurer.
Of course, he immediately purchased the quest again.
“I only defeated you because of the surprise. Now that you know what I am capable of, I doubt I will defeat you again.” Leo smiled.
“You’re damn right you won’t defeat me a second time!” Khrome laughed out loud, not minding his defeat at all. In fact, he was incredibly happy that Leo had managed to defeat him.
Once Khrome got back to his feet, he said, “Alright, let’s do it again.”
“Sure.” Leo didn’t mind fighting Khrome again even though he knew that he would lose.
They started their 2nd round shortly after, and just as he’d expected, Khrome swept the floor with him.
After the fight ended, Khrome said, “So I heard about your situation from the Saintess. You’re in hiding right now because you’re being hunted by some unknown person, right?”
“That’s right.” He nodded.
“I don’t know if there’s anything I can do to help your situation, but I will try asking around.” Khrome said.
“No, I appreciate your consideration, but I don’t want you to get mixed up in my problem.” Leo shook his head.
“So what are your plans? Don’t tell me you’re going to stay in hiding and hope this person forgets about you?” Khrome then asked.
“I don’t know yet, but I will figure something out.”
“Alright. I will be staying in this city for a few weeks because of an upcoming mission. If you need me, you know where to find me— the Adventurers’ Guild.”
“What kind of mission?” Leo asked out of curiosity.
“We’re going to be raiding an A-Rank monster nest,” he said.
“Monster nest?” Leo’s eyes flickered with excitement.
In his eyes, a monster nest had a lot of monsters, and that means a lot of Magic Points.
Khrome looked at him weirdly. “Don’t tell me you want to participate in this raid?”
“Can I?”
“You’ll need to be at least a B-Rank Adventurer to officially participate.” Khrome said.
“And when is this raid going to occur?”
“In a month and half.”
‘A month and half… The tournament starts in three weeks, meaning I will have around three weeks to be promoted to a B-Rank Adventurer… It might be doable.’ Leo pondered to himself.
“If you can reach B-Rank before then and also defeat me again, I will recommend you to join my raid team.” Khrome said, almost as though he knew what Leo was thinking.
“Okay.” Leo nodded.
