Chapter 216 - Milking Out Loot (1/2)

”Let's start the second round, shall we?” Argentum said with a light chuckle, a stark contrast to the fear and anxiety the humans felt from how easy it was for the Wind Spirit, which they sought out to capture, to kill them. In actuality, disregarding what Argentum was portraying on the outside, Argentum was feeling incredible shock and surprise from the attack he had just made.

'Although [Lesser Wind Magic] is only at the C-grade Mortal level, to think that it has enough power to pierce through the head of a Rank 0 Animate without a problem…' This was the thought that came to his mind, recalling how the wind bolt he threw pierced through that man's head like butter. Thanks to this, he felt a bit more confident in his power to kill them in one hit.

'Then again, that arrow was incredibly close. If it was aimed at a slightly curved angle, it would've definitely hit me, even in my current form,' Argentum thought to himself as he inwardly let out a sigh of relief, remembering how close the arrow was to hitting him. 'Of course, even if they hit me, I would still say they missed regardless.'

After he was finished pondering, he then focused his sense of vision back to the six remaining humans out of the seven, with all of them looking at the recently killed human with bated breaths. The words said by Argentum a while ago seemed to serve as a wake-up call to what was happening to them right now, prompting them to focus their trains of thought back to the game, huddling together once more to talk about the second person to attempt the game.

Unlike before, the discussion between the six did not go so peacefully since they were now aware of what would happen to them if they did not hit or graze Argentum. Surprisingly, even though that was the case, the six of them eventually chose a human to participate in the second round, who was one of the four archers hidden a while ago when they thought they would be able to capture Argentum without a problem.

Then again, Argentum heard the discussion between the six of them as they chose on who was going to participate in the round, with that human only agreeing to participate after being offered a lot of rewards in exchange. Thanks to that, the confidence the human had in successfully clearing this second round was quite high as he recalled the additional rewards he would obtain if he succeeded. But that did not stop him from recalling what had happened a while ago, his confidence slightly wavering in exchange for fear and anxiety.

Nevertheless, that human moved in front of the six with a bow tightly clenched. Seeing this, Argentum went ahead and shouted, ”Are you the one that's going to participate in the second round?”

In response to his question, the human nodded, to which Argentum replied, ”Let us begin the second round, then!”

At the very instant Argentum was finished speaking, the human soon started to move, with Argentum going ahead and telling him whether he was near or far from Argentum. Of course, while Argentum was doing this, he could not help but snigger inwardly as he thought, 'Although these humans know where I currently am thanks to the first round, I'm going to mislead them into thinking that I've moved to another tree, even though I haven't.'

'As long as their heads turn around to look at the human running away from my attack, I could keep up this facade until the last human dies under my bolt,' Argentum thought to himself, thinking that it was quite a genius plan.

And so, a few minutes have passed, with the verdict being Argentum leading the human to believe that he was in a tree slightly far away from where Argentum currently was. Hearing those words, the human's confidence slightly increased as he recalled the rewards he would get after this, pulling back on the string of the bow to its limit before letting it go, creating a slightly louder twang sound than what was made by the first human.

Whoosh!

Accompanied by that sound, the arrow passed through the tree at a significantly higher speed, only for it to go past its leaves without Argentum saying anything. At this point, the human's confidence was instantly replacing with gradually intensifying fear and anxiety. The human's legs were trembling, not wanting to imagine what would happen to him.

Just as Argentum was about to state his verdict on the second round, the human went ahead and ran as fast as he could away from Argentum. In response to this, Argentum's voice resounded throughout the area as he sighed, saying, ”To be honest, I was planning to spare you on the second round, but since you've decided to run away, we're back to painless deaths.”

”[Tempest Awakening].”

”[Lesser Wind Magic: Wind Bolt].”

Whoosh! Bang!

And just like that, the wind bolt hastily made its way towards its target once more, this time aiming at the human's throat. Thanks to the status boosting buff applied on the attack, the wind bolt easily pierced through the human's throat, making a hole large enough that even turned the man's arteries to shreds, leading to a gushing blood fountain coming from his throat as he tried to close it up with his hands.

Unfortunately, the amount of blood he was losing was severe, eventually leading to his death as he fell to the ground with his hands clutched around his throat. Looking at the fate of the second human in their group, the remaining five's fear and anxiety towards Argentum had reached a higher level, wondering if the Wind Spirit they were up against was so strong that any part it hit from them would lead to their death.

Of course, Argentum wouldn't tell them how strong he truly was.

After the death of the second human, Argentum went ahead and shouted, ”And with that done, let us now move on to the third round!”

Unfortunately for Argentum, just as he thought that the humans were going to obediently follow his rules and proceed with the third round like some servant, one of the humans went ahead and cried out in response to his words, ”This game is rigged! You attacked from the location you were in on the first round! Doesn't that mean that you intentionally said the first person missed while you misled the second person to their death?”