Chapter 165 (1/2)

Chapter 165: A Woman Who Put Fear into Link’s Heart

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio  Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

The scene took place just 200 feet away from Link. He quickly made a decision.

That merchant mustn’t die, neither can I let those robbers die. I have some questions to ask them!

By that time, the robbers had pulled open the carriage door.

“Is it gold coins that you want?” shouted the horrified merchant in panic. “I can give you however much you want! 100 gold coins? 200? A thousand?”

“Stop wasting your time,” the robber sneered. “Once you’re dead, all your money will be ours!” Then the robber stabbed a dagger right at the merchant’s heart.

Surprisingly, to both the robber and the merchant, the dagger hadn’t touched the merchant’s skin but was stopped by a white shining shield that appeared out of thin air. The robber could feel a strong deflective force coming from the dagger. Now, not only was he unable to stab the dagger through the shield, he even had difficulties in holding on to the dagger’s hilt.

Clang!

The dagger was suddenly pushed out of the robber’s hand and flung far away by an inexplicable force. Even the robber himself lost his balance and fell off from the carriage.

“What’s going on? What’s going on!” the robber screamed in shock and terror. He simply couldn’t wrap his head around what just happened.

The next moment, he saw a dozen white lines in the air, followed by a series of small explosions. Then all he could hear was the sound of his brothers screaming in pain. When he turned around, he discovered that all his brothers who had been with him had fallen to the ground. He didn’t know if they were dead or alive, but this was just too horrifying!

The sight before him had made the robber’s blood run cold. All he could do was stand there with his jaw dropped so low that one could fit a duck’s egg into his mouth! Then, he saw a young man wearing an ink-blue robe walk towards him. This man was shrouded in a faint white aura, and he looked so mystifying that the robber was wakened from his stupor.

“Please spare me, Master Magician!” he pleaded. “I won’t do anything to cross you again! Please spare me!”

Link was disgusted at the sight of this robber who had an ugly wolf tattoo on his cheek. Within a few seconds he’d thrown all his dignity away and begged for mercy to save his own hide. Link had no sympathy for a man like that.

“Get up!” said Link. “Carry all your men into the woods. If you attempt to run away from me, then you’ll get a real taste of my magic power!”

As he spoke, Link unleashed a Whistle onto a big boulder beside the road. The boulder was a brown mudstone of about three cubic feet in size, so it wasn’t a particularly hard material. The moment Link cast the Whistle, it shot through the air with a high-pitched screech and hit right in the middle of the boulder.

Bang!

The boulder was now reduced to crumbling fragments of rocks that were sent flying through the air. The robber was just an ordinary Level-1 Warrior, so he wasn’t at all accustomed to this level of power. He gulped continuously as he watched the big boulder get reduced to clumps of clay. His face was getting green with fear now and all the thoughts he had of running for his life were extinguished. He then began to obediently carry the bodies of his brothers into the forest one at a time.

Meanwhile, Link walked up to the carriage and looked inside. He discovered the merchant sitting there shaking like a leaf. There was also an unpleasant smell inside the carriage – the merchant had pissed himself in fear. Link frowned deeply in repulsion at the offensive stench.

“Get up!” Link scowled at the merchant. “Drive your carriage into the forest right there.”

They weren’t that far away from the academy gates, so parking it on the roadside here would make it too conspicuous and that might attract unwanted attention.

The merchant didn’t dare to defy Link’s orders, so he clumsily climbed into the coachman’s seat and tried to drive the carriage. It was obvious that he’d never done it before, but after a struggling for a few minutes, he finally got the carriage moving. Meanwhile, Link helped maintained the horses’ movement by casting a few Fireballs near them to scare them and force them to move forward. In the end they managed to get the carriage into the forest after much effort.

The three of them then walked out onto a small path in the forest. Link stood leaning against a big tree trunk and slowly poured his Mana into the Memory Crystal that he’d always been carrying around lately. This Memory Crystal would record everything that happened here – all the voices and images as well. This would later be useful as an important piece of evidence when Link decided to expose Elena’s covert actions.

“Tell me,” Link barked at the robber, “who ordered you to kill the merchant?”

“No…no one,” the robber answered, waving his hands in denial, “I just wanted to rob his money…”

“Do you take me for a fool?” Link’s wand then lit up and a Glass Orb flew out of its tip and headed towards the robber’s head. It stopped abruptly a mere couple inches in front of the robber’s face. Then, Link gradually loosened his control over the fire elements in the Glass Orb, transforming it from a dimly glowing orb to a gradually brighter fireball. Even the air around it started to roil up from the intense heat and the robber’s hair was beginning to singe as well.

The robber was now so scared that he stood there rooted to the ground; large beads of cold sweat streamed down his forehead and he kept gulping in fear while his eyes still darted around uncertainly. Yes, he was afraid of Link, but this fear was still not enough to make him spill the identity of the person behind this.

“Don’t try my patience!” warned Link. He once again let loose his control over the fire elements in the Glass Orb. With a frightening whoosh, the Glass Orb’s surface turned into flames. The robber’s face was burned by the fire which made him recoil instinctively.

“I don’t know who she was,” he suddenly spilled out, no longer daring to be silent, “but she ordered us to wait by the road for a carriage to pass by. If that carriage made this stone glow, then she ordered us to kill everyone inside it.” As he spoke, the robber slipped out a thumb-sized stone from his pocket with lines of runes on its surface. It was undoubtedly a magic rune stone.

Link noticed that the robber used the word “she”, so the person behind this must be a woman—it was most likely Elena.

He didn’t touch the rune stone, but instead just examined the runes on its surface from afar. After a while, a notification about the rune stone appeared on the interface.

Green Rune Stone (Auxiliary)

Quality: Fine