Chapter 174 (2/2)

Especially considering he had only been strong enough to get into the Northeast area of the prison. The North and West were dominated by people far above his skill level. But now that his Spear Mastery was barely over a hundred, and the other skills had risen by about 20 each, hopefully Randidly would be able to hold his own in the Regional Tournament.

Shal had been very tight lipped about that issue, simply giving him a scathing look when he had asked. So Randidly let it slide for now. Shal obviously wanted the top 8 as much as Randidly did, probably more. He had wanted it enough to call him up to this Cohort, which was quite dangerous. At the time, Randidly had been quite weak. From the talk around the camp, Randidly had been able to gather that there were still monsters here, but that they often were much, much stronger, and forced back to certain areas.

If he had wandered into one of those places…

When Randidly arrived at the boat, he found someone else had beaten him there, and was standing there, with his hands on his hips, yelling at the top of his lungs. “What is this!?!? How dare you touch my wares! You’ve doomed yourself. I will crush every little.”

“Enough.” Divveltian said, his voice carrying a strange weight to it, even though he was standing 5 meters away, at the edge of their ships deck, and the yelling man was on another ship.

When the vocal wave hit the small, portly little merchant looking fellow, he froze, and then hiccuped. Randidly watched then, bemused, as the merchant seemed unable to control his body, and began to twitch. The twitching became increasing violent, until the merchant keeled over forward and fell in the water.

Shaking his head at the idiocy, Randidly leapt over back onto their boat.

It seemed that the water had done some good, because the fool resurfaced, but in addition to spluttering, he once more began yelling. “Yes, yes! Enjoy it now! You have no idea who I am. I’ll crush this little enterprise like bugs- hrrkk!”

The man’s head jerked backwards, as the nameless male spear attendant managed to hit the drowning merchant in the head with a bar of iron. As the merchant began to bob unsteadily, looking ready to pass out and really die, Divveltian walked over to the male spear attendant and clapped him on the back.

“To think I had written you off as a talentless retainer…! Boy, never give up your dreams!”

“What do you mean, talentless retainer?” The male spear attendant asked, frowning. By this point, Helen and Teliph had walked over to him as well.

“When I first met you, I directly assessed you as no threat to me.” Teliph said with relish. Then he sighed dramatically. “But to think your manipulation of garbage had progressed to such a degree….”

“Wait-”

Helen interrupted him before he could get a word in edgewise. “Even I am intimidated at your talent as a merchant. If I had a daughter of marriage age with some sort of physical handicap, I would gladly offer her body to you and know she would be well cared for, if physically unfulfilled.”

“You-!!” The male spear attendant’s face hand gone completely red, and he stepped forward and stabbed towards Helen with his spear. She chortled and twisted, spinning around the attack and past the male spear attendant. Then she kicked the back of his knees, knocking him off his feet.

“You are as graceful as a fucking heart attack. Learn to read the mood, asshole.” She said teasingly. Teliph and Divveltian laughed. Although the corners of Randidly’s mouth twitched upwards, he kept his eyes on the man in the water, who was being fished out by some servants. It was a hard, habit to break, the calculating-

“Fool disciple. Will you simply moon about all day? Come, there is more training to do.” Shal rumbled, his voice coming up from below. Sighing. Randidly turned and trotted into the belly of the ship. But of course, Shal was right. There was always more training to do.