Infinite Realm

The mercenary leader put on a face at Sato's reply. Never did he expect that someone would actually talk back to more, much less when he had just used the name of his backer.

He didn't bother to spare any words on Sato as he signaled to his men to attack Sato.

By now, the commotion from the inside had already alerted the mercenaries outside and some of them, about 5 or so, had entered the carriage to have a look. It was these very same men that followed the command given by the lead mercenary and attacked Sato.

The walkaway in the carriage was narrow to the point that only 2 people could walk side by side through it.

The first two mercenaries attacked Sato with one coming from the left while the other from the right. The one who attacked from the left was a step slower than his comrade as he purposefully slowed down to follow up on his partner's attack.

"Ha!" 

The NPC by the right struck first, slashing his sword at Sato with the blade still stuck within its scabbard.. 

As the mercenaries were attacking an individual within the carriage, they had their weapons remain in their sheath lest they injure an innocent passenger and get in trouble. Despite that, the attacking power of the weapon was something that shouldn't be underestimated. Even though it lacked the lethality and fatality of an unsheathed sword, a sword within its scabbard still possessed the right qualities to take down an opponent, even if it was an armed foe. Provided that the user had sufficient strength and fighting prowess, a sheathed sword and an unsheathed one were the same; just that one possessed the lethal ability to kill with ease while the other didn't.

Seeing the opponent rush towards him, Sato pushed the kid to the side as he went forward to intercept the enemy.

Once he was close to the attacker, Sato brought his head down as he dodged the sword that aimed for his head. Without any delay, he followed up with an uppercut straight to the mercenary's jaw, forcing him off balance. Sato then immediately landed a straight jab at the NPC's chest, sending him to the floor.

At the same time, the other mercenary showed up, following in the footsteps of his comrade and attacking with his sword in its sheath.

Sato had already added the character into his plans so when the NPC mercenary attacked him, he was able to react to it. Taking two steps backward, Sato retreated from the range of the attack before lunging towards the NPC like a true-born killer. 

*Pa* *Pa*

Sato landed fist after fist on the NPC, making the character lose control of the tempo of the battle and turning the tables in his favor. 

By the third strike, the NPC was already feeling pains all over his body and was unable to put up any form of defense. By the fourth hit, the NPC was barely able to maintain a stable sense of mind but when the sixth punch connected with the side of his jaw, the NPC lost consciousness and fell to the floor, lifeless. However, Sato was careful enough to control the strength of his punch so the NPC wasn't dead.

'As expected, their strength ranges around level 12 and 15.' Sato thought as he glanced at the results of the [Inspect] skill on his interface.

Just before Sato had accepted the mission, he was expecting a hard-fought battle where he would barely be able to hold out against the mercenaries. However, when the actual fight started, he ended up being wrong.

When Sato had attacked Tae, he did so in a rapid manner to prevent his target from reacting in time. At the same time, he secretly used [Inspect] on him to gauge his strength and used it to approximate that of the other mercenaries. The results showed that Tae turned out to be a level 13 [Hunter]. 

In Infinite realm, NPCs who had main classes were few. Most of the common NPCs used subclasses as their main classes because, according to the world design, it was very difficult and expensive for an NPC to grow with a main class. Even ignoring the price, for an NPC to practice a main class to standard level, they required a certain amount of potential else, they would get stuck halfway and might to even make it to level 15 or even 10. This was because the growth process for NPCs was much different than that of players who only had to kill monsters to get stronger. This was actually one of the advantages for players hidden within the game. As main classes were superior, battle-wise, over subclasses, players wouldn't have a hard time facing off against the regular NPCs just like with Sato's experience right now.

Similar to Tae, the other mercenaries had battle-related subclasses similar to the [Hunter] but when compared to a true-blue battle class like the [Swordsman], at the same level, a [Hunter] would be easily crushed.

The other mercenaries paused in their footsteps as they saw as Sato took down 2 of their men with no difficulty. Even the leader had to narrow his eyes as a frown slowly took shape on his face.

The mercenary Kolin wasn't exactly a bigwig in town but to the commoners and low-borns, he was. Due to the limit of his status, he could only hire low-ranking mercenaries who didn't have a main class like the stronger ones. 

Originally, they were supposed to be more than enough for the mission, after all, their target was a sickly mother with her young 14-16-year-old son. There was no need to hire a mercenary above level 10 and even one at level 15 was too much. But to increase the success of the mission, Kolin didn't shy away from hiring the level 12-15 mercenaries led by the man who stood with a frown on his face. However, a variable known as Sato had suddenly stepped into the picture.

"Who are you?" The mercenary leader asked once again.

Previously, he hadn't taken Sato's identity into consideration any much. However, after seeing the strength that Sato wielded, the boss of the squad was forced to take him more seriously.

"Who I am doesn't matter. You also aren't strong enough to know that." Sato replied with a plain face.

The mercenary leader was angered but he didn't lose his temper right away. Sato was right; they weren't strong enough to know that. Despite being armed, they still lost to an unarmed Sato. This meant that his skill and strength was well above theirs. Pursuing this matter any further would lead to them just losing more face.

"Let's go." The burly man said with a hoarse voice.

"But-" Tae, who finally recovered from Sato's assault, spoke up.

"Let's go." The burly captain interrupted with a much deeper voice than before.

None of the other, mercenaries dared to argue so they all followed their leader and exited the carriage.

Sato could very well hear the displeasure in his voice and he could guess that they would still come after the mother and child pair, but that wasn't his concern. He couldn't just change his destination with no earlier consideration and head to some isolated town just because of 2 random NPCs he had recently met.

*Clap * *Clap*

The passengers in the carriage began applauding Sato for his actions. While it was true that the burly man had said he wouldn't harm them, the manner in which his group had arrived didn't do much justice to those words. Therefore even with his words, the passengers were still fearful of them. With Sato having pursued the group away, he had won the praises and as well as the admiration of the passengers for not only saving their lives but also that of the mother-and-son pair.

"Thank you." The young boy said to Sato as the sound of the departing horses reverberated in the air.

"No problem." Sato smiled.

[[ System notification :

Little Finn's respect for you has increased.

Little Finn's admiration for you has increased.

_____________________

Emergency mission

Mission Title: Rescue the young boy and his mother from the hands of the mercenaries.

Mission Rating: D

.  .  .

Missions Status : Completed.

Rewarding player…

]]

"Can I know where you're going to mister?" Little Finn asked.

"A dangerous place you see. Maldora Canyons." Sato replied.

"Oh." Little Finn nodded dejectedly.

His mother, Mrs. Rachel, signaled him from the side and the young boy rushed towards his mother before leaning his ear towards her mouth. After that, Little Finn turned to Sato and said,

"She's calling you."

Sato was a bit surprised that the woman could speak but he didn't waste any time walking towards her.

Once he was there, a hand grabbed onto his and passed an object to it. Sato glanced down to take a look and saw it to be a necklace with a special kind of lock.

'[Appraise]'

[[ Unknown Locket : Unknown : ???

System description : A memento Rachel had gotten from her grandfather years back. As she's not able to reward you with much, she has decided to offer you this. Looks worthless but might be worth something.

]]

"I can't accept this." Sato shook his head immediately. 

After seeing that it was a memento from her grandfather, he refused to accept the reward even though this was just a game.

Mrs Rachel smiled at Sato and pushed his hands back. She then turned to her son and gave him a glance.

"My mother hopes that you would be with us till we make it to Cralls town. We know we can't do much but please, help us this much." Little Finn knelt down and begged.

"...*sighs*. That's enough. Okay, I will help you." Sato sighed.

Since the family of two had offered him something so precious to them, Sato decided to help them this much at least. Cralls town wasn't so far from Maldora Canyon so it would only take him an extra 3 hours to make it back to his destination.

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