Chapter 82: The Cost of a Quill
For three days, a fragile routine held. Mornings were spent with Elara, a torturous but productive process of translating my rough storyboards into proper page layouts. Her criticisms were constant and razor-sharp, but her skill was undeniable. She saw things I didn't, pacing, flow, how a reader's eye would move across the page. Afternoons, I'd leave her to the detailed inking, while Laron worked on securing a printer and Briza maintained her silent, watchful vigil.
It was on the fourth afternoon, as I was leaving Elara's workshop alone, that the peace shattered. Laron was back at the inn on business, and Briza was escorting him. I was the lone wolf, and the hunters had been waiting.
I'd only taken a dozen steps into the narrow, shadowy alley when the feeling hit me, the same primal warning I'd felt before the Shadow-Wurm. But this was closer, more focused. Human.
They emerged from doorways and dropped from low rooftops, not with a roar, but with a quiet, professional lethality. Four of them. They weren't the brutes from Silas's fighting pits. These men moved with a cold economy of motion, their clothes dark and nondescript, their faces hard. They carried short, brutal clubs and had long knives tucked into their belts. Their goal was immediately clear. They weren't fanning out to surround me. Two moved to block my path back to the main street. The other two advanced directly on Elara's door.
They weren't here for the quill. They were here for the artist.
"Elara! Bar the door!" I yelled, my voice echoing in the confined space.
I heard a sharp curse from inside, followed by the sound of a heavy bolt slamming home.
The two thugs at her door began hammering on it, the solid wood groaning in protest. The two blocking my escape advanced, clubs held ready.
There was no time for thought. Only instinct. I pushed Ki into my legs and shot forward, not away, but towards the men at Elara's door. The one on the left turned, his club swinging in a low, efficient arc aimed at my knee. I sidestepped, the wind of the blow rustling my trousers. I didn't have a sword. I had my hands.
I drove a Ki-enhanced palm heel into his sternum. There was a sickening crack, and he flew backward, crashing into the opposite wall and slumping to the ground, wheezing. The second man at the door abandoned his task and came at me with his knife, his movements fluid and precise. A professional killer.
The two from the alley entrance closed in from behind. I was boxed in.
I ducked under a wild swing from the knife-wielder, feeling the club of one behind me whistle past the back of my head. This was too close. Too confined. I couldn't fight all three at once like this. Elara's door wouldn't hold forever.
"Get back inside, you fool!" Elara's voice was a sharp cry from a shuttered window above.
The knife came at my throat. I caught the man's wrist, the force of the blow numbing my arm, but my Ki-hardened grip held. I twisted, hearing a pop, and he screamed, the knife clattering to the cobbles. I drove my knee into his gut and shoved him into one of the club-wielders.
But the third was untouched. His club came down on my shoulder. The impact was like a lightning strike. My Ki cushioning blunted it, but pain exploded down my arm, and I stumbled forward, my vision swimming.
This wasn't working. They were too many, too skilled. They would beat me into paste and take Elara.
A cold fury settled over me. The same fury I'd felt facing the Goblin Chief. The same refusal to lose.
The remaining two thugs regrouped, their eyes cold and confident. The one with the broken wrist was clutching his arm, but the other two were closing in for the finish.
I didn't have a choice.
I planted my feet, ignoring the screaming pain in my shoulder. I raised my hands, palms out, not towards the thugs, but towards the empty space between them and the wall of a nearby tannery. I couldn't aim it at them in such a tight space; the backlash would kill me too.
I reached down, deep into my core, and pulled. I grabbed that reservoir of life force, that well of power I'd only tapped once before, and I shoved.
BOOOOOM.
The world turned gold and white. A concussive dome of Ki erupted from my palms. It wasn't a focused beam; it was a shockwave. The two advancing thugs were lifted off their feet and hurled backward like ragdolls. The force didn't just hit them; it hit the alley. The tannery wall exploded inward in a shower of shattered wood and stone dust. The cobblestones beneath my feet cracked. The shockwave blew out the shutters on Elara's window and rattled the entire street.
Silence. Deafening, ringing silence, pierced by the moans of the injured thugs and the distant, sudden shouts of alarm.
I stood, panting, my hands smoking, the scent of ozone and pulverized stone thick in the air. I'd done it. I'd stopped them.
But the cost was immediate. A wave of spiritual and physical exhaustion hit me so hard I nearly collapsed. My Ki was drained, a hollow, aching void inside me. Using the blast was like setting my own soul on fire for fuel.
And then I saw them. Laron and Briza, standing at the mouth of the alley, having just arrived. They were frozen, staring at the devastation, at the moaning thugs, at the smoking crater in the tannery wall, and at me, standing in the center of it all.
Their timing couldn't have been worse.
From the opposite end of the alley, a new group of men appeared. Not thugs. The City Watch. Their polished armor gleamed in the dusty air, their faces grim. They took in the scene, the destroyed property, the unconscious and broken men, the adventurer with smoking hands.
"By order of the City Guard! Everyone, drop your weapons and submit!" their captain barked.
It was then that one of the downed thugs, the one I'd punched first, stirred. Seeing the guards, seeing me distracted, he made a last, desperate play. He lurched to his feet, snatched his fallen club, and with a guttural roar, charged not at me, but at the closest, most vulnerable target Laron.
Everything slowed down.
Laron stood paralyzed, his eyes wide with terror.
Briza moved. She was a blur of motion, shoving Laron behind her and placing herself between him and the charging thug. She had no sword, only her hands. She caught the club swing on her crossed forearms, the sound of the impact a sickening crack of wood on bone. But the thug's momentum was too great. He plowed into her, and as they fell, he drove his knee hard into her side.
I heard the crunch from ten feet away.
Briza hit the ground and didn't move. The thug scrambled away, only to be immediately tackled and subdued by the watch.
"Briza!" Laron screamed, rushing to her side.
I stumbled over, the guards momentarily forgotten. Briza was curled on the ground, her face a mask of agony. Her breath came in ragged, wet gasps. Her eyes were wide, fixed on nothing. Her armor was dented over her ribs. Internal bleeding. Punctured lung. I knew the look. I'd seen it before, in the goblin cave.
The Guard Captain approached, his expression stern. "You are all under arrest for disturbing the peace, destruction of city property, and…"
"Shut up," I snarled, my voice raw. I didn't look at him. My eyes were locked on Briza's paling face. Laron was sobbing, clutching her hand.
There was no choice. None.
With a thought that felt like tearing a piece of my own future away, I summoned a Greater Healing Potion from my Inventory. The small, sun-warm vial appeared in my hand. The guards gasped, stepping back at the blatant display of magic.
I uncorked it, the familiar, life-affirming scent filling the air. I knelt, ignoring the Captain's shouts, and gently tipped the glowing red liquid into Briza's mouth.
The effect was instantaneous and miraculous. Color flooded back into her face. The ragged gasps smoothed into deep, even breaths. The agony in her eyes vanished, replaced by dazed confusion. She sat up, her hand going to her side, where the dent in her armor was already smoothing out as the broken bones beneath knitted themselves back together.
She looked at the empty vial in my hand. Then she looked at me. The confusion in her eyes hardened into a cold, complex storm of emotions—relief, shame, and a deep, simmering resentment. She was alive because of me. She owed me a debt that went beyond coin, a debt that chafed against her every independent instinct.
The Guard Captain stared, his authority momentarily forgotten in the face of such potent magic. "A… a Greater Healing Potion? On a street brawl?" He looked from Briza's perfectly healed form to the devastation in the alley. "Who in the abyss are you people?"
I slowly got to my feet, the emptiness inside me now both spiritual and financial. I'd lost a sword, and now I'd lost one of my ten precious "get out of death free" cards. All for a cartoon about a monkey-boy.
I met the Captain's gaze, my own exhaustion and fury giving me a grim authority. "We're the people Patron Evander is in business with," I said, the name a weapon and a shield. "And we were just attacked. I suggest you take these men into custody and find out who sent them. Before I have to explain to the Patron why his investment was nearly dismantled in the street."
The name "Evander" worked like a charm. The Captain's bluster deflated. He looked at the downed thugs, at the destroyed wall, and then back at me, a new wariness in his eyes.
The Immediate threat was over. Elara was safe. Briza was healed.
But we were now deeper in the game than ever. Silas Vane had made his move. And he'd just learned that the "nobody" adventurer was armed with something far more dangerous than a sword.
[A/N: Can't wait to see what happens next? Get exclusive early access and read 30 chapters ahead on patreon.com/saiyanprincenovels. If you enjoyed this chapter and want to see more, don't forget to drop a power stone! Your support helps this story reach more readers!]