“Hm?” Ronan suddenly noticed the brawler leap up from the ground and bolt in a panic.
Just one glance was enough to tell him the old bastard had been faking it the whole time.
Seeing this, the captain of the guard immediately grew restless.
Not wanting to let his catch slip away, he called out to Ronan at once, signaling that he was going to handle it himself.
Only by doing so could he guarantee the brawler’s “safety.” With this many people already dead, if he had no one to pin the blame on, he’d have no way to explain himself to his superiors.
Whoosh.
He drew the longsword at his back and gave chase after the brawler.
His armor seemed to possess some kind of special function, and within a few breaths, he’d closed the distance and caught up.
The two of them immediately locked into combat.
Ronan crossed his arms, quietly watching the fight unfold.
He’d assumed the two would be fairly evenly matched, but to his surprise, the fight turned out to be completely one-sided.
The captain was being thoroughly overwhelmed by the brawler.
The captain slashed downward.
The brawler slipped inside the blade’s reach.
Boom!
Another dent bloomed across the captain’s breastplate.
Meanwhile, whenever the captain’s longsword came close to landing a hit, the brawler would deflect it off course with a precisely timed hook, never letting the blade so much as graze him.
“So this is the difference between a warrior and a boxer?” Ronan’s brow furrowed slightly, and he shook his head lightly, marveling at how different reality was from a game.
In close-quarters combat, the longer the weapon, the harder it was to land a hit, and the more restrictions it imposed.
As he mulled this over, perhaps spurred on by sheer desperation, the brawler’s ferocity surged, and the captain was quickly overwhelmed.
His longsword snapped clean in two, and he ended up on his knees, in a pitiful state.
Seeing this, Ronan turned to Frieren and said, “I’ll be right back.” With that, a powerful aura suddenly surged up around him, the air itself seeming to grow heavy with pressure.
Twenty-times Speed Hack activated.
Boom—the ground cratered beneath his feet, dust and grit exploding outward in every direction.
Ronan was simply gone.
To Frieren, watching from where she stood, it looked exactly like teleportation.
The burning from before, she could at least explain with magic—but this?
She stared after him, a flicker of confusion and astonishment crossing her eyes.
Before the afterimage in her vision had even finished fading— Boom.
The brawler was already embedded in the wall.
A human-shaped indentation had bloomed across the stone under the force of the impact, the entire exchange taking less than a second.
In the lingering afterimage of her vision, she could still make out the shadow of Ronan standing right in front of her…
…
…
Some time later.
“Well, still not dead.
Should be enough for you to report back with.” Ronan returned with the barely-recognizable brawler in tow, bringing the captain along with him as well.
“Cough, cough…” The captain knelt on the ground, coughing without pause, a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth—clearly, he wasn’t lightly injured.
He’d never imagined the brawler would turn out to be that formidable.
Seeing him sent flying with a single slap from Ronan, he’d assumed the man was some kind of pushover.
And yet…
“Hey, what was that compensation you mentioned earlier?” Ronan lowered his head, looking at the captain, his words cutting through the man’s tangled thoughts.
The captain took a moment to steady himself, and though a lingering trace of fear still remained in his heart, he nodded repeatedly: “I’ll need to ask Lord Viscount about the specifics, but rest assured, you won’t be disappointed.” He paused, then asked carefully, “May I ask what it is you’d like?” Though the captain assumed someone as powerful as Ronan surely had no interest in anything a lowly person like himself could offer, it occurred to him that the elf girl beside him might have some need of her own.
A moment later, Ronan’s own words confirmed his suspicion.
“Do you have any grimoires?” “Something out of the ordinary.” “To be honest with you, I’ve been collecting rare spells that are hard to find on the market.” “If you happen to come across any, please buy them up and pass them along to me.
I’ll pay whatever price is fair.” Ronan had no shortage of material wealth; he was simply using this opportunity to make up for his lack of connections in this world.
Besides, the more spells he collected, the more convincingly he could attribute any ability he displayed later on to magic.
After all, imagination was limitless—and that, in fact, was exactly the goal he intended to pursue going forward.