The hunter's guild was busy as always. The strange dichotomy of the well dressed merchants mingling with the rugged hunters was unusual, no matter how many times one saw it. Even stranger was that, despite the heavy crowds, the noise in the room was moderate at best.
On the far side of the room, opposite the guilds counters, a boy sat alone. Dressed up in 'green' hunter's gear and wearing an unusual head wrapping, everyone could tell with just a single look, he was bored.
"Ugh. How long is the vice guildmaster going to make us wait."
Reid's upper body sprawls out on top of a table as he complains to Amadeus in his head.
"Have some patience, I have a feeling this meeting is going to be very important for our future, so tough it out for now." He answers the boy in a monotone fashion.
"Easy for you to say! Its been like an hour already, and you get to sit in the mental plane having fun with your experiments while I have to sit here doing nothing!"
"Well I would offer to switch, but according to Faeth, when I take over I look like a 'super creepy ghost man'."
Reid groans at Amadeus' explanation.
"By the way, I think you'll be happy to know that I've made a new discovery."
"And what would that be?" The disinterest was obvious in Reid's voice. Not that Amadeus cared… or even noticed.
"If you continue to train your spirit meditation, you should reach a point where you can enter the mental plane while in your meditative state. During that time you can manipulate a simulant version of your spirit energy ."
"And how does that help?"
"Your skill in using spirit arts will advance much faster, since in the mental plane you can train without having to worry about things like fatigue or safety. If you run out of the simulant, you can just create more. Plus, if you want to learn a dangerous move, you can do so without risking damage to your real body."
"That actually does sound awesome!" Reid sits up in his chair with excitement. "Why do I have to meditate though? Can't we just switch and do it that way."
"Good question. I tried recreating spirit energy in here to do experiments, but I couldn't manage it. There seems to be a deep connection to the body and spirit energy. However, when you were meditating the other day some of that energy began to drip in here through our bond. The deeper you got into the meditation the more energy came through. It was while you were in that meditative state that i could create the simulant. It went away as soon as you stopped, but it worked much the same as my imitation mana did, allowing me to experiment to my hearts content."
"Ugh, well if it helps us that much, I guess I can keep meditating."
"Good... Say, why were you in such a rush to leave this morning? You practically ran away from everyone."
"Oh that." The boy looks up to the ceiling before answering. "I'm not used to being the center of attention… All of the thank-you's and all of the nice words… It made me really happy, don't get me wrong, but it was a bit too much for me."
"Oh so you were just being shy?"
The boys cheeks tinge red as he answers in irritation.
"I'm not shy!"
He crosses his arms at the table.
"When I was growing up, a normal hello for me was an angry scowl! So excuse me for not being good at dealing with this crap!"
"I see."
*Tsk* "I see, he says." Reid accidentally speaks aloud while mocking Amadeus.
The two wrap up their conversation as a familiar receptionist walks over.
"Hello Reid! Sorry to keep you waiting, the vice guildmaster will see you now." Lilly's chipper demeanor brings a smile to Reid's face. That smile quickly fades as he notices all of the new eyes set on him.
Realizing she just made the boy the center of attention for many curious and jealous hunters, she quickly apologizes.
"Oops! I didn't mean to say that out loud! I'm really sorry." She leans forward into a bow with a remorseful look in her eye. "Can you forgive me?"
Reid replies quickly, trying his best to look her in the eyes and not look down towards her… assets.
"I-It's fine, I'm just not used to being the center of attention is all." Reid scratches the back of his head with a nervous smile.
"Ah, if it isn't the weakness of every young man. Girls."
"Shut up!"
"Well, lets get going! Don't want to keep the vice guildmaster waiting." Donning a chipper smile once again, Lilly leads the boy through the guild.
The two make their way through the guild, past the receptionist counters and down a familiar hallway. At the end were a pair of doors Reid knew well.
"Are we going back to the examination room?" The boy asks.
"Not today, the vice guildmaster will be meeting you in the arena."
"Oh, okay. Why in there?" The boy was thoroughly confused by the location of their meeting.
"I don't really know, but I'm sure he has a reason." As she finishes, she holds the door open for the young hunter and gestures him in.
"Best of luck." She says as she closes the door behind him.
Barboda stood alone in the center of the arena. The imposing behemoth of a man was not wearing the elegant suit Reid saw before, instead he wore a thick set of armor with an ornate warhammer by his side. The first layer of his armor was a thick black leather. It was covered by thin silver plate armor on his chest, shoulders, forearms, legs, and ankles. The plates were covered in exquisite gold and green engravings with a beautiful symbol of a stag centered on his chest. His head was covered by a helm topped with golden antlers. The helm had a sharp 'Y' shape cut into the front, allowing only his eyes and mouth to be seen.
The room he stood in was vast and empty. The only things inside the enormous circular room were eight stone pillars, crystal lights that hung from the ceiling, and a single door opposite from where Reid entered. A thin layer of sand covered up the otherwise stone floor.
"So you've finally come." The vice guildmaster looks on with an intimidating gaze.
"Yeah, sorry it took so long to come by. Something came up." The boy answered sheepishly while walking forward.
It had been three days since the abduction incident.
"So I heard… During that last incident, it was said you were responsible for killing nine men, including one mage." Barboda's tone had a slight edge to it, enough to make Reid stop walking.
"Yes, I didn't have much of a choice though. I couldn't let them take everyone. It was a tough fight too, I only beat the mage because I got lucky." Reid's heart involuntarily began pounding in his chest.
"You know that hunter you found the other day, Callus? Well it turns out he wasn't alone when he encountered that wolf. He had a buddy with him who ran away in fear. Swearing up and down that the monster was 'too damn strong for a D rank'."
The mans' piercing eyes bore down on Reid. The boy almost felt he was being accused of something, he just didn't know what.
"I got lucky there too. The monster was hungry and injured. It saw me as an easy meal, so I took advantage of that."
"Is that so? Because from my perspective, that isn't luck, that's a pattern. Defeating a high D rank monster and a group of bandits… Those aren't the feats of an untrained son of a merchant. Well, not that you actually are one."
Reid's blood went cold and his breaths became shallow.
"You know we do background checks on everyone who joins the guild. Its funny, when we looked into your name we found a completed contract scroll with the mercenary's guild. One that marked you as dead…"
Reid's heart felt like it was about to burst from his chest as it beat faster and faster.
"Do you know what I would call a dead man who suddenly shows up alive with inexplicable strength?" Barboda slowly reached for his warhammer.
"A SPY!!!"
The giant man's spirit energy surged forth, flowing from his body and coating his weapon.
"Wait, I'm not-" But Reid's words were cut off as Barboda charged forward at a speed that belied his size.
Reid barely managed a desperate dodge as the warhammer slammed into the ground. The stone floor cracked as sand flew away from the massive impact. Just as the boy landed and retrieved the spear from his back, the massive man charged again, ready to deliver another devastating blow.
A second heavy strike slams into the ground. It was so fast that Reid had no choice but to desperately jump away yet again. This time however, Amadeus was ready.
Two simple red runes appeared in front of Reid which ignited immediately. Both runes summoned a small blue flare which rushed toward Barboda. With his hammer still in the ground, a direct-hit seemed inevitable, but the man let go of the hammer and with a single hand swatted the spells out of the air, as if he was batting away flies.
"Beginner magic? Surely you jest!" The man asks as he easily shoulders his warhammer with one hand.
Without waiting for an answer the hulk charged yet again. Strike after strike Reid did everything he could to maintain his distance as Amadeus shot back with magic, but nothing proved effective. Barboda dodged water, absorbed electricity with his gauntlets, and shattered rocks with his fists. Worse yet, with every strike he closed the distance, getting closer and closer to hitting Reid.
"This isn't getting us anywhere, throw these to slow him down"
After instructing the boy, Amadeus creates a complex rune that drops three rocks into his hand.
With a powerful underhanded throw, he launches them at Barboda. A casual wave of the mans hands shatters the rocks yet again, but these weren't just a simple projectile. After impacting his hand, all three exploded into a cloud of toxic gas that covered him completely.
Sensing the danger, Barboda pushed forward to get out of the cloud as quickly as possible, coughing the whole way. As he escaped, he felt his feet begin to slide out from under him as Reid pushed forward with an intense look in his star patterned eyes.
With less than a meter separating them the boy launches his spear forward with a powerful thrust, aimed directly for the one spot Barboda had no armor… his neck. The deadly hit was thwarted by a powerful twist of the man's hips, which whipped his warhammer into the spear and making it miss its mark. After the powerful parry, it was now Reid who found himself off balance as Barboda replanted his feet and slammed the pommel of his warhammer into Reid's chest.
"Gahh!" The boy cried out as he was sent flying backward. Amadeus was quick to cast patch, working desperately to heal Reid and keep him in the fight.
"Clever. Creating an ice field while I was distracted by the toxic gas. Although you should know, applying spirit arts to the body works well to counter poisons." Barboda then took a deep breath without issue, as if showing off the toxic gas had no effect him.
"We'll have to try something new again. Take these and throw them around the room, the more dispersed the better." Amadeus instructs the boy again as Reid gets back to his feet.
Paper balls appear one after another from freshly created runes. With five in his hands, he throws them all around the room without a care for accuracy. Barboda gives him a curious look as the balls pop one after the other, releasing a large amount of smoke.
"If you're trying to fill the room with another toxic gas you should stop. I just explained that it won't work on me. I will outlast you, boy." The man seemed almost irritated at Reid's antics, however poisoning the man not their goal.
After the final ball popped Barboda noticed his vision was completely impaired as the smoke had filled the entire room.
"I see, so this is what you were after." The man mutters to himself as he takes a defensive stance.
As their smokescreen completes, Reid begins to silently circle his target. His enhanced senses giving him an enormous advantage as he knew exactly where Barboda was.
He wonders briefly if this was how the shadow wolf had felt as it stalked its unknowing prey, but he casts such thoughts aside, preparing for his next strike.
From the cover of the smoke, Reid began his assault.
Standing directly behind the giant man, the boy swings with a wide arc aiming directly at his midsection. Barboda felt the pressure behind him and charges forward to dodge the strike. The strike catches the man, gliding across the silver armor as it goes. Sparks fly as metal bit into metal.
After taking the hit, Barboda turned to counterattack the boy. As he does, he noticed a blue glow to his left. A fireball surged toward him.
The man quickly slaps the fireball away as he notices the boy attacking once again. A thrust to his left side barely nicks his arm as he dodges to the right. At the same time, another red light appeared from where Reid just attacked. The man blocked it once again, allowing the boy to disappear into the smoke.
Slash, magic, hide. That was how their combined assault continued. Barboda had no room to breathe as the unseen barrage continued. Scratches and cuts began to accumulate on the giant man.
For the first time since the fight began, the vice guildmaster found himself being pushed back. After the eighth round of their attacks, a ball of fire slipped past his guard, smacking him in the face. The man roars in irritation.
"ENOUGH!!" Barboda shouts as his spirit surges into his weapon. He slams it ferociously into the ground, creating a massive shockwave that blew away everything, Reid and the smoke included.
Reid coughed up blood as he stood back up, spear at the ready. He looked at the now furious Barboda, who slowly walked toward him.
A white runic circle appeared in front of the boy and as it activated, a powerful gust of wind blew at the man, but it was nowhere strong enough to stop his advance. His powerful opponent walked straight though as if the wind was just a figment of his imagination.
"He is quite the tough guy. Too bad this isn't just a simple wind spell." As he explains that to Reid, he creates a tiny red runic circle that quickly ignites into a flame no bigger than a candlelight. "It also contains pure hydrogen gas."
The small flame moved forward, slowly, seemingly harmless until-
*Booom*
The entire area around Barboda burst and ignited into a roaring fireball. The deafening blast and shockwave forced Reid to flinch and look away.
As he looks back at the massive smoke cloud his heart sank. Not only had Barboda survived the explosion, but he was nearly unharmed, save for a coating of soot on his armor.
The explosion over, the man charged once again, even faster than before. With no time to dodge completely Reid was forced to block a powerful horizontal swing. The center of Reid's spear collided with Barboda's warhammer, just below the metal head.
The boy's bones creaked under the weight of the powerful strike as it pushed him back. Before he could even groan from the pain, the hammer rushed toward him again.
Hit after hit the two weapons collided. Amadeus tried his best to keep casting patch on Reid, but the damage was being piled on faster than he could heal. Reid kept getting pushed back until-
*snap*
The head of Barboda's warhammer finally made contact with the shaft of Reid's spear as the boy desperately held it overhead. It snapped in two as the warhammer slammed into the ground, it's arc missing the boy by millimeters.
At the same time, a gray and brown runic circle appeared under the metal hammerhead which activated to create a clay-like substance on the hammer, seemingly sticking it to the ground.
Barboda, however, paid his trapped hammer no mind as he used his momentum to slam his metal plated shoulder into the boy's chest.
The boy was launched backwards as the two halves of his spear flew from his hands. He completed two full rolls across the floor before finding his footing on the third. He had no time to rest, however, as his merciless opponent began to push forward yet again. With a powerful roar Barboda wrenches the hammer from the ground.
Reid's muscles were already burning as he put everything he had into jumping back as the clay covered hammer went high overhead and Barboda slammed it to the ground.
'Really should've cleaned that off first.' Amadeus thought with a smirk.
When the hammer slammed into the ground the clay reacted violently, for it was not simple clay, it was an explosive. A shock sensitive explosive.
Another deafening explosion filled the room. The shaft of the warhammer was blown apart and turned into shrapnel as the head of the weapon became a lethal cannonball.
The deadly projectile ripped through the air before crashing into Barboda's left shoulder. His bones shatter as a portion of his plate armor crumpled and fell off. The hammerhead keeps its momentum and continues its trajectory, finding its final resting place deep in the stone ceiling.
Barboda looks back to the projectile that nearly ended his life as his arm hangs limp at his side.
"What a horrifying bag of tricks you have." He throws away the small wooden stick that used to be his warhammer and assumes a fighting stance.
"Hopefully that was the last of it."
"You'll just have to find out." Reid fights through the pain screaming at him from every limb of his body to put on a cocky smile.
Despite his taunting he knew he was in a bad spot. He was tired, hurt, and Amadeus was nearly out of mana.