The Sixth School Ch. 030

From the clouds, Greg had gotten a cursory view of the layout of the city. Much like the town Roka was from, the more opulent section of the city was right at the center. Whereas the poorer members of society were relegated to the outermost parts of the city. Unlike his hometown where everyone could find enough logs to make a decent home, however, the houses in the poorer districts were small and cramped compared to those that Greg saw in the inner districts. Some of them were little more than shacks that were about to fall over at any moment.

As Greg stood there, a few feet away from the gate he'd just walked through, the challenge of this dungeon was becoming all too clear in his mind. Here he was, a nobody that had just walked into a city he didn't know, with no money, no connections, and no idea where to start. And yet, somehow, by the end of the day, he was supposed to attend the mayor's dinner party. Greg was almost certain that it'd be suicide to try and sneak into the party. He needed to find a way to legitimately be there. A feat that if not impossible, came pretty close to it.

With no idea where to start, Greg could only sigh as he let his growling stomach be his first guide. He needed to find something to eat. It took a bit of asking around, but eventually, Greg was pointed toward a tavern where he could get a fresh meal for a few coins. Greg tried to find out more about the coins and denominations, the man he was asking, however, gave him an odd look then turned and walked away muttering about kids wasting his time. Despite his lack of money and knowledge about the units employed in this dungeon, Greg still walked towards the place he'd been told the inn would be at.

Just as he was turning the last corner of to get to the inn, Something slammed into him causing him to fall over on his back. The wind was knocked out of him and Greg found himself gasping for breath even as a weight pressed down upon him. When there were no more spots of light in his vision and Greg could draw in some air he turned down to find long blond locks of hair spread across his chest. Looking further down, Greg noted that it was a young woman, about his age, that had rammed into him. Propping himself up on his elbows, Greg was about to reach out and try to shake the girl awake. She, however, seemed to come to at just that moment. There was a few seconds of confusion as she looked about herself trying to get her bearings.

When she finally looked up at him, Greg tried to offer an amiable smile. While being tackled into the ground wasn't the best of experiences, if he could get someone more familiar with the city to show him around in exchange, it would be a worthwhile trade. His attempt to be friendly, however, seemed to fail miserably as the girl's eyes went wide with fear and she scrambled, trying to get to her feet as quickly as possible. Was his smile really that bad?

Wait," Greg tried to call out to her.

She, however, didn't even pause as she stood up and took a few quick steps past him. From the looks of it, she would have shot off running once again if not for the large hairy arm that forcefully grabbed her upper right arm.

"Got ya, ya little thievin' bitch!" A heavily accented male voice resounded. A large, barrel-chested man was now holding tightly to the woman that had run into Greg. It now clicked in Greg's mind that the woman had probably run into him because she was trying to run away from this man. Her attempt to get up as quickly as possible, and run away probably also had to do with the man and not his smile. "Where is it? Huh? Where'd ya hide it ya thief!" The man demanded even as his hands roamed all over her body. There was no modesty in any of his actions. The man clearly didn't care that she was a woman. Vague notions like chastity or her honor were the farthest thing from his mind at that moment.

By the time Greg had regained enough presence of mind to rise to his feet, five more men had appeared and were circling the woman. Greg would have intervened, a few details, however, stood out to Greg that made him wisely keep his mouth shut. Each of the six men had a tattoo of a spider under their left eye which told Greg that they almost certainly belonged to some kind of gang. And by the way the people around were giving the group a wide berth, Greg could tell that they were bad news. The kukri-like blades they all had attached to their belts, only further reinforced this impression.

"Don't touch me you fucking pig!" the woman uselessly tried to struggle out of the man's grip with very little success. "Help!" She screamed. "Help me!"

Unfortunately for the woman, even the people on the other side of the street were turning their heads to look away, clearly wanting nothing to do with whatever was going on there.

"Give us the gem ya daft cunt, and maybe ya guts get ta stay on the inside!" one of the men had drawn the blade at his side and now had it painfully pressed against the woman's abdomen.

Greg turned around, smiled to himself, and started to walk away. "The old 'damsel in distress' trope," He muttered to himself with an eye roll. "Could you get any more stereotypical than that," He continued in amusement. Did the system expect him to pit himself against six armed men with no form of combat training and no weapon to boot? "Fat chance!" he added with a snort. He wasn't some knight in shining armor looking to throw his life away.

Greg may have been able to beat his uncle. He, however, wasn't deluded about his abilities. He hadn't engaged his uncle in straightforward combat. Instead, he had overwhelmed the man with numbers and tried to blow him up to kingdom come. And even then, that hadn't worked. If Greg hadn't taken advantage of his weakest moment, then chances were he would have lost that fight. Unlike in the real world, however, inside the dungeons, Greg didn't have access to either one of his shops and as such couldn't overwhelm any of his enemies with magical items. Inside the dungeons, his ability to fight would be the sole determiner of whether he came out on top in a fight or not. And given the fact that Greg knew next to nothing about actual fighting and the fact that he would be going up against sixth men, it didn't take a genius to figure out how this would end.

Greg placed his hands in his pockets and was about to start whistling a simple tune from back on Earth. Greg, however, was stopped short when he felt something hard inside his pocket that hadn't been there before. Without thinking, Greg grabbed the thing and pulled it out to see what it was. His eyes went wide as saucers when out of his pocket, Greg pulled out a red gem the size of a pigeon egg. Two things immediately clicked in Greg's mind. One, this thing had to be worth a crap ton of money. And two, this was probably the gem that the six armed men were looking for!

The girl must have known that she'd be caught and so had taken advantage of the chance that running into him had presented to her. How Greg didn't notice a gem so large being placed in his pocket, he didn't know. One thing was for sure though, whether willing or not, the young woman had just made him her accomplice. Greg doubted that the six gruff men were the kind to listen to explanations.

Immediately, Greg clenched his hand into a tight fist to ensure that no one caught sight of the gem. With his heart hammering in his chest, Greg tried to be as natural as possible as he brought his clenched hand back into his pocket. It was purely a stroke of luck that Greg had been walking away from the group and thus had his back to them. This prevented the men from noticing what he had pulled out of his pocket. Greg, however, wasn't as lucky in his attempt to put it back in.

"Hey! What's that in your hand?" Greg heard one of the men call out to him.

"Shit!"

Without even turning back to see which of the six men had called out to him, Greg shot out in the fastest run of his life...

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