The Sixth School Ch. 033

Greg smiled. Taking a step forward, he took Zarra into his arms once more. Despite her weak protestations, the woman made no real effort to get away. "It seems I have my work cut out for me," Greg said calmly. The loud sound of a palm meeting flesh resounded quickly followed by another surprised yip from the woman. "How many times do I have to tell you? Neither you nor your husband can save you from me," He said with a smile.

"Is that so?" Greg and the woman snapped around to find Zarra's husband, Sir Joram, standing a few steps away from them with a murderous gleam in his eyes. Standing on either side of him, were three burly men aside from the mountain of muscle that had been at the man's side when they first met. Greg couldn't help but notice that under the left eye of the three other burly men was the tattoo of a spider. From the cold manner in which they were all looking at him and the blades hanging from their belts, it was clear that they had only one purpose in coming here.

In the hands of the mountain of muscle, was a sizable chest which he wordlessly threw to the ground between them. Bursting open from the weight of its contents, a whole pile of golden coins spilled onto the ground before Greg. "Ten thousand coins in total," Sir Joram spoke in a darkly amused tone of voice. "Would you like to count them?" he asked.

Several thoughts were whizzing through Greg's head at that moment as he looked at the coins on the ground. The first was that he was an idiot. He had grown overconfident. His success with the Town-head's wife in the real world and with the tailor's wife inside the dungeon had made him a bit too daring for his own good. The other, more frustrating, reason why Greg was mentally kicking himself was because he had fallen for a trap that Olivia had already warned him against before. When he was still facing off against his uncle, Olivia had warned him about being made to play by his enemy's rules. And yet here he was, having fallen for that same dumb trick. The guy had probably already sent for the three thugs and the funds needed to break the contract before he even met Greg. Greg just happened to return to the house with Zarra before the thugs got there with the money. To keep him from panicking, his enemy had told him that the money would be ready in three days and he, like a complete dumbass, had taken his word for it. Why he had chosen to believe what someone who was planning to kill him said, Greg couldn't even begin to puzzle out.

Still, knowing that this wasn't the time for self-flagellation, Greg turned his gaze back to the man before him. The smile that had been on his face hadn't faltered in the least. "You seem to think that the contract has been protecting me from you!" Greg said in a cold tone of voice despite his smile. Greg held out a hand to the side and closed his palm. While his palm had been empty when it was open, it closed around the grip of a bow that was black as night.

This was the first time that Greg had summoned his soul bow both within the real world and the dungeon. The reason for this is because of Olivia's explanation that Soul Gear grew in power with the user. The more powerful the user, the more powerful the soul gear. Likewise, the weaker the owner of the soul gear, the weaker the particular soul gear would be. Given that Greg was still a mundane human, the bow would be no different from any other mundane bow out there. And with Olivia having provided him with convenient tools such as the floating dagger set, he saw no reason to summon the soul bow.

Back inside the tailor's shop, however, when Greg had begun to take stock of what abilities he had to bring to bear within this dungeon, the bow had been one of the two things he thought of. While he had better tools outside the dungeon, the same was not true within it, at least not presently. The other hidden card that Greg had available to him, was the STALWART blessing that he'd received as a reward for his first feat. Half of all physical damage received would be negated by it. When he first got it, Greg thought of it like an invisible suit of armor. Now that he was about to be in a fight, however, he couldn't help but wonder how the blessing actually worked. Did it first let him suffer the damage and then heal half of it? Or did it negate half of the damage before it even reached him? Which one it was, Greg would find out soon enough.

Sending a cold glare Sir Joram's way, Greg spoke. "Before you annul the contract, perhaps you should consider whether you can afford to lose the protection it grants you," He coldly warned...

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