The fighting had helped Jack understand more about the power of the rankings.

Mantis and Bud were undoubtedly High Herald Warriors. The disparity in strength between him and the two was quite significant. The attack they were using in their brawling always left behind an aftershock, enough to crush the bones of any unlucky common stragglers to get hit by them. Every kick, punch, and wrestle move on the floor or the wall just gave the house another hole. The sharp edges of the tattered wood didn’t trouble the two that much either. Bud’s body, while falling down, just stomped them to splinters.

Jack came to the conclusion that the reason he had been able to attack Mantis without breaking his leg was due to the extra stats the System had given him. He still hadn’t had the time to look deeper into this but felt a certainty that the route laid for him by the System was even more potential than he had hoped.

The fighting was gradually reaching its climax as blood splattered from the tip of the bandit’s blades after the constant cutting. Surprisingly, Mantis, with his slim and stringy build, wasn’t any faster than Bud. Sure, he was more agile and had better range thanks to his body, but his bulky opponent had shown comparable quickness and cunning. Jack reckoned Mantis’s level was lower than Bud's. To fight off the disparity, this slender man of a bandit always had to maintain his distance and seek out Bud’s opening. On the other side, Bud wasn’t backing down from taking trade hits. Each time Mantis went for Bud’s mistake, his fat buddy returned the favor. It was evident that the damage of these trade blows was not equal. Mantis slowly found himself on the back foot, piling up injuries from all those counterblows.

The two were breathing heavily, their faces frowning, trying their best to stop their natural instinct in fear of further spreading the poison. The look in their eyes seemed brightened and sharped, so much in contrast to their wavering body. Mantis, in particular, was miserable, his back humping making the name even more befitting. Bud smiled at his crewmate.

“Nothing personal, alright?” He joked right before jumping forward, his blade swinging down.

Mantis sluggishly responded, taking a step back and raising his weapon to block the attack. Bud smirked, stopping the swing mid-air. With a quick move, he spun himself and his blade masterfully, taking away the skinny hand of his opponent. Mantis cried out, falling with his face down, his left hand grabbing the open wound. He stared at the ground, where a big shadow was approaching, toying with a blade using both of its hands.

“So, you were expecting the move. But after all this time, your nut head still couldn’t figure it out!”

Jack could see how Mantis was sharper and more reactive than Bud but still shackled by his own level. Mantis had been the first one to escape the basement, and he had always looked at the contact points of the blows from his opponent before they even happened. However, his body seemed to be not synchronized with his eyes and mind. The consequence of that was Bud not giving a damn about his opponent knowing his next moves. Perhaps, having high Spirit stats was not what Mantis had wanted. Nevertheless, he was born with it. It sure had helped him many times; even now, it must have been amplifying and lengthening his suffering.

Bud slowly moved forward where Mantis was kneeling with his back against him. He stomped the floor with every step, his body weighing with exhaustion.

“Any last word, buddy?”

Mantis grumbled, hugging his arms into his body.

Using Shadow Eyes and seeing what Mantis was doing to himself in the darkness made Jack frown, then smirk at the wickedness of these two.

As soon as Bud relaxed, thinking the moment was his, Mantis swiftly spun around. Saving all his energy for this moment, he gave his buddy a critical blow as the newfound weapon pierced Bud from under his belly to his shoulder. Blood and guts spilled out, hanging by the weapon's tip behind Bud’s head.

“I almost did shove it up your ass, right, buddy?” Mantis whispered into Bud’s ear in satisfaction.

“You… wicked… bastard,” Bud mumbled, smiling, then his head turned sideways.

Mantis spat at his crewmate’s fat face, then pulled out the arm bone that he had used as a weapon. The bulky body fell to the ground and sounded almost like a small explosion. Bud’s eye was all white, his mouth bloody, choking in the death that just a moment ago he was sure wouldn’t be his.

When kneeling on the ground with his hand chopped off, Mantis had proven his decisiveness, as well as his brutality. He had pulled most of his flesh and muscle back toward his shoulder, creating a spiky spear from his own bones.

Standing up, he faced Jack, revealing the mess of flesh on his bicep. He had left behind enough muscle to still be able to direct the tip. His blood flow here was stopped, typical of a Warrior.

Jack had his eyes on the lump of crushed meat, then the worn-out face of the victor. The bandits were truly maniacs. One would pick on an elderly person just because of a glance, one would wait for his chance to poison the bunch, and one would brutally rip off his arm just to survive. It gave Jack a chill imagining what their leader would be capable of.

“So, are you gonna swallow your word as I did?” Matins was nervous for an answer.

Jack stood up and vanished into the night, covering his hands which were adding some of his own surprise to the antidote.

“Don’t lump me in with you!” Jack said, putting his hand forward, breaking the smoke screen. “Here’s the reward for the victor.”

Mantis quickly grabbed it and gulped the whole thing down. He sat down, carefully feeling the waning poison. Mantis’s face brightened up in excitement. He reckoned Jack might actually let him go, for if Jack wanted his death, the kid wouldn’t have given him the antidote in the first place.

“Now what?” Mantis said. “Can I go?”

With a polite gesture, Jack pointed at the door.

“Be my guest!”

Without hesitation, Mantis ran for his life as if he hadn’t even broken a sweat during the fight. The slender bandit breathed heavily in disbelief.

“What a dumb dog!” He screamed, thinking he had gone out of ear’s reach.

Mantis headed toward Oxdale, where his boss was probably returning from. He thought of Jack as a nosy boy who was still tied up by the string of morality and his own ignorance. The Corvus kid should have finished him right then and there when he had had the chance. Now, freely running through the field, Mantis would have his payback as soon as tonight. 

Felice wasn’t the only one who could use the communication system. Those close to the leader could also do it. There was a reason he had been comfortably sitting at the boss chair for years. He had long ago sought out another Maester to uncover the secret behind Felice’s creation method and spent his own fortune to teach and provide the man with a similar conducting connector in case of betrayal. And now, besides the Corvus themself, Mantis suspected all of this trouble to be a scheme orchestrated by Felice. Though, a combination of the two was also a possibility. Without any outside support or preparation, the poisonous Maester wouldn’t dare make his move.

What the bandit didn’t know was that, in the shadow, a pair of eyes were still watching him ever since he had left the farm. Seeing his savage and devious smile, the ghostly figure stopped the chase and returned.

Jack was sure Mantis was heading in the right direction now. Before all of this, Jack had activated the tracking system and turned it off the instant he knew the bandit boss was in the direction of Oxdale.

The fat one was still gasping, his breathing growing weak by the second, and his consciousness slowly leaving him. Jack sat by the man, tapping his cold cheek.

“Hey, hey, it’s not your time yet!”

Then, Jack stuffed the same surprise he had put into Mantis’ antidote in Bud’s mouth, along with some herbs to relieve the pain and the bleeding.

“What… more… do…you ….want?” Bud groaned. “Let… m…e… dieeeee!”

“Shhh, shhh!” Jack whispered.

He picked up the knife close by, opened the bandit’s mouth, holding his tongue, and cut it out. Bud was too weak to make even the smallest of screams. As he was passing out, Jack gave him some more pain killer and applied the Enhancement Technique on him.

Bud was in tears. He wept at the devilish smile that even put his own during his playing time with the prisoners to shame.

Jack took out a handkerchief and cleaned his bloody hand. Everything was set now.

“Don’t worry,” Jack told Bud. “You won’t be going out alone.”