Read Novel Full Chapter 179: Can you afford to misjudge?
Chapter 179: Can you afford to misjudge?
"Calm down!" Noticing the changes on the girl's face, I rushed forward.
Just in time. Were I to be a single moment later, Teria would slip out of my grasp. Only thanks to my timely reaction I managed to wrap my hands around her waist, before pulling her down to the ground.
"If we kill them, this entire mission will turn far harder!" I knew how hard it was to remain calm after obtaining a fresh injury. For this girl, any attempts at stopping her could easily make her turn on me, recognizing my actions as a threat to her safety.
Thankfully, the girl proved to be calmer than I was in a similar situation. Relaxing her wings, she obediently landed on the ground.
"Excuse me…?" Still holding her waist for my dear life, I now realized what kind of position did that put me in. Instantly releasing my hold on her, I distanced my face from the side of her chest against which it was pressed just a moment ago.
"Sorry, I didn't intend…" Before I could even utter the word of apology, Teria waved her head, implying that there was no point to linger over the topic. With one of her hands covering a glaring wound in her stomach, her eyes were glued to the approaching party.
"Why did you attack?!" Now that I could have some hopes for this girl not killing everyone in sight, I turned my attention back to the attackers.
But there was no response. Rather than that, the group was split between people fully occupied with charging towards us and those who couldn't think about anything else but escaping.
"See? It's pointless." Shrugging her shoulders, Teria took a triumphant look on her face. For her, this kind of development was only to be expected. Yet that didn't mean I was willing to give up on a peaceful approach just like that.
"Just stay here for a moment. Don't engage even if I start fighting. Only if the brawl will continue for at least ten heartbeats, you can join and help." Ordering the girl in a low voice, I pointed my finger at the spot I didn't want her to move from.
"Okay, okay. I already know there is no point trying to convince you." Turning her face away, the girl crossed her arms on her chest before stomping her leg to the ground.
"Heck, that was cute!" Commenting out in the open, I left the girl with her mouth wide open in surprise before moving several steps towards the attacking party. Raising my hands in the far-from-body position, I slowed my approach before standing completely still.
"We are not here to fight. If you respect it, I won't have any reason to do you harm." Speaking in a loud yet calm voice, I refused to buckle even when the other party got super close. While that system alert put me quite on the edge, I could hardly believe that there was a force capable of breaking through the dimensional barrier.
And it was well within my means to crush the activator of the mechanism of the stone I was hiding in my palm if the other party would ultimately swing its weapon at me.
I waited.
The horsemen got even closer. I still remained frozen in place, with my hands raised in the air.
The man leading the charge was clad in heavy armor with a long pike held under his shoulder. Its tip, outside of glistering in the sun, was aimed right at my chest, getting closer and closer with each passing second.
I kept my hands raised.
The hand holding the wood of the pike suddenly shook. Then…
The blade of the pike raised as the man pulled the weapon up and held the reins of his horseback.
Right at the very last moment, the heavy-armored soldier dropped his wooden weapon, pulling out his sword and aiming it right at my throat as soon as his horse stopped.
"Who are you?!" Still daring to threaten me with his blade, the man asked.
"Just some travelers with the hopes of visiting the old cathedral." Instantly coming up with an answer, I couldn't stop cursing myself in my own thoughts. How could I forget to create a sensible backstory to our visit beforehand? Why did I leave it for the very last moment? "Its architectural design, the beauty of the decorations inside… It's unmatched." I added a few words as if to justify the previous statement. "Or so I heard, hence my wish to see it for myself."
Even though I only said a few words, I managed to make an important observation while doing so. Because rather than looking at me with either hostility or curiosity, the eyes of the man hidden behind the slits in his helmet constantly watched the girl, as if she was the only source of the man's worries.
"I'm sorry, but the cathedral is off-limits for the foreigners. We wish not for some radicals to attempt overthrowing our newly elected, glorious government." With his eyes twitching, the man suddenly realized something. Instantly bringing his eyes on me, he squinted them before answering.
"That would be really troublesome… Because no matter what, I need to see the insides of the cathedral." Shrugging my arms, I looked right into the pupils of the man hidden underneath his helmet. "I don't mind doing so with the additional company, but this is something that I need to do. I'm bound by a vow."
I had no idea whether this world has something akin to pact magic, vow magic, or any other kind of reinforcing verbal agreement with an honest dosage of magic. And in fact, even if it lacked something like that, seeing the same crest repeating on the man's shield, glove, and his horse's cloak, I would have to be stupid not to recognize that man's position.
"That doesn't…" Bringing my hand up, I stopped the man from making a peaceful resolution to the situation even harder to achieve.
"Sir, with all due respect, but I made a vow to my blind sister. So far, I defeated every single obstacle that stood in my path of fulfilling her greatest dream. I even managed to defeat that winged female behind me, only to force her into helping me." Explaining the situation that never took place, I finally allowed a darker expression to surface on my face.
"Sir, do you really believe I would turn around and leave just because you told me to do so? After everything, I went through?!" Raising my voice by a tiny bit, I suddenly turned around and approached the girl. Reaching one of the easily accessible pockets of my backpack, I pulled out some basic first aid utensils.
"Stay still. It will hurt only a bit." Instantly changing from a subservient attitude to completely ignoring the entire group altogether, I grabbed the bottle of hydrogen peroxide commonly known as oxygenated water. While its common name was actually chemically wrong, something I learned while randomly scrolling through the page of my social media back on earth, its naming mistakes and rights didn't matter now at all.
Splash.
By squeezing the thin plastic of the bottle, I directed a thin stream of pristine water directly towards the girl's wound. Huge and deep, it could easily be classified as a mortal would to any normal human, only further proving how far detached Teria was from what I considered to be normal.
While Teria didn't utter even a single word or moan of protest, her fingers visibly tightened into fists when the hydrogen peroxide started burning all the potential seeds of disease from her exposed flesh. Before long, I covered the wound with a special piece of cloth infused with antiseptics before wrapping a bandage all around it.
As little as it would do given how I didn't have the time to set the stitches or any proper form of wound protection, it was still better than doing nothing.
"Well, you are quite strong yourself, so that should do it." Splitting the end of the bandage into two and then using the separate parts to bind the cover in place, I finally turned my face back to the attackers.
"Now, make your choice." There was no fear in my eyes when I looked at the man. As far as my observation went, the man behind this strange ray of light that put my system on a high alert was already gone, safely hidden behind the walls. That made it quite unlikely for anyone else capable of dealing serious damage to me to be present in here.
"You can either let us in, let us do what we came here to do, and see us leave this place in less than a day or you can try to oppose us." There was no threat in my voice. But the calmness with which I announced how the situation looked appeared to have some effect on the other party.
"If you try to enter the former cathedral on your own… I'm not here to judge your strength, but you will die. Even if you managed to enslave a wingwoman…" Speaking up, the man unknowingly stepped on the landmine. "Enslave? Your mother is enslaved! Your entire family is enslaved!"
Flaring up, Teria instantly forgot about the pain of her injury. Stepping forward, she stared daggers at the man for as long as it took him to turn his face around in shame and back down.
"While it might be true, there is one more question you should ask yourself." Ignoring the girl's outburst, I smiled gently. "As you can see, this girl is following me despite not being enslaved. In terms of how powerful she is, I bet you have a guess. The problem is…" Moving a few steps towards the man, I stopped when my forehead was just an inch from the metal of the man's helmet. "Can you afford to misjudge how powerful I am?"