The armed group staring them down in the alley was a motley mix of races. Two had traces of canine ancestry and one of them looked perfectly human except for the eyes which seemed to contain a cosmos within them. The one who was the leader of the group seemed to be of the same species Devon had seen in the old knight's memory, with hair like fire.

  "Just to make sure, you haven't mistaken us for someone else, have you?" Devon asked the group of thugs.

  "...Oi, Jen. Check the thing again to make sure," The one who seemed to be the leader of the thugs said to one of the others.

  "It's one of them. I'm not certain which, though. This thing isn't super precise," The one apparently called Jen replied. Devon could see a small object that seemed to glint gold in their offhand.

  "Then we just get them both. Problem solved, right?" The leader said flippantly.

  "But if we attack someone who isn't cursed we won't be protected by the special exception-"

  "It's fine! Nobody knows or cares about some no-name initiates anyway."

  It's so hard to make heads or tails of this conversation. I thought they might be related to the one that called me here, but it seems less likely the longer these thugs prattle on. I just can't imagine someone who seemed as above it all as they did sent these idiots. Then again, maybe this is part of an elaborate ruse, and these morons are nothing but unknowing pawns.

  Regardless, I highly doubt we'll be able to talk ourselves out of this situation. No harm in trying to parse some more info out of them though.

  "Sorry to interrupt, but I'd like some clarification on why we're being harassed like this. I distinctly remember 'no fighting in the town' being explicitly stated in the datalog on the local laws."

  "Shut up! A cursed being or someone who confides with one is no better than a ravenous animal!"

  "And if I simply screamed for help from the guards?"

  The leader of the group adopted a vicious grin, "Oh, I wouldn't do that if I were you. They might make things a pain in the ass for us, but that'd make things soooo much worse for you. Well, not that they can get much worse to begin with."

  The other one mentioned some kind of special exception. If that's a legal exception concerning cursed beings that's very interesting. Either way, if they want a fight that's what they'll get. Let's see what we're working with.

  [Jen - Level 56]

  [Lihnui - Level 51]

  [Ohry - Level 58]

  [Nohbin - Level 55]

  If we were back in the tutorial these guys would have been the cream of the crop. But whereas we only had a month and no outside help to raise ourselves up, these guys look like they've been pampered for years.

  The four thugs rushed them, clearly done talking.

  "Trey-" Devon started as he pulled the blue scrap sword out of his inventory, but Trey cut him off.

  "Don't draw any undue attention, right? Don't have much to contribute if I can't use my spells though." Trey had a very conflicted look on his face as he drew his cudgel and shield. Devon winced as he realized he'd probably unknowingly poked at Trey's sore spot, his less than optimal class.

  If what the leader of the thugs had said was true then it would be highly disadvantageous for the two of them to draw any undue attention. That meant spells were mostly off the table.

  Still, I find it hard to imagine they'd be let off the hook if they caused too much of a ruckus, special exception or not.

  Devon's tile remained suspended in the air and started emitting pulses in the air around it as he activated Jamming with an extremely short range. The thugs barely seemed to notice as they charged.

  Two of them wielded short blades in both hands, with the leader brandishing a longer sword and shield. Jen, the one holding the golden object and dagger, followed up the rear.

  Devon stepped back to make sure he was next to Trey so they could weather the assault together.

  The leader of the group engaged him while the two with dual blades put pressure on Trey. Blades clashed as Devon gauged the leader's strength and found it wholly disappointing.

  The man had the confidence of a rich kid and none of the skill to back it up. When Devon compared him to previous opponents he didn't even register.

  Trey wasn't having nearly as easy of a time as Devon was though. Pressed by two dual wielders who were both a higher level than him, it was all he could do to hold the attackers off.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  Devon looked past the three frontliners and saw the one called Jen flitting around behind them, looking for an opening to slip by and flank either Devon or Trey. But due to the confined space of the alley, she couldn't maneuver around the bodies blocking her path.

  Alright, I need to wrap this up quickly. Activate skill; Cleave. Activate skill; Split.

  Dragging out a fight here would be pointless, so he resolved himself to finish it in one blow.

  You're the ones who started this, so you don't have any right to complain how it turns out.

  Devon gripped his sword with both hands and put everything he had into a horizontal slash. The leader seemed to notice that he was suddenly in grave danger and put up his shield, but it didn't matter.

  His sword cut through both the shield and the man behind it before Devon pivoted and continued the slash beyond him. The two dual blade users didn't realize their leader had died until they'd already also been cut through by Devon's sword.

  Kill - [Ohry - Level 58] - 1549 Talons

  Kill - [Lihnui - Level 51] - 791 Talons

  Kill - [Nohbin - Level 55] - 862 Talons

  Moving as fast as he could, Devon stepped into the bisected body of the leader before he finished falling to the ground. Pushing the falling corpse aside, he readied the pommel of his blade as he saw the eyes of Jen open wide in shock.

  Before she could react, he shot forward and slammed the pommel into her stomach even as she tried to cry out in surprise. The blow knocked the air from her lungs, and even as she desperately tried to take a breath Devon shoved two healing pills down her throat. Her eyes showed her primal fear for only a few seconds before she lost consciousness.

  "Dude, what the hell?" Trey said as he looked at the three corpses and the slowly expanding pool of blood at his feet.

  "Oh, sorry. Did you want to want to leave them alive?"

  "What? No, they came after us so it's fine… But damn."

  Devon scratched the back of his head as he looked at the three sorry figures. He could definitely understand the source of Trey's exasperation. His power had grown so far beyond what someone at his level should be capable of it was absurd.

  Still, I'd have had to use the amplification gem to accomplish that before. Cleave is pretty useful for larger fights against weaker opponents.

  Cleave was the upgraded version of Sever, which he'd refined in the days since the tutorial's battle. He'd badly wanted to upgrade one of the skills he'd already refined just to see what a D-grade skill would be like, but he'd decided he wanted an E-grade cutting skill to round out his attack types. Plus, any skill he brought to D-grade would no longer be affected by the amplification gem due to the grade difference.

  Regardless, he was glad he'd been able to finish the fight as fast as possible. The alley had forced the thugs to line up in front of them, giving him the chance to kill all three in a single wide slash.

  "Alright, let's clean this mess up as fast as possible," Trey said as he picked up one of the tiles that had dropped to the ground next to the corpses, "What do you plan to do with her?"

  "We need to know why we were singled out. Can't ask a corpse any questions."

  "Yeah, but where exactly are you planning on getting her to talk when she wakes up? Sitting here until she wakes up isn't an option and we don't know any safe places within or outside the city, and even moving her would be risky."

  "One thing at a time, Trey," Devon said. He felt an immense sense of appreciation as he watched Trey move methodically, transferring items from the deceased's inventory into his own.

  Devon had been more than a little worried they'd need to have a conversation on morality to make sure they were on the same page after the events of the tutorial, but he saw he'd worried over nothing.

  The people of the two camps had been nothing more than victims of the machinations of more influential individuals. They were ultimately blameless of the situation Devon and Trey had put them into, so it was understandable why Trey hadn't wanted to kill any more than necessary. But these thugs in the alley were different.

  These were people who'd targeted them of their own will, and that made these thugs their enemy.

  He bent down and picked up the golden object in the girl's hand. Upon closer inspection he realized it wasn't actually gold, but more like a chunk of amber with runes carved into it. Holding it felt strange, as if it was resonating with him or something.

  "Trey, catch," He said as he tossed the piece of amber to Trey.

  Trey caught it and frowned, "How strange. I feel some kind of pull towards you, like it's attracted to you or something."

  "Too bad I don't speak rock, I'd love to tell it I'm not interested."

  "What do you think it is?" Trey asked as he tossed it back.

  "If what those thugs said was any indication, I can only assume it's meant to seek out people that are cursed. The real question is-"

  "Ah, dammit. This is just my luck," A voice said from the mouth of the alley.

  Devon and Trey turned to see a man who wore an outfit similar to classy earth attire standing there, hand against his forehead. However, unlike humans, there were bits of his skin that seemed cracked, and Devon could see a soft red glow leaking from those gaps.

  [Kalion - Level 73]

  The man sighed and took his hand off his forehead as he read something off his system display, "Let me just make sure I have the right person. You're Devon… mind if I ask what brings you to the empire?"

  "I was invited."

  "By who?"

  "They never identified themselves, only referred to themselves as an interested party." A fragment of that conversation popped into Devon's mind as he went over it, a detail he should have taken note of far sooner, "They said they'd await me on the world Valterium."

  The man groaned, "Yeah, that checks out. Here, take this before you draw any more trouble to yourself." He threw something that Devon caught.

  It was another piece of amber, but unlike the chunk he'd taken off the girl, this piece was a perfect disk about an inch thick. There were runes on it that dwarfed the complexity of the ones on the chunk by several magnitudes.

  "That'll keep seekers off you, for a time. You're lucky this lot was a group of nobodies, if the designated seeker had found you this might have played out a lot differently."

  "Who are you?"

  "I'm your chaperone."