Borenger landed on the ground and rolled toward the dwarf bandits. He pumbled with the two over their spear shafts, but he could only successfully lock one. With great effort and an enhanced arm he wrung the bandit down lower and while avoiding stabs from his partner he was able to shove his dagger into his shoulder causing him the exhale sharply. Which would be followed by screaming as he let go of the spear, practically giving it away.

  In the same moment the gigan swung at him, catching him and dislocating his shoulder though he managed to throw the club off just enough to prevent doing worse damage. “Gugh!” As soon as he could he skipped over to the trees and swiftly began relocating his arm, but the gigan like many of their kind quickly closed the gap and for now Borenger had to use the spear with one hand.

  For this round the strategy was simple, he’d make distance and wear the gigan out. However the gigan seemed to have improved compared to last time they fought. “Natural talent.” As the gigan refused to commit, Borenger took the opportunity to fix his arm and bait the gigan.

  As expected, the gigan rushed forward and used his long arms and club to close even more distance. But Borenger simply shifted his position and dug the spearhead into the gigan’s wrist. He shot back in surprise and the club switched hands, the dwarf bandit carefully took the front position.

  Now with no weapon, he had to focus on the dwarf but unfortunately as he moved forward the gigan took point again. “Don’t, the vrilya has no weapon.” the Giant bastard said.

  “How annoying, a bandit who thinks he has a brain.”

  “Arrogant bastard, I don’t care if I can never come to Afair again - I’ll kill you.”

  “Nos! What about Frede?”

  “Agh- dammit.” the big bandit began to calm down.

  “You seem like brothers. Why don’t we end this here?”

  “Fuck you.” Nos took an aggressive stance with the head of the club lying on the ground past his right hip.

  “Fine.” Borenger leaped up to a nearby try and tore a branch out of it. This startled the dwarf bandit a bit, but the two bandits kept the pressure on the vrilya as he landed. As predicted, the gigan aggressively swung his club around and even glancing blows made him bleed. The dwarf used his spear to pressure Borenger but there were still major gaps.

  For example; Borenger could feign a leap and the dwarf would stab low and he could quickly step on it as the gigan took the time to reorient the club over his shoulders with only one hand - even if he grabbed with both he would be too slow to prevent Borenger from using the dwarf as a human shield. This exactly happened, not too soon after he thought of doing it.

  Without saying anything, the vrilya kept the shaft in his armpit and he used his free hands to wrist lock and subsequently dislocate the elbows of the bandit with some more space between himself and the gigan as he was able to prevent being smashed given the hostage situation.

  The dwarf of course stood to the side wailing in pain. Borenger confidently and carefully aimed his spear for the gigan’s face, which distorted the bandit’s vision a bit but all he could do was throw the club forward like a spear or swing from on high. Figuring that it was an unexpected move, he chose to stab with the club.

  It was not unexpected. The vrilya hopped to the side, and though he almost puked from the impact glancing his midriff he threw the spear forward with an intense and electrical force using the fingers, straight into the gigan’s shoulder. From there, Borenger leaped and using his knees to hold himself on the gigan’s face threw both of his elbows down onto the top of the head.

  “A-again!?” The gigan began to shout but it faded as the crack of his skull and some amount of blood spewed out and into Borenger’s face. He sighed, such gore was usual but despite his comparably healthy condition he had yet to learn how exactly to stop the pain that comes with striking a thick skinned and boned gigan.

  Despite the pain he chuckled to himself as he was checking out the weapons. “I shouldn’t lie too often. I’m taking their weapons.” He grimaced as he tried to pick up the club. He could do it but it would be unsuitable, so he chopped through it with his hand. Not a clean chop at all since he is not powerful enough, but it was at a better size.

  An hour later he was sitting in an open air healing vat. These were for more minor injuries like his. Though he was broke, he luckily could make up most of it working for the hospital. In some ways it was easier to be broke in the Outrim, even though Mafakas is very developed there were often places like this where they would accept help from non-medical personnel.

  Though, as he swept the floors and cleaned things it was a bit annoying, he could pretend like he was training all he wanted but it was embarrassing when other people could see. After spending most of the day cleaning the hospital he went off on his own and snuck over the buildings to the inn.

  Strangely, Lalant wasn’t in their room. “Maybe he had business of his own.” Borenger looked through his bag and dug everything out so he could reorganize it. Mostly clothes, some tools and a notebook. First he used a sharpening tool on the spear and a bit on the kyrene dagger but it did noting due to how solid the material was. “I wonder how they make these. Maybe Master will take me to Kyrene.” He thought to himself as he admired the dagger compared to the spearhead.

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  Compared to regular metal it is said that kyrene metal can last millennia without needing maintenance. He caressed the blade, it was unusually curved and the comfortable position to use it was backhand which is not common in weapons. Luckily, this was useful against the unarmed.

  After reorganizing things he began to sift through his journal. Since he now had a kyrene blade to study he spent a few hours making notes on it when Lalant walked in.

  “Good evening kid, I see you're the owner of a few new weapons.” Lalant yawned and stretched as he sat down. “Did you kill yet?”

  “Oh hello Master. I only dealt with some of them. I think I can lure the shifter and the kyrenean out to the bridge. I’ll probably cause a lot of trouble so if I don’t meet you at the tree I will meet you further out of town when I am sure no one will try to arrest me.”

  “Good. I don’t feel like bailing you out this time.”

  “I understand.”

  “You could afford to be less polite, y’know.”

  “But you’re my Master.”

  “So?” Lalant grumbled a bit but just went to sleep and not long after Borenger also did.

  In the morning Borenger was armed with his three weapons, which made people in the street ignore him. Though for now he was being casual so that he could catch attention. Since he was sure the two warriors meant to do more than simply cripple him he figured he wouldn’t be attacked as brazenly since police could interrupt more easily.

  The incident from the other day was a fluke and ended relatively quickly without much real fighting and now that they know he has no money there was no point in trying to get it back. Given he was a vrilya, they could use their reputation in killing him to get more work. Even if said vrilya was relatively unknown - at the same time he could achieve the same fame from killing a shifter and a kyrenean.

  “I can also benefit from killing a kyrenean and a shifter even if it could land me in prison.” The Outrim was notorious for such half-assed legal enforcement. They were mainly concerned with public order but did not go out of their way to deal with mercenaries as long as it didn't cause too much trouble to the municipality itself.

  Of course, as the clash had been dragged out pretty long it was getting to the point where a fourth fight would only turn them into fugitives even if no one died. It would be best that they were also not allowed to follow him and his master.

  Being noticed was easy, going to bars. Buy weird drinks, which should also make his two opponents more confident. Thankfully, his unique body made him tolerant to poison, vril and alcohol so even dumping out five entire bottles of high proof alcohol would only make him buzzed.

  This was a boring process for an introvert but it worked as the afternoon came and he approached the bridge to see a kyrenean on one side and a merwoman on the other. This time, she was well armed and armored as well, spiking the difficulty even further. Besides them there were also onlookers, some were probably associated with law enforcement meaning that if he were to kill both he had to do so around the same time - unlikely.

  “I will ask a question!” Borenger smiled as he heard these words from the kyrenean. “Are you willing to surrender and surrender yourself to the estate of Borissa?” He held out a block of wood with a bronze colored tassel, a symbol of a baronate within the Ibintil Empire. Though such seals are known to be sold quite often it did not lack authority given these were given primarily to real fighters who don’t often cause much legal trouble.

  “I suppose that means the law will not get involved unless I kill one of them.” This only strained Borenger’s smile as he grew in excitement. “I hope you’ll make for an excellent trophy.” He set down the club and put the dagger in his mouth, aiming to primarily use the spear.

  Before he moved he quickly examined the kyrenean. Borenger had around four inches on the kyrenean, as fellow dwarfs. He spun around with the spear intending to face the dog lady first and as he saw her he noted that she was a lot closer in height to him and her armor was light but it was to be expected of a being that can burst into a large terrifying beast.

  “I’ll take that as a no?” The merwoman said first and began moving toward Borenger slowly. But he did not care to engage her properly, the point of the bridge was to use an age old tactic known as ‘toss the bastard over’ and he charged her.

  This brash action startled her and what more was that he only used the spear to sneak past her own polearm and sweep her into his arms. The strangeness of the action made her blush but before she could process this she was tossed over the bridge.

  “What!?” She screamed as she fell into the water below.

  “Anarah! You bastard! Are you a one trick pony?” Isos charged Borenger and they clashed though he was strong with the long two-handed kyrenean sword he was being pushed back whenever Borenger would use his spear to lock up his massive movements.

  Isos began to wildly swing with one arm which made the trick more difficult to perform, but this allowed him to first pull out a smaller blade with a rounded point and with that unsheathing he stuck the large blade into the wooden bridge. Allowing him to unsheathe an off-hand dagger.

  As they continued to fight, Borenger let himself get pushed back. Naturally, this was because kyreneans were built for this. Warfare in this era consisted of long spears, slow blaster fire and inbetween it all these heavily armored soldiers would be used to break up pike formations.

  This however was planned. As they backed up, Borenger launched the spear with his fingers as he leaped backward. It simply bounced off Isos’ plate armor but he did not keep his eye off Borenger who was now rearming himself with the large club.

  “Now he’ll start to hurt.” Borenger inched forward, his stance held the club up high.

  “This is inane… are you really trying to use jigen?” Isos mumbled under his breath, recognizing the stance. It was a common stance among Vrilya - even Lalant often used it in his youth and passed it onto Borenger but it did not suit something so heavy.

  He leaped forward and swung down. As the club came down Isos avoided it and at the same time the merwoman; Anarah leaped onto the bridge behind the both of them in her war form. Borenger grimaced as he realized he took too long before even getting a solid strike on Isos.

  Now he could not afford to be cautious. He was not experienced enough to use it properly, though he understood is required momentum like with the gigan but he could probably not reliably fight like he normally could so he began to breathe heavily so that he could force his body to make up for flaws with his movement with pure strength.