Strength and Forbearance

By the time Ruger came running and stumbling over, it was already over—or rather, it had never truly begun.

A wizard apprentice stood in front of Baangte. He was the enthusiastic man who had been the first to greet Ruger before leaving earlier. Behind him lay the shrunken Gray Longneck Saint Lord, utterly motionless. Several claws made of shadow gripped the snake tightly, but those strange claws were clearly not the main reason it could not move. Those few claws alone were not enough to keep it from struggling at all.

"We meet again, you poor little thing."

The enthusiastic man was still enthusiastic, but Ruger did not dare greet him. Something was clearly wrong with the scene before him.

"I truly wonder what experiment your mentor was conducting. As I recall, anyone who sheds their status as an experimental subject and becomes a wizard apprentice is listed under the experiment's overseer and calls them mentor. Quite interesting, really. But why alter you into this form? Hmm... so thorough, without a single flaw. If kobolds could become wizard apprentices, I'd think you were a real kobold." The enthusiastic man spoke as he sized Ruger up from head to toe, completely ignoring Baangte in front of him.

Baangte's fists kept clenching and relaxing at his sides, as though he were preventing his hands from cramping, producing wave after wave of teeth-aching crackles.

"I caught this snake for you."

At last, the enthusiastic man turned to face forward.

"You've tried to catch it several times and failed every time. I wonder whether you'll thank me sincerely?" The enthusiastic man smiled. "But as a friend, it would be wrong of me to cause you trouble. So let there be no mistake. You'd best confirm first whether this is the one you've been pursuing all along."

Ruger had expected Baangte to fly into a rage, yet Baangte's face gradually calmed instead, as though he truly were facing an old friend fond of jokes.

"Am I right, 'Strength' Baangte? Apprentices from different places are still spreading your nickname around, but we're only a group of fifth-level wizard apprentices. Don't make it sound as though we are great wizards who possess spell sequences. Some say that whenever something happens, you always display astonishing forbearance, while another group says you're someone who never yields an inch."

The strange shadow claws began to writhe, carrying the motionless gray-white long snake over to the enthusiastic man. Bit by bit, they wound it around his body, from his neck to beneath his arms, then around his waist.

The enthusiastic man gripped the snake's head with one hand, allowing the tail on the other end to slide to the ground, as though he had put on a suit of long-snake half-armor.

"Now I'll speak, and you listen carefully. Confirm whether it's your snake. I hope I didn't accidentally catch the wrong one."

The man looked at Baangte, his eyes full of anticipation.

"This snake... I believe... it has something to do with that little insect-man. Am I right, my friend?" He smiled, fiddling with the snake's head as he spoke. "At such a tense time, with the task assigned by Lord Wizard Niteri before you, you always go chasing this snake. I can't help but grow suspicious."

After a brief silence.

He spoke again. "So, my friend, answer me now. Is this the snake you've been chasing all along?"

The silence remained. Ruger looked left and right, quietly took half a step back, then another half-step. No one present seemed to care about him, which was also a good thing.

In truth, he was also very curious why Baangte had been chasing the Gray Longneck Saint Lord, driving it into such a state.

He carefully recalled everything that had happened recently. The only thing that seemed to line up was when the Gray Longneck Saint Lord had appeared—it might have been around the same time this group of wizard apprentices arrived in the area. But that proved nothing. There was no useful information.

There was also the Gray Longneck Saint Lord's earlier whispered message to him, telling him to stay away. It had seemed like a warning directed at him.

Suddenly, another unfamiliar person emerged from a side passage and blocked Ruger's retreat. Of course, he was most likely there to cut off Baangte's escape route.

"You need to know how to share secrets if you want to be good friends, Baangte."

The man blocking the rear said.

"There are only two of you?"

Baangte finally spoke, his tone exceptionally calm.

Seeing that retreating was no longer an option, Ruger immediately moved toward the wall. Fifth-level wizard apprentices were still within the scope of using zero-ring spells. The few before him might be exceptionally formidable, but that remained true. Thus, as a low-level apprentice according to Ka Liu's diary, if he got caught up in this kind of situation, he would become the first target to be attacked.

If conflict broke out, the first thing to do was probably get rid of the little piece of trash that could affect the situation.

Bang!

Just as Ruger had expected, Baangte had already made his move, targeting the man blocking the rear.

That created an opportunity for him. With Strength of the Savage Bull bolstering him, he charged after the fifth-level apprentice big brother. Big brother was there to beat people up; he was there to find an opening and slip away.

A tiny kobold could not afford to stir up enormous trouble.

As he ran, he took out the handful of bottles and jars he had collected from the earlier inheritance from his storage pouch—disgusting potions of unknown use and the like—and threw them behind him. Green, dense fog immediately spread through the passage.

The fog rolled behind him. He had already rushed out after big brother, and as he ran, he sent a long-prepared Freezing Ray into the dense fog behind him.

The fellow blocking the path was instantly sent flying by Baangte's fist. An invisible force seemed to coil around that fist; before it even landed solidly, the man was already airborne, followed immediately by a punch squarely into his body. Just when Ruger thought Baangte would press his advantage—

Baangte suddenly turned around and, passing by Ruger as they crossed, seemingly without even noticing Ruger's stunned expression, charged directly back into the tunnel filled with green fog.

That snake really seemed important to him, Ruger thought.

His feet did not stop. He cast Foul-Smelling Skin, empowering the Demon Skin Spell model at the same time, then immediately cast the spell. The fellow Baangte had sent flying was most likely also a fifth-level wizard apprentice. Ruger had no intention of testing himself against him.

Though he also wanted to see whether he could take advantage of the opportunity to eliminate a fifth-level apprentice, to see what effect the strangely altered Foul-Smelling Skin would have on a normal fifth-level wizard apprentice with a physical body.

But his cautious nature stopped him from taking such a risk.

Unless there was no way to avoid it, just like now.

A swaying figure got to his feet, looked at him, swept a glance over him, then charged fiercely toward the place filled with green fog as well.

Yet in this passage broad enough to host a massive barbecue gathering, the figure passing him from the other direction still casually flung a spell at him. Calling it one spell was only because it was so fast—scorching heat struck him in an instant, and more than twenty fist-sized fireballs shot toward him, their momentum blanketing him completely.

In that instant, an image of himself becoming battered and broken flashed through his mind.

And the person passing by, who had casually tossed out that spell and intended to charge straight through, did not seem to be having an easy time either.