Klein was in trouble.
Elites were like Gold Coins: the backbone of the Allen Continent. Their value never changed, but their importance varied from place to place.
Gold Coins carried more weight in small towns and villages; in a City-State, each was just one among countless others. Elites were the same. They could throw their weight around in the former, but in the latter, they simply did their jobs.
So Klein was strong, but not strong enough... The wine merchants bleeding the Flower Capital dry had more Elites, and even Master Level fighters.
He had caught the attention of gangs working as the wine merchants' enforcers while selling Maple Syrup at the Market. Each barrel bore a note: "Please don't mix Maple Syrup with warm water at a ratio of 1:3 and leave it in a wine barrel for twenty days, or it will turn into Maple Wine!" But ordinary people couldn't afford heavy armor and a Magic Ring like his, so, wary of who he might be, they merely bought up the alcoholic syrup he sold.
Everything went smoothly up to that point. Klein sold two hundred barrels of Maple Syrup in two hours and returned to the Tavern.
Then Annan's wanted posters suddenly appeared throughout the Flower Capital. The wine merchants had been watching Klein and discovered that he had been with Annan ever since they entered the city.
Out for revenge and coveting the Magic Ring, the wine merchants sent the gangs that did their dirty work to ambush Klein and recover both the money they had spent that morning and the ring.
In a sense, Klein had been dragged into trouble that belonged to Annan.
The gang leader was a formidable Elite, and the attack came late at night. Even an Elite Mage would have been