Klaus gave another deep sigh as they passed through the gates and left the relative safety of the town behind.

’This is definitely going to end really badly...’ he thought pessimistically.

Then, unexpectedly, a small compartment door opened in the wall between where Klaus and the driver sat and where Seo rode inside the carriage.

It created a window-like opening that allowed them to communicate without her having to be in the same space as him.

Through the opening, Seo’s voice came out with that same condescending tone she always used.

"If you have any questions whatsoever about your mission and what will be required of you, then now would be the appropriate time to ask them, commoner," she announced as if granting him a great favor. "I’ll explain the basics of what you need to do."

She paused, then added. "If you successfully help me retrieve this dragon without it sustaining any wounds or injuries, then I will graciously grant you a payment of three gold coins. That should help someone of your pathetically low status survive for quite some time."

Klaus was facing forward toward the road ahead, which meant Seo couldn’t see his face. He rolled his eyes with extreme frustration.

Three gold coins? For infiltrating a Death Cult base and fighting for a dragon’s life? This spoiled noble girl clearly had no education whatsoever about how valuable money truly was or what constituted fair payment for dangerous mercenary work.

Her ignorance and privilege showed through painfully, regardless Klaus decided to test the situation with some pointed questions.

"How did you acquire the specific information about the location of the Death Cult’s hideout?" he asked politely, keeping his tone respectful despite his annoyance.

"You should shut your mouth and stop asking impertinent questions that don’t concern you," Seo snapped back immediately.

Klaus pressed forward anyway.

"With all due respect, Lady Seo, you’re the one hiring me for this mission. I would need to know at least some of the specific details in order to properly assist you and keep us both safe."

There was a moment of irritated silence from inside the carriage then Seo replied with obvious reluctance.

"If you must know, I possess the rare ability to communicate telepathically with various mounts and beasts. Information about the dragon’s location was spread through the animal networks and reached me through my connections. That is precisely why I requested your specific assistance, since you apparently have experience dealing with the Death Cult from your previous encounter."

Klaus raised his eyebrows at this explanation. So she was relying entirely on second-hand information from animals?

"So just to clarify," he said carefully, "you’re bringing me along to risk my life based on information that hasn’t even been personally confirmed by your own eyes yet? You haven’t actually seen this dragon yourself?"

"Yes, that’s correct," Seo said without any shame. "But I am paying you good money for the service, am I not? And I am absolutely certain that the dragon is there where the information indicates. I even saw it briefly with my own eyes when I scouted the area from a distance."

Klaus felt his frustration growing.

"If you’ve already seen it with your own eyes and confirmed its location, then why exactly do you need my help? Couldn’t you have simply brought the commoner who’s currently inside the carriage with you? He seems quite capable from what I can feel."

Seo’s eyes twitched with visible anger at the question, though Klaus couldn’t see it from his position.

’Why is this low-born commoner asking so many questions that don’t concern him?’ she thought with rising fury. ’Why is the dog daring to bark back at the owner who feeds him?’

"There is no commoner inside this carriage with me," Seo said coldly. "The person accompanying me is my adoptive brother Neo. And not only that, but he possesses a far more powerful and pure noble bloodline than you could ever hope to achieve in a thousand lifetimes of effort."

She paused to let that sink in.

"Now stop asking all of these tiresome questions and focus your limited mental capacity on the main objective here... which is retrieving my dragon safely. That is all you need to concern yourself with."

With that final dismissal, she slammed the small compartment window closed with a loud bang.

Klaus continued staring out at the road ahead, watching the scenery pass by as the driver urged the horses to move faster and the man gave Klaus a sympathetic look but said nothing.

’This is definitely a trap or some kind of ploy,’ Klaus thought with grim certainty. ’And it’s completely inescapable.’

Even if he tried to leave right now and run away, what were the realistic chances that Seo wouldn’t accuse him of assault or attempted robbery or some other false crime?

She could easily fabricate any story she wanted, and as a noble, her word would be believed over his without question.

...

Later that evening, as the sun began setting and painting the sky in shades of orange and purple, Klaus carefully placed the last piece of collected firewood into the small campfire.

The flames immediately grew larger and brighter, providing both warmth and light as darkness crept across their makeshift camp.

The carriage driver was currently roasting some monster meat over the fire... something he’d apparently hunted and prepared earlier. He’d washed the meat properly and was now seasoning it with salt and various herbs he carried in his supplies with the pleasant aroma filling the air.

Klaus kept one hand resting casually on the hilt of his sword, maintaining constant awareness of his surroundings.

Notably, he hadn’t brought his main storage ring on this journey. There was far too much accumulated wealth stored inside that magical item... gold coins, rare herbs, dungeon loot and he wasn’t about to risk losing it all in what was likely a trap.

Besides, he still had access to his Forge ability, which allowed him to create metal constructs from nothing so that would have to be enough.

Klaus felt even more grateful now that he’d made the decision to leave the ring behind as his instincts had been correct.

Some distance away from the campfire, Seo sat atop a large flat rock with an uncomfortable and displeased expression on her face.

Camping outdoors like some common peasant was clearly beneath her usual standards. Next to her, sitting calmly and gazing at the stars, was the Protagonist himself.

Neo... The chosen hero of this world...

At this point in the timeline, Neo had already awakened all four of the basic elemental affinities that any mage could potentially possess... Fire, Earth, Water, and Air.

One would naturally think that having to cultivate and balance four different elemental affinities simultaneously would slow down his overall magical growth considerably compared to someone who specialized in just one or two elements.

But Neo’s progression was actually remarkably fast, defying normal logic.

This was because the Protagonist possessed a Mana Resonance of Purple with distinctive white flecks scattered throughout it which was an incredibly unknown resonance type.

What did that mean in practical terms?

For example, if it took Klaus roughly a full year of dedicated training and cultivation to advance from Second Class Wizard Apprentice to Third Class Wizard Apprentice, Neo could accomplish that same advancement in approximately two months of casual effort.

So if the Protagonist actually focused seriously on his own development and training instead of getting constantly distracted by side quests and harem members, he would become the strongest person in the world much faster than the storyline predicted.

’However, who am I to judge his choices when I myself walk through this world as an imperfect ma—’

Klaus’s self-deprecating thought was suddenly cut off.

The attack came without any warning whatsoever... there was no verbal declaration, no obvious shift in body language and no telltale gathering of mana that would have tipped Klaus off a second earlier.

One moment Neo was sitting calmly beside Seo on that rock, seemingly lost in thought as he gazed up at the stars scattered across the darkening sky.

The next moment his entire form blurred and distorted with magically enhanced speed, moving so incredibly fast that a normal person wouldn’t have been able to track the movement at all. They would have just seen him disappear from one location and reappear in another, like teleportation.

But Klaus wasn’t a normal person. His combat instincts immediately screamed danger at him with the intensity of alarm bells clanging in his mind.

His hand moved on pure reflex before his conscious brain had even fully processed what was happening and he drew his own blade in one perfectly smooth motion that came from muscle memory rather than active thought.

The sword cleared its sheath with a metallic whisper.

CLANG!

The two swords collided against each other with absolutely tremendous force with the impact resonating through Klaus’s arm all the way to his shoulder.

A visible shockwave rippled outward from the exact point where the blades met, distorting the air itself with the pressure.

The campfire that had been burning cheerfully just seconds ago was instantly extinguished by the sheer force of displaced air, plunging their small camping area into near-total darkness save for the small silvery moonlight filtering down through scattered clouds.

Bright sparks flew where the two metal blades scraped and ground against each other, illuminating both fighters’ faces in brief flashes of orange light.

Klaus found himself staring directly into Neo’s face from less than a foot away.

The Protagonist’s expression had transformed completely from that peaceful, contemplative look he’d worn while stargazing. Now his face had gone thin and deadly serious and his eyes were glowing too.

’I’m actually fighting against the Protagonist himself right now,’ Klaus thought. ’The main character of this world... The hero destined to save everyone huh? And I’m most certainly sure that I’m not going to win thi—’

Neo’s free hand suddenly began glowing with bright green wind mana with the energy swirling and concentrating rapidly.

"Wind Force!" Neo called out, releasing the spell at point-blank range.

An incredibly powerful concentrated gust of wind erupted from his palm, slamming into Klaus’s chest with enough raw force to send a normal person flying backward like a ragdoll.

The shockwave also caught the carriage driver, who had been sitting nearby, sending him tumbling and rolling across the rocky ground with a pained cry but Klaus didn’t fly backward.

At the very last possible instant before impact, Klaus had activated his Iron Skin ability and transformed his entire right foot and lower leg into solid metal, rooting himself to the ground with tremendous weight and stability.

His metallic leg absorbed the force of the wind spell, distributing it harmlessly into the earth beneath him and his stance barely wavered.

Neo’s eyes widened in surprise at this defensive technique.

Klaus immediately capitalized on the opening. He drove his left elbow forward in a vicious strike using Iron Skin there, his now metal-hard arm slamming directly into Neo’s unprotected stomach with bone-crushing force.

THUD!

The impact made a sickening sound. Neo’s eyes bulged as all the air was driven from his lungs and he staggered backward several steps, gasping and clutching his midsection.

Klaus’s leg transformed back to normal flesh as he immediately pressed his advantage, charging forward while Neo was still reeling from the blow.

Neo recovered faster than expected... credit to his Protagonist physiology and high-tier training. He immediately lifted his sword again, and the blade began glowing with that same bright green wind mana, energy crackling along its edge.

"Wind Cutter!" Neo shouted, slashing horizontally.

A crescent-shaped blade of compressed wind energy flew from his sword, cutting through the air with a whistling sound as the spell was sharp enough to slice through stone.

Klaus ducked under the attack with perfect timing, feeling the wind blade pass just centimeters above his head.

The crescent-shaped blade of pure compressed wind energy flew over Klaus’s head so close that he could actually feel the spell’s cutting edge... it was a sensation like thousands of tiny razor blades passing just millimeters above his scalp.

His longer hair whipped wildly upward from the intense displaced air pressure with individual strands getting sliced off by proximity to the spell’s lethal cutting field.

If he’d been even a fraction of a second slower in his dodge, even a single centimeter higher in his crouch, that spell would have decapitated him cleanly.

His head would have separated from his shoulders and rolled across the rocky ground while his body collapsed in a fountain of blood.

The Wind Cutter spell continued its deadly trajectory past Klaus’s ducked form, traveling at incredible speed. It struck a large boulder positioned behind their campsite... a rock roughly the size of a horse that had probably been sitting in that exact spot for a long time, weathered by wind and rain into its current rounded shape.

The spell passed through the solid stone like it wasn’t even there, like a hot knife through butter. There was barely any resistance at all.

For a single frozen moment, nothing appeared to happen as the boulder sat there looking completely intact and untouched then a thin dark line appeared across its center, perfectly horizontal.

After that, the top half of the boulder slid sideways and fell, crashing to the ground with a tremendous BOOM that shook the earth beneath Klaus’s feet.

The interior of the stone that had been cut was smooth as polished glass, showing the devastating precision of Neo’s spell work.

That could have been Klaus’s body cut in half just as easily since the spell didn’t discriminate between flesh and stone.

’That’s the Protagonist’s power,’ Klaus thought. ’This is what I’m up against. I need to end this fast before he gets serious.’

While still in his low crouch from dodging the Wind Cutter, Klaus immediately transitioned into a rising slash attack aimed at Neo’s exposed stomach.

His blade swept upward in a deadly arc designed to gut his opponent from navel to sternum.

Neo’s eyes widened as he registered the counterattack coming. He tried to dodge backward with his body already moving before Klaus’s sword could connect but the Protagonist’s reflexes, though excellent, weren’t quite fast enough to completely avoid the strike.

Klaus’s blade caught Neo across the abdomen... not deep enough to cause serious internal damage thanks to Neo’s partial dodge and the protective enchantments woven into the Protagonist’s clothing, but definitely deep enough to draw blood and tear through both his shirt and the skin beneath.

A thin red line appeared across Neo’s stomach as blood began soaking through the torn fabric almost immediately.

Neo’s face twisted in pain and surprise.

He stumbled backward several steps, one hand instinctively going to his wounded midsection while the other maintained his grip on his sword.

’Contrary to absolutely all my expectations based on knowing he’s the Protagonist,’ Klaus thought with genuine surprise. ’this guy is actually pretty weak for the supposed chosen hero of this world...’

At this point in the timeline, Neo should have been stronger.

Either the Protagonist was deliberately holding back his true power for some reason, or Klaus had somehow grown far stronger than the game’s original mechanics accounted for.

Klaus didn’t waste time pondering the mystery.

He spun his sword in a fluid, circular motion that blurred the blade into a wheel of steel, then attacked again from a completely different angle that Neo wouldn’t be able to predict based on the previous strike’s trajectory.

Neo brought his own blade up desperately and managed to block the incoming attack at the last possible instant.

CLANG!

But blocking wasn’t enough to fully negate the tremendous force Klaus had put behind the strike. The sheer kinetic energy transferred through the blade collision sent Neo flying backward through the air anyway with his feet completely leaving the ground despite his best efforts to maintain his stance.

CRASH!

Neo’s body slammed hard into the rocky, uneven ground of the hillside they’d chosen for their camp.

The impact drove what little air remained in his lungs out in a painful whoof sound and he rolled once from the momentum of Klaus’s powerful strike with his sword nearly flying from his grip, before he managed to force himself back into a combat-ready position.

Even hurt, even clearly outmatched in pure skill and power, the Protagonist refused to stay down. That was the thing about main characters... they had a stubborn determination that defied logic and reason.

Neo’s eyes blazed with renewed focus despite the pain radiating from his bleeding stomach and bruised back.

Breathing heavily and gritting his teeth against the pain, Neo gripped his sword with both hands now instead of his previous one-handed stance.

He channeled mana through his body in a way that Klaus could actually see... green wind mana and red fire mana swirling together around him in a visible aura.

Then he began firing spell after spell in rapid succession, not giving Klaus any chance to close the distance for another devastating melee attack.

"Wind Blade!"

A crescent of cutting wind flew at Klaus.

"Wind Blade!"

Another projectile, this one from a different angle.

"Wind Blade! Wind Blade! Wind Blade!" 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Multiple crescent-shaped projectiles of compressed wind mana flew directly at Klaus in rapid succession, each one sharp enough to cut through steel and deadly precise in their aim.

Neo was creating a literal barrage of lethal spells, filling the air between them with attacks that came from multiple angles simultaneously.

It was an impressive display of magical control and multitasking since most wizard apprentices couldn’t cast the same spell that many times in quick succession without their mana circuits overheating or their concentration shaking but Klaus had fought in enough dungeon boss battles to know how to handle projectile spam attacks.

’I think I’m the one that’s too strong for him.’ Klaus thought as he ran forward at full speed.