Lara was having a bit of a problem at the moment. She wanted to escape but the enemy in front of her was able to see her even while she was using the darkness to cover her form. The only other option was to render Oliver unable to follow her, but that would be quite hard as well, seeing as Lara didn"t want Oliver to know it was her that infiltrated the shop. "You"re taking me too lightly!" Oliver once again appeared behind Lara and attacked. This time when Lara tried to dodge by rolling, in which Oliver responded by punching the floor making it shake which also disrupted Lara"s rolling.
"Now look at what you made me do. I"ve broken the floor of my master"s shop." Despite saying that he was reluctant to destroy Harold"s property, Oliver continued to attack Lara while breaking some random objects.
"What can I do?" Lara was getting a bit frustrated as she continued to dodge Oliver"s attacks. It was quite difficult to evade most of Oliver"s attacks seeing as their fighting prowess were nearly at the same level, with Lara being only a little bit better.
If Lara and Oliver were to go all out they would have destroyed the whole shop. That would benefit Lara but going all out against Oliver might expose her and alert the people. It was also possible that Valdel would find out about this and it would be even more difficult then. Also as long as Lara doesn"t know what Harold"s plan was then she had no reason to destroy his shop or kill Oliver.
As she was distracted by her own thoughts Lara was almost hit by one of Oliver"s punches. She was able to dodge it but only barely. Oliver was no longer speaking as his concentration had greatly increased as the fight went on.
Lara seeing how Oliver was truly serious now made her stop thinking too deeply. The moment she stopped panicking and started to concentrate on the fight, the answer to what must be done came to her almost instantly. What she needed to do was simple she needed to defeat Oliver with the least possible attacks possible for her.
In her current state, she wasn"t good enough to do that. But that was only, for now, seeing as she was already able to evade Oliver"s attack even while she was distracted. This meant that she only needed to wait for the perfect opportunity to attack. Based on their nearly identical level of skill, the moment one of them makes a mistake it would be hard to recover.
...
The moment Lara started to concentrate wholly on the fight Oliver was surprised. There was no bloodl.u.s.t or any ill will coming from Lara, which made it already difficult to spot her as she was blending with the shadows. The only reason Oliver was somehow able to follow her movement was because of the sound of her footsteps and her breathing. Yet the moment she started to concentrate her feet felt like they became lighter and the sound she was making was reduced. It felt like Lara wasn"t even there.
"This person must be a genius a.s.sa.s.sin. Who could have hired this person? It can"t be one of the merchants here, they don"t have enough resources to hire someone so skilled. Could it be a person from the Third Prince"s side? That can"t be, based on the rumors about him and the one who was supposedly the real leader of the group, the person called Ren, the act of hiring an a.s.sa.s.sin seems very unlikely."
...
The first thing Harold and Oliver did when they entered the city was gathering information about the strongest people in the city. Most of the people from the underworld and the normal people on the surface gave the same answer, Ren was the strongest. Some answered Galius or Iselv but most of the people had viewed Ren as the undisputed strongest in the city.
Once they learned about the hierarchy in the city, Harold used his own information network to find out everything he could about Ren, and what he found was weird. The things they found out about him were minimal but at the same time plenty enough. Ren wasn"t a n.o.ble, he was merely a country boy that registered as an Adventurer with his lover Lara a few months ago. He got a B rank the moment he registered but that wasn"t so surprising since most adventurers that claim to be geniuses can do the same.
The more interesting person was his best friend Valdel, who was being scouted by two holy maidens. If that was true then how come Ren was being hailed as the strongest? That was when Harold found out about the whole events of the Elder Lich incident. The whole reason for the declaration of independence was because of that event.
It was said by numerous sources that Ren single-handedly destroyed most of the undead army and in the end crushed the Elder Lich. One man was able to do all that... The moment Harold heard that news and when he heard a detailed description of Ren"s behavior, Harold couldn"t help but smile as he started to mumble something that Oliver couldn"t hear.
....
The main point was based on the information he knew Ren wouldn"t send an a.s.sa.s.sin but instead, he would attack in a more upfront way.
....
Oliver who was now the one being distracted by his thoughts was caught off guard when Lara suddenly dashed towards him. He was unable to evade on time and was forced to block the incoming attack. The moment Lara"s punch hit Oliver, the old man was pushed back. Oliver was going to try and grab onto Lara"s hand but before he could reach out, Lara was able to follow up on her attack as she did a low sweeping kick, which forced Oliver to jump upward.
The moment Oliver was up in the air Lara jumped upward as well. Lara jumped overhead of Oliver and was about to deliver a downward Kick. Oliver clicked his tongue as he didn"t want to use his trump card in this situation, but he had no choice given his other skills would destroy the shop.
In that split-second, Oliver decided to use his trump card he stopped and defended instead. This gave Lara the chance she needed to strike down at Oliver. The strength of her strike forced Oliver"s body to burrow through the floor. Seeing Oliver would be stuck for a few seconds, Lara used the chance to escape.
...
Once Lara was out of sight Oliver jumped out of the man-made hole that he was in. He then kneeled in front of a figure that stood before him.
"My lord, shall I chase after the intruder?"
Harold who was watching the whole fight had a huge smile plastered on his face. Due to him having the same amount of mana as a normal person and seeing as she was so focused on Oliver, Lara was unable to sense Harold"s presence.
"No need, she won"t be able to do anything so it doesn"t really matter." When Oliver heard Harold call the intruder her, he knew that Harold must have an idea who the intruder was. He really wanted to ask Harold who the intruder was since she was quite skilled as an a.s.sa.s.sin, but as a loyal servant, he decided not to say anything. A servant can only know what his master wants him to know, so he can only say one thing in this situation.
"As you wish my lord."