Merissa was surprised at his answer. She was expecting him to cave into the pressure and give the item to her. Alex then got up from his seat to leave. “Don’t get me wrong, I don’t really care if you or that summoner is a bad guy or not, I am no saint myself, that I’ll make sure to hand it over to a good party. It’s just that, there’s nothing really stopping you from killing or hurting me after I hand it over. I hope you can convince me otherwise.”

Merissa simply kept observing Alex not uttering a word. She knew that this wasn’t going to be easy but it was tougher than expected to convince him.

“Call me if you can really guarantee my safety.” With that Alex took his leave.

‘Huh… I suppose I have no other option but to force him then…’ Merissa thought to herself when suddenly the waitress walked up to her.

“Here’s the bill.”

She took it blankly thinking about how to deal with Alex when she suddenly noticed the amount. “What?! How did it become so much? I only ordered a coffee.” Merissa asked surprised.

“Um… but the person sitting here ordered all that, you two are together, right?” The waitress asked innocently.

“B-but I—

“Then will you be paying in cash or with a card?” The waitress asked with her usual beaming smile. Merissa suddenly felt her wallet getting empty. Merissa began to remove her card from the small bag she was carrying thinking about how she fell in Alex’s trap.

…

Half an hour or so later, Alex had reached the forest path which led to the secret passageway. He walked slowly glancing around the forest. It was a nice change of scenery from the suburbs where he used to live. The birds were chirping, he could hear the distant sounds of a water streams, the gentle breeze carrying the rustling sounds of the tree branches. The sounds made him feel at peace, until they didn’t anymore.

Suddenly all of it was gone, cancelled, vanished. Alex was reminded of the time when he was at the third floor and couldn’t hear anything. Then his heart suddenly dropped, as a figure of a man came in sight. He was wearing a grey cloak and underneath seemed to be some kind of a battle attire which Alex had never seen before.

There were strange white coloured markings on his face whereas his head was completely bald and instead of hair two small horns protruded out of his forehead.

“Umm… the alien drama is that way.” Alex pointed in a random direction as he began to walk in the opposite one. But before he could take another step forward, the creature whose arm he had severed landed in front of a tree just a few strides away from him. But the shocking thing was that the arm had completely regenerated.

“Remember my old friend?”

Alex turned around looking at the man, sweat trickling down the side of his forehead. “Are you the summoner?”

“Hmm it seems you’ve heard of me… I came here to look for something but instead one of my summons’s detected something unusual. Just when I thought I had a stroke of luck, my summon gets injured. My curiosity led me to check who was capable enough to severe the arm of one of my summons’s but you are just a brat without any mana.”

“Th-That’s right so you can leave now, it was just—

“Aha but it isn’t as simple as it seems right?” The summoner said as a wicked grin formed on his face.

“You have something, something powerful enough to cut a Nacla’s arm in a clean stroke. Maybe some sort of a weapon? It’s quite powerful, isn’t it? I don’t think a human like you could even lift a normal sword properly.”

Alex gulped before backing away. “W-Why do you w-want that?” He asked trying to keep his calm but in truth his legs suddenly felt limp as if couldn’t summon any strength. Fear had gotten the better of him.

“Why do I want it?! Bwahaha… Why? Because I am a bandit! Alemnol Kingdom’s no. one bandit, Marx Bandana is in front of you! Do I don’t need a reason to steal something from you!”

While Marx blabbed about himself, Alex was taking slow deep breaths trying to control his breathing. He didn’t want to be killed by some joker of a maniac. So, while Marx was laughing as if he had just told a joke Alex sprinted away from Nacla and Marx at full speed, not even glancing back.

But he should have known better as he suddenly felt something crashing into him from his side causing him to flew away from the impact and roll on the ground.

“Uh… ah…” The impact had taken the air out of his lungs as he struggled to breath and recover from the shock all the while grabbing his throbbing ribs. Just now the Nacla had dashed into him. Although the pain was enormous, he did his very best to ignore it and tried to take advantage of the distance put in between them. But he was soon faced with the reality that he cannot escape.

Not one, not two but three other Naclas appeared in front of him. One hanging from the tree, another on the ground while the last one was sitting on top of a large rock.

“Come on kid, resistance is futile, even your screams wouldn’t reach anyone, after all the surrounding area is under my zone spell.”

Grunting Alex looked back as Marx slowly approached him. “You can—

*Cough* *Cough*

“You can …have that thing just …let me go please…” Alex managed to stutter with difficulty.

“Ah! Did I not tell you? I can’t really have the risk of keeping you alive, after all, I don’t want to have any trouble later on. But don’t worry I’ll make it a quick one for you. You should rejoice, your life might be worth a few thousand tek.”

After a slight pause he glanced at the Nacla on the ground. It was the signal to kill Alex off. Not a second later the Nacla pounced on Alex’s neck.