Feared Criminals
The situation changed rather quickly. I didn't intend to make her mad, even if I do admit that I was a tiny bit mad at the start. Well, I guess it worked out in the end. All I have to do is provide information on that group of criminals, and if I kill them, I'll get even more. I get to fight powerful dragons and get money! All I have to do is walk around while using my sixth sense to sense where they are. Even if they are above or below ground, it should be possible to find them thanks to my training. Velios continued walking while thinking about how to locate them and what he would do. He had heard his fair share of rumors, and he was getting increasingly more excited. Velios knew that he had to find them before his cloak was fully made, and he had no time to waste. He would have full leeway to move however fast he wanted, as long as the darkness from the night covered him. In his walking, he was so distracted that it was nighttime before he knew it.
"No luck here, huh? I'm losing hope. Why can't they come to me instead? This is so boring! I've been walking around for hours, and my sixth sense barely helps me. How am I supposed to find a group of strong dragons when there are dragons everywhere? Maybe I should yell out to them?" Velios was truly desperate. He found himself sitting on a rock by the edge of the capital, just inside the forest. The covers of night made it dark, but Velios had no trouble seeing. In disarray with a mixture of boredom, he let down his guard to strategize and really think about whether pursuing a random group of criminals he had never met before for someone else's money was worth it. With all the thinking he was doing, it was hard for him to notice what was truly going on around him. In fact, he barely had any time to dodge the dagger, which found itself just by the side of Velios' face.
Velios caught the dagger in time between two of his fingers but his head was still almost hit with it. He turned his head around to where the dagger had come flying from, only to find a figure blended into the shadows cast by the night. Velios was still sure that it was a dragon. He continued staring into the dragon's direction as it wasn't moving an inch, almost as if frozen in place. Velios found no amusement in going to battle directly, as he found the dagger itself more interesting. "What's this? It's not a normal dagger. Is it corrosion... poison?" Velios found himself studying the dagger, excessively looking at it to find whatever was special about it. "H-Hey, you! How are you still standing? The poison should have spread throughout your whole body! How?" The shadowy figure was still standing behind a tree, but Velios could begin to see her more clearly. "Wait, are you a girl?" Velios couldn't possibly be more blunt while asking that question.
Velios was still sitting on the rock, not protecting himself while the girl kept on shouting at him. "You should be lying stiff on the ground! How come you are still sitting there just fine? Don't you dare ignore me!" She kept on screaming while getting increasingly more agitated by the fact that Velios was not paying her any attention as he was more interested in the knife clad in the girl's unique mana. "Didn't you come here to kill me? Are you just going to keep on shouting at me? I've already told you, I have immunity against poison; it doesn't work on me." Velios finally responded. "Are you... going to kill me now?" Her tone was rather monotone, and it seemed like she had lost all motivation. You could describe her voice as bland and rather void of emotion. "Well, I'm actually not allowed to-" Velios didn't get a chance to finish his sentence before the dragon immediately went on the offensive. Multiple daggers were thrown at fast speeds, which Velios dodged with ease as the dragon continued attacking offensively.
"Why aren't you attacking, huh?! Are you afraid you'll get hurt?" The girl kept on swinging her sword, melting basically anything it touched. It seems to be a highly acidic poison of sorts, but she has absolutely no control over it. If she doesn't throw those daggers away, her mana will melt them and she's even wearing gloves. Even Vadh had the same problem when he first started using magic. I guess some monsters really are alike? Velios didn't even infuse any mana as defense or offense. He was simply running around in circles, punching and kicking the dragon girl whenever he felt like it. The mission was to gather information about them or even kill them, but Velios just didn't feel like it for some reason. Even if he said to himself that he wanted to, something just told him that he shouldn't. "How troublesome." The girl ran backward into the jungle as she found no use in battling Velios any further. She may have escaped back into the jungle, but Velios knew exactly where she was.
"Bad news, I met a guy that was completely immune to my poison. Not only did it not hurt him, it didn't even have an effect at all!" The place where the girl had stopped was dark yet well-lit at the same time. She was standing in a circle together with five other people. "How can that be? Isn't your poison able to have an effect, no matter how little amount is applied?" Talk began spreading between the group members. It started as everyone asking the girl specifically about her condition and if she managed to kill him. "...No, I was not able to kill him." Silence spread in the room. "Do you think that it was the target? The client specifically said that he had long and thick black hair going down to the end of his neck with weird clothing. Look anything like the guy you saw?" The girl looked back up with wide-open eyes after having remembered the clear description of both the order and the guy she saw. "Why don't you ask him? After all, I'm right here."
Everybody's heads turned around to face the direction the voice had come from. Eventually, all of them bore the same face of shock as the girl did moments ago. Up on a ledge, just a few meters from the utmost lowest part of the sewers, where the criminals watched as Velios sat there, telling them a story. "There was once a man who wished for money. He was desperate and therefore did everything he could for the smallest amounts of money. He set out on a journey, a quest of sorts for the rewards he sought. That is when he contemplated. Was the effort for what he did worth it, and can you truly put a monetary value on an individuals life? That was which the man wondered. What do you guys think? I don't really do poems, but I don't think it was half bad. Tell me, what do you think?" Everyone was still too shocked to comprehend what was happening. Suddenly, they had an intruder who they already knew was dangerous thanks to the help of the girl's expedition beforehand.
"H-How did he... f-find us? We're at the utmost bottom of the sewer system. Hey! Were you tailed back here?!" The girl was still left dumbfounded by his sudden appearance but gave a short answer where she said that she was fully sure that no one was following her. Velios was still sat at the edge of the platform, swinging his legs back and forth, still a few meters above the ground compared to where the rest of them stood. "Guys! It's six against one, don't falter! It's just one guy!" One of the guys said it so confidently, but a single look at Velios made it clear that he was insanely different. He possessed powers far greater than any of them, and truth be told, all of the dragons were scared to even initiate the battle. But all of them knew they had to do something. If not, what would happen if Velios initiated the fight on his own?