Godfather's System

177. Augmentation - 20

It was fun to see the sudden wave of uncertainty spread through the soldiers, and that was with no kind of emotional influence from me. I didn't blame them. From their perspective, I belonged to a mysterious church with many incredible achievements.

From their perspective, I might have been strong enough to rival Lord Crusader, which would mean a fight would cost many lives from them before they would finally triumph. The fact that I decided to defend my retreating army alone rather than escaping by using the tunnel or the flying cart reinforced the intimidating message even further.

I could see the captain's gaze, bouncing between my small army, a force shrinking by the second, and me. They had a quick talk, their attitude hesitant, before they decided to surround me in a half-circle, and among them, I could feel several mages gathering their mana, probably to cast a barrier in case I could move fast enough to use the tunnel.

Interesting, I thought as I relaxed slightly. I expected them to attack and try to take down at least some of our forces, but he was happy to simply surround me, preventing me from escaping.

Curious.

I continued sitting until the last soldier disappeared into the tunnel, followed by an explosion as they destroyed the entrance. Only when my most obvious path to escape had been destroyed, the captain relaxed.

We waited. I sat in front of them, ignoring the mages setting up wards around us. They weren't exactly what I would call competent, and I could read their spells easily. Essentially, it was a half-dome that would prevent my retreat, with no other feature, so I let them build it.

As I waited, I used my time talking with Zolast and Limenta, and learned that two advance forces had already surrounded two mines, but their assault failed spectacularly after underestimating the amount of magical defenses we had put on the mines.

The defensive advantage of magical warfare was too overwhelming.

In response, two armies had been forced to reveal their presence early, each moving to a mine in full force. I left handling that to Zolast, while Limenta stayed at Town Maell to defend it.

Meanwhile, I waited.

It took a while for Baron Tarug to arrive, along with the rest of his army. "Holy Steward. I'm impressed," he said as he approached, accompanied by four of his bodyguards. "Few would dare to sacrifice themselves to save commoner lives."

"We all follow our calling," I said, not bothering to stand up.

"Impressive, you must tell me more while we host you at my residence," he said, his tone gloating as he indirectly declared that I was his prisoner.

"Really, I don't remember accepting such an invitation," I said even as I looked at him from my seated position, and let out a snort, my actions insulting enough.

"Are you saying you're going to fight with us?" he said.

"Fight? Why would we fight?" I asked. "After all, you are yet to pass the line," I said, nodding toward the thin line. Though, fun as posing was, I also had another ploy. I wanted the other two armies to move deeper into our land. The closer they were, the easier Zolast could deal with them.

"I see," he said. "It looks like Lord Crusader isn't the only surprise your mysterious church has for us. Unfortunately, you miscalculated," he said as he gestured to one of his bodyguards. He drew his sword, but rather than attacking, he let an intense blue glow cover his sword before he went through a display.

I looked at them, confused, trying to understand exactly what he was trying to do.

"I see that you're shocked, Holy Steward," he said. "Understandable, as a master skill is hard to acquire, but we had been lucky in that aspect. Would you be kind enough to accompany him to a bout so he could test himself properly?"

A disappointed sigh escaped my mouth as I understood the reason for his overconfidence. He apparently thought that his possession of master skills was still a secret, leading to my confusion.

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It was that arrogance that made him bet on his greatest treasure without blinking.

Being underestimated to this degree would have been entertaining if it wasn't for what followed.

I didn't even bother answering him, but from his expression, he took my action as disrespect, and gestured his guard to move. I closed my eyes for a second, focusing my Agility, feeling my body gain a sense of lightness.

The guard walked forward, unaware of the threat he was facing, his steps confident.

The moment he stepped over the line, my sword jumped out of its sheath, tracing a deadly path through the air, and, after a flick to get rid of the blood, went back into its sheath.

All before anyone could even react. Everyone gasped in shock, except the poor guard that lost his life before he could even process what had just happened. "I don't like to repeat myself," I said, this time accompanied by an overwhelming pressure from my Charisma, the sudden weight enough to make everyone take a step back in terror. "Step over the line, and die."

"W-what was that?" the Baron gasped in shock. I didn't know whether he was talking about the slash, or the overwhelming blast of Charisma, so I didn't bother answering. I just smirked.

It was fun to make a thousand soldiers take a step back in fear.

I said nothing as I let the silence stretch, curious just how long they would waste their time. I could see the Baron's courage faltering already. But, before he could sound an order to retreat, one of his guards stepped forward, without the permission of his liege lord no less. It was one of the two guards that had been strategizing when I first pulled back..

How interesting.

"How dare you insult our leader! Everyone, attack," he shouted, an order that he reinforced with his Charisma.

As for the Baron, he didn't get angry when his authority was hijacked by a soldier of his, but looked afraid. I had seen that expression many times, often on the faces of the young gang members during their first shoot-outs.

It was the expression of a man who had just realized he was in over his head.

That expression just validated my earlier guess. These two were a part of the Somaton forces, and they were probably there so that the Baron didn't get cold feet.

They seemed to be more cautious after our betrayal.

As they charged toward me, I stood up, ready to test just how far I had come after a month of training. And, I wanted to truly test my limits.

I stood up, waiting for the first group to arrive. When they were halfway in, their movement staggered for a moment, then they moved with much greater coordination. The work of a command skill.

I could have countered it with my own Charisma blast, which would have worked even without all my advantages. The distance mattered, which was one reason that melee ability was prioritized among the nobles.

However, I let it settle even as the first guards attacked me. At first, I just defended, easily parrying their attacks without using my Strength above single digit range. The six guards created a hexagon around me, each with a master skill, the combined attack strong enough to take down Artmiss in less than a minute if he let himself get surrounded.

Of course, unless something went really horribly, Artmiss wouldn't have let the six of them surround him like I did, so it wasn't exactly a fair comparison.

I danced among their attacks, using the momentum of their attacks to move even faster, and they were yet to touch me even once. I dodged every attack even after reacting to them at the last possible second, letting them pass close enough to feel them on my skin, my own attacks impossible to predict for them.

After a month of constant practice, my command over my Agility had reached a phenomenal level, one that even Limenta could not replicate. I was suspecting that it had something to do with my class, a unique feature, related to its secrets.

After all, while ten stat points were certainly impressive, Launara's promotion showed that they had other methods to attain similar points. Of course, there might be a unique advantage to stacking stats that I missed by distributing them across many stats.

But, for a mysterious reason, I felt it was more complicated.

I abandoned that thought after a while, and focused on my defense. As I refused to counter-attack, they were getting more and more confident in their attacks, their coordination getting even better. Yet, I welcomed the pressure. Each second, I could feel my Agility getting smoother, more sublime.

A minute turned into two, then five. Around me, I could see the mood of the army change slightly, their fear receding, replaced by awe. An understandable shift, as while the ability to defend against the six master-skill holders was impressive even if they had substandard stats it was ultimately futile without the ability to counter-attack, turning my defense into a performance art.

The only ones with a grim reaction to my display were the two agents of the Somaton kingdom, no doubt wondering just how many other hidden monsters our church possessed. I could already see two of them worriedly discussing how the church would react to my imprisonment.

Well, luckily for them, it was not something they had to worry about.

I had already tested the defensive aspects of my Agility. Now, it was time for the offensive side. With a sudden change, I kicked one of the defenders, the sudden change enough to create a gap for me to pull back.

They didn't follow immediately, and I used the opportunity to draw a dagger. "That's enough playing around," I said, my words accompanied by the half of the pressure I could generate with my Charisma. "I acted merciful because every life is precious in the fight against evil. But, you're in the land that belongs to a vassal of our church."

I took a breath as I let the same blue glow cover the dagger, before converting both glows to golden. "Retreat, or perish."