"We will fight to the last! Stay close to me! I will hold him while you all attack!" Faithstooge tried to bolster the others' courage. Unexpectedly, one of them shared his vigor.
"Fight to the last!" The man roared, it was Ogre, who shared the same hatred against Jack. The seven of them moved forward at the same speed in a tight formation.
Jack tried to circle them and hit the ones at the back, but Faithstooge quickly readjust his position and stood in front of Jack again.
Jack decided to just give it a go. There were only seven left, he had fought against seven people before and this lot were only second-class players, he shouldn't have any trouble. He used Power Strike at Faithstooge, who blocked it using his shield.
Contrary to expectation, he was not pushed back, his body only swayed backward a bit from the force. Jack was confused, the guy's strength was supposed to be much lesser than him, he had crossed blades with him before, how did he resist the knockback force from his Power Strike.
Faithstooge returned the same skill in kind. Jack was forced to block with his shield as well. He was instead pushed further. He had to step back two times before he recovered his balance. Jack didn't have the time to ponder about the difference of effect between their Power Strike, as the others were pouncing at him. They used this opportunity to land a few hits. When Jack wanted to retaliate, Faithstooge again placed himself in the line of fire. He was truly embodying his role as a tank in the group.
Jack had to disengage and put some distance to relieve himself off the pressure. A few Energy Bolts chased after him, he dispatched them as he retreated. He had lost an amount of HP in the engagement, he took another basic healing potion to recover. He glanced at his inventory and found that he only had another potion left. He had to make sure to stock up once he returned to the city.
He managed to land a few attacks on his opponents, but they quickly fell back after one hit, thus preventing him from killing them. They drank recovery potions as well while waiting for Jack to make another try.
Faithstooge had also suffered several hits, but his defense and HP were much higher than the others, so he could still stand Jack's repeated attacks. Jack could score a three digits damage to the others with his normal attack, but on the Knight, his normal attack only gave around 80 damage. When Faithstooge blocked his attack using a shield, the knight could nullify his damage completely. Jack reckoned the shield must be unusual. The guy was also rather good at using it, Jack had difficulty in landing a clean hit.
Jack made another try. He used his speed to try to confuse the group, looking for an opportunity to be able to separate them. But the six others stayed close to Faithstooge like glue. Their formation was so tight that they seemed to be hugging the armored knight while moving.
"Hah! Where is your arrogance now?" Ogre shouted out when Jack retreated again. "You think you are good? Try breaking our formation then!"
What was that annoying brute so content about? They were forced to go on the defensive until using this sort of turtle strategy because they couldn't deal with him, and now he acted as if this was something to be proud of. But since the guy was so satisfied with their turtle shell, then he should just break apart this turtle shell of them.
Jack made another lunge. Faithstooge readied his shield to receive his attack, while the others readied themselves to counter-attack once the knight did the blocking. While they were preparing with anticipation for Jack to reach them, they were appalled by the sudden change to their opponent's weapon. His longsword seemed to break apart at its seam, golden light enveloped it as black lightning coursed along its trail.
They were still captivated by it when the transformed sword made an impact with Faithstooge's shield. Previously every time the shield blocked an attack, Faithstooge suffered no damage. Even when Jack used Power Strike, the overspill damage received by Faithstooge was only around 30 damage.
Now, he received 106 damage. Faithstooge was having the fright of his life. The attack appeared to be only a normal slash, but he still lost almost a quarter of his life just from a single slash, even after he successfully blocked it. Didn't this mean he would be done for if hit by another four slashes?
He instinctively jumped back, but his back bumped with obstacles. He turned around and saw his six underlings clinging to him closely. "Move away, you fools!"
But that's the problem when organizing a bunch of people. There were always some in the group that were a bit slow on the take. Out of the six players, only two moved to give way. The other four were still having a blank look on their faces. In the meantime, Jack delivered his triple rapid spinning slashes while Faithstooge was pinned on the spot. The Knight's life was immediately down to a critical point.
"Argh..!!" Faithstooge roared frantically and sent his mace forward using Power Strike in a desperate attempt to push Jack back.
Jack returned in kind. Two Power Strike met, but Jack's attack devoured the other's one. Faithstooge's mace was completely repelled while Jack's sword continued in his trajectory and crashed into the Knight's body.
Faithstooge's eyes were wide as he stared intensely at Jack. How come it all turned out like this? He came here bringing so many people with the thought of enjoying the sight of his underlings bullying a single player. He was expecting to settle this matter quickly and return to the tavern in the city for a cold beer before turning in for the night.
Why did it end up like this? His thought made a quick flash on the events of the last hour since they met this player. He regretted not have called for reinforcements when he had the chance to. He regretted not let the guy go when he tried to run away. Then his vision turned dark.
The others were paralyzed with their mouths wide open. They just stood there looking at Faithstooge's corpse. How? They were still having difficulty processing it. Their one and only wall that defended them against this monster, was now gone. How were they going to proceed?
Ogre was still in a daze before he realized Jack was standing in front of him. "Yo… you…" He had difficulty forming a thought of what he wanted to say.
"Try not to be a robber again next time, okay?" Jack said, before he used a couple of quick slashes and sent him back to reset.
As he fell, Ogre wore an extremely unwilling expression on his face. This gig was supposed to be the turnaround for his future. He had been wiped out during the Tutorial Period and thus restarted again, he was far behind most others.
He had had a fortunate opportunity of meeting a member of Corporate United. He had been the one that had proposed this robbing idea, based on his experience robbing players during the tutorial period. He had been promised a respectable position within the guild if this all went smoothly.
It had been all sunshine since two days ago when this operation started. They had expected this gig to be able to run at least one week before they met with backlash from the general public, therefore they needed to reap as much profit as possible when it was still viable.
But who would think that a large obstacle would already appear so soon? His last thought before his vision gone dark was whether the people from Corporate United would consider this as a fail and reconsider their promise of accepting him into their rank.
Once Ogre's body touched the ground, the others snapped out from it, one of them tried to run, but soon froze when he heard Jack's yelling, "Anyone who tries to run away will be killed!"
They all turned back and looked at Jack timidly. Jack's sword had returned to its original condition, yet they were no less intimidated.
"You all know what to do, right?" Jack said with a wicked grin.
They looked at each other, before lowering their heads and gave Jack permission to intrude into their inventories.
"Say, wasn't you one of the guys I have robbed previously?" Jack said to the closest person. The guy only nodded weakly.
"Try not to do this evil deed anymore, okay? Robbing is not a good profession. You should learn from me, doing justice for the good of society!" Jack added. The guy made another slight nod.
