Chapter 304: Chapter 304 Let me through
Kailen crouched several distances away from the teleportation gate, around which several dwarves stood.
Various monitoring drones whizzed past the area, a clear indication that the dwarves didn’t want any besieged dweller of this city taking advantage of the teleportation gate to slip through their fingers.
"These guys are really going to all lengths, huh. Three rank 4 beginner stage Ascendant level lifeforms. How the hell am I supposed to get rid of freaks like that? Even if I use the rank 0 concealment rune, it won’t work on them since the levels between me and them are too wide."
Kailen didn’t know what to do.
Also; any minute now, and the perimeter of the drones will steer towards his direction.
He gritted his teeth, as a glint flashed through his eyes, a bold, yet suicidal one. A maniacal one.
Without hiding himself, his footsteps began to echo as he made his way up front, towards them. The dwarves turned to look at him with alert expressions. A bloodied, wounded face, sickly smelly body and messy brown hair. Body all covered in brown filth from head to toe.
One was about to launch an attack when a feminine one squinted her eyes, unlike the others who struggled to recognize him due to him being covered in all sort of filth that made him look like some weird creature.
"It’s that guy the commander put the bounty on, the one who killed his daughter!"
"Is this guy nuts? Why the hell will he make an open appearance here when he knows that only death or something worse awaits him when we hand him over to the commander?"
"We? You want us to split the fucking bounty? Piss off!"
"Enough!" The voice of the feminine dwarf, strangely 1.5 meters tall and busty for a dwarf, echoed sharply, causing their voices to dwindle down.
"He’s mine," she declared boldly, about to approach Kailen to capture him.
However Kailen, crushing under the weight of their stares due to the striking disparity in strength between them, steeled himself and spoke.
"If you don’t let me through, I’m gonna fucking self detonate myself," he added playfully. "And we both know we all don’t want me dead right? At least not now."
The female leader stared at him and scoffed.
What an amateur, she thought. He thought this pretense at threatening them would work?
She turned to look at her squad members, with an expression that made them realize she felt like she had heard the most absurd joke ever.
"Pfffttt," one of them broke the silence, and then mockery and laughter directed at Kailen erupted.
"The kid dared?. He doesn’t even know the kind of situation he’s in err?"
"And what’s that talk of self detonating himself? Heh, if he wasn’t desperate to survive, would he even say he’d do that in the first place?"
"What a clown."
The female leader raised her hand, a gesture that caused their jeers and taunts directed at Kailen to die down.
"You got some balls kid. Stop messing around and just accept your fate submissively. You are gonna die anyway, why be so eager about it? You just be tormented in a way that will make you wish you were dead, before you are actually killed. Not so bad, right?"
Kailen chuckled, outwardly. Deep down he was scared, so scared! He didn’t want to die!
He swore he could have won an Oscar with this outward projection of nonchalance, but it was needed. They had to know he was serious.
"What do you think will happen to you all when need gets to your commander that you allowed the murderer of his daughter to kill himself without bringing him in first like he asked? Also..." He paused and asked, extending his hands sideways, "What happens to soldiers who fail to follow extremely important orders?"
The female dwarf hesitated when she heard his words.
’If this bastard gets away, we lose a big bounty. If he really is telling the truth about detonating himself and we don’t let him off, we will be blamed for allowing him to kill himself, and that will be insubordination, the consequences will be dire. But there is no way him killing himself can be kept under the wraps. An autopsy can always confirm that. But I first of all need to confirm how serious he is about killing himself. He might just be bluffing. However if we let him go, at least it will be as though we never encountered him. We will miss the bounty for now but I can contact the remaining members of my squad at the other end before the teleportation gate to knock him out and capture him at the inner city. That way he can’t kill himself.’
She inched closer to Kailen, who took several steps back.
The duo stared intently at each other.
She asked, her voice devoid of emotion, her pressure fully unleashed, heavily bearing down on him, "What makes you believe we will buy your threat? Stop bluffing."
"Try me." The expression in Kailen’s eyes showed no emotion. He didn’t move, didn’t flinch under her pressure.
She was surprised, even her squad members. His eyes were calm, betraying the sickly, smelly human standing before them. This was not Nyk’s gaze, this was Kailen’s gaze. To the female squad leader, this bastard was not kidding.
They couldn’t take any chances. Better to lose the bounty for now than to lose her head.
"Let him through."
She commanded.
"But ma’am, isn’t this—"
"Shut the fuck up and let him through! When my head hangs on a pipe for letting him die, will you be able to fucking bring me back to life?!"
The subordinates squealed to the side, letting Kailen, constantly scanning around him for any possible attacks, move towards the teleportation gate.
He couldn’t believe this had worked.
"Turns out having a bounty over your head could prove so useful, huh. Well in this context when I’m wanted alive, I could use the suicide line to my advantage. But these fellows won’t back off. They’d definitely alert someone from their squad waiting at the end to probably knock me out so that I can’t try the same trick again. Then they’ll hand me to their commander. I need to use the concealment rune the moment I step out, so that I can slip through their fingers. If they are too strong for the concealment to work on them, then well... damnation."