Risen World

Chapter 391: Another Playboy makes his Appearance

Joshua stood straight up and held his scale blade over his shoulder as he inspected his opponents. In front of him he could see four explorers all decked out in gear that would make it look as though they were spear users, but after having fought them for a while as he made his way through the battlefield Joshua was fairly sure that wasn't the case. One time he blocked one of their attacks and it felt like he was blocking a punch instead of a spear. Another time it felt like he was blocking a blunt staff, and he was certain at some point he blocked a sword. The entire time he was fighting these four it felt like something was off about them.

Now that he was out of the crowd and was able to get a good long look at their appearance he was also certain that there was something off in that regard as well. The fact that they all looked the same and seemed way too basic of what a person would look like under all the gear they had on was a bit weird. Plus as Joshua sensed them with his aura he was getting a completely different feeling than the appearance that was in front of him. Before Joshua could continue thinking along those lines they started charging at him once again, but this time it looked as if all of them were charging in at the same time.

A normal person would have prepared based on what they saw in front of them, but Joshua relied more on his instincts and his aura sense after noticing all of the oddities about his opponents. This seemed to be the right call since even though with his eyes it looked as though all of them were coming in at the same time with their attacks, through his aura sense Joshua could tell they were coming in at slightly different intervals and directions than what his eyes could see.

Joshua quickly knocked aside the first strike that came for him as he noticed that it came from below instead of above like what his eyes were seeing. The moment his scale blade made contact with the enemy's weapon he also noticed that they were using a short sword instead of a spear. He used his advantage in strength to knock his opponent aside before turning towards the next attack. This time his aura sense didn't feel anything approaching him so Joshua just let what appeared to be an attacker run him throughbut nothing happened. It was as if air had passed him by even though it looked as if a spear had pierced through him for a moment.

Ignoring the odd sensation of not feeling what he could clearly see he turned to the next attacker coming his way and knew right away from his aura sense that it wasn't actually a person, but instead a large fire ball soaring right for his head instead of the image of another spearmen aiming for his chest. Joshua cut the fireball in two with his scale blade before turning to his last attacker that tried to attack him from behind. The image that he could see with his eyes looked like a spearman slashing with the edge of their spear towards the left side of his head, but instead he could sense an aura covered foot shooting for the right side of his head instead.

Since Joshua could tell that it was a person coming for him this time he reached up with his hand and caught the person by the leg before pulling them forward. From what he could feel they were rather light weight and much smaller than he expected in comparison to the image of the spearman that was seen by his eyes. Joshua prepared to strike his caught opponent with a swift kick to the chest as he swung them downward from the air, but a barrier seemed to soften his blow as the person he hit was sent skidding away.

After the quick exchange of attacks Joshua once again saw the four spearman staring at him as they got back together, but he knew that wasn't what he was up against. So Joshua closed his eyes and sent out an aura pulse to get the clearest picture he could of what was going on. They might have been able to hide from his eyes, but not his other senses and especially not his aura sense.

The first thing Joshua noticed was the fact that there were actually five people standing in front of him and not four. They weren't standing in a line either like the spearman appeared to be from his eyes, but instead were in box formation around one person standing at the center. Instead of dragging this out Joshua decided to get a good look at who he was up against and channeled aura into his eyes to get a better look.

Right away he could tell that four of them were women while the person standing in the center was a man. Since he was only seeing their aura he wasn't exactly getting the image of them, but he had a way to fix that. Joshua quickly let out his own aura in large amounts to put a lot of pressure on his opponents causing the image of the four spearman to waver for a moment before it faded away. Instead of the illusion that he had been seeing the entire time he could now clearly see who he was up against and he was certain that they weren't a part of the Scavenger's Guild.

The five people standing in front of him seemed a bit surprised by the situation, especially when it came to the man that was standing in the center of the group. From what Joshua could tell he was the leader of the group based off of the way that the other four were standing guard around him the moment the illusion had broken. The man looked every bit like a playboy and having four beautiful women around him only solidified that image in Joshua's mind. He had long somewhat wild looking brown hair that went down a little passed his shoulders. He stood at a little over six foot tall and had light skin that was slightly tanned. His eyes were a bit odd looking as they seemed to continuously shift from color to color and Joshua figured that was probably the man's soul beast having a physical effect on him.

When it came to the four women standing around him Joshua could see that they all had a different type of combat job which made sense from the short fight he had with them earlier. One of the girls was clearly a swordsman. She was slightly shorter than the man as she stood a little under six feet, her brown hair was tied back into a pony tail and she wore a pair of shades that made it hard for Joshua to get a full read on her expressions. She held her sword out ready to charge in again at any moment.

The next girl standing towards the front of the man was shorter and it explained why Joshua had such an easy time knocking her aside in their last exchange. She was clearly the martial artist of the group with light weight battle gear and her stance as she prepared to react to Joshua's next move at any moment. She had blond hair that she kept cut short and she only stood at about five foot four inches. Even so Joshua could tell that she knew how to properly use her aura in combat based off of her last attack and she had the best timing when it came to the attacks that Joshua had to defend against.

The girl standing behind the man towards his left was clearly a mage by the outfit she had on. She had extremely heavy robes on and from the magical attack he had blocked earlier Joshua was certain that she was a mage that specialize in fire magic. Her hair was brown yet seemed to be tinted with red around the edges and was incredibly wavy as it flowed down her shoulders and into her robes. She was only a couple inches taller than the martial artist and already had her staff held aloft ready to cast another spell.

The last girl of the group stood behind the man on his right side and had robes as well, but from her demeanor and the way she quickly cast a spell to heal up the martial artist that had just taken a direct hit from Joshua, she obviously filled the healer role in the group. Her hair was mostly covered by the little hood she had up over her head, but she clearly had some blond hair falling over her face along with some light blue eyes that were constantly darting between looking towards Joshua and back towards her own group. Joshua was interested in what spell she had used to soften the blow he had dealt the martial artist, but for now he was more interested in figuring out who he was exactly dealing with.

Joshua quickly used observe on the group in front of him, but they had almost all of their information hidden outside of their current level. The fact that they were all above level seventy already with the man being level seventy-five told Joshua right away that they were well out of the league of any Scavenger's Guild members. He needed to know why they were getting involved in the territory war or if there were any other tricks that could possibly be coming their way.

"Well I didn't expect you to do something like that." The man said with a carefree smile. "I've gotten used to shrugging off killing intent, but I don't think I've ever felt something quite like this before."

The moment Joshua heard the man start to speak, the idea of him being a playboy completely solidified in his mind. The way he talked came off similar to Adrian when around women. The only difference was this guy seemed to be that way at all times even in a serious situation such as this one. Plus from some of the worried and caring looks he was seeing the four women around him giving him Joshua was starting to think this man might just be even better at going after women than Adrian.

"Why are you getting involved in this territory war? You clearly aren't a part of the Scavenger's Guild." Joshua said with a slight frown after seeing how little the man seemed to care about what was going on around them.

"Let's just say I got paid a pretty penny to help their side out in this conflict by a group that has a lot of system points to throw around. We're mercenaries after all, we follow the money to make a living." The man said before glancing over to where the war was still taking place. He let out a short sigh before turning back to looking at Joshua. "Though in the end it seems our side is going to lose regardless, but I did my part. You just hurried things up a bit by getting involved and turning the tide in your guilds favor once again."

"Then how about you tell me who specifically put you up to this?" Joshua said while holding his scale blade in their direction and letting the wordless threat hang in the air.

"Sure. I can tell you all sorts of things after this war is over, but for now I'd rather test myself against someone like you. After all you don't get to many chances like this." The man said with a big grin as the surroundings around them shifted into a new battlefield.