Chapter 98 - You Slapped Me Fifteen Times!

I think most of you would appreciate the test I had in mind at that moment.

I mean what better way to test a person’s character than to see if they would help out a complete stranger.

"So here’s the plan," I said, smiling at Erick. "We’re going to act as if you’re roughing me up, and see if he steps in."

"Is that really necessary?" Erick asked, frowning.

"Of course it is," I answered. "How else are we supposed to make sure he’s actually a good person?"

We sneaked past Jeremiah as he was quietly talking to another homeless person, and handing them some coins, until we reached another small alley ahead of him. There I led Erick into the alley, split our concealment so Erick wouldn’t be able to see me, and quickly changed my clothes.

"I’m thinking you’re doing this more because you find it fun, than to actually test him," Erick mumbled while I changed my clothes.

"I would never," I said, replacing the fancy suit I had been wearing with the clothes I had arrived in this world with.

They were ripped in places, burnt in others, and there were a few spots that looked like they had been cut with a knife. I couldn’t help but smile as I put them on, for the first few weeks of training, I had worn only this set of clothes, refusing to ruin any other clothes. So basically all that damage had been their own form of battle scars.

"Riiight," Erick said.

I spent some time doing some final touches, ruffling my hair, rubbing some dirt on me, even going so far as to slap myself around a little.

"Come on Erick," I said as I dropped our concealment entirely. "It’ll be fun."

The moment those words left my lips, I used some wind magic to blow me off my feet and back out of the alley.

"Aaaahhh!" I yelled as I flew backward, falling to the ground hard, and rolling a few more feet.

"Please sir, I promise I’ll get you your money, just don’t hurt me anymore." I cried, winking toward the shocked face of Erick that still stood in the alley.

For a few moments I had to really keep acting, because my partner had been completely frozen to the spot, but luckily for the both of us, I was an incredible actor. I just kept crying, and shuffling backward from the alley, acting as if I was terrified of whoever was in those shadows.

From the corner of my eyes I could see Jeremiah looking up from his conversation with the homeless man with a frown on his face.

’Perfect,’ I thought.

"Ants like you should be happy to pay me," Erick finally said as he started to walk out of the alley, but I have to tell you all, the man’s acting skills seriously needed some work.

"I know, I know," I nodded my head like a pecking chicken. "And I would definitely be honored to pay for your protection, but I just... don’t have the money at the moment."

"Is that so?" Erick said, crouching in front of me and grabbing me by the collar. "Then I’ll just have to extract my money in blood."

And then he slapped me!

He actually slapped me!

I mean seriously, we were supposed to be acting, not delivering actual blows. For a fraction of a second I dropped the act, just long enough to give him a deep scowl.

"You’re right," Erick whispered just before he delivered another slap. "This is fun."

The bastard!

Come on you have to agree with me right, the man was taking this way too far!

"I’ll be counting these slaps," I whispered between ’cries of pain’. "There’ll be payback waiting for you."

The bastard just kept on slapping me around like a ragdoll, and I couldn’t even break our cover and give him one big ass slap back, which kind of frustrated the hell out of me. I could see that Erick was really starting to enjoy our little act.

At some point I even started to wish that Jeremiah would either get his shit together and help, or just bugger off so I can stop this pretending, and slap the shit out of Erick.

"Hey!" I finally heard a deep voice calling out from the side. "What the hell do you think you’re doing?"

"What’s that got to do with you?" Erick called back, finally stopping his slaps, and turning his gaze to the voice.

There we could see Jeremiah approach with long powerful strides.

"If you’re beating up someone who’s clearly weaker than you, it’s got everything to do with me," Jeremiah answered, coming to a stop a few feet away. "Why don’t you try picking on someone your own size."

I swear those were his exact words!

I felt like I was in some kind of movie.

I had to give the man a thumbs up in my heart.

"How dare you interrupt my work," Erick said, slowly standing up. "I’m a guard in the Duke’s household."

’Good job Erick!’ I yelled in my mind, with another double thumbs up.

"You work for that bastard?" Jeremiah asked, his face darkening. "That shouldn’t surprise me."

Slowly he reached for the massive sword hilt that stuck out from behind his back, and pulled his sword free. And I have to say, the sword fit the man wielding it, it was gigantic, a double handed broadsword so big it looked like it should have been wielded by a giant, not a human soldier.

"At least that means I’ll have one less guard to worry about in the future," Jeremiah growled. "When I take that bastard’s head."

The moment those words left his lips, he sprang forward. Now I would have loved to see how he would compare to Erick in a sparring match, but he was swinging a massive sword at the unarmed captain of my mercenary company, so I couldn’t really keep sitting there and doing nothing... right?

Moments before his sword cleaved Erick’s head clean from his shoulders, a hand reached up from the ground, and grabbed the hilt, stopping his action immediately.

"Now before you go killing my friend here, maybe we can talk about it?" I said as I got up from the ground and dusted myself off.

"You just had to wait until the last second didn’t you?" Erick asked, looking over at me with a calm expression.

"You should be thankful I didn’t let him kill you," I growled back at him. "You slapped me fifteen times!"

"What the hell is going on here?" Jeremiah growled, trying to wrestle his arm free from the hand of earth I had summoned.

"Right, right, we should probably explain ourselves," I nodded, still not releasing the earth hand though. "I’ll get back to you afterward."

"Sorry about that little act," I smiled at Jeremiah as I stepped closer to him. "You don’t have to worry about us trying anything, we definitely don’t work for your father."

"That’s kind of hard to believe when you’re still binding me," Jeremiah said.

"We all know you can escape that binding easily," Erick smiled. "You have the earth affinity yourself after all."

For a moment Jeremiah just looked at us with a shocked expression, before he twisted his foot on the ground, turning the ground under my earth hand, and even the ground my earth hand was made of to sand.

"How do you know so much about me?" Jeremiah asked, stepping back a few feet.

"Let’s just say that we have... similar goals," I answered with a smile, extending my hand. "I’m Daniel, and this is Erick."

For a moment Jeremiah just stood looking from my outstretched hand to me, and then to Erick, before he finally slammed his sword back into its scabbard, and reached out to shake my hand.

"Jeremiah," he said.

"We know," Erick and I said together.

"Why don’t we go and have a little chat," I smiled. "We have a lot to talk about after all."