While Others Cultivate I Use My System To Travel The Multiverse - Chapter 193: Breaking the barrier (2)

“Bad luck?” Hearing how sure Teria was of her position, I could only shake my head with pity. And here I already believed she had some brains hidden underneath that storm of hair of hers… “I think you forgot what was the only reason why I made that promise to you in the first place.”

At first, the aura of the girl told me that she was intent on ignoring whatever I would say. Yet somehow, I managed to surprise her to the point where she stopped her advance and actually looked at me with curiosity.

“Do you think my memory is so bad? I recall it very well.” Stopping in her tracks, Teria placed her long sword on her left shoulder while angling her arm to be able to execute a powerful, overhead slash whenever she would deem it necessary. “You didn’t want the unnecessary bloodshed so you decided to just make a deal. But now that you broke your promise…”

Before the girl could finish her words, my head was already shaking in disbelief. At this point, I couldn’t really tell whether this girl was really that arrogant, that stupid, or just that naive. But given how I made this promise to her, I felt compelled to at least explain this little bit.

“You are wrong. Quite a lot at that.” Pulling my hand from the pocket of my outfit, I presented the girl with the very same recurring barrier stone that I used to threaten her and her commanders with back when I made that unfortunate promise. “I just didn’t feel like killing you and all of your friends just because you were too ignorant to realize the difference between our strength.”

Lowering my hand I made sure the activator of the stone was right underneath my finger while pulling out a massive dagger with my left hand. Stepping forward, I slashed at the girl… Yet my attack was way too slow to be any threat for the girl. Just by taking a step back, this unskillful attack of mine failed to reach the girl’s body. As she didn’t even need to use her sword to block my stupid attack, she was free to execute a slash on her own.

“If you want the stone…” Whispering those words as soon as I closed the distance, I used all my might to shake Teria’s emotions out of proportion. Right in time to disturb her slash that was already aimed at splitting me in half. Yet, I was too slow.

“MARKUS!” Shouting from behind, someone from my group most likely fell for my acting, believing that I was actually keen on attacking this girl with a short knife. That fact alone was so shocking that I simply tripped on my legs, falling right into the trajectory of the girl’s attack… Only for her sword to produce an outburst of sparks right as it was about to deprive me of my left arm right at its base.

“Silence!” Shouting to the back, I instantly moved my eyes back on the girl. In this one quick glance, I already managed to confirm that quite a lot of onlookers gathered a considerable distance away, clearly wary of losing their life in the collateral damage of our duel. “This is my fight and my fight alone. Don’t interfere!”

With the first clash already done between the two of us, I didn’t bother to influence Teria’s emotions at all. Right now, her emotional state was overwhelmed by just two feelings. Shock and curiosity. And that was exactly what I was aiming for with all my stupid actions of mine.

“I WILL KILL YOU!” Shouting from the bottom of my lungs, I sent a wink to the girl before once again repeating the same kind of stupid attack as before. Catching on, Teria actually lowered her sword, accepting my attack with its side.

“then let me push you back…” whispering another set of instructions, I bounced my knife off the girl’s weapon only to instantly jump away and regain my distance. Using the fact that the onlookers were simply too far to notice such minute details like the expressions of our faces, I rolled my eyes before exhaling all the air I had in my lungs. This time though, rather than filling the girl with a feeling of enlightenment, I only managed to make her angry.

Clasping my hands together, I switched the stone with a knife between my hands. After making sure the recurring barrier stone was safely within my grasp, I lunged forward once again. Yet this time, it wasn’t just a single clash.

Peng, peng, peng.

The sound of my knife smashing against Teria’s sword spread far and wide across the open plain of the central kingdom. Yet while others could only hear the noise of metal clashing against metal, this was the perfect opportunity for me to extend the close-range clash for as long as I could. In the end, by observing the fight from such a great distance, people would be unable to see any of the details of our moves or attacks.

“and we will join with you later.” Another exchange of hits followed in order to not make our fight look stale.

“You caused quite a lot of commotion by breaking that barrier.” Explaining the situation to the girl, I finally realized why she could’ve been so obstinate against my plans of having her just fly over the wall. After all, I learned about the existence of this barrier only when she was first stopped by it.

Thinking about this, how did the two of us manage to go through to the northern kingdom without encountering such blockade? Was it something local, implemented only at the gates of the great wall? Or maybe we managed to fly high enough to escape the reach of its influence?

“You attempted to leave me behind. How can I trust your words ever again?” As puzzled as Teria initially was, with each of our exchanges she was quickly growing tired of this entire conversation as a whole. Even without my witch senses, I could see her muscles craving to actually be used in a proper way.

“For that, I apologize. Hubriel was about to reach his limit and a patrol was coming. As for the barrier…” For a moment, I hesitated. Showing a vulnerable side like that, admitting to the fact that I didn’t know something… Doing so would put me in quite a precarious position where any further need to negotiate with her arise in the future. But with her huge sword missing my face by bare inches a few times a second, I couldn’t really think about the future all that much. “I apologize once again. I thought it was just a set of walls. After all…” Seeing how even this confession failed to work the way I intended, I decided to pull all my stops and go for the kill. “I’m not from this world in the first place, so I don’t know much about what you consider to be common knowledge.”

Stop.

In a single instant, Teria jumped thrice to the back, instantly creating a huge distance between the two of us. Noticing it with the corner of my eyes, I saw how the people standing in the direction she escaped suddenly rushed to the back. The reason for that was pretty simple. Given how few details they could notice of this fight, Teria’s retreat could look like an actual advance in their direction.

“Are you for real?” Putting her sword down, Teria stood in place. Due to the distance that she put between us, her voice had to be loud enough for me to hear it, which meant that some of the spectators of our fight could also hear her words.

“I am. That’s why I can’t give less fucks about the winged and wingless tribes or about the conflict between the two of them.” Lowering my knife as well, I gripped the stone in my hand a bit harder. It was this seemingly more relaxed moment that was most likely to be used by the girl to attack.

So far, I could tell that she was holding back only because of the stone in my hind. For her, my frantic attacks could be aimed at nothing else but distancing the two of us from the rest of the group so that I could use this disaster without the worry of friendly fire. But thankfully, no attack came this time.

“…” For a moment, Teria just stood there, taxing me with her deep eyes. As the hostilities halted for a moment, I couldn’t help but adore the form that she took, hovering roughly half a meter above the ground. Now that I thought about it, even though our fight was nothing more but a charade, her movements were still something to be awed by. If only it was something I could learn just like that, the entire purpose of entering this world would be fulfilled!

“Fine. We will meet twenty kilometers to the south.” Finally sheathing her sword, Teria announced not only to me but to the entire world around her with all the spectators in the distance included. “There might be a conflict between our tribes, but that doesn’t mean I like to spill the blood of civilians.”

Shaking her head for a moment, Teria rose up to the skies before turning her head towards me once again. “Keep in mind, if you dare to break your word or bring some allies with you, I will eradicate every single town in the area before spending the rest of my days to find you and settle our debt!”