I Reject Quests

"The signal is showing that she is moving up." The boy said looking at the people in front of him.

"Stairs or elevators?" David asked.

"I'll safely say stairs. How weird would it be to go by elevators while your enemy is chasing you?"

"She is being chased?" The old man from Runic Arms Squad stepped forward with the intention to go after his ally.

The boy smiled. "I assume that she is being chased. It could be the other way around but do you think that the target would let an opportunity to kill her go? Moreover, she is alone and the target has a high chance of going after her."

Everyone nodded and showed signs of understanding the situation.

"Then… why are we not moving?" Marla's tone showed impatience.

"Let's go." The boy laughed and started walking towards the direction the signal was pointing.

Seeing this action, the middle-aged man had a deep frown. "Is this a joke?" 

David and the others also didn't have a good complexion. 

The boy laughed again. "Let's walk. No need to run. Conserve your stamina."

David was about to say something when the boy continued.

"Think about it. The target is focused on fighting Lane and we sneak up to him…"

"This isn't some kind of cartoon. Please be serious." Jennifer couldn't help but speak.

"Hehe, don't worry. We'll reach soon. Besides, fighting with Lane would consume his stamina for real."

***

As soon as both of them got out of the elevator, they instantly put up some distance between them.

Lane's face wasn't good. Her face was pale, devoid of blood. 'I forcefully used up too much natural energy for [Distinct Hide]. I can't use any of my core skills for a while. To fight him, I have to rely on normal skills. From the looks of it, he doesn't seem like he has a large mana storage. If he did, he would have used it in the elevator.'

Similarly, Rewen had his own thoughts. 'Why is her face so pale? Does using too much mana harm your body? I don't think so. Anyways, now's not the time to think critically. All I have to know is that I have some advantages over her.' His eyes turned sharp. 'My first advantage is natural physical combat. I'm physically stronger than her and I could possibly decide the fight if I land one solid hit with [River of Right Hand].'

'Second. She seems exhausted for some reason. Naturally, the skill she used isn't omnipotent. At first, I thought that it's a mind-controlling skill which freaked me out but thankfully, it's not that. It's probably a good [Evasive] type skill. Now that she is exhausted, even if she could cast the skill, she shouldn't be able to hold it for too long.'

'Third. She is in a hurry. Why was she running away when she confronted me? Because she knows she can't defeat me? Plausible but then, why would she follow me to the elevator? That doesn't make sense.' A small smile appeared on his face. He had figured it out. 'She is waiting for her mates to arrive!'

Lane inwardly felt dread when she saw the smile but snorted. Taking out two blades, she shot out towards her opponent.

Rewen didn't wait for the attack to arrive. He also dashed towards her. 'She wants to fight in close-quarters even though she knows that she has a disadvantage. Why is that? Those blades aren't enough. Therefore, there's a skill involved.'

The two young people ran towards each other with not a shred of emotion in their eyes.

'For freedom… I can do anything.' Lane felt her body had become light.

'For survival… I have to do whatever necessary.' Rewen's hands were empty and didn't prepare for any skills. With only bare hands, he pushed forward to fight with his armed opponent.

*Swish*

One of the blades narrowly dodged his nose. He wanted to counter-attack and grab her hand which was close to his face. But then, he saw another blade swiftly rushing towards his eyes. As he saw that, he immediately abandoned his counter-attack and used his right leg to step back.

In this exchange, he finally figured out why [Custom] is so poorly rated. If he had learned [Giant Leap] manually, he would have easily used it to jump over her and attack her from upwards. But he obviously couldn't do that as it needs a lot of time to cast the particular skill via [Custom].

'What a shitty skill. No wonder no one uses it.' He cursed under his breath before regaining focus on the figure in front of him.

*Swish*

Again, a blade approached his neck.

Dodged!

Followed by another.

He took a step back.

A blade approached him.

Dodged!

Followed by another soon after.

Dodged!

'I won't go anywhere like this. Her moves are not profound and eye-opening but it's fast and leaves no room to attack. Till now, I can't detect the hint of a skill being used. So this is just her blade-wielding capabilities.' Taking a sigh, he made his decision.

Lane, as usual, was swinging her blades. 'They should have arrived by now… where are they… huh!?" Her eyes widened when one of her wrists was caught. After the initial shock, her eyes lit up. Her wrist being caught wasn't a piece of bad news. Snickering, she swung her other blade towards the hand that grabbed her.

*Splash*

Blood gushed from the palm.

A groan emerged from the owner of the palm.

It wasn't Rewen.

Rewen had a nonchalant smile on his face. His gaze turned to his own that was pierced by the sharp blade. He was holding another palm interlocking his fingers with the other. The other palm had an even worse condition. Half of its ring finger was lost. What remained was hot blood oozing out of the finger.

The other hand belonged to Lane. She had cold eyes staring straight at the young man in front of her. What happened was fast but being one of the involved parties, she knew what happened. Just as her blade was about to touch her opponent's palm, the latter pulled her hand towards her. To make sure that she couldn't back off, he twisted her twist making the blade fall on the food and then interlocked his fingers with her own.

In other words, she hit herself!

Lane appeared distressed. Despite the overwhelming pain of one of her fingers being cut and her palm being pierced, she bit her lips and struggled to take her hands off.

"Ah, I always wanted to hold hands with a pretty lady such as yourself." Rewen couldn't help but make an out-of-context comment. "Never mind, time is the essence." With that, he grinned and pulled his left arm, blatantly showing that he was going to hit her face.

*Pah*

A clear sound of breaking teeth sounded.

Lane's mouth spewed out blood. Her eyes looked very sluggish as if she would fall the very next second. It's not that she didn't try to dodge or defend but she knew it was pointless. 'It's better that I gather the remaining strength on my left arm.' 

"Puhhh!"

Another solid fist hit her face. 

'It's not good. It's not good. I'm losing my consciousness.' The strength she had gathered in her hand vanished away. Her knees were bent. The only reason she could remain standing was because her right hand was sealed along with her opponent's. She slowly raised her head, only to see another fist heading towards her face.

'Should I just wait for my death?' Her eyes appeared dead till the last moment when it turned decisive.

The punch successfully hit her face making her stumble a few steps backwards and fall.

Rewen was dazed. He slowly looked at his hand which was still pierced by the blade but the other hand which he had been grabbing wasn't there anymore. All that was there were crumbles of muscles coated with blood. 

It's the remains of Lane's right hand.

Just before the punch hit her, she pulled her right hand despite being pierced by the blade. 

Her right hand was in an unusable condition. 

Rewen walked towards her and found her unconscious with a peaceful expression. 

He then grabbed the blade and pulled it out with a straight face. 'If my expression changes with this amount of pain, I better go back. I have much worse to come.'

'Now then… just to be safe…' He bent down and was about to chop down both of her legs with the blade in hand.

But just then, a voice sounded from behind.

"Quite the cruel fellow, isn't he?"

Rewen froze up. He recognized the voice owner. It was the boy he fought when he entered the building. 'Shit. It's too late. Since he is here, others must be here as well.' Within a fraction of seconds, he went through several possibilities to get out of the situation.

"Haha! Give it up, bro! We have you cornered. Each of us has a gun. Since I'm kind, I'll let you say your last words."