Chapter 30: Swindler
The muffled rumble of falling timber and collapsing brick immediately followed the girl’s high-pitched shriek.
Demi-humans!
Xander’s physical frame reflexively tensed. Without wasting a single millisecond, he stabilized his breathing, sank deeper into [Stealth], and slipped soundlessly toward the perimeter of the property’s enclosed backyard.
Peering through the gaps of a rotted wooden fence into the adjoining courtyard, he spotted a young woman draped in the torn remnants of expensive, imported silk finery sallowed by mud and rainwater. She was utterly cornered by a pack of six snarling gnoll grunts who were snapping their jaws and barking aggressively in their guttural dialect.
The torrential sky had finally tapered off into a quiet, rhythmic drizzle.
The young woman was hyperventilating, her pale face frozen in absolute terror as the primitive hunters closed the distance. Her life bar was a single clumsy strike away from being completely depleted.
Wait... it’s her?
Xander’s fingers paused over the hilts of his twin daggers. He suppressed his combat momentum, choosing not to initiate the strike immediately.
His high lore and memory retention metrics had instantly flagged the woman’s facial profile. He recognized her perfectly.
Roughly three weeks prior to the sudden demi-human invasion of Redoak Vale, this exact woman had arrived at his ancestral gates traveling in an opulent, gilded carriage, scattering silver coin to local innkeepers with reckless extravagance. She had formally requested an audience with the young lord, claiming an urgent desire to establish a highly lucrative, exclusive long-term supply line with his house.
She introduced herself as Lola, the high-born daughter of the supreme director presiding over the Azure Sail Coalition—a massive, prestigious merchant conglomerate operating out of the distant waters of Jewel Bay. She had traveled with two heavily armored, imposing mercenary bodyguards.
At the time, the original young noble of Redoak Vale had been on the absolute precipice of signing her ledger. The geographical layout of the vale was notoriously hostile to large-scale agrarian farming; the soil was far too acidic, resulting in a critical grain deficit every single winter that forced the estate to hemorrhage its silver reserves to external markets.
Resolving this chronic logistical bottleneck had been the primary administrative nightmare haunting the young lord’s thoughts since his succession.
Lola had masterfully exploited that exact vulnerability. She offered to systematically reroute massive fleets of grain transports directly from the southern breadbaskets of Jewel Bay to his granaries—provided the house authorized a massive, upfront liquid advancement to secure the contracts.
Though the requested deposit was a mere fraction of a true international trade ledger, it represented an extraordinary, high-risk sum relative to Redoak Vale’s depleted vaults.
Exercising a rare flash of caution, the original soul of this vessel had delayed the signing ceremony, covertly dispatching Elyra on a high-velocity extraction ride down to the coastal offices of Jewel Bay to formally verify the merchant credentials.
To keep the target placated, he provided Lola with comfortable lodging near the foothills, pretending to meticulously deliberate over the contract clauses while awaiting his retainer’s report.
Five days later, a completely exhausted, mud-spattered half-elf butler ruptured through the castle gates with definitive intelligence: the Azure Sail Coalition possessed absolutely zero record of a director named Lola, nor did they employ the mercenary guards in question.
The high-born merchant daughter was nothing more than a highly calculated, traveling swindler.
Xander’s guards had immediately breached her quarters, apprehended her alongside her two mercenary accomplices, and systematically thrown them into the deep subterranean cells beneath the castle foundation to await formal tribunal.
Even though the original young lord hadn’t ordered any physical torture, attempting to execute a high-yield financial fraud against a sovereign noble house required an absolute, public display of administrative justice to maintain the prestige of the bloodline. So, she remained locked away in the dark.
Right up until the midnight demi-human horde breached the outer walls.
How did a tier 0 civilian manage to bypass the cell locks during the chaos? And what happened to her two combat bodyguards?
Xander’s analytical mind processed the variables as he watched Lola desperately speaking to the surrounding pack of hunters.
The fraudulent girl possessed an extraordinarily adaptive intellect; against all mathematical probability, she was actively utilizing the complex, guttural syntax of the gnoll dialect to negotiate for her life.
The demi-human language was structurally primitive, but due to the unique, canine layout of their vocal cords, simulating their precise phonetic frequencies was notoriously difficult—often causing intense physical strain to human throats.
Yet, Lola was mimicking their barking intonations with flawless, rhythmic precision. Her vocal mimicry parameters were remarkably high.
An elite swindler possessing that specific linguistic modifier was an asset that could prove extraordinarily useful if deployed at the exact right tactical window.
Suddenly, the lead gnoll grunt let out a vicious snarl, aggressively fist-stabbing his hand into Lola’s silks. He dragged her forward, pressing a jagged, rusted bone-dagger flush against the soft flesh of her throat.
The primitive dialogue accelerated into a frenzy of snapping jaws. The surrounding grunts began jeering in a manic circle, their thick, rancid saliva spraying through the drizzle.
I have no data on how she managed to con those beasts into letting her out of the lower dungeons, Xander thought, his eyes tracking the lead grunt’s weapon velocity. But her current survival probability has just dropped to near-zero.
Time to execute a standard high-profile extraction.
Lola’s mind was completely failing her.
She had always prided herself on possessing a hyper-velocity intellect capable of talking her way out of any execution dock on the continent, but staring down six slavering demi-humans had completely shattered her cognitive focus.
That pathetic, weak-willed young noble had thrown her into a freezing cell and then presumably fled the valley like a coward the moment the walls were breached. She had nearly been roasted over a spit when this specific hunting party dragged her out of the collapsing cell block.
If she hadn’t immediately activated her self-taught linguistic skills to mimic their barking dialect, her life bar would have been depleted days ago.
But her luck had officially run dry. She had attempted to orchestrate a high-risk escape during their march through the foothills, and she had failed the stealth check catastrophically.
Now, these enraged predators were entirely deaf to her desperate attempts at placation. They didn’t want her forged contracts; they wanted to harvest her raw meat.
Staring at the yellowed, jagged fangs closing in, Lola felt the strength entirely drain from her limbs. Her knees buckled into the mud.
Lola! Maintain structural focus! Do not break down now! she screamed at herself internally. You have survived the black markets of the south; you can talk your way past a few overgrown wolves!
But the moment the cold, jagged edge of the bone-dagger bit into her skin, absolute panic overrode her logic. A tear cut through the mud on her cheek. The foul, fishy stench of the lead brute’s breath filled her senses. She forced her voice to remain as smooth and melodic as possible:
"Listen to my words... I possess perfect architectural data regarding a hidden vault of precious, high-grade quartz crystals beneath the—"
SPLAT!
A violent, high-velocity spray of dark, arterial blood erupted into the air, several thick drops splashing directly into Lola’s open mouth.
Her jaw remained frozen open as she stared blankly at the space in front of her. The lead gnoll grunt’s head had been cleanly separated from his shoulders, his heavy body collapsing into the mud like a felled sack of grain.
A masked, dark-clothed silhouette slowly coalesced out of thin air directly behind the falling corpse, twin curved daggers dripping with fresh crimson.
A chorus of startled, high-pitched yelps ruptured from the remaining five grunts. They stared in brief, paralyzed shock at the masked human intruder before baring their fangs and swarming forward in a frenzied pack.
Demi-humans of this specific intellectual tier operated on a rudimentary numerical calculus: they evaluated combat threat solely based on sheer numbers. Their primitive minds logged five active gnolls against a single masked human and a trembling girl who barely counted as half a combatant.
By their tribal logic, their victory modifier was absolute.
Unfortunately for them... Xander did not operate within standard mortal parameters.
[Status: Tier 1 Dual-Wield Ranger — Level 5]
[Core Attribute: 20 Dexterity achieved]
Engaging a Tier 2 professional class-holder in a confined space would present a moderate tactical risk, but dismantling a disorganized squad of level 2 grunt fighters was a basic execution routine.
WHISH!
Twin arcs of silver light sliced through the gray drizzle as Xander executed a high-velocity slash pattern. He glided with absolute, self-assured fluidity through the gaps in their formation, his movements an optimized blur of evasion and precise kinetic placement.
He didn’t waste stamina on flashy, heavy over-hand strikes. Every single input was a localized, high-precision puncture targeting their exposed vitals—the carotid arteries, the windpipes, the tendon joints.
These primitive scouts were completely unarmored, relying solely on their coarse, natural hides which offered zero defensive mitigation against the razor-sharp steel of Xander’s daggers.
In less than thirty seconds, the remaining five gnolls were resting perfectly still in the mud, their life bars completely zeroed out.
Xander calmly retrieved a coarse black linen rag from his utility pouch, systematically wiping the dark blood from his twin blades before sheathing them with a clean, synchronized click.
Lola, meanwhile, had finally managed to process the mechanical reality of what had just occurred. She dragged herself to her hands and knees... and immediately began violently puking into the weeds.
Three minutes later, inside the dry, shadowed interior of the abandoned farmhouse.
"Demi-human blood possesses a notoriously high concentration of iron and stagnant fish oil," Xander stated flatly, his masked face turned toward the window as he monitored the road. "The olfactory shock is normal. You’ll build a passive tolerance to the scent after your twentieth kill."
"Blargh!"
Lola, who had just managed to dry-heave her stomach empty, let out another pathetic retch at his clinical delivery. Her skin had turned a sickly, translucent shade of blue. Having endured days of starvation rations in the lower cells, all she could bring up was bitter yellow bile.
Her mind was spinning, but her foundational survival instincts remained incredibly sharp.
This masked individual was an absolute, high-tier killer—the sheer speed and clinical efficiency of his blade work left zero room for alternative interpretations. He wore a heavy cloth mask. High-tier killers were always notoriously eccentric. Perhaps he hides his face because he’s horribly disfigured? she theorized.
Lola rapidly calculated a dozen different deceptive scripts before letting her shoulders slump, forcing her bright eyes to well up with a pathetic, heart-wrenching layer of tears.
"Thank you... thank you for saving my life, noble sir," she whimpered, her voice trembling with practiced innocence. "I am Lady Lola, the legitimate heiress to the grand Azure Sail Coalition. I originally traveled to the sovereign borders of Redoak Vale to finalize a high-volume agricultural enterprise agreement with the local lordship. I never anticipated my caravan would be ambushed by these savage monsters. I am eternally indebted to your steel. If you could provide me with a basic ration and escort my person safely back to the coastal docks of Jewel Bay, my family’s conglomerate will grant you a staggering bounty of gold coin."
She directed her most devastating, wide-eyed gaze straight toward his mask. To be entirely fair to her craft, Lola’s physical aesthetics were remarkably high; she possessed a strikingly expressive, luminous gaze that had successfully dismantled the suspicions of seasoned merchant barons across the continent.
It was an extraordinary performance. It was a pity Xander merely tossed a brick of hard, twice-baked traveler’s bread onto the floor boards in front of her.
"Consume the ration," Xander murmured, his voice dropped to a low, quiet whisper to prevent the acoustic frequency from carrying beyond the walls. He chose to entirely omit the fact that he was the exact "cowardly noble" who had thrown her into the dungeons in the first place.
"I extracted you from that courtyard solely because your profile demonstrates perfect linguistic fluency in the gnoll dialect. Your specialized skill set has immediate tactical utility for my upcoming deployment. Finish the bread and secure your stamina rest. We initiate our advance at dawn."
Lola’s luminous eyes widened in absolute horror.
Unfortunately for her sanity, Xander completely severed eye contact, drawing one of his curved daggers and quietly running a sharpening stone down the edge with a rhythmic, scraping hum.
Her internal monologue began screaming in pure panic.
She had literally just escaped the butcher block of a demi-human horde, only to slide straight into the custody of a cold, psychotic assassin. Watching the steady, methodical scrape of his whetstone... what kind of dark operational blueprint was shifting behind that mask?
This lunatic isn’t actually planning to launch a manual assault against the massive warlord forces holding the ancestral castle, is he? I freely admit his dexterity stats are incredible, but he is outnumbered a hundred to one!
Lola chewed on the stone-hard traveler’s bread, her teeth aching as she frantically mocked his sanity in the privacy of her thoughts.
By the time she managed to force the dry calories down her throat, the absolute midnight darkness had completely claimed the valley. She spent hours hyper-analyzing the room, desperately looking for a mechanical window to slip through a window and sprint into the brush.
But the masked killer remained half-leaned against the structural timber of the rear exit, his posture relaxed yet his gaze permanently locked onto her position.
"I will provide you with a single data point regarding escape protocols," Xander’s quiet whisper sliced through the dark room just as she shifted her weight. "If you choose to sprint, ensure your agility modifiers are high enough to outrun a thrown dagger. If my steel clips your heel, the resulting medical penalty will be infinitely more agonizing than anything those grunts had planned for you."
Lola’s blood ran entirely cold. Witnessing the absolute precision of his earlier kills, she lacked the courage to test his targeting parameters.
She didn’t achieve a single hour of deep rest that night.
The girl remained completely frozen in her corner, terrified that this silent executioner’s internal alignment would suddenly shift, prompting him to systematically dismember her to pass the time... or worse.
Wait... which of those two mechanical outcomes would yield the worse penalty? Lola couldn’t even calculate the answer.
When the pale, gray light of dawn finally began bleeding through the cracks of the farmhouse shutters, her mind was still trapped in a loop of frantic anxiety.
Right at that exact millisecond, Xander’s eyes snapped open. He straightened his posture, his hand resting casually on his belt as he looked down at her.
"Your stamina bars should be sufficiently recovered," Xander stated calmly. "Stand up. Our operational window is open."
