Chapter 25: CH. 25 | Saving Lily

"You’re calling me a coward? Who the hell are you?!" Lily’s party leader shouted, clearly not taking it well that Theo had just called him one.

Thalia stepped in to break up the confrontation. She told Theo to stay calm and not let his emotions get the better of him, even asking him not to do anything reckless like killing them.

"The City Authority of Justice could arrest you again if you start trouble with them," Thalia said.

Theo listened and gave a short nod. He sheathed his sword and stepped back a few paces, exactly as Thalia had asked.

The party leader did the same. But the person at the center of all this looked panicked and worried, clearly at a loss for what to do, confusion written all over her face.

"Tell me, how many guild missions have you actually completed?" they demanded.

"One," Theo answered, "At least I managed to finish it, unlike you, three guild missions, three failures!"

"YOU?!" the party leader shouted again, but Thalia stepped in once more to defuse the tension.

"Listen to me, both of you!"

"This is such a trivial thing to be fighting over. How about we talk it out calmly instead of shouting?" Thalia asked.

Thalia turned and called out to Lily, asking the girl to step closer. Terrified and shaken, Lily agreed to what Thalia asked. Now the pink haired girl stood right beside her.

The black haired woman with the wand turned to face Lily’s party leader, "We’ve been watching the two of you since back in the city. She was struggling to buy a new priest staff. So Theo bought it for her."

"I figured she’d be fine after that, but clearly not. I saw it, we both saw it clearly, all of you just abandoning her," Thalia said.

"She’s a rookie adventurer, just like us. Theo and I just formed our party, and having a priest would honestly help us out a lot."

"That’s exactly why I convinced Lily to consider joining my party."

Lily’s party leader turned to look at his other party members. Then he faced forward again, breaking into a smile as he looked at Lily with a friendly expression.

"I’m sorry about earlier. I was exhausted, and honestly, we all were. From this moment on, we’ll take good care of you," the man said, "You don’t even know these two, do you? You should be careful, they could easily have bad intentions."

"Bad intentions? Are you out of your mind?!" Theo snapped, "I don’t even know her, and I bought her a priest staff, something you people were supposed to do in the first place, you bastard!"

"Is that what you call bad intentions? You people are full of nothing but garbage!"

"Don’t listen to them, Lily. He’s wearing that friendly face right now, but deep down all he wants is to keep pushing you around," Theo said firmly.

Lily went quiet for a moment, her head hanging down, her eyes shifting back and forth between her old party and Theo. Thalia let Lily decide for herself, not wanting to look like she was pressuring the girl into joining.

Not long after, Lily’s attention turned toward her old party members. Her party leader broke into a wide, satisfied smile, as if he’d already assumed Lily would come back with him.

"I-I’m sorry!"

The smile on the man’s face slowly faded, replaced by shock, "What do you mean?"

"About their offer... I’ve decided I’m going to leave and join them instead," Lily said quietly.

"Lily!"

"Do you even realize what you’re doing?!" the man shouted, "You know we’re holding your sister’s life in our hands, right?!"

"If you leave the party, don’t blame us when your sister ends up dead!"

Lily froze completely, unable to say a single word. Her head dropped again, tears streaming down her cheeks. She slowly turned around to face Theo and Thalia.

"I’m so sorry... I think I should—"

Theo moved fast, walking past Lily with a hardened expression, speaking to her briefly as he passed, "Don’t say another word."

He clenched his fist and drove it forward, landing a punch straight into the face of Lily’s former party leader. The man was thrown backward, his body flying off, stunning his own companions.

"You bastard! You held Lily hostage using her own sister’s life?!" Theo snapped.

"No wonder you treated her like trash, because she never meant anything to you people in the first place!"

The man wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, then looked up with a sharp, arrogant glare, "That’s our business. She’s the one who told us herself!"

"Since you’ve done this to me, I’ll make sure her sister dies today!" the man said firmly, "Unless Lily comes back, apologizes, and gets down on her knees for us!"

"Like hell!" Theo said firmly.

"Get her out of here, Thalia."

"I’ll stay here and hold them off!"

Thalia listened to Theo and moved fast, pulling Lily by the hand and rushing away from the savanna. Lily, still bewildered, couldn’t resist and simply followed Theo’s plan.

The rest of the party turned and shouted after Lily, demanding she come back. Theo watched them closely, noticing a certain shift in their movements.

He immediately activated his Foresight Skill, running a ten second observation into the future.

[Foresight Skill Activated!]

[Future Observation Duration: 00:00:00:10]

The world around him began shifting into gray, revealing four shadow images of the future, one for each remaining party member.

Their shadow forms showed some of them chasing after Lily and Thalia, while others moved to attack Theo.

The woman mage and the male archer tried to chase down Lily, while the party leader and the assassin went after Theo.

Through that observation, he was able to spot the openings in their attacks and focus on stopping the mage and archer first.

Once he’d studied it carefully, Theo deactivated his skill again, and the world returned to its normal colors. He looked ahead, the shadow images gone, leaving just the four of them standing there.

"Go after them! I’ll deal with him myself!" the party leader ordered, and the mage and archer obeyed instantly.

Two of them charged forward with their swords. Theo remembered their attack patterns from the vision and dodged with precision sharp enough to leave them stunned.

"W-What? How did he dodge that?!" the party leader complained.

Theo drew his sword from its sheath and sprinted after the mage and archer. The two of them turned, their faces draining of color the moment they realized Theo was chasing them down with a predatory glare.

"Die!" the woman shouted, pointing her wand forward.

The young man reacted instantly, slamming his sword against the woman’s wand. The wand shattered and snapped in half, sending her into a fit of rage.

"You destroyed my—"

PUNCH!

Theo drove a fist into the woman’s face and followed with a hard kick to her stomach. She flew backward and collapsed, groaning in pain.

"THEO?!" the party leader snapped.

But Theo paid no attention to that, chasing after the archer instead. The man realized he’d become the next target and immediately fired a volley of magic arrows at Theo.

The arrows’ movement was easy enough to read, and Theo dodged and parried them all. The moment he stood right in front of the archer, the man’s face went pale with panic.

"P-Please... don’t kill me!"

Theo knocked the man down and pressed his sword against the archer’s throat, freezing Lily’s former party leader in place, unable to move.

"Stop right there or I’ll slit his throat!" Theo said firmly.

"If you kill him, we’ll just report you to the City Authority of Justice!" the party leader threatened.

"This isn’t about that," Theo answered, "This is about whether you’re willing to obey to save your own friend."

"So, are you going to comply, or does he die right here?!"