Chapter 655: I Can’t Help But Look Down On You

The young man scrambled up immediately and reached out with both hands like he was trying to steady me instead of the other way around.

But something was strange about him.

I stepped back and looked at him properly.

Something about him felt off right from the first second. He had just come out of the corner where Benjamin and those powerful strangers were tearing into each other, and the air back there was thick enough with raw magic that most people would have liquefied on the spot within moments of stepping into it.

But here he was, still standing, breathing, and talking. Maybe Benjamin had done something to keep him alive this long.

Looking at his face didn’t help settle the question either—he was unnaturally handsome, having great levels of sharp, clean features that made me wonder if he was even human at all.

On top of that his whole body was already laced through with magic poison.

Another minute in this density and he should have been dropping dead where he stood, but he was still upright and speaking like everything was completely normal.

As I thought, Benjamin had to be shielding him somehow, or the young man would already be a human puddle on the ground.

"Ah... forgive me," he said, voice thin but careful and polite. He straightened his shirt with quick, nervous movements. "But you should not be here. It is far too dangerous. You must leave at once."

I didn’t waste time trying to be gentle about it.

I told him that he needed to get out of Lot right now and never look back.

While the words were still coming out of my mouth I could already feel the damage racing through him under the surface—cells breaking down faster than any healing could possibly catch.

I left him standing there in the middle of the empty street and ran toward the growing noise of the battle.

Halfway down the next block the thought hit me, that I had forgotten to tell him something important.

If he had any family left anywhere in the city, he needed to abandon them completely and run alone.

The magic saturating every part of his body would poison anyone who got close for long enough, and they would all die the same slow, ugly way he was already dying.

...Maybe he was a loner with no one waiting for him. I had already ordered him to leave Lot immediately and never look back, so if he actually listened then that part was covered.

Either way it probably didn’t make much difference in the end. He was going to die one way or the other, whether he reached the edge of the city or not.

I came out from between two half-collapsed buildings and the full fight opened up in front of me without warning.

Benjamin was already giving the enemies a hard time, moving through them like the whole thing was barely worth his full attention.

"What are you doing here, stupid elf?!" a woman with a high ponytail shouted the second she spotted me standing at the edge of the broken street. Her face was twisted with anger and real panic. "Can’t you see this entire zone is dangerous?! Flee already!"

I ignored her completely and looked straight at Benjamin instead.

He (seemingly) had one (of my) boot(s) planted firmly on the chest of a very muscular man who was dressed in women’s clothes, holding the bigger man down like he weighed nothing more than a sack of grain.

The man under his foot was struggling, his face red with effort, but Benjamin did not seem to notice.

"Benjamin," I called over the noise of the ongoing fight, "I assume you don’t need any help with this?"

The ponytail woman’s eyes narrowed the moment she realized I wasn’t some lost civilian who had wandered into the wrong place by accident.

Benjamin glanced over at me, still pressing down on the man under his foot, and gave a short chuckle while scratching the back of his head. "As you can see, they are not nearly as strong as I first gave them credit for. But I guess we could still use this for a lesson to you while we’re here."

"Lesson?" I raised one eyebrow.

"Yes. Watch how we fight and observe everything carefully." He shifted his weight just enough to slip past a sudden kick from a small girl who looked no older than ten or twelve years old, and the large man escaped as result.

Benjamin’s movement was nearly lazy, like he had seen the attack coming long before she even started moving. "They are weaklings compared to what I’ve faced before, but they are still several times stronger than you are right now."

They’re weakling? Then what does that make me?

He kept talking while he opened both palms toward the group. A blue stone the size of a fist, rough-edged and glowing faintly from the inside, formed in the air above his hand and floated there without any visible support.

The enemies jerked back at the appearance of the stones, their cracking confidence cracking a little more.

"They’re weak," he said, voice still calm and even, "but this is how the strong actually fight. So learn as much as possible while you have the chance, okay?"

I nodded more times than was probably necessary, wiped the dried blood off the blade of the katana with the side of my sleeve, and slid it back into its sheath with a soft click.

Her grip on her swords tightened. "Tsk! You monster! How much longer do you plan to look down on us like this?!"

Benjamin was standing on the opposite side of the group now, still completely calm, and speaking like the entire conversation was only interesting to him.

"Look down on you? I’m not trying to look down on you at all... but... you know how it is. If I’m standing on a tower, I can’t really communicate with people on the ground without looking down at them. If you want me to look at you on an equal level, try climbing up here first."

I had spent enough time around Benjamin by now to know that the words weren’t coming from any kind of arrogance or desire to mock them.

And that was the part that made the situation all the more terrifying.