Outside in front of the Adventurers Guild building stood a crowd.
Currently, Alex was facing the Four adventurers that had picked a fight with him. Well, their leader has. To be accurate, it was a duel.
"Heh, it's too late now. Even if you have some skills, we won't forgive you even if you start crying." One of Diaz's men said, sneering. Alex just glanced at him, not bothering to answer his provocation.
Diaz held a battle-ax in his hand while threatening Alex. A man called Bolt held a double-handed sword. The remaining two adventurers at the back held a bow and dagger respectively as they looked at Alex and grinned.
The Four people wore light armor on top of their ordinary clothes.
The city residents gathered at a distance while curiously looking at Alex and the other Four. Gracier and Eleonora were on the front row, with Gracier doing her best not to show how concerned she was. Eleonora being Eleonora was smiling, arms crossed.
Finally, after speaking with the Guild master, Leena came out; it seemed that she would supervise the fight. She and Alex exchanged a glance before Alex started smiling. It was time to start his plan.
"Well, good for nothing, Simpleton. Why don't we make a bet?"
"A bet?" Simpleton, no Diaz urged Alex to continue while blue veins appear on his forehead at the disgraceful name he just received.
By the way, even the onlookers who heard the name were trying not to smile and laugh at it. Everyone shut up when the Bolt glared at the surroundings. Everyone except Eleonora, of course, continued laughing. Diaz and his men glared at Alex.
Shrugging his shoulders, Alex declared,
"As I said, it's a bet. I heard a story a little while ago; miraculously, maybe because you used up a lifetime's worth of luck, you succeeded in a quest at last? So, during your celebration, you picked a bone with me who was just going to get promoted above you."
"Shut up! Stop talking as if you knew everything. We are lucky, you say? Don't make me laugh; we are not you who rely on luck, whelp. You're looking down on us even though you're a novice that just registered a week ago. Don't get full of yourself because you're lucky or because you're going to get promoted."
To Alex's provocation, Diaz yelled threateningly while waving his battle-ax. The sound of the air as he waved his ax showed he wasn't just all talk.
Unfazed by the display, Alex continued,
"Well, that's difficult to say. Let's focus on the bet here. So, the contents of the bet are the following. I'll fight the four of you at the same time. And if you win, that's right, let's say you'll receive this."
He then took a bag of gold coins from his fake space ring before removing the fake ring and adding it to the bag of gold coins.
Everybody's eyes widened when they heard Alex's words; even Leena was surprised for a moment before starting to smile. Gracier panicked when she heard her Big brother was going to fight against those four simultaneously.
Even though she knew her Big brother was strong, especially with his strange Gift, she still felt worried because even if the four weren't strong, they were still above ordinary people; besides that, Diaz guy was an E Rank Adventurer, he must be strong. The only positive thing was that none of the Four seemed to have a Gift. If one of them were gifted, the group's Rank wouldn't be E.
Gracier's eye squinted as she studied the bowman; from his body, she could detect a faint amount of Mana. One of her racial traits, Elves can detect the ambient mana in the air or a person because of their sensibility to nature.
Coming back to the present. Detecting mana coming out of the bowman could mean one thing, this bowman was a magic-user; maybe he used magic to fire his arrows. Now that she observed him, the latter did not have any quiver containing arrows in it. So, this means he was a Magic bowman. The good point was that his bow was a normal magical bow, not a Gift, or else Alex would be in trouble.
A quick reminder, the difference between gifted people and ungifted one is that if an average person using a sword (even if the sword quality was of the best) with elements (Fire, Wind, Water....), this person firepower will never surpass a gifted person whose Gift was also a sword.
If the two were to fight, the gifted person would win because its Gift will enable them to perfectly harmonize with an element, something unachievable for the ungifted. Besides, Gifts are unbreakable, contrary to normal weapons. Some say that Gifts were the embodiment of one soul; whether it was true or not, only God knows.
An ungifted might win against a gifted only if the former level was higher than the latter.
Back to the present, Gracier shook her head while praying.
Hopefully, nothing wrong would happen to her Big brother, considering that if he uses his Gift, this fight will be over instantly. She was eager to watch her Big brother finish the fight in an instant.
She was not the only one eager for the fight to start; Leena planned to use this fight to know what kind of Gift Alex possessed. Eleonora also was expecting something like that.
Unfortunately for them, they will be disappointed because, since the start, Alex never planned to use his Gift. He plans to fight using his knife and to throw knives.
"10 gold coins, and a magic item with an item box function, it's a ring to be exact. I'll give these to you if you win, that is." Alex announced.
It became noisy when Alex explained. Not only that, some onlookers knew magic items to some extent Space rings are costly, only son of powerful families, it's to say Young master of Big families could possess one. So, it was not strange for them to get noisy when they saw the value of the goods, such as the Space ring that Alex had displayed.
Diaz's eyes burned with naked greed; still, he put on a doubting expression as he shouted angrily.
"Don't joke! You're just a novice adventurer who registered recently. How were you able to own all these things? Don't try to cheat us with fake things."
Hearing Diaz's angry voice, some people in the crowd nodded their heads sharing the same thought as him. It wasn't for no reason. Aside from the gold coins, there was the space ring. If you bought them, it would be worth a few White gold coins; dozens of White gold coins might be necessary depending on the capacity of the ring in question after Space rings were a very rare product.
Knowing this, Alex looked haughtily at the Four people in front of him.
"Whether or not it is the real thing, feel free to judge if you beat me. No, let's do this. I'll ask our supervisor to confirm it."
Saying this, Alex placed the items in Leena's hands while secretly winking at her. Leena did not immediately understand why he did that; however, she finally understood why he did it. Smiling while inwardly cursing at how shameless Alex was, Leena announced.
"Certainly, I have confirmed the items. There are ten Gold coins inside the pouch while the space ring is indeed authentic."
After hearing Leena's confirmation, the crowd became noisy again while Diaz's eyes burned with greed.
〖Fufu, Master, you're sure bad. To think that you'll force Leena to play alongside your lie. She will sure retaliate later, be prepared.〗
"Well, since I took out articles of this level, you guys have to put out something of equal value. Don't you think?" Alex asked, ignoring Silveria.
There was a long silence. Diaz and his men were silent after hearing Alex's words; this was natural, though. After all, Diaz himself was only an E-rank Adventurer. This was the first time he had seen a space ring for real; there was no way he would have goods of equal value.
However, even though he was made into a fool in front of the crowd and other Adventurers, something he likes to do, not to be at the receiving end, he could only glare at Alex with murderous eyes. How would have thought that the pup was this rich? He had miscalculated. Diaz thought, cursing at his miscalculation.
Smiling, Alex said, "What's wrong? Display the goods you're betting. That said, it's probably impossible, as expected of the Simpleton. I'm a generous soul, after all. Therefore, I'll allow you to bet everything you have right now. You should have something if you came to celebrate the achievement of your quest, right?"
Hearing Alex's words, Diaz's eyes became more murderous while the crowd rolled their eyes while thinking, 'Generous soul my ass, you just want to rob them clean. What's generous in that?'
The reason why Alex made this move was that he had been informed of Diaz recent success, the four had amassed a petite fortune, also because they like to often brag after drinking a few cups, they let slip that they like to have all their money on their person in case someone may go stole them if they left it in their Inn. Well, Leena gave him this information, how she learned it.
Alex never asked, nor did he plan to.
Finally, after struggling for a while, Diaz spoke,
"All right, I accept."
Alex smiled. Finally, the fish had taken the bet.