Overpowered Wizard

Chapter 248: B3: C38: Masterful Battle 1

Foodie and her kidnapper were stunned into silence by the preposterous words of the drider. Then again, she was probably more stunned. She was recovering from a concussion, after all.

She had to second guess herself on what Ekri the Tailor was saying before realizing the drider was being his usual weird self.

Once her hazy vision cleared, she saw Ekri was wearing a crisp three-piece suit of brown and beige coloring. His high-quality shoes were polished to a fine finish, and so were the necklaces and the eight-legged brooch on the left side of his suit collar.

With all six arms folded behind him, Ekri smiled, his dark eyes glinting, his spider fangs moving separately inside of his mouth.

He stood like a dressed up and pale-skinned oddity, like someone who was misplaced in the wrong setting. The backdrop of stone forests, ancient statues, autumn-colored hedges, and eroded fortresses with winding river-moats didn’t seem to fit him.

Granted, this was the first time Foodie had seen Ekri outside of Castle Grimrock.

“What are you doing here?” Foodie blurted while preparing to pull out a knife from her pocket kitchen.

“Serving the will of milady, of course,” Ekri said, his hands unfolding from behind him to gesture casually. “She’s being radically different now. I dare say she’s lost her concerns along with a few parts of herself. Thus, she’s giving me more freedom! Ha! I didn’t even mean to say that pun! That’s how out of sorts everything is.”

King Rithos tensed up. His grip on Foodie’s wrist tightened.

The little princess braced herself, biding her time, ensuring she would strike when the opportunity presented itself. She trusted her Wonder stat to tell her when that would be.

It wasn’t yet time to strike. The elf king was too wary. He wasn’t open enough. He had already summoned his staff back into his other hand, too.

However, him not attempting to crush Ekri the Tailor like he’d done to Foodie and her companions said a lot about the situation.

I wish I had my cleaver. She’d dropped it somewhere.

Foodie engaged in more conversation. “What do you mean to serve the will of ‘milady?’ Who is this mistress you serve?”

“Be quiet, you!” King Rithos snarled down at her.

“Now, now, don’t treat the princess that way,” Ekri said, with a hint of seriousness.

The elf king shivered. His grip tensed even further, but up to a limit on the goblin’s wrist. Yellow sparks appeared where the elf kept hold of a very strong goblin.

Foodie noted how his grip didn’t come from raw Strength. There was magic in his grip.

I’m physically stronger, but he probably has more aura and more advanced skills than me.

He was most likely a Master Ranker, too, so her chances against the elf king in a fair fight were still slim. But Foodie was confident she could break free once the opportunity presented itself. ŔάNȎBΕS

Still, a lot depended on Ekri the Tailor. Both the goblin princess and elf king were waiting for the Carrowmore Baron to explain himself.

“Nice day, isn’t it?” Ekri asked, as if to make small talk.

Foodie almost felt a kindred moment with King Rithos about how exasperating Ekri could be. The drider was keeping them in suspense on purpose, milking the moment.

Then things became even more dire.

King Rithos smiled cruelly as four more elves appeared!

Each elf gave off powerful auras and magical forces that had Foodie feeling oppressed. She’d never seen an elf until this morning. Now she was seeing five of them all at once! Worse yet, they had Ekri surrounded.

We’re DOOMED! Foodie thought to herself.

She tried to steady her thumping heart. She prepared to risk everything for her freedom and to avoid being used as bait for her father.

The only thing that stopped her was the growing smile on Ekri’s face.

He even laughed. “Ah, there you all are. You know, it’s quite hard to wait for my moment and let things be. But I must say this is the perfect opportunity to market my services to the right people.”

Ekri’s dark eyes focused on Foodie. “My dear princess, we crossed paths aplenty when I sold my business to your former mother. I won’t say too much about that, since she’s dead, but who I truly serve is far, far above the warlock and others of my usual clientele. Milady has a vested interest in a certain apocalyptic someone, and that apocalyptic someone has a vested interest in you. So, I’m going to intervene here, teach these elves a thing or two, and let you scamper off and have your mythical fun slaying wolf dragons.”

Foodie’s mind flipped and twisted to figure out what Ekri was saying. Apparently, his lady, an esteemed and mysterious mistress, had a vested interest in ‘someone apocalyptic.’

The apocalyptic person had to be her father. If so, then the mysterious mistress with the vested interest had to be Shadowfell, Foodie’s new mother. Though Foodie found it strange that Ekri wouldn’t come out and just say it.

No, I must be wrong.

She had to be wrong. There was no way that Ekri’s weapon in a sword fight could be that thing!

There’s no way his chosen weapon is a pair of scissors.

Feeling mistaken, Foodie felt the urge to return to her companions. She heard more of Ekri’s boasts as he thwarted the sword pair’s attacks and struck back with his ... unlikely weapon.

Foodie ran and ran, putting the masterful battle further behind her. The exchanges resounded clearly for miles on end.

She could hardly believe how truly strong Ekri the Tailor was. She knew he was greatly feared across the Walled Continent. But none of her journals had spoken about the true height of his power.

Five elven kings and queens! He can fight a full party of them and ridicule them at the same time!

Foodie glanced down at her arm where King Rithos had once held her. He was still holding onto her. The hand hadn’t let go.

She pried it off, took out some seasoning from her pocket kitchen, and sprinkled it over the hand.

Then she ate it.

She’d never eaten elf before, and she wished she had the time to cook it properly. Still, the meal was an interesting one, though a tad on the bony side, lacking in chewy meat.

By the time she finished eating a piece of King Rithos, her orbital golems found her. All eighteen of them buzzed in circles above her head, their round bodies giving off green flashes of destruction magic.

Soon, other companions appeared, such as the spectral spiders and a few helpful skeletons. Better yet, Foodie saw Slip and Loner riding up fast toward her.

The crushing tension inside of her chest unwound at the sight of them. Despite everything, King Rithos hadn’t bothered to see Loner and Slip destroyed.

It was times like these that Foodie was glad she’d split most of her attention primarily on Strength and Wonder. The Wonder stat granted more supernatural perception, faith, hidden power, aura power, and luck.

They came out especially lucky to not have lost anything severe, if only their own sense of invincibility.

Before Foodie could utter a word to them, the clashing between Master Rankers grew louder and more destructive. Everyone looked back as wide-reaching destruction scoured the land only a few miles away.

Multiple fortress hillocks fell apart as victims of the masterful battle. Entire patches of forests with stone-barked trees and autumn-colored hedges disappeared, completely wiped out.

Glacial hills of ice jutted into the sky. Strident clashes of magic metal on magic metal resounded so far, so sharp, they still hurt Foodie’s ears despite the distance.

An immense blow shook the ground. The cry of thousands of beasts raging about intermingled with the incredible noises of destructive power coming from the masterful battle.

Yet, while in the middle of all of that, Ekri the Tailor continued to boast aloud.

“Bravo! You’ve succeeded past the first round of my tailoring process. Now that we’ve got the measurements of you, let us chart the beautified vision that you may one day become if you live long enough to see it!”

Slip neighed in utter disbelief at the situation.

“There’s a reason Ekri the Tailor is greatly feared,” Foodie said. “However, don’t let this distract you from the truth.”

Slip and Loner looked at her tensely.

Foodie looked back at them with a serious expression. “Father is scarier and stronger than them all.”

Both the eight-legged horse and black skeleton nodded in agreement.

The powers of the drider tailor and five elven kings and queens were immense. But they couldn’t compare to the mighty and apocalyptic power of Foodie’s adopted father. The Dark Lord was the destroyer of mountains, the breaker of moons, and the one who could eat the entire universe and beyond.

I must grow stronger!

She carried the Darkrun name. She represented her father. To show such weakness earlier, even at the hands of elven kings and queens, made her feel ashamed.

I’ll make up for it at Ride-or-Die Village!

Before they headed off, a handful of spectral spiders came scurrying up to her with something dragged in webbing behind them. Foodie smiled as she reached down and grabbed the handle of her legendary cleaver.