Aetherios System [Slow Build OP MC, Isekai LitRPG/Cultivation] Chapter 91: Book 2: Chapter 8: Well Fighting

Read chapter 91 of Aetherios System [Slow Build OP MC, Isekai LitRPG/Cultivation] by TTReynolds on NovelPedia.

Book 2: Chapter 8: Well Fighting Book 2: Chapter 8: Well Fighting Vrung’s Quarry didn’t have many rules, it was a small town that kept to itself and tried to keep things simple. But it did have some rules, one of which was an unspoken but commonly understood truth: you don’t start fights near the well. So, naturally, that’s exactly where the next one broke out. Alex had just started to relax. Garret was arguing with a spice vendor about whether "ghost pepper lizard jerky" was a hate crime. Tom-Tom was trying to trade a spoon for a crystal marble. Everyone else trickled back from their shopping runs, arms full of gear, herbs, or questionable purchases. The mood was good. That ended when Bek’s voice cut through the market like an audible brain-splinter. “Well, well, well… look who crawled back into town.” Alex turned slowly. The meatheads had returned. Bek and Metjen stood front and center, still large, still ugly, but now with company. Eight more brutes loomed behind them, six men, two women. All were carrying the same broken-nose bravado and village-wrought weapons. Sledgehammers, axes, brass-knuckles, none were military issue. More… farm-raider chic. Alex stepped forward, already reading the angles. “Didn’t get enough last time?” Bek sneered, a bruise still faintly visible on one cheek. “This time’s different.” One of their cousins cracked his neck. “This time, we brought the family.” His words appeared to ignite the battle-lust in the rest of them, as all the members of this backwood miner-camp family suddenly postured up like a raccoon angling for a snack. “You don’t want to, I’m serious Bek,” he surprised himself a bit by remembering the man’s name. The last time they had met hadn’t really given Alex a whole lot of time for introductions. “Your sister is fine now I assume, or we wouldn’t have gotten this bravado opening.” “She is, no thanks to you,” he sneered at Alex and brandished the newly sharpened mining ax that he held in his hands. Alex wasn’t certain if that was all he could afford on a miner’s salary, or if that was all he grabbed on such a short notice. The careful sharpen and polish job that this guy seemed to have performed on the tool suggested to Alex it was the former. By this time, the other eight family members of Hobo-chic Quarry had started to advance on the rest of their group. Lance and Allie gave Alex the look a child would give their parents when asking permission to tear apart an old cardboard box after removing their Christmas present from it. “Fine, don’t say I didn’t warn you though, okay?” He nodded to Lance and Allie in turn, giving them the go-head to do their thing. The following fight, if any self respecting person could ever call what followed as a fight, was swift and brutal. Not even all on Alex’s part either. Allie was rather unforgiving in a very scary, fuck with the platypus and get the bill, sort of way. Metjen, the cousin whom Alex had taught a lesson to last time he was in town, attacked first. He went for Allie, maybe because he assumed she was the weak link. She gave off the natural team healer sort of vibes, so it could have been a safe assumption. Could have been, but wasn’t. The feisty squad medic had already begun drawing a short dagger from under her cloak as the man closed on her. She wasn’t putting a lot of experience points into her physical stats like Garret or Peter was, that didn’t mean she couldn’t mud wrestle with the best of them. Her fist flashed forward like a snapping turtle trying to get a leaf of lettuce, the contact was forceful enough though, re-breaking Metjens barely healed nose. He tried to retaliate by swallowing up her torso in a bear hug in one swift motion. He managed to lift her off her feet before the dagger in her hand sank half way up the blade into the man’s shoulder. Blood squirted out like a horribly unsightly pimple. Alex thought he saw some of it land in the courtyard well. That’s not exactly sanitary. “ It’s not. But drinking it might allow on