When the two men saw the glint of the blade Luke was wielding, their eyes became as big as apples.
Skillfully, Luke landed in front of them and in the next movement already knocked them down with his right leg. The men fell awkwardly, but Luke allowed them to get up, so they would have some chance to fight back.
As soon as they saw the opportunity arise, they both drew the silver swords that were in their sheaths and propelled themselves to attack Luke.
'They're clearly not inexperienced, but the way they fight is messy.' Luke concluded as he deflected and defended from the men's attacks.
It would be easy for the half-wolf to kill those two at that moment, they were nowhere near his level, in fact, they would possibly lose even to Wanney. Their fencing wasn't some of the worst Luke had ever seen, but the way they fought interspersed was useless against Luke, who didn't tire easily and was fighting with only one hand holding the obsidian sword.
However, the moment their silver swords came within inches of hitting the half-wolf's chest, he made a move so fast and powerful that it shattered the sword blades into dozens of pieces.
Stupefied, the men fell backwards simultaneously, completely surrendered to that tremendous force.
"B-but wh-what?" One of them couldn't believe his eyes. Silver swords were not supposed to be broken as easily as it seemed.
The waterfall of cold sweat that dripped down the second man's face didn't stop him from questioning Luke as well. "W-who are you?"
The half-wolf looked at them and decided not to talk to them yet. Ignoring the two men, Luke calmly walked over to the woman trapped in the tree and cut the ropes that tied her hands on the other side of the trunk.
When Luke also removed the gag from her mouth, she touched her own throat to check if she was all right.
Luke looked at her and questioned, "Did they hurt you much? Where are you from?"
The brown-haired woman shook her head negatively to answer the first question and then answered the second, still with her hand on her neck. "I'm from right here in Stahurt. I live and work in a diner near the coastal forest."
From what little Luke knew, Stahurt did indeed have forests surrounding its beaches, but if what the woman said was true, she was a long way from home. It was not hard for Luke to assume that this situation was about a kidnapping.
"All right, are you guys going to tell me what's going on here? She doesn't look like a rich family, why did you kidnap her?" He asked the men, who as they looked at the woman realized the look of anger in their eyes at them.
"It was not our decision! We have been hunting a monster that has been in the vicinity for a few days, and when we returned without the monster's head yesterday, our leader told us to use any methods to lure the monster, even if it meant using human bait!" replied the man with the unshaven beard.
Ever since the Melki Empire started using the monsters escaping from the Dungeons for their own army as an endless weapons factory, there were thousands of monsters on the surface of the continent. Among the thousands, there were some with the special ability to resist the mind control of the Corrupted.
Tracking down and killing these monsters became the job of the Adventurers of the Melki Empire, who received coin rewards for each monster killed. No doubt being an Adventurer was still as stressful as ever, but at least the spoils of monsters were not as difficult to trade and not as expensive, which certainly raised the Adventurers' level a notch.
Knowing all this, Luke rubbed his two temples with his right hand, stressed, and suddenly an idea popped into his mind. Luke walked over to the tree trunk the woman was tied to, placed his left hand on the wood and closed his eyes.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmSince his affinity with <Yggdrasil> had improved, he had learned new tricks with Gene's Skill and now didn't need to utter her name to activate it.
First, Luke felt the texture of the wood, then the nectar on the flowers blooming near the top of the tree, where the sun beat down the most. In a few seconds, Luke could see with the sensory ability of the plants a safe and easy path for the woman to follow.
The moment the half-wolf opened his eyes, he looked at the woman and said, "I'm sorry I can't accompany you into town, I'm looking for someone and I can't go much further out of my way. There is no one else around besides us, so you should go straight on this path until you find a tree whose trunk looks like an L, then turn left and you will find a road. Go soon, you will get home before the moon appears in the sky."
The woman listened to the instructions of the muscular man in front of her very attentively even though she had never seen him in her entire life. She then followed the indicated path, stopping only for a second to look at Luke one last time and bow, thanking him.
Luke listened to the woman walking away in the forest with his hearing for a few seconds and then turned his attention back to the two men on the ground. However, this time they experienced a different look from the half-wolf, a look that was not as inexpressive as before.
With his bright yellow eyes, Luke looked at them with disgust.
"W-what are you going to do to us! Please don't hurt us!"
"Man, we didn't even get to hurt her right, she confirmed that to you! Just let us go and we promise to keep our mouths shut!"
"Ah~ But you will keep your mouth shut for sure, do you know why? Because you will spend the night right here, where you planned to use that woman as bait. Isn't that wonderful?" Luke smiled sarcastically and raised his right hand slightly.
This movement of his caused several branches of the trees to grab the men's legs, finally causing them to be upside down. The men almost had time to scream at this moment, but as soon as they saw this spark of perspective, leafy branches covered their mouths.
After this, the men were taken into the treetops, completely trapped. The half-wolf didn't really want to lure the monster using them, but rather to teach them a lesson in life, so he hid them well. Also, by using the sensory form of the <Yggdrasil>, Luke finally felt he found the reference point he was looking for, the Great Eliezer.