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Chapter 26: First Task as a Defender

Garry belatedly realized that someone had tried to attack him from behind. Nothing very bad would\'ve happened to him even if he was hurt, but that was not to say that he wasn\'t relieved to see Stanley standing behind him, stopping the person that was attacking him.

"Be on your toes. Don\'t jump in without figuring out what his powers are," Garry said in a low voice, while constantly keeping an eye on the man with the knife in front of him. He still didn\'t know what his powers were either, so he was being careful.

Stanley nodded and looked at the man that had attacked him. He was a normal man with average height and average body type. He looked like he was in his late 20s and was already starting to lose hair on the sides of his forehead.

He had a look of anguish as well as surprise that Stanley had blocked his attack. Stanley pushed away the rod and the man was pushed back along with it.

The man stumbled a bit as he was pushed backward and looked at Stanley. Then, he looked at Garry behind him and the other two that were fighting in the distance. Without any hesitation, he turned around and ran away.

"Stop!" Stanley shouted and ran right behind him.

"Don\'t come near me," the man shouted and swung behind him without looking. Stanley put up his arm to block the hit, and as he did the peculiar feeling came back again.

Before he could even respond to the feeling, the rod stopped below the wrist of his left hand and pain flared exactly where he was hit. He felt his skin burn from the contact. However, no heat came from the rod at all. Instead, it was ice that burned him, ice that was far colder than anything that could possibly exist naturally in the town.

The man continued running and took the rod with him. Stanley stopped for a moment to check his skin which was very, very cold right now.

\'Goddammit, it\'s freezing,\' he thought. The feeling he had gotten was completely overshadowed by the pain he felt as he looked toward the running man in anger.

He dashed after him again as he was making his way to the main road between the two quadrants.

Stanley got close to him and the man realized that too. He stopped after arriving in the open space and turned back at Stanley. "Don\'t come any closer, or I will kill you," he shouted.

Stanley simply glared and made his way toward the man. He slowly walked in his direction while trying to figure out exactly what his powers were.

\'The rod wasn\'t cold the first time around, and no one but he grabbed it, so it is his powers that made it cold,\' he thought. \'Is his powers to just get things cold, or can he do even more with it?\'

Stanley slowly pulled out his sword from his sheath. \'I cannot touch his directly,\' he thought. \'The sword should do fine, but what if the coldness passes through the sword too?\'

"Sir, please give up," Stanley said. "Fighting will only make things worse."

The man looked at him and scoffed. "Hmph! I\'m already going to the mines, if not the prison for what I did. How worse can it get?" he said. His anguish was visible on his face and he seemed desperate.

The man looked at Stanley up and down. "Where\'s your armor?" he asked. "They send Defenders out without armor nowadays?"

Stanley didn\'t answer.

"Heh! You\'re too young to be a Defender, aren\'t you? Don\'t tell me, did it already happen?" he asked. "Did the mayor start sending goddamn trainees into the field?"

"I had heard rumors about it, but to think it was true," the man said.

Stanley continued getting closer, but he was circling him to not get too close too fast.

"Just stop, kid," the man said. "I was once a trainee like you too, who wanted to become a Defender his whole life. Nothing good will come from that."

Stanley was a little surprised. "What happened?" he asked.

"I failed my 3rd year\'s exam," the man said with a hateful look on his face. "A single failure because of a single mistake, and suddenly my whole life comes crumbling down. They didn\'t even test me twice and let my one single mistake ruin the rest of my life."

"Had I become a Defender, I wouldn\'t have to go down the road of stealing and threatening others to earn my living," the man said. "I bet you that\'s the life waiting for you as well, kid."

"I doubt stealing and scaring others for money is what I have in the future," Stanley said. "But that\'s still in the future. Presently, I\'m going to be a Defender, and my first task as one will be to capture you."

"Hmph, fine. Try your luck then," the man said. He did something that caused ice to appear all over his body.

Stanley didn\'t catch what the activation ritual was, but seeing ice form all over the man, it must\'ve been something internal, rather than external.

The man swung his rod like a sword and Stanley blocked it with his own. The frost on the rod traveled to the sword and Stanley pushed it back.

The ice remained on the sword even after it was no longer contacting with the rod, which caused Stanley to panic a little.

\'He did not just use his powers once,\' he thought. \'He\'s constantly using it, but how? How is he activating his powers?\'

Stanley blocked the attack a few more times and even struck back. He didn\'t use the edge of the blade and instead the flat side, but even then the damage should have been quite extreme.

And yet, the man didn\'t make any sounds at all.

\'The ice is working like armor around him,\' Stanley thought. Not only was it working like armor, but it was also constantly regenerating each time it was destroyed.

\'Dammit, do I have to hit him with my sword\'s edge?\' Stanley thought. He didn\'t want to cut the man in half accidentally, but what other choice did he have?