Dante was absolutely furious, even if he managed to hide it on the outside. As a platinum ranker, he was on the same social level as any noble and was certainly higher than this backwater frontier lord. From his noble birth to the present moment, he had essentially never been denied anything.

  Due to his High Gold rank warrior core and early use of various enhancement drugs, he had skyrocketed in the ranks of the guild with little effort. No one had ever denied him of anything, so he took the refusal quite hard.

  “Please, leave my city. Or at least take your childish rage somewhere other than my merchant square. A representative can come and pay me for a building.”

  Dante was really furious now. “I am a representative, you… you… country bumpkin!”

  At that moment, a metallic tromping sound echoed from behind Kyle. One of his many rear-view cameras warned him that Bariyon, using his Combat Frame, was walking towards them. The refined and aloof sound of Bariyon’s voice echoed from the speaker on the frame.

  “Who’s this twat? Ooh, hello there ladies! I may be naught but iron and bone, but I can still… uh… bone…” The three women who seemed to be following the man looked more scared than offended.

  Oh my… They might be his slaves. If so, there’s only one way this could end.

  Keeping in mind the medieval world he found himself in, he’d designed the Combat Frame’s exterior to look as human as possible. Basically a 6-foot-tall man in thick plate armor, he was quite intimidating.

  Due to Vulframite's dark gray color, Kyle had only a few style options he liked. He decided to go with that traditional Evil Empire Shocktrooper look, with clean lines and hard edges everywhere. The helmet had a full-face mask with the League’s spiral eye painted over it. Quite intimidating, in his opinion at least.

  Although the adventurer liked to put on a brave face, Kyle clearly saw fear in his eyes at the war machine towering over him by nearly half a foot. “Sir knight, my business is with the lord. If you would kindly…” Bariyon was already walking away, probably to chat up some of the bored-looking merchants or hang out in the tavern.

  He called behind him; “I left only because I wanted to! Not because you made me!” The taunt was idiotic and childish at best, but the person they were dealing with was quite immature compared to them. He seemed to be really fuming now.

  Kyle decided to keep pushing his buttons. It had been all work recently, and this guy seemed to think really highly of himself. A good chance to have some fun.

  “Why shouldn’t I kick you out of my town right now? I don’t see any certificate or proof of your authority.” Being told no must have been so unknown to the man. A vein was prominently showing on his forehead, throbbing with rage.

  The blond-haired woman pulled on his arm and looked at him desperately. “Please, master… now is not the time…” With a brutal backhand, Dante sent the poor woman to the ground next to him. “You dare tell me what the time is!? I’ll put you in your place…”

  Kyle’s sensors clocked the slap-it moved at a speed that only a professional unaugmented bodybuilder could match. And yet, it looked effortless. The woman, rather than having a dislocated jaw as would have made sense, only seemed a little dazed.

  Both must be anomalously enhanced, the man more than the women. They must be his slaves as well.

  “I don’t take kindly to slavers. Slavery is actually illegal in New Brasilia, did you know?” The other women, the catfolk, and the shorter brunette, all looked at him strangely, as if that was unheard of. And it probably was, at least in Veskaya.

  The man looked disgusted, on top of his anger. “Ugh, are you one of those reformists? Nothing good will come of outlawing slavery! It’s the natural way of things, for the strong to rule the weak-“ Kyle cut him off with a PPIE-empowered punch to the face. Kyle could only take so much idiocy in a day.

  The man hadn’t been expecting it at all and was summarily thrown backward. “You dare lay a finger on a guild representative!?! I’ll show you some proper respect, you inbred hick!” From the small leather purse at his side, he pulled out a comically large steel claymore and sprinted at Kyle.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Kyle pulled Daphne out of its sheath on his back, and twirled it deftly between his fingers. At the sight of the rune-enhanced weapon being handled with such skill, the adventurer hesitated, but his fury won out. He sprinted at Kyle with focused but still enraged eyes.

  Sensing the impending battle, the few merchants and employees in the square fled, the latter carrying away the valuable trade goods urgently.

  Kyle decided to test the limits of the opponent's enhanced strength. With a jab, he brought his forearm up in a textbook hammerfist block. Dante had come in with a monstrous swing of his claymore, but the tremendous force of the swing stopped dead on the silver armor of Kyle’s suit.

  Clearly stunned by his own impotence, the man didn’t expect Kyle’s other fist to slam into his armored chest. His plate armor was dented and he was pushed back by nearly 5 feet. Clearly seeing this was going to be an uphill battle, the man tensed-and when he released the tension, his outer dermal layer had been replaced with metal. Stupid magic. Kyle grabbed his helmet from where he’d dropped it, and the Combat-Predictive Algorithm instantly turned on.

  It telegraphed the man’s movements with blue outlines and arrows overlayed on his vision.

  Coming in with another wild swing, Kyle swung the Daphne directly onto the sword's blade, sending it flying out of the man’s hand.

  His forward momentum still carried him into Kyle’s chest. Kyle prepared to slap him away, but a golden chain shot out of the pavement to stop his hand.

  The three women who’d followed the man were all clutching their necks, where a faint tattoo could be seen. Must be some kind of magically-enforced obedience crap. This just got harder…

  Kyle flexed the servos in the arm, and the chain snapped off. It instantly dissolved into motes of light before hitting the ground. While Kyle’d been distracted, Dante had extricated himself from Kyle’s chest and grabbed his discarded sword.

  And thus the battle continued. The adventurer would attack him in an unrestrained and raging manner, and Kyle would easily shut down his attacks. Occasionally, one of the other women would hit him with some magical effect, but they were clearly attempting to fight whatever bound them to Dante.

  Eventually, Kyle got bored and stopped holding back. With a swing, Daphne shattered the claymore the man was using. Kyle followed up with a second swing directly into the man’s temple. Sadly, the three women all started screaming in agony the moment Daphne connected with Dante’s cranium.

  Kyle watched as the three visibly paled and thinned, and the dent on Dante’s head healed. Must be stealing their life force or some crap to heal. Goddamnit! If only I’d kept a few mages back…

  Kyle felt furious at the horrible bond, but the best option was still to just kill the man. Wait, I can incapacitate him and get Bariyon to remove the slave binding tattoos! The battle continued unabated. Kyle now focused on knocking him out. Massive head damage, but nothing fatal so the women wouldn’t die.

  Eventually, Dante caught on to Kyle’s gambit. “Ah! So you’re trying to take my servants, are you? Heh, that’s not going to happen!” With a complicated hand motion, a burst of purple light shone from his temple. All three women fell to the ground, as if punched in the gut. They started clearly choking.

  Kyle was shocked that anyone could do such a thing. Capitalizing on the Scion’s utter disbelief that someone could be so callous, Dante sprinted forward with a rectangular warhammer from his purse and knocked one of Kyle’s feet out from underneath him. Kyle used his superior mass to shoulder Dante away and stood back up.

  “You bastard! I have no reason to spare you now!” Kyle instantly engaged the Capacitor Overdrive and connected with the man in a moment. Wrapping him in a bear hug, Kyle easily shattered his plate armor and started working on the adventurer's ribcage.

  With the full force of a man about to die, Dante pounded desperately on Kyle’s armor-but it was for naught. Eventually, the man’s magically reinforced ribs failed. A moment later, Kyle dropped the pulverized corpse to the ground.

  He looked over to where the man’s slaves had stood and casted from, but all three lay dead.

  “I walk away for literally 3 minutes, and you manage to extinguish 4 lives! How!?” Bariyon sprinted through the small crowd of onlookers, quickly kneeling over the corpses next to Kyle.

  “No. There’s nothing I can do here, and there wouldn’t have been anything I could have done even if they had been alive.” He sounded truly resigned, in a way that Kyle hadn’t heard before.

  “Alright. Who do I send this guy's head in a box to? You don’t intrude into my land, and then kill three people without retribution.”

  Taking out his long-unused monofilament garrote wire, he cleanly sliced the man’s head off. “You see? This is what happens to slavers in my land.” Kyle wasn’t one to let a potential propaganda victory slip away from him. Although they didn’t exactly cheer, they didn’t look disgusted or angry. Most were former slaves, so Kyle understood the reaction.

  That settles it. This world will see the glory of the League no matter who dies to bring it on. Purging filth like this is only the first step.