Roland was now looking at an old man in a robe. The man had placed his hand on a dark looking shoulder. This was the stab wound that Roland had suffered tonight. There were abscesses with yellow pus that had formed and some of those yellow juices were even flowing out. The smell of it all would be truly something that Roland would remember.

This was inside the temple of Solaria and he was just getting his treatment for the curse. The worst part about this wasn’t the pain from being cursed but the sheer number of gold coins he had to pay to get this fixed. If he hadn’t been saving up for the past year and a half he would probably have to cut his arm along with his shoulder to survive instead.

The old man was a tier 3 High Priest and the treatment required Roland to fork over nine small golden coins. Normally he would need months of crafting and making runic equipment to get this back. Luckily he still was a part of a big company and would have them cover the costs. He also planned on getting a severance package as they had failed to keep their part of the contract.

He had specifically fought for adding a clause to his contract. It stated that he would get money if he ever got injured due to them ever again. This included him being collateral damage during an assassination attempt. The gnome probably only agreed to such a clause as the possibility of that becoming reality was meager.

Reality was different though, the company was attacked. He would now receive a large influx of gold coins and would be able to break off the contract entirely. This was something that he was planning to do as he had enough of this city. This was the second time this had happened, first was the incident with the thieves guild and now some strange cult was after him.

From the small amount of information that he had, he knew that this was some kind of assassination organization or guild. This guild of assassins were worshipers of some kind of demon or of an evil god. People were not sure who the being they were worshiping was.

Whenever a Warlock of any kind was involved it meant that some kind of higher being was behind it. Warlocks would gain their special class by forming pacts with demons or evil gods. The one that he saw that night was quite the powerful one. He was versed in shapeshifting magic and could take on a form of some kind of deformed monstrosity.

“Ahh….”

“Relax child, it is almost over.”

He could see his flesh giving out black smoke. This was the curse leaving his body that slowly returned to its original shape. If he didn’t get this treatment the priest told him that he wouldn’t last till the next day. He would be turned into some kind of monster in the process and lose all of his reasoning.

‘I hope that gnome didn’t just die, I still need to get my money from him…’

Roland gritted his teeth while thinking, he had lost sight of the other people involved in this incident and he wasn’t sure where they went. He had a written contract and this was a big company. If his old boss was dead he would probably be able to get his money at a different company store.

The old priest was finally finished with the treatment. Roland was still astonished by how healing magic worked. A person’s wounds would just patch themselves up, he could even see the process of the healthy tissues forming in real-time. It was as if time was wound back to the previous healthy form.

Roland didn’t know how healing magic was exactly different from regular magic. During the procedure, he tried activating various skills that he had like his mana sense and debugging. There were no runes involved so he couldn’t copy it onto a diagram. The priest was still using mana to fuel the spell so maybe it would be possible to emulate these spells in the future.

For now, he removed himself from the temple of the sun goddess. While going through it he could see some other injured people getting treated.

The fight didn’t end just with the destruction of Exeter's Magic Emporium. The unidentified assassins moved into the city and started battling with other high level people. One of them was Zilyana but there were others which Roland wasn’t acquainted with. This in term caused a lot of collateral damage, the horrible-looking shapeshifting Warlock was quite indiscriminate in his attacks.

The battle continued throughout the night and the two assailants were never apprehended. Roland managed to get his tired body to the temple before passing out. He was lucky enough to have brought money with him and they were very eager to take it off him while calling for a high priest.

On the outside, he was greeted with some sunny weather. The clouds had parted and the day was looking bright. It was still quite cold though and the sun did nothing about melting the white snow that covered most of the city.

Roland decided to walk towards Exeor’s Magic Emporium or at least what was left of it. On his way there he could see collateral damage. Some of the buildings in the neighborhood had suffered during the scuffle that ensued. He could even see some red spots in the snow the closer he got to ground zero.

After he arrived he noticed that there were a lot of people around the store. They looked like battle-hardened soldiers but they weren’t part of the city guards. These people were part of the company, they were a bunch of mercenaries contracted as hired muscle. Obviously, they were a bit late to the party as the battle was now over.

Maybe if more of them were here the night before the store wouldn’t have been destroyed this much. Though the tier 3 magical device that was used would probably render them useless. He was fortunate enough that his debugging skill worked on the greater runes and he was able to get out of the world of illusions.

“Halt, identify yourself!”

As Roland was getting closer he got the attention of one of the guards there. They had even fenced the area off with a makeshift wooden fence. He looked at the man, he was quite tall over 2 m, and was of the Goliath race. Before he could mention his affiliation with the company someone else called out from the side.

“It’s fine, let him through.”

It was Zilyana who looked different than usual. Mostly because she didn’t look like a sun elf anymore, her skin was dark caramel and her hair changed from gold to silver. There was no rule against moon elves in this city but they weren’t on good terms with the Church of Solaria as they worshiped opposing deities.

She was wearing some kind of black leather armor and had some weapons strapped to the side. She looked battle-ready, he didn’t see any wounds on her body. She went against those two psychos from yesterday, which made Roland reaffirm his notion about her hidden strength.

The large man just nodded and didn’t question the elven woman’s order. Apparently, the beautiful elf was someone in high regard to these company soldiers.

“This place has seen better days…”

He moved over to Zilyana while commenting on the store’s new looks. The top floor was missing chunks out of it and the whole building was riddled with holes. The Abyssal Warlock had really renovated the place during the late-night melee.

“Well, you seem chipper for someone that almost died Roland. Not even surprised about my new looks?”

The elven woman mentioned while chuckling.

“Why would I be surprised about that? Also, I’ll be more chipper after you give me back the money I’ve spent on that blasted high priest.”

Roland was unamused, he narrowed his eyes at the moon elf. Zilyana just shrugged while turning her head to the side, she did feel kind of bad about the whole predicament.

“Ah, I’m sure the boss will give you back the coins, you did save his ass and mine. I bet he will even give you a big fat bonus!”

The elf tried shifting the conver