#014. Mastermind
“Is a bath available today?”
“Of course! How could I not do anything for the savior of Javelin!”
The two decided to rest for a night at an inn before leaving Javelin.
Sophia had repeatedly asked them to stay at the lord’s castle, but Virgil, knowing the state of the lord’s castle, firmly refused.
At least this inn in the commercial district was intact.
“See you at mealtime!”
“Very well.”
Hanna was excited, but Virgil felt displeasure at having to spend such useless time.
But what could he do?
Since he had decided to take her along, he had to take responsibility.
Virgil entered his room and took out the parchment he had obtained during the day.
As he skimmed the contents, his expression changed from moment to moment.
Interest, surprise. At times, severity as well.
He stood up and moved his body this way and that, then rolled the parchment back up and tucked it inside his armor.
A deep satisfaction was visible on his face.
“Shall I wash up now.”
Virgil changed into casual clothes provided by the innkeeper and headed for the bath.
Passing by, he heard a woman’s faint sobs.
Checking the room number, he realized it was Hanna’s room.
She had seemed bright, but apparently this situation had been too much to endure.
He stopped, about to enter to offer her some stern comfort.
‘Well, she’ll figure it out.’
He headed back to the bath.
When he opened the bathroom door, a wave of hot steam hit him.
He felt a little sorry to have such a large place all to himself with no one else around.
Virgil took off his clothes, folded them neatly in a corner, and surrendered his body to the large bathtub.
“Mmm... not bad.”
A smile came unbidden.
Perhaps moments like this were necessary sometimes.
After splashing hot water on his body, he now submerged his head completely.
With time on his hands, various concerns about this world that he had put off came to mind.
From the reason he had been possessed into the game, to escaping it.
‘No...’
Before that, whether he could even survive in this world came first.
At first, filled with confidence in his knowledge and information, it had been nothing but fun and enjoyable.
A powerful body was a bonus.
But after meeting and clashing directly with the first boss, Rebecca, his thoughts had changed.
Ideal and reality were different; she was too strong.
At this rate, he wouldn’t be able to set foot in the events to come, much less dare to challenge the bosses he would face then.
He could say for certain that with this body incapable of leveling up, he could die a gruesome death at any moment.
‘Going alone is impossible... I need a way...’
Hanna, a player capable of leveling up.
With her alone, it was absolutely impossible.
‘...Right.’
If one wasn’t enough, he just had to increase the number.
He knew most of the strong individuals who existed in this world, and he also knew what had to be done to make them comrades.
Moreover, he even knew how to make not just individuals, but entire forces, into his allies.
‘First, I’ll make as many allies as possible. Only then can I stand against them later.’
Then his thoughts turned to Hanna again.
...If she couldn’t grow, she might become a burden.
Along with that negative thought, her sobs suddenly came to mind.
‘I have to take responsibility.’
Let’s try it out for now.
If it doesn’t work out, I’ll just abandon her later.
Just thinking about traveling this vast continent with her already made the back of his neck ache.
‘How daunting.’
While such thoughts were at their peak, a clattering sound came from somewhere.
When he pulled his face out of the water, a human figure was visible.
A woman stripping off her clothes and tossing them every which way.
‘Uh...’
Because of the thick steam, her face and body couldn’t be seen clearly.
Virgil tried to raise his hand to signal that he was here, but before he could, the woman dashed toward the tub.
“How long has it been since I’ve had a bath!”
She shouted loudly and threw herself into the water.
Splash!
The small crashing splash swept away the steam above the water.
Only now did Virgil see the woman’s face properly.
‘She...’
Fair and refined.
Her large eyes and pert nose, her full lips seemed to gather the beauty of East and West in one place, and her brown-tinted hair, wet with water, evoked purity and sensuality simultaneously.
Across the shimmering heat, the woman’s and Virgil’s eyes met.
Breaking the brief silence, the woman’s mouth opened.
“Vi... rgil?”
“.......”
Virgil looked at the frozen woman, at a loss for words.
Because he had spotted the bright ring above her head.
“Vi-Virgil! Kyaaah!”
***
Virgil savored the food on the table slowly, while Hanna fiddled with her fork silently.
“...Um.”
“Speak.”
“I’m a bit clumsy.”
“I know.”
“Please pretend you didn’t see what happened earlier.”
“I shall.”
“.......”
Virgil looked at Hanna, who had her head deeply bowed.
A beauty who looked to be in her early twenties.
He hadn’t seen her face until now, but this time he had learned something for certain.
Unlike him, she was not one who had possessed a body.
Her appearance was completely different from the female players he had known well in the game.
In that case.
‘So she entered the game in her true form.’
Was that why she had been able to sleep?
Then what about her status window?
Hanna spoke to Virgil, who had fallen into various worries.
“Um... Virgil-nim, is there nothing left to do here?”
“There is not.”
“Then where do we go now?”
“Berner.”
“Ah....”
An expression asking what that was.
“A domain where men are forbidden. A witches’ den.”
“Oh....”
An expression showing she didn’t understand.
This time he ignored it.
“Is it far?”
“Well, we’ll have to go to find out.”
“When will we depart?”
“We shall depart around noon tomorrow, so get plenty of rest.”
“Yes.”
With that, the not-so-pleasant meal ended, and Hanna returned to her room while Virgil headed to the lord’s castle where Sophia was.
***
Jake had spent the whole day cleaning up the city and returned home.
“Whew... it never ends.”
“You’re late.”
An unwelcome guest was inside the house.
“Who...”
A bizarre man draped in a black robe.
Upon discovering him, Jake sank to the floor.
“B-Black mage! I thought you were dead!”
“How foolish, Jake. To mistake me for Sherman. He was merely one of my tools. Just like you.”
The bizarre man raised his hand and pointed at Jake. Purple energy was condensed at his fingertip.
“H-how can...”
“Dissílĭo.”
Pop!
Jake’s head burst like a balloon.
The bizarre man approached Jake, who had fallen backward facelessly, and evenly coated his own hand with his blood.
Soon, he began drawing a magic circle on the floor using the blood.
“Vulgar wretch, even the smell of your blood is so crude....”
After a while, when the magic circle was completed, purple flames flickered in its center.
The bizarre man knelt.
“Bishop.”
[Yes.]
“I have failed.”
[To think you could not even take one small frontier city. I am greatly disappointed.]
“I apologize. There were variables.”
[If it is an excuse, I shall hear it.]
“The demon hunter I told you about a few days ago... was stronger than expected.”
[That is not something you should have fallen to.]
“He was no ordinary demon hunter. Not only did he kill hundreds of ghouls single-handedly, but he even killed my long-cultivated minion and chimera.”
[...Hellsing?]
“It is not. He was one I had never seen before. And...”
‘From him, I felt an aura similar to yours, Bishop.’
He couldn’t bring himself to say this and swallowed it inwardly.
“It is nothing. It was my oversight for letting my guard down.”
[Pathetic wretch. Then what has become of Javelin’s treasures?]
“They are with the demon hunter.”
[...I shall send executors. Pursue him together.]
“Do you mean me as well?”
[Yes.]
“Then what of Javelin...”
[We do not save it.]
“Understood. Then may I do with Sophia as I please?”
[Do so. She is now a useless pawn.]
“Thank you, Messenger of Blood.”
***
Night fell upon Javelin once more.
Because the flow of time could not be resisted.
The city was silent.
Neither the cries of ghouls, the chilling sound of weapons, nor wails of grief could be heard.
There was a man who broke such peaceful silence.
Thud, thud.
A man with a heavy greatsword and crude footsteps.
The savior of Javelin, Virgil.
He was currently on his way to the lord’s castle.
Here and there in the streets, the remains of ghouls and humans were still visible.
Even though the surviving residents had been cleaning up without a moment’s rest, this was the limit.
Especially seeing the streams of blood and flesh fragments heading toward the central square, he even felt curiosity about the small hill that had newly formed there.
A mountain of corpses that would disappear with the flames come tomorrow morning.
Walking further, the main gate of the lord’s castle came into Virgil’s view.
A place where the captain of the guard and soldiers had defended with their lives now had not a single soldier.
A perfectly legitimate dereliction of duty.
There weren’t even torches, so Virgil couldn’t lower the lantern he had brought from his hand.
Passing through the main gate, the interior was revealed.
It was desolate and miserable, like a grain warehouse ravaged by war.
Most walls had collapsed, and the walls that remained standing were covered with ghoul claw marks.
“Hmph.”
For a while now, mushy things had been squishing under his feet.
Roughly estimating the location, it was where he had been entranced and cut down hundreds of ghouls.
The residents had started cleaning here first, at the lord’s castle, but clearing it all in one day was too much.
Virgil ignored the sensation under his feet and headed toward the keep.
It was the only place within the castle grounds with lights on, where surviving residents huddled together and used each other’s body heat as blankets to sleep.
Creak.
Virgil opened the keep’s door.
The off-guard residents flinched and rose.
The gathered soldiers hastily picked up their spears.
“Who goes there!”
“Ah, the demon hunter!”
A woman’s exclamation from near the door.
At that sound, the anxiety blooming in the residents’ hearts disappeared, and only overwhelming emotion surged forth.
“Aah!”
A young man knelt toward Virgil and raised both hands.
This was an act of offering prayer to a god or receiving a king.
“Savior!”
His actions spread to those around him like a plague, and all the residents were assimilated into the same posture to offer thanks.
“Savior!”
“Our savior!”
“Rise. I merely did what had to be done.”
Virgil briefly responded to them and hurried upstairs.
His cheek, hidden by his hair, turned slightly red, but no one saw.
Knock, knock.
Virgil knocked on the lord’s chamber door.
-Who is it?
“Virgil.”
-Ah! Please come in!
Her voice seemed to be approaching, indicating she was coming to open the door herself.
But the impatient Virgil opened it first.
“Ah!”
Sophia jumped into Virgil’s embrace as if to hug him.
He knew this was a calculated action, but he left it be.
“Are you well?”
“Ah, yes.... I’m sorry... because you opened it so suddenly...”
“My apologies.”
“It’s fine. But what brings you all the way here... If you had called, I would have come to you myself.”
“I have something to deliver.”
“Please, sit here.”
Sophia pulled Virgil to the sofa.
She naturally tried to sit in the seat of honor, then caught herself and sat in the guest seat.
She offered Virgil the seat of honor, but he refused and sat across from her.
“You look quite gaunt.”
“Ah... yes.... Having been tied to the temple floor for so long... just thinking of that time really....”
She continued to pour out her complaints.
That the scars on her wrists might remain, that the pattern drawn in blood on her stomach wouldn’t wash off well.
“Ah, right. And would you look at this?”
With an excited face, Sophia picked up the golden envelope knife on the table.
After a moment, a faint light appeared on the small blade.
The power of mana that only the chosen and those of blessed bloodline could use.
Magical power.
And the technique of infusing that mana into metal to increase its cutting power and strength.
Aura.
“Just as you said, Virgil-nim, the mana that had disappeared has returned. I sincerely thank you... I don’t know how to repay this grace.”
“It is nothing. Congratulations.”
“Now I can carry on Javelin’s spearmanship again. So...”
After a brief pause, she brought up the words with difficulty.
“May I ask one more request, though it is shameless?”
“What is it?”
“Beneath Javelin, there is a huge shelter prepared for the war against demons hundreds of years ago. The residents only know it as the sewers.”
Virgil looked at Sophia with an impassive face.
Get to the point.
The words rose to the tip of his tongue, but he didn’t bother speaking them.
“My father told me that somewhere in this labyrinth-like sewer, there is a hidden space....”
Virgil realized what she was saying before her words even finished.
“Mmm.”
“There lies a secret art passed down only to the lords of our house. Please, find it...”
“Do you speak of this?”
Before she even finished, Virgil took out the old parchment from inside his clothes.
“That is...”
“Look closely.”
He placed the parchment on the table.
Sophia looked at it questioningly and examined the parchment.
On the outer surface of the rolled parchment, the Javelin family crest was intricately engraved.
A design of three crossed spears over a lily pattern.
“I-it couldn’t be....”
“This is the Javelin family’s secret art, ‘The Speartip’.”
At his words, Sophia hurriedly unrolled the parchment.
Inside, there was long text and images of something personified holding a spear and moving.
“Aah! How...!”
Sophia’s eyes turned red.
“I found it at the altar earlier. That is likely the hidden space your father spoke of.”
“Then...”
A face that wanted to ask why he hadn’t returned it immediately but was holding back.
Virgil noticed and spoke first.
“There may have been an evil curse upon it, so I was checking it on my way here.”
“Aah! Thank you so much! You must have been tempted by greed, yet you returned it like this—thank you!”
Greed? Of course he had been.
Of course he had indulged it too.
“Now our family can rise again... Please, tell me what you wish. I shall grant you anything.”
“I want for nothing. I merely wish for House Javelin to stand again. Just stand by my side when I need it in the distant future.”
“Understood. I shall not forget that request. You are the benefactor of our house.”
Virgil nodded as he received Sophia’s gratitude.
The events in Javelin hadn’t gone according to plan due to Hanna’s involvement, but the ending was to his liking.
He had revived Javelin’s spearmanship and spearmen, which had vanished into history, and though it would be later, he had made them his allies.
If he returned Drake’s spear as well, greater synergy might occur, but he still needed it more.
Virgil, lost in various thoughts.
Sophia subtly moved her seat closer to him.
“Benefactor, is there nothing else you wish for?”
She reached out and brushed the inside of Virgil’s thigh. Blatant temptation.
“Mmm, well.”
“Perhaps... are you and the lady who was with you earlier lovers?”
“Who, ah, you mean Hanna?”
“Yes, she was a great beauty.”
“Not at all. She and I simply met by chance.”
“Ah... then... if it is alright with you, Virgil-nim, would you stay here tonight? My room is still intact, you see.”
Despite her aggressive words, her face was tinged with shyness.
Virgil answered immediately without hesitation.
“Very well. But I am a man who cannot sleep, so you will need to be thoroughly on your guard.”
“Hoho, Virgil-nim, you really...”
Sophia took his serious words as a joke and smiled brightly.
Just as their bodies drew even closer, suddenly all the candles in the room went out.
And from somewhere, a gloomy man’s voice was heard.
“Tsk tsk, the young lass is truly brazen. The Ghoul Queen’s main body should have been you, not Rebecca.”
Turning his head toward the voice, a man emitting purple energy stood there.
Sophia, confirming his face, rose from her seat in shock.
“Y-you!”