Ajantu (2)
Heinz said what he had guessed, adding that he was not certain, but Diana’s face could not help turning pale as she listened.
“Th-they’re an organization called Varcolac that manages this street. But why…? We paid the protection money on time.”
Even as she said that, Diana inwardly thought his words were probably true.
Because, having been born and raised in this city, there was something she had come to know.
“This city… is ruled by vampires.”
“Vampires?”
Of course, it was not something just anyone knew.
Most citizens, and even most of the gang members who controlled the streets, likely had no idea.
Knowing would only put one in danger, which was why Diana had never spoken of it until now.
“Most organizations, including Varcolac, are under the vampires. They move according to their orders and manage the citizens.”
The reason Diana had learned that fact was simple.
Her nose was extraordinarily keen.
To the point that it reached the realm of a supernatural ability.
‘I was careful, even avoiding places that deliberately reeked of blood!’
It was not merely physical smells; she could smell the scent emanating from dangerous places or from people’s souls.
Using that ability, she had acted cautiously with Aaron, but it seemed this time they had fallen into their clutches.
“If that’s the case, this seems like a rather dangerous situation. Has something like this happened before?”
“…I’ve experienced it a few times. The scent of people who suddenly disappeared because they didn’t pay their protection money would come from people who smelled of blood.”
At first, when she had not understood her ability well, she had simply thought of them as frightening people.
Even the uncles who held positions in the organizations were busy bowing and scraping before them.
But as she gradually grew older and began thinking more, and as she saw and heard many things, Diana realized.
“This city is their farm. The reason it has its own order is probably because they’re managing their food so it doesn’t spoil.”
As long as one paid the protection money on time, there was no harm, and despite this being a back alley, there was no drug trade.
If one could pay for medicine, even diseases could be treated.
“Did you never think of leaving for another city somehow?”
“At first, I tried to leave the city even if I had to push myself. But…”
There had been quite a few people who had left this city before, but Diana could tell.
That among them, not one had truly arrived in another city.
“I saw the things they took with them when they left in the hands of the gang members the next day. You could say they were just similar items, but I can tell.”
Because she could know, through scent, who the original owners of those items were.
And there was no need to say what had happened to them.
From then on, she gave up on leaving the city and moved her dwelling as much as possible to routes the vampires did not frequent, avoided dangerous places, and acted cautiously.
“So as long as people stay inside the city, they let them roam because they can take them whenever they want, but if they try to leave, they slaughter them immediately…”
Heinz frowned as he organized his thoughts.
“Let’s move for now. I don’t know why they targeted Aaron even though you paid the protection money, but if this is true, we don’t have much time. Do you know where their base is?”
“Yes! I do. But… are you going to help too, mister?”
Diana bit her lip and looked up at Heinz.
Now that he knew the full situation here, he must have realized well enough just how dangerous things were.
He was not a resident of the city, so there would be no problem for him to leave right now.
But Heinz grinned and ruffled Diana’s hair.
Because there was nothing in this world for him to fear.
“I told you, didn’t I? Now that I know, I’m not going to pretend I don’t. Besides, I’m a pro when it comes to screwing over bad guys. Just trust this ‘big brother’!”
Heinz emphasized the words big brother especially strongly.
Because for him, who was only twenty years old, it was a sensitive issue.
***
A small village with nothing left but ashes.
In a place filled only with ruins, not a single thing remained intact.
“Hmm, the smell of dark mana is everywhere. Just what in the world happened here?”
The pale-faced man blocked the drifting ash from coming near him and circled the village, examining the few traces that remained.
Places that seemed to have once held buildings, and faint traces of battle left on the ground.
“These are… corpses? Did they gather them together and cremate them?”
He also found a place that appeared to have been used to cremate bodies.
They had already turned to ash and most had scattered, leaving almost no trace behind, but to the man, that level of problem was nothing.
‘There are no traces of any power besides dark mana being used throughout the entire village, and it’s certain there was a clash involving undead, yet they cremated the corpses and left?’
The first thought he had when examining the traces was that there must have been internal strife within the “Oath Against Heaven.”
The item those bastards possessed was more than tempting enough, so it was not unreasonable.
“I don’t understand. What happened here? In any case, what a shame.”
He had been preparing to seize the fragment of the Immortal King once it seemed to have matured to a suitable degree, but it had already vanished without a trace.
“I don’t know who got ahead of me, but I should be able to catch them soon. That isn’t something that can be hidden so easily.”
The man turned his gaze toward where the last trace continued.
The movements of the undead had headed into the eastern forest.
‘The direction happens to be suitable as well. Is luck on my side?’
And after looking around the village for a while, the man’s entire body transformed into bats and scattered, disappearing into the eastern forest.
***
I headed for Varcolac’s base with Diana.
We had to retrieve Aaron before he was handed over to the vampires.
Hans might be one thing, but it was impossible for Heinz to stand against vampires.
‘Though I think I can manage ordinary gang members somehow.’
With the body strengthened by awakening, continued training, and the power of 「Super Regeneration」, I should be able to defeat ordinary gang members.
To synchronize the Karma Shop’s physical ability enhancements with an avatar, the process of resummoning was necessary.
‘There’s no way I have that kind of leisure now. Not when I can’t even get Hans’s help immediately.’
There were still three days left before the teleportation circle could be used.
I had to somehow manage with only Heinz, who was here now.
I looked at Diana, who was leading the way.
Perhaps worried about her younger brother, she clenched her trembling hands and hurried her steps, yet she used her sense of smell to choose only places where there were no people.
Since we did not know what would happen going forward, we could not expose our movements.
‘When a child that young is desperately working to protect her family, I can’t just run away here.’
Diana must have lived until now for her younger brother, making that sense of responsibility the driving force of her life.
A small hope in life she had held onto without letting go, even as the weight of reality crushed down on her.
And now, that hope was about to be shattered.
‘Right. It’s not like I have much to lose, so let’s do what I can. Something like that. The reward is… random.’
To me, this was a kind of quest.
And a Korean gamer never abandons a quest halfway.
Just as I was steeling myself, Diana, who had been walking ahead, suddenly stopped in place and began sniffing.
“Ah! I’m starting to smell Aaron. As expected, I think he’s at Varcolac’s base.”
“That makes it certain. It’s unfortunate that my bad guess was right, but the good news is that he’s still there and hasn’t been handed over to the vampires yet.”
Following behind Diana as she began running again, I prepared for battle.
“Mister… can we really save Aaron?”
Diana spoke in an anxious voice, almost a whisper.
I could only see the back of her head, so I could not tell what expression she had, but it probably was not a good one.
“Yeah. I’ll save him soon, so just trust me.”
In truth, saving him there would not solve every problem.
In fact, that would probably be when the real beginning started.
This city was under the rule of vampires, and the ones who had kidnapped him were merely their underlings.
‘I’ll think about that when the time comes. For now, let’s put out the urgent fire first!’
Around the time dusk began to settle, we were soon able to arrive at Varcolac’s base.
A small two-story building located deep inside an alley.
‘There are no guards.’
Then again, with every back-alley organization under the vampires, there was no reason for them to stand guard against one another.
“Can you tell about how many people are inside?”
“Sniff, sniff. Roughly fifteen? Even though it’s called their base, it’s more like a kind of office. I know that they usually live scattered throughout the streets.”
I nodded at Diana’s answer as she closed her eyes and smelled the air.
About fifteen was more than manageable.
“I’ll go in and bring Aaron out, so you wait a bit farther away.”
“…I know I have no shame asking this. Please, mister.”
Perhaps knowing that if she joined in she would only get in the way, Diana bit her lip hard, bowed her head, and retreated backward.
‘Now then, shall we go in?’
I had a rough scenario in mind, and I had prepared the necessary supplies to some extent.
All that remained was the use of force, and a little luck needed afterward.
‘And recently, my luck has been at its peak!’
I carefully opened the door and went inside.
The first floor was set up like a tavern, and despite being the base of a back-alley organization, it was fairly clean.
‘I’d imagined gang members drinking, gambling, and making a mess everywhere while the interior was in shambles and filled with cigarette smoke.’
Then again, since vampires apparently visited from time to time, they must have taken some care with it.
Still, my idea had not been entirely wrong, because there were indeed people gathered on one side, drinking and gambling.
“What? Who are you?”
“Hey, buddy over there. Come here while we’re still asking nicely.”
They happened to notice me, muttered among themselves, and gestured toward me.
I obediently approached them.
“Huh? Isn’t this the friend we saw earlier?”
“What? You know him?”
Among them was the big man I had met on the street a short while ago, who had taken a donation from me.
“Buddy, what brings you all the way here? Did you maybe think the sincerity you gave us earlier wasn’t enough?”
I smiled softly at the big man, who chuckled with the others, rose from his seat, and approached me.
“Oh? You’re smiling? This guy doesn’t know what he’s done—kgh!”
And I immediately drew my dagger, drove it into the nape of his neck, and as I pulled it out, charged at the ones who had yet to react.
“Wh-what the hell is he!”
“Do you know where you are? Kill him!”
My body moved quickly, but through 「Clear Mirror, Still Water」, I responded to the enemies’ movements with a tranquil mind.
With one hand, I stabbed the dagger into the temple of a guy trying to rise, and with the other, I drew the sword at my waist.
It was a sword used by the black magician’s underlings, and I was not used to using it, but in the current situation, I had no choice.
‘I don’t have the skill to aim for vital points in one strike, so inflict wounds that stop them from moving as much as possible!’
I swung the sword and cut my opponent’s leg.
In exchange, my arm was cut, but perhaps thanks to 「Robustness」, the wound was not deep.
Even that quickly recovered with 「Super Regeneration」.
“Ghk, this bastard’s not getting cut!”
I was stabbed in the abdomen, but beneath my clothes, I was wearing an Earth-made stab-proof vest.
Ignoring the pain with 「Mind Hub」, I used my dagger to slash the throat of the man who had stopped moving because he was stabbing me.
Crash—!
Liquor bottles and furniture shattered, and the inside became a mess.
I moved calmly, incapacitating them one by one.
Crack!
In the middle of it, a man with a club aimed for the back of my head, but thanks to the magic barrier of the magic tool protecting my vital points, the impact was not great.
“Ghk, what the hell is this bastard, even using a magic tool… kek!”
But the effect of the magic tool was not infinite, so I fought while protecting only my vital points as much as possible.
I knocked one man down and had my leg cut.
I stabbed another man and was stabbed in the back, but ignored it and attacked.
Shunk—
I stabbed with the knife, but it would not come out.
I immediately snatched the hand axe from the man I had knocked down and swung it to the side.
Using that instant, I blocked a flying knife with one arm.
My limbs were in tatters.
At some point, the magic tool’s effect had ended as well, and blood flowing from my torn forehead obscured my vision.
Then the gaze of the man standing before me shifted behind me.
A movement as if his eyes had met someone else’s.
It seemed another one was aiming for the back of my head.
I immediately bent at the waist, picked up a weapon that had fallen to the floor, and swung it behind me.
“Aaagh!”
The bastard behind me grabbed my ankle and collapsed, but the fight was not over yet.
If not for 「Toughness」 and 「Super Recovery」, I would have been unable to move long ago.
Without fear of death, and without even the excitement of battle, I mechanically calculated, trading blows to bring the enemies down.
One, two, three...
...And then the last.
“Augh...”
“Gugh, what the hell are you, doing this...”
After fighting and fighting like that, the area around me was filled only with sprawled bodies, and among them were even the ones who had come down from the second floor because of the commotion.
“Phew... Did anyone run away?”
As the fight dragged on and I became drenched in blood, looking as if I might collapse at any moment, they must have thought they could catch me if they just pushed a little harder.
After their momentum was completely broken, some tried to flee, but by then it was already too late.
Most of the ones who had been attacked mainly in the legs from the start had lost mobility, and by focusing on the ones who showed signs of running, I was eventually able to round them all up.
At the end, I even used the self-defense magic tool I had been saving because it had a limited number of uses...
But if I hadn’t, some might have gotten away, so it couldn’t be helped.
“Phew, hoo.”
Once the battle was over, I stood there for a moment and caught my breath.
At some point the bleeding had stopped and my wounds were slowly healing, but I was so covered in blood that it didn’t show.
“Hey, where’s the boy you brought in today?”
“Kh, why are you suddenly asking—aaaagh!”
I dug into the wound of the bastard who tried to talk nonsense without reading the room.
“Basement! In the basement!”
“You should’ve said that from the start. Don’t I need a key?”
“That’s hanging by the door too! Now stop!”
After asking a few more things, I stood up and looked around.
The interior was a mess, filled with fallen organization members writhing on the ground and corpses that had already stopped breathing and no longer moved.
Then I picked up my weapon again.
For the scenario I had in mind to work, there could be no one left alive here.
“W-wait! Spare me! Spa—gck.”
I began confirming each kill, one by one.
Even while using 「Mind Hub」, it felt disgusting, but thinking that these were bastards who would only do harm if left alive, I moved my body mechanically.
“If I go like this, the kid might get so scared he passes out...”
Looking around, I headed toward a corner where bottles of alcohol and water containers were placed.
Then, first, I opened the bottles and poured them over myself from my head down, washing away the blood.
‘The smell of alcohol has to be better than the smell of blood.’
Once the blood had come off to some extent, I grabbed a bucket of water and dumped it over my head one more time.
‘This should be more or less presentable.’
My clothes were reduced to rags and bloodstains still remained, but compared to before, it was far better.
Then I moved toward the door leading to the basement.
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