◈ Episode 276. Those Without Mercy (2)
Somewhere in the vast Zero Mountains.
What was unfolding was not a battle.
It was a one-sided massacre.
PVP(Player versus Player).
Before the Great Cataclysm and after it alike.
The outcome of PVP did not depend on absolute level.
What took precedence above all in combat against people was experience.
The greatest difference.
Players were different from monsters.
They might have psychology, but they had no patterns.
To gain the upper hand, one had to read the opponent’s mind.
The guild members of Unification Under Heaven had considerable experience in fighting people. From the moment they had set foot in it until now. Surviving as a member of Unification Under Heaven meant exactly that.
However.
“Sloppy!”
That was only by the standards of reality—of players.
Their opponents were the Shadow Mercenary Corps.
Even players notorious for their evil deeds, even the Supernovas, were not so much as grains of sand compared to the Shadow Mercenary Corps’ infamy and experience in fighting people. The Third Seat, Henderson, laughed heartily.
“When you kill a man on a battlefield, see, you’ve got to be more than certain. You’ve got to be thorough. You think a half-baked stab to the chest is enough to snuff out a stubborn life? You’ve got to twist the neck all the way around like this!”
Whoosh!
He swung his hammer.
Crack!
“Ghk!”
With a short scream, a head spun.
The neck had snapped and turned a full 180 degrees.
It was a difference in strength that made their numbers—more than ten times as many—seem meaningless.‘……
This is dangerous.’His arms and legs trembled instinctively.
Even so, Yu Ji-o did not step back.
A thought echoed in his head.‘If I retreat……!’My lord will be in danger.
To Yu Ji-o, the vice-captain, Wolf, said,
“How fascinating. By this point, you should have come to your senses.”……
What is he suddenly blabbering about?
Unlike Yu Ji-o, who was wound tight, Wolf moved at ease.
Good thing I tuned up the crossbow in advance.
I didn’t think I’d be getting blood on it this quickly, though.
Muttering, he looked at Yu Ji-o once more.
“Even if he’s an adventurer, a lord is still a lord, I suppose.”
The level of requests the Shadow Mercenary Corps received surpassed the imagination of ordinary men. Though it had grown rare of late, in the past, assassination requests targeting those with the vessel of a lord had never ceased.
“I’m rather specialized in that line of work.”
Each time, Wolf had volunteered to carry out the request.
The reason was simple.
A lord’s physical abilities were not exceptional.
Shoot them from afar, and they fell.
However.
“Your lord is quite the troublesome one.”
Liuo Junchun, was it?
The one and only lord of the adventurers was somehow different.
Was it because he had rolled around in the underside of the Arcana Continent?
To Wolf, the reason seemed clear.
“Your lord appears to have made proper use of his status as an adventurer. Before the Great Cataclysm, adventurers possessed the 『Blessing of Resurrection』, which let them come back even if they died. In other words, he was never trampled down at the sprout as a lord.”
“……!”
Yu Ji-o’s eyes widened.
For a moment, anger flared, but it was not wrong.
In truth, back when Arcana was nothing more than a game, his lord had failed to stand out unlike the other rankers. But that was only the past.
Now…….
“Of course, even after the Great Cataclysm, he’s still making good use of the adventurer’s advantages. To think he would actively utilize weapons from this world. Efficient and cold-blooded. Other adventurers would do well to learn from that.”
As Wolf spoke, he glanced at his shoulder.
A gunshot wound. A considerable amount of blood flowed from his upper arm.
He had expected, at most, the speed of a mana arrow.
But bullets were far faster than that.
At least I learned that lesson cheaply.
“Hurts like a damn bastard, this!”
Rockid’s body was riddled with gunshot wounds.
Yu Ji-o could not hide his shock.
He took that many bullets and is still alive……?
“But more impressive than anything is how thorough he is.”
“……?”
“Thorough enough to deceive even his own subordinates.”
Squeeze!
Yu Ji-o gripped his sword.
He could let any number of provocations that wounded his pride pass.
But he absolutely could not tolerate anyone slandering his lord.
Even if it meant losing his own life…….
As his body twitched with rage, the voice continued.
“Is the loyalty you feel now truly your own emotion?”
“What are you……!”
“How many do you think this makes?”
“……?”
“How many of the Five Stars do you think we’ve taken down?”
The pig and the wolf.
Were they not two of the five?
Just as Yu Ji-o was thinking that.
“Excluding you, the rabbit mask, ten.”
“……
What?”
“I don’t know how many more there are, but it passed five long ago.”
In that instant, Yu Ji-o thought of the impostors.
Those idiots.
Unable to distinguish the real from the fake……!
“Well. Who is real, and who is fake?”
“……?”
“No, did they even exist in the first place?”
Wolf shrugged.
“Well, only your lord would know that.”
Thud.
In that instant, masks were tossed from Wolf’s hand.
At a glance, there were far more than five.‘……
No way.’Doubt sprouted in Yu Ji-o’s mind.
He wanted to refute it, but he could not.
The information Yu Ji-o knew about the Five Stars was…….
That he himself was one of the Five Stars.
That was all.‘Everything he said is……?’Yu Ji-o looked back on his lord’s actions.
And his doubts grew even greater.
It was the moment a fine crack opened in his loyalty.
Zing—A violent migraine swept across his brain.[You resist the status abnormality, ‘Brainwashing’.]
“……!”
At the same time the unique skill effect of the class, [Lord], vanished.
Yu Ji-o’s lord.
No, his loyalty toward Liuo Junchun vanished like foam.‘When did this happen?’Yu Ji-o’s mind was in chaos.
Since when had my voluntary loyalty been replaced by a status abnormality? No, did I ever have anything like loyalty toward Liuo Junchun in the first place……?
Clack!
At that moment, the sound of the crossbow being loaded rang out once more.
Only now that the status abnormality had vanished.
Every sense in his body warned him fully.
That if things continued like this, he would die.
Whip!
Yu Ji-o threw away the damn rabbit mask and dropped to his knees.
“P-please spare me!”
Even if it was utterly servile, saving his life came first.
But Yu Ji-o was under a grave misconception.
About who his opponents were.
What returned to his desperate plea was.
A voice brimming with unmistakable delight.
“Ha ha! That’s a line I haven’t heard in ages.”
Henderson, his face covered in blood, laughed merrily.
Thud, thud—Rockid twisted his muscles, pushing the bullets lodged in his body out, and grumbled.
“A damn stale bit of begging, that’s what it is. Shit.”
“…….”
In their dry voices, there was not even a hint of agitation.
The Shadow Mercenary Corps, the black hand behind the Arcana Continent.
To be shaken by common begging for one’s life.
The hells they had passed through were far too filthy and hideous for that.
Wolf had not forgotten that point.‘I don’t know what the captain thought.’What had Kichi been thinking?
Wolf did not know.
When she was carrying out a request and when she was not. In other words, the gap between Kichi holding a dagger and Kichi drunkenly making a scene at the Golden Calf Tavern was…… so vast that even he, who had watched her for a long time, found it unfamiliar.
But one thing was certain: Kichi had not wanted it.
Even if she had to dirty her own hands.
She had not wanted to stain the hands of her members with blood.‘That must be why she did something like this.’She would shoulder all of the Shadow Mercenary Corps’ sins alone.
Leaving behind such absurd words.
She disappeared without a trace.
Of course, Wolf had no intention of obeying such a captain’s order.
If she disliked insubordination, then she should not have handed over the captain’s seat. Nor the 『Brand of the Shadow God』.
Besides.‘Just like the captain, I don’t think we have the right either.’Wolf gave a faint laugh.‘That is why we refused your help.’The world of adventurers.
In a way, they were outsiders.
Even so, by seeing, hearing, and experiencing, they could feel it.
Your influence in this world, Lee Hoyeol.
That was why, in order to find Kichi.
Even knowing that Hoyeol’s help was desperately needed, he had refused.‘Nothing good will come to you from being entangled with us.’Thinking about it, it was strange.
Why had Hoyeol embraced the Shadow Mercenary Corps?
Someone might ask.
Wasn’t Hoyeol and the Shadow Mercenary Corps merely an employer-employee relationship?
Did they not simply give and receive from one another?
Well, that was knowing one thing and not the other.‘Help you?’Hoyeol did not need help from others.
Even viewed as a force rather than an individual, the same was true.
The Empire’s Lionheart Knights were one thing, but he even moved the Magic Tower from behind the scenes. He had the absolute support of the adventurers, and recently, even the legendary dragons had roared Hoyeol’s epithet.
Wolf could be certain.‘It was merely consideration in your own way.’Consideration.
It was treatment he had forgotten for a long time.
That was why Wolf decided.
As much as the Shadow Mercenary Corps was indebted to you.
From now on, even more thoroughly.
They would draw a line between themselves and you.
To Wolf, who had made up his mind, Yu Ji-o shouted urgently.
“Tell me what you want! Do you want internal information on Unification Under Heaven? If so, use me! I am no longer Liuo Junchun’s puppet……!”
“What’s this? He’s come to his senses? Annoying.”
“H-hiiik!”
The direction from which the voice came.
When he turned his head back, the Ninth Seat, Deshev, was there, yawning repeatedly.
Between each of his fingers were iron needles.
“Vice-captain, what should we do?”
The iron needles gleamed as if waiting only for an order.
“Let’s see.”
Their goal was the magic tool called the 『Access Device』, which linked this world and the Arcana Continent. The reason they had infiltrated Unification Under Heaven was simply because word had spread that they had discovered three Access Devices.
“We won’t find out by killing just a few of them.”
Unless, perhaps, they annihilated Unification Under Heaven.
It would be difficult to find the whereabouts of the Access Devices.
“Their lord is no ordinary man.”
“Hmph, seeing him stab his own subordinates in the back, he’s got no blood or tears.”
“Rockid, the same goes for our captain, doesn’t it?”
“Ha! If the captain of the Shadow Mercenary Corps still had blood and tears left, that’d be chilling in its own way! Where in the world would you find a madman that mad?”
“I’ll be sure to tell the captain exactly that.”
“……
Ahem. That was a slip of the tongue.”
At Wolf and Rockid’s conversation, Yu Ji-o flinched.‘……
I might be able to live.’It seemed he had become useful.
Damn it, Liuo Junchun.
It was thanks to that bastard being no ordinary man.
In that fleeting moment, Yu Ji-o’s mind worked rapidly.‘Whose side should I take?’After seeing the status abnormality message, he understood.
Liuo Junchun had never been, and never would be, someone he could trust.
Yu Ji-o looked at the Shadow Mercenary Corps.‘……
For now, cooperating is the right move.’Even if they were enemies who had thrust blades into his subordinates.
For now, there was no other way.
As Yu Ji-o swallowed dryly, Wolf continued.
“It can’t be helped. Let’s proceed as planned.”
The moment the words fell.
Puk!
Deshev’s iron needle pierced Yu Ji-o’s acupoint.
It was Deshev’s method, perfectly suited to the plan.
It killed the target instantly, yet left no external wounds.
Soon after.
Step.
The Sixth Seat, Isabel Marle, who had been watching the situation, moved.
When she released her mana, Yu Ji-o, who had collapsed, stood up once more.
Slide—Only then did Wolf remove his crow mask and speak.
“Liuo Junchun. In front of a lord of that caliber, hiding one’s true thoughts will not be easy. Before he can relay internal information to us, there is ample chance he will be consumed by the lord’s authority again.”
But corpses had no inner thoughts.
A necromancer.
The undead revived through Isabel Marle’s ability would be far more useful. However, if there was one problem…… it would be the empty focus that could be called the defining trait of the undead. The Seventh Seat, Alkari, chuckled.
“But as you can see, the lord’s petty scheme made his subordinates put on masks of their own accord! He never imagined that this masquerade would come back to him as an arrow!”
That was precisely why he had been judged a greenhorn lord.
Liuo Junchun.
As a lord, he had forgotten the most important fact.
“How does he not know that the eye of the typhoon is the safest place?”
In contrast.
“He is the complete opposite of Sir Hoyeol.”
Hoyeol went beyond the eye of the typhoon.
He was driving himself to the very extremity of extremes.
Did that vast talent even contain the qualifications of a lord?
His course of action was enough to make one think so.
Thanks to that, Hoyeol was protecting not only his own safety.
But also both worlds: reality and the Arcana Continent.
Alkari nodded solemnly.
“Thus, the title Dragon Lord is by no means an exaggeration.”*They said it was always beyond imagination, didn’t they?
You really are incredible, Granfell.
How can you praise yourself with a straight face like that……?
I stared at my own press conference playing on the screen.
-“The Dark Dragon. That, too, is merely a ‘part’ of me.”
Why, even just hearing one’s own recorded voice from time to time.
Is enough to give a person goosebumps…….
The silver hair fluttering on the screen.
The jacket draped over the shoulders.
And the utterly shameless iron mask of a face.
Watching that sight was nothing but agony.‘……
This is not the time.’To forget this shame.
I had to move my body as quickly as possible.
It would be better for my body to suffer than my mind.
I was about to immediately manifest a portal toward the Zero Mountains, but then I flinched and stopped.
Regardless of my will.
My gaze would not leave the interview footage.
“No matter how urgent it may be.”
The teacup tilted leisurely.
“One must not be negligent in the study of qi, either.”
So.
You’re really going to watch this dreadful interview to the very end?!
You truly don’t have even a speck of mercy for me, Granfell……!