“Dammit, where the hell are these monsters coming from one by one…!”
The one-eyed middle-aged man gripped his great sword, his one remaining eye twitching as he clenched his teeth and muttered a stream of curses.
Haval was left alone in front of me, Friede, Eleadra, and Ashel, his face drenched in cold sweat and despair written all over it.
He expressed confidence, believing he was not alone against me, but sadly, it was the same for us.
The elite guards of the Adventurer Guild he relied on were shattered into pieces by the surprise attack of my companions, leaving Haval truly alone.
…Well, he might reunite with his minions again soon.
“Stop wasting time and just surrender! Then, at least, I can promise you a painless death.”
I taunted him with a relaxed voice, standing behind him with strong allies of equal or greater strength.
“You filthy, damn bitch… Is that how you approach me right now…?!”
Of course, as expected, Haval didn’t even consider the offer.
Honestly, it would’ve been crazier to accept it. After all, he was being told to stick out his neck because it’d be too annoying otherwise.
“Well, if you want to choose the painful path, I won’t stop you. Show me what you got!”
“I didn’t need you to tell me that, you crazy troll bitch!”
Haval pulled something from his pocket and hurled it at me while shouting.
Boom!
A translucent red orb exploded right in front of me, creating a fierce blaze, and Haval, whose great sword shone with blue magical energy, charged at me with a mighty roar.
“YAAAAAAAAAAAH!”
“Edelmut!”
I blocked the raging flames with Edelmut’s divine barrier and charged forward to meet him head-on.
– KAAAAAAANG!
Our blades clashed.
The long sword and the great sword crashed together like lightning, creating a frenzied metallic sound, and even though Haval enhanced his physical abilities with magic, he stumbled back from the sheer force.
“Ha!”
“Enemy of my mother!”
Friede and Eleadra, who were a bit late to move, surrounded him from both sides, while Ashel slid across the floor to get behind him.
Right after that.
“Get the hell away! You crazy monster bastards!”
Haval’s necklace, earrings, ring, armor, and great sword were wrapped in dark and light magical energy, glowing azure.
‘Wow, he’s coated himself in magical tools from head to toe. How much does that even cost?’
As the guild master, just how many magical tools had he found or bought? The sheer number outmatched that of most hero parties.
‘That’s an incredibly inefficient method, though.’
…However, just having a bunch of magical tools doesn’t mean you’re invincible.
Unless they were forged as a single set, the typical magical tools would have different spells inscribed on them.
And those spells would often interfere with one another when cast on the same target, greatly reducing their effectiveness.
If you had soccer and baseball being played simultaneously in the same space, it’d be a complete mess, wouldn’t it? It was more or less that principle.
The more magical tools you stack up, the greater the chance that each one’s performance would plummet. Some might even fail to activate entirely.
Magic is complex and truly bizarre, so it’s rare for users to fully understand and wield it correctly. That was a truth most people were unaware of.
It’s actually quite obvious if you think about it for a moment.
The magical tools found in dungeons are all vastly different in origin, creators, spell structures, and manufacturing methods.
Unless they are magical tools made as a single set like my armor, compatibility between spells was hardly taken into account.
The tools Haval activated faced the same issue. The varying brightness of the magical energy from each tool was already a sign that the simultaneous activation of spells was causing them to clash and weaken each other.
In short, it was showing off his monumental waste of money.
‘It’s not just the magical interference issue. The magical tools themselves don’t perform well despite their numbers.’
Moreover, their performance was mediocre compared to our Holy Sword, magic spears, and enchanted weapons.
Well, for Haval, that might’ve been the best he could do.
Good quality magical tools only emerged from deeper dungeons, and those places were strictly controlled by the royal family, so he could only dream of stepping foot there.
To summarize, covering himself in magical tools and struggling like that would change nothing.
“You spent a bit on your equipment. Thanks. It’s just more loot for me.”
“That’s something we’ll have to see in time!!”
From Haval’s clothes, toxic smoke erupted, and blue blades of light formed in the air, extending in all directions.
Shadows on the ground crawled, spewing out black tentacles, and the flames on his great sword roared even more fiercely.
A haphazard but endless festival of magical tricks was being unleashed from all those mediocre but numerous magical tools.
Haval, the one-eyed master of the Pesengwigel Adventurer Guild.
His desperate final stand began, even though he was merely an ordinary man trying to think on his feet.
◆◆
Faced with an unavoidable threat, Haval threw caution to the wind, using up his magical tools with reckless abandon and fighting desperately.
His struggle was far rougher and more savage than I’d anticipated.
You know what they say, a cornered rat will bite a cat? That’s exactly what it felt like.
He obscured his vision with smoke, tied up movement with binding and freezing spells, and held on with enhancement, defense, and healing magic.
Adding the flames from his great sword and toxic fog, along with intangible shockwaves, it was nearly as troublesome as Lakan.
To be honest, I was a bit surprised during the fight. I hadn’t expected Haval to be this strong when giving it his all.
Like Lakan from Bagest, he seemed to deserve to claim a whole district of the city and strut around.
“But I killed him this easily.”
…Of course, that didn’t change the fact that it was impossible to win a fight of four against one.
“Now, take a look.”
I placed Haval’s head, dried and blackened with blood, on the table and gave a smug smile towards the shocked man.
“This is definitely… Haval’s… head.”
The impressive head of the one-eyed middle-aged man.
Though it was a terrible sight, with damage all over, his face was relatively intact, so it was possible to recognize him.
“…Oh my God.”
After confirming that the head on the table was indeed Haval’s, Yuron muttered, at a loss for words.
“You asked me to make a quick decision, right? So I dealt with it swiftly.”
I shrugged my shoulders playfully, proud of my actions.
Yuron himself had said it was better to handle things as quickly as possible, so he couldn’t really argue with my approach.
Didn’t he mean to process the request itself quickly, not to execute the assassination?
Well, let’s just gloss over the details.
In games, when you need to shorten the request time, you usually complete the goal beforehand, visit the NPC, take up the quest, and hit the completed button on the spot.
This was all about optimizing movement! It’s not a matter to be criticized, instead, it should be praised. There can’t be a faster way to do things.
“I found it easier than I expected. I guess they didn’t anticipate an attack today, so they were pretty defenseless. Almost laughably complacent.”
In truth, it wasn’t as easy as I described.
As mentioned earlier, Haval’s desperate struggle was truly fierce and brutal, momentarily overshadowing the tremendous difference in strength between us.
If I’d underestimated him just because he was weaker than Lakan and tried to handle him alone, I would have surely faced a tough time.
Of course, there was no reason to vocalize that.
Bluster is a tactic too.
Unless it was intentional to feign weakness to catch the opponent off guard or lure them in, looking strong in front of others is generally advantageous.
“Now there’s only Lakan left. Isn’t that exciting? With one long-time rival eliminated so easily, I’d probably burst out laughing.”
So, I smiled confidently. Teasingly, at Yuron’s face, which surely couldn’t maintain a smile in front of me.
“…Are you telling me to laugh after messing things up like this?”
Yuron glared at me, his veins in his neck bulging, struggling to suppress his anger as he spat out bluntly.
“Messed things up? What nonsense is that? I brought Haval’s head just like you requested, didn’t I?”
“I… when the hell did I ask you to pull this kind of stunt…!”
Yuron gritted his teeth in fury. He looked really pissed. Just as Ashel had predicted.
“Well, is there a problem?”
“What’s the problem?! Is that even an appropriate question?!”
Of course, he couldn’t help but be furious.
I made light of the fact that things went rapidly, but in reality, this was me clobbering Yuron from behind.
“I was told to assassinate, but instead, I caused a ruckus while flaunting this head! And then you ask, ‘is there a problem’? This is ALL a problem!”
Yuron slammed the table and erupted in anger.
The friendly tone he’d had before was long gone, replaced by an almost crazy tone.
Well, I’d be furious too if I were him. Immediately after defeating Haval in a bloody battle, I’d walked in holding his severed head to the headquarters of the Guild.
No one could ignore how insane that was, but I had my reasons for doing it. It was a planned type of insanity!
“Why didn’t you just announce it in the street?! ‘The Guild Master, Yuron, ordered Haval to be killed like a dog!’ With this kind of—”
“Other organizations will simultaneously attack the Guild. That’s the gist of it, right? Even if you try to draw the line and say it was my unilateral decision, those organizations won’t believe a word of it.”
“Knowing that, you still…!”
Yeah. I did it knowingly. No, it’d be more accurate to say I did it precisely because I knew.
“Aren’t we better off now?”
I placed my hand on Haval’s head on the table and grinned, my right hand resting casually on the hilt of my sword just in case of an unforeseen bloodbath.
“With this, we’ve truly become a community of destiny. If we fall, we fall together; if we rise, we rise together.”
This was why I had blatantly attacked Haval and had come here with his head. I wanted to brand the Guild as a public enemy of all other organizations.
The strength of the Guild could at best match that of Bagest or fall slightly short.
If we openly turned everyone else into enemies, we wouldn’t be able to withstand their onslaught and would collapse in an instant.
If I didn’t help, our party wouldn’t survive.
So now, Yuron couldn’t backstab me anymore. Rather, he had to navigate carefully. He had no choice but to rely on us for survival.
With the issue regarding Ashel resolved, I wouldn’t have to be pushed around by Yuron anymore.
“We’re in the same boat now… I’m glad our friendship has deepened.”
Thus, I smiled.
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