The Lowborn Slaughterer, Hugh Casvail.
The moment he uttered his infamous name as if proud of it, my sword was already flying towards his neck.
My body reacted faster than I thought.
Swing the sword.
Kill the enemy before me.
It wasn’t a slash imbued with the power of <Iron Arm>.
Unless I had absolute confidence in my own strength, it would be madness to unleash a finishing move from the first strike.
For me right now, <Iron Arm> was an all-or-nothing technique. It’s close to a gamble where if it succeeds, the enemy dies, and if it fails, I die.
In other words, it’s not a technique to use against an enemy whose abilities are unknown.
In terms of a card game, it’s like going all-in with your entire fortune without even looking at the cards on the enemy’s table.
So I couldn’t use Iron Arm yet.
What if he dodges it even though I swung my sword with all my might, risking stamina depletion?
What if he blocks it with a method I hadn’t anticipated?
What if he takes it head-on, gets cut in half, but regenerates?
What kind of fate would I meet after that?
The risk was too great.
Therefore, my instinct unleashed the fastest slash I could perform normally instead of activating Iron Arm.
The longsword mixed with black iron extended like lightning, spraying rotten blood.
Thud!
…But it didn’t reach.
The longsword swung at lightning speed only cut through empty air a step in front of the old man’s neck instead.
“Kuk…!”
It wasn’t a failure in distance adjustment.
Even though the number of enemies I’ve killed could form a hill, how could I make a mistake in gauging the distance between an enemy and myself at this point?
“Dangerous, dangerous. Your judgment is very quick. I’d believe it if you said you were a knight.”
The old man who had stepped back half a step smiled, pointing downwards with his slightly exposed fingertips.
At my legs, which had stopped just before taking the last step, caught by half-rotten hands that suddenly sprang up from the ground.
『Grasp of the Dead』
A binding magic that summons the hands of the dead to grab and stop the enemy.
Yes. The reason my swung longsword missed was not because of my mistake, but because my legs were caught by his magic.
“Stay caught like that. At my age, it’s a bit burdensome to wrestle with a young lady.”
Hugh Casvail pointed at me with his raised right hand, speaking playfully. A translucent grayish mass shimmered in his open palm as if grasping a ball.
“Nonsense…!”
I glared at him with a contorted brow.
The first attack, easily blocked.
If I had swung my sword while activating Iron Arm, would it have been possible to break through the binding magic with force and cut him down in one go?
Well, probably not.
An Abyss Priest who can instantly activate binding magic wouldn’t likely die helplessly just because that one thing was broken.
…Anyway, I couldn’t remain caught like this.
“Something like this!”
I struck down the dead hands crawling up and grabbing my greaves with my sword blade, cutting them off, then rolled my foot greatly to shake them off completely and launched myself towards the old man.
“Over here! Here’s the real Abyss Priest!”
While shouting loudly enough to make the ruins shake, drawing the attention of the adventurers who thought they had won.
Although I wanted to avoid drawing attention because I hadn’t found my helmet yet, given how things had turned out, my face was a trivial matter to worry about later.
“What? Just now, from over there…”
“Abyss Priest…? The ‘real’ Abyss Priest?”
The adventurers who had been savoring their post-battle rest turned towards me, voicing their doubts.
“Ms. Hilde? Wait, that…!”
“Eek…! She’s not wearing her helmet!”
Gerda and Friede also jumped up in surprise and ran towards me.
“Haaap!”
Leaving their cries of shock behind, I charged towards Hugh Casvail, who was backing away like a ghost, widening the distance.
Paying attention to both his right hand raised towards me and the ground at my feet.
“Are you trying to gather helpers? Your judgment is quick. The idea itself is ordinary, though.”
“You talk as if you’re some sage. Are you some kind of wise man? You slaughterer.”
“Slaughterer, I personally think it’s a somewhat exaggerated nickname. I haven’t killed that many people to be called that.”
He kept widening the distance while spouting nonsensical self-defense.
“You’re being ridiculous. Then what are all these undead?”
If you add up the number of undead left inside the dungeon, the ones hunted yesterday, and the ones annihilated today, it would be at least several hundred at minimum.
After killing several hundred people, how could he claim he’s not a slaughterer? How could such an excuse hold up?
“That’s just raising corpses back up. Corpses are resources lying around everywhere, aren’t they? Recently, they’ve been so abundant that I find it rather surprising.”
However, he muttered shameless excuses with a calm face, seemingly without an ounce of remorse.
Saying that he just gathered and revived scattered corpses, never having gone around killing all those people one by one.
“Nonsense…!”
This is absurd. Human corpses aren’t like weeds in a field; how could there be hundreds lying around everywhere?
Even I, who had killed so many raiders, only managed between one and two hundred.
“What reason do I have to lie? It’s not like anything would change in this situation.”
The Abyss Priest spread his right hand wide towards me with a faint smile. A translucent grayish mass shimmered in his open palm.
Kieeeeee…!
The grayish light mass that had formed in his right hand shot out like a bullet, wailing like a ghostly sound. It kept growing larger as it approached me.
What is that thing?
Is it going to explode?
It probably will, right?
As it looked like something that would explode no matter how you looked at it, I stopped mid-run and threw myself sideways to avoid the light mass flying towards me.
While glancing at the hands of the dead suddenly rising up in front of where I had been running until just now.
Boom!
Following that, the grayish mass that had widely missed exploded with a thunderous roar. The ground caved in from the shockwave, and dirt-mixed gravel fragments flew up in all directions.
See? I knew it would explode. So he was trying to catch me and blow me up with a necromantic explosion.
“It’s useless if it doesn’t hit!”
But I avoided it this easily.
I steadied my body that had lost balance due to the sudden change in direction by touching the ground with my left hand, and charged again.
“Hmm.”
The Abyss Priest slightly twitched his beard as if intrigued, then stretched out his left hand and drew a small circle in front of him.
Woong…!
The grayish circle inscribed in the air shook with a low resonance, then suddenly spewed out something like an icy mist from its center.
『Chill of the Netherworld』
It was a curse that scattered chilling cold to slow down those who approached.
“Such a petty trick…!”
A sensation like falling into a lake covered with a thin layer of ice.
True to Brunhilde’s body that was resistant to cold, it wasn’t enough to make my teeth chatter, but still, I couldn’t avoid my movements becoming slightly slower.
“You’re enduring it? Impressive. It’s not a curse that a copper token adventurer should be able to withstand.”
The Abyss Priest looked at me with admiration in his eyes. His confident voice was utterly detestable.
“Maybe you’re just weak. Why don’t you try it out? There are plenty of copper token adventurers here!”
As it wasn’t yet within sword range, I drew the dagger at my waist like lightning and threw it towards him.
“Oh my.”
Hugh Casvail let out a low laugh as he blocked the dagger with a pitch-black magical barrier. He raised his hand, pointing behind my back, and opened his mouth again.
“Do you still think so?”
And then.
“Aaaaargh!”
A scream burst out, cutting through the night.
The sound of blades cutting flesh and the metallic clash of spears and swords rang out chaotically.
“Th-That bastard got the priest!”
“You crazy son of a…! What’s with this sudden…!”
Along with cries of shock that shouldn’t have been heard.
* * *
With the Abyss Priest in front of me, I couldn’t turn around to look behind, but what was happening was all too clear.
“Kuaaak!”
“It’s betrayal! There are traitors mixed among us!”
Just from the shouts I could hear, it was obvious.
Betrayal.
Some of the adventurers who had jumped up at my cry must have suddenly changed their attitude and swung their spears and swords at the backs of their fellow adventurers.
“Were they in cahoots from the start?”
“Damn it, let’s kill this bastard first―guhak!”
From the sounds, at least one-third of them…
“Kiyar! You crazy bastard, what are you trying to do!”
The roars of adventurers hastily counterattacking resounded loudly.
Their voices were filled with bewilderment, perhaps confused by the betrayal of those they thought were on their side.
“Damn it, damn it! You think I’m doing this because I want to? That bastard put a curse on us! A curse that will make our heads explode if we don’t betray!”
The traitor named Kiyar shouted at the top of his lungs in a tone that seemed frustratingly mad.
Saying that they weren’t doing this because they wanted to, but because they had no choice due to the curse.
“You son of a bitch, I comforted you when you came back alone… So you were in league with an Abyss Priest! If you were going to do this, you should have just died!”
“You bastard, you call that words! You think you’d have been any different?”
I could roughly understand the situation.
The search party members who had returned after losing their party members. They hadn’t safely escaped due to luck. The Abyss Priest had let them go.
“Cut the crap! You could have asked the priests to lift the curse!”
“Damn it! If that was possible, I would have done it already! He said we’d die just by talking about it!”
After putting a curse on them and making them his pawns, he ordered them to stab the backs of other adventurers and priests.
It was a vile but effective method.
“You’re aiming at my back? So you’re a traitor too!”
“Guhak! No, I’m…”
“Hamilton! This bastard dares…!”
It was so effective that the panicked adventurers suspected each other of being traitors and went berserk, considering everyone but themselves as enemies.
“Damn it, damn it! These bastards are all crazy! They’ve gone mad!”
A warrior swinging his sword in all directions, telling others not to approach.
A magician shooting flame arrows at the enemy who killed her lover.
An archer half out of his mind, running away into the forest at full speed.
The defensive formation fell apart in an instant.
* * *
The adventurers who had achieved a miraculous victory against numerous undead suffered massive damage from the betrayal of those they believed to be allies.
And it happened in an instant. Like some kind of joke.
It was a loss that seemed unbelievable to have been caused by a single curse.
However, there was one thing I couldn’t understand…
“A killing curse that activates just by uttering certain words…?”
I barely suppressed the urge to turn around and look behind me, and voiced the question that had come to my mind while swinging my sword towards the Abyss Priest.
“If you had the skill to use such a high-level curse, there would have been no need to choose such a cumbersome method in the first place.”
A curse that causes instant death just by revealing that a priest has placed a curse on you.
An Abyss Priest capable of using such a powerful curse wouldn’t have needed to use a curse to incite betrayal among adventurers.
With just his own power, he could have annihilated us long ago and still had power to spare.
“Oh? You seem to have some knowledge about curses? That’s unusual for a copper token adventurer. Very interesting…”
Hugh Casvail stroked his chin beard and pulled up the corners of his exposed mouth.
“Yes. You’re right. Such high-level curses are beyond my current capabilities. To begin with, if I had really placed a curse, the dogs of the Goddess wouldn’t have failed to notice.”
“What…? No, then…”
“It’s as you think, young lady. I merely threatened the rest by bursting the heads of some of them, saying I had placed a curse. What would ignorant fools like adventurers know about curses? They fell for it spectacularly.”
That’s right. The traitors were never under a curse to begin with.
They just mistakenly thought they were cursed because the Abyss Priest said so.
That was enough for him.
Unlike paladins, priests, or magicians, mere copper token warriors wouldn’t know about the effects or limitations of curses.
“This is how you lie. Look. See what I’ve achieved with a simple threat and a single lie.”
The Abyss Priest, Hugh Casvail, spread both arms wide and laughed.
Boasting of the results achieved through lies and deception.