Chapter 19 - My Specialty Isn't Cleaning
A sudden darkness descended upon the basement.
Right above, customers who had come to the tavern were eating, drinking, and unwinding.
Some were relieving the fatigue they had accumulated today, while others were filling their stomachs with food and drink.
But no one above knew that a sword fight was taking place in the basement.
The sound of clinking glasses in front of them was louder than the sound of clashing swords.
The porter who lived in the shadows of the family and the noble of blood created their first victims without even clashing blades.
“Keoheok…!!”
“Grrgh….”
Whether their hearts were pierced from the back or a hole was made in their throats, the end was no different.
They would collapse to the floor, limp like a deflated balloon.
In the sealed basement, the scent of blood spread stuffily, and the crimson eyes were stained even redder.
Through my red pupils, I could see the beasts rushing in, each holding their own weapon.
All those who had set foot here were those who lived in the darkness and died in the darkness.
By the time two corpses were made, their dark adaptation was complete, and their pupils narrowed.
There were twenty people in the basement.
Those who came to the basement were two.
It was a 10-fold difference, but numerical inferiority was meaningless to a sorcerer.
Jjeoooook─
The sub-space opened its mouth.
Five dolls popped out from within in perfect order.
They held the same armor and the same sword, as if they were one and had split.
“Since they came from a prestigious family, I trust they will do their job well.”
The death knights created from the hearts the Head Maid had taken.
The deathly energy that the living could never produce was replaced by the mana they had held in life and clad their blades.
In the darkness where not a single ray of light existed, dark purple energies undulated.
[Death Knight Gallum activates the unique skill 「Cursed Swordsmanship: Soul Slash」.]
[Death Knight Idain activates the unique skill 「Cursed Swordsmanship: Chains of Sin」.]
[Death Knight Yukal activates the unique skill 「Cursed Swordsmanship: Five Senses Paralysis」.]
…….
….
The system window flashed brilliantly before my eyes.
The sword dance of the Death Knight squad began at that moment.
The death knights moved freely throughout the dark and damp basement.
The Cursed Swordsmanship, a mandatory skill for Millesdusk knights, imbued their blades with curses and wrecked their opponents.
There was no need to stab deeply.
Even if only a slight bloodline was drawn, the curse would instantly seep in and destroy them from the inside.
The death knights, who had no need to conserve stamina, swung their cursed swords freely.
The moment one was scratched by that blind sword, their body would slow down and breathing would become difficult.
If they then allowed a deeper wound from the next blow, the end was death.
However, here was a force that had succeeded in surviving for a century in the competitive arena of the Citadel.
Even if someone else's blood covered their faces, they did not stop thinking until it became their own blood.
If the opponent was a sorcerer and the sorcerer had increased their summons.
Furthermore, if those summons were powerful.
The common knowledge of the world was that the sorcerer became powerless.
Shwoook─!
The assassins, who were moving nimbly to avoid the swords filled with curses, threw their daggers.
As if everyone had the same thought at the same time.
Their directions and numbers were also varied.
But.
“Truly pathetic skill.”
The thrown daggers, which flew in a straight trajectory even in the darkness, were dismissed as pathetic by someone.
Before the professionals of the contract killing industry could get offended.
Chaeng─ Chaeng─
Long needles, much smaller and thinner than the daggers, knocked the blades down from mid-air.
A solemn voice, as if he were the king of the night, reprimanded them.
“The crime of daring to point a weapon at the young lord. You deserve to die a hundred times over.”
「Poison Demon Sorcery」
Death Sword Finger
「Spirit Sorcery」
Footwork: Shadow Body Partial Transformation
Lubosch's lower body began to blur.
His feet, which had been moving in friction with the floor, were no longer in contact with anything at that moment.
High speed. And silence.
The man who carried out the family's orders in the shadows showed literally ghost-like movements.
The sharply raised index finger was the fatal poison fang of a ghost.
Tuk. Tuk. Tuk. Tuk.
In a single breath, the index finger visited the temples of those who had thrown the daggers.
Thud─
The breaths of those four were cut off, and they fell forward, all in a single breath.
It was a skill that even the Youngest Son, who was commanding the knights, could not help but admire slightly.
‘Death Sword Finger. A technique where a Poison Demon sorcerer combines the most potent poison from their own poison gland and injects it upon contact with the opponent.’
It was a rather high-ranking skill among Poison Demon Sorcery, but Lubosch used it skillfully.
He could also perform the Shadow Body, a basic yet extremely difficult advanced technique in Spirit Sorcery, up to his lower body.
‘He's young enough to receive orders from the General Manager, so I knew his skills were decent, but he's quite a remarkable fellow.’
I smiled and retrieved the knights.
There was something I wanted to use at this point.
[Using the unique skill 「Balum's Scythe」.]
Swoooosh─
A scythe extending from the ceiling twisted unnaturally and pierced through a black-clad figure who had been aiming for my back.
It was as if the giant, sharply grown claws of a demon were ravaging a human.
At that sight, a certain setting naturally came to mind.
‘Balum. Descendants of a half-human, half-demon.’
The ancestor of the messenger who had visited the mansion was a half-human, half-demon.
He was a being who, while human, wielded the power of a demon, and that was passed down to his descendants.
However, the demon's blood weakened with each generation, and it became a mediocre family secret art whose power drastically decreased depending on the user.
In other words, it meant that the limit of the technique also increased infinitely according to the limit of the user.
“I wasn't expecting much, but it's better than I thought.”
I could pull out the demon's scythe from anywhere, be it the ceiling, the wall, or the floor, as long as it was an object.
It was also suitable for ambushes, and the size and number of scythes could all be controlled by the user's will.
Chwaaaaaaak─!
A wondrous sight of a scythe sprouting from a comrade's sword and slitting one's own throat.
The power of a demon plants fear in the human heart.
As that fear accumulated, people saw illusions, heard auditory hallucinations, and their fear grew even greater.
The demon's claws reveal themselves in the air and harvest souls.
The flashing crimson eyes in the center seemed to burn like hellfire.
I have to kill him. I have to kill him to live.
A long bomb was held instead of a dagger.
If this exploded, the basement would collapse, and that demon would die too.
This was better than being killed by a demon and having my soul dragged to hell.
“Die…!”
“No, no.”
Swish.
A jet-black index finger pierced his neck like a snake hunting its prey.
“I've already seen that too.”
A pit created by the depth of two knuckles and the width of a finger.
The sunken hole was filled to the brim with poison.
“Grrrgle…. Grrrgle….”
He was in a place without a single drop of moisture, but water kept flowing into his throat.
He swallowed reflexively.
And the more he swallowed, the more he could feel the human organs that allowed him to swallow melting away.
“If you set off something like that, how much trouble will it be for the person who has to clean up later. Soot is hard to wipe off. Reflect on it in hell.”
After words that revealed some sort of pathos.
The bomber's life ended as his neck itself melted away.
“I-I know…!”
One person who witnessed that shocking death opened his mouth.
It was the doorman with the familiar thick voice.
The person to be saved was one informant.
There was no need to wait any longer.
“You, shut your mouth!”
One of the members poured out hidden weapons along with his anger.
The judgment to kill a comrade without hesitation if it seemed like information would leak.
I could see how they had survived in this business.
Of course, it was not a method that would work now.
Thudududuk─
The daggers, thrown more numerous than by a first-class circus performer, were all blocked by the wings extending from the sub-space.
No matter how well the dagger's edge was sharpened, it could not pierce these red feathers.
In the meantime, the intelligence agent's Death Sword Finger extinguished all the remaining flames of life.
The room was finally quiet.
“Lubosch. Light a fire.”
“Yes.”
A fire was lit once again by the candlestick on the wall.
When this was lit again, many things had changed from before it went out.
The doorman, who had urgently thrown himself to the ground as soon as he heard the sounds of people dying, had finished his judgment not long after.
If he couldn't provide what they wanted, everyone would die.
That thought was excellent.
Judging by the corpse whose neck was severed by something unknown.
The corpse that was stabbed by a cursed sword and whose whole body was twisted.
And the corpses with holes in their heads and necks, melted by poison.
The hairy doorman stammered and said.
“I-I don't know who put in the request to attack the Maxman Merchant Troupe, but I think I might have overheard where the materials went…!”
“Overheard?”
“N-no! I know for sure! I-it must be right!”
A rapidly beating heart.
However, the cause was not lies but excessive tension.
The Youngest Son said.
“The location.”
“It's the G-District peanut warehouse…!”
“They used their heads a bit.”
The materials they stole, in other words, the poison herbs, had a distinct smell and characteristics.
They had stored the boxes in a place with another strong smell so that even if dogs were released, they couldn't be found.
“Lubosch. Let's go.”
“Yes. My lord.”
“U-um, but….”
The doorman's mouth opened once more.
He was nervous but managed to spit out his words.
“I-it would be better not to go.”
“Why is that?”
“I-I know that the martial prowess of you two is excellent, but… the Fangs of the Black Wolf Brigade are stationed at that peanut warehouse.”
It meant death without a doubt if we went.
“I-I don't know how important the deal is, but they, who usually don't show themselves and are spread across the East, have gathered in the Citadel. Th-they are very dangerous people.”
The doorman, as a way of repaying the favor of having his life spared, went on to say things he didn't necessarily have to.
It was because he had heard the title 'my lord'.
“I-I don't know which eastern family's child you are, but… just going back is the way to protect your life.”
Protecting one's life, huh.
It might be advice worth listening to for some, but not for the Youngest Son.
“It's a life that will collapse anyway if I don't go.”
In the present situation, the thorny path was the only way out.
Being pricked by thorns now was better than being stabbed by a sword later.
So, I just moved forward silently.
“You gave some good information, so a price must be paid.”
His hand did not grab the money in his pocket but pointed to the floor.
“These spoils of war are all yours.”
“Th-thank you…!”
For someone from the Citadel, laundering this amount of goods would not be difficult.
The numbers were high, and there was no way the Black Wolf Brigade would have bad equipment, so from the criminal's perspective, it was a veritable windfall.
His eyes were fixed on the floor with greed.
By the time he came to his senses and tried to show his respects, they were gone.
Nevertheless, there was something that did not fade from his memory.
The crimson eyes that scattered a blade-like bloody light even in the darkness.
It felt like that alone would follow him for the rest of his life.
***
The Black Wolf Brigade's main encampment.
The place existed in a forest a little away from the Dusk Citadel.
As befitting a place named the Forest of the Wailing Ghost, every time the wind brushed against the branches, the screams of a child scraped the eardrums.
In the main encampment prepared in such a demonic landscape, a normal village was situated rather than a fine building.
A man who could be called the village chief received a Messenger Ghoul.
It was a Messenger Ghoul from the client.
“What did the client say?”
His daughter, so precious he wouldn't mind putting her in his eyes, asked.
The leader of the Black Wolf Brigade, Remus, answered.
“He says to continue the attacks until the Maxman Merchant Troupe retreats. And that he'll give double the advance payment he gave before.”
“The prestigious families of the East are different, even in their spending. Are you going to accept?”
The group called the Black Wolf Brigade. As the one who stood above the core that formed that group, a single race, Remus slowly nodded.
“I've already gathered all the Fangs. The merchant troupe will have prepared, but the timing is good for us. Once should be no problem.”
“Father, father! Then I'll be the one to call my uncles to the village this time. You've been overworking yourself too much lately.”
Remus smiled so deeply that his sharp teeth were revealed.
It was commendable and cute that she was already trying to help with her father's work, even a little.
“It would normally be fine, but for this request, your father will finish it. It's not good for you to overdo it either, and we can't have your uncles getting confused, can we.”
“…Okay.”
“Thank you for understanding.”
Remus looked up at the sky from the center of the village.
The sky, where night had already crept in, had a particularly bright moon today.
The full moon was coming soon.
Awoooooooooo─
The wolf howled at the moon that had not yet fully ripened.