“Put on a flash of light. Sword Enchantment [Golden Aurum].”
Fourlock mutters to no one in particular.
Then, the greatsword he held up began to glow with gold.
“Skill [Sword Enchantment]? It’s been a while since I’ve seen it.”
Cliff reholsters his dagger and smiles happily.
“Your skill [Marionette] is too nasty. Let me go all out from the start.”
Fourlock said, and leapt as hard as he could.
At the moment, a gust of wind blows around us.
As if he had been instantly transported, Fourlock closed in on Cliff.
But Cliff hangs up the corners of his mouth.
Just as Fourlock is about to swing his golden sword down with lightning speed, one of the soldiers interrupts between the two of them.
The slash, which cannot be pulled back now, cuts the soldier with its momentum.
Fresh blood flew up in front of Fourlock’s eyes.
It becomes a kind of smoke screen, temporarily blocking Fuorlock’s view.
With the corner of his mouth hanging open, Cliff brushed the soldier who had defended him aside with his left hand as if he was in the way, and thrust his dagger at Fourlock, who had lost his vision.
Fourlock twisted to avoid it, but just barely missed and was hit in the right side of the head.
“Guh ……”
Pain runs through his body as if he had been hit by an electric shock.
Fourlock tries to back step out of range and get into a better position, but Cliff has closed the distance in pursuit.
“Thunderspire.”
Nina, who was watching it, immediately flew a lightning spear of lower level magic in support.
“Tsk!”
Cliff evades by flying backwards with the corners of his mouth slightly lowered from their raised position, unable to hide his annoyance.
“Fuck you!”
At the end of his retreat, I was in the middle of the offensive and defensive exchanges between Fourlock and Cliff, and I’m on the back foot, unleashing a diagonal-slash with the longsword I have at the ready.
However, it was also caught by Cliff’s dagger, which was reversed, and I was immediately punched away with his other hand.
I’m low level and my momentum blows me back a few meters.
I was hit in the joint area, this pain, it’s a little bad. I think I might have a couple of broken ribs.
But then the pain receded immediately. No, really, thank you for the [Super-Recovery and [Precocious].
“That’s pretty good for an improvised team.”
Cliff wipes the cold sweat off his face and lets the words fly at us.
But Fourlok took advantage and came at Cliff from behind, returning the favor with a kick to the right side of the stomach.
Cliff couldn’t handle it and just blew off in the opposite direction of me.
I managed to get up and ran over to Fourlock, who was wobbling on his feet from his injuries.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, kind of.”
“Healing Aid.”
Nina, who rushes to follow me, uses healing magic to Fourlock.
The wound on his flank that was pierced closed up in no time and the bleeding stopped.
“Hey, he’s your subordinate, isn’t he? Why is he on his side?”
I asked Fourlock when I saw the soldier he had just cut down.
A puddle of blood forms on the ground, and he is lying in the middle of it without strength, and he looks familiar.
He’s the soldier who was on guard duty with Joshua yesterday.
He seemed to be disgruntled with Fourlock, so wonder if he’s really serious about betraying him.
“It’s probably not his intention. It’s all due to the ability of Leon’s skill [Marionette].”
“[Marionette]?”
I’m pretty sure I heard he said that earlier. Something about that ability being nasty or something.
“He can control the brain by direct contact with the head. Those who are brainwashed are at his control, like puppets.”
“I see. No wonder he called himself [Puppet Master].”
Cliff, staggering a little as he came toward us, said this as he put his hand on his right flank.
Wasn’t he too relaxed for the one who struggle before?
“Hey, kiddo. Do you know Divine Beasts are never hostile to humans unless they had a good reason to.”
“What? What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Also, you know? Guilds are great powers that don’t misjudge recommended ranks that easily.”
“What are you saying…?”
That’s where I stop speaking.
Suddenly, the conversation with Urin came back to me again.
Piggy Piggy. Piggy Piggy.
(After that day, my father and mother were always attacking the village as if they were possessed by something. No matter how many times I tried to stop them, they wouldn’t listen to me at all. ……)
“It’s you, …….”
“Ragnus?”
“You sent them!!”
Blood rises to my head.
Perhaps it was the anger, but he felt as if my body was burning hot, and the blood pumping my his extremities was about to boil.
“No, stay calm!”
Fourlock is mumbling something beside me, but nothing is reaching my brain right now.
Looking back, there were certainly many puzzling points.
Like the fucking boar said, that guy’s parents’ relentless attack over Arni Village.
If they had only punished the villagers once, the chief would not have sent out a quest.
The fact that what was originally a recommended rank of A was incorrectly assessed as a rank of C.
If I know it is the recommended A rank, no matter how much Nina persuade me, I would have done everything in my power to stop her.
I can’t deny the fact that I myself had a high opinion of myself, thinking that I might be a C-rank adventure.
But what if he’s manipulating those two boars with his powers? What if the assessor was being manipulated?
What if I was already in his palm when he first gave me the information about Nina?
I don’t know why he did what he did.
But I was forced to reap innocent lives for nothing. That’s all it took for my anger to reach its peak.
Before I knew it, my feet leapt the ground.
I just want to beat him up. With only that, the body moved forward.
“Hey, kiddo. I’ll tell you one thing.”
Just as I was about to unleash another diagonal-slash with my longsword, his figure disappeared.
A moment later, I feel a dull, heavy pain in my abdomen.
“Lose control over yourself in a battle is the greatest taboo.”
My vision is getting closer and closer to the ground.
I can hear his victorious voice above me, but my body doesn’t listen.
God damn it. …….
As it was, I fell to the hard ground and let go of my consciousness.