These two men were the brothers who visited Igor in the pub. Their intent was to persuade him in coming back to the dark knights to carry out missions solely for the Master and the Empress - the most revered people in the Vesala clan.
The homecoming of the three princes of the Seirende Empire would be tomorrow. But they still couldn't convince Igor to abandon his post in guarding the little miss of the Vesala family.
They have already talked to him two times, but to no avail.
Igor was firm in his decision to complete his last mission for the young lady, to the men's dismay.
Visam, who was older than the three, completely lost his temper and cursed not to bother the unloyal Igor. He was no longer interested in persuading Igor and left Hasta do to it if he still insisted.
Hasta on the other hand was closer to Igor's age.
During training, the two would often be together, facing the hardships they had to endure in order to become the dark knights that they were today. Besides, they both have tracking knight abilities, which were highly crucial to their operations.
This was also the reason why Visam and Hasta wanted Igor back. It was to ease the burden of investigation assignments from Hasta, who selflessly covered for Igor's part.
As the one who was closest to Igor, Hasta knew that he had feelings for the second lady of the Vesala.
However, in order not to allow Igor to succumb to such emotions, he straightforwardly told him that it was impossible for knights like them to be together with the nobles.
For if they weren't even chosen to become the dark knights, they would still be slaves sold as a commodity in the black market. It was already a miracle for them to have such a life turnaround.
Igor harboring feelings for the young noble lady was already asking for too much.
However, he saw how crestfallen Igor was upon realizing that fact. Helpless, he supported Igor's initiative to guard Lady Arabella on her journey to explore the territory.
With his support and Duke's confidence with the dark knights, Igor managed to get the post of being her guard.
But now that things were starting to go against the masters that they serve, the dark knights really couldn't afford to have one less person in the group. With their allies driven away and their supporters all arrested, the underground network of the Vesalas were completely paralyzed.
Seeing that Visam was no longer interested in persuading Igor, Hasta could only sigh and go by himself. Seeing that it is already a bit late, he deduced that Igor was already at the inn preparing to retire for the night.
Heading towards the direction of the inn, he immediately felt something was off.
Igor's scent was scattered in the air, as if he had just rushed out from the inn.
To check if his conjecture was right, Hasta immediately jumped at Igor's floor and noticed that his window was open. His eyes frowned as he blankly looked at the empty room.
Where could he go at this time?
Hasta could only stare at the direction where Igor's scent lingered. As he calmly followed the trail, he noticed a pair of footprints along the roof. Fortunately the snowfall was still gentle, and the footprints could still be visibly inspected.
Igor scent could be detected on these footprints. They were heavy and rushed.
Hasta could tell that Igor was in a hurry when he went in a certain direction. He calmly inspected any foreign footprints but he didn't find any.
"There was no sign of being chased after… what could have happened to make Igor flee like this?" Full of confusion, Hasta could only mutter to himself, as he calmly followed Igor's traces.
After some time, Hasta realized that the direction that Igor went into was in a deep remote forest. A great sense of uneasiness rose in his heart. What would Igor do in a remote forest in the middle of the night?
He knew Igor, he was a one track minded person, other than his duties with Lady Arabella, he wouldn't have anything that could be called his hobby.
Feeling that these things were not simple as it seemed, Hasta immediately rushed towards the forest with all the speed he could muster.
His heart showed a little bit of relief, when he realized that Igor's scent became stronger as he went deep in the forest. It meant that Igor was still in the area and nothing was going wrong with him.
"There was no scent of blood, it meant that he was not injured." He thought to himself.
But little did he know that at this moment, Igor was already caged in the entrapment spell. The scent of blood from his injuries did not escape in the entrapment.
Nonetheless, Hasta still did his best to get to where Igor was as fast as possible. Soon, he finally saw the center of the forest and all of his emotions surged as he saw a mysterious man mercilessly strike a heavy blow on Igor's head.
He saw the man unceremoniously step out of the entrapment spell and move as if he was about to do something on Igor's body.
Hasta's eyes turned red as he saw his brother fall into the hands of a mysterious enemy.
While still dashing through the air in a rush, Hasta didn't hesitate to take out his cursed sword and charged towards the man who was not yet aware of his arrival.
Shiook!
Thanks to his S level devourer abilities, Leon managed to react on time by immediately using a flash step to teleport a few meters away from the attacker.
Still, to encounter such a sneak attack, Leon had to take a good look at the enemy and try to figure out what happened.
Looking at the weapon he was wielding and the bloodshot fiery eyes that were glaring at him, Leon deduced that the attacker was one of Igor's brothers.
"Who are you?! Release my brother right now!" Leon heard the other party angrily roar like a mother tiger who had lost her cub.
Hasta was not bothered that the opponent was able to calmly dodge his sneak attack, the most important thing right now was to rescue Igor. He didn't have to think of anything else but defeat the opponent in front of him.
Without waiting for Leon to reply, Hasta immediately charged and crossed swords with Leon.
But who was Leon? He was a strong devourer of the class S level! How long could Hasta last lpng against him, who grew up in the battlefield?
All his anger was immediately shaken as he met Leon's fierce and heavy strike.
The enemy's appearance was like an angel that had descended to the mortal lands and captivated people. But his strikes were like the merciless attack of the evil who only wanted death in front of him.
Hasta could barely manage to hold his ground towards Leon's heavy blows. His pride and sense of responsibility towards Igor were the only things that protected his state of mind from breaking down facing the battle monster in front of him.
Beads of sweats appeared all over his body, his lungs couldn't keep up with the barrage of offense thrown by the enemy.
But Hasta was slowly losing his confidence as he could clearly see the expression on the man's face.
It was as if he didn't care at all. There were no signs of exhaustion nor struggle. It was as if he knew what would be the outcome of this fight!
"Damn!" Hasta could only retreat using his fast steps in order to catch his breath. He cursed in his heart as he slowly realized how unfavorable their situation was.
But he had no choice but to face this. He reprimanded himself, why did he not lower his pride and beg Visam to go along with him?
It could have been a different situation if Visam was around, as he was one of the brothers who could directly use curse spells.
Wait curse spells?
A sudden thought came into Hasta's mind. Why was he using the weapon in his hands like a normal weapon? It wasn't a normal one, as it was a cursed weapon!
And so are the other weapons in his space bag!
"One wound. Just one wound…" He thought to himself with a sinister smile creeping up into his face. "One wound will turn everything around."
With a renewed state of mind Hasta immediately charged at Leon. But this time, Leon could feel that he was up to something.
Hasta became more aggressive and reckless with his blows. It was as if he was not afraid that Leon would slice his arms in one strike.
Instead Hasta's movements become erratic and unpredictable. On one exchange, he would try to get close range and escape on another.
When he was at close range, a small dagger would appear on his other hand and try to wound him in a hurry.
When he escaped he would throw several small daggers towards Leon to throw off his attacks. He was clearly trying to destroy Leon's rhythm!
This lasted for a few minutes until Leon suddenly felt several hostile objects flying towards him. His eyes grew dim as he recognized these objects.
They were flying cursed daggers that were seemingly thrown haphazardly by Hasta earlier!
The daggers hovered in the air as if they had their own wills, surrounding Leon in all directions.
At Hasta's command, the daggers fastly approached Leon's defenseless body!