“I was wondering what kind of vagrant bastard had crawled in…But it had turned out to be you brats?”
The mysterious person walked slowly towards us with a relaxed look on his face.
Because of the dreadful aura emanating from him, my muscles contracted stiffly, regardless of my will.
Looking to the side, Elizabeth’s forehead was covered with sweat, while in Jane’s case, her whole body shivered and she breathed heavily as if even standing was difficult.
“Hey, why are you guys really here? Did you come here by mistake? Hehe…”
He let out his long tongue with a snicker.
A thin body covered with red scales, dark green hair like seaweed, and even a strange face as if a dog and a lizard were mixed together.
His appearance was like the common Kobold found in RPGs.
At a first glance, his very unsightly appearance made him look like a miscellaneous mob.
But…
I could never think of him as such.
Rather, after starting the second round, I was feeling a sense of crisis more than ever.
Damn it…to think I would run into him so soon.
Although I didn’t meet him in person, I definitely remember seeing him on the news in the first round.
I had some expectations that I was mistaken, but his appearance was so unique that it was hard to forget.
Without realizing it, I uttered his name out of my mouth.
“…Old Drakedog.”
“What? How do you know my name?”
Old Drakedog looked at me with a startled expression. As expected, my guess was right.
In the first round, he was one of the eight Apostles of Angra Mainyu, and an A-Rank villain notorious for brutally killing civilians.
Old Drakedog, ‘Dragon Dog.’
(TN: Drakedog is a reference to a famous player from World of W*rcraft.)
In particular, he was the most well-known figure among the Apostles of Angra Mainyu.
Because he, unlike the other Apostles, had a habit of showing off his atrocities.
In the midst of indiscriminately killing civilians, he would keep reporters alive and have them broadcast it, or sometimes would appear on the news to interview his thoughts and philosophy.
To put it simply, it could be said that he was an attention-seeking individual.
In fact, thanks to his past interviews, many aspects such as the existence of Angra Mainyu and the seven other apostles were made public to the media.
It was really messed up. I never thought I would meet an Apostle here…
I cursed in my head.
Since it was a Challenge related to Angra Mainyu, I thought I would encounter the Apostles sooner or later, but…
I never could have imagined that I would meet one right here today.
It felt as if I was meeting the final boss right at the start of the game.
As I thought as such, Old Drakedog tilted his head.
“Hmm…have we met before? No. You look too young for that to be the case. Hmm…well, it doesn’t matter anyway.”
“More than that, it’s bothering me that you’re next to the relic.”
“Why don’t you come this way on your own? I’ll be kind enough to kill you without pain.”
From the way the Old Drakedog spoke, I could still feel an unshakeable relaxation.
It was as if he was looking at a bug he could kill at any time.
Fucking…
I didn’t like his attitude very much, but it was too risky to face him in the current situation.
If I risked my life here, I didn’t know what kind of collateral it would cause to the luggage I was carrying for the Challenge.
Huu…the priority should be to get out of here.
I’ll put off destroying the relic until later. For now, the priority was to find a way out of here.
I picked up Angra Mainyu’s arm that was in the sarcophagus and put it straight into my inventory.
But…
“Huh??”
The arm I had put in my inventory instantly bounced back and a message appeared in front of my eyes.
[ This item cannot be stored in the inventory. ]
What was…this?
There were items that couldn’t be stored in my inventory?
I looked at the message with a dumbfounded look.
Naturally, sometimes there were restrictions with synthesizing items and skills, but this was really the first time I had run into an item that couldn’t be stored in my inventory.
Was it because it was a special quest item? Or was it because it was related to the existence called God?
I didn’t know the exact reason, but one thing was certain…
Damn it! I had no choice but to bring it with me and run away.
It was unknown whether I would be able to escape with this kind of baggage, but if I left this item here it would be the same as throwing away all of the efforts I had made so far.
And if I passed it up today, I didn’t know how much more thoroughly Old Drakedog would guard it.
It would really be the end of the reward if that happened…
As my mind became filled with many thoughts, he calmly spoke.
“I thought it was suspicious that you had unsealed it…As expected, you’re not ordinary rats. How dare you try to steal the relic.”
“Or was it an accident? In that regard, I had already prepared for such events.”
“So take it if you can. Hehe…”
He flicked his finger.
Bang–!
The arm of Angra Mainyu, which I held in my hand, was drawn into the sarcophagus like a magnet.
A shallow pool of blood was formed around the sarcophagus and it sank in an instant.
Where the sarcophagus had disappeared, there was only a little trace of blood left.
The sarcophagus was nowhere to be found.
“I’ve been guarding it for years. You don’t think I’ve prepared that much? Hehe.”
“…”
He looked at me with a grin.
According to the memory of the first round, I had thought he was a martial artist who mainly used hand-to-hand combat.
When did he prepare this kind of magic?
As a result, far from destroying the arm, even the location of the sarcophagus was unknown.
Along with it, the option to escape had now disappeared.
It was either me dying, or him dying and I would be able to recover the quest item.
If only one of the two Challenges was at stake, I might have reluctantly given up, but unfortunately, the arm was a massive reward, so there were two rewards on the line.
This has become really troublesome…
***
***
I frowned and stared at the place where the sarcophagus had disappeared. Old Drakedog grinned.
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