Chapter 160 : Outbreak (5)

Luis ran. Clatter followed him.

At the top floor of the Ladrier Hotel, Luis reached the luxurious hallway with its red carpet and ran directly to the room at the opposite end.

Room 808.

It was the room where Jaygie was supposedly locked up.

Was Dayle still inside? Or had he safely escaped with Jaygie?

‘I hope it was just a needless worry.’

But as if to mock his hope, a scream immediately tore through the hallway.

Aaaaaaah──!

It was unmistakably Jaygie’s.

Luis accelerated his run.

Even the composed Luis felt his heart sink at that moment.

What happened to the two of them?

Were Dayle and Jaygie alright?

His mind was a mess with growing anxiety.

All his nerves and senses were focused there, and because his field of vision had narrowed, Luis didn’t notice the attack that suddenly came from the side and allowed it to hit him.

“Day… Ugh!”

Luis, who was just about to call out to Dayle and was passing through the center of the hallway, was thrown by the impact, piercing through the wall and getting stuck inside it.

***

“Huff! Huff!”

Dayle was gasping for breath.

The reason he was able to evade the Death Knight’s first strike was purely thanks to his consistent efforts.

Dayle had made many and varied efforts to achieve his goal of rebuilding Shadow and to become a vital part of that project, and one of them was sparring.

Dayle was lacking in combat ability in many ways, and he considered it his weakness.

So, he would occasionally get guidance from Clatter and Luis to improve his real-world combat experience and instincts, and this effort had paid off, saving his life just moments ago.

The moment he felt danger, his instincts made him step back, and that split-second judgment made the death-energy-infused blade miss him.

“Aaaaah!”

…Although, Jaygie, who saw it from behind, seemed to have already concluded in her mind that Dayle’s neck had been cut off.

“I-it’s okay! I’m fine. Haa. Huff!”

Anyway, Dayle, who barely managed to avoid the blade and fell back onto the bed, touched his neck with his sleeve.

Thick blood stained the sleeve, and a sharp pain was felt in his neck.

Although he avoided the blade itself, the death energy surrounding it had torn his skin.

The moment he saw the blood, Dayle froze.

He was overwhelmed by the fear of death, of almost having his neck cut off, and the death energy and immense pressure emanating from the Death Knight.

In the Death Knight’s hand, the Third Eye was crushed.

The remnants seemed to show him his own future.

Gulp.

Dayle was able to regain his composure thanks to Luis’s voice, which he vaguely heard from the outside.

Although it was buried by the sound of something collapsing that followed, it was definitely Luis’s voice from the hallway.

“Luis!”

There was no answer.

Just like him, had something happened there as well?

Dayle gritted his teeth.

To check the situation outside and to safely get Jaygie out, he had to first get rid of the Death Knight blocking his way.

His two wide-open eyes gleamed with different lights.

The mana flowing around him was twisted by Dayle’s will without fail, and the destination of that twisted flow was the musket in his right hand.

As he poured all the mana into it, the two magic formations on the barrel began to emit a strange heat with a blue glow.

[Mana Charge]

[Target Weakness]

Wiiiing──

A haze rose from the heated barrel.

Mana condensed around the musket.

Sensing the unusual aura, the Death Knight immediately prepared its next attack, but.

Wiiiiiing!

The charged barrel was aimed at the Death Knight first. Dayle pulled the trigger.

Bang!

With a shot, the fired mana bullet tore through the air, aiming for the Death Knight’s forehead.

Shhhwiiing!

However, the Death Knight dodged it with a slight tilt of its head.

It didn’t matter.

He never expected to be able to neutralize the Death Knight with a single shot anyway.

Like flowing water, Dayle was already moving on to his next action.

This time, it was his other hand.

He changed the mana flow, charged mana into the musket in his left hand, and aimed for the weakness and fired again.

Bang!

Next, he raised the musket in his right hand, charged mana, and aimed.

Bang!

Then again, the musket in his left hand with mana charged, aimed.

Bang!

And the other side again.

Bang!

This process repeated infinitely.

Dudududududuu──!

Blue flames burst out madly.

At first, the Death Knight was dodging with minimal movements, but eventually, with the fourth mana bullet, it was forced to raise its sword.

K-k-k-klang!

As the bullets rained down like a storm of projectiles, the Death Knight swung its sword furiously.

“Dieee!”

Dayle shouted with a look of pure exasperation.

The sight of the Death Knight, with a dry expression, deflecting all the mana bullet volleys aimed at its head, truly made it look like a monster.

No. That thing was a monster with infinite stamina that never got tired.

On the other hand, he was a human with a limited amount of mental power.

The longer this went on, the more disadvantageous it would be for him.

He had to make a decision.

Just then, Jaygie, who was curled up like a shrimp at the head of the bed, trembling, came into Dayle’s sight.

Thanks to him tying up the Death Knight with a flurry of mana bullets from the start, she hadn’t suffered any direct harm yet, but as he said, Dayle’s mental power was not infinite.

Even now, his eyes felt like they were about to pop out, and if his mana supply was cut off, the Death Knight’s attack would resume and, the next attack would surely end his life.

‘Yeah, I admit it. With the abilities I have right now, I can’t even begin to stop this damn Death Knight, let alone defeat it.’

The moment the Death Knight appeared, his mission to rescue Jaygie had as good as failed.

In the current situation, he couldn’t even guess if he could escape alone, let alone with Jaygie.

However──,

‘I may have failed, but that doesn’t mean the mission has failed.’

Dayle’s eyes, even in this tragic situation, still burned brightly, like the flame bursting from the musket barrels in his hands.

Dayle stopped pulling the trigger like a madman.

He stopped the barrage and immediately crossed the barrels of the two muskets in his hands in an ‘X’.

To his surprise, the patterns at the intersection of the barrels connected to form a new magic formation.

That magic formation was, [Attribute Imbuement – Great Explosion]

He looked ahead, and as expected, the Death Knight charged at him the moment the barrage stopped.

Dayle aimed the crossed barrels.

Not at the Death Knight charging at him. But at the floor.

Click!

And he spoke softly to her, Jaygie, who was behind him.

“Get out. Luis will be waiting for you.”

At the same time, he pulled the triggers of both muskets with all his might.

Baaaang──!

The explosive flame from the crossed barrels created a large hole in the floor.

The floor sank, and the resulting sinkhole instantly swallowed everything on it.

Rumble…

When Jaygie, who was trembling on the bed, raised her head, the threatening Death Knight was no longer in front of her.

Nor was Dayle’s dependable back.

Only a pitch-black abyss with no clear end opened its mouth.

.

.

.

.

.

Clink-

“Huh?”

What was that?

“What’s wrong, Gerard?”

“Oh, sorry. Just a second. I dropped something.”

I bent down and picked up what had just fallen to the floor.

It was a gold coin.

It wasn’t gold, the common currency of the Empire, but an artifact beautifully engraved with a crescent moon, looking more like a work of art.

Its name was Eclipse.

It was an object made by Dayle and had become the new symbol of Shadow by my command.

‘Why did it suddenly fall? It was tied to my belt, so it shouldn’t have fallen off.’

I was tilting my head at it when I heard a voice calling me again.

“I don’t know what it is, but if it’s not important, hurry up. It’s time.”

I looked at him.

“Is it already that time?”

“It is.”

Now that I thought about it, a loud engine sound was already coming from all around.

“Let’s go.”

I nodded and followed him. As I walked, I thought.

‘Nothing bad will happen, right?’

Well, it won’t. Because Luis is there, in Icata.

‘I can rest easy with that guy there.’

I put Eclipse in my pocket and walked with a light heart.

It hadn’t been that long since we parted, but I already missed them.

***

Luis shook his head from the vibrations of the explosion.

Having been ambushed in the hallway and thrown through a wall, he was now lying in an empty guest room.

He lifted his head.

In front of him was a hole in the wall, clearly made by his body.

Although the inside was filled with debris that had fallen from above, he could easily guess that the hallway was just beyond that wall.

He shook his head, and a shower of stone dust that had piled up on him fell away and blood, too.

“Ugh.”

As he tried to get up, his body cried out in pain.

The side of his body where he was first ambushed ached especially.

His ribs seemed to be broken.

He looked down and saw that his white hotelier vest was tattered, and the exposed skin was covered in a terrible bruise.

The injury looked as if he had been struck with a massive, hard metal club.

And soon, Luis met the culprit who had put his body in this state.

“What? I thought you’d be sleeping on the floor, but you’re awake?”

Dorian came in through the open door, looking at Luis with curiosity.

“Is it because of that explosion earlier?”

He scratched his beard and then suddenly chuckled.

“It doesn’t matter anyway.”

“…”

“So. Can you get up? If it’s too hard, just sit.”

Dorian looked around and plopped down in a chair.

He then took out a hip flask from his pocket and brought it to his lips.

“Ugh. This vodka tastes good. Vodka is the best, isn’t it? What do you think?”

“…What are you up to?”

Dorian let out a cynical laugh.

“What am I up to? Nothing. I just want to talk. Aren’t we close enough for that? We used to eat from the same pot, you know. And it’s just the two of us here anyway, isn’t it?”

Now that he mentioned it, he didn’t see Clatter, who had come up with him. He should have come to save Luis by now.

‘Are they fighting…?’

Just as Luis had been ambushed by Dorian, there was no guarantee that Clatter wouldn’t be as well.

After all, this was their home ground.

And his prediction was exactly right.

“Your companion who came up with you is fighting my companion outside. You saw him earlier, didn’t you? That tall, gloomy-looking, quiet pervert. He’s pretty strong, aside from the fact that he’s a lunatic who has a crush on his younger sister.”

“…”

“Or is he? Seeing that he commands two Death Knights, maybe he’s not just ‘pretty strong’ but definitely strong? Anyway.”

Dorian shrugged and continued.

“That diversion you used to save the girl was pretty good, you know? If it weren’t for Vallary, we would have been completely fooled. Heh heh.”

“…”

“Looking back, it was weird, right? It’s not like you, a guy even my master acknowledged, to make such a sloppy mistake. Huh?”

Luis’s face darkened.

From what he heard, High Cleric Vallary, who was not in his intel, was a much more dangerous person than he thought.

‘Two Death Knights…’

The rumor that he was an eccentric who refused a bishop’s seat didn’t seem to be an exaggeration at all.

If so, it was possible that Dayle was also in trouble…

“…”

He suddenly remembered the loud explosion that had just shaken the entire floor.

“So. What do you want to talk about?”

Luis got up. His entire body screamed in protest, but he didn’t show it.

His mind was now completely filled with Dayle’s safety.

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