* * *
Swish!! The knight who was trying with all his strength to retrieve his sword from Davey lost his balance and fell toward the prince instead.
Once the knight fell, Davey immediately let go of the sword. He then placed his hand on the knight’s stomach.
[5th Circle]
[Zero-charge Thunder]
Boom!!
“Keuhuk!!”
With a sudden sound, a magnificent blinding light momentarily engulfed the surroundings before disappearing. Sizzle… The knight now looked like a piece of burnt meat.
Davey glanced at the stiffened knight with boredom, then his expression hardened. He said, “So, they told you to kill us.”
Realizing that something was off, the knights tried to move.
“Don’t cause a ruckus in a hospital room, you asses.”
“Kuk!!!”
Davey could see confusion arising in the knights, all of whom he slammed to the ground with ease. ‘They are being pressed to the ground by an unknown pressure. Of course they are in disbelief.’
For the knights, this mission should have been an easy success, since the assassination target wasn’t someone to be cautious about. Obviously, the knights were now baffled, because the situation wasn’t what they expected.
“Well, you should know that your death is also a possibility during an assassination,” Davey spoke calmly. He felt one of the knights flinch as he stepped on them.
-Davey, if you shed blood here…
‘That’s why I’m not using my sword.’ Davey had no intentions of shedding blood here.
[5th Circle]
[Zero-charge Thunder]
This was a proximal-type 5th-circle magic spell that caused a high-voltage shock. Its force was so strong that it could knock out a troll, who had an incredible recovery speed, in just about two hits. It was also the most advanced magic spell Davey could currently use with the highest circle level he could employ. This was also the best way to get rid of the knights without causing a scene.
“Keuhuk… W… What is…” The knights all turned pale, realizing just who had caused their comrade to fall to the ground.
At the same time, the knights who had barely escaped from Davey charged at him. Thump… Of course they were surprised that Davey was using magic, but there was no way they could have known that his main weapon of choice was a sword.
“Kuk?!”
Boom!!
Davey took another step forward as another knight fell to the ground.
“W—Wait!”
Boom!!!
Shriek!! Realizing that something was wrong and that they had to escape, the knights who were still standing quickly turned away to run. However…
“I’m coming. Let me see your backs.”
Boom!!
[Fast-traveling Teleportation]
[Flash]
‘You shouldn’t show your back so easily.’ Leaving an afterimage of himself, Davey instantly charged toward the knights. He was soon ahead of them, burning them all into a crisp. With the intense smell of burning flesh wafting through the air, Davey called out, “Jack.”
“Do you need something?”
“Get rid of the bodies. And kill any enemies that come in here.”
“I will calculate this into my final compensation.”
“I don’t know how big of a compensation you are going to ask for, but sure.”
Jack—no, Aina Helishana, who stood beside Davey like she had never left, nodded quietly. Then. she vanished into thin air.
“Baron Gorneo.”
Leaving the tent, Davey could see Gorneo’s eyes grow wide when he called out. Gorneo seemed to have a hard time believing what had happened in front of his eyes. ‘Man, a lot of things surprise you.’
“Please stay back and keep treating them,” Davey told Gorneo.
“T—Then, Your Highness…”
“I will come back after exterminating those worthless humans.”
Gorneo stood in front of the tent with no words.
* * *
After leaving the treatment center, Davey could see the knights in red uniforms come out from his surroundings.
“The target uses a strange electricity! Capture him carefully!”
There were about twenty or thirty knights, all of whom weren’t ordinary. They were all skilled above the ‘Expert’ level.
Davey didn’t have Red Ribbon and Blue Ribbon as weapons. The only person he could think of as a suitable fighting partner was Aina Helishana, but he had already given her the order to stop anyone from coming to this area.
-Davey.
“The tracking magic spell I put on Winley has begun to move,” Davey muttered with irritation.
Davey put his hand in the air. Whoosh!! His mana, which was circulating in his body, spread throughout the territory as a very thin and large wavelength. Since he didn’t have a weapon…
“Everyone! Eliminate the target!”
Stab!!!
“Keugh?!”
Davey had no choice but to bring one.
One of the attacking knights fell to the ground, bisected.
A red light rapidly dived through the sky and left an afterimage. Shwing… At the same time, a Ring Pommel Sword that scattered a red light resonated with a creepy metallic sound. Red Ribbon fell into Davey’s hand as it emitted a dangerously red light.
Whee… Stab!! Something blue fell into Davey’s hands after flying through the air. During its flight, it slashed another two knights.
[Telekinetic Blade Control]
[Divine Sword Art: Ego Blade]
[Cosmic Sword Dance]
The skill was a simple Blade Control that used Red Ribbon and Blue Ribbon, steering the swords while they remained in the air. To outsiders, the swords had seemingly come to life and were slashing the enemy themselves… But that was technically true since both swords had egos.
Davey immediately pointed Red Ribbon down and twisted Blue Ribbon so that it faced the sky. Without hesitation, he stepped out with his left foot and saluted before taking on a fighting stance.
If he remained caught up with these meddlesome knights, Davey would be wasting his time. So he decided that his best option was to get rid of them now, so that they wouldn’t end up slowing him down.
Davey applied an explosive force to his left foot, and he put pressure on the ground. His sword flashed in the air as he used the rebound from his foot to jump up. ‘They were all ‘Expert’? I think the assassins I met while traveling to the Felicity Territory were stronger than this.’
* * *
“Kyaa!! W—Wait! Wait, stop…!” The knight who screamed and crawled on the floor…was beheaded. His head flew up in the air.
Davey slashed multiple knights as he quickly moved through them. They were all positioned strategically to hold him up for as long as they could. He could practically feel their malicious intent. Davey thought that he would have had a hard time with them if he was just some mediocre ‘Master’.
-Why did they target Yulis and Winley?
“Probably an excuse.”
“Shriek! P—Please!”
Splatter! Davey was in a quiet forest; he unhesitantly beheaded the knight, since he had nothing to watch out for.
“There are only two council members, so some of them should listen to Baron Gorneo, right?” After pondering for a moment, Davey realized that they were all subordinates of Count Lington.
-Excuses?
“It’s kind of funny because I honestly just thought of it, but they can’t just kill us and act like nothing happened. There’s still rank to think about.”
Davey had placed a protection spell on Winley, but it was too draining to keep it up. Because he could only use magic at about the 5th circle, he had switched the protection spell to a tracking spell, which he could maintain for longer. But now this had happened. Well, a protection spell was probably useless if the opponent was a ‘Swordmaster’.
“Yulis is an elder of the Red Tower, and Winley and I are royal members of the Rowane Kingdom.”
-Right.
As he walked past the cold bodies on the ground, Davey approached an ajar iron door that was under a gigantic tree. Someone had arrived before he did, and the only person he could think of was Yulis.
“If we died, the Orden Territory would be examined to determine what happened. The best excuse would be us being attacked by barbarians or monsters, and both cases are possible in the Ordem Territory. What could the royal palace or the Red Tower do if they just said that we died while defending the territory from invaders?”
-What does that have to do with kidnapping Winley?
“Um… I don’t know for sure, but it seems to just be an excuse for later on.” After speaking calmly, Davey quickly headed underground, one that was carefully made to be rather sturdy. However, he cut through all the walls blocking him with Red Ribbon and marched on. “Winley went missing. So, the Knights of Destruction, Count Colio, the captain of the order, left the territory to find her. Then, there was an attack.”
‘This would be enough for them to avoid responsibility.’
“A—An intrud… Keugh!” One of the Knights of Destruction shouted upon noticing Davey’s presence.
Davey pierced his fingers into the knight’s neck, causing a sharp stab into the flesh. He kicked the fallen knight who was spewing blood, then slashed the wall once more to reveal a large space.
The area was too big for a thorough search, but Davey was unfazed. He already knew of Winley’s approximate location. If the path was blocked by a tough wall, Davey was going to break it with Red Ribbon. If there were someone getting in the way, he would simply slash them.
-But then, did they really have to do that to Winley… They could’ve just said that it happened…
Davey could hear Perserque’s confused mumbling, but he just focused on the bottom of the void. The situation was so unspeakably atrocious that it couldn’t be described in any other way.
-Oh my…
Davey and Perserque could see hundreds of people, who were tied to a bed with strange cells transplanted to them.
“Did the knights try to capture me alive?”
Perserque thought about it for a second, then nodded.
-The only possibility is that they were trying to obtain a high-level mage or a person with stigmata, since these people are hard to come by.
‘How dare they.’
* * *
“What is…” Gorneo, left behind at the treatment center, was still in panic. He couldn’t comprehend just what had happened in front of his eyes.
“What are you doing?”
But then, Gorneo heard a manly, emotionless voice that snapped him out of it. When he turned around, he saw a man wearing a black uniform with a black mask covering his entire face.
“You are…”
“I will make sure to carry out my part of the deal. You do your job.”
Baron Gorneo flinched. “You are fine with this situation?!”
“So what if I am not?” Gorneo’s eyes opened wide as Jack continued, “Are you going to abandon the patients in front of you because the knights caused a problem?”
“O—Of course not!”
“Then why are you stopping? You should do your job if Prince Davey trusted you to.”
“B—But if the entire Knights of Destruction! And if it is true that Count Colio’s involved in this matter!”
“If it is?”
“Isn’t Prince Davey also in danger?! Do you not have to help?!”
Gorneo’s concerns were valid; all of the knights in Knights of Destruction were above the ‘Expert’ level, and their captain, Count Colio, was once a famous ‘Swordmaster’. However, Davey was left alone and without a weapon to face enemies as powerful as these. It was true that Davey had some strange, unexpected power, but Gorneo didn’t think that it was a magic bullet.
However, Jack didn’t seem to agree with Gorneo. He asked, “Who is worrying about who right now?”
“What?” Gorneo asked.
“You’re worrying about Prince Davey? Ha…”
For the first time, Gorneo could feel emotion from Jack: bafflement.
“Frankly, there’s nothing more useless in the world than worrying about him,” Jack stated as though it was the most obvious fact in the world.
“…”
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