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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: Ruby
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Dawn broke.
The sun was rising.
I had been contemplating all night.
Should I intervene in what was happening in this transit city, Arkan?
There was also the option of completely ignoring it and heading towards Count Rubelt’s territory, which could be considered the real ‘southern region’.
However, that didn’t sit well with me either.
There was a risk of being hindered in our journey by getting caught up with Belrak’s pawns, who were said to be spread throughout the city.
It was irritating.
This whole situation itself was irritating for no particular reason.
Gelmore.
Maybe it was because I had met him face to face unnecessarily.
“There seem to be too many bad guys, Yuma!”
Cloney, who had recovered her strength with the medicine of sleep, said this after understanding the situation.
And those words became the driving force for Yuma to act.
There was clearly a bad guy.
And it didn’t seem impossible to stop him.
Yuma walked towards Meidel, the owner of the Wollo Inn, who was tied up and seated in a chair in front of the door.
“Hiiieek!”
Meidel was terrified at the sight of Yuma.
“Is there a city guard?”
“Y-Yes, there is!”
“Among them, how many have become Belrak’s pawns?”
“About half! Half!”
‘So the other half still follows Mayor Gelmore.’
Yuma’s mind raced quickly.
“Guide me to the guard.”
To avoid being bothered, he just needed to handle it with his own hands.
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The sun had risen, but in a dark building where that sunlight didn’t reach.
Gelmore, the mayor of Arkan, arrived here at Belrak’s summons.
Gelmore’s blue hair was terribly disheveled.
“…Brother.”
Because the face of the guy who was his younger brother was sprawled on the floor, beaten to a pulp.
“Fi-Filhelm… I need Filhelm… Belrak! Belrak-nim!!”
Gelmore’s younger brother, Demure, crawled on the ice-cold floor, pleading like that.
Gelmore gritted his teeth and stared at Belrak in front of him.
Belrak crossed his legs and arrogantly raised his chin.
“Mayor Gelmore, how was it? The street of pleasure I created. You must have seen it clearly with your own eyes on your way here!”
Gelmore frowned deeply.
It was as the drug lord, the Underground King Belrak, said.
The transit city of Arkan was now riddled with drugs spread by the man in front of him.
“Thanks to your excellent business skills, the drug business also became prosperous very easily. We just had to distribute drugs along the commercial routes you had established.”
Belrak had summoned him here.
And the night streets of Arkan that he had seen on his way here exceeded Gelmore’s imagination in terms of pleasure.
People with twisted bodies wandering around looking for drugs.
The words of one person who had been crawling on the ground and looked up to face him were completely etched in his mind.
“- Gelmore…? Fuck, after taking drugs. I can even see our mayor who shouldn’t be visible. Fuck! Mayor! You’re screwed! Hehehehe! Everything has become Belrak’s! The bastards who move this city. All those bastards are soaked in Belrak’s drugs, you know? Hehehehe!”
“In fact, even meeting you now is unnecessary for me. Now more than half of the city’s security force, the merchants who form the core of the city. They’re all my customers, my friends, and my subordinates!”
Belrak looked down at Gelmore, showing his yellowed teeth.
“I don’t ask for much from you, Mayor Gelmore.”
Belrak finally brought up something close to the main point.
“You can continue doing everything you’ve been doing so far.”
Gelmore’s eyes were on his brother crawling on the floor, but his ears were fully attentive to Belrak’s mouth.
“However, there will just be one more person above you giving orders. That person is me, Belrak. If you do that, I’ll continue to provide drugs to your brother so he doesn’t die and can prolong his life. So he doesn’t go crazy.”
Gelmore finally faced Belrak’s snake-like gaze that he had been avoiding.
“Are you telling me to become your puppet?”
Belrak twisted his mouth.
“If I were to put it a bit harshly, you could say that.”
Shing─
The sound of a sword being drawn resonated from Gelmore’s direction.
“The more I hear, the more I can’t bear to listen to this continued nonsense.”
Of course, it wasn’t Gelmore who drew the sword. Nor was it Gelmore who spoke.
“The mayor may not be a noble, but he is a quasi-noble directly appointed by His Majesty the Emperor and the leader of this city. He’s not an inferior being that the likes of you can order around.”
Killing intent flowed from the eyes of Knight Haros, who was standing next to Gelmore.
A clear aura flowed from the sword. Haros was a high-ranking Sword Expert knight.
An aura rising clearly like blue flames.
But strangely, Belrak wasn’t scared at all.
“Hehe, Sir Knight. Do you think I would have done this without investigating the knight who always accompanies Mayor Gelmore?”
Belrak didn’t avoid Haros’s murderous eyes.
“Knight Haros Geller. The third son of the fallen Geller Viscount family. There’s no need to fear a knight from a fallen family with nothing left.”
Haros Geller was enraged.
Literally, anger spread to the tips of his hair.
“You rootless mongrel!”
The blue sword aura he had imbued in his sword burned even more fiercely.
Belrak looked at the large man standing behind him. And he bowed deeply.
“Please.”
It was a situation that couldn’t help but be puzzling.
To both Mayor Gelmore and the knight, Belrak, who had been arrogantly disrespectful, was now showing such courtesy to someone who seemed to be his subordinate standing quietly behind him.
A voice that felt like it had seen considerable years flowed from that person.
“…Just keep your promise.”
“Of course, Elder.”
Step─
The unidentified man took a step forward.
Knight Haros’s face went blank when he saw the man’s face and his upper body toned with muscles without any excess.
It was because he was emanating an extraordinary aura from his entire body at a glance.
A height that seemed to approach 2 meters.
White hair hanging down like a lion’s mane.
And a deep scar etched across his left eye.
Haros stared at the old man with a hardened face.
“…Why is someone like you behind such a person?”
Low words flowed from the old man’s mouth.
“To see the ultimate truth of the sword.”
Haros looked carefully into the old man’s eyes.
No matter how he looked at it, he was saying crazy things.
The ultimate truth of the sword?
There was no way he could realize such a thing by being next to that pig-like guy.
“You’re just a senile old man!!”
That cry, almost like a death throe, shook the building.
Haros stomped the ground hard and moved forward.
Whoosh!
Both their swords extended simultaneously. Their positions were reversed and.
Slash────────
The one who fell after that chilling sound of flesh being cut was Haros.
What was rising from the sword held in the old man’s right hand was a red sword aura.
Sword Aura Blade, clear evidence that he had reached the realm of Sword Master.
The old man, who had crushed Haros with an overwhelming difference in level, sheathed his sword with an expressionless face.
Mayor Gelmore couldn’t believe this situation.
His two pupils captured the image of Knight Haros, who had become a cold corpse.
“As long as the former 2nd Seat, Sword God Chronos, is behind me, there’s no one here who can interfere with me, Mayor Gelmore.”
“Former Imperial 2nd Seat…?”
At Belrak’s words, Gelmore stared at the old man, the former Imperial 2nd Seat Sword God Chronos, with a dumbfounded face.
Why was such a monster acting as Belrak’s subordinate?
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“Arghh!”
Yuma threw Meidel, the owner of the Wollo Inn, to the ground.
The place Yuma arrived at with Cloney was Arkan’s guard station.
Yuma’s purpose for coming here was simple.
It was to find guides and meat shields that would lead him to Belrak.
Rattle─
Yuma opened the door of the guard station.
It was inevitable that attention would be drawn to a man and a young girl opening the door of the security forces early in the morning.
“Who are you?”
And even before Yuma opened the door, the atmosphere in the guard station was hostile.
Out of the total of about 70 guard members, half had already become Belrak’s subordinates.
Everyone knew that today was the day of the big move to grab Mayor Gelmore by the throat.
That’s why those who still supported Gelmore and those who supported Belrak were keeping each other in check in a cold atmosphere.
Yuma took out the golden badge from his chest.
“Representative of First Princess Brigitte.”
And he dropped it on the table.
“I am Yuma, the sword of the princess. Arkan Guard. I’ve happened to obtain information that half of you have gone under some lowlife named Belrak.”
“Ha! Representative of the princess? The princess’s sword? Coming here with some cheap gilt badge…”
Swoosh!
A guard with a vicious look extended his sword. Yuma lazily countered the attack with his dagger.
Clang!
“Huh?”
A purple sickle appeared in the man’s vision.
Slash!
And that was the last thing he saw.
The guard’s body, with his neck brutally cut, crashed to the floor.
Since not a single person had seen Yuma extend his attack, everyone was frozen in place.
“As the representative of the First Princess, I command you.”
Yuma opened his mouth again.
“If you consider yourself a member of Arkan’s guard and not Belrak’s dog, kill the dogs of Belrak next to you right now.”
A chilling air filled the guard station.
“Prove your loyalty to the empire.”
And those words struck a chord in one guard’s heart.
Shing!
The guard who drew his sword shouted with veins bulging in his neck.
“Kill Belrak’s dogs!”
Shing! Shing!
The sound of swords being drawn continued.
And the Arkan guards extended their swords towards Belrak’s dogs.
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Sheeesss