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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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‘Based on the information gained from this round, if we deduce… in the end, the lord couldn’t borrow the dwarf, so he couldn’t repair the road, and Kuman pretended to help the lord, sent Kayla, and then ran away.’
And as a result, with no one to stop Athena, Kuman’s forces were wiped out, excluding me.
In a way, it was a just outcome.
By the way, the reason I survived was because I didn’t fight Athena.
At that time, my combat power was practically non-existent.
‘Still, if I had attacked… she would have killed me and committed suicide.’
As a result, I survived, and after going through all sorts of twists and turns, It ended up like this.
“But where is the lord? I was just about to go see him… Why isn’t he answering?”
“…Please step back, Master.”
Just then, Baldur seemed to have noticed something and blocked Kuman’s way.
“Why are you doing this, Baldur? Aren’t I talking to Jimnis right now?”
“…There’s an undead.”
“What?”
Kuman’s gaze quickly turned to where Baldur was looking.
There, the specter I had summoned was flying in the sky.
“What is this…? Why is there an undead here!”
On top of that, when he spotted the skeleton, his expression hardened.
“…A warlock? Don’t tell me this monster wave…”
“If that were possible, I would have taken over this place long ago. I’m a victim too.”
I calmly answered.
“I never thought you were a warlock…”
Kuman’s expression instantly stiffened.
“…We’ll pretend we didn’t see this. Can’t you just let us go?”
In the meantime, it seemed he had grasped the situation.
I had revealed my identity and even blocked their way.
Kuman, a quick-witted merchant, couldn’t possibly misunderstand my intentions.
“You know that’s not possible, right?”
“Didn’t we have a good relationship?”
“Well, that’s true with you. But there’s someone who has a bad relationship with you.”
I glanced at Athena, and she immediately stepped forward.
“…Didn’t you say you had no grudge against me?”
“That’s because I couldn’t make an enemy out of you in that situation. What kind of sister in the world wouldn’t hate the person who sold her younger sibling into slavery?”
“I only bought someone who was brought to me. I didn’t kidnap your sister.”
“You knew it was an unjust situation, right? My sister had no reason to become a slave. You bought her knowing that.”
“I took your sister to the temple.”
“In the end, it was Inha who cured her. Not you. And you only did that to sell her, right? Why bring that up now?”
A vicious smile appeared on Athena’s face.
“As a slave trader, you must have expected to accumulate grudges to some extent, right? Now that grudge has just come back to you. There’s nothing strange about it, right?”
Seeing her expression, a strange feeling arose in me.
It was familiar, yet different.
‘The same vicious appearance, but at the same time, she was sad.’
Even the place was similar.
Although the location was different, it was inside this secret passage where she had staged the rebellion.
However, now there was no sadness on Athena’s face.
Thea was alive and well, and all that remained was pure vengeance.
“Let’s settle this old grudge here. Who knows? Maybe you can survive if you defeat me.”
While Athena was provoking Kuman, Kayla approached me and spoke.
“If you’re going to make a dungeon here… how about keeping some of them alive?”
“You want me to keep people alive?”
“Yes. They will probably be useful in many ways. Given the situation, even if Master is a warlock, there will be plenty of people who will submit to you.”
“…Are you talking about Baldur?”
“If you spare him, he will probably serve you well. He’s the most capable person I’ve seen so far, aside from Athena.”
She said it would be a bit of a waste to kill him like this.
“I’m not necessarily saying to use him as a comrade. If you spare him, he’ll make a pretty useful middle manager.”
‘I don’t really need people though…’
It wouldn’t be bad to have them, but it was not necessary.
Most of my forces were planned to be filled with undead.
However, it was true that at this time, humans were more useful than undead.
‘As for food… well, we can slowly secure the surface, so there won’t be a shortage…’
It wouldn’t be impossible to maintain a small group.
‘Besides, it seems to bother her.’
Although she told him not to call her teacher, she had taught him in the past.
If not, maybe she didn’t want to see her disciples fighting each other.
I decided to grant her this much.
“Don’t kill Baldur.”
“What about Kuman?”
“I don’t care.”
“Well, sure. I felt a bit uncomfortable since he was once Teacher’s disciple, so it’s alright.”
Athena responded with a smile at my words.
Baldur’s eyebrows twitched upon hearing her words.
‘He probably thinks he was underestimated.’
Sorry, but in reality, Baldur was no match for Athena.
I had even seen them actually fight, and in the first place, he wasn’t in a normal physical condition.
A faint aura emanated from her dagger.
Her current self was a powerful individual, no less than the Athena in the first round who had single-handedly killed all of Kuman’s guards.
Kuman’s eyes quickly scanned the surroundings.
However, there was nothing he could do at the moment.
Athena and Baldur charged at each other, and the collision of their aura’s spread light in the air.
And someone, hearing the commotion, approached this way.
“What’s going on…”
“You finally came.”
“Jimnis…?”
“Lord.”
Behind him, I could see Rankbink struggling to move his feet and Summer supporting him.
‘Still better than Kuman.’
At least Summer and Rankbink, his loyal retainers, were with him.
Further back, several servants were carrying a lot of luggage, and at the very back were Banis Owalan, the successor, and the dwarf slave Mutre.
It felt like a larger procession than I expected.
While Kuman had only taken the bare minimum and fled, the lord seemed to have taken as much as he could.
“I thought you would arrive a bit earlier. Was the person I sent late? You must have prepared the luggage long ago.”
“…Seeing you fight Kuman, it wasn’t brought by him. Was there another entrance by any chance?”
“I made one.”
“I ran away from the monsters only to find a warlock… You know what happens when a warlock kills a noble, right?”
“Who knows? Someone has to know about it first. If you die here, who will know? And I’m just…”
I looked at the luggage the servants were carrying and Mutre standing next to Banis and said,
“I’m just trying to receive my overdue compensation.”
“…I’ll give you as much money as you want. So get out of the way.”
“Will you really give me my compensation?”
“Tell me. How much do you want? Ten gold coins? Or do you want more gems?”
“No. I don’t really need that kind of money. What I want is…”
I answered while counting on my fingers.
“First, I’ll need Sir Rankbink’s corpse. I happen to need to make a skeleton.”
“And I need to make a dungeon in the underground tunnels of this territory. I’d like to have Mutre as well. Ah, Mutre is the name of that dwarf.”
“What kind of crazy nonsense…”
“And Banis Owalan, who coveted my subordinate Kayla, also needs to pay the price. Hmm… his tongue that spoke filthy words and his lower body he said he would use to warm himself should suffice. If he pays the price and survives, well, I can spare his life.”
“And… what should I receive from you, Lord, who exploited me as you pleased in the name of requests?”
“You bastard…”
“Since I’ll take care of the territory myself… I think I can compromise with just your head.”
I looked straight into the lord’s eyes and said,
“So, will you give me everything and pass through?”
The lord looked at me as if I was a madman and said,
“You’re crazy. You’re indeed a low-born warlock.”
No, he outright called me a madman.
He seemed to have realized that there was no way to communicate with me, that there was no point of compromise from the beginning.
In a one-sided situation, there was only one-sided exploitation.
If he wanted to get out of here alive, there was no other way than to fight and kill me.
Of course, the possibility of that was not only slim but non-existent.
“So, you’re refusing?”
“Would you do all of that if you were me? What? Give up my only knight, Siglen’s dwarf, my successor, and even my head, and then walk away? Do you want me to walk away with my head cut off?”
“There is a way to walk even with your head cut off. I can make that happen too.”
The lord threw a fit at my provocation.
“You’re truly insane. To say you’ll turn me, a noble of the kingdom, into an undead. If I had known you were a warlock, I wouldn’t have even associated with you!”
I smiled lightly as I listened to his words.
“A noble of the kingdom… You couldn’t even properly guard a single territory, shaken inside and out, and in the end, you abandoned everything and fled. What’s so noble about that?”
“That’s not my responsibility…”
“It is your fault. Stop making excuses. Since our negotiation has failed, I’ll have to take what I want myself.”
“…You call that a negotiation? Are you in your right mind?”
“Then it’s a negotiation. If that’s not a negotiation, then the requests you gave me were actually orders, right?”
At first, it was tolerable as he only used his authority a little, but the more he was cornered, the more he tried to exploit me and my companions.
Pretending to give me benefits as an honorary soldier and using us as he pleased, and putting us in the ant nest extermination despite knowing our strength, there was no room for excuses.
On top of that, there was the war mobilization he said he wouldn’t do.
Especially the ant nest extermination was a very dangerous request (order) considering our publicly known strength at the time.
Despite seeing our publicly known strength, giving such a request (order) was nothing more than a reckless order to bring back food, whether my companions died or not, because it was necessary for the territory.
After we brought it back, he pushed the errand and village defense duties onto us next.
“I paid the price, and it’s natural for the people to serve the lord. What’s wrong with that?”
“…It’s truly disgusting. Just die thinking that way.”
Indeed, seeing the bottom of human nature wasn’t a pleasant experience.
“I’ll just think of it as taking the price I didn’t receive. Kayla. Everyone except Mutre…”
“W-Wait! Wait a moment, Sir Jimnis!”
The one who stepped forward was Banis, the lord’s son.
“Ah, Young Master. Long time no see.”
I answered politely without hiding my annoyed expression.
When I casually called him Young Master and even greeted him in this situation, perhaps the sense of dissonance was quite terrifying, as Banis let out a small hiccup.
“Wh-What’s going on? Why are you… a warlock, and why are you killing us…?”
“Come to think of it, you haven’t fully paid the price for your request either, Young Master.”
“…Th-That’s because my request isn’t finished yet…”
Well, his request was to safely escort Mutre to Siglen.
“Then you shouldn’t have run away in the middle like this. Running away and getting caught, and then making excuses that the request isn’t finished yet, it’s disappointing.”
“I-I apologize for that…”
“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of the price myself. And I have a personal grievance with you, Young Master. I’d like to resolve that old sentiment on this occasion.”
“What…”
“Kayla is mine. It means she’s not someone you can borrow for a night with a single word. I didn’t show it at the time, but I was very displeased.”
Tap, tap, tap.
Banis couldn’t utter a single word.
Perhaps the ominous feeling and pressure emanating from me stimulated his fear, as he was just gritting his teeth and trembling.
“So I’d like to resolve that sentiment on this occasion as well. As I mentioned earlier, your tongue and lower body should suffice. I think that much will quell my anger.”
There is no human who can survive with a severed tongue and a body cut in half.
It meant for him to just die.
“F-Forgiveness…”
“I’m not the type to forgive just because you apologize a bit. If you ran your mouth recklessly, you have to pay the price.”
I said with one corner of my mouth raised, and finally, Banis staggered and stepped back a few steps.
Mutre was watching me with no particular change in expression.
No, there was a hint of satisfaction in his eyes.
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