Chapter 173
Chapter 173
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 173
Chapter Title: The Wise Old Woman of the Mountain
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Wandering through the pale, moonlit desert night, an unexpected sight appeared before them.
“Well, I’ll be damned.”
Master Baro gasped in astonishment.
The corpse of a desert horse lay sprawled out before them, as if it had been waiting for the two to find it.
“Isn’t this the horse that elf lady was riding when she scurried off?”
Dale nodded silently.
After a moment of silence, Dale spoke.
“It seems they didn’t intend to just leave us to die in the desert.”
“Ah, you mean another one of those damn tests or whatever bullshit they’re pulling?”
“That’s just their way.”
Elven society is an extremely rigid, conservative community that values tradition and rules to an obsessive degree. To assimilate, one has no choice but to obey their rules. That must be why Dale's master, Sephia, became an exile and now wanders imperial society.
“Anyway, didn't you say you learned the sword from the Wise Old Woman of the Mountain? Don't you have some decent survival know-how for a time like this?”
Dale asked, and Master Baro paused to think.
“Hmm, well, it's not that I have nothing. It's just a bit...”
“A bit?”
“It's a ridiculously brutal method.”
“Are we in any position to be picky?”
“Heh heh, after rolling with me for a bit, seeing the great young lord with a mouth like a sailor... it's so damn heartwarming.”
“Son of a bitch.”
Master Baro cackled, and Dale swore again.
It was then.
“...!”
*Shink!*
Master Baro drew his hidden blade and plunged it into the desert horses. The two horses meant for Dale and Baro died without even a chance to scream.
Simultaneously, blood gushed from the two horses, soaking the desert sand.
“...What are you doing?”
“Heh heh, well, we can't exactly go sticking knives in our own bellies, can we?”
Master Baro said, and only then did Dale tilt his head in confusion.
“There's an old saying.”
Master Baro continued, unconcerned.
“Blood calls to blood.”
The desert horses' blood was spilled, and it wasn't long before something happened.
From the distance, having caught the scent of blood, a ‘predator of the desert’ was rapidly cutting through the sand.
“The things out here can smell blood like ghosts from hundreds of li away and come flocking.”
Master Baro readjusted his grip on his hidden blade and swung it down toward that very predator.
Into empty air.
*Slish!*
“Kieeeek-!”
But no sooner had he swung at empty air than the sand monster rushing toward them shrieked and revealed its body. The creature's blood splattered onto the sand, and Master Baro once again swung his blade through the air.
The power of distortion, manipulating phase—the skill of the continent's greatest assassin.
He twisted the phase of the coordinate system, connecting the point where he swung to the point where the sand monster was hiding.
It was an absurd ability, truly befitting the name Killing Sword.
“Heh heh, are you speechless at my brilliance?”
Master Baro laughed as if it were someone else's affair, and Dale extended his arm—a prosthetic made of shadow.
*Bang!*
The shadow prosthetic wavered, and a bullet of darkness shot from its fingertip. It flew toward an empty patch of sand. Simultaneously, blood erupted from that spot, and a monster's scream echoed.
It was a Sand Lurker.
“Blood calls to blood, you said.”
The two horses drew the desert predators, and now those predators were spilling their own blood. Furthermore, even these predators were by no means at the top of this desert's food chain.
*Rumble!*
The surrounding desert twisted as if in an earthquake, and a monstrously large creature, incomparable in size to what they had seen before, was sliding toward them.
It was a giant desert worm.
The blood of the predators was attracting an even higher-tier predator that hunted them. A desert predator whose massive bulk made creatures like the Sand Lurkers seem laughable.
Dale turned to face the giant worm that was tearing through the area.
“「Gatling Style」.”
His shadow cloak, which had long since surpassed being a mere favored item and was now assimilating with his very body, began to form black gun barrels.
A torrent of shadow bullets splattered the giant worm's blood across the desert sand once more. A sea of blood, incomparable to what had been spilled so far, now coated the desert floor.
“Are there predators higher than this?”
“Ah, this is just the beginning. That thing is literally just a 'worm.'”
Master Baro laughed heartily.
“Looks like we've suddenly found ourselves on a tour of the desert ecosystem.”
Leaving the endless howls of predators echoing from beyond the horizon behind him, Dale muttered as if it were someone else's problem.
***
Dawn's faint twilight seeped over the desert horizon. It was a purplish hue where darkness and madder light mingled, and soon, a heat befitting the name 'scorching sands' began to settle upon the land.
“I smell meat cooking somewhere.”
Master Baro said, flicking the blood from his blade.
The Shadow Lord, clad in his Armor of Cursed Blood, and Lady Shadow by his side, also in her Valkyrie avatar, readjusted their grips on their blades.
From moonset to sunrise, blood continued to call to blood.
The area had become a gruesome mountain of corpses and a sea of blood. But among them, there were no human-shaped bodies.
Only the endless, sprawling carcasses of predators.
Dale's party had suddenly become an invasive species, and the hunt was not yet over.
Just as Master Baro had said, it was an incredibly brutish method. Even if one had the skill for it, continuing to fight against such an endless horde of monsters was another matter entirely.
If Dale hadn't been clad in his Armor of Cursed Blood, overlaying his heart with an ‘igniter’ of red mana, he would have run out of mana long ago and become monster fodder.
Dale's secret art: projecting a heat engine onto his heart based on an otherworldly image to supply an endless stream of mana.
“Heh heh, you're just brimming with energy.”
In contrast, Master Baro hadn't even deployed an avatar, maintaining his composure without a single ragged breath.
‘As expected of one of the Seven Swords of the Continent.’
Indeed, despite his vulgar behavior, Master Baro was a powerhouse. A formidable foe whose defeat even the current Dale could not guarantee.
Furthermore, even he likely couldn't guarantee victory against the monarchs of this continent.
The world is wide, and the strong are many.
In that respect, this place was the perfect training ground to endlessly test and display his abilities.
An army of predators filled the space beyond the horizon.
Facing them, the black gun barrels Dale had created were unleashing a barrage of darkness.
The sight of Dale unleashing a Gatling-style barrage against the desert monsters was reminiscent of a scene from 「Starship Troopers」.
“Alright, so blood calls to blood, and we've turned this whole area upside down. That's all well and good.”
Dale asked, unleashing an otherworldly barrage with his endless mana.
“But may I ask how this is supposed to summon the assassins of the mountain?”
“Well, imagine some unknown son of a bitch rolls into your duchy and starts raising this kind of hell.”
Master Baro said, once again swinging his crimson aura through the empty air.
“Wouldn't you be so damn annoyed that you'd have no choice but to come see for yourself?”
“...That's it?”
“That's it.”
Master Baro replied nonchalantly, just as Dale was about to curse again.
The predators filling the horizon froze. Their howls ceased as well. A silence fell as if all sound had vanished from the world, and simultaneously, a sandstorm began to rage.
“Rather than searching for a needle in a desert, it's a hundred times better to raise hell and make them come to you.”
Master Baro muttered softly amidst the gale that raged like a sandstorm.
As soon as he muttered, the sandstorm subsided.
And there, they finally revealed themselves.
They were silhouettes, all tightly wrapped in hoods.
“Ah, I forgot to mention.”
At the same time, the desert predators filling the area bowed their heads toward the silhouettes.
“For your information, these desert predators are like the hunting dogs raised by the assassins of the mountain.”
Realizing the implication, Dale was left speechless.
It was then.
“That damn personality of yours truly hasn't changed one bit.”
From among the silhouettes, a particularly incongruous presence spoke. It was the voice of a young girl who had yet to shed her childishness.
“Gasp. Shit.”
At the same time, Master Baro sucked in a breath and fell silent for the first time.
The silhouette of what was clearly a child stepped forward through the sandstorm. She threw back her hood, revealing a young, bronze-skinned dark elf.
“Gran—... No, is that you, Master?”
The great Master Baro knelt and showed his respects without a moment's hesitation.
Seeing that, Dale understood immediately.
“I never thought you'd move that heavy backside of yours and come down from the mountain.”
“You can still say that after seeing the hell you're raising here, you damn disciple?”
The Wise Old Woman of the Mountain said.
She was a dark elf in the body of a young girl who had yet to shed her childishness.
“Heh heh, you should have just shown yourself instead of beating around the bush.”
Master Baro said, and the Wise Old Woman of the Mountain replied.
“I intended to do so even without you running your mouth. Isn't that right, my child?”
“E-Elder...!”
A dark elf beside her spoke, unable to hide her bewilderment. It was a familiar voice.
“Ah, isn't that the young lady who abandoned us and scurried away?”
Master Baro said, and the Wise Old Woman of the Mountain nodded.
“But these men are from the Empire, falsely claiming the name of Shadow...!”
And that dark elf never finished her sentence.
*Slice!*
Her movements were impossible to follow. One could only barely perceive the rush of killing intent.
“My child. I told you to carry out your mission. I never ordered you to think.”
The hooded dark elf was sliced apart. As if a vegetable had been put through a slicer, her flesh and bone collapsed, hood and all, in a series of pieces.
“So, you are the 'Shadow Lord' the people of the secular world are making such a fuss about.”
The Wise Old Woman of the Mountain asked Dale, and Dale, clad in his Armor of Cursed Blood, nodded.
Seeing this, the Wise Old Woman of the Mountain asked with interest.
“By the way, are you truly human?”
“I am human.”
The Wise Old Woman of the Mountain asked, and Dale answered. It was an immediate reply, without a hint of hesitation.