28
Chapter 28
Maybe I was facing a tougher opponent right now than that bastard Asel.
It was only natural for me to think that way.
After all, right before my eyes were little kids crying their hearts out.
Only four of them shouldn't be able to talk, but for some reason, I couldn't even understand what the blind girl was saying.
Looking at her state, she probably didn't even know what she was saying either.
She was babbling through her sobs, but it was closer to baby talk than an actual conversation.
'Well, I roughly get why they're acting like that.'
From their perspective, it probably felt like they had abandoned their savior and ran away.
It wasn't unreasonable for them to feel guilty.
'But I'm seriously fine with it.'
That was a given.
I wasn't some crazy psychopath. Why would I force kids who should be in kindergarten to risk their lives fighting?
So those kids had absolutely no reason to feel guilty.
"Don't worry about it. I'm the one who told you to run away in the first place."
"But.... "
"If you had stayed there, I would've been distracted and had a hard time fighting. Following my instructions immediately is actually worthy of praise."
I said that to comfort the little ones, but the children's expressions remained dark.
It seemed they were still feeling guilty.
I pondered for a moment... then opened my mouth again.
"If it really bothers you that much... you can just help me out when you grow up."
It was something I said to soothe the children.
But to be honest, it was partially driven by my own selfish motives.
Naturally.
If these kids had any talent, I hoped they would grow up to help prevent the destruction of the world.
Well, it wasn't like I planned to use these little kids as child soldiers.
If they really were to help me, it would be something for the much more distant future.
I continued to talk like that while patting the kids. Fortunately, it seemed to work this time, as the children slowly stopped crying.
The blind girl nodded with a resolute expression, as if she had made up her mind.
Though, with her eyes swollen and red, she only looked cute even when trying to put on a serious face.
'Come to think of it, doing this kind of thing has made me quite used to it.'
It feels like just yesterday I was struggling to get close to Ciel, but somehow I've become so adept at handling kids.
A feeling that I've become suspiciously good at dealing with young children.
...I'm not sure if this is something to be proud of, but for the sake of my mental health, let's just consider it a good thing.
Anyway, thanks to that, I managed to calm the kids down.
Now I just need to grab what I need and leave.
'I've already got the Holy Sword, but I can't miss out on the artifacts.'
That was a given.
What kind of idiot wouldn't claim their reward after going through the trouble of defeating the Boss?
I can't carry everything, so I should pick out as many of the good ones as possible.
As I looked around at the items with that in mind... a thought suddenly occurred to me.
"Kids, could you maybe help me out a bit?"
Was there really a need to strictly pick out only the best artifacts? If the five of us carried them, we could take everything.
With this many people, we could take not only the artifacts but a significant amount of gold coins as well.
With that in mind, I asked the kids for help.
The process that followed went incredibly smoothly.
Since I knew every artifact in the game, I just had to describe their shapes to the girl. It was a simple task where the blind girl would locate the items through her senses, and we would grab them.
Like that, in less than two hours, we completely stripped the warehouse bare.
A smile naturally formed on my lips.
It was no wonder, considering.
The artifacts I had just gotten my hands on easily numbered over twenty.
If I had collected these by exploring ruins through the standard route, it would have taken at least 20 years, no matter how fast I was.
Yet here I was, obtaining the results of 20 years in a mere two hours.
Without spending a single penny of my own money, to boot.
This was on a whole other level of cheating.
......What do I do.
At this rate, I might actually develop a taste for robbery.
*****
I led the kids out of the warehouse.
We had packed everything we needed, so now we just had to regroup with the others and leave this place.
I was about to head over to meet up with Ms. Rubia in the VIP room, but... I soon noticed something strange.
'......Isn't it too quiet?'
It's eerily quiet, without a single sound.
A terrorist attack definitely should have happened here, yet there wasn't a single soul in sight.
It was a completely incomprehensible situation.
To grasp what was going on, I quickly scanned the streets of the black market.
...I see bloodstains.
It was the same wherever I looked. The floor, the walls—bizarre bloodstains were splattered everywhere.
However, the strange thing was that despite seeing so many bloodstains, I couldn't find a single corpse.
I calmly organized the situation in my mind.
First of all, there was no need to wonder whose blood this was.
It obviously belonged to those fake Black Fang members.
I had wondered why none of the terrorists were around, but it seemed they were all dead.
Then who dealt with them?
'......It must have been Asel.'
If that was the case, it explained why the corpses were missing.
Because he's a Black Mage.
He probably offered the enemies he defeated as a tidy sacrifice.
I had to slightly revise my assessment of Asel in my mind.
Maybe I had underestimated his skills a little.
Then again, thinking about it, psychological warfare and the information I possessed had been far too fatal to him this time around.
The magic Asel used was mostly learned from his Master, so it was easy to Dispel.
A Black Mage coming to terms with paternal love, and a boy who unknowingly killed his own father.
The psychological portrayal of the Black Mage was quite excellent, and I really liked how the story ended in tragedy rather than trying to redeem the villain.
Because I remembered all of that, I could perfectly strike his psychological weaknesses.
On top of that, Asel didn't know I had a mental attack immunity trait, so he chose to make the corrupted Holy Sword go berserk as his ultimate trump card.
...Looking at it this way, from Asel's perspective, it was an unbelievable string of bad luck.
Didn't he accidentally encounter an opponent who knew all his Incantations, knew all his personal circumstances, and was immune to his trump card?
Being this unlucky was almost awe-inspiring.
'No, should I say he was actually lucky?'
Because if he had won against me, he would have met a much more gruesome end than this.
If I had gotten even a single scratch on me, wouldn't Rien have chopped me into seventeen pieces?
I didn't have any intention of letting human trash like him live, either. Far from stopping her, I probably would have egged her on.
In a way, losing to me meant he was able to meet his end through slightly more humane means.
Asel was probably thanking me right now from Hell.
'Maybe this is a thank-you gift from Asel.'
Come to think of it, it was way too strange for a decent, modern person like me to suddenly develop a taste for thievery.
It made much more sense to assume that Asel's dying wish from Hell had reached me.
Asel's desire to somehow repay me must have resonated, causing a sudden impulse to completely raid his warehouse to wash over me.
'Thanks, Asel. I won't let your good intentions go to waste.'
After completing my perfect self-rationalization, a thought suddenly crossed my mind as I walked down the street with a much lighter step.
'Come to think of it, what would Black Fang think about this current situation?'
It was only natural for such a question to arise.
The current situation.
To someone who didn't know the exact details, it would look like the fake Black Fang members were gunned down, and even an Archmage ended up dead.
It was obvious who would be pointed at as the culprit behind all this.
Black Fang.
This incident would go down in history as Black Fang severely punishing those who impersonated them,
and even going so far as to kill an Archmage, wiping the Black Market off the face of the earth.
This was despite the fact that Black Fang hadn't actually done anything this time.
I was the one who killed the man disguised as an Archmage, and Asel himself took care of the fake Black Fang members.
'Seeing things like this makes me realize how troublesome it must be to run a secret organization.'
Trying to prove they didn't do it would just make them look foolish, so their Leader would have no choice but to tacitly admit to the deed.
Thinking about it made me feel a little bad for them.
'Since it's already come to this, I might as well exploit it one more time.'
With that in mind, I surveyed my surroundings.
There were Slaves left behind, abandoned by the Slave Traders in their haste to flee. There were no Guards or surveillance cameras around either.
There was a chance that one of them could be a heroic character from the original story.
There was only one thing left for me to do now.
Impersonate Black Fang and just start saving them without thinking too hard about it.
It was time to roll the gacha.