Just Because
He didn't answer. He just sat there, frozen in the same posture, staring at me as if his mind had simply stopped working.
"...Khah!"
Then he burst out laughing. He ducked his head and snickered under his breath before his face went cold.
"Have you lost your mind? Impersonating a Lord's name in Calderic?"
"..."
"If you're a Lord, then I'm the Hero of Seintea, you crazy bastard. You're even more unhinged than I thought. Did you actually believe that load of horseshit would work?"
Well. That was about the reaction I'd expected. I didn't bother saying anything more. To him it was nothing but desperate nonsense, a bluff to wriggle out of a tight spot. And of course it was. Why would a Lord — and the Seventh Lord of Enrok, no less — be sitting in on a secret auction in the Third Lord's Territory?
"Fine. You don't seem inclined to talk while your body's still in one piece, so I'll grant you your wish."
With that, he rose from his seat. He strode up onto the platform, halted the auctioneer's proceedings, and planted himself at center stage.
"My apologies, everyone, but we'll be pausing the auction for a moment."
A stir ran through the seated participants at the sudden interruption.
"Someone here murdered our people, stole an invitation, and snuck into this auction. We'll deal with the rat first, then resume as normal. I ask for your understanding."
So he hadn't even planned to wait until the auction was over. Our eyes met across the platform, and every gaze in the room swung toward me as well. I could hear the participants murmuring among themselves. They seemed to think this was just another entertaining sideshow.
Hah...
I was getting tired of this. I'd sat through this disgusting auction all the way to this point, biting my tongue, and this was where it ended up. I didn't bother thinking about how to resolve the situation. There was no need. Things had come to this — what else was there to do? I'd just have to play along with the chaos.
"I'll give you one last chance. Will you come quietly, or will you resist and lose an arm or a leg in the process?"
Armed men had already appeared around me, forming a wide ring around my seat. Valkylov combatants, I assumed. All of them were over Level 50, and a few even exceeded Level 60 — elite forces, by the look of it.
Sly bastard.
I looked at the man standing on the platform. From the way he'd been talking, you'd think he was about to tear me apart with his own hands right then and there. Instead he was hanging back, well out of reach. It was almost funny. Still, he didn't know exactly what I was capable of, so he was being cautious. A prudent call, if nothing else.
Seeing that I still hadn't moved, he clicked his tongue and gave the order.
"Keep both of them alive. Nothing more."
The other participants edged outward, and the combatants began closing the distance. The hall fell silent in an instant. The filthy, clinging heat of moments ago had transformed, just like that, into something cold and murderous.
I allowed myself a faint smile. It was almost funny — this atmosphere, this situation that was about to fill the room with corpses and the stench of blood, felt more comfortable than an auction where people were bought and sold. They say humans are creatures of adaptation, but had I already adapted to this world completely? I wasn't sure whether that was a good thing or a bad one.
"Ashel."
"Yes."
The moment I spoke, Ashel rose from the seat beside me. Her hand settled on her sword hilt. I finished in a low voice.
Dozens of opponents, every one of them a fighter in the Level 50 to 60 range. On my side, Ashel alone. And yet I wasn't worried in the slightest. The outcome had been decided before the fighting even started.
I'd simply spent too much time facing monsters that existed outside every reasonable scale. Ashel was, by any measure of this world, a powerhouse of the highest caliber. Had I not persuaded her to join me as my escort, she would have become one of the Black Scale — the most elite force of the Grand Lord Castle. Valkylov might have been the greatest dark syndicate in the Third Lord's Territory, but the gap in class was vast beyond comparison. She was a wolf among a pack of rabbits. In the world of RASA, the difference between levels was that absolute, that unfair.
"Die—"
One of the combatants opened his mouth. That was his last word.
A colossal blade of light erupted from Ashel's sword and carved the air in every direction. Their bodies sheared apart all at once, collapsing in pieces. It couldn't even be called a fight. The Valkylov combatants were annihilated without managing a single act of resistance.
To me, the result was only natural. To those watching, it was anything but.
"H-hyaaah!"
The participants, who hadn't even processed what had happened, began screaming and scattering in every direction. As chaos swallowed the hall, I locked my eyes on the man on the platform — Jack.
"...!"
He'd been watching in a half-daze. The moment our eyes met, his pupils shook as if an earthquake had hit them. Then he hurled himself behind the platform.
Wow...
He ran? Just like that? Ashel launched herself after him. He panicked and threw up a defense against the sword coming at his back, and for a moment the two of them traded blows. Given that his level approached 70, I thought he might hold out a little — but that was as far as it went. Before long, one of his arms was severed, and he was sent bouncing off the wall, slamming into it hard.
"Guh...!"
Ashel lowered her sword and looked back at me. It was over. All of it, in the blink of an eye. I nodded, freshly impressed by her overwhelming martial power.
The auction participants, the auctioneer, and the small-fry syndicate members had already fled. The only ones left were the slaves huddled in the corner of the platform. They stared at us, too terrified to run. Rudika's sister was among them.
"Free them from their restraints."
"Yes."
"There'll be more further inside. Bring them out and gather everyone in one place."
I left the slaves to Ashel and trudged forward. The man — his abdomen split open by Ashel's blade, one arm already gone, dying — barely managed to lift his head.
"Wh-what the hell... are you...?"
I stopped right in front of him.
"I told you. I'm the Seventh Lord."
"..."
"Still can't believe it? Not that it matters much at this point."
"Why... why...?"
He kept repeating it, his face utterly drained, as if he still couldn't accept any of this. Why the Seventh Lord was here. Why I'd killed his brother and done all of this. I didn't need him to say anything else to understand the question.
I looked down at him and said,
"..."
"Out of all the countless pieces of trash in this world, you lot just happened — unluckily — to get on my nerves. That's all."
And that really was all. I'd stumbled across a vampire by chance. I'd happened to notice his brother's line-crossing atrocities. So I'd killed him. Then I'd come to the auction, gotten caught, and one thing had led to another. I didn't even have any particular grudge against these people. It had simply rolled from there to here. Of course, the auction was now a wreck, and their leader was about to die, so Valkylov would likely be finished as of today.
"...KRAAAAGH!"
He glared up at me with a look of raw grievance and fury, then wrung out the last of his strength and lurched to his feet. In his remaining hand was a dagger he'd drawn from his belt at some point. A chill blade flashed toward my throat like a bolt of lightning — a futile last struggle. Through my Super Senses, his movement was painfully slow, painfully clear.
The dagger halted in midair, unable to advance another inch.
His eyes flew wide. The hand gripping the hilt trembled, and then he staggered and crumpled to the floor. He had reached his limit; he couldn't move anymore. I set my hand on his head.
Target eliminated.
I shoved him aside. He hit the ground with a dull thud. That was the end of him.
I didn't spare the corpse another glance. I turned toward the slaves, who had already been freed from their restraints and were watching me. A moment later, Ashel emerged from the back with several more in tow.
"Is that everyone?"
"Yes. That's all of them."
I looked over the group gathered in one place and tilted my head. There seemed to be fewer than the number that had been put up for auction... had some of them already run off on their own?
"Human. What do you intend to do with us?"
A fierce voice cut in. It was Rudika's sister, the vampire. She was still looking at me with eyes full of hostility. It was a look I didn't particularly deserve, considering I'd just saved them, but I understood. Her family had been killed by human hands, and she herself had been dragged here as a slave. Of course she would hate humans.
I asked her,
"You're Rudika's sister, aren't you?"
She flinched, her eyes going wide.
"Ru— Rudika? How do you know my sister...?"
"I came here to save you because your sister asked me to. So you don't need to be on guard."
I gave her a rough explanation — meeting Rudika in Cubex, and everything that had led me to this auction hall. When I finished, she looked at me with an expression split between joy and relief on one side, and lingering wariness on the other.
"...Did you really come because my sister asked you to? Really?"
"I did. How else would I know your sister's name?"
"..."
"She's waiting for you at an inn in this city. So come with me."
She hesitated, glancing back and forth between me and Ashel. I gave a slight nod, and Ashel wrapped an arm around her shoulders and drew her along. She edged toward my side in small, reluctant steps. Being the older sister, I supposed she was more suspicious than Rudika.
I looked over the rest of the slaves. Securing Rudika's sister meant I'd accomplished what I came for — but what was I supposed to do with the ones who were left?
...Maybe I should take this to the city lord.
Ah. I really didn't want to cause a mess in another Lord's territory.
I thought of Heavenly Bow, the Third Lord. He was as impossible to read as the Grand Lord herself — the kind of man whose reaction, should word of tonight reach his ears, I couldn't begin to predict. In the game, he'd seemed indifferent to the affairs of the world, and yet at times he would fixate on the most trivial matters with an almost unnatural persistence.
What the Lords cared about wasn't who you'd killed or what damage you'd done. Would someone like Valkylov even register in the Third Lord's awareness? The problem was that he might take offense at the mere fact that another Lord had run wild in his territory. Even the Sixth Lord, the Tyrant Lord — a man who was practically a madman — didn't act however he pleased in another Lord's domain.
Of course, this wasn't some enormous uproar, and I'd been the one attacked first, so it probably wouldn't be a real issue... but still.
I declared it to the slaves, who were watching me with uneasy eyes. Even then, they only stood there, glancing at one another with dazed expressions. Telling them they were free all of a sudden wouldn't mean much — they had nothing to their names, and some of them likely had nowhere to return to at all.
I couldn't exactly wreck the place like this and then just leave them here. So I figured I'd at least handle the minimum cleanup.