Night of Chaos (3)
Night of Chaos (3)
5 minutes since I started moving to find Belletria.
I thought by now some knights would have noticed the presence of intruders... but the hallway was as quiet as ever.
"This is strange. How can it be this quiet?"
As I looked around and muttered in doubt, Ruamel added her thoughts, as if agreeing.
"I can understand that they are assassins, so their figures wouldn't be easily spotted... but even considering that, it's too quiet."
Besides, in reality, it's quite difficult to assassinate even someone of Viscount rank.
Because the first thing they do is set up at least a 4-star intruder detection barrier across the entire mansion.
Let alone the fact that the place I am in right now is the Empire, no, the largest and safest Imperial Palace on the continent.
It means it would be normal for the assassins' locations to be exposed before I was even attacked in the first place.
That's why I couldn't understand it even more.
'Why on earth is it so quiet?'
I hurried my steps while harboring doubts.
Because joining up with Belletria was the priority for now.
Had about 5 minutes passed again like that?
I felt a sudden sense of incongruity and stopped walking.
Ruamel also stopped in place at almost the same time and placed her hand on the curved sword at her waist.
We looked out the window naturally, as if we had made a promise.
The moon floating in the cloudless night sky.
Was illuminating the hallway at the exact same angle and brightness as when I left my room earlier.
Like a frozen painting.
I turned my head and looked forward.
I had clearly kept running straight ahead, but what I saw at the end of the hallway was the door to my familiar room.
'... What is this?'
For a moment, wondering if my brain had gone wrong from the shock of the attack, I tapped my temples a few times and looked out the window and down the hallway.
Nothing had changed.
And only then did the situation start to become clear little by little.
If it wasn't that my mind was strange, but I had the illusion that the world had stopped, there was only one thing it could be.
"It doesn't seem like a simple trick..."
Ruamel's voice became lower and more cautious than ever.
"That's right. Perhaps..."
"Yes, a 6-Star Perception Blocking Barrier, and likewise, a 6-Star spatial loop barrier, the Infinite Corridor. It seems they have deployed both of these simultaneously..."
I swallowed hard once.
In the continent, such high-level illegal barriers.
There is only one group that can deploy them in duplicate, right in the middle of the Imperial Palace.
Black Mud.
However, aside from identifying the enemies, my head became even more confused.
'Why on earth? What is a discarded prince of Rehentra worth for such big shots to move?'
Even in the midst of the confusion, Ruamel kept her hand on the hilt of her curved sword and was looking around.
Then, she showed a moment of staring intently at one spot, and soon pointed her curved sword and said.
"You bugs spying over there without permission? Why don't you show yourselves now?"
With a short shout, she swung her curved sword horizontally toward the empty air.
Kwaang-!
The indigo sword energy shot straight forward and exploded right in front of the window without curtains.
Then the air rippled as if it were water, and six masked men revealed themselves at the spot where the energy blast had exploded.
They clicked their tongues while looking at Ruamel and me, who were perfectly fine without a speck of dust on us.
"Tsk, idiots. You should have at least wasted some of their stamina while buying time before dying. Anyway, disposable pawns are useless."
The large assassin standing at the front grumbled in a thick voice.
It seemed like he was talking about the four who had attacked my room earlier.
A slightly smaller man standing next to that guy waved his hand as if annoyed.
"Let's kill them quickly and run. Even if we take our time, the Emperor will notice the barrier and move in 1 minute."
"Anyway, it's amazing. Even if it's a barrier so powerful that its use is prohibited, to think it can deceive even the eyes of a transcendent being like a Master for a moment."
"Enough with the chatter."
As soon as the words were finished, five of them, exuding the strongest energy among the six, rushed at Ruamel simultaneously.
And the remaining one held a dagger in a reverse grip and lunged toward my neck.
'You crazy bastards, are you kidding me!'
I quickly raised Marte's Sword and blocked the guy's attack.
Kagagak—!
"Ho? I heard you were a piece of trash who hadn't even learned the basics of swordsmanship, so how did you block my sword? Prince Idelon Halden Rehentra?"
"I don't know, you idiot. Maybe it's because your assassination technique is sloppy."
"... You're asking for a beating by opening your mouth."
The assassin, who had distanced himself after a brief struggle, lowered his center of gravity extremely low again and took a stance.
Ruamel had immediately grasped that they were opponents she couldn't fight while protecting me, and she had started the battle after telling me to hold on for a little while.
'Haa... I don't know.'
Kang- Kagagak!!
"Ugh!"
Once again, the guy's dagger rushed in even faster than before.
I succeeded in barely blocking it this time too, but the impact was no joke.
The assassin also realized that I had received quite a big shock, and he distanced himself again, lowering his stance even more extremely.
As if to end everything with this attack, an ominous red light began to shimmer like a haze over the man's dagger.
It was Aura.
'... Damn it.'
No matter how great a master artisan forged the famous sword, the moment you receive Aura with a bare sword, the blade breaks instantly.
My lips were parched.
Moistening my dry lips with the tip of my tongue, I gripped the hilt of the sword tightly with both hands.
To prevent the sword from breaking, I had to coat the blade with magic, even if crudely, and parry it to survive.
I fixed my gaze on the toes of the guy who had lowered his stance to the limit.
As I sharpened my senses to the extreme, the surrounding noise faded away, and the advice Belletria had given me a few days ago flashed by.
'Idelon, your talent is quite decent.'
She had corrected my posture by tapping my sloppy shoulders and waist with her scabbard.
'However, because you've never learned swordsmanship formally and only followed it with your eyes, you have too many useless and miscellaneous habits ingrained in your body. So, keep this in mind until it is perfectly corrected by my teachings.'
Her red eyes in my memory seemed to be piercing through me.
'If a situation comes where you have to fight in a real battle someday, you must unfold your swordsmanship as concisely, cleanly, and accurately as possible. You must think of killing the opponent with a single blow.'
'Cleanly... and accurately.'
Give flesh and take bone.
My mind cooled down coldly.
I took a deep breath and held it to raise my concentration to the limit.
At the same time, the man's figure rushed toward me like an arrow.
'Don't receive it head-on, but deflect it.'
Even if I coated it with magic crudely, the difference in density still exists.
I didn't pull my body back and kept the trajectory of the red-tinged dagger in my eyes until the end.
And I coated the blade with as much mana as I could pull up from near my heart, and struck upward shortly and concisely.
Kaang!
I almost dropped the sword due to the terrible shock traveling up my wrist.
I didn't even parry it perfectly.
Because the deflected red blade was deeply embedded under my left collarbone.
"Ugh...!"
Hot blood gushed out and soaked my shirt, but I bit back the groan that was about to burst out.
And I dove straight into the guy's empty chest and thrust the sword straight out.
Puk.
At the same time as an unfamiliar sensation was transmitted to my fingertips,
Looking straight ahead, the tip of the sword had accurately pierced the man's heart.
"Keu-uck..."
The man's eyes widened.
Blood droplets dripped from between his gasping lips and soaked the back of my hand.
"How... the trash of Rehentra..."
The man looked at me as if he couldn't believe it, then his head slumped, and he went limp, leaning against my sword.
I turned my head immediately without even a moment to pull out the sword and shake off the blood.
It was the side where Ruamel was handling five people alone.
It wasn't that I looked because I doubted her skills, but the situation was flowing strangely.
While two assassins were desperately drawing Ruamel's attention from the front.
The remaining one was secretly digging into Ruamel's blind spot behind her back, coating his dagger with red Aura just like the man who had died by my hand earlier.
And Ruamel was completely unaware.
'Did she think she already dealt with them?'
I don't know why she let her guard down.
However, what I had to do now was simple.
Without even a moment to think, I snatched the dagger that was held in the hand of the man who had collapsed on the floor.
Along with an extra dagger I pulled from the man's waist.
I threw them one after another toward the back of the guy who was preparing for a surprise attack.
Chaeng, Chaaeng!
"Keu-euk!"
It was a crudely thrown dagger, so it couldn't pierce the armored guy's body and bounced off with a loud noise.
But due to the unexpected rear strike, the guy's attention was drawn to me, and there was no way Ruamel would miss that momentary opening.
"... I had forgotten for a moment that the ones I am dealing with are trash-like assassins."
As Ruamel's voice was heard, an Aura mixed with indigo and purple drew a half-moon shape in the air.
Seogeok, Seogeok.
And the necks of the two assassins who were drawing attention from the front soared into the air.
Before the blood even touched the floor, she slid across the floor and cleanly carved off both arms of the surprise attacker who had frozen in panic.
"Aaaaaah!"
Ruamel quickly crumpled a handkerchief from her bosom and stuffed it into the mouth of the man who was rolling on the floor and screaming.
"I will keep this one alive. Because we will need an interrogation."
She said with a face no different from usual, slowly shaking the blood off her curved sword.
At the same time, the 6-Star barriers that had been trapping us shattered like broken glass windows.
Pasasak
It was because the casters were dead or subdued, cutting off the supply of mana.
The strangely fixed moonlight seen outside the window disappeared, and the real scenery of the familiar Imperial Palace came into view.
"Let's go to Her Majesty quickly."
I roughly grabbed my collarbone where blood was seeping out with my hand and ran toward Belletria's office with Ruamel.
However, when I opened the firmly closed office door, there was no one inside.
Only a wide desk with approval documents neatly placed on it was waiting for its owner.
"Hmm... could she have already noticed the barrier was set up and gone outside to clean up the bugs?"
"That seems highly likely."
After Ruamel and I exchanged a brief glance, we immediately headed toward the outside of the Imperial Palace.
And finally, having arrived at the center of the Imperial Palace, the large plaza, I couldn't help but gasp without realizing it.
In the middle of the plaza, about thirty men looking like beggars were bowing their heads to the floor, trembling and begging for their lives.
Next to them, three cold corpses, which appeared to be the remaining assassins belonging to the Black Mud, were rolling on the ground.
Lastly, the one person looking down on the whole situation alone.
Killing intent that pressed down so heavily it was hard to even breathe.
In the center of the overwhelming cold that made even the surrounding air freeze, Belletria was standing.