Chapter 100
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 100
Chapter Title: The Answer to the Problem Isn't Always Good (1)
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Clang! Slash!
Kane and Marco.
Their fight dragged on for quite some time.
He had learned dagger techniques and all sorts of martial arts theory.
Kane moved his body with efficiency unmatched by anyone.
Those skills allowed him to hold his own against Marco's swordsmanship, which was backed by B-rank aptitude.
No, purely in terms of technique, he had already surpassed Marco.
Technique that overcame swordsmanship honed through decades of life-or-death real combat.
Countless bits of knowledge made it possible.
But he had a fatal weakness: he was an ordinary human with no aptitudes at all.
His physical abilities couldn't compare to someone with physical aptitude.
That was why, despite the difference in skill, Kane couldn't win.
But.
"Shit..."
The longer the fight went on, the more desperate Marco became.
Honestly, he had thought he could slice through someone like Kane in seconds and leave the city.
Once he was out of the city, it would all be over.
The outskirts of the Mera Union were Marco's home turf anyway.
He figured that no matter how skilled the adventurers chasing him were, they wouldn't catch him once he escaped Shasen.
But that was only if he could escape.
He had let Kane drag things out too long.
'At this rate, the adventurers will come back.'
Rin.
She was an outlier with the hero's power.
He would lose without question.
No, honestly, because of Kane's unexpectedly high skill.
Even just a B-rank adventurer joining in would push him back immediately.
"You bastard..."
He wanted to kill him.
He desperately wanted to kill this guy who had dared to ruin his mood, with his own hands.
For all his grand words, it boiled down to that.
It was inferiority.
This guy who was clearly beneath him.
Chosen by the marquis.
Riding on the marquis's coattails to success.
And even after Marquis Harkur died, surrounded by his kids and making a name for himself.
It disgusted him to no end.
'That position should have been mine... Mine!!'
He had amassed wealth.
He had gained power.
He had built strength.
But.
"Why, why can't I win?!"
Marco screamed that as he charged at Kane.
"...!"
Kane immediately tried to parry the attack and prepare a counter.
"Shit, we'll settle this later."
Marco brushed past Kane and ran behind him.
He hadn't completely lost his reason yet, it seemed.
Realizing it was too dangerous to drag things out any longer, Marco chose to flee.
"What?!"
Kane, who hadn't expected him to just run past, reacted late and gave chase.
Marco was the leader of the 'Scar' group, the target of this mission.
On top of that, the order was to kill him without fail.
He couldn't let him escape, so Kane pursued with everything he had.
But with their physical abilities so different, Kane alone couldn't catch Marco.
In the end, he let him slip away.
"Tch..."
Kane had no choice but to give up the chase and head back to the adventurer's guild.
He figured they needed to seal off the city entrances to prevent him from escaping and set up checkpoints.
And Marco, who had been hiding and watching Kane.
'He's obviously heading to block the entrances.'
But he was relaxed.
He had already prepared a separate escape route.
Even if Kane blocked the entrances with adventurers and territory soldiers.
It wouldn't be a problem for Marco.
'Alright, time to slip out nice and slow...'
He decided to put off killing Kane for another chance and was about to move when.
"Oh dear. You're supposed to die right here."
"...!!"
Suddenly, a voice came from behind.
Startled, Marco whipped around to see someone in a pitch-black robe standing there.
"Wh-what? Who the hell are you..."
Before he could finish, the black-robed figure thrust a dagger at him.
Marco hurriedly leaped back to dodge.
Crash!
The equipment around the hidden alley collapsed, making a huge racket.
"Tch...!"
Kane would surely hear the noise and come back.
Or even if not, someone nearby might spot him.
Either way, it was dangerous.
But the real problem was...
"Shit, what the hell are you?"
The black-robed figure was still in an attack stance toward him.
If he tried to run, it would attack again.
Dangerous.
From that one strike, he realized the opponent was a master who required full focus to deal with.
Any gap, and he'd be killed for sure.
"Well... I could have killed you anytime, really. But that would cause problems. This way, we can just say you were taken down by adventurers."
"You bastard... You're from the council."
From those words, Marco immediately realized the black-robed figure was connected to the Mera Union's central council.
They were the ones who had secretly commissioned the adventurers to quietly eliminate him in the first place.
They probably figured openly assassinating or attacking Marco would provoke backlash from local councilors.
So they wanted to kill him cleanly now.
They had likely been watching from the moment Kane's group arrived in Shasen.
Ready to step in and kill Marco themselves if things didn't go as planned.
"That sharp girl with overly good senses made me extra cautious. Unlike some idiot who relies solely on stealth, I'm good at turning this power on and off."
Whoosh─
A sinister aura poured out.
Marco felt his suspicions turn to certainty.
"Anyway, you're dying here. Who told you to poke around the council's secrets? You know too much."
"So you guys really are... plotting something shady. Demon power... What the hell do you plan to do with it?"
The council was connected to demons.
They offered sacrifices for it.
And with that power, they were doing something to the heroes.
"You don't need to know. Just die."
With that, contrary to his words, the demonic energy from him suddenly cut off.
Like flipping a switch.
Not only that, but he even moved back to hide his presence.
"...Found you!"
He soon understood why.
"That bastard..."
Kane had returned to where Marco was.
He must have come back because of the crashing noise from the equipment.
The black-robed figure had probably confirmed Kane's return and decided it was cleaner to let Kane or the adventurers kill him than to finish it himself.
'You think I'll die that easily?'
Marco ground his teeth and pointed his sword at Kane again.
Running away here would just mean death by the black-robed guy.
He probably would have been killed by that guy even if he'd ignored Kane and tried to flee the city first.
Maybe the subordinates he'd sent ahead were already wiped out.
'No, killing them all would make it hard to blame the adventurers later, so maybe not all of them.'
Either way, it didn't matter.
For Marco, it all ended in death anyway.
"Ha, haha. Shit."
Marco felt everything turn hollow.
He had struggled so hard to survive, building wealth, power, and strength so no one could look down on him.
But in the end, all of it.
To the council, he was just someone they could kill anytime.
Merely something they sought a clean way to dispose of without hassle.
Pathetic.
And of all ways, it had to be.
By the one man who most provoked his inferiority complex, the one he hated most.
"Kane..."
If he had entered the marquis's household.
He wouldn't have died so pathetically.
No, he would have accomplished far more than this Kane, become someone truly great.
What he hadn't gained.
What he couldn't gain.
What he ultimately couldn't have.
Those thoughts drowned Marco in inferiority.
The central council.
Kane.
He hated them all.
He wanted to kill them all.
But he couldn't.
'Powerless.'
Marco felt a helplessness unlike any before.
He felt utterly insignificant.
He had built his power to sweep away everyone he hated.
Yet in the end, he would be crushed to death from both sides by the very ones he despised.
"...I hate you bastards."
But then.
A rather good idea popped into Marco's head.
'...Let barbarians exterminate barbarians, was it?'
A tactic he'd read somewhere flashed through his mind.
The central council targeting heroes for some reason.
Kane, close to heroes like Jenny or Rin, parasite or whatever.
A way to screw over both sides came to him.
"Hey, Kane."
Mindful of the black-robed figure hiding somewhere, Marco slowly approached Kane.
Kane took a defensive stance.
As if prepared not to let him escape this time, he loosened his posture slightly to keep his body mobile while defending.
Marco swung his sword as he closed in on Kane.
Clang!
Marco's sword was blocked by Kane's dagger, and the moment they clashed.
"...I'll teach you something good."
"What?"
Marco whispered softly into his ear.
Kane first thought it was another trick to escape and tried to deflect the attack.
But the words that followed made him freeze too.
"The Mera Union is the enemy of heroes. They're tied to demons."
"...!!"
The moment he heard that, Kane stiffened.
If nothing had happened on the way here, he would have dismissed it as nonsense.
The Demon King's curse, why it had spread so far, the medium, the collaborators.
All just Kane's hypotheses.
It would only have made him slightly suspicious of the Mera Union.
But the raid in Colpid.
It happened right after entering the Mera Union.
And Marco, leader of 'Scar' commissioned by the Mera Union for subjugation, said that.
The Mera Union had ordered his death specifically.
Putting aside the other subordinates, Marco had to be killed no matter what.
Each piece had plausible reasons.
They didn't seem connected at first glance.
But what if the Mera Union was tied to demons?
What if the Demon King's curse shortening heroes' lifespans was connected to them too?
And they were targeting heroes because of it?
What if this whole thing was a trap to lure in Rin from the start?
Kane's mind grew complicated.
Slash─!
But this was in the middle of battle.
He snapped back and barely dodged Marco's swinging blade.
'It could be a strategy to shake me.'
That was what he thought.
But all the puzzle pieces were fitting together, forming a completed picture that felt ominous and dangerous.
Kane couldn't shake the dirty feeling.