The Bird's Trap (5)

Status window. Status window. Status window...

I rose from my seat with Canicia and pulled up the status windows of the people staring us down — blank faces, eyes dripping murder.

Huh?

To my surprise, most of them weren't Masters at all. Every Master shared the same Fairy Master trait, and these people didn't have it. In other words, they were ordinary humans.

One of them was a Master, though. Odds were good that he was the leader.

If that's all he's packing...

In a place crawling with 3-Star Masters, this was the first 2-Star I'd laid eyes on. An easy mark.

Darkness attribute, huh?

The man happened to have an attribute I didn't. The ones I currently held were Water, Void, and Fire — three in total. Kill him, and Darkness would be mine.

You're dying by my hand.

A brand-new attribute. My mouth was watering already.

The people closed in around us, Edy Brown at their head.

On paper, we were hopelessly outmatched. Canicia and I had left our weapons behind on purpose, the better to put these idiots completely at ease. We were outnumbered, unarmed, and staring down what should have been a death sentence.

"Ready, Canicia? Don't get hurt."

"Pfft. Worry about yourself."

Neither of us was even slightly tense.

Most of them couldn't grow a status window if their lives depended on it. The only ones who posed anything resembling a threat were a single 2-Star Master and one Fairy of the same rank. Unarmed or not, they were never going to be our match.

You could throw your life at it with everything you had — if you couldn't grow a status window, you died without ever landing a hit that mattered.

"I'll take the left, you take the right. Let's go!"

"Okay!"

Canicia and I charged them first.

"They ate the food! Hold out until they drop!"

"WAAAAAGH!"

The enemy rushed us right back.

"Die!"

"Hup—!"

The man slashed his dagger at my face. Going for the head on the opening strike — he was clearly nursing an inferiority complex about how good-looking I was.

"Plastic Surgery Punch!"

"Gah?!"

I twisted my head aside, let the blade whistle past, and drove my fist into his face with all the charitable hope that his ugly mug might come out a little prettier. He screamed and went down.

"Whoops! Surgery failed!"

Plastic surgery gacha: bust!

I left the newly uglier man behind and turned on the rest. They swung their daggers at me like their lives depended on it, and I slipped every cut and hit them back at my leisure. It ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was like watching a pack of rabbits throw themselves at a lion.

Holy shit, this feels incredible!

The hit feedback blooming through my knuckles was so damn good I thought I'd lose my mind. So this was what it felt like to be the strong one.

I'd spent my whole life fighting from the bottom of the food chain. For this one moment, I was the apex predator. Sure, stomping people who couldn't even use a status window had a whiff of noob-farming about it — but what was I supposed to do? They were the ones who'd drawn steel on us first.

There's an old saying: look before you leap. Even if they were taking orders from Palos's Bird, they'd picked the wrong place to lie down. Time to pay for it.

And Canicia...

A sliver of breathing room opened up, and I paused just long enough to glance her way.

"Gah!"

"Kh—?!"

"Y-you're too strong!"

She was tearing through them with those killer legs of hers, and not a single one of them had managed to put so much as a scratch on her.

Yeah. She's doing just fine.

If anything, she fought better than I did. No chance she'd fight worse. A mage or a healer might have been a different story, but her class was Spearman (Lv.25) — and her bare-handed combat was nothing to sneeze at either.

"Did they even take the sleeping pills? They're fine!"

It had never once crossed their minds that the plan might already be blown. They just kept waiting for us to keel over. When we showed no sign of dropping, the panic set in fast.

An opening.

"Kh—?! Stop him! Stop that bastard!"

While they milled around in confusion, I broke for the Master I figured was their leader. He barked orders in a panic, and bodies piled into my path on cue — not that any of them could slow me down.

I launched myself into the air, cleared their heads in a single bound, and landed right in front of him.

"Die!"

He slashed. I stepped inside the cut, caught his arm, and threw him.

He hit the floor with a sound like a sandbag dropped off a roof, and the scream that tore out of him was even louder. My Strength stat, bonuses included, sat at a cool forty-eight points. For a man who hadn't even broken the 2-Star wall, that number was a death sentence.

"Master!"

Startled by her owner's scream, the Fairy tried to rush over. That was a very large mistake.

"Eyes on me."

"Kyaa!"

A 2-Star Fairy taking her eyes off a 3-Star — and a damn good one at that — paid for it instantly. Canicia drove strikes into the Fairy's stomach, solar plexus, and philtrum in a single fluid burst. Hit in every vital, the Fairy blacked out and crumpled.

"Everybody freeze! Unless you want to watch this bastard die!"

"Nngh...!"

I pinned the Master's back under my knee and shouted. The crowd hesitated. I was going to kill him anyway, but for now I wanted them suppressed so I could squeeze the actual plan out of him.

"What the hell are you doing?! Kill these two already— ghk?!"

"You shut up."

"Nice one, Alan!"

I cracked the Master across the back of the head before he could finish barking orders. Canicia gave me a thumbs-up.

"Surrender while I'm still asking nicely. Do that, and the ugly part stops here."

"Don't move!"

"Huh?"

That was when one of them pressed a dagger to the throat of a soldier slumped asleep over a dining table.

"You want this one alive, you let the captain go!"

"...Oh, really?"

A hostage play for a hostage play. That was their idea?

"Don't you move!"

"I'll kill this bastard!"

"Let the captain go!"

"Are you out of your fucking minds?"

I was so dumbfounded I just stood there, and they took the silence for proof the gambit was working. The rest of them started pressing knives to the throats of every sleeping body they could reach.

A bumper crop of hostage situations. Ha. Ha. Ha.

"Kh...!"

Canicia didn't dare move. She had no interest in watching innocent soldiers and servants die — and these weren't even strangers. They were faces she'd passed in the halls, people she knew. That made it worse.

I, on the other hand, was a different animal.

I snatched a dagger off the floor and drove it through the pinned Master's forearm.

"AAAAAAGH!"

"What the hell are you doing?! You want him dead?!"

The hostage-takers screamed it in ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠horror. I gave them a thin, nasty smile.

Psycho possession: ON.

"...What?"

"Alan!"

The hostage-takers recoiled. So did Canicia.

"You people know who I am?"

"What?"

"This many of you don't just stroll into a palace looking that clean. Which means you infiltrated. Fake jobs, undercover. So I'll ask again — have you ever actually seen my face?"

None of them opened their mouths.

"Those people you've got knives on? I don't know them. At all. So whether they drop dead or not is none of my business. You want to kill them, kill them. But this bastard — this one dies no matter what. We clear?"

"And another thing. Say you go through with it. Say every hostage you've got ends up a corpse. Then what? You're all dead men walking. Don't tell me you're actually entertaining some bright, hopeful little fantasy where you take us down."

"Wake up. You couldn't catch us if you died and came back to try again."

I worked my mouth hard, driving them into a corner — and while I talked, I kept putting the dagger into the Master's body.

"AAAAAAGH!"

Threats like this lose their bite the longer you talk. Action puts the teeth back in.

People don't fear a barking dog. They fear a biting one.

"Pick. We all hold hands and die together — or you surrender."

I licked the blood off the dagger and asked it casually. They stared at me the way you'd stare at a monster, eyes full of raw fear.

It didn't take them long to choose.

We fed the surrendered remnants the same drugged food and put them under. In a situation where I had no idea who could be trusted, I wasn't about to start rounding people up. I left the Master alive — the one I'd spent so much quality time perforating — because I still needed to hear the plan.

Canicia went down the line slapping every last one of them to make sure they were actually out. The second her palm landed, their cheeks ballooned up like steamed buns. Those were not slaps you just sat through.

Damn, Canicia. That hand of hers had a real sting to it.

"Alan, you..."

Done with her inspection, she came back to me and looked at me with a complicated expression.

Ah, hell.

The little hostage-negotiation performance earlier. She definitely thought less of me for it. I could practically hear my affection rating ticking downward.

"Did you seriously..."

"Let's interrogate this one first. We can talk after."

"...Yeah. Okay."

She'd been about to say something, so I cut her off fast. There was a more important job sitting in front of us than the face I'd just shown her, and after a second she let out a breath and nodded.

We looked down at the bound Master.

Image's already trash. Might as well be me.

"Hey. Let's make this easy. Who the hell are you people?"

"...And who the hell are you?"

"What?"

This bastard was a prisoner and he had the balls to ask me questions? Did he need a few more knives in him?

"In all the time I've been inside this castle, I have never seen anyone like you. Just what are you?"

"Haa..."

I put the dagger through his thigh. He went rigid, a groan tearing through clenched teeth, veins standing out on his neck.

"You really think you're in a position to be asking me anything? I ask. You answer. That's the relationship. Got it?"

"Heh... ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠heheheheh."

"Oh? You're laughing?"

He was in agony and he still found it funny. That got under my skin.

"What's so hilarious, old man? Hm? Think it'll stay funny with a few more holes in you?"

"You don't have long to live either."

"What?"

"What are you talking about? The Blood Wealth King isn't coming back? Explain. Now!"

The second he mentioned that name, Canicia cut in from where she'd been watching behind me. Something ugly had touched her — I could see the anxiety written across her face.

Mine, by contrast, went completely blank.

She still hasn't let go of him?

Canicia was supposed to be loyal to me. Not to some Blood Wealth King. If she couldn't manage that, I couldn't keep her around.

I'd thought her heart had already tipped my way... but it looked like she was going to need to see the corpse before she became mine for good.

"The executives will kill the Blood Wealth King soon enough! A pig like him is no match for them! And once they come back from putting him down, you're both dead!"

"...What? N-no!"

"Hey— Canicia! Canicia! Oh, for fuck's sake."

Her face had gone white. She bolted straight out of the dining hall. I didn't need to guess where she was headed. She was going to save the Blood Wealth King.

She was gone so fast that I, crouched where I was, never even got a hand on her. God, that pissed me off.

"Heh heh heh heh! And when that happens, you two will still be standing there so—"

I put the dagger through his throat.

"...Kh?"

He hadn't actually believed I'd kill him. The shock in his eyes said as much.

"Why does this bastard talk so much? You just wrecked my whole plan, you son of a bitch."

"Kh— khah..."

He tried to clutch at the blood pouring from his neck, but his hands were still bound. The light went out of his eyes, and then he slumped.

"Don't mind if I take that Darkness attrib—"

"...ute?"

I scowled at the windows hanging in front of my face. You've got to be fucking kidding me. There was a condition?

I pulled up Greed in a hurry.

"Fuck... life never does go the way you want..."

I read the details on Greed and let out a long, tired breath.