He Who Creeps in the Night
Bagloros, He Who Creeps in the Night. Even the highest-ranking assassins bowed their heads before him, calling him the strongest of their kind.
Surrounded by the Demon King’s army and facing certain death, he was saved by us—more precisely, by Rowell. In gratitude, he swore eternal loyalty to Rowell and became our companion.
Yet he remained almost always silent. Even after years of fighting side by side, the conversations we shared with him could be counted on one hand, and those moments were brief.
I remember that story so clearly only because it was one of the few things he ever told us.
“What? So someone’s targeting you right now?”
She sounded… surprised? No, not quite surprised. More like… angry.
“Probably.”
“But why? You saved the world with the Hero! We’re not even doing anything, so who would want revenge on you?”
She seemed oddly worked up, more than the situation warranted.
“I can’t say there aren’t a few incidents that come to mind. After all, I’m not Rowell.”
“Or maybe it’s just a ridiculous coincidence. Either way, we’ll find out once we get there.”
I walked over to one side of the wall. I still hadn’t fully grasped how many magical items this pocket dimension held or what they all were. But the ones I had already identified were gathered in one place, and even those alone were more than enough for now.
“Janus’s Talisman. The Statue of the Void Spirit. Basamum’s Bracelet. The Necklace of the Upper Heavens. The Ring of the Law King. The Key of Tantalus. Yeah, this should be plenty.”
Janus’s Talisman for personal defensive barriers, the Void Spirit Statue to intercept curses and spells, Basamum’s Bracelet to nullify all poisons, the Necklace of the Upper Heavens to amplify mana, the Ring of the Law King to speed up mana recovery, and finally, the Key of Tantalus, which temporarily creates a pocket dimension around the user to nullify binding spells and mana-sealing fields.
All of them were legendary artifacts crafted by renowned mages and priests throughout history—items that had vanished long ago and survived only in records. Who would have guessed they were all sitting here among Denatel’s collection?
“That’s unexpected. You’re only taking that much?”
“Yes. Taking more would only draw attention.”
Of course, simply wearing magical items wasn’t enough. No matter how powerful they were, they only provided auxiliary effects. They couldn’t guarantee absolute safety.
At my gesture, strange runes and lights appeared in the air.
“That again?”
She knew it well. She had seen it countless times during our travels.
The runes and lights that had floated in the air following my incantation and gestures etched themselves onto my body before fading away.
Over the long years, I had repeated this process again and again.
“…Take it easy, will you? Seven layers of protective barriers? Really?”
After watching in silence for a while, she finally raised her voice.
“At that point, even Demon Commanders couldn’t kill you in one strike!”
She was right. She had been sealed here before the final battle, so she hadn’t seen it, but during that last fight, I had thrown myself in front of an attack from the Demon King Thanatos aimed at Medrup and still survived.
Strictly speaking, it had been a surprise attack exploiting an opening rather than a full-powered strike.
But even so, it was the Demon King. Ten layers of defensive barriers had been wiped out in a single blow.
“Why are you so obsessed with these inefficient, crude attached-type barriers anyway?”
She had a point. There were three main ways to use barriers. The attached-type barriers I relied on were the most inefficient and least effective among them.
They couldn’t compare to the installed-type barrier currently holding Rofena or the autonomous-type barriers that could freely change shape and strength according to the caster’s will and mana.
It made sense—they had originally been developed as a last resort for those who couldn’t use magic at all. They were merely an extension of scroll magic, with the target changed from parchment to a person and slightly reinforced. They weren’t proper magic.
First, their performance was inferior. Just like scroll magic, engraving a specific spell onto an object was extremely difficult. The stronger the spell, the more the target struggled to withstand it. As a result, such magic was inevitably weaker than proper spells.
Moreover, once engraved, their power gradually diminished over time.
There were problems even after activation. Unlike autonomous-type barriers, neither the duration nor the strength could be adjusted by the caster. Within the barrier, certain types of magic became unusable. Depending on the barrier’s properties, even attacks launched from inside couldn’t break through to the outside.
For example, casting a Fireball inside an attached-type barrier would burn the caster themselves.
That was why Medrup and other mages rarely used attached-type barriers. Even if they offered temporary safety, they essentially trapped the caster inside during combat.
Yet I still layered these attached-type barriers so heavily because I wasn’t a mage.
People often made the mistake of thinking mages and summoners were the same. While we both used mana, and some summoners like me could use a certain degree of magic depending on our abilities…
Summoners were far fewer in number than mages. Strictly speaking, we were closer to priests or shamans.
We communicated with beings from other worlds, befriended them, made deals with them, or dominated them.
A summoner’s power was fundamentally different from a mage’s. Our strength didn’t lie in theory or technique—it was a talent, the very color of our souls.
In other words, even inside attached-type barriers, I could still use my abilities freely.
And no matter how inferior attached-type barriers were, when layered like this, they were far sturdier than the autonomous-type barriers I could create with my limited skill.
“It’s thanks to this method that I’ve survived despite my lacking abilities. Besides, even Medrup praised me for it. He said no one could match me when it comes to operating attached-type barriers.”
It sounded like bragging, but layering this many attached-type barriers on one’s body without burdening the physique was an incredibly difficult feat. It wasn’t simply a matter of repeating the same spell. If it were, even three layers would have caused severe fatigue and side effects.
When layering attached-type barriers, they must not only avoid conflicting with existing ones but also create synergistic effects with each other. Only then could a small incantation produce maximum effect while minimizing the strain on the body.
With each additional layer, the calculations grew more complex, and the order and method of composition became increasingly intricate.
“Yeah, yeah. Good for you, getting praised by that old man. But more importantly, do you realize you’ve already been here for over four hours?”
I hadn’t. I’d expected it to take longer since it had been a while, but not this long. Though, just this morning, hadn’t she said my sense of time had dulled from staying here too much?
“I see. If I don’t head back soon, I won’t even have time to sleep.”
Seven layers was decent, but compared to my record of ten, I couldn’t deny that my edge had dulled somewhat.
“Then I’ll be going.”
“Alright. See you tomorrow.”
There seemed to be something different in her farewell, but I was already standing in front of the bed.
“I wonder what time we’ll depart.”
I lay down on the bed and closed my eyes. I needed to sleep. Even if I fell asleep now, I would only have a few hours until sunrise.
The knights knocked on the door later than expected. It wasn’t out of consideration for me—they simply didn’t seem inclined to hurry.
We finished a late breakfast before expressing our thanks to Priest Philip and Austin, then left the temple. By the time the sun was beginning to set, we had nearly crossed the Ropa Plain and were heading into the Huinto region.
If there was one good thing about this strange journey, it was that it stirred my emotions.
The path we were walking now was the same one Rowell and I had taken when we first began our travels. We passed through the Ropa Plain, crossed the vast wilderness of the Huinto region, and arrived at Kasin Village, where our real activities began.
Kasin Village was a small settlement. It was far from the front lines, and the demonkin had never attacked it. But in the chaos and fear that gripped everyone during the crisis of annihilation, a certain group had taken advantage of the situation to line their own pockets.
They were bandits. Hiding in a secret location on the village outskirts, they had threatened the weakened village and demanded tribute. In the end, Rowell and I dealt with them, but at the time we were still inexperienced—and more importantly, there were only two of us.
“Come to think of it, that was the first time Rowell hit me.”
Unconsciously, I rubbed my chin at the memory. It had hurt a lot—both body and heart.
“Let’s camp over there tonight.”
The knight captain pointed toward a hill in the distance.
It was a good choice. It was still early to set up camp, and if we pushed hard we could leave the Ropa Plain before midnight, but spending the night on the Ropa Plain was wiser than the barren Huinto region, where nothing but rocks and sand stretched endlessly and monsters crawled beneath the ground.
“At least we won’t have to worry about bugs until today.”
Henry, was it? He really seemed determined to pick a fight, the way he kept talking like that.
Then again, I had always been treated this way at the Academy too. My grades—both academic and practical—had been quite good, yet I was always somewhat ignored.
“I suppose so.”
Of course, things had been different whenever Rowell was around.
Even at the Academy, Rowell had been kind and friendly to everyone, but without a doubt, he was closest to me. Because of that, some people had seen me as a thorn in their side, but most didn’t dare ignore me in front of him for fear of earning his displeasure.
A few girls, who inwardly didn’t even consider me human, had approached me anyway, hoping it might help them get closer to Rowell.
It was fortunate that I had already known my place back then. Any other ordinary boy would have been deeply hurt by false hopes.
Come to think of it, what had happened to those guys at the Academy who used to ignore me? Had they survived the war?
Even if they were children of noble houses, most of the outstanding talents who graduated from the Academy had been conscripted.
“I suppose I’ll have a chance to hear news about them someday.”
Of course, just because I had become one of the people who saved the world as the Hero’s companion didn’t mean they would suddenly see me differently. They would only regret not having been by Rowell’s side. If they had, they believed they would have been the ones standing beside the Hero instead of someone like me.
“The closer one stands to brilliant light, the uglier the ugly appear.”
No—they probably didn’t even realize they were ugly. Drunk on the most beautiful thing before their eyes, they couldn’t look back at themselves.
I looked up at the sky. The moon hanging there tonight was unusually bright—bright enough that I could hardly bear to raise my head.