20. Rescue (2)
20. Rescue (2)
The weapon in the giant's hand was an axe.
He was holding an axe as massive as his own enormous frame.
Kwaang!!
The giant's right foot slammed down onto the floor of the prison. The soldiers nearby finally noticed Yuma's group's presence.
"Wh-what the."
"Intruders!"
Abduction, imprisonment.
These were troops who had abetted illegal acts.
Even if Yuma revealed his identity now, they had no reason to surrender so easily.
And the drooling giant standing before him didn't seem likely to respond to reason either.
Yuma stood before the giant.
"Grururuk!"
"Morton!! Kill them all! There's no way you can't kill an enemy!!"
A shout from a man behind the giant rang out. The giant's name appeared to be Morton.
'He was strong, sure enough.'
Yuma fixed his Searching Eye directly onto Morton.
[Lv. 103]
Morton
Class: Warrior
Realm: Master
Caution: Dragon Blood has been injected into his body. As a result, his physical abilities have been massively enhanced. His mind is not intact.
'Dragon.'
This confirmed that the entity occupying Count Luvelt's body was a dragon.
"Grururuk...."
Morton, who had been glaring at Yuma with drool spilling from his mouth, the moment Yuma stepped onto the stairs─
"Kwaaaaaah!"
He charged at Yuma, his entire body streaming a crimson current of air.
Morton's arm soared high into the air. Then it came crashing straight down.
The axe, wrapped in a crimson aura, plummeted down ferociously.
Its trajectory pressed down on the atmosphere with truly overwhelming force.
Kwaaaaaaah!
Yuma held the [Black Dragon Bernak's Fang] in a reverse grip. He then fixed his gaze intently on the very end of the axe's trajectory.
The exact center point of the axe blade.
That was the 'parry point'.
He precisely pinpointed that point using the <Hyper-Focus> skill. Then he swung the short sword held in reverse grip.
Jjeo-eo-eo-eong!!
A circular golden impact, signifying a successful parry, burst forth.
Yuma felt a tingling pain rise in his arm.
But.
<Unbreakable Will>
He did not crumble.
<Absolute Counter>
The crimson flash that burst from the [Black Dragon Bernak's Fang] completely swept through Morton's upper body, including his head.
Morton's legs, which had stood firm, buckled and gave way.
Ku──ung
It was an instant kill.
The faces of the soldiers who had placed all their faith in Morton hardened solid.
Yuma examined the faces of the soldiers who had walked out to the front, his Searching Eye deployed as he did so.
[Lv.53] [Lv.42] [Lv.65]...
The highest among them was a mere 65. Yuma looked at Hestia and Cloné.
"Show no mercy in your hands. Perfectly subduing them is what matters."
Cloné nodded her head firmly with a resolute expression. Hestia, the moment Yuma's words ended, kicked off the ground and dashed forward. Under the circumstances, it was an undeniable fact that these were the people who had helped kidnap her precious little brother.
Even if Yuma hadn't said a word, Hestia had no reason to show mercy.
Hestia's body charged forward fiercely. Holding the [Full Moon's Kiseteria] she had received from Yuma, she swung her sword at the soldiers without hesitation.
Cloné raised her staff and shot out bolts of lightning.
It was a spell supporting Hestia, the Sword Master-class swordswoman who was pushing ahead.
Chwaaaaak!
"Kwaaaaah!"
Hestia, who had cut in fiercely, slashed the upper bodies of two dazed soldiers in a diagonal line.
Cloné dropped lightning bolts onto the heads of the enemies charging at that same Hestia.
Blood splattered onto the wall.
Behind the two of them, who were rapidly neutralizing the enemies, one more figure followed and joined their formation.
It was Knight Murphy.
The sense of justice he had been unable to exercise, crushed by the weight of reality, was being pulled back up.
'You knew, didn't you!'
This was his first time facing this prison directly.
But he had heard from the senior knights and knew. He knew these children were innocent kids who had been captured for no crime.
He had already sensed intuitively that the Count's vague complicity in this meant the Count himself could be the mastermind.
Murphy had already sensed it. He just hadn't stepped forward.
Because he was scared.
However, seeing the children inside the iron bars filled him with such an overwhelming sense of guilt. And to overcome that guilt, he had to stain his hands with blood.
Murphy fought alongside Hestia and suppressed the soldiers.
It was a battle that straddled the line between life and death.
They had killed eight. And bound ten.
Cheolkeok!
Yuma, together with Ruine, the blonde daughter of the County, opened the doors of the prison rooms using the keys that had been hanging from the pocket of the man who was the warden.
Inside were young boys and young girls. Several adult men and women were also tied up.
These were the missing people who had vanished from the County.
"...Kaisen oppa isn't here. I think we need to go down to the basement."
As Ruine untied the children's restraints and soothed the children trembling in fear, she couldn't hide her gloomy feelings.
Hestia opened the door to the fourth prison room.
Immediately, a loud cry burst from Hestia's mouth.
"Haruk...!!"
She had finally found the little brother she had been searching for days.
"Nuna!"
Haruk threw himself into Hestia's arms, his brown hair flying. Hestia patted Haruk, tears welling in the corners of her eyes.
"I thought you were dead!"
After visually confirming that Hestia had found the Haruk she was looking for, Yuma headed with Ruine toward the dark stairs leading underground.
In the underground prison, a young man with blonde hair was seated on a chair.
Perhaps as a concession to being confined underground, the environment that met his eyes was closer to a room than a prison. Though long iron chain restraints were fitted around his ankles.
The young man, Kaisen, had no choice but to squeeze his eyes shut against the bright light suddenly spilling through the opened ceiling door.
"Oppa!"
Ruine ran quickly toward Kaisen.
"...Ruine?"
Kaisen, the eldest son of House Luvelt, confirmed his youngest sibling's face and his eyes flew wide open.
"Eldest son of House Luvelt, Kaisen."
Kaisen noticed the man standing behind Ruine.
Yuma took out the golden plaque from inside his coat, signifying his status as the agent of First Princess Brigitte, and placed it onto the desk.
"I am Yuma, agent of First Princess Brigitte."
"The agent of Her Highness the First Princess...?"
'He didn't know me.'
Well, if he had been buried down here for months, it would have been stranger for him to know about Yuma.
"Tell me what you learned that landed you in this unidentified prison."
Kaisen looked at Ruine. It was a gaze that asked if Yuma was a trustworthy person.
"He is definitely someone formally appointed by Her Highness the First Princess. He has already achieved results in driving out the corrupt forces of a village."
"...I see, Ruine."
The 22-year-old young man, Kaisen, stroked his young sister's hair.
Kaisen knelt on his right knee and showed proper courtesy.
It was etiquette directed towards the agent of Her Highness the First Princess.
"I apologize for not recognizing you."
"How could you know anything, locked up in a place like this. Just answer the question."
Kaisen, having risen back to his feet, opened his parched mouth again.
"A knight under my direct command, who was scouting the County's mountainous region, informed me. He said he saw a dragon... a dragon. A dragon of jet-black with blood-red eyes, chewing up and eating a woman chunk by chunk."
Kaisen broke out in a cold sweat as he continued.
"He told me that with a face that had lost its soul. And then... he died. Suddenly in the night. They said he was having an affair with his senior knight's wife, and the enraged senior knight beheaded him, but."
Kaisen shook his head slowly.
"My knight was not that kind of friend. He was a knight who strived to pathologically guard his own moral line."
Kaisen recalled the events that followed.
"So I went to see my father, Count Luvelt. Because the ongoing disappearances in the County, and the scene my knight witnessed, were connecting in my mind."
It was a fairly rational deduction.
Going to see the Count couldn't be seen as a strange decision either.
From Kaisen's perspective, he had no way of knowing that Count Luvelt's mind had already been taken over by that dragon.
"But when I voiced these suspicions, my father's demeanor suddenly changed. As if a different person's soul had possessed him... and he ordered me to be locked up. And when I lost consciousness and opened my eyes, I was here. The low voices of children I heard every time the wardens opened the ceiling door to pass food. Because of those voices, I came to know."
Kaisen ground his teeth.
"So I became certain. The disappearances occurring in the County, and the man-eating dragon... I was convinced those things were directly connected to my father, Count Luvelt."
Yuma nodded his head.
"Your deduction was correct. There is a high probability that the one currently dominating your father, Count Luvelt's, mind is a dragon. Whether it's chewing up people simply out of a desire to kill, or as a means to prolong its own life, that's likely it."
The existence of such a dragon didn't feel novel to Yuma.
Since a few of those dragons had appeared in <Loof Blood> as well.
And the fates of those whose minds were eaten by such dragons were never very good.
Yuma intuited that Count Luvelt would be the same.
"I'm going to expel the current Count Luvelt. That will be the first step in resolving this situation. Then, whether you personally take over the County title immediately or not, that's not a matter of importance to me."
After quickly organizing his thoughts, Yuma told Kaisen the conclusion he'd reached.
"The most effective thing for driving out the current Count Luvelt is your testimony as the eldest son. And there are living witnesses upstairs too."
The children confined here. Those children would serve as witnesses to the Count's evildoing.
"Tomorrow morning, as soon as dawn breaks, we march up to the Count's castle."
A frontal assault.
Yuma intended to pull it off.
'If it gets spooked, it'll come bursting out of its nest.'
If he smashed the results the thing had built up, the dragon would burst out of its nest.