Chapter 159
Chapter 159
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 159
Chapter Title: Chapter 48. Bounty (3)
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6.
Shamos.
‘Who is that?’
The moment that name came up, Viola voiced her doubt.
But she wasn’t given any time to mull it over.
“Viola, step out.”
The instant the name was spoken, Hawk Eye sent her outside.
The meaning was simple.
Shamos—or anything about him—was an existence so monumental that even Viola couldn’t be allowed to know.
“Yes.”
At the order, Viola set her questions aside and left the room. Only then did El Pam finish his sentence.
“Shamos. I want to meet him.”
“First things first—answer my question. Do you know who this Shamos is?”
“Wasn’t he a great mage?”
Hawk Eye eyed El Pam with a knowing smile.
It meant his answer fell short.
It wasn’t enough to continue the conversation about Shamos.
El Pam understood.
“A great mage who ultimately dabbled in dark magic and fell under the curse of becoming a hob?”
So he gladly elaborated.
“After his fall, he was subdued and sealed away by Heinz—the teacher of the great mages—and Robeira, the mage from the Adventurer’s Association.”
The tale of Shamos.
“Right here, in the underground prison beneath Elnas Market.”
The moment he heard it all, Hawk Eye—no longer smiling, not even with his eyes—fixed El Pam with a piercing glare.
“You know everything. No point hiding it, then.”
Shamos.
That name carried that much weight.
It was enough to strip away the perpetual kindness from Hawk Eye’s face and turn him feral.
And for good reason.
As El Pam had described, Shamos was once a great mage—and simultaneously one who had fallen by touching dark magic.
Afterward, white mage Heinz and other mages had sealed him away. Since then, the Adventurer’s Association and Maple Alliance had kept him imprisoned, hiding his existence from the world while standing guard.
The crucial detail was that they had let him live.
His crimes were far from ordinary.
Crimes that warranted death.
Yet the Maple Alliance and Adventurer’s Association had spared Shamos for one simple reason.
“You want to meet him because of his dark magic, right?”
He could wield dark magic.
That alone was monumental.
In all of Maple World, only two could wield it properly, without question.
Luminous, the balancer of light and darkness. And the Black Mage.
To the Adventurer’s Association or Maple Alliance, they were beyond approach—beings you didn’t dare consult.
Shamos, however, was different.
Worse, the Alliance and Association lived in fear.
The Black Mage was sealed, but no one knew when that seal might break. His followers still roamed Maple World freely. To counter dark magic in such times, they needed Shamos’s knowledge.
Light magic had records from research at the old Aurora Temple, but dark magic? Not even those.
Anyone who knew dark magic and had survived was invaluable beyond measure.
That was why they kept Shamos alive.
And the reason anyone sought him out was always the same.
“Yes.”
That was El Pam’s reason too.
“I have a request concerning dark magic.”
“Got it. I understand the situation.”
Hawk Eye nodded at El Pam’s words.
That was all.
“But I don’t see why I should grant it.”
He didn’t say yes to the request.
Common sense, really.
For starters, Shamos was a dirty secret the Cygnus Knights and Adventurer’s Association wanted buried.
And Shamos wasn’t merely some dabbler in dark magic.
The Association and Alliance had sealed him because he was a villain plotting the world’s destruction.
Let El Pam meet him?
No simple yes.
Even if approved, it demanded steep payment.
Hawk Eye, though, had no intention of approving it—no matter the price.
‘Shamos is dangerous.’
The Shamos he’d met was as much a threat to Maple World as the Black Mage’s followers.
No negotiations.
El Pam knew as much.
“Please.”
So he said it plainly.
“As a friend.”
Friend.
Hawk Eye couldn’t help but smile inwardly.
He had no choice.
‘Playing that card, huh? Clever.’
After all, Hawk Eye himself had once asked a favor that way—and El Pam had obliged.
“Fine.”
So now, Hawk Eye had to return it.
“Friends can manage that much.”
7.
Adventurer’s Association.
A literal gathering place for adventurers, it had branches everywhere adventurers gathered.
El Nas Market was no exception.
It had one too.
But unlike the other branches teeming with adventurers, El Nas’s was deathly quiet.
“Adventurer’s Association? You joking?”
Hardly surprising. Most who gathered in El Nas Market had skeletons in their closets.
“You know I’m on the run from them, and you’re saying this?”
Some were outright outlaws, guilty of crimes big enough to draw the Association’s hunters.
For them, walking into an Association branch was surrender—nothing more, nothing less.
They didn’t visit. They didn’t care.
The world, naturally, knew nothing.
“Head down. All the way to the bottom. Takes about ten minutes.”
Of the endless stairs descending into the unknown beneath the Association’s El Nas building.
“You’ll see the prison at the end.”
Stairs to the underground prison.
“Plenty of cells, but only one prisoner.”
A prison unknown to most in Maple World.
“You go alone.”
Those stairs were terror incarnate.
“If trouble hits, we can’t help. Look after yourself.”
Even the staff’s warning was ice-cold—enough to make veteran adventurers balk.
It meant nothing to El Pam.
“Yes.”
He took the candle without hesitation and descended.
No fear whatsoever.
Impossible to feel any.
‘Down these stairs again.’
He’d trod them before.
For the same reason.
Step.
Step.
To meet him.
“Heh heh. A visitor after so long.”
The master of this prison—the once-great mage Shamos.
“What brings you to me?”
What faced him wasn’t human.
Petite frame, hunched back, pointed ears, green-skinned monster: a hob.
The kind adventurers hunted across Maple World!
That hob was Shamos.
“What? First human-turned-hob you’ve seen?”
A curse.
“Heh heh. Get a good look. This is what happens when you meddle with dark magic.”
Shamos had paid for touching dark magic by becoming not human, but hob.
A gruesome toll.
It was also why the Association and Alliance spared him—one reason, anyway.
Dark magic users were rare in Maple World history. But one turned monster? Only Shamos.
His very being was unique, special—like the Black Mage in its way.
El Pam couldn’t care less.
“No beating around the bush.”
He’d come for one thing.
“Oh? It’s been ages since I had company. I’d love a nice, long chat.”
“I need the item you have.”
Shamos possessed what El Pam wanted.
“Oho. My item? Do I have something like that? Hmm? Even if I do, why give it up?”
“A trade.”
“Trade! Heh heh heh—trade!”
Dealing with Shamos was never easy.
Impossible, really.
“Trades need something I want, heh heh heh! So what might that be?”
Decades locked away, Shamos wanted for nothing.
Plenty had sought him out before. None got what they came for.
El Pam was different.
He knew.
“I’ll give you what you want.”
“What I want? Heh heh. I’m curious myself. Enlighten me.”
“Hob King Rex. If he revives, I’ll take him down for you.”
What Shamos craved.
At those words, Shamos’s mad grin twisted. His eyes changed.
“You.”
The drunken haze in them sharpened into chilling murder.
No wonder.
“How did you know?”
He’d never breathed a word of it to anyone.
Simple reason El Pam knew.
Before returning to the past, Shamos had told him himself.
What he wanted.
Why.
‘Hob King Rex controls hobs.’
True to his title, Rex commanded every hob at will.
‘Even Shamos, now a hob.’
Before Rex, he’d be just another hob.
That was it.
Why Shamos dreaded Rex’s revival above all.
Before the Hob King, he couldn’t fight back—only serve as a slave.
In a way, more terrifying to Shamos than the Black Mage.
‘……Or so he claims.’
El Pam knew even this was part of Shamos’s scheme.
Exactly that.
‘His true goal: ally with Hob King Rex and topple the world.’
Faking fear of Rex? All theater.
“How I know doesn’t matter. Only if you accept the deal.”
El Pam was certain.
“You bastard.”
Shamos would take it.
He had to keep up the act.
“What do you want?”
El Pam didn’t hesitate.
“Zakum’s Helmet.”
Shamos’s eyes shook harder.
Fair enough.
Zakum’s Helmet was rarer than rare—known to but a handful.
Maybe ten in existence, worldwide.
Shamos had one.
He’d never told a soul.
Shocking on every level.
“Heh heh!”
But as moments passed, no shock lingered on his face.
“Heh heh heh heh!”
Instead, a deeper smile bloomed.
“Fun. So much fun. Never dreamed it’d get this good. Heh heh heh! No wonder I can’t die.”
He relished it.
“Deal. Gotta accept. Heh heh—gotta savor the fun.”
Shamos agreed readily.
“But.”
The negotiation wasn’t over.
“How do I know you can take down Hob King Rex?”
Deals demanded proof of ability.
“What’ll convince you?”
El Pam welcomed the test.
Whatever Shamos demanded.
“Hmm. What’d be most entertaining?”
Shamos grinned wider, as if struck by inspiration.
“Fetch a Dark Contract.”
“How?”
He laughed.
“Coolie Zombies drop ’em. Those cursed bastards in the abandoned mine.”