Chapter 226
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 226
Chapter Title: Lamoro
The new space was a dressing room located within the private chambers.
The chambers were divided by partitions, and the dressing room was so large it was hard to guess the full size of the suite.
However.
Normally, this place would have been filled with the splendid attire of the Versa nobility.
That was not the case now.
The wardrobes were mostly empty, and a considerable number of garments lay strewn across the floor, torn, trampled, and stained with filth.
Just then.
An incredibly loud snore echoed from beyond the partition. It was so powerful that the partition itself seemed to vibrate.
A faint rustling followed. A low groan, the kind one makes while half-asleep, mingled with the sound.
As the infiltration team raised their guard, tightening their grips on their swords,
Loan, having quickly recovered his mana, began to assess the mana beyond the partition.
He had thought that if the duke and his son were alive and being held hostage, they would most likely be in these chambers.
But it seemed the suite had been taken over by some unwelcome occupants.
Loan sent a telepathic message to the entire team.
-There is one individual with considerable mana. Over ten others are ordinary. They all seem to be asleep.
At Loan's message, everyone except Sienna showed a hint of surprise.
Berthelot then whispered lowly.
“We need to check.”
Led by him, the infiltration team slowly moved out of the dressing room.
Their movements were extremely cautious, and the clothes scattered on the floor muffled their footsteps, making their approach exceptionally stealthy.
And then they saw the bedroom area of the chambers.
Hearing the crackle of dying embers in the fireplace, Loan's brow furrowed instinctively.
The room was in complete disarray, as if a great struggle had taken place.
Furniture was broken, and the walls and floor were covered in bloodstains.
Wine bottles and leftover food were scattered about messily.
And sleeping among the mess were women, sprawled out haphazardly.
Completely naked, many of them lay on the floor, while a few were on the bed.
At the center of the large bed was a hulking man.
He, too, was naked. He was likely one of the Ferver commanders—and a high-ranking one at that.
“That son of a bitch…”
Berthelot hissed, grinding his teeth.
The man had committed such debauchery on the duke's bed.
It was no wonder Berthelot aimed his sword at the brute's heart, carefully trying to approach the bed while avoiding the sleeping figures.
Just as everyone's attention was fixed on the hulking man's face,
Loan, who had momentarily distanced himself from the unpleasant sight and smell to face the chamber door, was reading the mana outside.
Far away, in what appeared to be a corridor, individuals filled with dark mana were rushing about.
Someone began running urgently toward their chamber.
Loan sent another telepathic message to the group.
-Someone's coming.
Berthelot, who had been just two or three steps away from reaching the man's heart,
ground his teeth again and quickly slid under the bed.
The moment everyone had hidden themselves in suitable spots,
a man burst through the door and shouted at the giant on the bed.
“The Union has invaded, Commander Lamoro!”
His voice, imbued with mana, boomed through the room.
A few women stirred awake, saw the messenger, and shrieked. Only then did the hulking man called Lamoro sit up and stretch widely.
“The Union? The Union is here? *Buuurp*—”
A loud belch followed his question.
The smell instantly swept through the room like a foul wind. Loan, who was hiding behind broken furniture and drawing in mana, recoiled and held his breath.
The two continued their conversation.
“They're still outside the castle, but it seems there's chaos within the walls. A druid is dead, and explosions are going off everywhere.”
It seemed his comrades' guerilla tactics were in full swing within the city district.
The people running noisily down the corridor must be reinforcements heading out or personnel moving to defend the castle.
Despite the dark, quiet scenery outside the window, the situation seemed quite urgent. The messenger continued anxiously.
“They'll reach the castle soon, and if the Union comes, we must prepare to fight…”
“So?”
“Sir?”
The messenger asked again as if he'd hiccuped. Commander Lamoro's reaction was not what he had expected.
Lamoro waved his hand dismissively and said,
“Didn't that Mar-something guy poison the moat? He guaranteed no one could get in, that they'd die as soon as they entered.”
“Y-yes, he did.”
“Then what's the problem? He can handle it himself. Why the hell are you waking me up?”
Lamoro's question sounded like the growl of a great beast.
The messenger trembled violently, clearly afraid of Lamoro, but he still had to deliver his message.
“It's because this is a direct order from Lord Kaid. He said the Union might find a way in other than the moat. To prepare for them coming through the main gate… he ordered us to use the prisoners in the Grand Hall as a shield…”
“Dammit. Then you should have said it was an order from Lord Kaid from the start. Is his lordship's ritual finished, then?”
As soon as the name Kaid was mentioned, Lamoro's attitude changed.
Seeing him listen attentively, the messenger relaxed his tense body slightly and replied.
“Yes. He said it was sufficient. He said the remaining prisoners would be kept as spares, and he ordered the dead ones to be dismembered and stacked into a tower at the entrance. He commanded you, Commander Lamoro, to oversee this and prepare for battle.
“Hmm, a classic move. Lord Kaid's idea is brilliant, of course, but it would be better to wedge some living ones between the dismembered parts. The Union bastards are soft-hearted; they can't bring themselves to cut down anyone who isn't an enemy.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. Since it's come to this, I should suggest we kill the Duke of Versa and hang his arrogant face in the center of the corpse tower. If we hang his son and the other young ones below it, even those Union scum won't dare to charge in blindly.”
Extremely pleased with his own plan, Lamoro burst into laughter, got off the bed, kicked a woman, and began searching for his clothes.
As the brute picked up his clothes and a large mace, pacing around to find the rest of his attire,
the kicked woman coughed up a mouthful of blood and crawled forward to avoid another blow, only to lock eyes with Berthelot, who was hiding under the bed.
Instantly, Berthelot brought a finger to his lips, signaling for her to be quiet.
It was no use.
“Aaaaaah?!”
The woman was also a member of Ferver.
As she let out a shrill scream, Lamoro reflexively reached under the bed and flipped the massive piece of furniture over.
The women remaining on the bed were flung against the ceiling and walls, or crushed beneath it, but,
the real problem was that Berthelot, caught in an awkward prostrate position, was completely exposed to the enemy.
“So there was a rat.”
The moment Lamoro raised his mace to smash it down on Berthelot's head without a second thought,
Shweeeek—
Yorgos's dagger embedded itself in Lamoro's neck and heart, and Milos's hidden weapon struck near his ankle.
Fwshh—Blood spurted from above and below, but the brute only flinched for a moment.
His neck and chest muscles were too thick and hard for the daggers to penetrate deeply, and the same was true for his ankle.
Pausing his attack on Berthelot, the man glanced to the side and said,
“So it wasn't just one.”
Then, like a general facing a great army on the battlefield, he let out a tremendous roar.
“Uwaaaaaaaah!”
The man who had created a gale with a mere belch was now intentionally shouting, and the effect was immense.
In an instant, all the glass windows shattered, and small furnishings and furniture exploded outward.
The nearby women desperately covered their ears, but blood still trickled from between their fingers, their eardrums likely ruptured.
But the sound did not escape the room.
The moment Milos had thrown his weapon, Loan had shut the door, slit the messenger's throat, and deployed a Convection barrier to block the sound.
It was a feat that seemed impossible for one person to accomplish in a single moment, but no one was in a position to admire it.
Berthelot, the closest to the source, clapped both hands over his ears and rolled on the ground in agony.
Sienna, who had been about to charge Lamoro with her twin swords drawn, and Yorgos and Milos, who were preparing to throw more weapons, were all momentarily incapacitated by Lamoro's sonic attack.
But the bigger problem was that they had all been exposed at once.
The moment Lamoro quickly confirmed the presence of multiple enemies in the room,
To Loan's eyes, to his ears, to his mind's eye,
he could perceive a change occurring within Lamoro's body.
As he inhaled, his lungs expanded, and the mana that had been pooled in his lower body surged upward.
Lamoro was preparing to unleash another sonic attack to secure a decisive victory.
Loan reflexively extended a Narrow Path toward the man. As he slid forward in the blink of an eye, he thought.
*‘Sound is a wave.’*
It's the rapid propagation and powerful vibration of mana in the atmosphere.
That vibration destroys objects and shakes and strikes people's eardrums, injuring them.
This was like a maximized physical application of the 'sound waves' Loan had been using by modifying his own voice.
The reason the Convection barrier shattered instantly while blocking the previous shout was due to the immense power of those sound waves.
Convection itself can be seen as a condensation of mana, so a more powerful vibration using mana as a medium had collided with it and broken its bonds.
Therefore.
The way to block his shout is to prevent the wave itself from forming.
In other words, if I temporarily envelop him in a specific space and empty the mana within it,
*‘The wave will not occur.’*
By the time the thought concluded, Loan had positioned himself between the man and Sienna.
He surrounded the man with the thickest Convection barrier he could create, and at the same time,
[Mana Friction Coefficient Increase], [Mana Velocity Control], [Mana Flow Control], [Spatial Compliance Manipulation], [Atmospheric Pressure Control]
he used mana manipulation magic to draw the mana existing within the Convection's flow to its inner wall and release it through a narrow gap.
The mana particles that had been floating randomly in the air were drawn by a powerful force, sticking to the Convection and making the barrier even more solid as they struggled to be released.
In addition, his four Circles,
Giiiiing—
spun intensely in response to Loan's will, pulling all the drawn-out mana inward.
Lamoro, who merely found the sudden appearance of Loan before him pathetic, unleashed his shout with all his might, just as he had intended.
“Ah…”
But even though he opened his mouth wider than before, as if to tear it open,
only a tiny sound escaped his lips before vanishing completely.
His face filled with bewilderment at this unprecedented experience.
Loan, unable to hide his disgust at the sight,
“Pathetic.”
uttered a single word and released the condensed mana inward, using the Convection to directly manipulate the vibrations.
He maximized the amplitude and made the wavelength infinitesimally short.
The sound, which had been but a small whisper, was infinitely amplified within the Convection barrier trapping Lamoro and struck him with full force.
It tore through his eardrums, churning and shaking the inside of his head.
“Aaaargh!”
The moment the naked Lamoro raised his arms to cover his ears and head—Berthelot grabbed the dagger embedded in the man's ankle and twisted it—and Sienna lunged forward, driving the daggers in his neck and heart deeper.