Chapter 135
Chapter 135
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 135
Chapter Title: Five in Seven Seconds
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"I'll finish all five of you in seven seconds."
The battle began the moment he handed Akirea, who had been sleeping slung on his back, over to Kasena.
Ganaksa Bilrid, who caught a glimpse of terror in that motion, placed his hand on his harp, but in the instant the boy's eyes flashed, the world vanished—replaced only by a frenzied cascade of binary digits: 0101010101.
Is this... an illusion?
Aren't you underestimating me a bit?
"If you pluck that string, you're dead."
Shaking off the mental disorientation, Bilrid strummed the harp to unleash his mana, but in the next moment, a chill raced across his entire body.
What is this...?
The fire arrow spell he had just been about to activate was now aimed squarely at him. If he had plucked the string and completed the coordinate calculation...
"Dwums!"
Thinking his comrade had fallen to the illusion, Dwums charged ferociously, swinging his flail... but in that instant, sparks flew wildly, and the sound of metal crumpling echoed.
"Humans truly have no manners at all."
With a grinding creak, the gauntlet's surface—having not only caught the flail but crushed the iron lump entirely—whirred as dozens of teeth spun madly.
It was Eldvih.
He was ranked fifth among gold-grade adventurers and had survived the previous ambush thanks to Rain's help. As he shoved the flail aside and moved to counterattack...
"Hold on!"
The leader of the Crimson Fang adventurer party—or rather, the figure equivalent to their captain, since Crimson Fang bestowed the title of captain on no one but the founding leader—Cheongun Fren stepped forward, his blue hair whipping in the wind.
"We seem to have misunderstood something... I never dreamed it would be you, Eldvih. For real."
He was a strikingly handsome young man with the signature thief guild tattoo beneath his eyes, just as the rumors described.
"I'll compensate for that ambush just now, as generously as reason allows."
Eldvih's dismissive voice emerged from his optical helmet in a mechanical tone.
"You try to take my life out of nowhere, and now you spout that nonsense?"
"We don't have much to say for that, sure, but aren't you lot partly to blame for strutting around like you're leading those beastkin?"
"What are you talking about?"
"What do you mean? Didn't you get the message?"
"No."
"A rebel is leading the beastkin across here right now. All adventurers are supposed to gather at the western branch and form a defensive line. The emperor's put a massive bounty on them."
Rain and Kasena could only exchange dazed glances.
The emperor's proclaimed rebel...
They had anticipated things would escalate within the empire, but they never imagined it would balloon to this scale.
"Ah, ahba, a-baa!"
Exactly eleven seconds later, Aki burst into tears, thrashing wildly in Kasena's arms.
She's grown a full four seconds...
Before her excitement could make her tail slip out from under her clothes, he quickly took Aki from Kasena, patted her back, and soothed her until the crying gradually subsided.
"And you two over there..."
Fren, staring in astonishment at the scene, spoke in a half-doubting tone.
"You're Young Master Rain and Miss Kasena, aren't you?"
Had their disappearance become such a massive incident that even adventurers knew? Kasena seemed absolutely delighted that Crimson Fang knew their names for sure.
"That's right! I'm Kasena Page! And this is Rain Ludwig!"
With her arms crossed arrogantly and an excited nod, Kasena confirmed it, leaving Fren to exhale a stunned breath.
"Huh... so Bart was telling the truth."
"Bart? You mean Bart?"
Rain reacted to that. A dizzying tremor even struck his heart in that moment.
"Black Iron Bart? You know him?"
"We got acquainted while exploring the fourth floor with the Mobidic adventurer party. We parted ways when he left them during the black spot incident."
"He left? Why?"
It was incomprehensible.
Those guys had been so expectant of Mobidic as a stepping stone for growth.
"He said he was going to look for you, Young Master. Insisted you had to be alive."
For a moment, he couldn't say a word. He felt his heart pounding hard. His voice shook feebly.
Those idiot fools...
He had told them not to worry, that he could handle things on his own. So why throw away this golden opportunity for his sake...
"But to think it wasn't a disappearance but a lovers' elopement... Ugh, a bit late, but congratulations on the safe delivery."
?
Dwums nodded along from the side.
"Dwums."
The party's sole female archer, Skael, alternated glances between Rain, Kasena, and Aki with a sly grin.
"Well, people used to marry at fifteen and have kids back in the day. I hear a woman's body is best suited for childbirth in her mid-to-late teens?"
"Dwums, Dwums."
"But does black and light purple make red when mixed? Bilrid, does paint turn out like that?"
Kasena was so red-faced she couldn't even open her mouth, so Rain raised his hand high to calm the wave of misunderstanding.
"Wait, wait wait wait... You're all massively misunderstanding right now."
"Dwums?"
"How do you have such poor eyesight and still become gold-grade adventurers? How could anyone look at her and think she's our daughter?"
The Crimson Fang members instead tilted their heads as if wondering why he was asking something so obvious.
"Because... she looks just like the two of you."
Just as he was about to vehemently deny looking anything alike, the procession of beastkin appeared. In that moment, the emotion that flashed in the Crimson Fang members' eyes... Rain stepped in to block their path.
"Hold on. I can explain everything. The beastkin aren't enemies."
"What kind of nonsense is that... Does that mean you're the rebel, Young Master?"
The Crimson Fang members took a step back from him, resuming combat stances.
The atmosphere turned hostile in an instant... It was beyond absurd; it was ridiculous.
One moment they were amicably talking, the next they flipped to outright hostility without hearing a single explanation.
"Eldvih, why are you with them? Don't you know what's happening?"
It was more confusion than hostility that clouded Lorenz's face as he cautiously asked.
"It's the Captain's orders. I'm just following. Escort the beastkin to the western branch."
"The Captain's orders? Does that mean Lady Frisvia is involved in this? If word of this reaches the emperor, the friction it could cause between the empire and the Three Kingdoms..."
"I don't know what she's thinking. But I do know you're standing in her way right now."
In a land where might makes right, was the prestige of the platinum-grade number one truly overwhelming? The Crimson Fang members began to back away furtively.
They showed no inclination to hear his intentions or Frisvia's motives, choosing instead to widen the distance.
As their figures vanished into the fog of Trident Point, Fren's voice rang out one last time.
"You say you're not part of the rebellion, but do you think the emperor will buy that?"
"......"
"We don't know what will happen to your families in the empire because of this... We have no choice but to draw the line here."
He had vaguely anticipated it, but now it was crystal clear.
The adventurers would not welcome them. And to cross the sea with the beastkin, they would have to get past those adventurers.
This was a lawless land where the sword was nearer than the law, where power ruled all.
* * *
A single galley docked at the pier of the Alliance Western Branch.
What had happened? Even the famously arrogant adventurers, swollen with pride in their strength, could only feel a strange shiver and kneel.
For the military banner flapping heavily at the prow bore an elegant silver-embroidered crest: the Black Tortoise cradling the Holy Grail.
"The Black Tortoise... that's the Eijin family crest..."
"And the Holy Grail is only used by families chosen as emperor...!"
If it had merely been an imperial envoy aboard, they wouldn't have shown such profound courtesy.
Who were adventurers? Those who followed strength, pursued it, and bowed to it... And this was Trident Point, where no weaklings existed.
Figures possessing such overwhelming mana and radiant renown stepped off the gangplank from the deck to the pier, forcing even them to their knees.
"It's the Imperial Secretariat..."
"Former platinum number two, Seigan Wolf Blado, and number six, Leoren...!"
The dignity of Crown Prince Raida Eijin, leading them, was beyond what one might expect from a sixteen-year-old, yet it paled before the two.
Seigan and Leoren were polar opposites in every way.
Seigan of the magic houses was as cold and meticulous as a northerner should be, while Leoren, descendant of Bow Star Kies, exuded a leisure bordering on negligence in all things.
"Ugh, back in this godforsaken place again."
Leoren, his verdant hair swaying, yawned repeatedly and grumbled.
Seigan was expressionless. Her jet-black hair billowed like arterial blood spurting from a fresh cut, eerie in its allure.
The Blado marquess house robe and leather boots she wore were the same dark crimson, her entire bearing both irresistibly seductive and utterly chilling.
It had to be that way—Seigan's mood wasn't merely poor; it was at its absolute worst.
'Not only is my cherished little brother branded a rebel, but I'm stuck cleaning up the mess...'
This might even be a test from the imperial family. Questioning the Blado house's loyalty, with the family's survival hanging by a thread.
"We've been awaiting Your Highness's arrival ever since the griffon rider's message."
The deputy manager of the Alliance Western Branch bowed politely.
"Still peaceful, I see. The rebels haven't arrived yet?"
"We've had scattered reports of sightings near the Third Finger inlet, but..."
At that, Raida halted with a creak, and the weathered deck plank groaned ominously under his weight.
"So many sightings, and they're still alive?"
The deputy manager's eyes bulged wide before he dropped to one knee and reported.
"Not all adventurers have received precise information yet...! For now, we've only ordered them to report to the western branch and await orders."
The deputy manager—handling the notoriously strong yet brutish adventurers while the branch chief was away on labyrinth support—was no slouch himself, but what could he do before a prince flanked by two of the era's strongest warriors?
"That's fine, then."
Narrowing his eyes appraisingly at the deputy manager, the crown prince finally turned, his robe flapping.
"The fleet will arrive in an hour or two. Five thousand imperial troops aboard. Prepare to receive them."
"Yes, Your Highness."
At that very moment, bubbles roiled furiously where the marsh met the sea at the harbor mouth, and suddenly a massive shadow loomed over the pier.
In an instant, stark white chaos raced through the adventurers' minds.
"No way, that thing...!"
"A-rank sea king monster Gilatin...?!"
"Did that idiot pier manager forget to close the barrier...?"
Amid the pandemonium, the crown prince and the secretariat maintained their usual composure. No—they glanced up at the primordial behemoth with faint amusement.
"Seigan, handle it."
"Yes."
A blade suddenly protruded from the steel ring on Seigan's left thumb. She slashed deeply into her palm, and blood streamed down.
With precise motions, she flung the blood at the monster charging with its maw agape, then formed the bloodline limit seal.
──It vanished.
The very space where the blood had been scattered... by some incomprehensible force.
"Your Highness!"
"Get down!"
"Behind—behind you!"
Even as the hole-riddled Gilatin failed to halt its momentum and crashed onto the pier, Seigan moved with effortless grace.
She simply walked on.
Following the prince.
The colossal body's collapse sent a ferocious waterspout skyward, soon raining droplets and spreading a briny mist.
"......?!"
"......?!"
"......?!"
Incredibly, the three remained unscathed. Not just them—the entire western branch harbor district and the warships moored there.
The adventurers stared blankly before comprehending, their eyes quaking with awe.
It was... art incarnate. There was no other way to describe it.
'The holes pierced through Gilatin's body...'
'Were perfectly bisected...'
'So they wouldn't hit the pier or the warships...'
Blood and entrails spilled from Gilatin's savagely halved corpse, filling the air with stench.
Seigan showed no reaction to single-handedly slaying an A-rank sea king monster that gold-grades struggled against—and which, if somehow felled, became bragging rights for years.
As if it were as natural as the sun rising and setting... The adventurers swallowed dryly.
'This is the Magic Citadel Seigan...'
'The strongest battle mage of our generation...'
'Beastkin or rebels—they're nothing to her...'