Chapter 11
Chapter 11
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 011
Chapter Title: Blood Winds in the Back Alleys
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On the ramparts of Borfeo, where the guards kept a strict watch.
“…….”
A black-haired woman sat perched there.
Her name was Arin.
The witch.
Once called the Legion’s Witch, she had reigned in terror.
“Long time no see.”
Someone greeted her—the woman who had single-handedly toppled a kingdom, the one coveted by the New Empire and all three great underworld factions alike.
“Who?”
Arin replied without even glancing at the speaker.
A massive warrior clad in black armor.
Slowly, he removed his helmet and spoke in a neutral tone.
“We met once at a banquet in the past. I’m Barbvik.”
Long red hair cascaded down.
His exposed face matched his voice—perfectly androgynous, with sharp, defined features.
“Ah, I remember.”
Only then did Arin turn her head to look at Barbvik.
“Your body caught my interest. It’s so unique.”
“Thank you.”
Coming from a necromancer like Arin, the comment was ripe for misunderstanding, but Barbvik didn’t seem to care in the slightest.
Barbvik continued.
“I never expected to encounter the witch in a remote outpost like this.”
He was usually a man of few words, but not in the presence of the witch.
“I heard you’d gone into hiding for a while.”
“I had some business to attend to.”
“Business...”
He’d heard the rumors.
“You were searching for a candidate?”
Candidate.
A rumor was sweeping through all of Borfeo.
Sein Demorus—the mad dog of Chichiron, wielding the Demorus name—was shaking up the back alleys.
“Yeah.”
“To think the witch herself selected a candidate...”
The witch, Arin, was a force capable of upending the continent by her mere existence.
For her not only to choose a candidate personally but to become their patron as well...
“I’m curious.”
“You’ll see him soon enough, won’t you?”
Arin said.
“Stop standing there and come sit beside me.”
“…Thank you.”
Barbvik sat down next to her, his eyes glistening with genuine emotion.
Atop the ramparts, with a clear view of Borfeo below.
The city lay shrouded in deep darkness.
Whoosh!
Torches flared to life, moving through the streets.
“Barbvik.”
Arin called his name.
“Yes.”
“Are you fully prepared?”
“…You’re kinder than I expected.”
Barbvik nodded slowly as he spoke.
Arin replied without looking at him.
“Your fate will be decided by the outcome.”
“…….”
“If an unworthy fool dared to use the Demorus name.”
Barbvik fell silent.
“We’ll soon find out if he’s worthy.”
The torches weren’t limited to one spot.
They burned in other places too.
Soon, a small war would erupt in Borfeo’s back alleys.
And its result would seal the fate of Borfeo—and of Barbvik.
“It’s a battle among candidates, after all.”
The being called the Ogre.
His true identity was another Demorus.
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
Another name for the Legion’s Witch, Arin, was the Witch of Fate.
She was one of the three absolute witches on the continent.
Barbvik could do nothing but hold his breath in anticipation of the destiny to come.
*
*
*
Step, step.
Sein strode forward.
Step, step.
Dozens of underlings followed behind him.
Whoosh!
Their shadows loomed large across the buildings in the glow of the blazing torches.
Bang!
The residents of Borfeo, still awake, bolted their windows shut.
“Eek, eeeek!”
A drunkard wandering the streets sobered up in terror and fled in a panic.
Gleaming eyes.
Shing.
Weapons glinted in their hands.
Murderous intent scattered through Borfeo’s back alleys.
“Woo, woo woo.”
While everyone else tensed with hardened faces, Sein casually hummed a tune.
Lyrics everyone had heard through rumors.
A song from his hometown—a place that didn’t exist in Sanctuary—from his childhood.
“Chichiron was too small to be any fun.”
A backwater among backwaters, Chichiron.
Even combining all its back-alley crews, it had fewer than a hundred members—a tiny rural village.
But now.
“Finally, things are getting exciting.”
Nearly a hundred followed in Sein’s wake alone.
How could he not be thrilled?
Just like a scene from a movie he’d seen as a young child.
Step.
He was living that exact moment, feeling that rush.
It wasn’t just a game anymore, where he could simply enjoy himself.
Step.
Still, the joy was unavoidable.
Sein finally came to a halt.
Whoosh!
Torches approached from the opposite side as well.
A fairly wide street that served as a market by day.
The two sides faced off across it.
“You the mad dog of Chichiron?”
One-armed Wolf stood there at the head of his crew, lord of one sector of Borfeo’s back alleys.
“Then you must be Borfeo’s other cripple?”
“…What….”
“Just so you know, I don’t discriminate against the disabled!”
Sein’s voice boomed through the dark back alley.
“Hah.”
Wolf let out a hollow laugh.
“Crazy as the rumors say.”
“Correction: Not ‘guy,’ but ‘dog.’”
Shing.
Sein drew the sword he’d gripped carelessly.
Wolf’s eyes narrowed.
‘Sloppy.’
He had once been a knight’s squire.
A slave who caught a knight’s eye, got taken in as a squire, and trained under him.
That experience let him see how utterly amateurish Sein’s stance was.
Shing.
In contrast, Wolf drew his sword with solid form.
“One-armed, huh.”
Sein’s voice drifted over.
“I heard your story. Slave pitied and taken in by a knight, then you assassinated him and stole his sword?”
Wolf scowled at the sudden dredging up of his past.
“That’s why you ended up a one-armed thief.”
“Shut your mouth!”
Even as he bellowed, Wolf kept sizing Sein up.
‘Can’t underestimate him.’
He’s a Demorus, however lacking.
The one who took down Cyclops and Frog.
There must be a hidden trick behind that sloppy stance.
“The Ogre doesn’t seem to be showing. No need to stand there, is there?”
Sein said.
“Why not join us now? Like I said, I don’t discriminate against cripples.”
“…….”
“Guess that’s a no.”
Wolf focused every nerve on Sein’s hands and sword, determined not to miss a beat.
“I don’t need petty thieves anyway.”
“……!”
In that instant, Wolf instinctively jerked his head back.
Something flashed through the air.
Swoosh!
A dagger flew past his tilted neck at blinding speed.
Thuk!
A gruesome sound of flesh tearing echoed from one of his underlings behind him.
“Gah!”
A scream rang out.
In that split second, dodging had saved him from a dagger through the forehead.
“You coward—!”
Wolf raised his head, trembling with rage at Sein’s mid-conversation attack.
“Coward? This is the back alleys.”
But as he looked up, Wolf’s face froze rigid.
Sein had been far off just a moment ago.
“I told you.”
Now he stood right in front, sword raised high.
“I don’t discriminate against the disabled.”
Wolf summoned all his strength, awakening his mana as he swung his sword.
Slash! Thud, roll.
But all he saw were Sein’s feet.
Wolf’s severed head tumbled across the filth like trash.
It had all happened in a flash.
“There.”
Sein swung once more, cutting down a dazed underling of Wolf’s.
“Let’s go in.”
Grin.
A bloody gale began to blow through Borfeo’s back alleys.
*
*
*
The small war unfolding in Borfeo’s back alleys.
“Kill—!”
“Arghhh!”
Shouts laced with killing intent and screams filled the late-night back alleys of Borfeo.
Among the four lords of the alleys, Cyclops was deemed the strongest in personal martial prowess.
But when it came to the quality of their underlings, Wolf took the top spot.
They were skilled fighters who could learn proper swordsmanship from a former knight’s squire like him.
Slash—! Slash!
Yet now, Wolf’s men were the ones being massacred.
“The city’s nothing special.”
Sein led the vanguard.
His terrified underlings backed away in a circle around him.
Wolf’s crew had numbered over a hundred.
A third had already fallen to Sein’s blade.
Sloppy stance and technique that made Wolf’s look polished by comparison.
Slash!
Yet Sein’s sword was incomparably sharper and more powerful than anything Wolf could muster.
Renowned in Borfeo’s back alleys or not, they were just street punks.
“Derun. One-eye.”
“Yes, boss.”
“You called, boss!”
He who had countless masters across the continent shaking in fear was beyond their league.
“This is enough. Spare the ones worth sparing and clean up.”
“Yes.”
“And grab that Fox bitch for sure.”
The momentum had shifted; the scales tipped completely.
“You can handle it, right?”
Cyclops flinched at Sein’s chilling words, but Derun stood firm.
“We’ll take care of it.”
“Don’t disappoint me.”
Sein moved alone through the battlefield.
Wolf’s vengeful underlings blocked his path, but.
Splash!
They scattered as blood soaking the ground.
Splat.
Sein waded through pools of blood.
His destination: the shallow, ramshackle iron mine in the distance.
Unlike his casual demeanor against Wolf, Sein’s aura was now tightly coiled, a level sharper.
Thump! Thump!
The Dragon Heart that had taken the place of his own pulsed.
Its mana flowed through his body, heightening his senses to the extreme.
“The Ogre, right?”
The one who’d claimed Borfeo’s back alleys before Sein arrived.
The Ogre.
Word was he possessed monstrous strength, swinging a greatsword larger than a grown man with ease.
But none of that mattered.
Sein had only one reason for interest.
“Demorus.”
He called himself Demorus, and that was enough.