Chapter 58
Chapter 58
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 58
Chapter Title: Rasiel's Main Gate Breached
-----------------------------------------------------------------
058
There were people striding boldly through Rasiel's main gate.
" Halt."
Naturally, Rasiel's guards weren't about to let them pass.
"Ugh."
The guards wrinkled their noses at the stench wafting off them.
"The free meal period is over."
Sensing they were slum dwellers come for handouts, one guard said.
"And this isn't the entrance you people use. Remember that next time."
He waved them off, covering his mouth and nose like he couldn't stand the sight of them.
"...Fuck."
A clear curse rang out then.
"What the hell did that bastard just say?"
"He's calling us beggars, I think."
"...We do look the part, though."
The voice sounded familiar somehow.
"Our looks are what they are, so we'll let it slide this once. Move."
"You crazy bastards..."
In the end, the guard unleashed his aura and reached for his sword.
"......"
But he couldn't quite draw it.
"What's wrong?"
His fellow guard on duty asked.
His partner, who had looked ready to swing at any moment, had frozen.
"M-My body... it won't move."
"What?"
One by one, the guards straightened up from where the stench had made them recoil.
"......"
They froze just like the one who'd tried to draw his sword.
And then they saw it.
A glint.
The glint in the eyes of those they'd dismissed as beggars.
*Killed by their killing intent? Us?*
They were Rasiel members, low-ranking though they might be, and they'd been crushed by the bloodlust of beggars.
That was anything but normal.
*Crunch.*
Bebe, the captain of the main gate guards, ground his teeth.
"It's an attack."
This was an attack.
By a rival organization targeting Rasiel's headquarters!
"Attack—!"
He shouted, half-drawing his sword.
*Clack.*
It slid limply back into its sheath.
That wasn't his will.
A beggar had appeared right in front of his face and pressed down on the hilt with his hand, jamming it back in.
*Tremble.*
Even as he poured all his strength and mana into it, the sword wouldn't budge.
"The kids aren't in a good mood."
The man said.
"Tomorrow's the exchange matches, so they came straight here without washing up or eating. Better not provoke them any further."
"......?"
It was the last thing he'd expected to hear.
Not only were these enemies speaking civilly, but they were bringing up the exchange matches.
"......!"
Then it hit him.
The faces in front of him were more familiar than he'd realized.
"Ba... Balak Demorus?"
"And if you provoke them more..."
The beggar—no, Balak—scowled as he said.
"I won't be able to hold them back."
That was the moment.
"What the fuck! What are you idiots doing dicking around up front!"
Every guard's eyes went wide.
They might not remember some random voice.
But the top brass of Rasiel?
"Hey! Shove 'em aside!"
They'd never forget Sein Demorus's voice.
Sein. Balak.
"The candidates..."
Their identities.
"The candidates are back!"
The guards shouted, their voices laced with some emotion—joy or otherwise.
"You're late, you fuckers!"
But the furious Sein and the other candidates shoved the guards aside.
That day, Rasiel suffered its greatest humiliation since its founding.
Its headquarters' main gate pierced by a mere dozen or so people.
And the ones who'd done it...
"Haa."
...were Rasiel's own candidates.
Almon let out a deep sigh.
Before him, every member of the main gate guard detail stood at attention, heads bowed low.
Faces covered in bruises and cuts.
It wasn't punishment.
"What the hell."
Bruises and cuts from getting beaten by the candidates.
Low-ranking or not, these were men deemed capable of guarding the main gate.
Especially Bebe, the guard captain, who possessed mid-tier strength in the combat unit.
That much was true.
"Should I be pleased or pissed?"
Either way, the important thing was that Sein and the candidates had returned.
*
*
*
"Ah, I feel alive again."
"I thought I was gonna itch myself to death."
"It's not like the Venom Spider poison lingered, right?"
"Don't jinx it."
The candidates sat gathered in the mess hall.
Heaps of plates towered before their eyes.
"More here!"
"Me too!"
Even accounting for how beggar-like they'd looked arriving at Rasiel, it was an impressive amount of food.
"Man, thinking back on it now, that was intense."
"We almost got into it with our own Rasiel guys."
After washing off the near-month's buildup of monster blood and grime.
After changing out of their rag-like clothes.
After finally eating fresh meat and drinking cold beer instead of monster blood and flesh, their minds cleared.
They realized they'd forced their way through Rasiel's main gate.
"You think we could see straight? A whole month. A month rolling around in that hellhole."
"Fuck, if it weren't for the exchange matches tomorrow, we'd have washed up and rested in a nearby city first."
Fresh from the labyrinth, the candidates had no choice but to rush straight to Rasiel.
Already on edge to the max, and then treated like beggars—clashing was probably inevitable.
"Still..."
And they realized it fully.
"We breached Rasiel's main gate, right?"
Just days ago, they hadn't even known they were Demorus.
Sure, they'd awakened their blood and gained blessings, but Rasiel's rank-and-file were elite even by this world's standards.
They recalled how those who'd once felt like an impenetrable wall had crumpled like tofu.
"For real..."
As the plates piled up.
As the beer mugs rolled around.
Silence fell over the mess hall.
"We've gotten strong. All of us."
Time that had seemed impossible had passed.
And what remained wasn't battered, wounded bodies, but superhuman flesh brimming with mana.
"It's all thanks to the boss."
Sein Demorus.
Without him.
"Boss!"
Sein Demorus.
The candidates' attitude toward him had shifted too.
The lingering discomfort of the past was washed away, replaced by the gazes of those who'd pledged true loyalty.
Sein, who had to meet all those gazes.
"Hey. I told you not to chew that."
Swept back his white hair and nagged.
*Crunch, crunch.*
The girl sitting beside Sein.
In just a month, she'd undergone a huge change, now exuding the air of a woman.
With beauty rivaling—no, perhaps surpassing—Arin.
But no one looked at her with lust.
Partly because they'd spent the month living like family or comrades.
Partly because she was under Sein's protection.
But...
*Crunch.*
"Because of her madness."
"Don't chew the bones!"
They'd seen it.
Cecil had always munched on snacks, but in the labyrinth, her supply ran out fast.
And from then on.
*Crack!*
Cecil started gnawing on monster bones.
*
*
*
"Unbelievable."
Almon was showing emotions he usually kept hidden.
The paper in his hand was a report compiled by Rasiel members from interviews with Sein and the candidates.
"Dark Trolls, Death Lizardmen..."
Those mad bastards had actually crawled into the labyrinth.
Records of the countless dark species they'd faced.
And at the end.
"A lich, huh."
Even a lich.
A lich was master-class at minimum.
Considering half the master dark mages called Children of Darkness had turned lich, the difficulty was even higher.
"Labyrinth difficulty estimated at gray-rank minimum."
Gray-rank was high even among labyrinths.
The kind that required three or more of Rasiel's combat units to conquer.
These mad bastards hadn't just entered the labyrinth.
"Casualties: zero...?"
They'd all come back alive.
"Hah."
You expect me to believe this?
He wanted to say.
But with the proof sitting right there, packed into the mess hall, denial was impossible.
"The candidates breached Rasiel's main gate."
That alone was enough to make you spit up your lungs.
In any sense of the word.
But Almon had also seen.
"......"
Every single candidate.
"Hid their mana from me."
Not all of them completely, but they'd learned to conceal part of their grown power, something they possessed.
That was no small feat.
It meant their usable mana percentage had increased, and their control over it had leaped forward.
Even in Rasiel, that wasn't taught lightly.
*Main house.*
Only at the main house level would they teach it.
And the candidates had achieved it.
Naturally.
"This is all that mad bastard's doing."
Sein Demorus. No doubt his handiwork.
Almon looked ahead.
The report had come from a Rasiel member, but sitting before him was.
"That mad bastard himself."
Sein Demorus.
"You were once called the Mad Dog of Chichiron."
"......"
"It's all true, right?"
"You lead Rasiel and still lack that much conviction?"
Hah, Almon let out a hollow laugh.
"It's just so hard to believe, even seeing the report."
Almon's tone had changed from before too.
That was.
"I knew you were impressive, but I never imagined this level."
A sign he truly acknowledged Sein now.
"Tomorrow."
The day the exchange matches with Dante began.
Well, the matches themselves wouldn't start right away, but it was the day Dante arrived at Rasiel.
"They've prepared too, it seems. With Rasiel backing you fully and keeping you hidden, they think Rasiel ran some special training."
"Not wrong."
"Rohan won't be an easy opponent. Nor their candidates."
Sein stared straight at Almon without a word.
"......"
A brief silence.
"So."
Sein finally spoke.
"What do you think?"
He asked in turn.
Whether the them he'd seen with his own eyes could beat Dante.
What the outcome of their contract would be.
"We'll get to see Rohan cry in a long time."
That was Almon's answer, laced with a smile.