Chapter 58
Chapter 58
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 58
Chapter Title: The Dilemma
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Leoted, the Guild Leader of Dark Moon.
He was an assassin who had defined an era.
A legendary assassin said to have completed 100 contracts without a single failure.
His 100th and final contract was the previous Guild Leader of Dark Moon.
This was a Dark Moon tradition: an assassin who successfully completed 99 contracts was given the choice between freedom and a challenge for the position of Guild Leader.
Leoted chose the challenge and, in accordance with their laws, became the new Guild Leader of Dark Moon.
That was 12 years ago.
Since then, he had been more faithful to his role as Guild Leader than as an assassin, but he had never stopped training.
He had also unofficially carried out a few contracts himself. He was a born assassin, after all—a man who couldn't live without the taste of blood.
“It's been a while since I've felt this kind of tension.”
Facing Wang-sik, Leoted’s gaze turned cold. His intense bloodlust vanished, replaced by a smile playing on his lips.
An extreme tension that made the fine hairs on his skin stand on end.
Leoted was once again reminded that he belonged in the field.
*Fwip!*
Leaping like a coiled spring, Leoted bypassed Wang-sik's shield and struck his elbow as he passed.
It wasn't powerful enough to break the Holy Shield. The problem, however, was his speed.
*'He's faster than Seon-gi?'*
The best assassin Wang-sik had ever met was Sa Seon-gi. Though their encounter was brief, his speed and agility had surpassed that of an S-rank monster. But Leoted, his current opponent, was objectively superior.
“You seem to be lost in thought. Do you really have the time for that?”
Leoted moved again.
When Wang-sik reflexively threw up a defensive barrier, Leoted unhurriedly retreated.
It became a situation where only Wang-sik was expending energy.
“Can you afford to be so relaxed? My subordinates will be capturing Shadow any moment now.”
His words were meant to provoke.
“Then I'll have to deal with you quickly.”
“Precisely. That is your only answer.”
Despite saying that, Leoted was the first to attack.
Wang-sik, protecting himself with a barrier, watched Leoted and extended four chains simultaneously.
*Shhhk!*
It felt like a brief flash of light appearing and disappearing.
Wang-sik's palm wavered for a moment.
Leoted, having dodged the four chains with bizarre movements, had grazed Wang-sik's palm as he passed.
However, he failed to leave a wound on Wang-sik's palm.
Leoted didn't stop there; he spun around and approached Wang-sik again.
Holy Fence.
As the wall went up, Leoted retreated again.
“Still feeling composed, are we?”
Wang-sik realized.
*'A dilemma.'*
If he couldn't deal with the man before him quickly, Sa Seon-gi would be in danger.
*'Alright. Let's do this.'*
He decided to drop his defensive barrier and fight directly. Even so, he didn't feel he was in any danger.
“Come on, then. You look like a corpse, but your mouth sure is lively.”
“Keke. You still don't get it. Coming here in the first place was your mistake.”
Wang-sik prepared for close-quarters combat, but Leoted had other plans.
“I'll show you what a real dilemma is.”
Leoted's body flickered. Then, he vanished without a trace.
Even with Dark Vision, which allowed him to see the night as if it were day, he couldn't pinpoint Leoted's location.
He couldn't even sense a presence.
*'Did he leave?'*
Just as he had that thought, something the size of a finger came flying at him.
*Clang!*
What he deflected with his shield was a sharp nail.
But by the time he identified it, the surroundings had fallen silent again.
*'He's nearby.'*
It was, quite literally, perfect stealth.
*'A real dilemma...'*
It was just as Leoted had said.
If he dragged this out using stealth, there was nothing Wang-sik could do.
Sa Seon-gi would be pursued by Dark Moon's elites, and Wang-sik would have no way to go help him.
The bigger problem was that Leoted's skills were far from trivial.
Faced with a true dilemma, Wang-sik took a long, deep breath.
*'I have to find a way.'*
He let go of the compulsion to *do* something and deployed a defensive barrier around himself. Within the barrier he trusted, Wang-sik focused solely on the current situation.
*'What if I leave this place?'*
That was the first solution.
To leave the current area.
But as he took a step, a chilling voice reached him.
“Keke. That's fine, too. I'll just go after Shadow.”
He had no choice but to stop.
*'If that man goes after Sa Seon-gi, the chances will be even slimmer.'*
Sa Seon-gi would be in danger.
In terms of movement speed, this was not an opponent Wang-sik could beat. Besides, tracking people was an assassin's specialty.
“You seem really determined to kill me.”
“An assassin never gives up on their target.”
With all his options blocked, the only thing Wang-sik had left was his opponent's obsession.
The obsession to defeat a strong opponent.
He had no choice but to use it.
*Thud.*
Wang-sik tossed his shield to the ground.
He hadn't put it in his inventory, so if someone else picked it up, its ownership would change.
*Thud.*
This time, it was his armor.
After throwing two mythic items on the ground, Wang-sik tossed his helmet down as well.
With that, his bare body was completely exposed.
He could no longer use the special skills that came with the armor and shield.
“You seem to be in a hurry.”
“Even without these, a guy like you is a joke.”
Before Wang-sik could finish speaking, three daggers flew out from the direction of the voice that had been echoing through the forest.
*Clang! Clang! Clang!*
The chains dangling from Wang-sik's hands deflected the three daggers.
“Is that all you've got?”
Wang-sik's concentration was at its peak.
It was due to the sense of crisis from having removed his armor.
With the sense of security from his armor gone, Wang-sik pushed his senses to their limit and blocked the continuous stream of hidden weapons.
As Wang-sik blocked the weapons with only his chains, without moving an inch from his spot, Leoted changed his method.
*Poof!*
At first, it was smoke.
Smoke that obscured vision and created noise.
But he felt a breeze from a direction unrelated to the smoke.
The moment Wang-sik quickly turned, a sharp pain shot through his wrist.
Blood flowed from the shallow cut on his wrist. If it had been any deeper, blood would have gushed out like a fountain.
But Leoted, who he thought had passed by, vanished again and threatened him once more.
*Clang!*
He blocked the dagger. But his wrist stung sharply again.
This time, more blood flowed.
*Poof! Poof!*
Noise and smoke continued to erupt around him, but Wang-sik didn't move from his spot.
Regardless of Wang-sik's confident stance, Leoted continued his assault in his own way.
Wrists and ankles, then elbows and knees.
A series of attacks followed, not fatal, but designed to restrict movement. Then, as he grazed Wang-sik's knee once more, Leoted suddenly threw a hidden weapon.
*Thunk!*
One of the three daggers lodged itself in Wang-sik's side.
*'An opening!'*
As his surprise attack with a changed pattern landed, Leoted didn't miss the opportunity.
His hand went to his shoulder and grabbed a curved dagger he hadn't used until now.
The dagger that had ended the lives of countless targets.
His dagger stabbed into Wang-sik's left back.
Exactly where the heart was.
*Shunk!*
The dagger dug into flesh.
*'Got him.'*
He was certain. But then, his own inner thought echoed back into his ears.
“Got you.”
It felt as if the penetrating dagger had been caught by the skin.
*'A lure!'*
He realized that everything he'd been hit with so far had been part of a trap.
Leoted quickly let go of the dagger and tried to back away. But at that moment, he lost his balance and fell.
A chain that had been lying on the ground had snatched his ankle.
“Was this what you were aiming for?”
With the dagger still stuck in his back, Wang-sik turned around.
His body was covered in blood from numerous wounds, but his eyes were as composed as they were at the start.
“I'm short on time, so I won't torment you.”
*Crr-unch!*
The separate chains binding his two ankles tightened with a grinding sound.
Even as his ankles were being crushed, Leoted clenched his teeth and held back a scream.
*'He has something up his sleeve.'*
Seeing the unyielding look in his eyes, Wang-sik quickly attacked.
*Crack!*
He first stomped on and broke Leoted's knee, then cast two chains.
One of them bound Leoted's right hand, while the other swept across the ground.
“It's over.”
Wang-sik raised his fist to bring it down on Leoted's neck.
One could dodge a blow to the face, but the neck was not a part of the body one could move to evade.
*BOOM!*
A deafening sound echoed. But the Leoted who had been bound by the chains dispersed into smoke.
But Wang-sik smiled.
“Holy Fence.”
A rectangular barrier rose around Wang-sik.
“Where do you think you're going?”
Above Wang-sik's head, Leoted was floating against the ceiling inside the barrier.
He had tried to escape completely and go into stealth, but he had been narrowly trapped by the wall.
“Since when...”
Leoted saw the golden shield in Wang-sik's hand.
The one chain that had swept the ground.
Overlooking it was his mistake.
That chain hadn't been aimed at Leoted, but at the shield he had thrown on the ground.
“Now, shall we get serious?”
Having trapped his enemy in a confined space, Wang-sik raised his shield to the sky and leaped up.
*BAM!*
Leoted's falling body crashed against the shield and bounced back up. But it was blocked by the Holy Fence and fell again.
*BAM!*
Another impact.
This time, a chain followed.
The chain wrapped precisely around Leoted's neck and broke his bones before he could hit the ground.
“Wasted so much time because of this nobody.”
Wang-sik confirmed Leoted's death and picked up the armor he had dropped.
Afterwards, he took out a potion and poured it over his wounds. The injuries inflicted by Leoted began to heal quickly.
This was because none of them were deep wounds.
Wang-sik estimated the direction of the nearest city and moved in a straight line.
*'Please be there.'*
He knew the destination and the route, but he couldn't grasp their exact location.
After about 30 minutes of moving with an urgent heart, a voice echoed in his head.
—Fear Detection.
The place he scanned with Fear Search was a small swamp formed on the plains.
It was a place formed by the shade of thin, zigzagging broadleaf trees, and a pungent smell emanated from it, even from a distance.
*'There.'*
Wang-sik's heart raced.
If the siblings were there, it meant they had ultimately been caught.
*'Huh?'*
But something was strange.
*'Three people?'*
There were three individuals caught by Fear Detection.
And the moment he checked, one of them disappeared.
*'They're fighting.'*
Wang-sik ran towards the swamp.
*Splash!*
When he reached the entrance to the swamp, Wang-sik unintentionally stepped into a puddle.
It was a puddle of blood. And before him lay the bodies of dozens of people.
*'For assassins to be terrified means...'*
...their opponent is that overwhelming.
Wang-sik heightened his tension and entered the forest.
The damp ground caught at his ankles, but by stepping on the areas near the tree roots, he was able to quickly reach the center.
There, Wang-sik could see Sa Seon-gi moving like a grim reaper, leaving a black trail in his wake.
Every time he changed direction, a body would fall with a small sound, and his movements hardly ever stopped.
*'Fear Search.'*
While watching Sa Seon-gi's rampage, Wang-sik did not join the fight.
*'Please.'*
As he desperately used Fear Search, among the four targets of fear, he spotted one who was particularly small.
*'Inside the tree.'*
It was someone hiding inside a thick tree.
Wang-sik immediately ran towards them. At that, Sa Seon-gi quickly changed direction and blocked his path.
He was a demon, battered and covered in blood.
He saw Wang-sik's face and stopped his hand just in time.
“Leave the rest to me.”
Hearing those words, the strength drained from Sa Seon-gi's eyes, and he soon lost consciousness.