Chapter 118 October 14, 2022
Chapter 118 – It Always Ends With a Bang
“Did you succeed?”
Violeta, who had been checking that the Black Guards wearing Black Armor had grouped together, realized that the plan had succeeded.
‘Then I should get going too.’
As she had been on standby just in case of an unknown situation, she thought that she no longer needed to do that.
When she thought so and was about to move, she discovered a familiar face huffing and puffing while coming out to the hall.
‘That man. He’s the ‘Key Master’, right?’
The ‘Key Master’, who’d fainted after she’d approached him while pretending to be drunk, was looking for someone with bloodshot eyes.
‘This is bothersome. I used all of my strength so he would faint for a long time, but was it a bit lacking?’
Since the ‘Key Master’ went out and protected the front door, it would be hard for her to go out.
She thought of whether she should escape stealthily through the back door, but even that place had been blocked by the employees at his orders.
If it kept going like that, she would be locked in without being able to move.
‘Even though the gate is blocked, it doesn’t mean that there’s no way to escape, right?’
Violeta headed toward the window with light steps.
She was on the fifth floor where she could look down the hall.
The woman opened the window wide and looked down slightly.
Below, she could see orange streetlights along with cars and citizens passing by.
Since Kunst was an auction house and a hotel, even though it was a five story building, the floor was higher compared to other buildings, so if she fell from there, she would break all the bones in her body.
However, Violeta carefully raised the hem of her skirt regardless and moved her feet beyond the windowsill.
“Then… Shall I go?”
Soon, the woman stormed out of her seat and jumped down.
At the same time, the black parasol which she held with one of her hands opened wide.
In the treacherous situation when she would probably die below…
Surprisingly, Violeta didn’t die on the ground and instead she used the parasol to float in the air.
Fwoooosh.
The blowing wind pushed the parasol and floated the woman’s body even higher.
Since it was a dark night when the sun had set, there was no one who noticed the woman who had worn black clothes.
Usually, flying magic used Mana Release, but Violeta, who was still a greenhorn in Release technique, used another method instead.
—She mixed her specialty of wind elemental property and the telekinesis she’d learned from Ludger.
Violeta, who flew far away by using the wind through her black parasol, landed lightly in a place where people didn’t see.
And before the period reached its limit, she sent her last communication through the radio.
“This is ‘Mary Poppins’. I safely escaped the Kunst auction house.”
After she conveyed the news, when she was about to move in order to join the others at the hideout, she stopped when she felt a gaze staring at her.
A little child widened his eyes as he stared at her.
It seemed that he’d seen her descending from the sky.
“Ssh.”
Violeta formed a playful smile while putting her index finger on her lips.
The little child could only nod blankly while not being able to shut his gaping lips.
* * *
As she was sitting in the driver seat of the truck which had been prepared earlier in the entrance, Sheridan looked back and asked, “Hey. Is everything ready?”
The four people who wore Black Armor symbolizing Black Guards busily loaded the goods onto the truck.
“They’re valuables, so load them carefully!”
“Ah, really. Someone would think that they’re your own belongings.”
“Hey, Hans! What did you say?!”
“I didn’t say anything.”
After the members loaded all the goods onto the truck, each of them grabbed a position in the trunk of the truck.
“All loaded? Then, I will get going now.”
“Ah, wait. I’m getting off here.”
“Why? Did you leave anything behind?”
“It’s not that. I have something that I need to hand over to Ludger separately.”
Hans pulled out the item that he’d prepared earlier among the stored auction goods in vault number three.
It looked like a fragment that was a part of something.
A Relic fragment…
It was the most fundamental reason why Ludger had created the plan.
Hans planned to convey the fragment to Ludger directly.
In fact, Ludger had even said that he needed to bring it.
“Please go first. Ludger and I will follow you soon enough.”
“Huh? Okay. Well, it’s no problem if you’re with him.”
As he took off the Black Armor, Hans headed inside the auction house straight after he changed to his suit.
The entrance security and strict guards who guarded the entrance became very shabby due to them having to take care of the incident that’d happened inside.
Hans entered the auction house naturally without letting anyone suspect him.
Unlike when he’d stealthily entered the back door sometime before, his footsteps as he headed toward the front door were confident.
With the thought of wanting to convey the Relic fragment that he carried to Ludger as quickly as possible, Hans stopped his footsteps for a while.
‘What’s that?’
When he passed through the restaurant, there was one group of people in the corner who stood out the most.
—There were five people wearing black suits.
There was nothing particularly strange on the outside, but Hans’s special senses could detect an odd stench flowing from them.
‘Something doesn’t feel right…’
When he glanced at them with a suspicious look…
There were screams resounded all over the place and chaos started to emerge.
Exactly like it was a sign, the group in black suits started to get up from their seats.
Hans felt goosebumps all over his body.
—Because the things they pulled out from their sleeves were wands used by magicians.
“Damn…!”
At the same time, damp and muddy dark magic swept away the surroundings.
* * *
‘What is happening all of a sudden?’
Ludger was considerably perplexed by the sudden explosion.
At first, he thought that maybe Sheridan couldn’t suppress her explosive instinct and that she’d triggered an incident in the end, but he erased such an assumption from his head right away.
‘This auction house is a place that maintains a Silence of Fire magic by the wizards in order to prepare for unknown danger. There’s no way that an explosion would happen in such a place.’
That meant it wasn’t an explosion using gunpowder, but one caused by another method.
Magic? Or something else?
What it was wasn’t important.
The problem was ‘who’ did it.
Usually, the ones who set off explosions in that kind of place and caused confusion were…
“Everyone, don’t move!”
“We will kill all those who move!”
They were obvious.
“Wh-who the hell are you?! Where do you think this is? Cough!”
“I told you to shut up!”
“Kyaaaaa!”
As a fearless middle-aged person who stepped up collapsed with blood gushing out of his head, the guests, who realized the severity of the situation, screamed.
Looking at the group that’d turned the auction house into chaos in an instant, Ludger realized that the situation had flowed in a bad way.
‘How on earth did they get into the Kunst auction house?’
Did they think that a place with such strict security was an easy target to do that kind of thing?
‘Ah.’
As he thought so, Ludger realized where the Black Guards who were supposed to protect the interior of the auction house had gone and inwardly groaned.
‘Is it because of us?’
The Black Guards that protected Kunts were recently locked in the underground storage room with a broken elevator, and he didn’t know when they would go up.
Come to think of it, even if someone went berserk inside, there would be no one who could overpower them in time.
Of course, there was still some interior security, but those rascals who’d appeared to cause trouble were far from ordinary, no matter how one looked at it.
Starting from the clothes that they wore to the weapons that they held in their hands…
Since they were determined and had gone all the way there to rob the place, they were obviously people with skills suitable to such bravado.
The gap in their power was overwhelming.
Usually, they would’ve thought that they couldn’t make a move at all and stayed back, but it was different that time.
More than 80% of the Black Guards’ forces were confined below due to Ludger’s plan—the best opportunity for them to make a move had finally come.
Of course, personal escorts who guarded the VIPs were everywhere in the Kunst auction house.
However, they weren’t there to protect the Kunst auction house but to protect their employers who had employed them, and the enemies wickedly recognized that part very well.
“Eat this instead!”
Green mist spread wide in an instant.
As it looked highly dangerous, the escorts gritted their teeth.
“Please run away!”
“Get back! We can’t touch it!”
A fight to protect someone was bound to be even more difficult than a fight to simply defeat the opponent.
Since the escorts only had to protect their employers, they didn’t have to showcase their sense of justice and fight those guys.
‘But if it’s like that, then, in another place, a commotion will…’
Ludger’s sensitive auditory sense caught an explosive sound resounding gently in another place.
On the platform, there was another group invading the Kunst auction house apart from those who were carrying the newly-sold valuables.
It was the price of the disappearing restrainer that’d prohibited the criminals from swaggering about.
It was a planned sequence of the guys who had been vigilantly waiting for an opportunity until then raising their stiff bodies and showing their suppressed greed.
The problem was that it had to be right then.
“Bl-black wizards! There are lunatic black wizards!”
Someone screamed and ran into the auction house.
Dark veins popped up everywhere in his skin, and it was some kind of curse that was used by black wizards.
The man whose eyes turned inside out and who shouted a horrible shriek was one of the big guys who’d watched over Ludger.
Soon, the man foamed at his mouth, collapsed to the floor, and died.
The man had died painfully along with a scream about black wizards.
There was a spreading horror.
“Kyaaaaa!”
“Run away!”
“Damn, don’t push!”
“Get away! The escape of our employer is foremost!”
“Don’t block the way!”
The escort troops who attempted to protect their employers and the people who couldn’t cope with the situation yet…
People were dying, and there were screaming people who fell into panic due to the explosions that had happened all over the place.
People ran away, bumped into each other, got tangled, and cursed each other.
In an instant, the auction house became the center of chaos.
It was exactly like a malicious person had put them in a huge basin and poured down mud called ‘despair’ into it.
‘I have to get away.’
Since his aim in the Kunst auction house had been fulfilled, there was no need to stay in that place any longer.
Moreover, there weren’t only one or two invaders.
There were not only robbers moved to rob the auction goods, there were even black wizards as well.
Moreover, knowing that there were fighting sounds in other places as well, he seemed certain that there were other groups who were also making their move.
As Ludger planned to run away naturally while blending into the fleeing crowd, he suddenly remembered the command that he’d given to Hans.
He’d told Hans to bring the Relic fragment to him separately.
Hans had contacted him, saying that he would soon come with the fragment.
‘How about Hans? Did that guy get away safely?’
Usually, if he was a quick-witted guy, he would read the situation and flee.
It was a matter of course if he thought so, but Ludger felt an odd, anxious feeling.
* * *
‘Ah. What?’
Hans soon realized that he’d fainted.
His cheek felt the touch of the marble floor.
‘When the hell did I fall?’ He attempted to get up with such a thought.
‘I can’t feel any strength.’
His strength had left his body.
When he desperately put strength into his hand, he could properly move his right hand.
He rolled his eyes and looked at his right hand.
‘Where is… the fragment?’
The Relic fragment which he’d held in his hand since before was gone.
Hans raised his chin with difficulty.
People were collapsing in his surroundings, and he could see people in black suits moving among them like phantoms.
The wicked death smell which radiated from them was clearer than before.
‘Black wizards.’
‘Fuck.’ Hans lamented inwardly.
He was so out of luck.
He didn’t expect that black wizards would come on the day he robbed the Kunst auction house with Ludger.
No. It seemed to happen because all the Black Guards had emptied their positions.
As Hans planned to close his eyes and pretend to die like that, he suddenly discovered that one of the black wizards was holding the Relic fragment.
He’d probably taken it away from Hans after he had fainted.
In a glance, it looked like a useless item, but as they were black wizards, there was no way that they didn’t recognize the value of that fragment.
‘Oh, no.’
It was an item that he had to give to Ludger.
It wasn’t an item that those damned black wizards could just carry away.
But how?
As he discovered what was snatched away from him somehow in his recent situation that didn’t let him move his body, Hans moved his lips first before he even thought of it.
“G-give it to me.”
“Huh? What? This bastard hasn’t died yet, huh?”
The black wizard who’d snatched away the Relic fragment from Hans heard his mumble and approached him.
He thought he had gotten rid of all the troublesome human beings using curse magic, so he didn’t expect that there would be a survivor.
It seemed that he was a guy with a pretty strong vitality compared to ordinary people.
“That, give it back… I have to give it to him.”
“Ah. This?”
The black wizard smirked while looking at Hans, who was glaring at him.
Baam!
And he kicked Hans’s side strongly.
“Cough!”
“Why is an insect who can’t even move telling me to give something back.”
“Uurgh.”
As his body got flipped, Hans laid while looking at the ceiling.
As he was about to kill Hans, the black wizard looked at the black veins popping up around his skin and smiled disgustingly.
“Looking at your face, it seems like you can’t survive long either. I will show you some mercy and won’t kill you with my own hand.”
He said that, but it meant that he would let Hans struggle in pain and slowly die.
Hans couldn’t say anything to the black wizard who had mocked him.
“Haah. Haah.”
‘Damn.’
Hans desperately reached for air while gritting his teeth.
He could feel no strength in his body, and even breathing was a struggle.
He felt that his body was slowly dying.
‘If only it was someone else here instead of me.’
Alex, Pantos, or maybe Arpa.
If it was them, at least they wouldn’t sprawl on the floor disgracefully like him.
The item that he had to give to Ludger wouldn’t be snatched away if they had it.
‘All of this is because I’m weak.’
It was hard for him to endure the miserableness due to the surging helplessness.
Even though he tried to endure it while gritting his teeth, he couldn’t stop his tears from falling.
He’d lived a life where he was afraid to fight and only ran away.
Then he’d met Ludger, and he could do what he was good at without having to fight.
However, in the end, it was only the story when he was with Ludger.
When Ludger was gone, he was hopeless.
The moron-like human being named Hans was nothing more than a weak coward who didn’t know how to do anything.
‘I…’
Haah. Haah.
He gradually began hyperventilating. He felt that his lungs were breaking apart.
The curse that the black wizard had left was eating away his body.
Hans squeezed all his remaining strength and moved.
He pulled out an item from his pocket using his trembling right hand.
It was a dagger.
—But it was different from an ordinary dagger.
Because the place where there should be a sharp and keen edge of a dagger was replaced with a rough ivory fang.
Hans looked at it with trembling eyes, and soon…
“Hap!”
He stabbed it into his abdomen with all of his strength.
* * *
“Everyone please escape this way! Calmly!”
“Don’t push each other! Be careful!”
“What are the guards doing?!”
The route of refuge was full of screams.
Ludger, who’d blended in the crowd which was rushing to escape, didn’t go out but stopped his footsteps.
“What?! Don’t stop!”
“Don’t block the way! Get lost!”
As he ignored the people who were screaming, Ludger turned back.
The sense of anxiousness that had been soaring within him since before rang the last alarm.
Deep within the auction house, the stench of a nightmare that he’d encountered long ago flowed through the wind.
Gaaaaaaaahhh━━━!!!
The cry of a beast resounded.
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