Chapter 115 October 13, 2022
Chapter 115 – Ludger’s Eight (3)
“You, how the hell did you do that just now? No way, are you a Knight?”
Arpa tilted his head slightly to the side at Hans’s surprised question.
“Knight? Oh! You’re talking about the extraordinarily outstanding superhumans compared to other people, right? If that’s the question, then the answer is ‘no’. I’m not a Knight.”
Hans stared at Arpa, shaking his head with an incredulous gaze.
He wasn’t a Knight?
However, when Hans thought about the unbelievable punch power that Arpa had shown a moment ago, Hans had no choice but to think Arpa was a Knight.
The question was whether he was a Knight cadet or someone who’d attended a military academy and dropped out in the middle.
“Anyway, you did a good job. Let’s tie that person for now and hide him nearby. We can bury him inside the pile of trash here.
“Okay.”
Arpa grasped the collapsed man with one hand and dragged him. Hans tied the fainted man’s body up tightly with the rope he had prepared and gagged the man’s mouth with a ripped cloth.
Like that, it would be fine if the man regained consciousness, he wouldn’t be able to do anything until someone helped him.
It was then…
“Hey, Deckard. Where did you go?”
Shudder!
Hans got goosebumps. The man’s colleague came to look for him from beyond the alley’s entrance.
“This brat. Are you loafing around? Hey! Deckard! You’re there, right?!”
The voice was getting closer. Hans froze and didn’t know what to do.
At that moment, Arpa opened his mouth.
[Yeah! Wait! I’m here!]
“Huh? What? So you’re there. What are you doing in the alleyway?”
[Hey, hey! Don’t look! I’m in the middle of taking a dump because it’s urgent!]
“What? This brat. You’re taking a dump there? Why are you doing it outside?”
[What can I do if it’s urgent?! Moreover, I’m going to hear nagging if I go inside!]
Arpa had changed his voice.
It was creepily similar to the voice of the security guard, Deckard, whom he’d knocked out a moment ago.
When he changed his voice, it wasn’t only at the level of doing an imitation.
—His tone of voice to his way of speaking and his voice’s echoes and intonations literally all became the same.
Hans thought that he had already been shocked enough, but it turned out Arpa had another hidden ability.
Arpa acted with all his might using a changed voice without caring about Hans’s appalled gaze.
[Or do you want to look at me taking a dump?]
“Huek! Nevermind! Do you think I’m crazy, wanting to see a hairy guy taking a dump?! Anyway, hurry and come after you finish or else I’ll have to hear nagging without you!”
[Got it, just go and wait for me.]
The impending sense of presence got farther away once more.
Hans drooped his shoulders as his tightened nerves relaxed.
“You have that kind of ability, too?”
“How was it? Was it similar?”
“…I was really surprised,” Hans replied before chuckling.
“Still, you’re the best.”
“Thanks.”
“Anyway, we passed the dangerous crisis. We’ll also have to go in after waiting for their signal and turning the machine on.”
* * *
‘Ah, really. How many similar keys could there be?’
Violeta checked more than hundreds of keys altogether.
However, no matter how much she rummaged, she didn’t see the key for the underground storage room.
‘The key that shines gold… Moreover, it also has a jewel embedded into it.’
There was no way she couldn’t find it in that pile of keys, which meant that it wasn’t within the cabinet but was hidden in another place.
‘Time is running out. I need to find it a bit faster.’
Violeta closed her eyes after taking a deep breath.
‘In times of crisis, be calm’, those were the words that Ludger taught her as he’d passed down his magic knowledge.
‘There’s no way that such a key would be stored in a blatant place like this. It must be hidden in a more secretive place.’
Violeta cast her magic.
A gentle wind started to blow inside the silent room.
The flowing, cool and gentle air thoroughly searched the room’s interior.
Wind wouldn’t be disrupted anywhere and flowed freely. As such, it was able to check every inch of the place without obstruction.
There, in a small crack that was nearly invisible to the human eye unless viewed from a specific angle…
‘I found it.’
There was a difference in the way the air moved there.
Violeta placed her hand on the floor and touched here and there.
She caught a slight drawstring with her fingertips.
As she used her strength to pull it, a hidden space was revealed.
‘So it’s here.’
Violeta took the golden key as soon as she confirmed that it was hidden in the secret space.
‘Rather than that, what is this?’
The other various items which were stored along with the key were certainly not things that were good to look at.
Whip, taper, gag, etc. They were obviously the ‘Key Master’s’ favorite items.
‘Really…’
After slightly glancing at the fainted ‘Key Master’ with an appalled gaze, Violeta pulled out all the items hidden within the space and scattered them all over the place.
Violeta checked whether there were other people wandering about the corridor before she cautiously left the room.
As she came out to the vast hall, there were still many people busily roaming around.
At that moment, she saw two huge guards accompanying Ludger.
It seemed that Ludger felt Violeta’s gaze, he glanced toward her before nodding his head slightly and turning the corner with them.
‘Ludger is still alive and well. The last thing I need to do is hand over the key, but the Black Guards’ security is too brutal.’
There were a couple of Black Guards standing still on the spot that were akin to stone statues wearing black armors, and there were also guards who patrolled the interior periodically.
Violeta went down the stairs in the middle hall slowly.
Alex, who’d gone down to the first floor using an emergency stair, showed up just in time.
As he went down as fast as he could from the 31st floor to the ground floor, he found Violeta, who was descending the steps while sweeping the marble railing lightly with her hand.
Their stares collided through the air.
Nod-
Violeta sent a signal that she had taken the key with a slight nod.
Alex replied with a stare and approached her.
The gap between the two narrowed in the center of the hall.
“Oh, my!”
Violeta pretended to fall toward Alex and leaned her body toward him.
“Oh, my. Lady, are you alright?”
“Yes. Thank you for helping me.”
Alex naturally helped Violeta and received the key that she secretly passed to him.
It was a secret way of communicating that nobody else would be able to understand.
The Black Guards glanced at the two before thinking that there wasn’t much of a problem and looked away.
The two people got further away and each walked toward opposite sides.
“This is ‘Victor Wego’. I have the key and am heading toward the elevator.”
[This is ‘Melville’. I will be on standby until you come.]
Pantos, who had been on standby while eliminating his presence, answered.
It was possible due to Ludger’s instruction beforehand to at least speak when they were proceeding with their plan.
Pantos stood blankly on one side of the corridor.
Since he had a huge body, he was bound to attract stares just by standing still, but no one who passed by his side paid any attention to him.
—Pantos was assimilating with the surrounding scenery.
The beastpeople who dealt with nature spirits were great warriors and outstanding hunters.
They covered their sense of presence in order to hunt their prey, and they knew how to assimilate with nature.
The assimilation spirit surrounded his body and made him seem similar to the surrounding scenery to others.
Usually, that kind of assimilation ability wouldn’t work for sharp-witted people, but for Pantos, who possessed an unbelievable potential power compared to other beastpeople, he was at a level where the interior Black Guards couldn’t sense him.
However, the assimilation spirit was not an infallible technique.
He wouldn’t be discovered by people, but he would get caught right away by magic alarms.
Otherwise, they would have just had Pantos dash inside alone and not wait on standby outside.
Alex showed up from beyond the corridor.
After making sure that no one had trailed him, Pantos lifted his assimilation spirit.
“Argh, shit. You surprised me. I’m shocked.”
Even though he said that, Alex didn’t show any particular shocked expression.
No way, was Alex aware of his assimilation?
Pantos didn’t bother asking and went straight to the point.
“The key?”
“Here.”
Alex laughed mischievously and swayed the key in front of him.
After he secured the key, the two headed to the entrance of the elevator.
“…Hmm. As expected, there are a lot of people.”
They could see the Black Guards guarding the entrance.
Different from when they’d checked last time, there were more personnel since it was the very day of the auction.
There were six of them in total, all of them were Knight class, and they couldn’t be ambushed since the corridor heading toward them was a straight line.
Alex sent a signal using the radio.
“This is ‘Wego’ and ‘Melville’. We arrived at the entrance.”
[I got it. I will make a move.]
The one who answered them was the dwarf girl, Sheridan Ironfeet.
Sheridan, who was blending in among the crowd, was wearing a cute and luxurious dress akin to one belonging to an aristocrat family’s daughter.
The girl moved right away.
Since she had a young body, she could relatively be more free from others’ gazes.
As she naturally passed people by, Sheridan spilled white powder on the floor.
No one noticed it.
Fwoosh!
As the people stepped on the powder and kicked it while passing by, it spread all over the place like dust.
The white powder spread like a fog, and by the time it was visible to people…
“What? Co-cough!”
“Cough, cough! Wh-what the hell is this?!”
People’s shouts, coughs, and sneezes resounded all over the place.
Sheridan, who was covering her mouth and nose with a handkerchief, confirmed the chaos that was ensuing in the center hall from a safe distance.
She’d used tear gas powder.
The effect of the special tear gas powder made by Bellaruna under the command of Ludger was beyond expectation.
The people, who had been chattering out of empty formalities while wearing their attire fashionably, were struggling disgracefully with tears and snot flowing out.
Such a sight triggered an odd pleasure and delight in her.
‘To be honest, I wanted to explode gunpowder instead, but it can’t be helped since there’s a magic defense for explosives here.’
The interior of Kunst auction house was regularly maintained by Silence of Fire from the wizards among the Black Guards.
Thus, they didn’t ask for her specialty but had utilized Bellaruna’s ability to make chemicals.
Well, she would just have to be satisfied by looking at such a nice spectacle.
“Wh-what is this all of a sudden?”
“A terror attack? Where the hell is it coming from?”
The Black Guards were caught off guard at the sudden chemical attack.
It wasn’t like someone was attacking them, but it was bound to be confusing for most of the people to suddenly complain while coughing and sneezing.
They had to evacuate the people to a safe place, but there were too many of them.
“Everyone! Please calm down!”
“We lack personnel! Request support from other places!”
Alex, who was in a place quite far away from it, could even hear the ruckus.
“And so it begins.”
At the end of his words, four of the six Black Guards who were guarding the elevator headed somewhere else in a hurry.
Their plan to attract attention was successful.
“Still, there are two of them left. But well, it won’t be a problem, right? Let’s go, big guy.”
“Hm.”
Alex dragged Pantos with him and they showed up in the corridor.
The Black Guards, who saw Alex from far away, aimed at him with their spears and shouted.
“Who are you?! This is a restricted area!”
“Hey! You don’t know who I am?”
“What?”
Alex got closer to them so they could recognize his face.
“It’s me, me. Ivan Luke’s friend! You really don’t know me?”
“O-oh?”
Of course they knew him. It was also them who’d been guarding the place when Alex had disguised himself as Gouar.
Because the security rotation of the guards who protected the entrance was exactly five days.
“Hey. Do you know where my friend Ivan is? I lost my way after wandering about here and there!”
“Oh, well… that…”
The person was a Southern aristocrat’s son whom even Ivan Luke was intimidated by.
Knowing that, even the Black Guards had no choice but to recollect their energy and respond.
Alex dragged Pantos with him and approached them.
The moment the Black Guards felt something strange at Alex’s behavior, who kept getting closer, Pantos moved.
Whoosh!
A huge shadow from behind Alex moved and dashed toward the two like a wind.
Pantos’s movement was secretive and swift, unlike his body.
He extended his huge fists and hit the Black Guards’ abdomens just like that.
Baam!
Naked fists against armor made of special alloy… When they collided, people would have thought that the fists would get broken.
However, the result was the contrary.
Their armor was crushed. Their black armor made of special alloy couldn’t counter the shock of Pantos’s power.
Cough!
The two guards vomited blood and collapsed.
“You didn’t kill them, right?” Alex asked Pantos, who’d just overpowered two Black Guards instantly.
“I controlled my strength.”
“…You knocked defeated armored Knights with bare hands. That’s really an unbelievable strength.”
He couldn’t believe Pantos’s strength, even after witnessing it with his own eyes.
They were Knights in armor who possessed physical strengths beyond criminals, but Pantos had overpowered them with bare hands.
‘How did Ludger actually win against this guy?’
‘First of all, now that the guys in the entrance have been overpowered, I should put aside my curiosity.’
Alex sent a signal using the radio right away.
“This is ‘Wego’ and ‘Melville’. We took care of the entrance.”
[This is ‘Kafka’ and ‘Dumas’. We got it.]
Hans sent a signal to Arpa with hand signs.
Press.
Arpa operated the machine right away.
After checking that the light had turned on properly, the two people started to change their outfits.
In an instant, the two people, who just changed into work clothing, took the prepared food cart and headed toward the back gate that connected to the restaurant.
The restaurant employee skimmed over both of them and before sending them in.
* * *
‘It’s proceeding well, I see.’
Ludger, who’d washed his hands while looking at the mirror in the bathroom, confirmed that the plan was proceeding neatly through his subordinate’s conversation from the communicator.
After wiping his wet hands with a towel, Ludger left the bathroom.
Two big guys whom Ivan had stuck to both of his sides were waiting for Ludger in the entrance of the bathroom.
“Have you finished your business?”
Ludger nodded his head.
“Where are you going now?”
“I will take a look around the auction.”
After he stated his will, the big guys accompanied Ludger to watch him closely under the guise of an escort.
As soon as they entered the vast hall where the auction was held, a jewel was being displayed, and the people were getting fired up at the sight of it.
Ludger sat in an empty seat.
After the guards made sure that Ludger had sat down, they stepped to the back of the auction house.
‘They might think that it’s enough after accompanying me all the way here.’
However, the moment he stood up again, those guys would stick onto him again.
As he scanned throughout the interior of the auction house, he wriggled his eyebrows as he saw the reserved seat on the second floor of the room.
‘That’s…’
He saw a familiar face with long, fancy, golden hair.
Elendil von Exileon, the third princess. She was there.
However, Ludger’s stare wasn’t heading toward the woman.
What made Ludger actually surprised was the person who was sitting beside Elendil.
A person with a familiar attire and hair color.
It had happened a couple of years prior, but she was someone who he still vividly remembered.
‘Casey Selmore?’
—His enemy whom he’d met when he was James Moriarty in the past.
She was a tenacious person who never let go of her prey, and the kind of person who was the most troublesome.
‘Why the hell is she here?’
‘She came to Leathevelk now?’
At that moment, Casey seemed to sense someone’s stare and looked toward him.
Comment