The late autumn night sea was colder than expected.
Perhaps it was because I didn’t wear the beastman leather clothes that always kept me warm.
They say you don’t know where you’ll end up, but you know where you’ll sleep. Who knew I’d experience it like this?
Of course, it was cold, but not to the point of being a problem.
What was more annoying was having to swim while wearing armor.
If I didn’t use my strength properly, I kept sinking.
“Ah, I crave a cigarette.”
Guided by the stars, I carefully made my way through the cold currents, and suddenly I missed cigarettes.
Even though it’s something without nicotine, its addictiveness is really strong.
[Cigarettes… are you talking about magic herbs? What are you doing in the water? Control yourself. You’re addicted, you fool.]
“It’s not particularly bad for the body. It’s much better than alcohol or the like.”
The cigarettes here are closer to burning medicinal herbs, so there’s no harmful component in the setting.
You could say it’s a good addiction.
After chatting with Hersela and swimming for about twenty minutes, I finally reached the coastal cliff.
“High…”
The coastal cliff I faced was overwhelmingly majestic.
It seemed I was the only one who swam here, as the only sound in my ears was the quiet waves. The moonlight was obscured, and everything was dark, with only the faint light of the castle flickering at the top.
This looks about 300 meters.
Moreover, the closer to the sea level, the deeper it was carved inward. It was amazing it hadn’t collapsed.
It was understandable why the guards were slacking off.
The city walls were vertical, but this was like climbing an inverted mountain.
It was definitely impossible without considerable strength and stamina.
Fortunately, I had both.
– Crack!
The sound of a rock being shattered by a pickaxe.
I focused the power of my life force into my claws and extended them toward the rock face. The crimson claws dug into the thick rock and firmly anchored.
And so, I began to climb the cliff.
Carefully controlling my fire magic to dry my soaked clothes.
Every time my claws dug into the cliff, fragments of rock fell and were swallowed by the waves.
It was a smooth climb.
From the middle where the slope became steeper, four claws weren’t enough to support my weight, so I had to use the tendrils of my life force like auxiliary legs to anchor myself and climb.
It was fortunate it was dark. Otherwise, it might have caused a commotion, thinking a red spider monster was climbing the cliff.
—
By the time I climbed the cliff and reached the edge.
“Attack from Dane! Alert!”
“Offer blood to Bølberg!”
As planned, commotion began to erupt around the palace.
“The God of War commands the purification of the den of corruption!”
“What are these lunatics saying!”
They said they’d disguise themselves as Dane and attack, but they’re even mimicking Dane’s lines. Is that really okay?
I don’t know much about Bølberg’s tendencies, but I doubt he’d like his name being used like this.
Not my problem, though.
“Who dares to come here!”
“Valhalla calls me!”
The palace became as noisy as a stirred-up beehive.
Perfect timing. I thought I’d be a step late since I delayed a bit at the coast.
Probably because I climbed faster using the tendrils of my life force from the middle.
Time to start.
Now, I just need to kill Danon and cause some chaos until Eleonora is rescued.
– Crash!
I kicked off the cliff and leaped upward in an instant.
The ground beneath my feet exploded, and my vision soared.
Now that the operation has started, it’s a quick battle.
If the king leaves his chambers and hides, it’ll be troublesome, so I need to kill him quickly.
The marble wall in front of me. Judging by the height, this should be the third floor.
I anchored my right foot on the wall and kicked off again, leaping toward the third floor.
“Uh, uh…?”
A guard, startled by the sudden attacker, fell backward. By then, I had already arrived at the third-floor window of the palace.
According to the floor plan I saw from the hideout, this should be King Danon’s chambers.
I sensed four presences inside.
Two men with decent energy. One ordinary man. And one more woman.
Eleonora was said to be imprisoned, so this must be a concubine or something.
– Crash!
I shattered the window and charged inside.
“What…!”
“Who are you!”
Two knights, startled, swung their weapons at me.
A middle-aged man thrusting a longsword and a young man swinging a halberd.
Their appearances matched the information I had heard.
Andreas of the True Sword and Marcello, the widow lover.
As expected of master-level guards, their reactions were quite fast.
But in the end, they’re still just masters.
I shot three daggers at Marcello to stop his movement and charged at Andreas.
“Ugh…!”
Marcello, sensing the power in the daggers, hurriedly tilted his axe blade to block.
With a sound close to an explosion, his body was pushed back.
That takes care of one. Next.
“Who dares to come here!”
A sword tip thrusting toward my head like an arrow.
They called him the True Sword. It was indeed a textbook thrust.
I drew the Black Iron Sword from my waist and deflected his sword.
A heavy metallic sound. Black iron clashing with black iron, emitting a flash. Andreas’s arm was flung upward.
His eyes widened in shock.
“This guy, what kind of power…!”
Andreas hurriedly tried to regain his stance. Unfortunately, I had no intention of giving him that chance.
I was told not to reveal my identity… but it doesn’t matter.
Everyone here has to die anyway. Too bad.
I poured a massive amount of energy into the Black Iron Sword I held.
The soul of one who has reached the level of a hero distorts the laws of the world.
Reverse Heaven.
A soul slash compressed in time vertically split Andreas’s torso.
—
“What is this…”
Andreas, with a red line drawn from his crown to his groin, gasped in shock.
An expression of facing something unimaginable. That was his last words.
– Crash!
The Black Iron Sword I held couldn’t withstand the recoil and shattered into pieces. Simultaneously, Andreas’s body split into two.
The contents spilled out from the cross-section that opened to both sides.
“Andreas!”
Marcello let out a scream-like shout.
“Why are you so surprised? We’ll meet again soon.”
They called him the widow lover, right? Now it’s his wife’s turn to be a widow.
“A woman’s voice…? Could it be!?”
That ‘could it be’ is correct.
Did I come to you as you wished?
I drew a new sword and charged at Marcello, kicking off the ground.
The distance closed in an instant.
Marcello, wary of my slash, swung his halberd and flung his body backward.
“Do you think that’ll work?”
Instead of swinging the sword, I threw it with the elasticity of my wrist.
The blade tore through the air and shot toward Marcello. He swung his halberd to deflect the sword.
– Crash!
The deflected sword embedded itself in the ceiling of the chamber.
Even so, a master is a master. Marcello managed to block a thrown sword.
“Ugh…!”
However, in an unstable stance, he couldn’t withstand the force behind the throw, and his body lost balance for a moment.
Full of openings.
The blade-like tendrils of life force, the enemy’s side.
The four tendrils Hersela extended shot toward his entire body.
Marcello managed to block three tendrils, but in his staggering state, that was all he could do.
Two tendrils crushed the back of his knees, and the other two dug into his armpits.
“Ahhh!”
Marcello, pinned like a specimen, screamed. The last tendril embedded itself in his face.
The now faceless knight’s corpse lost strength and slumped.
It took only a few breaths for the two masters to lose their lives.
“Huh, huh, huh…!”
Only then did King Danon, who had finally grasped the situation, gasp in shock like a deflated balloon.
To his eyes, the window shattered, something flashed, and the two masters turned into corpses in an instant.
“Hello, King Danon. I’m Ha-shal-leur of Ai-shan Gi-or. You wanted to meet me, right? How do you feel now?”
After pulling the sword from the ceiling, I walked toward the old king, who couldn’t even get up from the bed and was wetting himself.
“Ah, Ai-shan Gi-or…!?”
“Yes. Did I come to you like this?”
King Danon was a weaker-looking old man than I thought.
Like a fish out of water, he was gasping for breath, too terrified to even scream.
I thought he might shout that Ha-shal-leur had appeared, so I was ready to throw a dagger if he showed any sign of screaming.
[I’ve seen all sorts of ugly things in my life. If I could, I’d close my eyes.]
Hersela complained.
Indeed, the sight of an old man wetting himself naked wasn’t particularly pleasant.
“Seeing your face, you don’t seem too happy. Why did you have such unnecessary greed… huh?”
Only then did my gaze fall on the woman lying next to King Danon.
A naked woman who hadn’t woken up despite the commotion, as if she had enjoyed herself too much.
A woman with dark brown hair, almost black, and slightly tanned skin.
What the hell, why is her hair black?
My right arm filled with strength.
I felt a deep killing intent rising from my chest.
“Hey. What’s this?”
I gestured toward the woman with my chin and approached King Danon.
“Why is Ai-shan Gi-or here…!”
King Danon didn’t seem to want to answer.
Sweating profusely and rolling his eyes, he seemed unable to distinguish whether this was reality or a nightmare.
“Hey, bastard, what’s with this woman?”
I stepped closer, avoiding the puddle of urine, and grabbed King Danon’s right arm.
“Ugh!?”
He trembled uncontrollably, unworthy of his status as a king, as soon as his arm was grabbed.
I wonder if he’s going to soil himself.
How could someone with such a small backbone dare to defy the Empire? Has he gone senile?
More importantly.
“Why is her hair black, you bastard!”
“Ahhh!”
I ripped off his right arm with a shout.
Blood spurted out like a fountain. King Danon screamed like a monster and convulsed.
A foul smell hit my nose. Why do ominous premonitions always come true?
The old man’s sphincter was too weak to withstand the shock of having his arm ripped off.
“Hey, you bastard, this is really…!”
I was planning to kill him anyway, but any thought of a clean death was gone.
There’s a limit to ugliness, Amin wasn’t this bad.
Since it’s come to this, I might as well interrogate him to find out what he was thinking.
There’s still some time before the knights from the lower floors come up.
—
After that, I meticulously dismembered Danon.
Asking him about everything I was curious about. He knew more than I thought.
