So they were after my supposed wealth in the end, i guess if they know that the king only gave me 20 silver coins i believe that they would curse both me and him .
I used Camouflage and Stealth and silently reached their camp and began to listen carefully to what there were saying not really knowing whether to laugh or just beat them all down directly .
I just finished a fight with a Goblin Lord whose rank was S and his strength in his berserk mode rivaled even those SS Rank monsters but now i get to know that i was being targeted by a C Rank Adventurer and his subordinates, maybe it was really time to begin invest some points in luck to maybe try to fix those weird situations which i keep finding myself in .
For now let's forget about it i have no free points anyway , now let me focus on the matters at hands , my first actual spying mission , how exciting .
Or was it the second no, the first one with the Goblin Lord doesn't count since i was busted and even got attacked by him , but i have a hunch that no one in the party in front of me are capable of discovering me unless of course they had some special abilities .
At the mention of special abilities, i believe that dealing with monsters is a lot easier in this particular aspect, since i believe that i'm still a bit far by a level or two in Appraisal before i become able to see the status windows of those guys, pity .
I began to focus on what they were saying standing in the middle of their camp listening to what they were saying but some voices here sounded familiar in my ears for some reason, as if i had already met those guys before somewhere but i can swear that excluding that Blade,i never saw any of those men faces before, weird .
The voice that spoke was that of a bald middle aged man wearing a leather jacket and a dark red mask with a black tears lpouring out from one of its eye sockets like design as he said to Blade : Captain , won't his affiliation with that old man Regard make it quite difficult for us to lure him in ? .
That grumpy old man will have enough troubles to deal with, since the raid was coming in less than a week or so, which would give us a good enough opportunity to lure that guy to our group and deal with him the same way we dealt with all the others before him , at his words a all of the guys who were sitting around the bonfire smiled .
As i heard all of that they said i was able to have a clear idea about this whole situation before me, this wasn't just a robbery no those guys just now intentionally or unintentionally released a bloodlust and a killing intent, i was able to notice since i have encountered these two things before at the royal palace just a few minutes after arriving to this world .
I sighed internally and involuntarily shook my head and as i began to think of what to do with those guys and as they continued to talk , they were unaware that their destiny was currently being shifted and shaped in the hands of the same person they deemed as their hunting prey , Blade said noticing how excited they were becoming :
Now, now calm down y'all or else the monster repellent powder that we have will be of no use if a high ranking monster drawn by your all auras or a horde of them , were to decide to pay us a visit , so if you aren't headstrong about feeding the monsters here i think we should stay quiet as possible so calm down all of you .
At his words the killing intent that i barely felt before disappeared completely but their bloodlust were now faint yes but still it showed no sign of disappearing completely and they all fell silent .
Then one of them continued to say or more exactly was inquiring : but boss, will there really be no problem in targeting a summoned hero, i mean from the king of course ! .
Blade then turned left and right cautiously checking around as if he was going to blurt some very secret informations and after he made sure that no one other than the few guys in front of him was eavesdropping then he took a long breath air before saying in a murmur voice : from what mr.Bling told me in the guild, the king and the crown prince were actually trying to get rid of that waste of life force and failure of a hero, so not only would we not be held responsible but we could also get a handsome reward for our heroic acts .
The king and the crown prince do, what for ? .
I don't know and i didn't ask the only important thing for us is that we have a green light whenever we decide to attack him .
That mr.Bling again, and why would the king wanted me dead, and i still can't tell what the crown prince was trying to achieve by sending assassin after me .
But is that hero really as useless as they say he is, or should we expect some misshapes .
He is an F Rank loaded with money, what problems could we expect him to give us other than to lure him ofcourse since that will take a bit of patience after all, we can't find a big fish like him every day, can we ? .
No, we can't hahahahaha, a toast then so that he may he rest in peace , said the guys around the campfire simultaneously and they were even beginning to each raise their bottles for the toast as i heard clank from the impact of their toast, i felt that i can't hold the laugh anymore .
And who can blame me, they were talking about the 20 silver coins that greedy like a Goblin king gave me as if they were 20 gold coins, and from their expressions i believe some of them were even to fantasize about how to split the money .
When a cautious voice asked Blade something that ended their fantasies as they all wanted to how were they going to hunt me and i was quite curious myself as the victim , so how can the culprits be not .
I already devised a good plan to make him join us and luckily for us he is an Adventurer who from this morning and till now, still hadn't finished his hunting task, i will suggest that we could help him finish the quest easily and more efficiently and even if he still refused, i would stick with him until we are near the Dragon hoov that where you will be waiting at for us .
You will then said that you found a big treasure trove and that you need at least more two guys to go in with you .
But the only treasure trove to be found in that dangerous area is...… , oh i get it now captain we will finish him inside their .
You are smart but you are a bit off with this guess of yours, we will be there to seek and to make sure that no one will be interfering with our mission then we will give him a monsters attracting powder instead of the repellent one then we will disperse from the area while keeping an eye on him and when he is dead or almost there we will finish him and take anything that was of value he had on him .
Boss, you are really the boss , a brilliant plan .
Don't do that, but you guys better not chicken out like the last time with Liliana, you got so much scared just by someone screaming to the guards to the point that you forget the mission objective .
It was a dark night boss and we believed that if we stayed there any longer we could get caught or worse old man Regard could find out what we were doing since his inn was quite close to the location we decided on, and the things from there on wouldn't have ended well for us, that's for sure .
Idiots, don't you think i already have a clear idea about this, but what you weren't aware of with those lousy brains of yours , was that i purposefully choose that day as the operation day on purpose and even already talked to mr.Bling as the one who wanted to buy the Beastfolk girl, to make things go on more smoothly in our favor by holding that old man at the guild for as longest time as he possibly could , so everything was already in motion for our success, but no you decided to suddenly chicken out in the end , throwing all my planning aside, you didn't even know the face or the name of the man who scammed you, worthless .
We are sorry boss but don't worry next time... .
OH, NEXT TIME ?!
I was already at my limit before but listening to how he was the one behind the failed kidnapping that happened to Liliana and how he conspired with that Bling to delay Regard that day and to prevent him from saving or at least guarding Liliana at that time, and now that he mentioned it there was no an ounce of doubt about why i found their voices quite familiar, those guys was really the one responsible for that happening and the result of that piece of knowledge was that i snapped completely and used Aura Of The Strong directly , holding them all in places and even interrupting what the other party tried to say , the music stopped, the dancing stopped, the noise they were making stooped, now there was nothing but silence, a deadly silent .
The reasons for why i snapped were quite a lot but the most important reasons were the damn law that was enforced on the Beastfolk by the kingdom and that gave me some kind of a cursed vision of that pure Liliana shouting with all of her lungs in that auction house that she already have a master but no one would have patted an eye at her pleas .
And the second reason is related to what i recently got to know from Lora about how they were treated in the Auction house and how she was treated after that in that noble house that bought here, and if a one of both of them were to retaliate their fates would be death and that damn law was what currently fueling my anger towards those monsters in a human form, yes i was no longer looking at them the same way that i looked at others, all what i was currently seeing before me were a bunch of lizards that were laughing and rejoicing at the misery of others, a misery that they were having a hand in themselves .
I unconsciously recalled two different scenes from my memories the first was a quote i heard from my father a few days before him dying , he said : Ryuu, this world of ours have a lot of different ways to corrupt even the most righteous of men and sadly for you, you will have to brace yourself as you might have to delve into and encounter those vices of world all alone , but always remember son you aren't alone and you will never be we will always be with you , as for my advice to you , i would give you the same advice that your grandpa gave me and that is To Always Trust Your Heart And If You Were To Decide That You Want To Make A Different In The World Make Sure Its A Good One .
I didn't understand most of what he tried to tell me that time and some of those words i have no interpretation for untill now but i somehow felt relieved remembering that i always had them supporting me but that relief that i felt was very much short-lived as i remembered the exact words that one of my uncles said to me while they were splitting and distributing my inheritance between them , i felt that i was reliving the scene but my POV was that as if it was the current me who was living the scene .
Voice 1 : should we really give anything to that pauper what his parents left him with wasn't that much anyway to began with .
Voice 2 : he is 14 years old now he could take care of himself , look at him i know kids at his age working full-time jobs .
Voice 3 : we need to find a good price for their family house and we will give him enough money to live for a few more months as to make sure that no one get a sniff on what we did .
Brilliant, just brilliant they gave me some money of the inheritance that was mine and distributed what was mine between themselves and when i tried to ask them not to sell my house they looked at me coldly and said : oh , you don't want us to sell the house, then do you have enough money to buy it from us .
Buying it from them, it was my family house why would i need to buy it from these guys, then i saw the crazed look on one of my uncles face as he said while holding a steel bar that was by the heater and was beginning to head in my way with it .
That was the first time when i didn't follow my heart ,my heart was telling me to rather fight with those greedy people for what is mine than just accept what were they doing as it is , but i flinched and from that moment i kept flinching time after time in school in my part time jobs, in dealing with people trying to get close to me, all until that day of the school incident , things were beginning to get much better since then as i began to do what my heart told me to but .
But i was completely unaware that i will encounter a scene that forced me to return to start flinishing again, and that when i was first summoned here and since then i began to strength my resolve again and again and again for this kind of choice making situations but in the end i keep faltering , my heart was telling me to bury them all for all their crimes and what they did to Liliana but my brain was telling me to let them lead me on the way .
I stood there in the middle of the campfire still invisible to all of them and i kept on looking at the now standing like statues monsters in front of me a few seconds all of them were dranched with sweat all over their bodies and foreheads and kept on sighing before i went to the bonfire and put it out , making the whole area looking like some dark abyss and then returned to stand directly in front the only man who was somehow capable of controlling his composure, he was still fixed in his place like all the others but was capable of saying while stuttering but in a respectful tone :
Sorry sir , we weren't aware that you were resting here and we disturb your rest and for that we are deeply sorry , could you please tell us your name .
I cleared my throat and change my tone to one that was a lot colder as i began to say :
I ask you answer got it .
I completely brushed his question about my identity aside and told him to comply to my orders which he answered by saying :ofcourse sir, what do you wish to know, i will be very much glad to help you .
Okay, this question is directed to all of you ,do you happen to know of a monster that is called KAIJU-0 ? .
Blade was the only one to answer since all of his comrades were stiffed at the moment nodding that he know of the name .
where is the closest Kaiju-0 monsters lair ? .
Sir, we aren't in the territory of the demon king so finding a lair of that sort of a monster here would be quite difficult but if you were hunting that particular monster, there's a horde of them close by the area , normally 20 minutes or so in that direction and we would be able to reach there , but with your strength excellence, i believe you can reach there faster .
Lead the way .
Pardon !? .
I uplifted the effect of my skill and they all fell down, heavily panting and some were even throwing up on those who were panting and i went beside Blade's left ear and said in a loud and clear voice for all of them to hear : Lead the way .
Sorry sir, but we can't possibly be able to do that, not to disobey your orders but we are currently quite busy, so i hope that you can pardon us from this mission , he raised both of his hands in a resignation like gesture and even made a sad face as if it pained him so much to refuse my order , all after taking 5 or 6 ahead and then he turned to tell me all that, so he actually know that i was so close to him and decided to create some distance between us for himself, pity .
I unsheathed my sword and while he was raising his hand his thumb suddenly disappeared and in its place a fountain of blood was currently gushing out from his hand, he didn't even react for a few seconds after it was severed not until his comrades began yelling and shouting at him to check his hand and when he finally noticed the injury he suffered his only reaction was to grit his teeth and asked for the medic while still looking at my previous position .
Why did he look there though, i was again behind his ears and said again : LEAD THE WAY .
he jumped out in fright but then composed himself and hurriedly said yes and began nodding repeatedly and was about to give the orders for them to begin moving, when the man who wore the mask from earlier gone crazy and began to say hysterically :
since we are dead anyway, why not gang up on him and at least take a piece of him with us, captain, say your orders, i will comply, i will really comply to any orders even if you told me blow myself up with that piece of shit but please don't listen to what he says, just now you heard him whispering in the air like a devil, please captain, i beg of you, please .
At the end of his words he began to kiss his boss feet while saying hysterical that i was a devil, completely forgetting that he was doing the devil work for a long time himself , he can't possibly believe that he was a righteous man, can he ?.
I already lost what i considered to be the last bit of patience that i had so i again used my skill and all of them felt the suffocating aura from earlier but not the one who lost his mind i looked at him for quite a while and i then said : Blade, I Believe I Already Told You To Lead The Way , didn't i ? .
Yes, milord , he then went to the losing his mind comrade of his and pulled a dagger from his belt then slit his neck with while shutting him up with his other hand, let's go you guys .