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Guilt
Chopping his head off, I stared down at his lifeless body.
Even though this was a house that had lots of memories for Esta and Ralf, I had ended up killing 2 people in here now.
Even if one of them was a suicide, Pablo was definitely all my doing.
Before I deal with the corpse, I need to follow after Ralf as well, as I watched Pablo’s blood stain the floor.
Although unwillingly, I did end up shouting at Ralf which made me feel a bit guilty inside—–as I left the abandoned dilapidated house.
When I did, Ralf and Esta were already waiting there in front of the door, and beyond them, the two black robed men were looking straight at us.
While I had gotten a lot of info from Pablo, since they were hidden under their black hoods, I had no idea who these two actually were.
And, like Ralf had said, these two were definitely strong fighters, I could clearly tell.
“



..Chris, did you kill that man?”
“Yes


that aside, tell me about these two men in front of us.”
There was an awkward mood between me and Ralf but, I quickly asked info on the two black robed men in front of us.
“Well, they just showed up suddenly so there’s not much to tell really. And since I went to call Esta first, I wasn’t able to observe them much either.”
“I see. Then, I’ll take those two on as the main attacker, you two, work as my support.”
“Understood. I’ll get my magic ready.”
“

..you’re planning to do it alone again?”
He muttered in volume just loud enough that I could hear but, I didn’t answer as I began to walk towards the two men.
They were quite the pair with the difference in size between them. One was almost as small as child while the other was a 2m tall gaint.
But, as far as life presence goes, the small child-like one had more than the big guy.
“Yaa yaa! Looks like you have captured one of our comrades it seems eh! If possible can you give him back to us?”
I was planning to lunge at them right away but, the small guy began to talk to me in a very cheerful voice.
The voice seemed a bit high pitched like a young buy, and judging by his height, he really might be a young boy.
“Unfortunately that’s impossible now. You guys were the ones who attacked me, why would I give him back for free?”
“Oh dear, who said it’ll be for free!? If you give him back, we’ll let you go alive this time! I mean, if you have a couple more days to live, that sounds nice no?”
His way of talking seemed to have no tinge of enmity or evil.
He really must believe in everything he was saying it seems, but all it did was reignite the rage inside me.
“You’re fucking insane. And I’m not the type to let people like you walk all over me


..Also, the guy you’re asking for gave me all the info I needed so I killed him.”
“





Then, the negotiations are a failure! You mocked my kindness as well, don’t expect a painless death okay?”
“Not like I could ever satisfy your conditions anyway

..but oh well, it’s fine. The ones who’ll die are you two.”
The aura around the young buy changed suddenly——and in the next instant, only the robe remained in my sights and the boy disappeared.
Another shadow clone? I wondered but this time, he was just extremely fast.
I quickly took a big backstep, increased my field of vision and searched for the young buy but——I couldn’t find him.
Since it was pretty dark outside now as well so I considered activating [Crimson Eyes] but



I gave up on finding him with my eyes and instead closed my eyes and activated [Hearing Enhancement] and [Sound Wave Detection] skills.
I used my ears to search for the boy, and heard the slight sound of the ground scraping from my right side.
I could use sound to clearly detect enemies as well, which made it easier to follow enemies that my eyes can’t follow.
Now I just need to wait for him to come close, and the moment he did, I matched the boy’s movements and swung down Vendettatein at him.
“——-Wha!?! You can see me!?”
The boy was able to turn his body mid air to try and avoid my swing while shouting, and while I didn’t make a clean impact, I did scratch him lightly.
But it really was a shallow scratch as it clearly hadn’t dealt much damage.
Since I already got all the info I wanted, I pulled out Vendettatein to simply kill quickly but

 longsword’s aren’t a good match against super fast enemies.
If I had stuck with my normal steel sword, I probably would have dealt a deeper wound.
“Dyne. This guy’s got good eyes. I’ll take him on so stand back.”
“eeh

.Wood, you’ll fight? After all I said, you’re gonna make me look uncool!”
“It’s a bad match so give up. I’ll let you have the killing blow so be patient.”
“Tche, fine. Promise, you won’t kill him okay?!”
The boy called Dyne fell back, and this time, the giant man called Wood started to come at me.
Since I have Esta’s magic as well so I could take them both on at the same time but, they seemed to be acting like quite the fair people as they were keeping it one on one.
I signalled Esta behind me to not intervene, and decided to go along with their game.
I don’t have any reason to play along but, now I was quite curious to see how strong this Wood guy really is considering how confident he seemed about winning against me.
Among the executives that Pablo had told me, Wood was not among them so he’s probably just another normal member.
If I were to lose against someone like that, I’d never be able to beat Milworc or Klaus.
If they are really going to come one by one like this, I had no reason to let go of this perfect chance to test my strength either.