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chapter 95




Frey looked on.
It happened in an instant.
Riki seemed to simply draw his sword before sheathing it again.
“Huh?”
“What are you doing?”
“If you draw your blade, then you should probably cut something. Hm?”
Riki’s unusual actions caused the bandits who had been approaching them to pause for a moment.
However, they simply thought he was scared and laughed uproariously.
Tuk tuk tuk.
In the next moment, the arms of all the approaching bandits suddenly fell to the ground simultaneously.
At the same time, blood shot up like a fountain as the bandits experienced pain more terrifying than they could ever imagine.
“Aaaack!”
“M-, my arms!”
It was a beautiful sword stroke.
Even Frey was only able to barely make out the trajectory, and there was no way these weak bandits could’ve kept up with such speed.
Frey walked up to the hairy man.
He hadn’t been overwhelmed by the pain; instead, his eyes were rolling around as he tried to analyze the current situation.
But when he noticed Frey walking over, he immediately pressed his forehead to the ground.
“M-, My Lord! Please spare my life!”
That silver haired man was a monster.
He realised that the man before him was much more powerful than anyone he had ever encountered in all his life.
If he dared run his mouth here he would certainly become a cold corpse in an instant.
“Who are you?”
“W-, we are the Red Evil.”
It was a very tacky name.
Frey thought for a moment before continuing.
“What are you doing here?”
“Th-, that
”
“Speak honestly.”
After saying that, Frey deliberately looked at Riki.
The hairy man then spoke quickly, his voice filled with nervousness, fear and pain.
“W-, we came to steal goods.”
“From whom?”
“T-, the merchants who trade with the Elves in the Great Forest
”
“How many times have you done this?”
“
”
When Frey’s eyes sharpened, the hairy man hurriedly answered.
“A-, about ten times.”
Ten times.
It seemed they were quite experienced.
“You must have killed everyone during those robberies.”
“Th-, that
”
He didn’t need to hear more.
Lightning shot out from Frey’s hand.
Pajik.
The bodies of the bandits were consumed by the lightning in an instant.
They died without even being able to let out a proper scream.
As the scent of charred meat filled the area, Riki looked down at the bodies and said with a calm tone.
“That was unexpected.”
“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t think you would kill humans so easily.”
“You must have thought I was a good-natured man.”
That was a big misunderstanding.
And Riki had misunderstood something else.
The trash that he just killed was not human.
Riki looked at Frey’s face for a moment before saying.
“You humans are quite interesting.”
“What?”
He hadn’t expected that statement.
Frey looked at him like he thought he was making a joke. However, Riki’s expression didn’t change.
In the first place, he wasn’t the type to make jokes.
“Because you are more three dimensional than any other intelligent race I’ve ever encountered.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean what I said.”
Riki continued walking along the path, and Frey followed him after a brief moment of hesitation.
A Demigod who was interested in humans.
He wasn’t sure he could quite believe it.
* * *
They bypassed the inspection at the gate easily since Riki already had sufficient identification.
The moment he pulled out the mercenary card with his distinctive lack of expression, Frey became speechless for a while.
“D class Mercenary Riki. Is that correct?”
“That’s right.”
It was crazy.
He hadn’t even bothered to create a pseudonym.
If the guards hadn’t been in front of them at that moment, Frey would have definitely looked at Riki with a strange expression.
“And you?”
“
Kain Rixton, A class Mercenary.”
“Hmm. You’ve been verified. Welcome to Pillat.”
The guards nodded before returning their cards, and they easily entered the city.
Looking back at the gates, Frey couldn’t help but say.
“I didn’t think you’d even have a mercenary card.”
“It has quite a few uses, so I got one in passing.”
Did that mean that he travelled around the continent often?
He lived in a hut in the middle of a forest, so Frey had thought he lived a hermit life away from the rest of the world.
‘
well, if he hides his true strength, no one would be able to realise who he is.’
At least, they wouldn’t be able to realise unless Riki himself decided to reveal his power.
However, Frey could clearly feel the enormous power that was circulating around Riki’s body at all times.
Was it because he’d received divine power?
‘It will be nice to know whenever I encounter a Demigod.’
As Frey had this thought, they headed to the Warp Stone in the city’s center.
When they asked the guards about the schedule, they learned that there would be a trip to Luanoble in three days.
“Three days. Why aren’t there any today or tomorrow?”
“Isn’t it a foreign destination? Besides, three days isn’t that long. Instead, you guys should consider yourselves lucky.”
“Lucky?”
“The only reason you can go directly to Luanoble without any special procedures is because of your statuses as Mercenaries. That’s because your job requires such freedom in order to travel all over the continent with merchants. If it was anyone else, they’d have to fill out many documents and undergo a strict process. And if you think this is slow, that process is even slower; it can take a few weeks rather than just three days.”
“
”
The guard spoke while waving his hands at them.
In other words, Eizek’s advice that it would be better to obtain Mercenary status was indeed correct.
They had no choice but to stay at an inn for three days.
That night, after dinner, Riki looked up and said.
“I’m going to the Blake family home.”
“What?”
It was an unexpected statement.
Frey turned his gaze to Riki, asking him to continue.
“They already know that I am in the city. If I don’t go to them first, they will come to me. They might not be suspicious of us, but it would be better if they didn’t encounter you here.”
Then, after a moment of silence, he added.
“If I’m lucky, I might be able to learn more about Leyrin’s experient or even a clue to the identity of her Apostle.”
Leyrin, one of the Apocalypses like Riki.
At the same time, she was the figure that controlled the Blake family from the shadows.
“A clue to the Apostle’s identity?”
“It’s just a speculation, but I believe that Leyrin’s Apostle is likely to be a member of the Blake family. The one with the highest probability is the family head, Isaka Blake.”
Isaka Blake, the Tower Master of the 6th Magic Tower, the current head of the Blake family and Frey’s father.
‘The Circle would never even imagine the possibility of him being an Apostle.’
Mana and divine power could not coexist, and Isaka Blake was one of the strongest Archmages in the empire.
If Frey hadn’t learned that vital piece of information from Riki, he would have also had trouble believing Isaka was an Apostle.
At best, he would have only assumed that he had succumbed to the Demigods’ temptation.
But it was different now.
He knew that the Blake family was just an experiment designed by the Demigods and that it was possible to use both divine power and mana as long as one was a descendant of the family.
For this reason, he did not doubt Riki’s assumption that the head of the Blake family was the Apostle of Leyrin, who was in charge of the experiment.
Riki got up from his seat, and it seemed that he had decided to head to the Blake family immediately.
He stopped as he was about to open the door and turned back to Frey.
“It might be unnecessary, but I’ll tell you anyway.”
“Huh?”
“There’s a tail clinging to us.”
Frey’s expression stiffened.
Tail.
He clearly understood what that meant.
They were being followed or watched.
“It seems that the one watching us is a Contractor.” (TL: should I change to ‘summoner’?)
“A Contractor?”
They hadn’t used magic, which made the fact that Frey didn’t notice understandable.
“Is it the Circle?”
“There’s a high probability of that. There have always been a few people following me, even when I was in the forest. They are probably trying to figure out the situation since I removed my barrier and came here. They should at least be executives.”
“
”
“They should have already confirmed that I have a companion. Even if I go to the Blake family, the watchers will not go away. In fact, they might even use the opportunity to approach you.”
Frey didn’t want to stand on the other side of the Circle. Things were getting troublesome.
Frey frowned while Riki spoke in his usual calm tone.
“I can kill them.”
“What?”
“Aren’t you worried they will attack you?”
“
didn’t you say that you are punished by god for killing mortals?”
“That doesn’t matter since it would require hundreds of kills for me to really feel anything. And unlike that trash from the forest, executives from the Circle are worth having me draw my sword.”
Frey noticed the subtle tone in Riki’s voice.
If he agreed, the man in front of him would really kill all of the Circle executives monitoring them.
“No. I want to assess the situation first.”
“Alright. Be careful.”
With those blunt words, Riki left the room.
Frey sighed.
He was truly a tricky man to deal with.
Although he was listening to his opinion at the moment, Frey could not guarantee that he would continue to do so.
Riki’s power was too dangerous to handle.
After he began using divine power, Frey had felt this fact even more clearly.
‘That’s why this is even more troublesome since I can’t break our alliance just yet.’
At least, if he knew the reason why he betrayed the Demigods, Frey felt that he would be able to trust Riki more.
However, he never said a word about it, which caused Frey’s doubts and suspicions to become even more pronounced.
Frey shook his head.
It wasn’t something he would be able to figure out even if he thought about it all night.