Lepia spoke.
[Adwin called me. Seems like you’re in danger, so let’s skip the greetings for now.]
‘Ah, okay.’
[Right side!]
At Lepia’s sudden shout, I twisted my body.
Kaeld’s sword barely grazed past the spot I had just been.
I could see his expression hardening more and more.
[Don’t just rely on your instincts to dodge—watch Kaeld’s hand movements carefully. You can predict the direction of his spatial sword that way.]
‘Easier said than done…’
[I’ll help you. If you keep dodging like this, you’ll definitely find a good posture to use that special technique of yours.]She was right.
I fixed my eyes on Kaeld’s hands.
I must have been irritating him by dodging constantly, because now he was launching dozens of strikes at once.
Left, left. Down.
Up. Right. Up.
[Nope. The fourth one is middle level.]
Thanks to Lepia’s support, I had to run around Agril like a man possessed.
What is this, midnight aerobics?
But I was definitely getting used to it.
Whenever I missed an attack, Lepia corrected me without fail.
[Last three attacks. Once that ends, you’ll have a bit of breathing room.]
‘Got it. That’s my chance.’
[By the way, Mr. Mide. Want to properly learn swordsmanship from me later? I feel like it would be really rewarding to teach you.]
‘If I have the time!’
The three attacks Lepia mentioned came flying at me.
I dodged all of them perfectly and landed on the ground.
Kaeld’s face twisted with frustration.
“I don’t like how you’re getting more composed by the second.”
“…”
“I can’t let this drag on any longer. Let’s end it.”
He assumed a different stance than before.
Ah, I know that stance.
His signature Rapid Sword.
Even if the blade itself didn’t hit, the sheer pressure from the swing was enough to tear through flesh and bone.
‘I’ve always wondered whether that technique or this one of mine would win.’
This is the perfect stage to find out.
I bit down hard on the Gem of Desolation and poured all my energy into my arm.
‘Let’s go.’
[Does your technique have a name?]
‘Of course. Sword Throw.’
[…Excuse me?]
Trail shouted in exasperation.
[Do you see what I’m dealing with, Lepia?!]
[Who are you?]
Before the regression, I had a mission where I had to deal with a rebel commander covered head to toe in steel armor, holding a fortress on a hilltop.
There was a river in between us, so a full charge would have resulted in massive losses.
We couldn’t reach them with arrows either, so I wondered: how do I get that ironclad bastard?
And I came up with the answer.
Why not just throw the sword?
An overwhelming sword that no one could dodge, that could pierce through and destroy anything.
The fastest sword throw in the world.
I poured all my energy into the blade.
Crack crack.
Meanwhile, Kaeld activated his technique.
“Rapid Sword!”
“I don’t shout out my technique names, idiot.”
A raging gust of wind. It was like the wind itself had turned into a sharpened blade, flying straight at me.
Will my Sword Throw be able to break through that and reach him?
Time seemed to freeze for a moment.
When I came to, my sword was buried deep in his abdomen.
Kaeld stared down at his belly in a daze.
“Urgh…”
“…”
“How…? Why…?”
He reached for the sword lodged in his stomach.
You think I’m going to let you pull that out?
I rushed in like lightning.
Wham.
His head snapped to the left.
“Time to go down. I mean, not to die or anything.”
“Mide Mohan…”
“Back off!”
I leaned my whole body backward and kicked the sword stuck in his stomach.
The blade tore straight through his body.
Staggering from the impact, Kaeld finally fell over the edge of Agril.
As he dropped, he shouted loudly.
“Serein! Lisel! Offense!”
“…!”
“Fall after me, immediately!”
An order, as if it were the most natural thing.
As we had discussed beforehand, Offense jumped off after Kaeld.
“Huh? Hey, mister!”
“Aren’t you going too?”
“Ugh. I don’t want to, though.”
“Then stay with us, Ms. Serein.”
Xenia said, retracting her holy power.
Her breath was a little labored.
Serein, on the other hand, looked completely fine—like she’d just finished a light warm-up.
‘Yeah, when it comes to divine power, Serein wins hands down.’
After hesitating a moment, Serein smiled and spoke.
“No, I think I’ll be more useful on that side.”
“Useful?”
“I can’t live off dirt, you know? A favor for a favor.”
I smirked and said,
“If you tell me what you want, I could help too.”
“Forget it. It’s too late now. Lisel, let’s go.”
Serein grabbed Lisel’s hand and jumped off.
Lisel fumbled and got pulled along—
“Oops.”
Xenia quickly caught her.
“We’ll be kidnapping this one for a bit.”
“Waaaah! Kaeld’s gonna scold meeeeee!”
Serein’s voice faded into the distance.
As if to respond, Lisel shouted back.
“Serein! Kaeld!”
“You’re not calling Offense, huh.”
“…Offense!”
“Too late.”
“It’s dangerous. From this height, they could die.”
Then why would they jump on their own?
That’s when—
“Flying.”
Neril cast a spell on the falling group.
Serein and Offense’s falling speed drastically slowed, until they drifted down like feathers.
“You’re planning to recruit them later, right? Consider this a favor for that.”
“Hm.”
“By the way, I didn’t cast it on Kaeld.”
“Well done.”
“More importantly, look at your injuries.”
“It’s just blood. I already took care of it with a potion mid-fight…”
“Xenia! Never mind her—check on Mide’s injuries.”
Lisel was still squirming in Xenia’s arms.
“He looks perfectly fine to me.”
“You never know.”
“You realize this is the second time, right? Ugh.”
Whoosh.
Xenia lifted Lisel up and mounted her on Agril’s back.
Then she came over to check on my wounds.
I waved her off and said,
“I’m fine. More importantly, let’s move fast. If it’s Kaeld, he can probably still attack us from this height.”
“True, considering he even used a dagger against you before.”
She shouted loudly,
“Agril! Full speed to the Tetra Territory!”
Thud.
Kaeld didn’t bother with a breakfall stance.
The spot where he crashed into was sunken, kicking up a cloud of dust.
Moments later, Offense and Serein landed lightly with the help of Neril’s magic and approached him.
“They cast a flying spell on an enemy they were just fighting? How generous.”
“O-Offense, I don’t think that’s something you should say right now.”
Serein pointed to Kaeld, who had been excluded from that generosity.
Kaeld lay on the ground, staring up at the sky.
“Why hasn’t Lisel shown up?”
“Uh, so, about that…”
“Forget it. So Mide succeeded in the abduction.”
He got to his feet, brushing himself off.
Falling from several hundred meters hadn’t left so much as a scratch on him.
But that was only true for his body.
Though he spoke calmly, something was bubbling up inside Kaeld.
Serein shrank back, lowering her head.
“I’m sorry. I tried to grab her and jump down too, but that holy knight grabbed Lisel…”
“Yeah. In terms of divine power, maybe it’d be a match, but when it comes to speed and reflexes, they definitely had the edge. It’s fine.”
He rolled his shoulder with a crack.
Only then did he realize.
The wound on his abdomen, the one Mide’s sword had pierced clean through, was still wide open.
Serein flinched and quickly reached toward it.
“Oh heavenly god, please lay your merciful hands upon him.”
In just about five seconds, the wound and his organs began to heal.
The injury disappeared, but the seething emotion inside only grew stronger.
Kaeld tried hard to calm himself down.
‘Completely got played in every way.’
He lifted his gaze to the quest scroll.
<Emergency Quest: Prevent the earthquake in the Tetra Territory.>
Even after stopping the first earthquake and gaining all that fame from the people, the quest hadn’t disappeared.
That was how he realized.
There was going to be a second quake.
Kaeld had thought it through.
If I were Mide, what would I do?
Mide would’ve predicted the second quake. That’s why he’d so easily “given up” the first one.
‘So I figured he’d kidnap Lisel and use her as a hostage to stop the next one.’
Up to that point, he’d read the situation correctly.
He’d even pretended to fall for it, thinking he might grab Agril while he was at it.
But the most important part—
‘I lost in terms of skill.’
Grit.
The emotion that had been simmering now rose to the edge of his throat.
No. He couldn’t let Offense and Serein see him like this.
He clenched his teeth, forcing it down.
Then Serein, having finished healing him, asked carefully.
“So, we should head back now? To Tetra territory?”
“Yeah. Even if we can’t stop them from using Lisel to halt the second quake, we still have to get her back.”
“Then let’s hurry. Even if we run nonstop, it’ll take days.”
“Mhm.”
Just then.
A line was drawn through the emergency quest displayed moments ago.
<Emergency Quest Failed. A new quest is being prepared.>
“Damn it.”
He spat bloodied spit.
And moved his eyes side to side.
The quest scroll flipped to a new page.
It was the second page of the scroll.
The first page always showed periodically updated quests.
These were the mandatory ones.
And the second page…
<Optional Quest: Eliminate the spy within your party.>
<Info: The party’s spy is relaying your future plans to Mide Mohan.>
<Note: The information shared so far is harmless to your path toward becoming a hero.>
<Warning: Depending on the party’s unity at the time of the spy’s elimination, the party may fall apart. Choose wisely!>
It had only shown up once before, when he got the fake Hero’s Sword in the Tomb of Padania—a list of optional quests.
This time too, he instantly realized who the “traitor” the quest mentioned was.
‘I’ve been keeping quiet to avoid destabilizing the party, but…’
I don’t think I can look past this anymore.
It’s definitely not because I want to vent my frustration.
Kaeld muttered that to himself.
He was about to speak to Offense.
When it happened.
Chzzk. Zzzt.
That was when the quest scroll suddenly glowed.
From experience, that meant a new quest had appeared.
Puzzled, Kaeld flipped the scroll back to the front.
And the new quest he saw—shocked him.
<Emergency Quest 1: Retrieve Lisel Vint.>
<Emergency Quest 2: Heal the Lord of Dronoar.>
<Mide Mohan’s fame is about to surpass yours.>
<Catch up to Mide’s fame by healing the Lord of Dronoar.>
<Note: The fake Hero’s Sword is about to fall into Mide Mohan’s hands.>
…
What’s with this last line?
That the fake Hero’s Sword is going to end up in Mide’s hands—what the hell does that mean?
He instinctively reached toward his waist.
The Hero’s Sword should be—
‘Gone?’
A lightning bolt struck his mind.
He hurriedly flipped back to the second page of the scroll.
※ Failure list.
<Optional Quest: Eliminate the spy within your party.>
Tremble.
Kaeld’s fist shook.
Serein asked timidly,
“Wh-what’s wrong? Aren’t we going?”
“Where’s Offense?”
“Huh? What do you mean, he’s been right—”
She looked around.
Gone. Nowhere to be seen.
He’d vanished.
Just like a ghost?
‘N-no. He’s an assassin, so I guess it makes sense. Come to think of it, assassins are like ghosts. Ghosts and assassins… they do kind of go together. Is that why so many assassin aliases are ghost-themed?’
Serein, now panicking, let her thoughts spiral off track.
But unlike her, Kaeld understood everything.
“Ugh. Mide. Are you one step ahead of me even in this?!”
“Ghost… assassin…”
“Get it together. Hand me that.”
“Huh? Oh, sure. There’s a note here.”
Still not grasping the situation, Serein picked up the note from where Offense had been just moments before.
But once she read it, she too began to understand.
“Kaeld… I don’t think you should read this.”
“Give it here.”
Snatch.
Kaeld yanked the note from her hand.
It read:
— I’m going to work for a more capable boss. Consider the Hero’s Sword payment for my wages.
That line was the final straw.
Kaeld’s rage, which had been teetering on the edge, exploded out of him.
“Grrrrr—Mide, you bastard!!”
He’d defeated him in strength.
Outwitted him with intelligence.
And now, he’d even won over his party members.
Long ago, Kaeld had felt this exact same emotion.
A miserable, shrinking, self-loathing feeling.
The feeling he always got from ‘that person.’
Kaeld forgot all about Serein watching him and shouted toward the sky.
“I’ll never forgive you. I will kill YOU!”
Slide.
Serein quietly stepped back.
With her sharp mind, she figured out why Kaeld was acting this way.
‘Wow… he’s feeling inferior.’