124. Luzerio’s “Trump Card”
Fran smashed me into Luzerio’s spear and caused a series of sparks to illuminate the underground space.
She was much more skilled than him, but had to hold back so we could keep him alive for information’s sake. Moreover, he had range on her, and was actually decently strong to begin with. He could match the average C ranked adventurer.
The combination of all the aforementioned factors led the two to fight roughly on par with one another. Unfortunately for Luzerio though, said abilities had caused him to realize why he still continued to draw breath.
「Fuck! Just die already, you shitty brat!」
「Refuse.」
「Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck! How the fuck is a fucking kid strong enough to go even with me!?」
「Stop with denial. Not going even.」
「Shaddappppp!!!!」
He’d probably planned to take his time toying with Fran, but reality had instead grasped his dignity and slapped him in the face with it, for it was she and not he that ended up holding back. The fact that his strikes weren’t even so much as leaving scratches caused him to start screaming in frustration.
It would be in our best interest to wrap this up as quickly as possible so we could chase Rynford down, but his Paralysis Resistance was pretty high level, so I figured we probably wouldn’t be able to get him with Stun Bolt.
『Alright, I’m going to mess him up next time we clash. Try not to kill him if you can.』
（Got it.）
「Just die already mother fuckerrrrr!!!!」
I cast Wind Wall without chanting the moment Luzerio extended his spear in an attempt to get some decent damage in and caused his strike to deviate far from its intended path.
「What!?」
「Opening.」
Fran immediately knocked his weapon aside as I followed up my spell with another.
『Stun Bolt!』
「Garghghg!」
Yeeaaap, I knew he wouldn’t end up getting paralyzed.
「You fucking braaaaughhhh!!」
Stun Bolt didn’t really do anything but make him flinch, so he immediately turned around and reached to grab his spear. However, he was interrupted by Urushi, who promptly leapt out of his shadow and gave one of his legs a good bite.
「Growl!」
「Graahhghghgh!」
His right shank had been completely detached from his body. He promptly lost his balance and fell over while staring at his severed limb with a flabbergasted look on his face.
「…M-My leg! My legggg!!!!」
He glared at both Fran and Urushi whilst grinding his teeth in hatred and rage. It almost looked as if his stare alone could cause some sort of curse.
In spite of that, seeing Fran point her blade at his face caused him him to ultimately give up. He dropped the dagger he’d pulled seemingly out of nowhere, and ended up collapsing in a bit of a slump.
「Want information about Rynford.」
「The fuck you wanna know?」
「Describe.」
「Heh. Rynford is one helluva man. He’s got the ability to bless people with the Evil God’s power. He lets us junk this shitty human shell we’ve got so we can ascend and evolve!」
The Evil God’s power, eh? Yeah, Iunno, I wouldn’t really call Bluke’s little change to be an ascension by any means. The hell’s wrong with this guy? He wants to become that kind of reason deprived thing of his own volition? All you can do in that kind of state is rampage about. Yeah, I don’t really get him, or anyone with deviant-like tastes for that matter.
「Rynfords goal?」
「Rynford only has one goal, ultimate power!」
「Nn? Means reviving Evil God?」
My thoughts were more or less the same as Fran’s. I’d assumed that he wanted to revive or unseal the Evil God or something like that.
「Are you retarded? Revivin the Evil God would cause the world to end. You think we just want to die? Hell naw, you can’t kill people or fuck bitches if you ain’t alive.」
So does that mean he’s basically planning to use the Evil God’s power? But how’s he manage that if he’s not a believer?
「Evil God’s what his name says he is, a God that rules over Evil. He ain’t got no qualms giving his power to sinful men like me.」
Ah, makes sense. So he’s okay with helping out anyone that’s evil, even if they don’t worship him.
「Rynford, where?」
「He’s already moved to another one of the bases Bluke’s prepped for him.」
「Location?」
「Hahahahahah! You want to know where it is? I’ll tell you where it is. It’s beside the Lord’s manor, right in the center of town. It’s the perfect place for Rynford to channel his magic through the whole ass city of Barbra!」
You know, he sure is being awfully cooperative. Is he retarded or something?
The moment the thought crossed my mind was the moment the ring on his finger broke whilst giving off a pale glow; Luzerio almost seemed to disapear.
「Gyahahaha! Looks like you let your guard down, brat!」
He reappeared about ten meters away from us. It looked like the ring he’d just used had the ability to be sacrificed in order to allow him to teleport a short distance. After teleporting, the man let loose a painfully loud laugh while pulling out a small container and draining its contents in an instant.
「Y’know why I was willing to talk? S’cause you’ll be dying right here, right now anyways!」
His words were accompanied by the emission of a black aura. He’d entered the same state Bluke had just a bit earlier.
Appraising him led me to observe that he had gained the Enraged status. I was more or less completely certain that the stuff he’d just downed had been some of Rynford’s custom made, magic-infused water. In other words, he’d chosen to turn himself into an evil human. It seemed he really did regard it as some sort of ascension.
The flesh around where his leg was severed even started to bubble as it readied itself to regenerate.
「I’m going to tear you to fucking pieagughgh!」
Annnd denied.
I’d started chanting Short Jump the moment he teleported away. We’d already seen what happened with Bluke, so we didn’t bother letting him do as he pleased. This wasn’t an anime, and there weren’t any awesome special effects that accompanied his transformation, so there wasn’t really any point in watching him as it completed.
Fran firmly grabbed ahold of his jaw the moment she blinked towards him, and held it in such a manner that his mouth stayed open. If she wanted, she probably could’ve just put a bit more strength into her hand and crushed it, but instead, she slammed him into the ground.
「Drink.」
「Gurajksdhgkju8asudghask」
She activated her dimensional storage, and opened it up right in front of her palm in order to force him to drink the Water of Recovery. He wasn’t able to close his mouth or spit it back out, and thus, he ended up ingesting a bunch of it.
「Gaaahhh! Gahahhhhh! Greruaughghg!」
Both his abnormal statuses disappeared; feeling the power drain from his body caused Luzerio to look up at Fran with a surprised, blank expression.
「The fuck… did you do to me!?」
「Fixed status abnormality.」
「N-No way. No fucking way! W-W-W-What happened to all that overflowing power!? My power!? Fuuuuuuckkkkk!!! I’m going to fucking murder you, you fucking shi-!」
「Hmph.」
Fran threw a textbook worthy right hook and caught him smack in the jaw. Luzerio immediately toppled over, likely as a result of a concussion.
「Shut up.」
It looked like his shouts had been hurting her eardrums because of how excessively loud they’d been.
『Well, that works I guess.』
What now though? He knew quite a bit, so, we were glad we managed to take him alive, but we were split between dragging him along with us and handing him over to the guards. Luckily, our thoughts were interrupted by a series of rushed footsteps coming from behind us.
「Are you alright?」
The chief guard greeted us as he approached. His timing was impeccable; we quickly handed off both the guy and all the information we got from him.
Or wait, no, hold up. Luzerio was way stronger than the soldiers, so leaving him as is was probably not the best idea.
「Wah!」
I cut off Luzerio’s remaining leg with a quick wind spell. He probably wouldn’t be able to put up a fight with both legs missing, so that was fine I guess. We quickly sealed the wound by healing him, so the only problem was that he’d woken up again as a result of the pain, a problem Fran quickly solved by giving him another concussion.
The chief had let out a bit of cry in response to our actions, which… wasn’t exactly what I’d call favourable. To him, it’d looked as if Fran had been the one to commit all the aforementioned acts of cruelty.
（Don’t mind. Would’ve done if Master didn’t.）
Yeah, I guess it’s a bit too late for me to be worrying about that kinda stuff, seeing as how we’d already scared them earlier anyway.
（Nn. More important. Advance.）
『Yeah, true. We should be focusing on that instead.』
Especially seeing as how we figured out where Rynford went.
Advancing through the underground path ultimately led us to a garden in what looked like an abandoned estate in the noble’s district. I’d hoped that we’d end up right inside the hideout, but unfortunately, things didn’t always go that well. The place we were right now wasn’t right next to the Lord’s manor, in fact, it was a decent distance away, but you could see the city’s centerpoint if you tried.
『Alright, let’s do this.』
「Nn.」
「Woof?」
『What is it boy?』
「Woof woof woof!」
Urushi looked like he wanted to head in a direction opposite that of the Lord’s manor.
『Is that where your nose is telling you Zerais is?』
「Woof!」
So does that mean Zerais and Rynford split up so they could each do their own thing? Or was the hideout Luzerio talked about fake all along? He wasn’t lying, but he could’ve ultimately been fed false info just so he could function as a sacrificial pawn when caught.
『Hmm… What do… Do we trust what Luzerio told us, or go after Zerais…?』
In this sort of situation, it’d probably be best for us to pursue the path that led to the greatest degree of certainty. We could always track Zerais down whenever because of Urushi’s nose, so there wasn’t any harm in giving Rynford’s supposed facts a quick check or two.
『Let’s head into the noble’s district for now. We’ll hunt Rynford down first.』
「Nn. Got it.」
「Woof.」
Urushi used Air Jump in order to allow us to make a beeline for the Lord’s manor. Looking down allowed us to see the knights as they ran around the city doing everything they needed to; it looked like Dannan had actually managed to get his job done.
An ear splitting scream soon interrupted our travels; looking down caused us to see a woman being assaulted by what almost looked like a buff, black skinned Daruma, an Evil Human. [1]
We were in a rush, but not so much of one that we’d leave victims to their fates.
「Urushi.」
「Woof!」
Urushi dove straight at the Evil Human and allowed Fran to slash at its neck as she passed it by.
But it didn’t die. Its head remained unsevered.
「Gruruooohhhh!」
It’d actually managed to realize that we were coming, so it’d raised its arms and sacrificed them to save its life.
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General Information
Species: Evil Human (Evil Being)
Level: 1
Status Condition: Insane, Rampaging.
HP: 227
MP: 110
STR: 107
VIT: 117
AGI: 66
INT: 36
MGC: 77
DEX: 55
Skills
Intimidation: Lv 4
Presence Detection: Lv 3
Sword Arts: Lv 4
Martial Arts: Lv 3
Night Vision
Innate Skills
Evil Arts: Lv 2
Titles
Servant to the Evil God
Equipment
Steel Longsword
Description: Unknown
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Huh, this one’s pretty strong. Did it used to be an adventurer or something? It looked like it even still had some of its old skills. In other words, my suspicions were spot on, the stronger the human, the stronger the resulting Evil Human.
Hmmm… That said, I do feel like I’ve seen the guy somewhere before. Where was it again…?
（Adventurer. Kicked up fuss at stall.）
『Oh, right! Yeah, I remember him now.』
He’d caused some trouble at our stall, so Colbert had kicked his ass. He used to be… an F ranker, but now he’d become as strong as a D ranker. Wow. That transformation really did some work.
Still though, we didn’t really have any trouble dealing him; Fran’s second strike split him right down the middle. Blood and other bodily fluids splurted from his muscled corpse as it fell apart from the seams.
「Hiiiiiiihhhh!」
The woman we saved had gone pale because the demonic-looking corpse had fallen right in front her, but she somehow managed to squeeze out a word of thanks.
「T-Thank you very much f-for saving my life.」
Crap… What now? We couldn’t really just leave her here, there might be more Evil Humans about.
「Nn.」
「Huh? Kyaah!」
「Bear with it. Just a little.」
Fran lifted her up and hopped on top of Urushi’s back before immediately having him accelerate to where we saw the knights. The woman began to scream, but we couldn’t really blame her.
「Kyaaaaahhhhhh!!!!」
I mean, who wouldn’t scream if a three meter tall wolf popped up in front of them and started carrying them off at super high speed?
「Kyaaaaahhhhhh!!!!」
Hopefully, this wouldn’t end up leaving her with any sort of trauma. Hopefully.
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[1] Darumas (Dharmas) are basically fat dolls with faces on them. Daruma dolls are modeled after the guy that started the whole Shaolin kung fu shit, and they’re supposed to represent good luck. Another thing is that they’re commonly used as gifts. Image below.