One of them was already sound asleep, while the other had his arms crossed and his head down, dozing off against a porch pillar.
As a local gang in Meister County, the quality of the Hyena Gang’s members could easily be imagined, with most being mere thugs.
Expecting them to stand guard dutifully in the rainy weather in the middle of the night was simply a fool’s dream.
The negligent guards naturally made things much easier for Rein.
Rein took a grey cloth out of his pocket, covered his eyes with it, and tied it tightly at the back of his head, resembling ‘Zorro.’
Except that Zorro’s mask was black, while Rein’s was grey.
Sneaking in quietly, Rein, with ten points of Strength, simply used both hands to snap the neck of the dozing young man and slowly laid his body down.
Then, he grabbed the throat of the man who was fast asleep and dragged him into the curtain of rain.
In the dense forest.
At first, the man didn’t understand what was happening and tried to struggle fiercely, but when Rein landed a punch in the upper right section of his abdomen – right where the stomach was – his eyes bulged out immediately.
He became much more compliant in an instant.
But that wasn’t the end of it, as Rein wasn’t in a rush to question him.
After stuffing his mouth and giving him another round of brutal beating, only after breaking two of the man’s fingers did he leisurely ask, “Is Kol inside?”
“Yes, yes!” The man, subjected to a beating and finger breaking without a word from Rein, was nearly driven to a mental breakdown.
If you’re going to interrogate me, then ask!
If you don’t ask, how do you know I won’t cooperate?
You just beat the shit out of me without even asking a question?
However, the upside was that as soon as Rein started asking questions, the man spilled everything like beans from a bamboo tube.
“How many people are inside, and tell me everything you know in detail.”
“There are about fifteen or sixteen core members of our Hyena Gang inside, plus our boss, Kol.”
“What about the Hyena Queen?”
“The Hyena Queen never leaves Kol’s side; she’s inside the big house.”
The next second, “Snap!”
The Hyena Gang member’s head twisted at a strange one hundred and eighty degrees.
With his bulging eyes staring in death, as if to say, I cooperated so well, why did you still kill me?
There were no noble scions staying at the dogfighting estate.
This made Rein all the more unconcerned.
Rein, sneaking his way in, would choose to kill on sight any patrolling members or affiliates of the Hyena Gang.
It wasn’t until Rein reached the three-story wooden lodge at the heart of the dogfighting estate that he was spotted by several wandering hyenas.
“Woof woof!”
“Who’s there?”
As soon as Rein saw them, he stopped hiding and instead rushed straight towards the house’s front door.
“Whoosh!”
A Smooth Cleaving Slash sent two Hyena Gang members guarding the door flying, and at the same time shattered the thick wooden door to smithereens.
In the hall, aside from a fat, white, corpulent man sitting at the center, there were two ordinary-looking middle-aged men, likely higher-ups of the Hyena Gang, apparently tallying the evening’s dogfighting proceeds.
On the long table, there lay stacks of gold coins, over a hundred silver coins, and even more shillings and pennies.
From the amount and variety of coins on the table, it wasn’t hard to tell that the daily gambling income from dogfighting at the estate was substantial.
Moreover, it catered to all classes; the poor could place bets with pennies and shillings, while wealthy merchants and nobles naturally bet with gold coins as the unit.
When the two Hyena Gang upper echelons saw Rein bursting through the door, they couldn’t help but stand up and shout.
“Guards! Guards!”
“No need to shout anymore; all your guards have returned to the Goddess’s embrace.”
Rein took a look around, his gaze skipping over the two normal-sized humans and focusing instead on the enormous fat man and a huge hyena.
This was a fat, bald, white giant of a man who stood over two meters tall, seated comfortably in the center of the hall on a custom-made soft chair upholstered with tender deer leather, his heavy weight causing a deep depression in the cushion.
Clearly, this was the boss of the Hyena Gang, Kole.
His dangling left hand was stroking a huge hyena that rivaled a wild boar in size.
When it noticed someone had entered, the massive hyena slightly lifted its head that was resting on the ground and squinted its eyes to look.
Rein immediately realized that this enormous hyena must be the rumored mutated Hyena Queen.
Confronted with Rein’s sudden intrusion, the fat man ‘Kole’ didn’t panic like the other two upper echelons of the Hyena Gang.
Instead, he seemed leisurely as he sized up Rein, his fleshy face making his small eyes stand out, his black and rolling pupils moving briskly, a glint of slyness flashing in his squinted eyes.
“This strange friend, if there has been some misunderstanding, we can sit down and have a good talk.”
“If you’re an assassin, that’s also simple. Look, there’s plenty of money on the table. If someone hired you to kill me, you can take twice the amount they’re paying you, right from there.”
Unfortunately, despite his smooth talk, Rein didn’t believe a single word.
Because Rein already knew Kole was known for his stinginess, furthermore, the conflict between him and the Hyena Gang had reached a point beyond reconciliation.
Either you die, or I do!
“Whoosh!”
Without an ounce of hesitation, Rein pushed off the ground and charged swiftly towards Kole.
Just then, the two upper echelons of the Hyena Gang roared angrily, swinging their iron batons as they lunged at Rein from both sides, trying to block Rein’s strike at their boss.
“Clang!!”
The two Hyena Gang leaders coordinated their attack flawlessly, striking almost simultaneously, and managed to block Rein’s sword with their iron batons.
Although both were shaken to the point that their knees buckled, and their arms went numb, this brought them some joy, and they thought to themselves:
“We thought a lone assassin would be so ferocious. Turns out, he’s about the same level as us!”
One of them shouted triumphantly, “Boss, leave this overconfident fool to us—we’ll make sure he never returns!”
‘King Canine’ Kole also relaxed his expression at this point, his right hand that was clutching the chair’s armrest loosened quite a bit, instead showing a look of someone enjoying a good show.
In his heart, he was laughing: “The strength and speed of that sword blow just now—just the level of a primary Knight Attendant, about the same as my two boys, and nowhere near my own.”
“Really don’t know who hired this guy to assassinate me, didn’t even figure out their own strength; what is this, a joke? Pure stupidity!”
Rein had just invoked the ‘Blacksmith’s Strength’ in his heart, but after he swung his sword, he remembered that ‘Blacksmith’s Strength’ had already upgraded to a higher level, ‘Strength Burst.’
Looking at the two smug Hyena Gang leaders, Rein said with a smile:
“Overestimating your capabilities? Who gave you the confidence that you could stop me?”
The next second!
A sound similar to ripping silk echoed!
This was Rein’s first time executing the newly acquired skill ‘Strength Burst.’
Instantly, he felt his heart contract forcefully, pumping a great torrent of warmth, every major muscle in his body seemed to have been injected with adrenaline, all becoming engorged, swelling, and bulging.
As his stature suddenly increased by more than twenty centimeters, Rein’s loose plate armor, a product from Hamilton, was stretched taut, and the cotton cloth at the arms, devoid of any metal plates, even ripped open several large gaps,
“Swoosh!!”
With another Whirlwind Slash executed, the two dumbstruck Hyena Gang leaders were suddenly cut in half at the waist, blood splattering everywhere. The lower halves of their bodies remained upright in place for a few seconds, while the upper halves fell to the ground and started to twitch.
“Ting Dang!”
The iron batons slipped weakly from their hands, their faces frozen in disbelief and excruciating pain!
“A full-fledged Knight!!”
Kole, the heavy white fat man weighing several hundred pounds, leaped up from his soft chair upon witnessing the scene, his squinting eyes bulging, a face filled with horror and surprise.
And the massive Hyena Queen, who had been lying around lazily, also instantly got up, focusing her wary gaze on Rein.