NOVEL NEXT Chapter 77
Chapter: 77
After finally coming to my senses, I tried to escape, but with someone pushing in from behind, I ended up dumbfoundedly saying, “Uh, uh, uh?” as I sat down at a table.
As soon as I plopped down, the inn door slammed shut, signaling the start of a heavy assembly atmosphere.
It was clear that this wasn’t a situation where I could just get up and leave, so I gestured for Jess and Iris to stay quiet and rolled my eyes to figure out what was going on.
“This Black Assembly has carefully selected only those with proven abilities. That means this mission is dangerous, and the rewards are substantial.”
Everyone gathered in the inn listened intently to the man in the black robe. He continued speaking, clearly soaking the room in a thick, tense vibe.
I tuned in to his words for a while and started sorting the information in my head.
‘So… the Black Assembly is a weird group created in some place called Leviathan to secretly assemble strong mercenaries. Their goal is to wipe out an organization called Nest that has taken over the western lands.’
I bet the boss of Leviathan is someone suffering from a serious case of “eighth-grader syndrome,” just like our household’s demonic sword. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have made it a rule that only people wearing black robes can participate.
‘The humans in black robes here look super shady, like all the information might leak out. Plus, the fact that we—totally unrelated folks—are sitting here means the assembly is running in a pretty careless way.’
Once I hit that thought, everyone around felt utterly ridiculous.
‘Seriously, did no one think this meeting is weird? Or are we just surrounded by idiots?’
Just then, while I was lost in thought…
“Achoo!”
With all the dust floating around from the bad ventilation, Jess let out an adorable sneeze, causing her hood to fall off.
“W-what the?!”
“That guy took off his robe…”
“More importantly… was there such a person among the mercenaries?”
Bright red hair and beast ears immediately drew all the attention. Panicking, I quickly put Jess’s hood back on and checked the atmosphere around us.
“Just some kid whose face I’ve never seen before…”
The moment the guy, who was speaking loudly before, muttered that, the atmosphere in the inn got thick and heavy. Feeling the unusual tension, I quietly attempted to summon my demonic sword.
Well, I tried to summon it.
Whoosh—
The pattern on my palm glowed brightly, and a heavenly red blood, reminiscent of wine, shot up into the air. The blood that rose, drawing the gaze of others like some brilliant artwork, soon transformed into a gorgeous sword shape and landed in my hand.
[Here I come!]
I covered my face with my empty hand and let out a low sigh. The thought that I’d messed up filled my head. Just then…
“…! I’m sorry about this.”
“…?”
“I should’ve recognized you right away with that white hair and the marking on your hand. I messed up because my intel was slow.”
At his sudden words, I raised my head to look at the babbling man. The atmosphere inside the inn was suddenly stirred.
“Does he know that guy?”
“Oh—those who can read probably saw it passing by. The story about the white-haired gladiator who chopped through dozens, hundreds of monsters in the arena? That ‘Slaughterer’ in the newspaper? That’s him.”
“…Ah!”
Immediately after he finished, exclamations of admiration flowed unexpectedly from all directions. Clearly, it was a reaction from the literate crowd.
Even those who couldn’t grasp the situation began to understand gradually as explanations circulated, mingled with late admiration.
“The redhead next to him must be the Red Queen.”
“…??”
‘Red Queen, what?’
I was too taken aback to even ask a question. Without needing to speak, they started chattering about information on the Red Queen among themselves.
“…! I’ve heard she cleaned out all the beast arenas…”
“Even that terrifying Ashelican had its throat ripped out in an instant…”
Ominous stories spilled out from every corner. I couldn’t help but look towards Jess with doubt. Jess was scratching the back of her head with a goofy “hehe” expression.
Seeing her puppy-like face, I thought, ‘Nah, it can’t be true.’
“The remaining one must be the ‘Berserker.'”
I glanced toward Iris when I said that, and I finally reached a conclusion. This must just be a gathering of folks with crazy eighth-grader syndrome. Otherwise, there’s no way they could casually refer to each other with titles like Slaughterer, Red Queen, and Berserker.
‘Oh, wait… could this actually be the culture of a dark fantasy world?’
It was confusing to see grown adults seriously saying such things.
“If you three participate in the Black Assembly, we can consider it a guaranteed victory for this fight.”
“Keh heh heh… Things are getting easier!”
“Hey! Welcome!”
I had no idea what was going on, but it felt like we had at least escaped from a dangerous situation, so I let out a sigh of relief.
“Alright, let me finish the explanation. The target we need to be after is the boss of the Nest organization, a guy named ‘Noah.'”
‘Huh…?’
At the mention of that familiar name right after I’d relaxed, my eyes widened.
“The executives under him are ‘Nero,’ ‘Lily,’ ‘Koan’…”
As he continued listing names, my pupils began to dilate. All of them—the names belonged to the kids I had been with.
“The aforementioned executives must be captured alive.”
With that, he started putting up portraits one by one on the bulletin board. They looked a little more mature than I remembered, but definitely the faces I had been searching for.
“The boss of Nest, being a brat, can’t handle his subordinates getting smashed. So, if it’s tough to grab the executives, you can even outright kill them in front of the Nest boss. I mean, it’s not like you’d have a tougher time with someone who’s all riled up.”
At these words, light laughter spread around. But I felt my expression turning ice cold as anger tightened my grip on the demonic sword.
“Growl…”
At that moment, I heard Jess’s low growl. Turning to look, Jess was glaring at the guy who kept rambling, teeth bared.
‘If things keep escalating like this, it’ll be hard to handle without Jess or Iris getting hurt.’
Rationally, the right decision would be to get out of there immediately. But I couldn’t shake off my agitation.
‘…When did I get so attached to them?’
Chuckling softly, I glanced at Iris. She must have been focused on my face the whole time because our eyes met instantly. Iris snuggled up next to me and whispered,
“Just do what you want, brother. I’ll always be here with you.”
“…”
Hearing her words, filled with trust and belief, my hand’s grip loosened. The responsibility of looking after Iris and Jess made me hesitate.
“…No one here is stronger than us.”
“Ah.”
Iris playfully whispered while covering the back of my hand. Upon hearing her, I felt a wave of relief wash over me, and laughter bubbled up. Although her words had no real foundation, they somehow felt trustworthy. Maybe I just wanted to believe that.
That even if I stirred up trouble here, no one would get hurt.
Clank!
With my thoughts finally settled, I shot up from my seat. Jess twitched her ears and nose, then quickly turned her head to me. The movement caused her hood to fall off again.
“…Do you have something to say?”
The man who had been rambling about the plan stared at me in puzzlement. Without saying a word, I flipped my demonic sword into a dagger and stabbed it into the table. The sword plunged into the wood as smoothly as cutting through tofu.
I gazed at him and said, “Blood Wave.”
The moment the short incantation rolled off my tongue, red blood spurted out from the blade, spreading across the table and down to the floor like a shadow.
In an instant, the inn’s interior bathed in blood-red. Not stopping there, the blood rose up, sloshing around our ankles. The rancid stench of blood threatened to overwhelm my senses.
“Wh-what is… this?”
Crash—
The sound of crashing waves echoed from somewhere, and in a blink, the inn’s space was engulfed in blood.
“Ku-haack…!”
“Auggh!”
“W-wait, spare me…!”
Crash—
The sound, whether of waves or something getting butchered, flooded the inn like a thunderous roar. A hemisphere-shaped barrier formed around the table where my sword was lodged, shielding us from any harm.
Where the waves had swept, nothing remained. Not even a scrap of bone.
Crash, slurp!
Another wave sound echoed and the blood was yanked into my sword without a trace remaining. The world, once dulled of color, gradually returned to its original hues, leaving only four of us standing in the inn.
Me, Iris, Jess, and—only the man presumed to be the Black Assembly’s representative remained breathing. The rest had turned into a mere puddle of blood, without a single trace left.
“Hi—hiik…”
The man, thanks to my efforts, wasn’t dead but appeared to have just come up from a flood of blood. In sheer terror from what he had witnessed and experienced, he was drenched in cold sweat.
Frowning from the overpowering scent, I moved closer to him.
“Hey.”
“Hiik!”
Not wanting to use polite language with a guy threatening my friends, I called out informally. He reacted like he was having a seizure, trying to back away rapidly. I squatted down, still holding my demonic sword.
“If you keep running, I might just stick this into the ground.”
“Aa—aaah! No! Please, don’t send me to such a nightmare! Just kill me! Just kill me!”
With a ghostly pale face, the man shook his head wildly. At this point, I was curiously wondering what kinds of experiences he had gone through.
Pushing the questions aside gently, I grinned and said, “If you tell me everything you know, I’ll let you live.”
Once those words slipped out, I thought, ‘Wait, did I sound a bit too villainous?’ But I shoved that worry away for later. What mattered now was keeping Noah and the kids safe.
*
“So, what you’re saying is—a white-haired guy who sliced through the Vian organization’s orc troops at the western inn suddenly joined the Black Assembly, and then, poof! The Black Assembly just vanished without a trace?”
“Y-yes, yes…”
“A guy with white hair…”
One man glared fiercely down at the newspaper. The worn-out paper displayed images of a blood-soaked arena, along with reports on Lian, a guy who had massacred dozens and hundreds of monsters.
“…So the Slaughterer was behind Nest? No, no. In this case, the Slaughterer is the hunting dog for Nest.”
Tsk.
The man clicked his tongue, mumbling to himself.
“Things just got complicated.”
Without realizing it, Lian had unknowingly earned the nickname ‘Nest’s Hunting Dog.’