Chapter 255 - Gae Bolg

The slums of the Arken Empire. A dark cityscape that stood in stark contrast to the glittering commercial buildings lining the main thoroughfare. An abandoned place untouched by Alte's light.

"The air here is always filthy," a man grumbled.

Leather armor stained with filth and poorly washed clothes. To anyone looking, he was a slum gang member. The disguise was so perfect that no one would have guessed he was actually a knight in imperial service.

Wet Clawfield. An elite knight of noble birth who had followed the most prestigious path through training, earned his superiors' trust, and seemed destined for a glorious career. That such a man should be posing as a vagrant in a place like this was unthinkable.

His orders had been simple.

["Keep the target isolated and protected. Only you can carry out this mission."]

It was a level-one classified operation. Even among the military's highest officials, few knew of it. Given the importance of the task, Wet had risen to the occasion with knightly spirit. Knightly spirit, of course, was just another way of saying he had to do as he was fucking told.

Carrying a paper bag, Wet quietly entered the sewers. They had been cleaned up somewhat, so they weren't as bad as before, but a sewer was still a sewer.

He followed the winding passages until he finally reached a place no one would find unless they were specifically looking for it. When he knocked on a stone wall, it rang like a drum. Those inside thoroughly verified his identity before admitting him.

Two guards stationed in the short corridor saluted.

"Welcome back, Captain."

"The subject?"

"Same as always."

"Creepy bitch."

Both guards looked thoroughly sick of her. He could understand how they felt. Passing them, he opened the second door and went inside.

An artisan was making something in here. But this room was worlds apart from the usual workshop full of sophisticated tools. It was practically a dump. Even the desk was made of trash, and everything gathered around it was trash too.

She was muttering with her nose buried in the junk. Without listening closely, one might have thought she was practicing dark magic.

"I brought food."

The muttering stopped for a moment.

"Toss it over here."

The knight tossed it down beside her. She must have been hungry, because she immediately inspected the contents. He had delivered the food and was about to turn away when she spoke.

"Wait."

She flung what he had brought over her shoulder, sending it to his feet.

"This isn't what I asked for."

"Salt bread and mayonnaise. I brought what you wanted, bitch. What's your problem?"

"It's too fresh."

Her reasoning was nothing like that of ordinary people.

"I specifically told you to buy mayonnaise just about to rot and salt bread that's gone hard."

"..."

"But this bread is warm and soft. And the mayonnaise isn't just fresh. It tastes positively mild."

"..."

"You can't even do one thing you're told, can you?"

He tried to ignore her.

"Well, that explains why you're stuck in this shithole."

That was what finally made Wet snap.

He locked the door he had been about to leave through, strode over, and grabbed the woman by the head as she fiddled with a bomb.

"Looks like you need another lesson."

Wet began beating her. For a man of his elite background, being stuck in a sewer watching over an isolated madwoman was stressful enough. With that very woman getting on his nerves, he needed someone to vent his anger on, at the very least.

He relentlessly targeted the most painful spots, taking care not to break any bones. Unable to resist, she took the blows. Brutal sounds echoed through the isolation chamber. The guards knocked several times to ask what was happening, then fell silent again.

There were no agonized screams or pleas. Only repeated crashes and thumps. Blood streamed from her nose like water from a broken faucet.

Deciding he had beaten her enough, the knight hauled her up. She was as light as she looked.

"Come to your senses yet?"

A lesson like that should have beaten the pointless defiance out of her. He wanted to see Gae Bolg trembling and bowing her head. But the fire had not gone out of her eyes. Her green irises gleamed.

"Think that's enough... to kill me?"

She was smiling instead.

"If you're going to kill me, wouldn't now be the best time?"

Blood poured from her nose, yet her face wore a chilling smile. This wasn't the stubborn bravado of men pretending to be tough. She was genuinely enjoying herself. She seemed to find the terror of death entertaining.

He didn't like it. Her behavior, born of the belief that he really couldn't kill her, kept grating on his nerves. And in truth, he couldn't kill her. He was an elite knight who faithfully obeyed his superiors' orders.

"Crazy bitch..."

He let her go.

"Cowardly bastard."

She snickered at him, snorted the blood out of her nose, and resumed handling the mana stone. Muttering, she immersed herself in her work as though the beating had never happened.

'I don't understand why they're keeping a crazy bitch like her alive.'

The elite knight had already reviewed her personal records before coming here. The charge against her was astonishing.

'Attempted murder of a noble.'

Attempting to murder a noble carried a harsher penalty than killing one's own kin. No one survived it. That was true even among nobles, let alone the lower classes. Yet she had survived. Her actions had astonished the entire nobility that much.

The noble she had attacked was Marquis Pallas. As a noble in finance, he lacked the martial prowess of his peers. But with his immense wealth, he had more than enough money to hire people to protect him.

With his distinctive eloquence and his money, he had secured the exclusive services of the most renowned mercenary bodyguards. Their company was called Aegis. As their name suggested, they boasted that they were an impenetrable shield and warned that no one would ever lay a hand on Pallas.

Naturally, the public believed them. No one had intended to attack him or breach his defenses in the first place. Who would even dream of laying hands on a noble? And the idea of a girl so thin she seemed nothing but bones getting past burly men and elite soldiers was like trying to smash a rock with an egg.

'But she did it.'

She had broken through his guards all by herself.

'With just a few fireworks and some dye...'

She had made fools of the elite soldiers, thrown the guards into confusion, and slipped through in an instant. Upon reaching Marquis Pallas, she had left a red handprint on him. That was all. Nothing more. Then she had said:

["Broke through."]

She hadn't fled. The bewildered soldiers had finally caught her, and she had shouted through peals of laughter:

["If you call yourselves Aegis, I'll call myself Gae Bolg! Call me Gae Bolg from now on!!"]

Gae Bolg, the spear that pierced the heart. It was called a tragic demonic spear that led its wielder to kill even their own family.

She should have died, but she hadn't. Although Aegis had failed, their reputation was unquestionably built on trust, not exaggeration or inflated claims. Gae Bolg's attack had revealed potential that could not be underestimated.

Executing her according to the law would have been too great a waste, so they had subjected her to a few tests. As expected, she possessed extraordinary abilities.

She was exceptionally good with her hands. By instinct alone, she built mechanical devices that artisans would have needed agonizing study to produce. Crude as they looked, these tools could screw someone over at precisely the perfect moment. Whatever the client's intentions, everything was built to go exactly as she intended.

They had thought she might prove useful someday, and that day had finally come. They had managed to secretly acquire several magical engineering rifles and dozens of magazines, then prepared to develop something from them before anyone else could.

One such creation was the rounded object sitting over there. Made from a completely remodeled cylinder, it looked like a magazine at first glance, but its color was different. She called it a grenade.

The knight had read about magical engineering grenades in the reports.

'Didn't the reports say they release mana?'

The shock wave of the explosion was lethal, but the pure mana spreading across a wide area also paralyzed demonic creatures' nervous systems, creating an opening for spearmen to engage at close range. Yet the object before him glowed softly with something condensed inside that was purple, not blue.

What was the difference? Without thinking, the knight reached for it.

"I wouldn't touch that if I were you."

Gae Bolg spoke without even looking back. It was as though she had eyes in the back of her head.

"A mannerless lout like you starts pawing at that, and this whole area could get blown away, you know?"

"Something this small?"

"It's not quite the explosion I'm after, but it can manage that much. If you want..."

She turned her head, mockery in her eyes.

"Want to test it?"

A powerful impulse surged through him at her words. He had felt it while beating her too: this woman had a way of making people lose their reason.

He was a man who never backed down from a challenge. Yet Wet didn't touch the object. His superiors had ordered that he could lay hands on the woman, but not her creations.

'When the day comes to dispose of you, I'll give you the most painful death imaginable, bitch.'

Promising himself that future satisfaction, Wet concentrated on keeping watch over her.

That was when it happened. Her muttering stopped, and her head snapped up like a dog hearing a noise.

"Hmm~."

She stared at the door with interest and grinned. Just as Wet was about to question her sixth sense, he realized why she was doing it.

'I can't sense anyone.'

There were two guards outside. For their presences to vanish without a trace meant they had been taken down. Wet backed away from the door and drew his sword.

He expected someone to smash through the iron door. Instead, everything happened in silence. Something black crept up the door, formed into a hand, and slid the bolt aside. With nothing but a mechanical lock securing it, the door opened easily.

The door slowly swung open. He remained on guard, ready for a sudden attack. But even when it was fully open, no ambush came. Instead, he saw two guards lying limp on the floor, and the four intruders who had subdued them so easily.

For people staging a raid, they were remarkably brazen, making no attempt to hide their identities. Wet recognized one of them immediately. Though seldom seen in the Empire, the man was so famous that not a single noble could fail to recognize his face.

Tall, with gray hair. Eyes that seemed to plunge anyone who met them into a deep lake, leaving them barely able to draw breath. He strode inside with the bearing of a nobleman.

Wet addressed him.

"Are you not the Lord Regent of the Grand Duchy of Valdrova?"

"I am. And you?"

"Merely an unaffiliated slum gang member. What brings the consort of a great dragon to a place like this?"

"Well, don't you already know?"

There was no reason for him to travel all this way just to raid a gang in the slums. Wet gave a hollow laugh.

"Even within the Empire, few know about this. You truly live up to your mysterious reputation, Lord Regent."

"Nothing in this world stays secret forever."

"I won't go down easily."

"So you think."

Ferda made a small gesture. A handsome, brown-haired young man stepped forward. He too wore leather armor, but the dagger he held as he faced Wet was shorter even than a shortsword.

"Let's see how well a slum gangster fights."

"With that insufferable face, you must be Sir Swallow."

"Pleasure to meet you, nameless loser."

"I read the reports. You served as Regent Ferda's bodyguard, I hear. And failed."

With a sneer, he pressed the sore spot.

"You failed despite holding a knighthood, and somehow your head's still attached."

"A pretty face doesn't just work on women."

Zed answered with an unruffled expression.

"Besides, that doesn't sting much coming from a bastard who beat cadets half-crippled, got abandoned by his peers, and was demoted."

"What?"

"What elite knight gets assigned to watch a crazy bitch in a shithole like this? You're more naive than I thought."

Wet's face hardened.

"And Zed wins the trash-talk round by decision!! He's one point ahead!"

Standing behind them, Penelope joined in the taunting as she crunched on snacks.

"Let's see you fail to protect your lord a second time!"

Unable to contain himself any longer, Wet lunged at Zed first.

Zed's dagger blocked his sword. The jolt of their first clash made one thing unmistakably clear: this was no mere contest, but a battle to the death.

"You bastard! Your reputation for beating up juniors wasn't all talk!"

Wet had the advantage in strength. But Zed had the finesse to overcome it. Angling his blade slightly, he deflected the attack, drew another dagger with his free left hand, and aimed for the man's abdomen.

"Cheap tricks!"

It was a fight between a conventional knight and an unorthodox one who relied on trickery. Despite his superior reach and strength, Wet was inexplicably at a disadvantage. This was a pure one-on-one fight, and his pride began crumpling like paper.

'I built my reputation through elite training!'

He couldn't believe he was being pushed back by some street nobody of dubious origins. Yet it wasn't long before he understood why he was losing.

Distracted by the man's endless chatter, he had failed to look properly at his eyes. There was nothing frivolous about them. They were the eyes of a predator. Those focused, piercing eyes were driving him back.

Wet's certainty of victory shattered.

'I'm going to lose!'

Until these final moments of the fight, he had never once considered defeat. Now he could think of nothing else. His mind raced, searching for a way out.

"Duck!"

Gae Bolg shouted. To Wet, it sounded like salvation. Perhaps her talents would save him at this moment.

He ducked as instructed. But nothing happened. Gae Bolg came into view, merely perched on her desk, grinning. No one had been on his side to begin with.

"You fucking bi—"

THWACK!

Zed's hook landed squarely on Wet's jaw, wrenching it violently sideways.