Chapter 168 : A Coincidental Development
“Yes, a contractor. The vulgar money-grubbers who willingly become minions for money.”
The head of the Frederic family wrinkled his face in annoyance.
“A contractor at a meeting place. It’s annoying, but it’s a resourceful move. Reveal which family hired you.”
“It seems you have quite a few suspects, as befits the one who acted first.”
The head of the Frederic family’s gaze, which was scanning the family heads who had stepped back, lingered on a few for an unusually long time. They must be the family heads who had agreed to cause trouble.
They shook their heads as if to claim their innocence. The head of the Frederic family laughed as if it were ridiculous. He didn’t believe them even though it was true.
They must be feeling wronged, but well, the word ‘karma’ exists for times like these.
“Guess the answer yourself. Our industry also has a code of ethics. I can’t reveal it with my own mouth. But it won’t be hard to guess.”
Kureureung!
A vibration that shook the ground. The chandelier hanging from the ceiling rattled as if it would fall. The family heads, who were also skilled knights, noticed the commotion outside.
“It was you, Frederic, who threw the value of the public district as a neutral zone to the ground. Isn’t there a good saying? If you fail, it’s terrorism, and if you succeed, it’s a revolution. You’re already branded as a traitor, so what’s there to be afraid of?”
“Morheim…!”
As if he was dumbfounded, the head of the Frederic family let out a voice like a sigh.
“Did you really side with them? You’re an outsider, so your eyes for reading the situation must have been dim. Whatever those beggars offered you as a price is just an empty promise. No, in the first place, do you really think it’s possible for a mere contractor to face me alone?”
Woong!
A sharp energy, an aura, soared from the blade. The family heads flinched at the ominous glint of mana. They had been distracted by the troublemaker, me, and had forgotten a fact.
The head of the Frederic family had tried to kill the head of the Lumiere family. Although he had failed, there was no guarantee that the blade would not be turned on them.
“You talk too much.”
“What…!”
“If you’re confident in your skills, you should just swing that sword right now. Are you trying to buy time? I’ve already confirmed that there are knights who have hidden their affiliation and have infiltrated the public district. You must be planning to wait for them to join and then kill all the troublesome family heads in this place.”
The family heads in this place must have come here with the thought of ‘would they really go that far?’. But it was the opposite from the beginning.
The war had started because they could go that far. The faces of the family heads turned pale. The same was true for the family heads who had received Frederic’s gaze.
Although they had joined hands, the current situation where the head of the Frederic family was running wild with a weapon alone must have been outside their expectations.
The head of the Frederic family sneered.
“You know well. That’s why your choice was foolish. You were a rising star who had recently made a name for yourself in Gellerg City, but it’s a shame. You will die here.”
“You seem to be greatly mistaken.”
I raised my arm and aimed the muzzle at the ceiling.
“Do you really not know what it means that I came to this place even after knowing all that?”
I pulled the trigger. The head of the Frederic family, who had flinched his shoulders, expressed his doubt.
“Where are you aiming…”
“It means I’m confident I can take your head before that.”
The shadow grew larger, and the hot light source drew closer. The head of the Frederic family finally noticed the anomaly that had occurred above him.
A shot that had cut the rope holding the chandelier. A chandelier large enough to illuminate this entire vast hall was falling on his head.
The head of the Frederic family swung his arm as if swatting away an annoying fly. The aura that had soared from the blade for a moment cut the chandelier in the air. A clean trajectory of the blade and an explosive mana eruption.
It was a show of force towards me. As if to say, ‘Do you still have the nerve to say you’ll take my head?’ Was it because thinking that it would all be over if he just got rid of the troublemaker, me?
He was full of confidence. Well, if he was going to be careless, I was just grateful. I snapped my fingers.
“……!”
The light bulb broke, and the spark that had flown for a moment was amplified to the extreme. It was an irregular move that used the divinity of the World Tree to create an electric shock.
Even a superhuman could not prevent the reaction of the human body, which was to lose sight for a moment due to the flash. Of course, a superhuman’s recovery was also fast.
It would only be a short gap. That was enough. It was more than enough time for me to finish preparing to take control of this space.
The stems of the World Tree spread out and covered the entire convention hall. The head of the Frederic family, who had confirmed the battlefield with a still blurry focus, asked.
“……What have you done?”
“You’ll know when you experience it.”
Branches grew from the stems of the World Tree that filled the convention hall. Fruits grew at the end of the branches, and seeds flew out.
In itself, it was nothing, just a scene of reproduction. But when the skill of a druid was added to it, the feeling changed completely.
A torrent of life.
From under the feet of the head of the Frederic family, the trapping leaves of a Venus flytrap, which resembled the maw of a beast, opened wide. It was not the size to eat a fly, but a huge size that could swallow a person and still have room.
The head of the Frederic family just frowned and took a few steps back. It was a perfect distance calculation that did not require him to jump far away or make a fuss like a low-level person.
Except for a few strands of his bangs being cut and swallowed by the sharp leaves, he did not have a single scratch. But that was the story when the attack ended with just one.
Trapping leaves that soared sequentially in the direction the head of the Frederic family had dodged. No matter which direction he ran and how far, it was the same.
He would only be cornered. The head of the Frederic family, who had realized that he could not just keep dodging, bent his knees deeply and jumped.
His figure disappeared and reappeared as if it were fading. It was not a phenomenon that occurred just by running at a high speed. A knight is a high-level soldier who learns martial arts.
And in a world where supernatural abilities exist, martial arts did not just mean a proficient way of handling weapons and moving the body efficiently. Although the direction was different, martial arts was a skill that was not inferior to magic.
That footwork, which ran as if folding space, was an example.
The speed at which the trapping leaves soared could not catch up with the speed of the head of the Frederic family. At some point, he had me in the range of his sword strike, stopped his sprint, and stomped on the ground hard.
A unique preparatory posture of taking a big step forward, supporting with the back foot, and twisting the waist. It was the basis of the swordsmanship that the head of the Frederic family specialized in.
A screeching friction sound as if metal were interlocking, followed by a flash of light. An explosive speed achieved by igniting mana as he drew his sword.
It was a technique that neutralized the act of seeing and countering.
That’s why I hadn’t considered dodging from the beginning. The airflow that swirled due to the sword strike that had even cut the atmosphere messed up my hair. A deep furrow was left from the ceiling to the floor along the trajectory of the sword.
Although it was a slash that should have cut my body in two, I was fine.
“There’s always a risk in a technique that aims for a one-hit kill.”
It was the same as the long preparation time required for the manifestation of a large-scale magic. A precise posture was required to perform the swordsmanship. It was not just the opponent who could not react to the speed of the swordsmanship.
The person who drew the sword himself could not handle the speed. Unlike most cases where this would be corrected with practice, it was a disadvantage that became worse as one reached the level of a master.
Because only a speed that the person himself could not react to could make the opponent unable to react. That’s why just a slight shake of the tip of his foot would change the final trajectory of the sword by a thousand miles from what was intended.
And it was natural that the head of the Frederic family, whose ankles were caught by the sticky vines, could not cut my body.
Since he had failed in his aim, it was time to take a loss. The floating seeds surrounded the head of the Frederic family’s entire body and exploded in a chain.
Acidic digestive juices poured into the space covered by the smoke, and sharp thorns soared.
As the sword light flashed, all of it was finely chopped. In the midst of the scattered plant debris, the head of the Frederic family was not in the same fine state as before.
His disheveled hair and the deep burns on his skin. His luxurious clothes, which had been tailored to his position, were torn and burned, and the lining was sticking out.
He was a person who cherished his own body so much that he would even forgo a golden opportunity to take the life of the head of the Lumiere family. His eyes were red, as if the blood vessels had burst, from being so angry.
“How dare you…!”
“You still seem to have some time.”
The stems of the World Tree, which had been covered with bark, repeatedly struck him. A barrage of overwhelming numbers. In front of the stems that grew back even after being cut, his defense also began to be breached little by little.
The gradually accumulating fatigue, the impatience from the failure of his one-hit kill technique. In contrast to his frowning and panting, his eyes were not fixed on me, but were constantly looking around.
Was he looking for a way out even in this situation and calculating the best move to stab me? It was unlikely.
“There will be no way to escape.”
“You…!”
The head of the Frederic family, who had been hit where it hurt, ground his teeth. This was a stage prepared so that we could settle things one-on-one. What was the reason for covering the convention hall with the stems of the World Tree, leaving a fatal gap?
Although the purpose was to create a favorable environment by taking control of the space, the intention to prevent his escape was also great. As can be seen from his space-folding steps and swordsmanship, the essence of the martial arts honed in Frederic was speed.
I had thought that the head of the Frederic family would try to escape if a crisis arose. And in fact, he did.
“Kkeueuk!”
The head of the Frederic family, who had realized that there was no way out, changed his momentum.
The aura that had swelled for a moment, just like when he had cut the chandelier, swept the front. In an instant, the path between him and me was cleared.
The head of the Frederic family ran, using the impact of the explosion of the aura gathered at the tip of his foot as a propellant. A technique that was close to self-harm, using his own body as a cannonball.
Since it was the head of the Frederic family, who cherished his own body, I could feel the determination in it. But it was a disappointing choice to rely on swordsmanship again.
Had he judged that there was room for intervention because his speed was slow, which had twisted my preparation for the swordsmanship?
Just running faster could not be a fundamental solution. The reason I had been able to catch his ankle was just because the trap totem I had set around me had been activated.
As long as he could not see through its true nature, his swordsmanship would never work on me.
As expected, the result was the same. The sword, which had been swung horizontally, cut above my head and passed. What was different was the expression of the head of the Frederic family.
He was smiling slyly with a face stained with blood from his broken forehead.
“Domain Declaration.”
For a moment, it was as if the time of the world had been rewound. The head of the Frederic family’s shoulders, which had been wide open, turned inwards, and the blade, which had once drawn a trajectory, was retrieved into its scabbard.
A domain was a single state, and it did not discriminate between professions. Mages, druids, and even innate superhumans like Bianca could all reach the state of a domain.
This was also true for a martial artist. However, there was a clear tendency in the domain that could be achieved depending on each profession.
A martial artist did not achieve a domain by changing the external environment, like my domain that temporarily deployed the World Tree’s garden or Bianca’s shadow domain. The domain of a martial artist was not emitted to the outside to change the environment, but was completed within them.
Thus, a martial artist could do things that were impossible in reality with their own body.
Rewinding time for one’s own body. It was not an impossible feat. Logically, it was.
No matter how much of a domain it was, ‘time’ was a very difficult concept. It wasn’t that the head of the Frederic family’s skills were lacking, but in the first place, if he had been a high-dimensional knight who could control time, everyone here would not have been his match long ago.
‘……A trick.’
He hadn’t reversed time. The head of the Frederic family had not drawn his sword in the first place. His domain was to show a realistic illusion, enough to be mistaken for reality, with his own body as a medium.
The fact that he had been able to come in with his sword hidden alone was also an application of his domain.
This time, he had succeeded in taking a perfect posture. The head of the Frederic family’s blade drew a clean trajectory, exactly as he had intended, without deviating.
My head flew into the air. The head of the Frederic family was about to let out a loud laugh, having finally gotten rid of the annoying troublemaker.
“It was a coincidental development that our final moves were the same.”
The bullets I had fired made several holes in the head of the Frederic family’s chest. Without letting out a triumphant laugh, he had a blank expression as blood flowed from the corner of his mouth.
“How… two…?”
My corpse, which had fallen with its head cut off, and me, who had shot him in the back while he was careless. He was confused by the fact that there were two of one person.
“I’m not a moron who would fight with my body exposed without any defense against a knight who specializes in instantaneous acceleration and one-hit kill techniques.”
「The illusion of the fraudulent wolf disappears!」
The surface of the corpse scattered like smoke, and a small wolf appeared and rolled over, showing its belly.
(End of Chapter)