Heavy Metal

Some thugs were playing cards in the middle of the room over a stack of silver and copper coins piled high between them. The table was nothing more than a thick wooden crate flipped upside down, its surface scarred with knife marks and burn stains. Around it sat six men, all armed and loud. The gambling den reeked of ale, sweat, and damp wood. Laughter burst out as one of the men slammed his cards down.

"Ha! Full house. Pay up, you fuckers."

"Like hell! I know what you've been up to!"

Another snarled.

"You've been using marked cards all night."

"Nonsense. You're just a sore loser who doesn't know when to quit."

"Is that right? Then give me those cards, because this one looks strange."

The man flipped one of the cards and pointed to the subtle pattern on the back.

"I don't know what you're talking about…"

He denied the claim, but the accuser did not let up. The other four men began to grow suspicious as well.

"Now that you point it out… it does look slightly off."

They all examined their cards. The backs were meant to carry identical patterns, but in one place the lines were slightly shorter, or a tiny dot appeared where none should have been. It was a subtle technique used to mark a deck for gambling.

"This bastard was using marked cards!"

"What do you mean? Those are just imperfections in the deck. If you want to blame someone, blame the boss. I got this deck straight from the Hound himself."

The man grinned, a golden tooth flashing in the orange lantern light of the den. Behind him sat a broad figure in half plate armor, his face marked by old gashes and set in a deep frown. His face wasn't fully human, animalistic and resembling a wolf to some degree.

"If it was the boss, then…"

The others exchanged uneasy glances, but no one raised their voice again. Even if they had caught the man cheating, there was nothing they could do except refuse to play or find another deck of cards.

The tension in the room thickened, a volatile mix of greed and fear held in check only by the presence of the scarred man in the corner. He did not care about the cheating. He only cared about the cut he would receive at the end of the hour.

"Shut up and deal."

The leader growled like a wolf, but the next card never hit the table.

*CRACK. BOOM.*

At first, no one reacted. The roof of the abandoned slum house was in terrible condition; rats and rain often slipped through. Then the wood split apart. With a thunderous crash, the ceiling caved in. Rusty dropped straight through the broken beams like a falling boulder. He slammed into the center of the crate, shocking the men gathered around it.

The wooden crate disintegrated into splinters, and the mountain of silver and copper coins launched into the air like shrapnel. Coins flew in every direction, striking the men in the face along with chunks of wood, but there was more than that. Long, clawed arms swung out, severing the jugular veins of two unprepared thugs. Their blood sprayed across the room as the attack began.

Rusty crouched in a crater of shattered wood, his longer-than-normal limbs spread apart as he launched himself like a cat at another gambler. His weight felt light as a feather as he took off, but the moment he collided with the man, it became crushing, as if he weighed a ton.

The man screamed in agony as he was pinned beneath the sudden force, and clawed hands pierced his torso. More people rushed in from the sides, only to witness the horror of three of their companions dying within seconds. The wolf-looking mercenary leapt to his feet and pointed at Rusty as he shouted.

"Get that monster! What are you fools doing!"

One thug lunged for his axe, but Rusty was faster. His strike sent the weapon and the hand that held it spinning across the gambling den before they hit the floor. The man's screams were ignored as he fell back, clutching the bloody stump. The mercenaries finally regained their senses and began circling Rusty from all sides.

"Kill that thing!"

Spears, axes, swords, and even arrows flew toward him, yet he did not retreat or attempt to dodge. Instead, his body shifted, growing bulkier, taller, and far more resistant than before. The weapons struck, but his durability easily surpassed the crude steel and the weakest enchantments etched into them.

"What is this thing? How did it get so big?"

One of the men shouted. He barely finished speaking before a massive mace slammed into his head. The blow crushed his upper torso, and his body collapsed instantly. On the other hand, a massive shield struck against two grown men, sending them flying up against a wall that promptly collapsed.

"Useless!"

The sub-leader shouted as he launched himself forward, a bludgeon gripped tightly in his hands. He struck Rusty in the back, forcing him to stumble slightly and turn around.

"I'll keep this thing busy. Use blunt weapons, you stupid bastards!"

'No wonder he is a sub-boss. He identified one of my weaknesses rather quickly.'

Rusty was nothing more than living armor. Though he appeared large and heavy, his body was hollow inside. Swords and spears could not truly harm him, but magic and blunt attacks made his frame vibrate and sent damaging tremors into the hidden core within. However, there was one thing the mercenaries did not realize. He was not alone.

"Argh!"

"W-what?"

"There are more of them?"

A spear pierced one of the mercenaries from behind, and another suit of armor emerged. It was pitch black, similar to Rusty's body, with Aburdon inside.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

"Hah, lowly humans! You always die so quickly!"

He cackled maniacally as he swung the spear in wide arcs, aiming for critical points and gaps in their armor.

"What are you waiting for, hero? Have fun with me. Let us see who can kill more of these lowly peasants!"

Alexander, inhabiting his own suit of armor, joined the fray. He intercepted an attack with his shield and stabbed a man in the shoulder before kicking him away. It was the perfect chance to finish him. He raised his blade, but his hand trembled. He could not bring himself to kill another human.

"Ahh!"

The man scrambled to his feet and charged, only to be pierced through by the spear of the demon lord.

"Pathetic. You feel empathy for these criminals? Are you thinking about their families or something equally pathetic, hero?"

Aburdon mocked him without restraint. These men were mercenaries and thugs, but not all of them were truly evil. Alexander knew that. Some had families, siblings, and loved ones waiting for them. He could not slaughter them without hesitation, the way the other two could.

Alexander's hesitation cost him. A blade scraped across his side, sparks bursting from enchanted steel as one of the thugs recovered faster than expected. The impact sent him stumbling backward across the broken planks.

"Focus!"

Rusty's distorted voice echoed from within his towering frame as he caught the wolf-like sub-leader's bludgeon mid-swing. The weapon groaned under the pressure of metallic gauntlets squeezing tighter and tighter.

"You think about their families."

Aburdon snarled, yanking his spear free from a collapsing corpse,

"While they think about how to split you open and cut the throats of those innocents you love to protect."

His words struck deep. Alexander remembered what these mercenaries had been doing. Raping, pillaging, and using force to get their way. Even if there were a few good apples among them, the organization was rotten to the core.

"..."

The man charged at Alexander's white armor. This time, Alexander did not hesitate. He deflected the blow with his sword and drove the blade into the man's gut. The mercenary screamed, eyes bulging as he slumped forward. When Alexander pulled the sword free, the man collapsed to the ground among the others.

"That's better, hero. No mercy for the wicked, right?"

The sub-leader roared and released his weapon. He retreated a step, then slammed his bare fist into the ground. A pulse of dull orange energy rippled outward.

"Scatter!"

He shouted as the shockwave tore through the den. Rusty braced himself and widened his stance, but the tremor traveled through his hollow body and rattled his inner core. Cracks spidered across the floorboards beneath him, and for a moment, he was stunned.

The leader seemed to have realized that fighting inside the building was a death sentence. Many of his men were still within, and they had started running. If even one of them managed to escape, their entire plan would be ruined. For now, he could not allow anyone to learn that he existed in the city as a monster. If that truth came out, he would have no choice but to abandon the settlement and the children he was watching over.

Fortunately, the thugs and mercenaries would not get far. The first man to step outside suddenly found himself unable to move any farther. He bounced off the hidden obstacle, his nose turning bloody.

"W-what is this? There is a barrier here. Is there a mage somewhere?"

Like the previous hoodlums, they began bouncing off the barrier Gleam had created. She remained outside, steadily pouring more of her mana into it. The defense had its limits, and Rusty rushed out just as the wolf-like man struck the barrier, small cracks forming across its surface.

"Blasted thing!"

Rusty arrived just in time. Using his momentum, he charged at the sub-leader. His shield slammed into the man's side as he tried to evade, sending him tumbling into a pile of broken bottles nearby.

"F-fuck, what is this? Who is doing this?"

The man roared into the night sky. In his mind, the monsters here were nothing more than pawns of some hidden sorcerer. No one answered. Rusty surged forward, his mace swinging, twilight energy swirling around him.

The wolf man stood at the middle of D-rank, weaker than Varkas but still a capable fighter. His weapon clashed with Rusty's mace again and again. Rusty's armor dented in several places, but eventually one of the man's knees shattered, and he collapsed to the ground.

"No, p-please. If it is money you want, I will give you all of it!"

Rusty loomed over him. Despite the desperate plea, he felt no sympathy. This beastman still lingered in the victims' memories, Rusty had found. He had enjoyed toying with them, biting into their flesh as they screamed in pain. One of the recently murdered women had died that way, and her rage was still palpable.

"You deserve no mercy. You showed them none."

Rusty raised his mace high and brought it down on the man's head. The crunch echoed through the rain-soaked alleyway where they stood, but no sound escaped beyond it, blocked by Gleam's magic. For a moment, the beastman's body twitched, then the light quickly faded from his eyes.

The barrier shimmered faintly as Gleam's mana flowed through it, repairing the damaged sections and stopping the other men in their tracks. Some noticed that their leader was dead and clawed at the invisible wall, but most of them were only E-rankers, incapable of breaking through with their meager strength.

Soon, the battle was over. Aburdon's laughter died away as he drove his spear through another man's neck. When they began, there had been close to thirty men inside the building. Now there were none. Their blood mixed with the rainwater as Rusty absorbed around ten bodies, including the sub leader.

"Great job, everyone."

"( •̀ ᴗ •́ )و"

Gleam skittered back to him once it was done. She was in good spirits, as was Aburdon, but Alexander remained quiet.

"Just as planned, we'll leave it like this. They'll think the sub leader did it and fled with the money."

It was a simple plan. They intended to divide the group and make the remaining members believe their leaders had betrayed them and run off with the money. While the infighting continued, he would take the opportunity to eliminate more of them, deepening the rift and making it far easier to target Varkas, their true leader.

The rain continued to fall, washing the blood toward the open slum streets. Rusty stood in the ruined gambling den and surveyed the carnage. Broken beams hung at crooked angles, lanterns flickered weakly in puddles of watered-down ale, and bodies lay strewn across splintered floorboards. To any outsider, it looked like a dispute that had turned into a massacre.

With the plan complete, Rusty withdrew. He recalled Aburdon and Alexander's bodies, then shifted into his wraith form and climbed back onto the rooftops. Soon after he left, he heard shouting as the scene of the battle was discovered. From his hiding place, he saw torches approaching in the distance, along with a large number of guards and mercenaries.

He moved quickly, putting distance between himself and the area before retreating to a temporary hiding place outside the city. There he switched into his smallest form and waited for morning, uncertain whether his enemies possessed the skill to track him.

"What do you think?"

"It should be fine. The blood was on the other body, so they should not be able to find us here."

Alexander reassured him as he sat with Gleam inside a hollow tree. They had found an entrance at the back of a massive stump. In his smaller form, Rusty could fit inside easily, and just as they expected, no one came searching.

"Have you heard?"

"Yeah. It seems it was over gambling money. They killed each other over a handful of silver coins."

"Greed is a terrible thing."

When morning came, Rusty returned to the city, pretending he had been exploring a dungeon or hunting monsters in the forest. The guards and townsfolk were already talking.

"…They say the Hound's third tore the place apart himself."

"Ran off with the night's earnings, too. Left his own men butchered."

Rusty kept his pace steady as he passed through the gate, his hood low and posture relaxed. The guards barely spared him a glance. Adventurers came and went at all hours, and in this form he carried no trace of the previous night's blood.

For now, his plan seemed to have worked, though he could not be certain. Caution was still necessary. He had taken the first step toward ending the Hounds, and soon more of them would be crushed beneath his mace.