Chapter 149 – I Had Loyalty Too (2)

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Translated by Jinmu

Read only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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“Goddammit, why the hell did that bastard show up out of nowhere!?”

The Sashimi Sword Saint, Kang Geom-ma. He was a cadet widely known even within the Villain Union.

A cadet whom Lord Quarn, the commander of the Second Legion and Reaper’s own master, had taken an interest in. That interest existed because Lord Quarn intended to use him as one of his own vessels.

Kang Geom-ma certainly was worthy of receiving Lord Quarn’s full expectations. There were already three results of that lying at Reaper’s feet.

Two had lost their heads, and one had collapsed with a blade stuck in his throat. Even allowing for it being an ambush, it had all happened in a true instant. The rumors that he wielded that kitchen knife like a ghost and chopped up opponents piece by piece were true.

Whoooosh.

The moment Kang Geom-ma showed up and displayed that handiwork, the atmosphere changed. Yet the shock lasted only a moment, and Vendetta quickly restored its formation. Each member tore off their gloves and finished preparing to snap their fingers.

They were Vendetta, one of the Villain Union’s foremost elite units. Situations like this were not common, but neither were they the first time.

And what kind of grown men and professional hitmen would cower before one brat who happened to be good with a blade? If they did, they’d never be able to show their faces again. Honestly, the moment they started ganging up on a single kid, their dignity had already taken a beating.

What else could they ? What they had learned over many years of this line of work was that carelessness was forbidden. And that bastard was a target to be captured alive if possible, so swarming him as a group was the most efficient method.

Hoo. Reaper let out a sigh and swept his hair back. He used the blood on his gloves like wax to hold his hair in place.

Reaper gave an order to all of Vendetta.

“Everyone, get your heads on straight. Form up according to your elemental compositions and align the front. You’ve all seen footage of what kind of fighter the Sashimi Sword Saint bastard is, so attack with your heads.”

“Boss, instead of torturing that son of a bitch, can’t we just kill him outright?”

“No, capture him alive if possible. If it looks like you’ll have to kill him, then kill him with all four limbs intact. Just think of him as a high-end product. Keep the injuries to a minimum. A couple holes here and there are fine.”

“Yes, sir!”

…Uhehehehehehehehe.

Choi Seol-ah, tangled in chains and slumped across the concrete. She let out a sinister laugh like a vengeful maiden ghost. Showing even her blood-red teeth, she looked every bit like a madwoman who had lost her mind.

“Boss, this bitch is laughing.”

“Leave her. Looks like her head’s gone bad. And make sure Choi Seol-ah doesn’t get caught up in the fight. We need to take her back to Union headquarters so I can deal with her personally.”

“Yes, sir!”

“From those even rows of corn teeth onward, I ought to yank out every last fingernail and toenail, damn it.”

After that, Reaper turned his gaze to Kang Geom-ma. His eyes sharpened upward. Grinding his teeth, he spoke.

“You blue-blooded little punk, you’ve been bullying weaklings this whole time, so your head’s gone all the way up in the clouds, huh?”

“……”

Light glimmered in Reaper’s eyes like snake scales.

“Don’t worry, we’re pros. We’ll tear you apart and expose what you’re really made of. It’s gonna be fun. A whole lot of fun.”

“……”

Kang Geom-ma tilted his head slightly. Reaper, who had been speaking arrogantly, flinched.

‘Damn it, and that thing is supposed to be seventeen?’

Those dead, emotionless eyes. Wasn’t he completely deranged? Reaper had met all kinds of lunatics, but it had been a long time since he had seen one with screws missing in such a murderous way.

On top of that, Choi Seol-ah, who had been wriggling like a larva just moments ago, started laughing like a madwoman the instant Kang Geom-ma appeared. What a crazy pair. The phrase birds of a feather came to mind.

Reaper drew a revolver from his waist. Kang Geom-ma’s eyes narrowed slightly.

‘…A gun?’

In the world of Miracle’s Blessing M, firearms were not treated well. Compared to armaments, they simply weren’t very efficient.

This was a world where, with an armament in hand and a blessing activated, people moved faster than sound itself, so why would anyone bother with a lump of metal like that?

The smell of gunpowder made it easy to leave traces, and the maintenance costs were insanely high too. A single bullet cost one million won. Why? Because both supply and demand were low.

The best method of gun control was not controlling guns, but raising the price of bullets.

Kang Geom-ma moistened his dried lips. Then he gripped Murasame and Eternal Frost tightly.

‘So he’s using a gun as a substitute for an armament….’

Villains could not use armaments. Armaments were weapons that resonated with a hero’s blessing. If a villain so much as lightly infused an armament with magical power, they would foam at the mouth and collapse.

Thus some villains used firearms as their own armaments. They were called magic bullets. If magical power was infused instead of gunpowder and fired, both the speed and power of the bullet increased dramatically.

Whirrr.

The cylinder of the revolver spun. Leisurely, Reaper inserted bullets into the chambers, then shut the cylinder. With a gloomy smile, he said:

“Kang Geom-ma, we did our own research on how you fight. You’re damn fast, huh? But no matter how fast a hero is.”

Reaper shrugged and continued running his mouth.

“Before your forehead gets a hole in it, let me tell you one thing. A bullet whose air resistance has been removed with Air-element magic moves at ten times normal muzzle velocity. A regular rifle is around Mach 3, so my magic bullets are thirty times the speed of sound.”

Reaper aimed the gun at Kang Geom-ma. He pulled back the hammer with his thumb and laid his index finger on the trigger. A greasy curve also rose at the corners of his mouth.

“Still, since I have to bring you back alive if possible, do your best to dodge.”

Kang Geom-ma snapped his wrist and shook loose the sheath. At the same time, bang! The gunshot of the revolver signaled the start of battle.

Shrrrrrrrring.

[The Blessing of the Sword God manifests.]

The blade, drawn only a handspan, scattered light, and Kang Geom-ma immediately dashed forward.

While a wind twisted with splendid craters licked at his cheek like a tongue, a question suddenly surfaced in Kang Geom-ma’s mind.

Would the Blessing of the Sword God be faster than the products of civilization? He found himself suddenly curious.

Even amid the chaos, Choi Seol-ah laughed out of her mind and provided background music.

* * *

Ratatatatatata!

The villains fired magic after his footsteps. Water, fire, stone, and the like tangled together and smashed the floor, ceiling, and walls. The concrete, already dark and gloomy, turned pitch black.

“He’s on the right! The right! Bombard that side!”

With a single gesture, magic filled the corner of the empty lot.

‘These bastards, for villains, their coordination is way too good.’

Kang Geom-ma instinctively realized that these were no ordinary opponents. That bunch of villains before had been flustered and pathetic beyond belief.

But these guys snapped their fingers sharply at every word and gesture from their boss, Reaper.

Their arrangement was methodical too. Him talking about being pros had not been nothing but bluster.

‘This is going to take longer than I expected.’

This was not a one-on-one duel, but a one-against-many battle. Thankfully, the space was not all that wide. There were plenty of surfaces to step on because everything was tightly boxed in, so it was at least manageable.

Even that only held true if there was time to support it. Just avoiding attacks had already cost him around twenty seconds. Even accounting for sheathing and drawing, it was tight.

Fifty seconds remained. He decided he would wipe them all out within that span if possible. It was difficult to completely rule out hidden enemies or the possibility of reinforcements being called.

He did not know why they had all gathered here. From the look of it, they clearly had not simply met up for some casual reunion or club gathering among themselves, so why? Then a truly ominous thought crossed his mind.

…What if, at a one-in-ten-thousand chance, they had been in the middle of a ritual to summon one of the Legion Commanders? During the deserted island survival training too, the Fifth Legion Commander Agor had descended without prior warning. A chill ran down his spine.

Still, one thing had been confirmed: Choi Seol-ah was not in league with these villains. She was over there, beaten into a bloody rag and sprawled out like a dishcloth. If she had been on their side, they wouldn’t have beaten her like a dog on Boknal. First he would cut them all down as quickly as possible, then he would take Choi Seol-ah away at once.

‘How do I break in?’

First he had to close the distance. They were mages and a gunman, all ranged attackers, while he was a swordsman. If he lost the battle of distance, there would be no answer.

Kang Geom-ma rolled his brain hard while evading all kinds of magic. Fire arrows, water spikes, and barbed stone shards clawed through the surroundings, scattering concrete debris everywhere. Sporadic explosions went off belatedly.

Eeeee.

The ringing in his ears. Within that sluggish time, Kang Geom-ma’s spinning mind came to a halt. Somehow create a gap in the formation, then overwhelm them in one go.

The better a system was organized, the more vulnerable it was to variables. It was a small piece of wisdom he had learned in his previous life through military service.

The enemy count was sixteen in total. Three teams of five each. Team One threw Kang Geom-ma’s field of vision into disorder, Team Two narrowed his range of movement, and Team Three focused on shaving away at his blind spots.

〈Team 1〉

／ Reaper ＼

〈Team 2〉――〈Team 3〉

Choi Seol-ah

Each team took one vertex and formed a triangular formation. None of those three teams were sloppy; they were solid all the way through.

Among them, the most irritating was, of course, the gunman in the center. Hiding behind his subordinates as meat shields and firing away in that cowardly manner. This was why knives were better than guns. Knife fighting was much more honest, and had romance.

While the battle was flowing chaotically, the gunman pulled the trigger.

Clack. Ba-ang!

Before fire burst from the revolver’s muzzle, Kang Geom-ma moved first. It was impossible to dodge a bullet moving at the extreme supersonic speed of Mach 30. In that case, he would move to match the moment the gunman’s index finger twitched.

Nng.

Kang Geom-ma jerked his head to the side. The bullet grazed his cheek and passed by. The missed shot lodged into the rear wall.

“……”

Only a little blood seeped from the shallow cut. Kang Geom-ma brushed his cheek lightly. His face twisted into a grimace.

At that sight, Reaper was dumbfounded. Dodging his magic bullets while also weaving through the storm of magic? And in a space where the front, back, left, and right were all completely boxed in?

Setting aside how well he handled a kitchen knife, the bastard’s combat sense was simply insane. And on top of that, even though he was alone, he had been steadily probing for a way to creep in closer. Not only that, he moved in such relentless zigzags that it was hard to lock onto a proper aim point.

Even so, he could not just fire wildly without restraint, because he did not have an abundance of ammunition. He had used ten rounds already, so now he had ten left.

‘Damn it, ten million won already burned just like that!’

It was then.

“Ah, shit.”

…One villain in the middle of casting had let his fingers slip. His hands had gotten sweaty from snapping so hard and so often, and his spell came out crooked.

Kang Geom-ma’s eyes flashed. He drew the Daiso sashimi that had been sleeping peacefully against his body and hurled it like a throwing spear.

“Ack!”

A terminal groan. The villain, who had taken a stabbing injection straight to the solar plexus, twitched, then crumpled to the floor.

! ! !

The eyes of the others rolled toward what had once been their comrade. The blade that rushed in sent them after their comrade as well, to the same River Jordan.

The corpses, their eyes rolled white, collapsed one after another. In the blink of an eye, a gap opened in the formation.

“…The fuck?”

At the very bottom of Reaper’s chest, a faint emotion bloomed.

And that emotion stirred impatience.

Grinding his molars, Reaper pulled the trigger like a madman.

Clack. Bang! Bang bang bang-bang!

The shell casings spat out from the cylinder clattered to the floor. Five bullets fired in a wild stream. Their speed was such that even if one read their trajectories, evasion was impossible.

At that moment, Kang Geom-ma’s eyes went dim. His consciousness cut off cleanly, and instinct moved his body.

Tak. Kang Geom-ma’s foot lightly touched the wall. Then he sprang upward toward the ceiling.

Spin. Just before his feet touched the ceiling, he flipped half a somersault in midair. Then the soles of his feet stuck to the ceiling.

In that state, Kang Geom-ma drew out a dozen sashimi knives and scattered them. At times, the kitchen knives struck each other in midair and bounced off, falling at bizarre angles.

“Silver blades poured down like a monsoon shower.”

Ack!” “Aagh!” “Kak!” “Ghk!

Vendetta’s encirclement began collapsing like dominoes.

…A little later, only one life remained: Reaper.

‘…Damn it!’

“Reaper cursed inwardly. Reflexively, his right hand fumbled urgently for the spare ammunition at his waist.”

Ah, fuck!

“Choi Seol-ah, tightly bound in chains, suddenly bit down on that hand. She shouted at Kang Geom-ma with a mixture of gestures and chin jerks.”

“Now’s your chance!”

You crazy bitch! I should’ve just killed you earlier.

“Reaper raised his left hand to shove Choi Seol-ah away. But for some reason, a hollow gust brushed across his wrist. He rolled his eyes to the .”

?

“Only streams of blood spurted from the wrist where his left hand should have been. He felt no pain. Reaper’s mind went blank.”

Y-You, you, you, you laptop! H-How were you moving!

There was the laptop guy, who had died long ago, clutching a sashimi knife wrapped in string. It had been the very kitchen knife Kang Geom-ma had been holding just moments before, so when the hell had it gone to the laptop guy? No, more importantly, how was he moving with a blade stuck in his throat? The laptop guy’s face had no vitality left at all. He was not alive.

His former subordinate’s corpse was staggering around swinging a sashimi knife. Was he in a nightmare? At the insane sight, Reaper’s complexion changed in real time.

Reaper’s right hand was tied up by Choi Seol-ah, his left by his subordinate. While his brain remained numb, Kang Geom-ma descended in a leaping frog jump.

Shaaeeeeek!

The sound of air tearing apart. Reaper’s vision dyed black. Right before his eyes, Kang Geom-ma raised Eternal Frost high. Then he swung it down vertically without emotion.

Slice!

From the crown of his head to his crotch, the blade split him cleanly without obstruction.

The gunman’s expression went blank. The gleam in his eyes was filled with emptiness. His lips, pursed into an O shape.

“Damn / it.”