44 – I Got My Second Class Advancement Too – 4

“Come down, coward. Knight Tolchi will take your head.”

After Gi-jun fell over the city wall with the banshee, even in a situation where he was left alone with the gentleman, Tolchi calmly readjusted his grip on his greatsword and growled.

―Ha!

The gentleman, who landed lightly on the ground, pointed his estoc at him and let out a twisted smile.

His fangs, protruding outside his lips, shone palely in the moonlight.

―Aren’t you even worried about your companion? You are quite cold-hearted, Sir Knight.

“If he is weak, he will die, and if he is strong, he will live. That is all there is to it.”

Tolchi, who answered resolutely, pointed his greatsword at the gentleman and slightly bent his knees, ready to spring forward at any moment.

“Besides, you must be in the same boat, having lost your companion as well.”

―That was no companion; it was merely a chess piece to be easily used and discarded!

The gentleman cackled at Tolchi’s words and lunged at him.

The rapidly thrusting estoc tried thoroughly to pierce and shatter Tolchi’s armor, and though it collided head-on with Tolchi’s greatsword swung upward to block it, the blade did not chip, but rather pressed down on his greatsword.

―It would be better not to clash head-on with my thorns.

Tolchi was appalled as an ominous grinding noise echoed from the flat of his greatsword that had blocked the sharp tip of the estoc.

He had immediately guessed that the enemy’s identity was a vampire based on the distinct atmosphere and those fangs, but this power was…!

“Thorns… You, could you be a kinsman of the Lord of Thorns?!”

―It’s too late even if you want to surrender. I won’t let you go until you’ve been stabbed once; you won’t be able to escape!

As Tolchi took a step back while strengthening the mana surrounding his greatsword, the gentleman pursued him.

Narrowing the distance to the knight with light footwork unbelievable for someone wearing a stuffy suit, he continuously thrust his estoc, restricting his range of movement.

“Eeeei!”

―And―― aha!

Clang!

He parried the suddenly swung greatsword by alternating the estocs in both hands, finally deflecting it into the air.

Capturing the opening as Tolchi, who had lost his greatsword, momentarily reached out his hand to grab it, he slipped inside and pierced his shoulder!

―You are weaker than you look. Would it have been better if I had dealt with that guy instead?

“You dare… look down on me?”

As the gentleman’s ridicule reached Tolchi, who had lost his greatsword and had his shoulder pierced, his teeth ground together with a creak.

He reached out just like that and grabbed the estoc that showed no sign of pulling out of his shoulder.

―Foolish.

In response, the gentleman reacted as if he had been waiting, sprouting blood-colored thorns from the estoc.

Or rather, to be precise, he was turning Tolchi’s blood on the estoc into thorns to pierce him, but Tolchi, despite being covered in blood from his wounds, stubbornly held onto the estoc anyway――

Crunch.

“Do not look down on me――!”

He gripped it tightly and ended up snapping it.

At that moment, all the thorns originating from his blood that had been piercing him also vanished, making it the correct answer as far as countering methods went.

―Ha, a lowly creature dared to break my beloved sword…!

“Your thorns are weak!”

Tolchi, who flung the broken estoc to the ground and let out a growling voice, kicked off the ground forcefully and rushed at him even as blood streamed from his shoulder.

Naturally picking up the greatsword that had fallen along the way and accelerating, he delivered a strike that forcefully slashed upward from below with the momentum to slice the vampire in two!

The vampire quickly took a half-step back and thrust his estoc in response, but this time, his estoc was the one deflected.

―Do you only get stronger when you bleed? How savage, but not bad!

“Your assessment is none of my business!”

―Crash! Boom!

Tolchi cornered the vampire, who now held only a single estoc, at a speed easily twice as fast as before.

The heavy greatsword grew faster and faster and began to be dyed red as if it had absorbed blood, and seeing that, the vampire let out a giggle, perhaps having sensed something.

―So it was the weapon that was special.

“Yes, you too shall become rust on my blade!”

Tolchi’s eyes, revealed through the visor of his helmet, gleamed, filled with wildness.

The greatsword, by now completely wrapped in a red aura, flew through the air, accelerating repeatedly as it aimed for the vampire’s neck!

“Die!”

―Kugh…!

The vampire attempted to evade it by turning his body into a swarm of countless bats, but at the moment of impact, the energy gathered on the greatsword triggered a large explosion, consuming easily more than half of the bat swarm.

Convinced that his attack had landed properly, Tolchi smiled and muttered.

“The moment when a vampire weakens. I know it.”

―Indeed… you are too strong to be in such a small city.

The bats that had scattered in all directions gathered in another spot and reconstructed the vampire’s body.

―Or, is that why you are here? Since everyone else is an easy opponent, you’d be able to stand out that much!

Although not a single wound remained on his body and his talkativeness was unchanged, his complexion had become noticeably paler.

On the other hand, the greatsword held in Tolchi’s hand still lingered with a menacing red aura, so if he was hit by the same attack next time, the vampire would surely be defeated.

Catching his breath and brushing off his dusty suit, the vampire thought.

‘The reputation of a noble of the night is in ruins. If the Lord of Thorns were to find out about this…’

In fact, at the point when the Shadow Wraith unit that attempted to sneak into the city was annihilated, the overthrow of this small city through this Overflow was already as good as a complete failure.

The core of this operation was the artificial dungeon rampage.

He had felt uneasy ever since the operation was moved up because the woman who went around looking for sacrifices to trigger it died suddenly, and now this disaster had finally occurred.

‘No further disgrace can be permitted. I must finish him off as elegantly, perfectly―― and quickly as possible.’

Despite this, the reason the vampire did not retreat and personally stepped forward was to save face even a little by cutting down those who had been the biggest obstacles to this operation.

The bastard who had annihilated the Shadow Wraith unit must have already fallen outside the walls and died among the undead; once he killed only the annoying knight before him, he intended to flee without hesitation.

The banshee? He did not care whether it died or lived, but since its face was decent, it would be worth employing if it returned on its own.

“Die, vampire!”

―Tch!

The vampire’s thoughts were forcibly interrupted by the savage knight’s greatsword charging right before his eyes.

Giving up on a head-on confrontation, the vampire turned into mist and repeatedly retreated, firing the same skewers at Tolchi that he had shot when he first appeared.

Tolchi ran along the city wall, deflecting all the black skewers just as Gi-jun had done earlier.

The difference was that Tolchi was much more massive and slower than Gi-jun, and the skewers the enemy kept throwing were a bit more threatening than the banshee’s magic.

As he charged recklessly and was pierced by a few skewers he failed to avoid in time, the vampire sneered at him.

―Puhahahaha! You look just like a wild boar running through the forest! Since you’ve been skewered on a spit, we can just put you over the fire and roast you to eat!

Then, Tolchi silently pulled a hand axe from his bosom.

It was an item with a blade plated in silver and even blessed by a high priest.

It was something he could not have prepared if he had not known in advance that undead would appear.

It even had a cross engraved on the broad side of the axe.

―Oh dear.

Tolchi, who had been infusing mana into the hand axe while pretending to charge thoughtlessly, threw it hard toward the vampire who was hurriedly turning into mist.

As if proving his unique-grade throwing mastery, the rapidly flying hand axe embedded itself right in the middle of the scattering mist with a loud crunch.

With the spot where the axe was embedded at the center, the condensed mist once again took the shape of the vampire.

His precious blood, which was as good as his life, was dripping down rapidly.

―Keuhat…

“Dieeeee――!”

As the vampire, whose mist form was broken, fell helplessly onto the city wall, Tolchi leaped up from the spot and slammed his greatsword down toward him!

―Squish

He would have done so, had a giant blood-red thorn blooming from the vampire’s wound not ultimately pierced his chest.

“Kuhuk!”

Tolchi, who was lifted into the air as his thick armor was completely penetrated by the thorn, coughed up thick blood and stared at the vampire with disbelieving eyes.

How, when he had eliminated half of the bats with his greatsword when the guy transformed, and had even consumed a blessed weapon that lost its efficacy after a single use to make sure he finished the vampire off?

―The blood I shed is my life. As such, its value is heavy, its grade is high, and it blooms fatally and beautifully. …It is not elegant; it is fierce. Thus, it is not to my liking, but…

Pulling it out with black mana as if unwilling to even touch the silver-plated axe, the vampire threw the axe to the ground and slowly stood up.

The blood that had flowed out from the fatal wound inflicted by the knight, blood composed of the mana that constituted the vampire’s origin, rose drop by drop and coated the estoc the vampire was holding, as if plating it.

It was just like humans plating their weapons with silver and applying holy water to deal with the undead.

The vampire had also plated his sword with his own blood to take the end of the persistent knight.

Frowning deeply as if he still disliked the situation, he pointed his estoc at the knight who was pinned by his blood.

―This will be the most luxurious death in the world. Lowly monster, sleep in the embrace of my blood.

“Ur, Lucy――!”

And at that moment, he was slammed to the ground, pierced by a fang imbued with holy flames.

It was a surprise attack with perfect timing, one he could not dare to resist.

―Keheeek!

Even while suffering a fatal wound that seemed to burn his very soul, the vampire tried to create and shoot several thorns again with the blood he had shed, but―― unfortunately, his compatibility with the opponent was the absolute worst.

Before it could even turn into thorns, all the blood the vampire had shed came into contact with the holy fire and ended up evaporating; thus, having been deprived of all his most powerful weapons that had cornered Tolchi before he could even use them further, the vampire thrust his estoc in desperation――

―Clang!

Blocked by a shield emitting an eerie light as if it had absorbed blood, even that was deflected.

―Ah, as expected.

Looking at the shield and its owner who slammed down toward his head without their strength weakening in the slightest even after blocking the strike he had thrown with all his remaining might, the vampire muttered with a displeased expression.

―I should have dealt with that guy first.

―Boom!

* * *

Inside the first floor of the official Mercenary Guild in ‘Ars’, a small city in the east of the Gratia Kingdom.

Ye-min’s party, who had just returned, had the results of their request approved at the report window and were finally able to be recognized as official mercenaries.

“I think a system that completely blocks last-hit stealers is really great.”

Receiving and checking the brass mercenary badge that proved her status as an official mercenary, Ye-min let out a satisfied smile.

Although there was a side effect of the mercenaries inside the guild collectively losing their minds upon seeing her smiling face, obtaining certification as an official mercenary within just a few days of arriving in the city was no easy task, so no one dared to hit on her.

Eun-shin agreed, ready to step in to protect her at any moment.

“Because recognition is given in the order of who made the greatest contribution. A thorough game system is nice at times like this.”

“Though it is unknown who created such a complex system――”

Staying alert to their surroundings was the same for the eldest, Mok-su.

Originally, Gi-jun had handled all the dirty work of the party, and dealing with the flirting directed at the female members was no exception; it was only after entering the second round that they keenly realized how much exhausting work he had willingly taken on.

Of course, it was not that they always went around with glaring eyes, but they were merely overreacting because they had experienced someone trying to pull a fast one on them this time.

“I had no idea they would try to pull a trick in that manner.”

“They were probably rookies who hadn’t been in Leta for long, either. That must be why they thought they could claim ownership just because they touched it at the very end.”

To Mok-su’s words as he muttered with a sigh, Ji-hye added with an equally disgusted look on her face.

In this request to be recognized as official mercenaries, a trio of men had suddenly barged in, stole a monster that Ye-min’s party was hunting well, and then acted high and mighty, claiming it was their share.

Whether they came knowing that the group was carrying out a quest to be recognized as official mercenaries, they made a ridiculous proposal, saying that if the group wanted their ownership of the monster acknowledged, they had to buy them drinks today.

Buying drinks was not a difficult task, but starting with the demand for the men of the party to leave, Ye-min was not so dense as to fail to notice their dark intentions.

Just as it was about to escalate into a fight, Eun-shin, who had been watching them carefully, discovered the fact that they could not store the loot from the monster in their inventory.

As it turned out, when hunting monsters, loot was distributed strictly according to contribution, so those who did not receive proper contribution credit could not put it in their inventory at all.

Dumbfounded, Ye-min dragged the bastards to the Mercenary Guild and reported them, and for the crime of threatening in addition to lying, the trio ended up in a position where they could never set foot in the Mercenary Guild again.

Though they could not know for sure, rumors must have spread throughout the area, so it would be difficult for them to walk around with their heads held high in this neighborhood.

“Well, since disputes over monster loot probably happen a lot, having the system determine it would be the simplest and cleanest way.”

“Right, our Shin had a lot of trouble because of that during the tutorial, didn’t he? Because there were so many who picked fights, saying they got the last hit even though he was the one who ambushed and killed it.”

“Uwaah, Noona…!”

Finding Eun-shin, who was muttering in renewed admiration, cute, Ji-hye grabbed his cheeks and pinched them playfully.

On the surface, they looked like a young man and woman playing around as sister and brother, but considering the ages they had accumulated in the first and second rounds…

“But.”

Ye-min suddenly muttered.

“Why didn’t the tutorial have a system like this?”

“The rules for experience distribution in the tutorial were the same, though. Besides, because there were so many monsters compared to the number of people, there was almost no reason to fight over simple loot like byproducts.”

“They say it’s a much smaller world compared to Leta, after all. …It’s not like you could bring the loot you gathered there to Leta, and they probably expected us to finish it quickly and come over in the first place.”

Mok-su casually spoke of the truth that no one was willing to think about.

Ye-min’s smiling face cracked.

“We… regressed because we couldn’t clear it.”

“Noona?”

“And even in the second round, it took ten years because everyone was dragging their feet…”

“Ahem, Min-a.”

“Could it be that we, despite calling ourselves regressors, actually have nothing to show for it…”

“Min-a, stop! Don’t go any further!”

Although she had already said it all.

Although the second opportunity given to the Earthlings, who were so pathetic they could not even clear the basic stage, was certainly more fittingly called a ‘last-place bonus’ rather than the grandiose term of regression!

The regressors suffered, falling into such fundamental and philosophical questions as to what meaning their regression had in the first place, and whether they were even behaving like regressors now.

But at any rate, they had become official mercenaries, and since they were by far the top among the Earthlings, they decided to celebrate and enjoy a party that night.

It was not until the next day that they learned what had happened on the other side of the kingdom.