Ch.390This Is Too Easy.

The late autumn night sea was colder than I expected.

Perhaps it was because I didn’t wear the werebeast leather clothes that always kept me warm.

They say you don’t know what you have until it’s gone—I never thought I’d experience that saying quite like this.

Of course, it was cold, but not problematically so.

Rather, having to swim in armor was more annoying.

Without properly exerting strength, I kept sinking.

‘Ah, I crave a cigarette.’

As I carefully advanced through the freezing waters using the stars as my guide, I suddenly missed smoking.

Even though it contains no nicotine, it’s remarkably addictive.

[Cigarettes… you mean Mana Herb? While underwater? Show some restraint. That’s an addiction, I tell you, an addiction.]

‘It’s not particularly harmful. Much better than alcohol.’

The cigarettes here are closer to burning herbs, so there are no harmful components by design.

You could call it a harmless addiction.

After swimming for about twenty minutes while chatting with Hersella, I finally reached the coastal cliff.

‘It’s high…’

The coastal cliff I faced was overwhelmingly majestic.

Since I was probably the only one who would swim here, all I could hear was the quiet sound of waves. With even the moonlight obscured, everything was dark except for the faint glimmer of lights from the castle at the very top.

This looks about 300 meters high.

What’s more, the cliff was deeply hollowed toward the inside closer to the sea level. It was amazing that it hadn’t collapsed.

No wonder the guards had become negligent in their duties.

The castle wall was completely vertical—it was like climbing an upside-down mountain.

Certainly, this would be impossible without exceptional strength and stamina.

Fortunately, I had both.

– Crack!

The sound of rock breaking as if struck by a pickaxe.

Concentrating the power of Karma of Murder in my hands and feet in the form of claws, I extended them toward the rock face. The dark red claws dug deep into the thick rock and firmly embedded themselves.

And so, I began climbing the cliff.

While carefully controlling my Karma to dry my soaked clothes.

Each time my hands and feet dug into the cliff, broken rock fragments fell and were swallowed by the waves.

The climb was going smoothly.

From the middle where the slope became steeper, four pairs of claws weren’t enough to support my weight, so I had to use the Karma tentacles as auxiliary legs, embedding them into the cliff as I climbed.

Thankfully it was dark. Otherwise, there might have been an uproar about a bright red spider monster climbing the cliff.

—-

By the time I reached the edge of the cliff…

“The Danes are attacking! Sound the alarm-!”

“Offer blood to Volberg-!”

As planned, commotion began erupting from all directions around the palace.

“The War God commands us to purify this den of corruption!”

“What are these madmen saying?!”

They said they would disguise themselves as Danes for the attack, but they’re even imitating Dane speech. Is that really okay?

I don’t know much about Volberg’s temperament, but I doubt he’d appreciate his name being used like this.

Not my problem, though.

“How dare you come here!”

“Valhalla calls me-!”

The palace instantly became as busy as a disturbed beehive.

Perfect timing. I thought I might be late since I spent some time at the shore.

I guess climbing with the Karma tentacles from the middle helped speed things up.

Time to get started.

Now I just need to behead Danon and cause some chaos until Eleonora is rescued.

– Boom!

I leap upward with a powerful kick off the cliff.

The ground beneath my feet explodes as my field of vision shoots upward.

With the operation underway, it’s time for swift action.

I needed to kill the king quickly before he could leave his chambers and hide.

A marble wall appears before me. Judging by the height, it’s about the second floor.

I kick off the wall with my right foot and leap once more toward the third floor.

“Uh, uhh…?”

By the time the guard falls backward in shock at the sudden attacker, I’ve already reached the third-floor window.

According to the floor plan I saw at the hideout, this should be King Danon’s chamber.

I sense four people inside.

Two men with considerable presence. One ordinary man. And one woman.

Eleonora is supposed to be imprisoned, so that must be a concubine or something similar.

– Crash!

I burst through the window, shattering it to pieces.

“What…!”

“Who are you!”

Two startled knights swing their weapons at me.

A middle-aged man thrusting a longsword and a young man swinging a halberd.

Their appearances matched the information I’d received.

Andrea of the True Sword and Marcello the Widow Lover.

As befitting elite guard knights, their reactions were quite fast.

But they were still just masters after all.

I shoot three daggers at Marcello to stop his movement, then charge straight at Andrea.

“Kugh…!”

Marcello, recognizing the power in the daggers, hurriedly tilts his axe blade to block them.

With a sound like an explosion, his body is pushed backward.

That’s one down, and next…

“How dare you come here!”

The sword tip extends toward my head like an arrow.

True Sword was his nickname, wasn’t it? Indeed, his thrust was textbook perfect.

I draw the black iron longsword from my waist and deflect his blade.

A heavy metallic sound. Black iron clashes with black iron, emitting sparks. Andrea’s arm is thrown upward.

His eyes widen in shock.

“What kind of strength…!”

Andrea desperately tries to regain his stance. Unfortunately, I had no intention of giving him that chance.

I was told not to reveal my identity, but… it doesn’t matter.

Everyone here must die anyway. Regrettable, but necessary.

Enormous Karma fills the black iron longsword in my grip.

The soul of one who has reached Hero status distorts the laws of the world.

Defying Fate.

The soul strike, compressed in time, vertically splits Andrea’s body.

—-

“This is… impossible….”

Andrea, with a red line drawn from his crown to his groin, gasped in astonishment.

An expression of facing something beyond imagination. That was his final words.

– Crash!

As the black iron longsword in my grip shatters from the recoil, Andrea’s body splits in two.

His contents spill out from the cross-section that opens to both sides.

“Sir Andrea-!”

Marcello lets out a scream-like shout.

“Why so surprised? You’ll be joining him soon.”

The Widow Lover, was it? Now it was time for his wife to become a widow.

“A woman’s voice…? Could it be!?”

Yes, that’s right.

I’ve come in person, just as you wanted?

I draw a new longsword and charge toward Marcello, kicking off the ground.

The distance closes in an instant.

Wary of my strike, Marcello swings his halberd in a sweeping motion and throws himself backward.

“You think that’s enough?”

Instead of swinging the sword, I throw it with the elasticity of my wrist.

The blade shoots through the air, tearing it apart. Marcello swings his halberd wide to deflect the longsword.

– Boom!

The deflected longsword embeds itself in the ceiling of the chamber.

Still, a master is a master—Marcello manages to block the thrown sword.

“Kheut…!”

However, his unstable posture made it difficult to withstand the power behind the throw, and his body lost balance for a moment.

Full of openings.

The Karma of Murder’s blades unfold like tentacles—Adpedin.

The four pairs of tentacles Hersella extends shoot toward his entire body.

Though Marcello somehow blocked three tentacles, his staggering posture only allowed him to block that many.

Two tentacles crushed the back of his knees, and the other two dug into his armpits.

“Arghhhh!”

Marcello, fixed in place like a taxidermy specimen, screams. The final tentacle embeds itself in his face.

The corpse, now a faceless knight, goes limp.

It took only enough time to take three or four breaths for two masters to lose their lives.

“Huh, huhk, hueeek…!”

Only then did King Danon realize the situation, gasping like a deflated balloon.

In his eyes, something had flashed as soon as the window shattered, and the two masters had instantly turned into corpses.

“Hello, King Danon. I am Haschal of Aishan-Gioro. You wanted to meet me, didn’t you? Well, do you still feel that way?”

After pulling the sword from the ceiling, I walked toward the old king who couldn’t even get up from the bed and was wetting himself.

“A-Aishan-Gioro…?!”

“Yes. Surprised I came to you in person?”

King Danon looked more fragile than I expected.

Like a carp pulled from water, he could only gasp for breath, too terrified to even scream.

I was prepared to throw a dagger if he showed signs of shouting that Haschal had appeared, but…

[In all my days, I’ve never seen such an unsightly spectacle. If I could, I’d close my eyes.]

Hersella complained.

Indeed, the sight of a decrepit old man wetting himself naked was not particularly pleasant.

“Judging by your face, you’re not too happy to see me. That’s what happens when you get greedy… huh?”

Only then did my gaze fall on the woman lying beside King Danon.

A naked woman who hadn’t awakened despite the commotion, apparently exhausted from intense activity.

A woman with dark brown hair almost black and slightly dark skin.

Wait, why the fuck does she have black hair?

My right arm tenses with strength.

I felt intense killing intent rising from deep within my chest.

“Hey. What is this?”

I approached Danon, gesturing slightly toward the woman with my chin.

“W-why is Aishan-Gioro here…!”

King Danon seemed to have no intention of answering.

Judging by how he was sweating profusely and rolling his eyes, he couldn’t even tell if this was reality or a nightmare.

“Listen, you bastard, who is this woman?”

Avoiding the urine pooled on the floor, I stepped closer and grabbed King Danon’s right arm.

“Hueeek?!”

Unbecoming of his position as a king, he trembled pathetically as soon as his arm was grabbed.

I wonder if he’ll soil himself with excrement next.

Did this spineless coward really think he could challenge the Empire? Has he gone senile?

But more importantly.

“Why does she have black hair, you bastard!”

“Oueeeek!”

I ripped off his right arm while shouting.

Blood spurted like a fountain. King Danon convulsed, screaming like a monster.

A terrible smell stung my nostrils. Why do bad premonitions always come true?

The old man’s sphincter was too weak to withstand the shock of having his arm torn off.

“Are you fucking kidding me…!”

I was planning to kill him anyway, but any thought of giving him a clean death vanished completely.

There are limits to ugliness—even Amin wasn’t this bad.

Since it’s come to this, I should at least interrogate him about what he was thinking.

There’s still some time before the knights from downstairs arrive.

—-

Afterward, I meticulously dismembered Danon’s body.

Asking him about everything I was curious about. He knew more than I expected.