Chapter 45

Chapter 45

Otherworld Cheat Harem.

Episode 45: Dark Mage (2).

My body felt light.

As if I could fly.

It was strange. There was no change in the skill window.

Sreung!

“Aaaah!”

“You scream like that just from this?”

The criminal, with a severed wrist, grabbed his hand and collapsed. I was dumbfounded watching him.

Some people lose a leg and still try to escape, not giving up even when their nails are all broken and crushed.

And here he was, screaming and collapsing just because his wrist was severed.

“Take me to your headquarters.”

“What nonsense are you spouting, you bastard?!”

“Oh, is it not this guy?”

I took out the paper Deokgu gave from my pocket. It roughly had the organization chart, locations, and characteristics of the members written on it.

After reading the paper, I jabbed his chest with the sword and stirred it around. The thin leather clothes couldn’t withstand the sharp slashes and were soon torn.

Thud, a pouch fell between the torn pieces of clothing. White powder scattered through the fallen pouch.

“…Ah, damn, I’ve been caught.”

The man, groaning in pain, reached into his bosom with his other hand and pulled out a dagger. But my sword swung faster.

“Aaagh! You lunatic! Why are you doing this?!”

“Either die here or lead me to your hideout.”

Faced with a life-threatening choice, the man smirked bitterly and opened his mouth.

“Screw you.”

After saying that, he bit his tongue hard. Biting his tongue didn’t kill him, but the blood flowing from his severed tongue activated the magic circle inside his mouth.

Puh-ung! The man’s head exploded. As I frowned at the blood splattered on my clothes, dark energy slithered out from the corpse, hungrily devouring the remains.

‘It must be nearby.’

The demon that devoured the corpse retreated underground. I pursued its trail. For some reason, ever since I woke up, everything had become vividly clear.

Even the demon fleeing underground, invisible to the eye, and the magic spreading widely like air.

‘Something has changed… but I can’t tell what it is.’

However, there was no need to find its origin. If I was curious, I could always find out later.

What I needed to do now was crush the enemy with my newly increased power.

“There you are.”

I held my sword and looked at the building the demon headed for.

At the same time, my sword began to blaze red.

Brighter than before.

“Trash should be burned.”

I swung my sword. The building caught fire. Soon, people rushed out of the building.

They looked like insects. Insects eating away at society…

Then, today, I will be the cleaner.

“Who are you?”

A man who rushed out from inside shouted as he charged.

Dojin observed him carefully.

Muscles excessively trained for an ordinary person, the courage to charge at Dojin holding a sword without panicking despite the accident.

And the murderous intent in his eyes.

He was not an ordinary person by any means.

So he cut him.

“AAAAAAAHHHHH!!”

Passing by the man who was clutching his severed wrist in agony, he entered the building.

Even though the building was on fire, the people inside were calmly moving boxes. As if they were more precious than their lives.

Dojin entered and lightly pushed a box. The boxes that people were struggling to stack collapsed in an instant, and the slimes inside slumped to the floor.

‘Slime?’

“You! What the hell are you doing?!”

The man who was directing people to stack the boxes ran over furiously. Dojin ignored him and split the slime to check the contents.

Indeed, as it seemed impossible for it to survive being split in half, the slime immediately transformed into a mana stone. Dungeon-born slime. Where the slime had disappeared, a large pouch fell with a thud.

It was a pouch filled with drugs. Seeing this, Dojin realized why they were transporting slimes.

‘If things go wrong, the slime can digest the drugs… and even the guards wouldn’t dare to cut open a slime carelessly, would they?’

They were smart. As expected, they must have realized the method of a cell-based organization.

However, the moment he realized they were criminals, there was no reason to go easy on them.

“What are you– Kyaaah!”

He slashed at the approaching man’s wrist. The people around, instead of screaming or freaking out, naturally put down their boxes and reached for their weapons.

Their response was skillful. It was proof that this had happened multiple times before. The men who brought out all sorts of weapons chuckled, trying to distract Dojin.

“Hey, you. What are you? The guards? There’s no way this guy would storm in alone.”

“Cleaner.”

“Clean… what?”

“Garbage cleaner.”

“Garbage cleaning? Are you trying to say we’re the trash of society, and you’re the cleaner of society?”

At those words, the criminals burst into laughter. Amidst the laughter, the sound of daggers being thrown could be heard.

Dojin lightly swung his sword, deflecting the daggers. Ziiing, his sword hummed but had no effect on his body.

“Right.”

As Dojin said this with a smile, the criminals’ attitudes changed instantly. It seemed there had been no cleaner who could flick away a sword like that.

Step, he walked forward. In response, hidden weapons were launched. Bows, crossbows, daggers, spears, swords, anything that could be thrown.

He was confident he could deflect them all, but he didn’t bother and stomped his foot. A step—one that belonged to the ancient school of swordplay.

In an instant, he propelled himself several meters and stood on the second-floor railing. The criminals who had been throwing weapons from above were startled and raised their weapons, but it was already too late.

Shwaaah!

Several criminals standing on the second floor collapsed, cut down by his sword. Before their bodies even hit the ground, an equal number of men met the same fate.

When the initially cut men finally collapsed to the floor, not a single person was left standing on the second floor.

“This is insane…!”

“Is he a knight? How could he do that…?”

Most of the men were astonished.

Except one.

“Haha, yeah. If you came here alone, you must have a hidden move.”

It was a beastman from the wolf tribe.

Not merely in human form with animal ears and a tail like Hoyeon. He appeared purely as a beast walking on two legs.

Despite witnessing Dojin’s force firsthand, he showed no sign of intimidation.

Well, he couldn’t have built a criminal organization ruling the back alleys with just some petty thugs.

“You, what’s your name?”

The stranger asked Dojin for his name, yet he had no intention of telling. He simply raised his sword.

Perhaps finding that more agreeable, the stranger smiled and unsheathed his claws. The wolf charged.

Sharp claws, seemingly able to cut through any obstacle before them, clashed with his sword. Sparks flew, and blood and flesh splattered.

As Dojin faced off against this beast-like being, he realized that the creature in front of him didn’t just behave like a beast.

‘Martial arts?’

The unique strength and sharp claws of the beastmen followed a set trajectory. Dojin found familiarity in that trajectory.

It was a kind of swordsmanship. Using the body… they say that when you reach a certain level, everything becomes similar, like how Japanese ancient swordsmanship and European longsword techniques resemble each other, Dojin’s learned swordsmanship, and this different race’s martial arts had similarities.

And the fact that they resembled each other meant it was possible to infer.

Clang!

Thud.

“What…?”

The beastman, clutching his pierced neck, staggered backward. His strong vitality allowed him to avoid instant death even though a vital point was struck, but the tide of victory had already turned at that moment.

Such was often the nature of battles among masters. A single move. Victory and defeat were decided by very small differences.

‘Strong.’

Dojin followed the beastman with the pierced neck and completely severed it. The fact that the corpse didn’t disappear was a novel experience, but having taken countless lives before, it didn’t come as a great shock.

Rather, more shocking was the beastman’s skill. And his own growth that had defeated such a beastman.

‘When did I become this strong?’

The beastman wasn’t weak. On the contrary, he was strong. Even stronger than the monsters he had encountered on the 10th floor…

If it had been him just a few days ago, he should have fallen to the beast, yet somehow he had grown this much.

‘That notification sound…’

The last notification sound he heard before losing consciousness—the strange light feeling in his body when he woke up—and a level of strength beyond comparison to before.

Dojin, thinking that all of it was related to the notification sound he heard before fainting, headed inside with a pleased smile.

Whatever the reason, as much as he had grown stronger. It was undoubtedly easier to avenge Ilone.

Cutting down anyone who blocked his path.

Sweeping away all the criminals.

He proceeded inside like that.

To the innermost part of the building, to the workshop overflowing with magic.

The mage’s workshop is the most familiar space to a mage, a space riddled with all sorts of traps and magic.

Even a dog gets half its meal at home, and the same goes for a mage who gets more than half in their own workshop.

So, stepping into a mage’s workshop means you’re either confident in your skills or just a thoughtless fool.

Dajian had always thought so.

“What is this?”

Seeing Dojin boldly enter his workshop with just a single sword, he frowned.

With the certainty that numerous subordinates must be standing guard outside, he was filled with curiosity about how Dojin got in, and a tinge of annoyance at the thought that they might have been slacking off.

A flood of emotions surged all at once.

“How did you get in here?”

“Through the door.”

“Do I look like I’m joking? Do I need to start by taking off a limb for you to understand?”

At the same time, a bundle of tentacles flew in from the side. Dojin, who raised his sword to block the tentacles, was slightly pushed back and was shocked inside.

Simultaneously, Dajian, who saw him, also let out a groan of disbelief.

‘Damn… Why is he so strong?’

‘He blocked that?’

At this point, it wasn’t too difficult to figure out how Dojin had entered the workshop. Dajian, who released his mana to check the situation outside the workshop, let out a hollow laugh and covered his face.

“Haha, did you kill them all? Isn’t this guy a complete psycho?”

“I didn’t kill them all.”

“Oh, really? So they didn’t die but let you go? They’re ones you have to kill anyway.”

Dajian said this and used magic. Although he majored in life science and wasn’t confident in combat, he had plenty of magical creatures to fight for him.

Dozens of chimeras summoned by his magic, a massive slime, and even monsters so grotesque they could be mistaken for demons at a glance.

A maestro commanding dozens of monsters simultaneously.

That was Dajian’s strength.

“Die.”

The monsters, moving skillfully under his command, attacked Dojin. Watching quietly, Dojin casually uttered a single phrase.

“If this is your full power…”

The sword burst into flames, which held the power to purify all that was impure. Dojin’s flames also contained this purging force.

“You die here.”

And then, dozens of monsters were sliced in half.