episode_0078

“Hee, retreat! Retreat!”

As if the knights were stupid, they immediately tried to run away when they realized that the situation was unfavorable to them. They realized that if they continued to deal with the influx of skeletons like this, they would be the first to get tired and fall out.

But of course I had no intention of watching it. I wasn’t a good person enough to come and make a mess of the store and subdue Jiena, and then let her go when she said she was going to run away.

“Retreating? There is no way.”

He stretched out his hand towards the knights preparing to flee. In an instant, black flames burned in the air, blocking their escape route. However, there was a downside to this that some parts of the store were burning down little by little.

It didn’t matter much since we would catch the people who attacked at will and receive compensation for all of this.

“Escape even if it means breaking the wall! Your protection is our top priority!”

“… … Master?”

However, I heard a strange sound from the knights who were still trying to escape. That’s right, it means master.

Usually, the term ‘doryeonnim’ refers to an unmarried person or to one’s husband’s younger brother. Of course, neither of those cases suited the present.

To begin with, there were no women among the drivers in the store. The driver who immediately uttered the word ‘young master’ was a man. So it was impossible to think of it as calling my husband’s younger brother. In that case, there was only one case left, which was the case where an unmarried person was called honorably.

A knight who seemed to be of high rank enough to command other knights was at least considered a nobleman if he used the title “muppet.” I thought that the knight was probably the son of a nobleman who followed.

And, I focused my attention on the guy called Master and who seemed to be protected by the other knights. After all, in a situation like this, you had to hit your head.

“Kill everyone except that guy.”

Although I decided to hit him in the head, I decided to keep him alive to receive compensation. If he was truly a nobleman, he could have been the subject of a trade, so it was possible to receive compensation for more than the damage I had suffered.

“Master’s order. Die.”

“Become a colleague!”

Skeletons rushed towards the remaining knights except for one who had become important in his own right. The Knight was at the forefront, rushing like crazy, and the Mage at the back was firing all kinds of black magic and curses. Of course, the regular skeletons also did not stay still and ran forward.

“Damn… … ! Break down the wall! Escape quickly! It’s hard for us to deal with it alone!”

The knights, frightened by the group of skeletons charging at them, immediately turned and rushed towards the wall. Perhaps because the area around the entrance was recently repaired after being smashed to put in a troll corpse, a hole was created in an instant due to their power. For a moment, I thought that if I had known this would happen, I would have made the wall stronger and made of steel plates.

“Aaaah!”

“Hey, stop! It’s the security guard! Stop acting right away and submit to the inspection obediently, ah!”

The wall was shattered, startling the people watching the commotion outside, and some of the guards who were trying to stop the knights were hit hard and thrown away.

However, despite attacking the guards, the knights paid no heed and continued to flee. It was running like crazy towards the entrance of the wooden fence seen in the distance. Perhaps because they were knights who used mana, their speed was very fast.

Since it seemed like an attack on the guards, the guards also began to deploy to catch the knights, but there was no particular meaning. All it did was make me stop taking half a step. Even though they tried to block it by closing the wooden fence door, the wooden fence door was shattered and the knights continued to run away.

I thought I might miss them if I continued like this, so I immediately took out several skeletal horses. First, I assigned the skeletal horse to the knight, and also assigned it to some skeletons, including the mage and me. In an instant, we got on the skeletal horse and quickly closed the distance between them.

“Be as hard as a stone… … !”

As the distance narrowed a little, the mage quickly rode on the skeleton horse and threw a petrification curse. It was a curse that slowly hardened from the extremities of the body, but unfortunately, it did not hit that young master. Instead, a knight who was trying to protect the young man was hit by the petrification curse.

“Wow! Save me! My feet are stiff!”

As the hands and feet hardened due to the petrification curse, the man’s body collapsed. My body, which was supposed to create the momentum to run, had become stiff and I was falling out.

The helpless fallen one reached out to his comrade to save himself, but the knight riding the skeletal horse approached him faster than he could.

However, Knight did not respond particularly well. I don’t know if I knew it instinctively because it was a skeleton, but it was because I realized that the petrification curse was hardening from the extremities of the body. He stepped on the head of the fallen knight with the skeletal horse’s hoof and then galloped towards the other knights again.

bang! The knight’s head was hit so hard by the skeletal horse that a sound was heard, and he fell limp on the floor. It seemed like he had fainted due to the impact to his head. Of course, I didn’t pay much attention to that. If left like that anyway, it was obvious that the petrification curse would harden the entire body and ultimately lead to death. It was more important to chase those who were running away than to worry about who would die.

Anyway, when the knights realized that one of them had retired, they gritted their teeth and continued to run away with all their might. He must have realized that he could never be caught like this, so he ran as fast as he could, like he was going crazy. If I continued to run like that for another ten minutes, my heart would be so strained that I would need to recuperate for a while.

Unfortunately, because they were running away like that, the knights started to move away little by little. No matter how much dark magic I used to strengthen the skeletal horse, I couldn’t catch the guys running at the risk of death.

Moreover, because another knight gave up fleeing and took on the role of holding us back, the distance grew further and further away.

In the end, when it became clear that I would lose them if I continued like this, I had to make a decision. Should I just miss it like this, or should I give it a shot even though it won’t have much of an effect?

Naturally, my decision was already decided. Rather than let them go without being able to do anything, I decided to give them a shot even if it didn’t have much of an effect.

I drew up all the dark magic that was spread throughout my body and immediately created a curse. Black, ominous smoke rose in front of me, and I shot it straight at the guy who was called a master.

The curse flew so quickly that it was incomparable to other previous curses, and as I had hoped, it hit the guy called Master. It touched the armor with a rustling sound and was absorbed into it as if armor could not block its path.

“You idiot!”

The knights who discovered it looked shocked for a moment, but when it seemed to have no effect, they continued to run away. The so-called master also groped my body a few times and moved his legs vigorously.

It was inevitable that the curse I cast was merely a curse of weakness. It had the advantage of hitting targets at a great distance very quickly, but other than that, it was an unremarkable curse. The effect was so minimal that I wondered if it should be put in the category of a curse. All I could do was simply feel anxious. It wasn’t like I was dying of pain, but I wasn’t suffering too much either. It was nothing more than a slight lingering feeling of body aches.

Still, if you look at it in the very long term, it could be seen as possible to cause death. If your body becomes weak due to persistent body aches, it becomes easy to get sick, and it is easy to become stressed by constantly being sick. If a person who will live for seventy or eighty years dies after forty or fifty years due to suffering from anxiety, it would be because of a curse.

Anyway, I looked at the guys running away for a moment and then turned around. Although it was weak, there was no reason to worry anymore since it was cursed.

Although we had to catch him and find out who was in charge of this incident, that wasn’t a problem either. Because there were a few people who ended up dying anyway. All we had to do was pull out their souls and find out what kind of people did this.

He was still immature at handling souls, so he couldn’t create undead with souls, but he was able to dig up information. Since you can’t create undead, you don’t have to worry about your soul being shattered. All I had to do was extract information piece by piece without worrying about what happened afterwards.

“Take that. The thing in front of me too.”

Since the anger that had peaked so high had subsided, I moved towards the blacksmith’s shop with a more relaxed mind. Of course, I didn’t forget to take the two knights’ corpses. One guy sacrificed himself to buy time, and the other guy whose heart hardened after fainting due to the petrification curse was picked up by regular skeletons.

Unlike the two guys the knight cut down, there wasn’t much damage to the bones, so it looked perfect for making a skeleton, so the anger from the attack faded faster.

“I’m the boss!”

And, as soon as I entered the store and saw Jienna running towards me and hugging me, that anger disappeared as if it had never existed in the first place. Although there were scary stories I heard when I bought Jienna, I felt good once I had the beautiful elf in my arms. The warmth and crunchy feel of my chest made me feel better than when I absorbed the essence of blood.

When I patted his back subtly, he hugged me deeper as if in response, and I felt better than just getting more ingredients for the Skeleton Knight. I only refrained from being bitten, but I was also a man.

“Hmm, Warlock Andrew. Are you here?”

However, when I saw Father Thomas clearing his throat and looking at me, my anger disappeared and instead of feeling happy, I felt embarrassment.

‘… … ‘Wait a minute, I didn’t do anything wrong.’

Of course, I maintained a confident appearance because I had nothing to bow down to. As a certified warlock, there are various restrictions, but I had no problem killing those who attacked me directly.

As I regained my confidence, the embarrassment that had built up disappeared in an instant and I returned to a peaceful mind.

“I’m trying to make these into skeletons, right?”

“Yes. I will be your witness, so you don’t have to worry. I saw both the situation where Miss Jiena was subdued and the situation where the store was destroyed.”

Seeing Father Thomas admit that it was not my fault at all, it seemed like there was no need to be embarrassed in the first place.

“What are you going to do now? Are you planning to use the corpses of the knights to make skeletons first?”

“Not right now. We need to summon their spirits and find out where they came from. Why was this place made this way, and why was Jiena being suppressed? Next, I plan to make it into a skeleton.”

The plan was to first summon the spirit, understand the situation, and then turn it into a skeleton. If you just turn it into a skeleton, it will be difficult to call the soul because the medium to call the soul will be contaminated.

“Then, as I said a little while ago, I will go to our denomination first. There, I will finalize the report on behalf of Warlock Andrew and finish the part regarding the blood collection business before returning.”

“Wow, you can’t even rest because of me.”

“Hahaha, it’s okay. Didn’t you try to go first anyway?”

Father Thomas waved his hand and told them not to worry, but then he called out his companions and left. Of course, there was a slight delay as they healed a few guards who had been injured by the fleeing knights, but other than that, they left without even looking back.

Seeing him like that, I felt like I had to personally repay him later.