Chapter 79 - Ruen (1)

I laughed as I watched the building collapsing miserably.

Normally, seeing such a sight would have brought up worry and anxiety, but…

Maybe it's because I've died and killed countless times in the training ground.

Now I felt more interest and fun rising instead, I thought as I smiled.

Why is exploding so fun?

I didn’t  know the exact reason, but I deeply sympathized with the saying from a certain manga that "art is an explosion!" as I was thinking this.

Sinclair, who had been smiling until just now, subdued his expression and called out to me, "Damian. Is that your answer?"

At that question, instead of answering, I smiled slightly then smashed the wall with my mace.

Since it was common sense not to negotiate with terrorists, I judged there was no need to mingle words.

So while I was openly ignoring him and burning or striking down things around with my mace, suddenly Daisy grabbed my clothes, pulled, and pointed downwards while saying, "Myeong! Lina!"

Lina must mean Liana.

It seemed Daisy had found Liana's location, so I decided to leave Sinclair be and go down.

...I'd like to kill that Sinclair guy too, but.

Judging by the fact that I couldn't even gauge how strong Sinclair was despite growing to mid-grade Expert, there was a high chance he was strong to a different degree than me.

So rather than trying to kill him right now…

I decided to do as much as possible to reduce the power of my hobb... no, my enemies.

If what he said was true, he couldn't kill me until I fulfilled his wish.

So deciding to inflict as much damage as possible, I set fire one last time, then tried to run away, when

"Let's meet again next time."

Sinclair's voice came from behind, looking at me expressionlessly.

I ignored Sinclair's words and quickly headed downwards.

***

Liana's condition was more serious than I had expected.

Since the Information Guild's job was to extract information from others, in the original work, there was a setting described that guild members were naturally skilled at torturing others.

I frowned deeply seeing the bloodied Liana and quickly approached her.

Liana smiled faintly and said to me, "...Thank you for coming. Thanks to the commotion you caused upstairs, the torture stopped."

Though it seemed difficult for her to even speak, she seemed to want to express her gratitude to me somehow, as she let blood flow from her mouth while showing her thanks.

"No need to answer, just drink this first."

I never imagined they would torture Liana, who was an executive.

I carefully fed Liana a potion, then opened the entrance to the shadow city and said, "Ruen and Siren are inside here. Get treatment inside."

"...Inside?"

Liana showed a puzzled reaction as if she didn't understand my words, but thinking it would be better to see directly than explain, I put Liana into the shadow city then closed the entrance.

Then what's left now is how to escape from here.

The problem was that I didn't know where to go.

As that thought crossed my mind, I reluctantly decided to use that method and was calmly moving forward when I could see people ahead who looked like Information Guild members.

Found them.

They seemed to want to kill me, so they came running with daggers drawn, but it seemed their combat power in direct confrontation wasn't strong.

I caught their bodies with shadows without much difficulty and asked a question, "Where should I go to get out of here?"

"..."

They shut their mouths, seemingly not wanting to give me information.

I smiled slightly at the Information Guild members' reaction, then smashed their heads with my mace and asked the same question again to the others.

"Where should I go to get out of here?"

As I deliberately repeated the same words and asked the question, the remaining Information Guild members started struggling and thrashing about.

Watching this, I nonchalantly killed the one in front, then repeated the same question to the one beside.

After killing about 10 people like that, I was finally able to obtain information.

"There's an exit if you go to the passage on the 3rd floor."

Of course, I didn't know if this was true or not, so I smashed their heads and asked the same question to others.

Various answers poured out, but no matter how I thought about it, it didn't seem like they were telling the truth in the current situation, so I killed them all and looked ahead.

"Y-you monster bastard."

"We need additional support!"

It seems they had been watching my actions, as they all backed away in shock.

Seeing them like that, I recalled Liana's appearance.

Liana's body covered in blood, seeming to have endured cruel torture for a long time.

The moment that image arose in my mind, I felt my head growing cold and strongly gripped the shadow mace in my hand.

Since I can't know who did the torturing…

Deciding to make them all bear the responsibility they so love, I strongly infused mana into the shadow mace.

Then I used it to cause huge explosions on the walls and floor again, starting to deal damage everywhere.

This alone isn't enough after all.

No matter how I thought about it, this level of damage was merely light mischief.

Judging it would be better to inflict damage that could strike at the core, I pondered for a moment and came up with one good idea.

Shadow bombs.

Recalling what I had forgotten until now, I smiled and threw shadow bombs all around.

There was the disadvantage that I had to create additional bombs because the Information Guild was so large that the shadow bombs I had weren't enough, but because I had reached mid-grade Expert, I was able to do that much without difficulty, planting bombs everywhere, then thought.

Then shall we go back?

...To confess now, it wasn't very important where the exit was.

I could just enter the shadow city and ask Liana, or ask Siren to teleport me.

So I decided it was about time to leave this place and stretched.

***

As expected of the Information Guild, magic forbidding unauthorized teleportation was cast all over, but thanks to Siren's magic manipulation ability smashing them all, it wasn't very difficult to return home.

I returned home where warm sunlight welcomed me, thinking happily, and detonated all the shadow bombs I had thrown in the Information Guild.

It's somewhat regrettable that I can't see the results, but…

One thing was certain—I had dealt considerable damage, so I was smiling with satisfaction when Loraine walked out of the house, sighed deeply, and approached.

"...Young Master."

Loraine stood in front of me and started nagging.

"Shouldn't you have told me first if there was a problem? Do you know how surprised I was when you suddenly disappeared while I was training?"

"Sorry."

It was best to apologize quickly and move on in these situations, so I brushed it off.

Loraine sighed lightly and dusted off the dirt on me while saying, "Come inside quickly."

At those words, I nodded and was about to go inside when Loraine looked at me intently, took a deep breath, and said to me, "By the way, Young Master, could it be you've reached mid-grade Expert?"

"Yeah."

"...Is that possible?"

She showed a shocked reaction, unable to believe my growth rate.

Then, sighing as if she really couldn't understand, she congratulated me.

"Congratulations, really."

"Thanks."

I always felt only gratitude towards Loraine, so I expressed my thanks and then returned to my room for now.

...I should wash up and rest for a bit first?

I felt drained, probably because I went through so many events in succession.

As soon as I entered the room, I took out Ruen, Siren, and Liana and checked their condition.

Fortunately, Liana seems to have no problems.

Not only did I have her drink a top-grade potion, but Ruen also healed her from the side.

The wounds carved on her body should have disappeared cleanly too, so there shouldn't be any big problems.

But mental scars might remain for a long time.

Deciding to brew tea and leave it for her, I was carefully laying Liana down on the bed when Ruen, whose hair had become disheveled from going through so many events, smiled bitterly and said to me, "Um... Thank you so much, Lord Damian. If it weren't for you, we would have met an end I don't want to imagine."

Whether it was because of the bitterness of not being able to do anything alone, or because she felt sorry for causing me trouble, I wasn’t sure.

Ruen said those words to me with a somewhat subdued expression, then calmly grasped my hand tightly and said, "Thank you so much."

Looking at Ruen bowing politely, I smiled slightly and waved my hand.

"It's okay. We're comrades, aren't we?"

At the word comrades, Ruen made a strange expression as she looked at me.

Then she showed a somewhat pouty look and said to me, "Yes... comrades."

Then she squeezed my hand strongly and let go, then left for somewhere.

I was puzzled because I couldn't understand why she was acting like that, but because fatigue was strongly hitting me, I decided to continue these thoughts later.

I decided to wash up and sleep, and headed to the bathroom.

***

I remember lying in bed after washing up, but I have no memory after that.

I looked at the pure white ceiling with a somewhat blank expression, then just as I was about to get up to slowly raise my body,

"Mmm..."

I saw Ruen sleeping beside me, wearing clothes that only half covered her body