Chapter 362 (1/2)
Luslec’s body froze up. Even his smiling expression from a second ago had vanished as well.
This would be a first for Su-hyeun to see Luslec’s expression freeze up to that degree.
The light in Luslec’s eyes would change often, but that smile on his lips remained constant all the time, so much so that he barely seemed to change his expressions, if at all.
“I’ve been here for a little while.”
“And did you see everything?”
“Yes, and heard everything as well.”
When Su-hyeun made his reply, Luslec couldn’t help but sneak a glance at Kang Mu-hyeok’s corpse slumped on the ground. He then curled the corners of his lips upward in his attempt to put his façade back on. He laughed nervously, “Well, sorry about this. I know you were thinking of letting him live, but I just couldn’t win against my own whims and ended up—”
“Not your whims. This was what you planned to do from the beginning, wasn’t it?”
“Well, that…”
Luslec discreetly lowered his head and avoided meeting Su-hyeun’s gaze. He seemed to be at a loss as to what to do here.
His current demeanor was the complete opposite a few moments ago when he stabbed a person to death using his finger without even batting an eyelid.
Su-hyeun silently stared at Luslec for a little while. He wondered which of the two completely different faces of the latter was the real one but failed to figure it out in the end.
“Maybe both of them are real,” he inwardly guessed.
However, the two sides were just too contradictory for that.
“A fan, huh?”
Su-hyeun initially thought that Luslec was just saying that, but now, he began thinking that the word held a far deeper meaning than he had assumed.
Just what kind of life did Luslec live through in his youth? And what kind of tales did he hear about Su-hyeun’s exploits while growing up?
“It’s fine. I’m not planning to criticize you, anyway. I only followed you after spotting you coming here, that’s all.”
“He deserved to die. That’s why—”
“I said it’s fine. I heard it all, so don’t sweat over it too much. If I knew he was that kind of punk, then I’d have killed him myself.”
Su-hyeun waved his hand and turned around to leave. He didn’t have anything else to say, and he also figured that staying here would only make the mood even more awkward.
“More importantly, I’ll be in your care tomorrow.”
Tap—
After saying that, Su-hyeun jumped up high in the direction of his room, which was originally located much higher up than where he found Luslec.
“For now, I can assume that he’s not an enemy,” he thought.
Su-hyeun continued to suspect Luslec and had been observing him.
It was the same story this time as well. Right after they parted ways, Su-hyeun kept his eyes on Luslec’s movements. Thanks to that, he got to witness the latter murdering Kang Mu-hyeok and got to learn about his true character just a little.
Luslec was a different type of person from Su-hyeun, but he definitely possessed a yearning and favorable impression bordering on being excessive in regard to Su-hyeun.
“In that case…”
For now, it seemed safe to assume that he was closer to being an ally rather than an enemy.
“A rather dependable ally, too.”
* * *
The night drew to a close, and the sun emerged once more.
Countless people gathered near the imperial palace all because of the message from yesterday.
“To think that three grand dukes have fallen in one night…”
“I heard that all of them are dead.”
“Does that mean we’ll have a new emperor?”
“This has never happened before, right?”
“You wouldn’t challenge the emperor without being blinded by your own confidence, though. I mean, you can live your life in absolute luxury when you’re a grand duke, after all.”
“You should learn how to be satisfied by such things in this f*cked-up world, you know.”
“He’s a newbie who just came here, isn’t he? It’s possible that he’s dreaming big, that’s all, and he probably doesn’t know much about the affairs of this world, too.”
“It’s been a really long time since I last saw the emperor. He’s been stuck inside the closed-door seclusion for a good few years now, so I wonder, will he come outside today?”
“His position will be threatened if he doesn’t, so he will come out, surely.”
Unlike how it was usually, the areas surrounding the imperial palace was a hive of activities.
Humans and other similar races with knight ranks or higher were descending on the arena to clap their eyes on the current emperor and the overconfident challenger.
The arena itself was located behind the imperial palace and was several tens of thousands of square meters large. Grandstands for the audiences were prepared all around the arena itself, but when people tried to enter there, they got flustered and had to stop in their tracks.
“Uh? What’s going on here?”
“What is it? What happened?”
“Something is blocking the way.”
“What do you mean, something is…Eh?”
Bang, bang, bang—
Something invisible to the naked eye—a transparent wall—had barricaded the arena’s surroundings.
“What is this thing?”
“Hey, get out of the way!”
Clang—!
Ku-rururu—
A handful of high-ranking individuals who felt confident of their own strength pounded on the wall, but it didn’t shatter.
Crack—
Still, a crack or two did appear after so many people pounded on the wall. However, it repaired itself right away, which meant that someone was still pouring magical energy into maintaining this wall from somewhere.
“Dammit! Which son of a b*tch is it?”
“Just how emboldened is he to pull the prank of blocking the entire arena like this…?”
“It’s not a prank, though,” said someone walking out from the interior of the arena.
Even though the others were blocked by the wall and couldn’t enter, this person was actually previously inside. Unless one was a moron, one would be able to tell that the person was the culprit of this event.
“You asked which son of a b*tch it was, didn’t you? Well, I’m right here. So what now? What are you gonna do now that you saw me?”
“What garbage are you trying to pull here?”
“What about you? What business do you have here, anyway? And besides all that, can’t you see this?” Luslec pointed to his chest. After handing over the tokens of the grand duke, he had been demoted to the peerage of a duke.
A “duke,” although not as high up the hierarchy as the grand duke, was still a high-ranking position nonetheless.
“A bunch of low-class dregs is trying to piss me off? Better scram or else.”
“I’m also a duke, you punk!”
Bang—!
A man who made a crack on the wall Luslec had materialized slammed his fist on the transparent wall once more.