Volume 10 Chapter 4 Part 1 (1/2)
After bringing down Ouroboros, s.h.i.+n returned to Avidya's headquarters.
As he entered, the eyes of all present turned to him. While there were some individual differences, most gazes were still turbid and sullen, but much less than they were a month before.
”Welcome back. I see you've kept your word.”
Calmia's tone seemed brighter than usual.
”Not exactly, our side suffered losses too.”
”.so that's why he's not there by your side.”
s.h.i.+n's expression didn't change as he spoke, but Calmia stopped breathing for a second before talking. She didn't know about Shadow's death yet, apparently.
Probably because they had heard the conversation, the surrounding people started whispering among themselves.
”Did he get his revenge?”
”Yes, he looked really satisfied.”
”I see. That's good, then. That's the reason we all gathered here, after all.”
Calmia looked sad, but relieved at the same time. Avidya was a guild formed by members that swore to exact their revenge. Even if they died in the process, as long as they had achieved their goal, guild members would praise them rather than mourn their loss.
”Are you alright?”
”What do you mean?”
Calmia asked s.h.i.+n after taking his hand. Her expression suggested that she was worried about him. From her hand, however, no warmth could be felt.
”When the person next to them falls, some stop going forward. There is not much I can do, but consoling such people is one of my duties.”
s.h.i.+n understood well enough what Calmia meant by ”consoling”. She ”could not do much” because of the restrictions imposed by the game.
”No problem. Shadow carried his convictions through to the end. I'll just do what I set out to do.”
s.h.i.+n's hand, that Calmia had placed against her ample bust, was pulled away with enough strength as to not seem unkind. Even though his beloved, Marino, was no longer with him, he didn't feel the urge to approach other women.
s.h.i.+n lightly glared at Calmia, who quickly apologized.
”I'm sorry if I bothered you. You probably don't know, but Ouroboros was responsible for my little brother's death too. I'm really thankful to you for what you have done. This is pretty much all I can do to express my grat.i.tude.”
s.h.i.+n now understood the reasons behind her actions. Although her hands were pushed away, Calmia looked straight at s.h.i.+n, tears welling up at the corners of her eyes.
”We're just using each other. There's no need to express grat.i.tude or anything.”
”Even so, I want to.”
s.h.i.+n's expression was still unchanged, but Calmia smiled at him. s.h.i.+n clicked his tongue and turned away.
”Well, I suppose we went off topic a bit too much. I have something to tell you today.”
”You should have said that first.”
”I'm sorry. I was honestly shocked by what happened to Shadow, and I wanted to give my thanks to you for avenging my little brother.”
”Fine, fine. So, what do you have for me?”
Calmia's expression turned completely serious when she answered s.h.i.+n's question.
”We are still in the middle of investigating Vlad, but we found Robin in the process. The priority's lower than Vlad's, but you were looking for him too, right?”
After starting the PK hunt, s.h.i.+n's hostility had focused so much on Vlad that he had almost forgotten about him. After hearing Robin's name, the aura enveloping s.h.i.+n suddenly changed.
Despite being inside a game, several members felt this abrupt transformation and flinched.
According to Avidya's research, Robin did not belong to any PK guild, so it was clear that he had not killed any players yet.
Robin had kidnapped Marino and handed her to Vlad though. Because of this, he was one of the people s.h.i.+n wanted to take revenge against.
”I'll go right now. Where is he?”
The words coming out of s.h.i.+n's mouth sounded completely different from before. His expression didn't change, but his tone now sounded much darker and fiercer.
”Calm down. The hounds are keeping track of him, so if something happens I'll know right away.”
s.h.i.+n learned of Robin's whereabouts from Calmia, materialized his katana and left the guildhouse.
With his figure concealed, s.h.i.+n walked through dimly lit streets and back alleys, like a wandering ghost, like a G.o.d of death.
Guided by the information obtained from Calmia, s.h.i.+n arrived at a woodland area to the north of Kalkia. The woods were quiet, the low-leveled monsters within prowling about silently.
It was a location that rarely saw strong monsters and did not have any particular events a.s.sociated with it, so it only contained a few lodges and nothing more.
”Robin is apparently using the third lodge as his base. No one knows what exactly he's doing though, as he never leaves it.”
”I see. I'll go by myself, please stay out of this.”
”Of course. There's no one in Avidya that would get in your way now. Just let me stand by here, in case anything happens, all right?”
Saying this, the Hound concealed himself. s.h.i.+n's detection field registered his presence, but there was no need to point that out. s.h.i.+n turned his back to the man and headed towards the lodges. The area was outside any hometown, making buildings and players susceptible to attacks.
In s.h.i.+n's map, the players inside the lodges were showed clearly. They were not friends or support characters however, so their names were not displayed.
The Hound's information was surely correct, but to be completely sure s.h.i.+n started from breaking down the Wall and Barrier erected around the lodge.
”Type V, huh. I guess it's enough for a place like this, but it's still too frail.”
s.h.i.+n's hands did not need to reach True Moon, hanging from his waist; his left hand cut through the air in a rough motion and, with the sharp sound of gla.s.s breaking, the barriers protecting the lodge were destroyed.
A player from the neighboring lodge, alarmed by the sound, came out to see what was going on.
”W-what are you doing?”
”Taking my revenge, you got a problem with that?”
”..leave my lodge alone, all right?”
Maybe because he had sensed the aura s.h.i.+n emitted, the player who had come out trembled and quickly turned back to his lodge after meekly voicing his request to s.h.i.+n.
The player in the lodge on the opposite side had probably heard this exchange, because he closed the windows without the smallest protest.
Looking at the map, s.h.i.+n noticed that a player was exiting the lodge on the side opposite to where s.h.i.+n was.
””
Without saying a word, s.h.i.+n moved his right hand through the air and struck. The lodge crumbled on the player who had attempted to escape.
s.h.i.+n walked closer to the wrecked lodge and found Robin under a fallen log.
”Y-You are”
Robin had likely realized that the man standing before him was s.h.i.+n. His expression warped with fear.
”You know what I'm here for, don't you?”
”I-I had no other choice!! I would have been ruined, you know!! I have a family to raise in the real world. That man was the only one I could trust to change things!!”
”First of all, where is Vlad?”
s.h.i.+n's question utterly ignored Robin's desperate excuses. Robin had cooperated with Vlad, so he might know about his whereabouts.
”I d-don't know anythingI haven't met that manVlad, since then. He won't answer my contacts eitherwe were never close anyway. He just u-used me!! I'm a victim here!!”
Seeing that s.h.i.+n did not move an eyebrow while listening, Robin hurriedly changed the subject. His eyes darted everywhere, frantically looking for a way to escape.
The weapon at his waist was still in its sheath, untouched. s.h.i.+n, however, could kill Robin faster than the latter could take out a crystal and teleport away.
Either s.h.i.+n allowed him to go or someone else had to act as a decoy while he escaped. In all other cases, this was the end of the line for Robin.
”You have no idea where Vlad could be?”
”I, I, I didn't know something like that would happen!! He didn't tell me that he would kill her!! We even had recovery potions for the status ailment!! If you would have just accepted”
Robin's excuses stopped abruptly, followed by the acute sound of a katana resting again in its sheath.
Judging from Robin's behavior and the current situation, it was clear that he had indeed only been used.
If so, there was no point in leaving him alive another moment. With his head detached from his torso, Robin disappeared in a burst of polygons, but s.h.i.+n didn't spare a glance and turned away from the pile of rubble that used to be Robin's lodge.
As s.h.i.+n was leaving, a bright voice, in strident contrast with the location, stopped him.
”So the rumors were true! You've become pretty good at cutting people down.”
”.”
s.h.i.+n turned towards the voice without a word. There he found a pet.i.te, young-looking girl with short white hair and big, round eyes.
She was wearing an oriental garb with rather high skin exposure. This stressed the mounds on her chest, which were already too p.r.o.nounced for her physique. However, what stood out the most was the giant poleaxe, almost as long as the girl was tall, wielded by her tiny hands.
s.h.i.+n didn't need to cast a.n.a.lyze to know who this unique combination was.
”Milt.”
”Long time no see. When was the last time we met, three months ago maybe?”
Milt approached s.h.i.+n with a friendly smile.
Milt herself was a PK, but a rare case; she was not included in Avidya's target list. The reason was that she killed only in self-defense or during duels to the death that both parties agreed to.
She was treated as a PK because, if her opponent agreed to fight to the death, she would kill without any hesitation.
”What do you want from me?”
”I heard you were looking for Vlad, so”
Milt stopped halfway through the sentence; s.h.i.+n had closed in on her in a second, grabbed her by the neck and pushed her down to the ground, True Moon's cold blade on her neck.
”If you know anything, talk.”
”Ha, haha! The s.h.i.+n I see now will be OK, I guess”
”.”
”Don't leer at me like that. I'll tell you everything.”
Milt let go of her poleaxe and raised both hands. When s.h.i.+n withdrew True Moon, she let out a sigh.
”I'm sure you've looked everywhere too, but he won't be found easily. Because he probably has no intention of attacking anyone now. It's not possible to catch him in the act again.”
”How can you be so sure?”
”Well, he managed to warp his greatest prey with his own hands, after all. He's not going to risk killing others and have their deaths overwrite that experience.”
Milt talked of something s.h.i.+n could not comprehend. To burn people's deaths into your memory was already far too depraved for him.
”Vlad was obsessed about you more than anything. He's likely been observing you and gloating, I guess. You're in a state close to what he called 'the ideal' last time we talked after all. He'd probably be glad even if he's found and killed by you.”
”Disgusting b.a.s.t.a.r.d.”
”You don't need to understand people like that, you know.”
Milt's shoulders dropped as she talked. s.h.i.+n had no intention of understanding either, so he urged her to continue.
”Vlad's keeping track of your movements. His main job, Dragon Knight, is one that stands out easily, but his sub is Ninja. He switched main and sub job now, to hide better. Ninjas have the best concealment abilities among all scout-type jobs, after all. He's using all sorts of items and equipment to hide, so he won't be easy to find.”
”You mean that he's watching now too?”
”Probably, with binoculars or something like that. Well, that would mean the plan I thought about would work though.”
Milt spoke plainly. s.h.i.+n tried to extend his detection field to the max, but could not find any players other than Milt and the lodge players whose presence he had confirmed before; no trace of Vlad.
As Milt had said, if he was using items and skills specialized for seeing long distances, it could be possible to observe locations even from outside detection fields.
Milt's theory was not too bizarre after all; it could not be discarded as improbable.
”What's your plan, then?”