Chapter 58 : Chapter 58

Chapter 58: Stratagem and Strategy (2)

Tersion’s body, racing down the road, was as swift as the wind.

The nearby animals didn't even know what had passed by.

‘I knew it would be like this.’

Her expression, hidden behind the mask, was crumpled up as if she had chewed on feces.

Barbarian, when did Artier disappear?

He went off somewhere in a hurry as soon as he entered the castle gate. So I thought he had cut the connection and come.

Cut the filthy private talk, please.

He disappeared as soon as he entered. That meant he had moved with a clear purpose.

‘I need to go to the site of the explosion.’

Before long, Tersion arrived at a ruin filled with dust clouds and filthy water.

After confirming that no one was around, Tersion bent her knees and placed her hand on the ground.

Pat!

A faint light flickered in her eyes.

As she looked around with her ruby-red eyes, the footprints of someone who had walked by were being displayed in the form of footprints.

“Ugh……”

After looking around for a moment, Tersion let out a faint groan.

There were too many footprints. So many, in fact, that it seemed as if light was pouring out from the ground.

‘This is meaningless.’

The 'Tracking' Tersion used emphasized and displayed the footprints of the most recent being to have moved.

But this was the middle of a main road where many people walked. With dozens of people walking the streets at the same time, all the footprints were shining simultaneously.

Unfortunately, this was the limit of what her tracking skill could do.

“This way!”

From somewhere, the sound of soldiers running could be heard.

It seemed they had come to assess the situation one step behind her.

‘I can't get caught.’

The archers' communication network was still just urging, ‘Don't worry about it and keep shooting!’

As she hid in a nearby alley, the soldiers who came were, as expected, all assault troopers.

“Do you see anything?”

“No, have they already escaped?”

The assault troopers began to search, looking around.

Tersion, who was quietly observing, climbed onto the roof of the adjacent building and listened intently.

As her characteristically long elven ears twitched, small voices that she hadn't been able to hear before began to sound clearly.

“Hey, what's that?”

Just then, one of the assault troopers discovered something.

“U-ugh?!”

The assault trooper who said that leaned his hand against the wall and threw up everything he had eaten.

There was an alley, completely splattered with blood as if red dye had been applied everywhere.

“What on earth happened here?”

“Did they try to rob the place, taking advantage of this opportunity?”

“Damn it, not even a trace is left. It seems they were blown to pieces.”

The assault troopers cursed and quickly left the place.

And for good reason, as the alley, littered with bone and skin fragments, was a horrific space reminiscent of hell itself.

“……”

After all the assault troopers had disappeared, Tersion belatedly visited the place.

“About eleven people?”

She glanced over the blood-soaked floor and, surprisingly, roughly deduced the number of people who had been in this place.

“And magic was used near here.”

The elf's eyes scanned the surroundings sharply.

From the center of this alley, a large amount of mana had flowed out, and traces of it heading towards the adjacent building and in various other directions were being observed.

“……?”

As she was following the flow of mana, she discovered something.

A very familiar-looking dagger was embedded in a nearby stone wall.

“This is?”

Tersion grabbed the dagger and pulled with force.

Even though she pulled it out rather roughly, the blade of the dagger remained sharp.

“This is Artier's dagger.”

She had seen this dagger before.

He had said it was a dagger he had obtained from the assassins who had attacked Ropin, after defeating them.

‘It's certain he was near here.’

Pat!

Convinced, she used the tracking skill once again.

Perhaps because she had entered a secluded alley, the number of footprints had certainly decreased.

“Found it.”

She was able to confirm a pair of footprints running from a distance, the last ones to have been made.

‘There's only one person with such nimble footprints.’

The footprints showed violent movements, as if a battle had taken place.

Then, a moment later, the trail suddenly stopped in one place.

‘……It's cut off?’

The moment she confirmed that fact, her hands turned cold.

The tracking skill did not lie.

As far as she knew, Artier did not have a skill that could deceive her skill.

‘Is he dead?’

The assault troopers had said that the people who were here had been horribly blown to pieces.

And this was where the trigger for the explosion was, and Artier was here too?

‘No, it doesn't make sense for a Supreme-Grade Mercenary to be blown up by a single bomb.’

Tersion immediately denied that fact. But she also knew the truth.

No matter how much powerful swordsmen or mages were treated like gods, they weren't truly invincible. Weren't there many high-ranking knights who were assassinated in such a way?

‘Let's look for more. It's too early to draw a conclusion.’

Artier was wearing armor.

And it was very good quality armor.

With that kind of armor, there was no way he would be turned to dust by a single explosion.

“The explosion happened in this building, so he wouldn't have been blown to the right.”

In fact, all the splattered blood was towards the left. What if we assume there was cover there?

“What if he flew instead of walked?”

While flying, the feet are in the air. There's no way footprints would be made.

Based on the hypothesis she had created, Tersion moved to a different location.

In a vacant lot overgrown with weeds, there was a trace that looked like something had slid, not footprints.

“I knew it.”

She smiled as if it were pathetic.

Their party leader was not a man who would die so easily.

[Tersion's ‘Tracking’ skill level has risen to 2.]

***

“Hey.”

“What is it?”

“My rune letter has lost its power.”

The soldier who was investigating the accident scene near the river looked at his own wrist at the other soldier's question.

“You're right.”

The rune letter that was supposed to be shining on the back of his hand was gradually losing its light.

It wasn't just losing its light; he could actually feel the power he had received from the rune draining away.

“What's going on?”

“Something's strange. Should we report it?”

Puk!

The soldier's words became his last.

A sharp, white thorn pierced the soldier's chest.

“E-enemy……”

Swish!

The remaining soldier was too slow to shout, paralyzed by fear.

The result was the separation of his body and head.

“……”

[Lv.10 Hell Assassin (Intermediate)]

The assassin, having pulled out its sharp, spear-like leg, looked around.

Perhaps because it had dealt with them so quickly, there weren't even any approaching soldiers in sight.

Swoosh…….

The assassin's form slowly disappeared.

Although it wasn't perfectly transparent, it was difficult to find the assassin, who had almost blended in with the surroundings, with the naked eye.

“What? There's someone lying over there.”

A moment later, other soldiers on patrol revisited the place.

“W-what is this?”

“An enemy has infiltrated! We need to report it quickly……!”

Puk!

The creature knew the vital spots of a human precisely.

And how to make them swallow their screams.

“E-enemy!”

But this time, it was unlucky.

It seemed one of the soldiers had the Shield skill.

Kwajik!

It was able to kill the soldier by destroying the shield with a series of consecutive attacks, but it could feel soldiers approaching from all directions, having heard the scream.

The assassin looked around as if in thought, then began to approach the soldiers.

Unlike during the tutorial, the assassin was a normal monster, not a special type.

That meant that the assassin lurking in this castle was not alone, and it had no need to spare its own life.

“Aaargh!”

Before long, a bloody wind began to blow from the west of Kelta Castle.

“The patrolmen in the west are not responding to communications?”

Taskerben, who was in the barracks, hardened his expression at the urgent communication he had just received.

“Immediately turn the soldiers who were ordered to search to the west, and have some of the archers and medics join them.”

“Understood.”

As the soldier who had come to deliver the order disappeared, Taskerben could not hide his serious expression and looked down at the map laid out in the barracks.

“For the first abnormality to occur in the west.”

He scanned the anticipated infiltration routes written on the map.

There were five routes that he had anticipated and prepared for in advance.

But the way the Hellmorphs had actually come in was not one of the five he had prepared for, but the way pointed out by a mercenary whose origin he didn't even know.

“That mercenary, he certainly knows a lot about these things.”

If he hadn't listened to Artier's words, the Hellmorphs would have entered the central shelter without any resistance.

That's how far the west was from being a place for infiltration.

“Multiple explosions inside the castle, and a simultaneous invasion from the west……. Is there a connection?”

But in his eyes, the two places were too far apart.

Even as the lord of the castle, he didn't go around memorizing the locations of all the Mana Stones.

‘The entrance to the river is still intact. But the enemy still got in…… which means they came through the river.’

He had also heard the news that the trooper type skills were disappearing.

Comparing that with the fact that the enemy had entered, Taskerben was able to deduce without much difficulty that the sluice gates had been opened.

“Still, if it's just that, it's fine. The deployed soldiers should be enough to stop them.”

No matter how ghostly the Hellmorphs were, they couldn't ignore the pressure of the water.

They would inevitably have to swim, in which case the magic troopers and archers he had stationed in the watchtower would take care of them.

‘Yes, the situation is not bad yet.’

Thud!

“L-lord!”

Just then, the communications soldier who had gone to deliver the order earlier entered the barracks, his face pale.

Taskerben's expression hardened.

Could it be that something else had happened in the short time the communications soldier was delivering the communication?

“What is it?”

“A report came in from the archers and magic troopers of the Yukra River. But……”

The communications soldier hesitated for a moment.

Seeing a man who was clearly middle-aged, someone who had been a communications soldier for quite some time, act like this only deepened Taskerben's anxiety.

“Speak.”

“They say the river…… is opening.”

“What?”

Taskerben had expected it.

The reason the communications soldier had hesitated was probably because he too did not understand the content of the communication.

“What does that mean, speak precisely.”

“I will relay the full text. ‘The river is opening. The monsters are coming in. Requesting support.’ That is all.”

“The monsters are coming in?”

It felt as if his heart was turning to ice.

Crack!

In the distance, the watchtower that had been built in the west could be seen swaying and collapsing.

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