Chapter Sixty: A Dangerous Scheme, Time to Pull Out Fast

As I stood facing the female vampire known as the Stammering, Off-Key, and Forgetful one, driving her back step by step with repeated greatsword strikes, a chill of stark menace suddenly swept the nape of my neck. A dense, almost tangible killing intent brushed my nerves, and every hair on my body stood on end.

Without thinking, my body obeyed instinct before reason could intervene, and I hurled myself forward and to the right. At the very moment I lunged, I felt the space to my left twist in some inexplicable way; within a transparent outline, the shapes of many things were stretched or crushed flat, changing in irregular distortions. And that transparent outline itself seemed to take the form of a human body.

Though my reaction was by no means slow, it was still too late. In the blink of an eye, a cold, razor-sharp piece of metal viciously stabbed into my back, then tore downward with savage force. A wave of searing pain instantly flooded my entire body; for a split second, I even thought I had been ripped apart from head to toe.

There was no need to guess. I knew exactly what had happened. Clearly, only moments earlier, an elite assassin had used stealth to creep up on me and launch a surprise attack while I was off guard.

I spun around. Behind me, without my noticing when he had appeared, stood a blue-skinned troll in bone armor, his body hunched, wielding two gleaming blades, one long and one short. The soul marker above his head told me his name was Who Dares Compare with Me in Ugliness, and that he belonged to the same adventurers’ guild as the three men we had ambushed.

How should I put it? The troll assassin’s name originally carried a certain fatalistic mystique, a refined poetic self-mockery, and a philosophical air of dialectical thought. But on him it was a name of pure, uncompromising realism. I had never met anyone so grotesque. The two tusks at the corners of his mouth were covered in cracks, and in places bits were missing, like a weathered stone. The left side of his head was bald, while the flaxen hair on the right side grew wildly like weeds, running from his forehead all the way down to his chin—no, I was mistaken, that was his beard. Two huge copper rings pierced his nose, and both ears were lined with a string of smaller rings, no fewer than twenty in all. If he wanted to add any more earrings, he might have had to bore holes straight into his skin, because those ears were already packed so densely there was simply no room left.

I could not accurately judge his height—if he could stand completely upright, he might even have been a head taller than Ox Million. But his waist was always bent, folded over almost from the base of the spine. That put his head half a head lower than mine. I half suspected it was because the copper rings on his face were too many and too heavy, dragging him into this super-hunched shape.

“Honey, you’re finally here!” The vampire sword dancer relaxed at last when she saw the troll assassin reveal himself, crying out in delight.

Honey? Looking at the handsome, dashing yet still alluring vampire girl, then at the lecherous troll whose tusks nearly scraped the tops of his feet, I and my companions could not help being utterly stunned.

“What a pity—a flower stuck in a pile of manure!” Longbow Slays the Sun could not help voicing the thought in his mind. It was mine as well.

“Hey, what does this have to do with cattle?” Ox Million had always been sensitive about his own racial composition.

“Heh. Looking at pretty men and women all the time gets tedious. Choosing someone homely for a change is quite a refreshment.” In response to Longbow Slays the Sun’s sarcasm, Who Dares Compare with Me in Ugliness did not get angry. Instead, he explained with a smile. Unexpectedly, the troll had a gentle voice utterly at odds with his looks. Even his speech was mild and courteous—yet his hands never once stopped moving, and the dagger and short sword in them stabbed at me like two venomous serpents.

The troll assassin’s arrival instantly reversed the course of battle. When it was three against three, we could still hold the initiative, but against three and then four, we immediately fell into disadvantage—especially since this newly joined killer was a level forty-nine expert.

Now I was filled with deep regret, miserable that I had chosen the wrong opponent. Of all people, why had I gone after this fellow’s wife? Now he was hunting me relentlessly, leaving me no chance even to catch my breath.

At that moment, the vampire sword dancer’s vitality had recovered somewhat, and she rejoined the fray with her sword in hand. With me facing two foes alone, the situation became perilous in the extreme, and I cried out inwardly in misery. If not for my own formidable defenses and the relatively modest damage of their weapons, I would probably have already become a corpse.

In the midst of the clash, the troll assassin Who Dares Compare with Me in Ugliness suddenly waved a hand and scattered a handful of glittering magical powder. Then his body gradually vanished into that glaring haze. He hid himself once more, and panic surged in my heart. An increasingly urgent instinct told me that when this ugly man appeared again, he would bring a fatal strike with him. I desperately tried to escape this predicament, but the sword-dancing girl clung to me so tightly that I could not break free.

Crash! Suddenly, a wooden club came down hard on my head, and pain split my skull as my whole body went limp. My own personal experience has proven that when the head collides violently with a hard, blunt object, it becomes very painful. Unless you have some special reason, it is best not to try it lightly.

I knew I had been hit by the assassin’s stun attack and would be unable to move for three seconds. The mismatched couple made excellent use of those three seconds. By the time I regained awareness, I had less than one hundred health points left. At that level, I probably could not even withstand a single round of attacks.

Fortunately, I still had one life-saving skill. The combat blessing granted by the church finally revealed its greatest effect at that moment. In that split second of mortal peril, I activated the heroic flash bestowed by the Footsteps of the Wind Spirit. In an instant, I was standing on the grass ten meters away from that doomed imperial couple, safely out of the battlefield.

Seeing me flee in panic, Longbow Slays the Sun and Ox Million made the most sensible choice as well. They raised their left hands high and simultaneously invoked the invincible magical shield of Holy Light Protection, then turned and bolted in blind retreat, utterly ignoring the hammering blows of enemy weapons and spells landing on their backs with a series of thuds.

“The situation is bad!” Longbow Slays the Sun cried out solemnly and righteously.

“The wind’s tight, scatter!” Ox Million shouted with grave dignity as he ran.

Indeed, worthy of being the Supreme God’s strictly selected and trained professional believers, even their posture in flight was so neat, so disciplined. Especially their cries—so clear in sound, yet utterly incomprehensible. Such mysterious sanctity must be some “professional method” of praying to the Supreme God.

“If you’ve got the guts, stand still for us! Sneaking and stealing, and then running when you can’t win—what kind of skill is that?” The four enemies were chasing close behind us. The berserker howled in fury, and it seemed unlikely that anything less than killing us himself would quell the hatred in his heart.

“The moment I heard that, I knew you were a rookie. Let me teach you something: being able to run when you can’t win is a tremendous skill. The ones with no skill are those who can neither win nor run!” Ox Million teased while fleeing, a wicked grin on his face.

“You won’t get away!” the undead mage said to us in a cold voice. He suddenly cast a directional movement spell, his body vanishing from where he stood, then reappearing with a flash behind us. Raising both hands, he immediately spread a freezing spell around us.

A layer of icy blue frost descended at once, covering us. This time Ox Million was extraordinarily lucky; he actually resisted the magic attack and was not frozen at all. As for me, after taking the hit, I fully let go of the speed bonus from the Footsteps of the Wind Spirit, and my pace did not slow much.

But Longbow Slays the Sun was in terrible luck. He was frozen, and his speed immediately dropped. The distance between him and the pursuers behind us instantly shrank by quite a bit. Thankfully, the undead mage, This Man Is Already Dead, If You Need Anything Burn Paper Money, was afraid of being surrounded by us. After casting the spell, he withdrew at once. Otherwise, if he had tangled our dwarf devotee in place, his life would surely have been in danger.

Seeing Longbow Slays the Sun fall behind, the troll assassin Who Dares Compare with Me in Ugliness let out a cheer, lowered his body, and suddenly accelerated. At once his steps became impossibly light, his toes merely tapping the grass before his entire body shot forward like an arrow. Before his lightning sprint, even the winds drifting over the plain seemed to bow obediently at his feet, to be commanded and ridden at his will.

Fortunately, the sprint skill could last only eight seconds. Who Dares Compare with Me in Ugliness had only reached two steps behind Longbow Slays the Sun and had not yet closed into attack range. Even so, the danger of that distance made Longbow Slays the Sun howl in terror. Alas, for all his frantic effort, his two short little legs could do no more than maintain that distance from the troll assassin.

Though our dwarf devotee had never been especially sane in his zeal for battle, he was not a complete madman. He was still afraid of death. For him, death was only a matter of dying and coming back to life, but life was still precious. If it could be avoided, it was better not to die.

“Help! The imperial bastards are killing people!” Longbow Slays the Sun’s pig-slaughtering shriek came from behind us.

“Hmph, even if you shout your throat raw, no one’s coming to save you,” Who Dares Compare with Me in Ugliness said leisurely, not slowing his feet even slightly.

“Raw throat, no one here, where are you? Come save me!” Longbow Slays the Sun still refused to give up, continuing to howl in his broken gong voice.

“Uh...” Who Dares Compare with Me in Ugliness was momentarily at a loss.

“Big brother...” Hearing the pursuers behind him fall silent, Longbow Slays the Sun actually began babbling in surrender. “...I’ve got an eighty-year-old mother above me, an eight-year-old child below me, and in between there’s a spendthrift woman who only knows how to spend money and not earn any. Please show mercy and spare me...”

“I truly sympathize with your situation...” While stretching out an arm to slash at Longbow Slays the Sun, Who Dares Compare with Me in Ugliness said sincerely, “...but you just bullied my wife, so I have to avenge her. Do me a favor and stand still so I can kill you. I promise, only three kills, then I’ll leave. I definitely won’t camp your corpse. How about it?”

“It’s just a wife, after all. With your looks, brother—well, um—ah, right; such a fine figure—well, um—ah, that sort of thing...” Glancing back at the troll assassin’s face, Longbow Slays the Sun said evasively, his words at odds with his true feelings. “Finding yourself a whole harem or a palace full of beauties shouldn’t be hard. Why take orders from a little girl?”

Hearing Longbow Slays the Sun, the vampire sword dancer Stammering, Off-Key, and Forgetful instantly looked cold and barked from behind, “Honey, if you can kill this nonsense-spouting fellow three times, I’ll wash your bowls for the next three months.”

“Roger, sir! I guarantee the mission will be completed!” Who Dares Compare with Me in Ugliness was overjoyed at these words, and said to Longbow Slays the Sun with a kind smile, “Brother, do me a favor. Please, let me kill you three times.”

Longbow Slays the Sun’s face turned ash-white as he asked tremblingly, “You really are husband and wife?”

Who Dares Compare with Me in Ugliness grinned. “Married for three years.”

Longbow Slays the Sun immediately began wailing loudly. “Big sister, the one who hit you just now wasn’t me. If you suffered a grievance, you can’t take it out on someone else!”

Very soon the female vampire’s voice came from behind: “If you can make the fellow who hit me just now die three times for you, I’ll let my husband spare you.”

“Geffritz, Geffritz, there are two people here looking for you. Come over here!” Truly, Longbow Slays the Sun was the most duplicitous dwarf I had ever seen.

“What did you say? I can’t hear you.” Do you think I’m an idiot? Die three times? One death and I’d be wiped from the world completely.

“Ah, you heartless brat!” Longbow Slays the Sun cried with tears streaming down his face.

Hmph, I certainly did not think it was possible to discuss “public morality” with someone who would casually find a brother to be his scapegoat. I glanced at Ox Million beside me, adjusted my cadence, and tried hard to keep pace with him.

After fleeing like this for a little over two minutes, a ruined village suddenly appeared on the right side of the plain. It had clearly once been a half-orc settlement, long since abandoned. I guessed it had probably been swept clean by the imperial doom troops. More than a dozen crooked brick-and-stone houses and thatched huts lay piled there, with several collapsed and ruined stone walls around them—a scene of desolation, and not a single soul in sight.