Chapter – 10
Raul turned around and gestured, and green blood began to gush from the corpses of the orcs nearby.
Whoooosh~!
The blood gathered into a single sphere in midair before being sucked into the leather pouch Raul was holding.
Telekinesis…
After seeing it countless times over the past three weeks, it had become something he was used to. But when he had first witnessed it, he had been absolutely terrified.
Even to the people of Connect, who were accustomed to magic, supernatural abilities were astonishing.
As Raul picked up the pouch and disappeared among the trees, Jake let out a deep sigh.
“Good grief. Our young master doesn’t take a single moment to rest. This isn’t what I came to Mira for!”
“He’s become this strong in such a short time because he works that hard. If you don’t put in some effort yourself, young master will surpass you before long.”
At Philip’s harsh words, Jake shrugged and stuck out his lips.
“Ah, whatever. This isn’t bodyguarding, and it isn’t training either… Why in the world am I processing monster corpses?!”
Despite his complaints, Jake had already pulled out a wooden sword and was breaking the joints of an orc before stripping away its hide.
What a fool.
Philip chuckled and pulled a small wooden dagger from inside his clothes before swinging it toward the orc’s torso.
Slaaash!
A crescent-shaped wave of energy flew through the air and cleanly split the orc’s hide.
Half-Moon Slash. Not bad.
By practicing with the wooden sword as Young Master Raul had instructed, he felt as though he was quickly getting the hang of it.
He said I need to raise my proficiency to intermediate before I can learn the next skill book, right? I wonder what the other skills will feel like.
Philip’s dagger moved a little faster.
The four skill books Raul had given him refused to leave his mind.
“Whew. Is this the end of this quest? I thought I was going to die of frustration.”
Because of the quest related to the Skill Codex, Raul had been forced to kill monsters using nothing but his fists.
As a result, hunting took much longer, and the fatigue was considerable.
Still, I’ve definitely gotten stronger.
The Skill Codex possessed an incredibly overpowered passive ability.
It strengthened all skills in proportion to the number of skills recorded within it.
It was only a replica, but it still possessed the overwhelming power of a Mythic-grade item.
The melee-skill enhancement currently being applied alone amounted to a total of 15%.
Raul couldn’t help but feel excited imagining how powerful he would become once he broke the seals and collected more skill books.
Drip.
Raul shook the blood from his fists and looked down.
Lying there was the corpse of an orc warrior who was a full head taller than the other orcs.
“Let’s see what dropped. Oh? This is a C-rank [War Cry] skill book! And I got a Rare-grade Orc Warrior Gauntlet too!”
As a field boss monster, it naturally provided much better rewards than ordinary orcs.
Although it only appeared once a day, it was an incredibly generous monster that gave him D- and C-rank skill books every time.
For the past three weeks, Raul had been hunting field monsters like a madman.
The first monsters he had faced were the level 20–30 [Red Mane Wolves].
Each one wasn’t particularly strong, but they were troublesome because they tended to move in packs.
Once he reached level 30, he began hunting Goblin Hunters.
They usually traveled alone, but once combat began, they would blow a whistle and call their companions.
Normally, the trick was to kill them quickly before they could blow the whistle, but Raul deliberately allowed them to summon their allies and then wiped them all out at once.
After reaching level 40, he began hunting Orc Soldiers.
Even though they couldn’t use mana, they possessed combat power comparable to Sword Users.
They were also quite intelligent, and when they formed groups, they were difficult enough that an entire army would have to be deployed to fight them.
But even they were no match for the now-powerful Raul.
Level 46. It took longer than I expected. Still, I should be able to reach level 50 before I leave.
Just as he was about to check the quest window while thinking about how little time remained on his schedule, a voice came through the guild communication.
「Lord Raul, we have a problem.」
It was Bernard’s cold voice.
「What happened? Did the quest fall through?」
Raul calmly asked, unable to think of any reason trouble would arise in Mira.
「Some guild members have gotten involved in an altercation. The situation doesn’t look very good.」
「What? Where?! Tell me exactly what happened!!」
Raul abandoned the orc warrior’s corpse and immediately began sprinting toward the city.
「In a secluded area of the Third Plaza, members of the Count Randall household are beating up our guild members. All three young masters of the Randall family and fifteen guards are reportedly gathered there.」
Raul’s expression instantly hardened.
These crazy bastards! I was trying to let things pass quietly, but they just had to cause trouble!!
「All members, gather at the Third Plaza immediately!! Don’t lay a hand on anyone until I arrive. Wait for me!!」
Raul’s furious voice echoed through the guild communication channel.
The Count Randall family, like the Count Ashton family, was one of the five great martial houses of the Ruben Kingdom.
However, unlike the Count Ashton family, which had been recognized as a prestigious sword family since the kingdom’s founding, the Randall family had only recently joined the ranks of the Five Great Martial Houses.
It was because the current head of the family, Count Hudson de Randall, had reached the Sword Master realm, causing the kingdom’s Four Great Martial Houses to be reorganized into the Five Great Martial Houses.
There were many ways for a young, emerging martial house with a short history to firmly establish itself as a prestigious family.
They could take their time and continuously produce outstanding knights, accomplish great feats worthy of everyone’s recognition, or crush their competitors.
The Count Randall family had found its answer in the Count Ashton family.
A prestigious house whose influence had begun to decline because it had failed to produce a Sword Master in recent years.
And among the Five Great Martial Houses, it was the least politically inclined and therefore the easiest target.
That was how the Randalls viewed the Ashtons.
As a result, clashes between the two families occurred throughout the kingdom.
Of course, most of those conflicts were started by the Count Randall family.
So far, the incidents had been resolved without any major problems, but there was little reason to believe things would continue that way.
Moreover, most people expected the Count Randall family to emerge victorious.
The difference between having a Sword Master and not having one was simply that enormous…
The three young noblemen staying in Mira, distant relatives of the Count Randall family, thought much the same way.
The eldest among them, Ramon, spoke.
“We should’ve beaten a few of them up a long time ago. We let them off easy, and now those pretentious Ashton bastards are running around acting all high and mighty.”
Splurt!
“Gaaah!!”
A young soldier screamed as a sword was driven into his heart.
Ramon pulled out the sword and licked the blood that had splattered across his face.
“That’s why you should’ve listened to me, Brother. If you had, we could’ve enjoyed this little game for much longer…”
His younger cousin Jerry, standing beside him, said as he stabbed another soldier between the eyes.
“Still, Great-Uncle told us to behave ourselves, didn’t he? The reason we ended up stuck here in the first place was because we caused trouble.”
The youngest, Kale, spoke cautiously, but the morning star in his hand was already smeared with someone’s blood and brain matter.
Moreover, the corners of his mouth were twitching upward. He showed absolutely no sign of remorse.
At that moment, the voice of a trainee knight lying on the blood-soaked ground could be heard.
“You bastards! What the hell are you doing?! What did we ever do to you?! Gah!”
Kale brought the morning star down on the trainee knight’s head.
Then he crouched beside the shattered remains of the man’s head and spoke.
“You people are a nuisance just by existing. Why did you have to crawl all the way here and make trouble? Huh?”
The young soldier whose heart had been pierced suddenly breathed again and shouted.
“You’ll regret this! Our young master won’t let you get away with this—grr…”
Ramon cut the young soldier’s throat with his sword and sneered.
“Ha! Tell him to hurry up and come. We have business with that brat, the Third Young Master, anyway. Though, I have to admit, this is fascinating. They really do come back to life no matter how many times you kill them?”
“I told you that’s how it works, didn’t I? So let’s just kill that little brat Raul too! It’s not like he’ll actually die anyway.”
Excited by the sight of blood, Jerry shouted.
Kale cautiously spoke up.
“I heard there’s an agreement in the Free City that martial houses aren’t allowed to draw their swords against one another… What if we cause trouble later by laying hands on a direct descendant?”
“So what? If we deny that we did anything, what are they going to do about it? No, come to think of it, isn’t this actually a good thing? We can use this opportunity to crush the Ashton family, which is nothing but a shell of its former self. Our great-uncle might even praise us for it!”
Ramon’s two younger brothers found his reasoning surprisingly convincing.
Whenever conflicts arose, the Ashton family had always taken a step back, so they had never had a proper opportunity to crush them.
There was even hope that, if things went well, their period of disciplinary confinement might be lifted and they could return to their territory.
The reason they had caused all this trouble in the first place was nothing more than simple jealousy.
The group had arrived in Mira before Raul and was staying at an inn rather than an official residence.
They were only in their twenties and were untitled collateral members of a count’s family. Naturally, there was no reason for the mayor to provide them with an official residence.
Their only meeting with the mayor had been a brief greeting when they first arrived in the city.
But Raul?
As soon as he arrived, he was given the finest official residence, and rumors were even spreading that he dined with the mayor almost every day.
Naturally, they couldn’t help but feel that they had been ignored.
On top of that, for some reason, Raul’s subordinates were running around taking on requests from the citizens of Mira.
Thanks to that, his reputation was improving day by day.
It was the complete opposite of them, who spent every day gambling and drinking while harassing the citizens.
At first, I held back because they had more people…
According to their subordinates’ reports, most of Raul’s people were extremely young, and they even walked around the city without carrying weapons.
That meant there was no reason for them to be at a disadvantage when they had fifteen knights with them.
The guards won’t be coming for a while either. Since we’re already here, maybe I’ll kill this Raul bastard about thirty times. I’ll make him tremble just at the sound of the name Randall. Heh heh.
They had already bribed the guards, so they had plenty of time.
Ramon grinned at the thought of tormenting Raul and once again raised his weapon to strike the soldier.
CRACK!
At that very moment, Ramon’s head exploded.
“……!!”
Splatter. Thud.
His brains flew in all directions as his body collapsed limply to the ground.
For an instant, silence descended upon the entire scene.
“Bernard. Take them to the temple. Then go to the mayor and tell him that, from this moment onward, no one is to be allowed to approach this place. Go!”
When had he rescued them?
Raul handed his three unconscious subordinates over to Bernard and turned around.
His eyes were cold enough to summon a biting winter wind as he glared at the trash from the Count Randall family.
“Philip. From this moment on, no one leaves this place. You know what I mean, right?”
“Understood!”
Philip bowed his head in response to Raul’s command and gave a hand signal.
Immediately, the members surrounded the area in perfect formation, their Count Ashton cloaks fluttering in the wind.
“Draw swords!”
At Philip’s shout, the members simultaneously pulled enormous greatswords from their inventories and pointed them at their enemies.
Saaaa…
An indescribably murderous aura pressed down upon the knights of the Count Randall family.
They said they walked around without weapons? Where the hell did those swords come from?!
I-Is this really an aura that people who aren’t even knights can produce?!
The realization that something was terribly wrong began spreading through their minds.
But there were always people who failed to read the atmosphere.
“You crazy bastard!! You haven’t even had the blood dry on your head, yet you dare lay a hand on a member of the Count Randall family?!”
Jerry pointed at Raul and shouted.
“Does the Count Ashton family teach their people to throw punches first? Well, I suppose you can expect that from weaklings. You cowardly bastard!”
Kale joined in, shamelessly shouting back as though they were the victims.
As if they truly were blood relatives, neither of them had any idea how dire their situation was and both remained unbelievably arrogant.
Raul didn’t even look at them.
Instead, he simply pulled a Bastard Sword from his inventory and casually swung it back and forth.
Then he pointed the greatsword forward and spoke.
“I’ll take care of this alone. Nobody interfere.”
“Are you sure?”
Philip asked calmly.
Raul answered lightly, as though it were obvious.
“There’s no need to get several people’s hands dirty just to take out the trash.”
