Based on the feel of it, the hand was wearing leather gloves, making it highly likely that it belonged to Khunak.
“Khunak? You’re Khunak, right?”
Doah grabbed his hand and pulled it toward her as she spoke.
“We need to get out of here right now.”
The hand of Khunak began to grope upward, feeling its way along her.
Doah, feeling puzzled, remained still.
His hand eventually reached her face.
He lightly pressed her lips.
Doah glanced at the countdown timer from the corner of her eye. At that moment, she realized something.
‘He can’t hear.’
Moreover, the fact that he was feeling his way up her meant that he couldn’t see either.
Doah extended her hand and gently stroked his arm.
She unfastened the buckle, pulled off his gloves, and threw them away.
When she held his bare hand, he flinched.
On his palm, Doah wrote, [Doah O] with her finger.
She didn’t have the luxury to write anything longer.
She was about to tell him to escape together, but he let go of her hand.
Suddenly, feeling a presence, Doah was startled. She quickly wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him into an embrace.
“Hey, are you crazy? Why are you being so extreme?”
Doah shouted loudly.
Khunak tried to free himself from her hold.
“No! I’m not letting go!”
She knew how hard it was to harm oneself with a longsword.
If he tried, he wouldn’t be able to cut his neck cleanly or pierce himself properly.
To achieve that, Doah would have to be cut along with him.
“Ugh, I know it’s hard, but if we just escape from here first…”
She bit her lip in the middle of her words.
There wasn’t much time left.
Could they escape in the remaining seconds?
Ding-ding!
As if responding to her anxiety, an alarm went off.
⭐⭐⭐
[Due to Azure Nazac’s influence, the resonance of the cursed sword has weakened.]
The countdown time increases by 30 seconds.
Escape immediately.
⭐⭐⭐
Golden letters flashed in midair like an urgent warning signal.
‘Even with 30 extra seconds, can we really escape? We don’t even know the way inside this sewer.’
Grumbling to herself, her mind suddenly became calm.
In the darkness, she thought she could smell the rich aroma of coffee.
It was the smell of coffee soaked into the fur of a Rakshasha.
— Doah, when someone asks or orders you to do something, always look at why they’re asking. The result isn’t the important part. The “why” is the most important thing.
Doah also recalled Josephine.
Josephine had once told her…
— Don’t run away toward the path that looks the easiest.
Doah reached out her hand and wrote on Khunak’s arm.
[Do you trust me?]
There was a moment of hesitation.
But soon, he nodded.
Doah pulled the cursed sword from his hand.
Screeeeech!
A scream, far more intense than anything she’d heard before, echoed in her head.
For a moment, Doah thought her eardrums had burst.
Noise is violence.
Real, physical violence.
Khunak obediently handed over the sword to her.
Escape.
Yes, escaping is good.
But what if the enemy chases you?
Will you just keep running away?
A quest is just a quest.
The guide mode is just a guide.
It’s fine to receive help, but playing strictly according to the guide isn’t right.
Doah grinned.
‘If my influence weakened the resonance.’
She placed the cursed sword inside her sub-dimensional bag.
The bag was a space completely separate from this world.
Khunak gulped audibly.
Doah released her hold on him and took a step back.
‘This way, it won’t be able to resonate.’
If resonance requires close proximity, then she would separate them across dimensions.
‘Now, what will you do?’
In her mind, she gave the cursed sword a mental middle finger.
Staring into the darkness before her, Doah spoke in the brightest, most cheerful voice she could muster.
“Well then, feel free to go on a rampage now.”
With the connection between the cursed sword and Khunak forcibly severed, Khunak wouldn’t be left unscathed either.
The only reason he remained fine, despite all the accumulated corruption, was likely that the cursed sword had been controlling it to keep its host alive.
But now, there was no cursed sword.
The corruption overflowed.
The only possible result was an outburst.
However, the result was different from what she had expected.
All of the darkness was sucked away in an instant.
It felt as though her field of vision had suddenly cleared.
Doah attached an ’emergency stardust lantern’ to her waist.
In the faint light, Khunak’s form came into sharp focus.
‘He absorbed all the corruption?’
Instead of releasing it?
Doah was taken aback by the unexpected development.
But there was no time to dwell on it.
BANG!
Since he no longer had a weapon, Khunak threw a punch.
Doah blocked it with her forearm, and her arm buzzed with a numbing vibration.
‘S-so heavy―!’
Scrraape
The ground crumbled under her feet as her body was pushed back.
In the next moment, an even faster attack followed.
Doah dodged, deflected, and parried.
Bang!
Bang! Bang!
Khunak’s attacks were cloaked in darkness.
He wielded the black corruption as if it were an extension of his own limbs.
Crack!
But every time he attacked, something sparked.
A faint golden spark flew off.
‘Corruption? Is it really just corruption?’
Doah felt a strange sense of doubt.
The corruption it held felt somewhat different from the corruption of the cursed sword.
‘Ah, but this is really annoying.’
“I trained for a hundred years on this side!!”
Doah aimed a kick at Khunak’s neck.
When she thought he had grabbed her ankle, she bent her knee and, using the same momentum, drove a knee strike into his face.
“Ugh! No matter how much Khunak trained, it wouldn’t have been more than 20 years!”
She had definitely delivered a full-speed knee strike to his face!
And yet, he dodged it?
“Genius-levels of annoying!”
Even if he was rampaging, his fundamental skills were still his own, right?
Doah, now even more frustrated, launched a flurry of punches at him.
“Ugh, I should have asked to be made taller! My reach is too short!!”
The difference in arm length between the two of them felt incredibly unfair.
‘Seriously, he’s overflowing with talent. I’m jealous.’
Despite her grumbling, Doah continued to exchange blows relentlessly.
‘This won’t do.’
Doah let out a quiet sigh.
‘I underestimated him because he’s young….’
She suddenly remembered Josephine, who would always say, “Why can’t you do this?”*
The memory made her heart ache once more.
‘I’ll have to give up on subduing him without causing injuries.’
Doah snorted defiantly.
‘But still, I have a hundred years’ worth of experience on my side. That’s something no one else can accumulate.’
From her pocket, Doah pulled out a water crystal and world tree sap.
‘I have no intention of losing to a rookie.’
With the audacity to call an S-rank opponent a ‘rookie,’ Doah steeled herself.
❖ ❖ ❖
Robern was annoyed.
It was rare for him to feel this level of irritation.
His philosophy was to face any situation with humor and sarcasm.
‘The cursed sword Ksatul, huh?’
His cloak flapped violently in the wind.
At this moment, he was floating high in the air.
It was thanks to the magic engraved into his cloak.
Robern didn’t have a great fondness for knights.
‘Another cursed sword wielder has appeared.’
It was a woman of his age.
Black hair and black eyes.
She had a sensual appearance that could only be described as ‘voluptuous.’
Her presence gave off an almost beast-like aura.
That feeling when their swords clashed two or three times.
It was completely different from Khunak.
‘Am I even dealing with a human?’
That thought crossed his mind for a moment.
At the same time, he felt a surge of interest.
But after facing him several times, she shook her head.
“He’s gone. The resonance with the cursed sword is gone. Damn it. Did they kill it?”
At that moment, Robern found himself chuckling.
Ksatul wore a sneering expression.
“What? Are you happy the cursed sword is dead?”
“No, it just got interesting. I can tell because there’s no B-rank around.”
“B-rank?”
“Yeah.”
It was fun to provoke others with information they didn’t know.
Robern figured that if a B-rank had been involved, they would have somehow resolved the situation.
This was one of the rare occasions in his life when he felt faith.
‘And it’s annoyingly strong faith, too.’
He hadn’t intended to give anyone his trust, but that B-rank had earned it with ease.
Ksatul shook her head.
“Whatever that B-rank is, my job here is done.”
Robern gripped his sword tightly.
He increased the rotation speed of the mana inside his mana circuits. The mana core began to accelerate, outputting energy at a rapid pace.
As the mana spun faster, it created that distinct sound unique to mana flow.
Bang, bang, bang, tap-tap!
Sparks flew as if someone was striking his heated sword with a hammer.
“You don’t think I’m just going to let you go, do you?”
Ksatul laughed at his words.
“Emperor Robern, it was fun.”
Then, she swung the cursed sword.
A black rift appeared as if the space itself had been torn open.
Ksatul rode a Pegasus and disappeared through the rift.
Robern hurled flames into the rift, but the rift closed faster than his sword could reach.
Robern gazed at his beloved sword.
The rift had closed, slicing his sword clean in half.
‘Irritating.’
He was annoyed by it all.
The unknown force that had swept through Gran.
The fact that he knew absolutely nothing about it.
Robern landed atop a nearby bell tower.
If he went down immediately, he’d be surrounded by people.
But right now, he needed some time to gather his thoughts.
‘Is it just a coincidence that a B-rank appeared and this incident happened?’
Azure Nazac
Eyes of the Lush Greenery.
When people enter a forest, their reactions vary.
Some are startled, some are amazed, some are afraid, while others feel joy, wonder, or reverence.
But what lies beneath those green eyes?
He was curious.
It was a curiosity so intense that he would consider burning the entire forest to the ground to find out.
Rumble…
The ground beneath his feet began to tremble.
A deep, rumbling sound echoed from below.
‘Tch.’
Robern clicked his tongue.
It seemed someone was stirring up trouble underground.
‘I have no desire to wander around in the sewers.’
Was there any reason for him to go down there?
Robern decided he’d wait while having a cup of tea.
❖ ❖ ❖
Yan was extremely busy.
A meeting was held with the guild master, the market officials, and the council.
However, due to a lack of information, all they could do was flounder in confusion.
They barely managed to piece together some content to publish as an article to calm the people down.
During the council meeting, a proposal was made to ban Khunak from entering Gran.
Yan immediately rejected it, arguing, Is that something you’d say in an adventurer’s city?
Love all your comrades.
That was how Hajin had built the city.
But the response came back, ‘How can we tell if they’re comrades or not?’
Upon hearing that Robern was sipping tea in a teahouse when he should have been reporting, Yan clutched the back of his neck in frustration.
By the time all the work was done, it was already midnight.
Although the city’s patrols had been strengthened, there were no other significant movements.
‘Khunak…’
Where had his younger brother gone?
Yan was tormented with worry.
‘Is he dead? Really?’
He knew Khunak would choose that path over going berserk.
Yan felt a wave of exhaustion wash over him.
At that moment, the door opened, and his head snapped up, only for him to sigh in disappointment.
“Emperor.”
Robern smiled.
“You seem to have a lot on your mind. Want me to hear you out?”
“Don’t you think it’s because of the worries you added on top of it?”
“Not really.”
Robern replied as he sat himself comfortably on the center of the sofa.
“What brings you here so late at night?”
“No particular reason. I just figured if you were to be anywhere, it would be here.”
Hearing that, Yan’s eyes widened as he glanced at Robern.
Robern examined his well-manicured nails and spoke.
“Am I wrong, cursed sword?”
Before his words even settled, a shadow slipped in through the window, as if melting into the room.
“Ku…!”
Yan barely managed to suppress the shout of joy that threatened to escape his lips.
In Khunak’s arms was a pale-faced girl.
Robern asked,
“Did you kill it?”
“…It’s alive.”
His voice was hoarse and husky.
“Did you attempt to kill it?”
Robern’s face lit up with curiosity as he continued his questions.
“Which side tried to kill the other?”
Khunak countered, stepping into the light and placing Doah on the sofa.
Hearing this, Robern let out a thoughtful hum, rubbing his chin.
“I see. Which side tried to kill the other, huh? Which would be more interesting, I wonder?”
Yan approached and whispered softly.
“Are you okay? Why are you drenched? Doah’s soaked too. And, well…”
It wasn’t the right thing to say in this situation, but there was an overwhelmingly pleasant scent in the air.
It smelled of sweet flowers, honey, and the forest.
It wasn’t as if they had drenched themselves in perfume. Perfume only left behind sharp, overpowering smells.
Khunak swept back his wet hair.
“If I were to explain, it’d be a long story.”
“I’m curious about that long story.”
“She probably knows more about it than I do.”
“But the cursed sword—where is the cursed sword?”
Robern tilted his head in confusion.
Hearing that, Yan was also startled and glanced at Khunak’s waist.
He was only wearing a sword belt, but there was no sword in sight.
Khunak spoke.
“Doah has it.”
At his words, both of their gazes shifted toward Doah at the same time.
But the large sword was nowhere to be seen.
If Doah had it, they would have noticed it right away.
“Khunak, you—”
Yan grabbed Khunak’s arm, causing him to groan in pain.
Surprised, Yan immediately released his grip.
“You’re hurt?”
“A little.”
Yan was shocked by Khunak’s response.
An S-rank came back injured?
Yan looked at him, then at Doah.
Robern laughed heartily and said,
“Got beaten up by a B-rank, huh, cursed sword?”
‘Beaten by a B-rank? An S-rank got beaten by a B-rank?’
Yan’s eyes darted around in disbelief.
At that moment, Doah let out a groan.
Moments later, she slowly opened her eyes.
“Doah, are you alright?”
Doah stared blankly at Yan for a moment, her gaze wandering before she slowly got up.
“Ugh…”
She groaned as she sat up and coughed a few times.
‘Ah, I think I broke a bone in my arm.’
She clenched her teeth against the pain.
Of course, no matter how sturdy she was, exchanging punches with an S-rank would have its consequences.
She cautiously moved her body bit by bit, checking her condition.
When her eyes met Khunak’s, she grinned.
“Hello, Khunak.”
