Hero's Coffin Chapter 24

Chapter 24

That scene was clearly reflected in his eyes. The soul trembled slightly as if resisting the purple energy spreading from his hand, but it was eventually extracted. Bart's body went limp.

A thin thread was connected to his soul, and as he followed it with his gaze, he saw it was linked to the undead bound to the wall. As the thread gradually faded, he could see the undead raising its head.

So this is the process of breaking subjugation.

That small soul didn't exist for long. However, its final action of turning its head this way and that was probably due to joy, he guessed. It calmly accepted the gradual approach of oblivion.

After the connection with the undead was severed, Bart's soul floating in the air returned to his body.

"Haaaargh!"

Bart was shocked by the extremely traumatic experience. It was understandable, as he had probably experienced an out-of-body experience for the first time in his life. Cold sweat poured down his entire body like rain, and his limbs trembled. He kept touching his body repeatedly.

In fact, he was surprised too. When he had detached the monster's soul in the main hall before, he had completely separated it, but this time he had only temporarily detached it and then returned it. So this level of control was possible. Wasn't this a skill that required tremendous concentration?

And as if to prove that, a tremendous headache hit him.

"Urgh."

Suddenly, as he collapsed to his knees on the floor and dry heaved, the gang members looked at him curiously. Bart was in a state of shock beyond panic and couldn't register him, but to the others, it must have clearly looked like 'that being's energy has dropped'.

Ah, this is bad.

In fact, when they first tried to approach, he had deliberately spouted plausible words, calculating that he couldn't use many skills. He had even spread a purple energy to create a gloomy atmosphere, and while he had been secretly pleased that the tactic had worked, his heyday ended this quickly.

He staggered to his feet. He had to leave this place before it became completely obvious that he had weakened. This was his only chance while they were still wary.

"Move."

He tried to leave, acting out a calm voice with difficulty. He had dealt with Bart, who was the central figure of these scammers, so they wouldn't be able to commit fraud for a while, and there wouldn't be any more victims.

Now all the other people were trembling against the walls, looking at him with terror. He hadn't originally wanted to receive looks as if they were seeing a hero, but it stung a little. However, the dizziness was more serious than that, so he had to leave quickly.

"W-what should we do with this guy?"

"He seems to have lost his strength, should we capture him...?"

However, people who bully others have an uncanny ability to perceive when their target has weakened. As the burly men slowly approached him, he deliberately sighed loudly and reached out his hand towards them. They hesitated and took defensive stances.

In fact, everything would be resolved the moment he summoned the undead.

Even if his undead's combat power was ordinary, they were several times more numerous than these people, and their very existence could shock them. Even without action keys provided by the status window, he now vaguely knew how to use his skills. Judging his current stamina, he thought he could summon them briefly...

At that moment, Harenir's warning came to mind.

'Always be careful not to draw unnecessary attention.'

...It seemed that in the Holy Empire, only Isaph could control undead in double digits or more, but could he control the number? If he failed and summoned a horde, wouldn't he be truly screwed then?

"...Hah."

The moment he lowered his arm with a deep sigh, the men exchanged glances. With the dizziness that hit him just then causing him to stagger slightly, it must have looked like a perfect opening to them.

Wham!

Finally, a fist flew at him. They must have put tremendous force into it to subdue him initially, as his face turned sharply and he fell to the floor. Then thud! They even kicked him in the stomach, making him curl up and groan. This body could be subdued without hitting so hard, but this was too much. His head rang, and he kept feeling nauseous.

Perhaps this was karma returning for him, of all people, punishing Bart. Wasn't it ridiculous for Isaph, who had killed countless people and enslaved those victims as undead, to be angry about someone else's undead?

If there was anything he realized from this incident, it was that he needed to be able to cause out-of-body experiences to free Isaph's undead. But was there a necromancer in this empire who could separate Isaph's soul from his body? Would dying be faster?

Thud. Wham!

But he didn't want to die here from being beaten. As he crawled on the floor groaning, the gang members gained confidence and swarmed around, trampling him. It was violence pouring out like a backlash for the brief moment when they had been wary of him. In times like these...!

He went completely limp.

"This guy seems to have fainted."

"Hmm. He seems to have quite an interesting power. He might be useful, should we take him?"

His acting skills from multiple rounds of pretending to faint successfully fooled the thugs. He had worried they might kick him more, but fortunately, his ability seemed to have piqued their curiosity. Inwardly cheering, he calculated the time. It seemed quite a while since he had left the historical hall, would his companions have noticed his absence by now?

Harenir had said he would return to the inn around midnight, so he would probably realize he had disappeared and use the leash around then. Since they needed his ability to enter the sky island, they wouldn't immediately blow up his head and kill him, right? ...Please.

By the way, what would happen if he was dragged by the leash? He had heard that it would drag him forcefully even if there were obstacles, but would it work even if there were buildings in the way? Surely he wouldn't die from crashing into walls? As he was stringing together these idle questions, someone grabbed the back of his head.

Specifically, the back part of his hood.

"Let's see this bastard's face first."

...Wait, what if Isaph's face was well-known? They say no one knows Isaph's voice, but aren't there many eyewitness accounts? So there might be descriptions circulating among people.

He flinched and grabbed his hood with both hands.

"What, you were pretending to be unconscious?!"

The gang members were bewildered by his action, and then became angry. Saying how dare he try to deceive them, they grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and shoved him sideways with a thud! It happened to be an old iron door, so his face was roughly scratched.

The man who had shoved him against the door snickered and grabbed his hood. He desperately held onto the hood with both hands, but he was reaching his limit. As the cloth was slowly being pulled away.

"No matter how much you resist...!"

Creak— The door opened. The door right next to where his face was pressed opened, and someone entered. He made direct eye contact with that person. Though shadows covered the eyes under the hood the other was wearing, they were still brilliantly bright.

Blue eyes that seemed to contain the sky.

"...I thought you had run away, why are you in such a state?"

It was Harenir.

The moment he saw him, his tension dissipated with a thud. Had he returned to the inn early and noticed his absence? Or perhaps his companions at the historical hall had reported his disappearance, and he had moved.

Instead of pulling on the leash, he had come after locating his position; how kind of the hero. As he was having these dazed thoughts due to his dizziness, his companions poured in. The moment Kalterik spotted the black-robed figure pressed against the opposite wall, he pointed and shouted.

"Isa— Saiph, you bastard...!"

Having barely corrected the name, he then noticed the numerous people in black robes and tilted his head in confusion. After muttering, "What, the gloomy guys have multiplied," he finally followed Harenir's gaze and gasped in shock.

He compared the build of the gang members with the triangle tattoos he had seen here to Kalterik's. After realizing that even the largest man in the gang didn't match up to Kalterik, he said,

"You guys hate Isaph, right?"

"...What kind of random question is that? You're asking the obvious!"

Kalterik responded in bewilderment to the sudden question, then immediately shouted, "Wah!" Harenir was looking at him with a very strange expression.

"Right. You absolutely despise that guy. You probably want to kill not just Isaph, but anyone associated with him."

"...?"

"These guys say they serve Isaph. They claim to be Isaph's closest aides and that they're in contact with him. This gang with the triangle tattoos."

As he pointed it out specifically, the gang members flinched. It was understandable for them to be startled, as all four who had entered gave off an ominous aura. The holy knights were all tall, and paradoxically, Noi looked suspicious because his build was so small. In parties like this, the small one was often a magician.

"What the hell are you talking about! Are you messing with me now? Do you know what I went through to find you...!"

The moment Kalterik roared irritably, the triangle gang made their move. Though they didn't know exactly who their opponents were, they seemed to think they needed to subdue them quickly, so they attacked him by surprise. The gesture of swinging their fists was almost solemn.