Chapter 231.
Leisha noona pointed her magic wand at me and spoke fiercely, "Who are you?!"
I thought she recognized me, so I freaked out for a moment. Yet, it seems that she didn"t identify me, thanks to my gla.s.ses. Indeed, monsters like Arpen, a great madosa, could recognize me, but my fourth sister was still a great magician. She was not good enough to penetrate through my magic.
"Wow, calm down, will you? Hillis! Calm down this grumpy lady!"
Hillis was wearing the ribbon that shared the recognition interfering magic with my gla.s.ses, so she would probably recognize me.
"Ah. Jum. Ma?" Leisha noona glared at me with a murderous look.
Then, she added sword aura to her magic wand and swung it widely. "Die!"
"Aigoo!" I jumped on the terrace railing and avoided my fourth sister"s wand that was surrounded by sword aura.
Despite this, she didn"t go on a magic rampage after she knew I was Hillis’s acquaintance. Rather than using Leisha noona’s flimsy sword aura, sticking to the basics and casting a magic bullet would be far more powerful. Of course, it was still not common sense to suddenly attack without warning.
Hanging onto the floor of the upstairs terrace, I expressed my inner feelings. "Oh jeez, at this rate, you’re no different than an animal. I can"t believe you"re attacking me without knowing anything.”
My fourth sister had an angry look on her face, but she slowly backed away because she was afraid of the terrace’s height above the ground.
Hmm? She was flying around just fine when she was dealing with the great demon, but did she not get over her fear of heights?
She seemed to have overcome it to some extent, considering that she came out onto the terrace without hesitation. Personally, I wanted to ask her, but there was no need to make things worse since she didn’t recognize me.
"Oh? Why are you here?” Hillis stuck her head out to the terrace when she heard my voice.
"Do you know each other?” Leisha noona asked naturally as if she knew Hillis well, and Hillis nodded.
"Yeah, he’s my friend."
“Tch!” In response to Hillis, my fourth sister clicked her tongue in displeasure.
Thinking that she wouldn’t attack me anymore, I let go of the upstairs terrace floor that I was holding and landed on the terrace railing.
"I heard you were here with an invitation from Duke Asteria, so I came to play. It seems there’s a guest. Should I come back next time?” I just asked out of courtesy. Of course, I didn"t have plans to leave.
No matter how much I was using recognition interfering magic, my fourth sister might still figure out the magic. Her skills were significantly worse than mine, but as a fellow disciple under the same teacher, we both had the same knowledge.
However, Hillis clapped her hands as if to say that this was a good meeting. "Yes! You came just in time! I told you I had a friend to introduce you to! It’s fate to meet like this, so at least have some tea before you go."
Before I could even say "Uh... well, no thanks," Hillis went inside. My fourth sister seemed to dislike me and asked me to come in with a disapproving look on her face. I couldn’t do anything, so I followed Leisha noona inside with a soft sigh.
As I went inside, Lancelot was waiting in a blind spot behind the wall with his sword pulled out. It"s been a while since I"d seen him, but he was following what I taught him from my combat book of ‘101 Ways on How to Hit the Back of an Unlucky Guy’s Head’. It was nice to see him practicing my teachings of erasing one’s presence and ambus.h.i.+ng from a blind spot.
"Your skills are good.” I complimented Lancelot as I walked by. It would be nice if Lisbon and Alphonso also followed my teachings well. He did not even listen to the "All-in-one Basic Guide to Increase Chance of Survival,” saying that he had to uphold his chivalry or something.
I didn"t understand why he was being so picky when he was such a weakling. Still, maybe it wasn’t necessary since he wasn’t going to be meeting any battle races soon? But anyway, I couldn"t find Mac hyung. Where did he go?
"Who are you to praise Lan?” Leisha noona seemed to be upset about me calling her an ahjumma, and she glared at me.
"Ahjumma’s skills are not good enough. Why don"t you try a little harder?"
Somehow, the amount of mana she possessed hadn"t changed from when she was in our hometown. Outside the Olympus Forest, there was no crazy mana storm, so it was a really beneficial environment to train magic. A year in this environment was enough time to tear down the Mado Wall. However, she still hadn’t crossed the Mado Wall.
Tsk, tsk.
"Woo-ssi! Who are you supposed to be?!" [1]
My fourth sister was enraged, but at a glance, I instantly noticed that Lancelot"s aura looked different from before. I could see that he wasn’t neglectful and put in effort even when he was not in our hometown.
I approached Hillis, casually ignoring Leisha noona. Hillis had already finished preparing tea and refreshments. Hillis smiled at me and was trying to say something, so I cast soundproof magic around Hillis and me.
"From watching you train Brother Pushover-nim and Alphonso at dawn every morning, I already thought this, but it seems your physical ability is indeed as good as a hero-nim chosen by the Holy Sword? I can"t believe you came here through the heavily guarded castle.” Hillis whispered quietly, but at that volume, it was nothing short of directly telling the people of my hometown.
"I didn"t exactly break through the security."
"Then?"
"Of course, I was invited. The adventurer"s guild came at the request of the duke, so we had an invitation to the dinner banquet."
Hillis tilted her head. "Really? I didn"t hear anything about that?"
"That"s because they didn’t invite you and General b.l.o.o.d.y, so the people from the headquarters wouldn’t feel pressured."
Hillis had a look of surprise. "Heh, His Highness Duke Asteria is more precise than I thought."
Hillis and I were having a conversation when Leisha noona interfered with the soundproofing magic and entered. "What’s so special that you even put up soundproofing magic?”
Oh, I"ll have to upgrade my a.s.sessment of my fourth sister. I can"t believe she detected my magic. It was commendable that she saw it when even Hillis, a madosa level priest, didn’t notice.
"It"s nothing. Now, let"s have some of the choux cream we bought today. Lancelot, come here and eat." Hillis smiled and skillfully turned the topic to the snacks.
Everyone sat around the table. Leisha noona was still unhappy about being called an ahjumma and spoke bluntly with a sullen face, "Hillis, the friend you wanted to introduce me to, is someone who hides his ident.i.ty with recognition-interfering magic?”
My fourth sister pointed out my gla.s.ses, and only then did Hillis realize that I was using the recognition interfering magic. "I thought you were wearing gla.s.ses that I don"t usually see you in. Can’t you take them off?"
I shook my head. "No, I can’t."
If I were to take them off here, wouldn’t I get caught immediately?
I spoke to Hillis using sound transmission magic.
- It doesn"t make sense that a civil servant from the adventurer’s guild came to see you behind the duke"s back. I don"t want to be called a hero or something by others.
For your information, the appearance of a hero inside the temple was still growing. Personally, I didn"t want my dark history to spread any further, but the information was spreading regardless of my desires. At this rate, if something were to go wrong, my aunt and Milpia might end up teasing me. How terrible.
Hillis scratched her cheek at my firm refusal. Leisha noona tried to penetrate my recognition interfering magic secretly, and I easily interrupted her. Hillis had been trying to introduce me in the midst of the strange confrontation; she was embarra.s.sed and tried to do something, but time just slowly pa.s.sed.
"I have something to do, so I"ll go ahead and leave first."
Originally, I was going to kill some time and let her know that I was going toward the Alps, but I didn"t realize my fourth sister and Lancelot were here. Well, even if I told her, I didn"t think Hillis would follow me because of those good-for-nothing knights. Still, if she followed me, it would be good since I wouldn’t have to worry about Pushover or Alphonso getting hurt.
"What? Already?"
But since I don"t know what might happen, should I still let her know? I briefly explained to Hillis using the sound transmission magic. Hearing my explanation, Hillis understood and nodded as I headed back to the terrace.
"Thanks for the snack.”
After leaving those words behind, I casually jumped off the terrace. As was appropriate, I tried bypa.s.sing the guards to go to the room containing the headquarters people, but the back of my head became itchy.
"Why don’t you come out?" I looked down at the empty hall, and the presence showed some hesitation before appearing at the corner. It was Lancelot who followed me.
"Why did you follow me?" I asked purely out of curiosity. There was no reason for Lan to come after me.
Lancelot asked carefully, "You"re Den, aren"t you?"
"Who"s Den? I don"t know what you"re talking about."
I was so shocked that I almost let it show, but I managed to maintain a poker face and naturally pretended not to know. But how did he know?
Lancelot spoke firmly, touching the tip of his nose with his finger. "Lies. I can’t be certain because of the magic, but you smell like Den."
Smell?! What an amazing sense of smell!
It"s not like I was using any particular perfume, but identifying it meant Lancelot almost had a Cerberus’s sense of smell.
Lancelot looked at me with his slender body and moist eyes. "Why are you hiding it? Are you not friends with me anymore?”
Among the ‘101 Ways to Hit the Back of an Unlucky Guy’s Head’, this was the advanced technique, ‘he who cries first, wins.’ If it’s as I taught him, there was surely a dagger flying towards my back! I quickly turned around and caught five daggers flying at my back. ‘He who cries first, wins’ applied with a surprise attack! Perfect!
"See! If you weren’t Den, I’m sure you wouldn’t have been able to avoid it and died!"
What a scary guy! It was such an excellent ambush that if I weren’t the target, they wouldn"t have been able to escape death or fatal injury. Trying to kill me just to make sure it"s me. It seems I raised a tiger cub. There was no point in backing out if he was this certain. I gave up and took off my gla.s.ses.
"Haha, you"ve improved a lot. To be able to handle five daggers at once. With this ability, you won"t be suppressed even if you joined the warrior division or the guards right now.” No, he was at least team leader level. I thought that if he did well, he would be able to even aim for the head of the guards.
"Aang! Den!" Lancelot rushed at me with tears in his eyes.
I momentarily almost grabbed his head as his image overlapped with Alphonso"s, but I wasn"t so evil that I couldn"t hug my friend after not seeing each other for a long time.
I asked, stroking Lancelot"s head, "How did you know it was me? I doubt you knew just from your sense of smell from the beginning."
"Huh? Uh, I thought it was a little weird when you called Leisha noona an ahjumma."
Oh, indeed, I made a mistake. When my fourth sister suddenly showed up, I was fl.u.s.tered and used the nickname that came out when she upsets me.
"Hmm, I see. You didn"t tell noona before coming here, did you?” I didn"t feel noona’s presence or any of her magic around me.
"Yeah. I wasn"t sure, so...”
You"re not sure, but you threw your dagger? As expected of my friend. Since I"ve been caught, I"ll have him work for me as a spy.
I smiled expectantly at Lancelot.
1. Woo-ssi is an angry sound that Korean people sometimes make.