Chapter 265.
The wolf put a strong aura around his claw and blocked Uncle b.l.o.o.d.y"s sword.
Kang-!
"How fun! Let me join too!"
The wolf growled angrily at Uncle"s teasing.
"I said I must know!"
"Taurus, shut up!"
The wolf kicked at Brown Mask who raised his arm and blocked it. Then he pulled out a sword.
"Capricorn! If you won"t tell me, I"ll force you to spit it out!"
When Brown Mask pointed his sword, the wolf became on guard against not only Uncle b.l.o.o.d.y but also Brown Mask.
"Are you turning traitor!?"
"Are we even on the same side? Weren’t you just trying to take advantage of me!"
The wolf laughed at him. "Shut up! You idiot! Have we ever been on the same side?"
"Capricorn!"
"Didn’t your teacher teach you!? That the Twelve Zodiacs is a place where you get stabbed in the back if you let your guard down!" yelled the wolf.
Brown Mask tightly clenched his fist.
"Then is it true that this kidnapping is not intended to prevent war but to provoke one?"
Brown Mask must have been genuinely angry because he emitted a martial aura. In response, the wolf began to emit mana from his whole body.
"Yes, you idiot! Such a fool! All right, I"ll kill you too if you get in the way!" He kicked the ground hard and rushed towards Taurus.
Brown Mask got ready at the charge, but the wolf never reached him.
"Jeez, you"re giving a magician in front of you too much time.”
The chains that shot out from the magic circle in the air bound the wolf just before he reached Brown Mask. He gnashed his teeth at me at the unexpected attack.
"You!"
"Aigoo, your voice is so loud. Oh, didn"t I say I was a magician?"
I dug my ears and looked indifferently at the wolf.
"Where do you keep going? You’re making me sad!" said Uncle b.l.o.o.d.y as he swung a sword at the wolf"s neck.
The wolf tried to block Uncle"s sword with his claws, but because he was tied up by chains, he only barely managed to raise his arm and avoid a cut in the neck.
"Kuaaaah!"
He succeeded in wrapping his arm in a strong aura and blocking it. However, Uncle b.l.o.o.d.y"s sword cut off the wolf"s left arm and blood spewed all over the place. He struggled in pain.
"What, what?! Why are you so strong!" I shouted in fl.u.s.ter.
With red eyes, the wolf broke my magic chain with his full strength. Then he rushed at me so quickly that neither Uncle b.l.o.o.d.y nor I could react.
"Die!"
"Gasp!"
The wolf penetrated my abdomen with his remaining right arm.
"Denburg!"
Uncle b.l.o.o.d.y shouted my name in surprise and the wolf shouted triumphantly.
"This guy definitely called you Uncle b.l.o.o.d.y! Feel the pain of losing your family, too!"
I grabbed the wolf"s arm with a shaky hand.
"Ahahaha! Even the Crows are nothing much when they’re careless! And you call me weak!"
To the wolf laughing cheerfully, I whispered hard and slowly, "I’m. Just. Messing. With. You."
“What?!”
After being penetrated by the wolf, I turned into a tree and began to wind around his body.
"What, what?!”
I appeared casually next to the bewildered wolf then sat on top of the rubble of a nearby building.
"I told you. You gave the magician too much time."
"You, you punk!"
The wolf struggled to escape from the tree that was clinging to him, but the more he struggled, the tighter the tree wrapped around him.
"It won"t do any good to resist. I was so bored that I really put effort into this magic."
As it reproduced the magic of the extinct Druids, he wouldn’t even be able to release the magic unless he was a pretty decent madosa. Well, if it’s William, he could probably release it without difficulty. Although he’s like that, he was still the son of Old Man Arpen and a direct disciple.
"How, how dare you!"
The wolf stuck in the tree tried to yell something, but his mouth got buried into the tree as well. Finally, before his eyes were about to be buried too, I smiled and waved my hands lightly.
"Bye. The next time you wake up, you"ll be in a prison in the empire, although I don"t know where exactly."
He looked like he was going to kill me with his bloodshot eyes. However, unlike his desire, he could not get out of it and only one large tree replaced where he was.
"Haam~! Boring. I thought you"d put up more of a fight, so I set up about five more traps.”
I didn"t know he would get so careless from being emotional and end with the first trap. I was smacking my lips with regret, but Uncle b.l.o.o.d.y, who suddenly approached me, slapped me on the back of the head.
"Ouch! Why are you hitting me!"
When I caressed the back of my head and complained, he put me in a headlock.
"I thought you actually got done in, you punk!"
Then he tried to whack my head again. At that time, when I disappeared like a wisp of smoke and reappeared in front of him, he looked at me in surprise.
"Ayy, if I was going to get done in from just that, then I wouldn"t have been able to even leave home. Why are you looking at me like that?"
"No, it’s because I couldn’t feel your presence when you were escaping from the headlock. I think it would be fun to fight you. What do you think?"
Uncle b.l.o.o.d.y shook his sword with a smile unique to our hometown. It was in contrast to the last time I encountered him in Asterium when he was wary of me. As expected, since there was no one around who could get dragged in, the fighting instinct seemed to come out naturally like others in our family.
"I"m sorry, but I’ll decline. If I fight with Uncle now, the Prime Minister Arthemius’s stomach probably won"t be able to endure it."
In the place near where the kidnappers fought with Ma.r.s.en, there were likely no houses left for anyone to live in. In addition, Uncle and Wolf were going around fighting to the point of getting all bloodied, so it was clear that there would be more than just one or two damaged houses and streets.
"Ahaha, that"s true, isn"t it? Phew! I need to get some rest.”
Uncle b.l.o.o.d.y sat on the rubble of the building where I was sitting, tired from fighting the wolf. I smirked and took out a recovery potion and stomach medicine out of my pocket s.p.a.ce and tossed it to him.
"The green bottle is a stomach medicine made according to Teacher-nim"s recipe, so give it to the prime minister."
"Ohh, thanks."
Uncle b.l.o.o.d.y did not use it but put it in his pocket. However, if you use it, it hurts like h.e.l.l, so you wouldn’t use it unless it was an emergency.
I magically built a thick stone wall to block the escape route of Brown Mask who was slowly sneaking away.
"Where are you going? It"s not settled yet. If you"re going, at least leave a blood sample."
He answered me as if he were sick of it.
“Wasn"t experimenting a joke?”
“Of course not. It’s that rare."
When I smiled and got ready, Brown Mask also put away his sword and got ready.
"Considering you turned Capricorn into a tree, you seem to be quite a high-level magician, so why do you use magic only to stop me from escaping and fight me in a bare-handed fight?"
My answer to his question was simple.
"Well? Should I say it’s a similar reason why you don"t use a sword? I don"t hate fools who honestly deal with opponents and fight barehanded because the other is barehanded."
In fact, it was to capture my valuable sample alive and check his combat capabilities without inflicting too many wounds. So far, my barehanded fighting has been a kind of experimental process.
"Really? You are an unusual man. It"s like I’m looking at my teacher-nim."
His words made me feel a p.r.i.c.k in my conscience. Of course, I didn"t hate honest fools like Brown Mask. I rather liked it. Although if you ask me to live like that, I will refuse firmly.
It was Brown Mask that attacked first. I moved inwards, deflecting his fist with a guard. Then I aimed for his chin and struck upwards. He pulled his head back to dodge then aimed for my temple. I blocked with a strong aura around my arm and kicked his calf.
Kw.a.n.g!
Even though I blocked it with a strong aura, there was still a sound of a fierce clash and the shock was intense.
"Keuk!"
"Ugh!"
I was greatly pushed back by his fist, and he lost his balance from his calf being kicked. I reached out my left hand, quickly approaching the unbalanced Brown Mask.
He regained his balance, twisted his body to the left, avoided my hand, and launched a counter at my face. However, perhaps because my left hand towards his face blocked his vision, his reaction speed was a half-beat slower. With my outstretched arm, I grabbed his countering arm, and lifted myself up to lock him into an armbar.
Like before, Brown Mask tried to send me flying with a strong swing before the armbar got locked. I gave up on the armbar and dealt him a strong knee kick in the face.
Crack!
Brown Mask got hit directly in the face, he retreated greatly with a nosebleed.
"…Huh?"
The mask cracked after a knee kick with my full strength and fell to the ground in pieces.
"Flam?!"
The face underneath the mask was all too familiar. Why is it Flam?
While I was dumbfounded by the completely unexpected face, something flew at me.
…An arrow?
I was so surprised that my reaction was delayed, and the arrow with a strong aura broke the string of the white half-mask I was using and then got stuck in a nearby building.
"Den?! You, you, how!"
When the white half-mask left my face, Flam was surprised. Then he quickly took out a mask from his clothes, wore it, and ran away.
I was so surprised that I couldn"t even think of chasing Flam, and instead, I grabbed the mask that fell to the ground and put it back to my face.
"You, those clothes!"
d.a.m.n, it"s too late! Uncle b.l.o.o.d.y already recognized my clothes. I got caught.
"Tch!"
I clicked my tongue and put the mask off of my face and put it into my pocket s.p.a.ce.
"Ah, I got caught.”
"Were you working for the Adventurers’ Guild?"
Uncle b.l.o.o.d.y looked shocked as if he had never expected it. I was too careless because I upgraded my mask. In the past, I would definitely have changed my clothes before going out. It had been so peaceful for such a long time that I seemed to have thought it would be fine.
"Why ask when you already know?" I said curtly.
Uncle b.l.o.o.d.y seemed surprised. “My G.o.d, what Hestia said was true.”
"You mean Third Sister?”
"Hestia said two years ago that you were working as a civil servant at a government office inside the capital.”
Two years ago... That’s when she visited the capital for the currency reform.
As expected of Hestia Noona. I can"t believe she found my whereabouts in that short period of time.
"So I searched all the doc.u.ments on the civil servant register inside the capital, but I couldn’t find you so I thought Hestia was wrong."
He couldn"t have found it because Aunt Talaria had forged all of my relevant doc.u.ments. I laughed bitterly and pulled the arrow from the wall. It was an arrow made of wood from Olympus Forest.
As far as I knew, Mac Hyung was the only monster who could shoot an arrow from a distance I couldn’t detect and only target the string of my mask. Sure enough, when I looked in the direction of the arrow far away, Mac Hyung was smiling and waving at me.
I looked at Uncle b.l.o.o.d.y and asked, "So what are you going to do?”
"Huh? What do you mean?" he didn"t understand and asked back.
I sighed and said, "Are you going to tell Father where I am?"
Uncle b.l.o.o.d.y’s face stiffened at my question.