The elderly butler, Dominique, made a sudden dash for the castle gates without giving Jane any chance to stop him.
The guards, who had never even considered that an old man would draw a sword and charge towards the checkpoint, noticed him far too late.
As they hurriedly retreated inside their post, a group of suit-wearing individuals resembling Mafia members appeared where they had entered.
“It’s an ambush! Which family is this?!”
“Isn’t it the Paulo Family?!”
Looking at the old man unsheathing his sword and charging with no apparent context, it was a fact that inevitably came to mind.
If someone were to think, based solely on his appearance, that he was an invader from a neighboring territory come to enlighten the citizens, they would truly be suspected of serious delusion or prophecy.
The old man made no effort to correct their misunderstanding.
The suit-wearing individuals drew out muskets without any warning to surrender.
“Fire!”
The sight of Mafia members shooting muskets instead of machine guns caused Dominique slight cognitive dissonance, but since it wasn’t something he had never seen before, he didn’t appear disconcerted.
Amidst the sight of numerous gun barrels aimed at him, two options appeared in his mind.
One was to deflect the bullets.
This would be a sure way to display the butler’s formidable combat prowess.
However, showing it this early in the story would diminish the surprise factor later on.
‘Then…’
He decided to use the second method.
Bang!
About twenty gun barrels erupted, spewing white smoke.
In the prolonged gunshot, the old butler halted his charge and swiftly dodged to the side.
The bullets passed by his previous position, striking the ground with a dull thud.
This level of skill was something most superhumans could achieve.
When all the guns are aimed at you from a reasonable distance, it’s not even a feat worthy of mention for superhumans.
The butler charged again.
Among the soldiers, the capo (squad commander) issued a new command.
“Create a wide barrage! Reload! Fire!”
The foot soldiers followed the capo’s instructions and aimed for a wide area that would make it difficult to dodge.
But Dominique dodged the attacks by taking cover behind a tree.
With the wider range, the effectiveness in a smaller area was reduced, making this strategy feasible.
After another round of firing, Dominique continued his charge.
Just as the capo was about to order a third firing,
Swish!
A hatchet slicing through the air hit the capo’s head, and his body fell backward with a thud.
The musket soldiers instinctively turned their heads.
Their gaze lingered on the red pool staining the ground.
Even though this shocking scene only briefly made them forget their situation, as members of a crime organization somewhat accustomed to blood and death, they quickly snapped back to reality.
But as they did,
“Spilling others’ blood while being unfamiliar with your own, eh?”
The devil was already upon them.
– “Draw swords!”
Had the capo been alive, he would have given that order.
They dropped their muskets and reached for their swords.
However, before they could draw them, Dominique’s sword already passed through their wrists.
As the severed wrists flew into the air, the elderly butler continued without hesitation, muttering,
“Don’t call me cowardly. This is the only way for an old man to survive.”
Of course, there wouldn’t be anyone among these to listen and live, but it was a kind explanation of his character for the vigilant woman watching from the side.
Dominique spun around, creating a silver circle and slowly slashed forward.
He immediately left that spot, and the Mafia members surrounding him soon created fountains of blood.
The elderly butler who turned the checkpoint into a sea of blood returned to his group with a gentle smile and said,
“It’s sad that, being old and all, I have to resort to these tricks.”
To this, Jane, the vigilante, swallowed her saliva as she took in the sight of severed upper and lower halves of bodies.
‘What exactly was I fighting against?’
He wasn’t stronger than the tax officer.
The fighting ability of the tax officer she saw at the mansion would have caused a whirlwind of swords at the checkpoint, silencing everyone without a sound.
But this butler’s strength was of a different kind.
‘I could probably replicate it if asked to.’
Just thinking about it and executing it in a real battle is another matter altogether.
Jane called this ‘veteran skill.’
The old man exuded a hierarchy of stage three.
But his veteran ship was something that could scarcely be called a mere skill.
The strength of the tax officer was straightforward, making it possible to strategize against him, but the butler’s unpredictability made him all the more ominous.
Thinking as far as that, the old man’s gentle smile looked different.
It wasn’t detachment from the world, but confidence in his two swords that whatever happened, he would manage somehow.
‘Damn it. I underestimated him as a superhuman who was just old.’
In the group of superhumans who can slow down aging, catching up with old age indicates reaching the limit of talent.
Thus, as someone who underestimated the old butler,
‘It may not be that.’
He could just be an eccentric who has accepted aging.
She re-evaluated the old man.
‘Now that I think about it, he’s the escort from the regime that overthrew the Count of Kargonar.’
Originally, she had planned only to assassinate the officers of the Mafia coalition.
With this small group, eliminating the families and liberating the city was impossible.
But upon seeing the martial prowess of these two, she could no longer dismiss the idea.
‘Perhaps, with these two…’
Maybe it would be okay to pursue a little bit of luxury like justice.
The heart of the woman who had resigned herself to the bleak reality started beating again.
*
“Ugh-!”
The monkey-bodied (with slightly furry body) person let out a scream of absolute despair and fell to the ground.
He was a senior officer of the Mafia coalition and the boss of the <Skim Familia> that had ruled this city.
The crimson-haired elf Jane wiped the blood off her sword while panting.
“That’s one dealt with.”
Inside the boss’s room, she reviewed the recent battle.
His skills were almost on par with hers.
Had the two who had come with her not prevented the other officers from joining him, she might have lost against this opponent.
That way, she could take down one of the nine officers.
Yet, even after achieving revenge, her mood wasn’t particularly great.
‘This bastard… at the end…’
Their skills were similar.
Still, the reason she could win without injury was that this boss couldn’t focus on the fight, worrying about his underlings.
She bit her lips lightly as she looked down at the fallen boss’s corpse.
Even as he was dying, he was surely angry for a different reason.
– “My children!!!”
He genuinely considered his subordinates as family.
If that weren’t the case, his reluctance to use a fatal move up until his death, out of concern for getting the subordinates embroiled, wouldn’t have made sense.
She looked away darkly toward the hallway outside the room.
The corridor outside was filled with the corpses of the Mafia members.
Among the stack of corpses, the squint-eyed tax officer and the identity-unknown old butler were calmly conversing.
– “This will take quite some time to clean up.”
– “I fought too haphazardly. I’ll be more careful next time.”
– “No, butler sir. This level is something I can clean up with my magic.”
Their sight treating the human bodies as if they were mere trash was somewhat chilling.
But what made her feel even more uncomfortable was her awareness that these two had brought the henchmen nearby in purpose to seal the boss’s final powerful move.
Particularly, that old butler seemed to be watching the right timing. Whenever the boss tried to do something big, he would cleanly slice the head of a Mafia officer to a height visible and distract him.
“Hmph.”
Distasteful.
‘If this goes on, looks like I’m the villain.’
She thought so for a moment, but then shook her head and dismissed the thought.
‘Who am I to play the righteous hero?’
She dismissed her previous thought as hypocrisy and redefined her uneasiness.
‘That’s it. This is discomfort due to violating the agreement.’
It certainly wasn’t the lingering sense of justice in her heart.
As she sent a sneer toward herself who continued to pursue hypocrisy, she approached the two men.
The elderly butler greeted her with a gentle smile and handed her a handkerchief.
“Are you finished?”
“Next time, don’t interfere.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m not stupid.”
“…Sorry. I went beyond my place.”
“I’ll take the apology.”
She wiped the blood off her face with the handkerchief.
She handed the handkerchief back to the butler without even a glance at the tax officer who was cleaning the bodies with magic and headed towards the exit.
“Hmph…”
Pretending not to be tired while heading towards the exit and feigning strength, her footsteps gave a faint sense of impatience.
Right after killing the boss, she had reached an enlightenment. And she wanted to make this enlightenment her own in the privacy of the room.
Only, she feared that when this old butler realized she was about to ascend to a higher hierarchy, he might stab her in the back.
Her movement was stopped by an unexpected call from Dominique.
“Miss.”
“I’m not your miss.”
Aware of how unseemly she appeared but unwilling to correct her attitude,
But Dominique showed no signs of disliking and maintained his kind demeanor.
“Then, may I call you Lady?”
“Creepy.”
“Then, I’ll continue calling you Miss. Miss, did you realize an enlightenment just now?”
The woman, having her back to him until then, turned her head towards the old butler.
That alone served as a sufficient answer.
Her heart began to race.
Whether or not he understood her feelings, the elder butler gently reprimanded her,
“One should not use bloodlust as enlightenment.”
Clack.
Already annoyed, Jane became more so.
“Who the hell are you? A master?”
“Not quite. But as someone who has achieved nothing before aging, I thought I couldn’t stand by watching young people rushing towards a cliff.”
“Mind your business.”
“Hmm.”
Dominique quickly analyzed her.
Firstly, persuasion via authority and words like in Ari’s case would be ineffective.
Yet, it bothered him that the main character of the story might already be falling into corruption.
If this happens, wouldn’t he fail to play the role of the final boss of this story properly?
‘In that case…’
After organizing his thoughts, Dominique sighed deeply.
Immediately, a heavy killing intent emerged from the old man’s body.
‘What kind of elder…’
Jane’s body froze upon direct exposure to the killing intent.
Beyond the bloody killing intent, she even felt the illusion of dead people’s laments, as if they were telling her how many corpses this old man had piled up.
Through the shadows on his face and red glows in his eyes, what was there before her didn’t quite look like an old man anymore.
The monster’s voice that broke the silence,
“I don’t want to cut down a beast drunk with blood again.”
Could the profound regret felt in those words, which sounded more like a threat than a threat, really be an illusion?
She instinctively nodded her head.
As a vow not to seek enlightenment through bloodshed again.
Only then did the old man release the killing intent, return to his usual state, and straightened his attire.
“Miss, walking on a path filled with blood is sufficient with foolish elder people like me.”
The elderly butler smiled contentedly and returned to his master, the tax officer.
Jane couldn’t take her eyes off his retreating back for a long time.
