Chapter 53

After parting ways with Dick and the others, Cody headed alone to the Purple Scorpion Inn on 5th Street.

Compared to 12th Street, where the Silver Aquarius Inn is located, it shouldn't be such a bad area, but among the twelve guilds, the Purple Scorpion Inn is known to have the most members with a tendency towards evil. This made Cody feel skeptical.

However, when he actually asked about the location of the Purple Scorpion Inn, his perception changed significantly. It was in a residential area, but the building was disguised as a regular house for camouflage, with its headquarters located underground.

(If they had nothing to hide, they wouldn't have a guild underground. Maybe from the beginning, there were people with dark secrets among the guild masters.)

Cody's objective was to free the guild master who was being controlled by a collar.

The highest-ranked adventurer in the Purple Scorpion Inn is S-rank, and Cody was confident he could incapacitate all of them without a scratch.

However, it would be better to avoid being discovered until he reached the guild master. Suppressing the urge to storm in and take control, Cody went around to the back of the building.

There were guard animals in the compound, and as Cody tried to go around to the back, two large wolves leaped in front of him. The Purple Scorpion Inn, indeed, had trained wolves instead of dogs for guard duty.

(I like dogs, but wolves... well, they're a bit scary.)

"Growl!"

"Yow!"

The two massive wolves, with the appearance of hungry beasts, drooled as they lunged at Cody. To thwart their attack, Cody raised his right hand and performed a high-speed incantation to summon a light sword spirit.

--- Flashes of Light ---

"Yelp!"

The light flickered in front of them, and the wolves were taken aback, writhing on the ground. Cody then chose a magic sword from the ones brought by the sword spirit that could incapacitate the wolves without killing them and released its power.

--- Magic Sword Release: Bell Chime ---

He summoned a magic sword shaped like a tuning fork and released a sound that put living beings to sleep. If Dick were here, this technique wouldn't have been necessary, but Cody had been studying magic swords to catch up with Dick's versatility.

The wolves, who tried to get up, sat down and lay still, showing their fluffy bellies. Seeing them, Cody smiled.

"Even in that state, they look cute. Any animal, really."

Cody then tried to make the people inside the building fall asleep as well, but the sound was blocked by the walls. While confirming the properties of the sound magic sword and checking that there were no traps on the back door, Cody inserted a 'Light Sword' into the gap of the door and silently cut the lock.

If he opened the door even a little, Cody could project light controlled by the sword spirit into the room and understand the internal structure from its reflection.

(If I couldn't use this method, traveling with Dick would have been too risky.)

The reason there were no accidents, like encountering Dick while he was changing at the inn, was because Cody always knew Dick's location within the inn. Although he felt guilty, Cody couldn't let Dick know his true identity at the time.

At first, Dick seemed aloof and hard to read. Cody, who had never interacted with a man of similar strength, was overly cautious, but he now regrets it.

What he learned from traveling together was that Dick was incredibly kind to women. No matter how capricious the other three were, Dick would accept everything, even if he seemed reluctant. Watching him, Cody felt like he wanted to retract his belief that men couldn't be trusted.

(Am I being superficial? Maybe I'm just relieved that I can finally stop hiding my true self. It's so selfish, it makes me feel bad.)

When he invited Dick to train, it was because they were friends. However, it wasn't absolutely necessary for Dick to keep his promise.

Why did he insist on it? The more he thought about it, the more Cody couldn't stop wondering if he should have revealed his true identity, when Dick had noticed, and if he should confront him.

Shaking his head, Cody entered the building. The back door led to a kitchen, but there were no food supplies. It was just a facade to look like a regular house; inside, it lacked any sense of life and smelled of mold. Cody guessed that only the areas for receiving visitors from outside were properly maintained.

Unable to tolerate the moldy smell, Cody envied Dick's iron mask, which could cover his mouth, and took out a handkerchief to cover his own mouth. Smiling wryly at how he looked like a thief, he waited for a man to pass by and then grabbed him from behind when his back was turned.

"Ugh..."

"It would be easier if you didn't move. Were you about to check on the wolves outside? They're sleeping outside."

Realizing he was completely overpowered, the man gave up resisting. Cody pulled out the short dagger with poison on it from the man's belt, threw it, and destroyed it with a 'Light Sword.'

"...!?"

The man was shocked but couldn't make a sound. He couldn't see the speed of light; he could only see the weapon burn where it was thrown—Cody's 'Light Sword' could be modified to emit a heat beam, which he called 'Light Heat Beam,' capable of slicing through metal like butter and burning objects.

The short dagger, now on the floor, had melted and lost its original shape. The man, accustomed to rough work, trembled in fear.

"Using poison on weapons is prohibited outside the capital, except for exterminating harmful beasts. Do you have any explanation?"

"...Gaaaah!"

In a final act of defiance, the man struggled and tried to break free from Cody's hold—Cody, however, restrained him and, reluctantly, dislocated his shoulder.

Before the man could cry out, Cody struck his neck with a chop, as he had been taught by Dick. The man collapsed on the spot.

(I guess I'm not cut out for infiltration missions... I can't be as smooth as Dick.)

"Hey, what's going on... Gah!"

Intending to handle things quietly, Cody found himself facing more enemies. He used 'Flashes of Light' on the approaching enemies and then 'Bell Chime' to incapacitate them, just like with the wolves.

He woke one of the unconscious men by slapping his cheek and asked about the entrance to the basement. It turned out to be a scorpion statue in the hallway—Cody knocked the man out again after getting the information.

The guild member had a short dagger with poison, and it showed signs of frequent use. This suggested that the guild was a group of murderers.

Cody, however, thought it was unbecoming of a knight to feel that way, but he couldn't help feeling like he was bullying the weak, even when he held back against such vicious opponents.

(Maybe one of the reasons Dick formed a guild was because of this.)

Cody, now leading subordinates, had fewer opportunities to fight himself. He had found it boring, but now he realized how fortunate he had been.

To enter the basement, Cody rotated the stinger part of the scorpion statue embedded in the hallway wall. The wall split open, revealing a staircase leading down.

Several enemies appeared as he descended the stairs, and Cody drew his sword for the first time. It was just a regular sword, not a magic sword, and he relied on pure sword skills to defeat the enemies. They wielded various weapons—chains, mountain knives, mechanical bows, and blow darts—but Cody ordered the sword spirit to 'Auto Counter' and used light beams to intercept projectiles while focusing on close combat, eliminating each enemy one by one.

(The enemies on the first floor didn't talk during combat... maybe this is what a group of assassins is like.)

Despite the silent, relentless attacks, Cody defeated nearly twenty enemies. Finally, he reached the last room.

The air had already been stagnant above ground, but it was even more oppressive underground. Cody, not letting his guard down, activated the mechanism to open the door to the last room.

The heavy iron door, operated by gears, opened to the sides. As Cody entered, someone descended from the ceiling and immediately swung a weapon at him.

"--- Die."

Pure, unadulterated killing intent. The weapon aimed at Cody's back was a claw coated with poison.

But Cody's form distorted and disappeared. In the dim room, three Cody figures appeared.

--- Illusions. But they were far more detailed than the illusions created by ordinary illusion magic. For Cody, who could manipulate light freely, it was easy to control the light entering the enemy's eyes and create multiple images of himself.

The guild master, wearing a tattered purple cloak and bandages covering his entire body, including his face, had a collar around his neck. Cody recognized it.

He hadn't treated the wounds he sustained in the battle with Clive Garland. Cody felt pity, though he didn't know the circumstances.

"It must have been hard. You don't need to fight to this extent anymore."

Ignoring the persuasion, the guild master lunged at Cody, swinging his claws from a low stance.

But Cody's light illusions weren't that easy to fool.

Manipulating the light entering the enemy's eyes—controlling the field of vision meant completely disorienting the sense of direction. Even if the enemy aimed at the sound, they would attack in the opposite direction.

The claws swung through the air, and in that instant, they were severed at the base. The collar controlling the guild master's will was also cut.

Cody had summoned and swung a 'Light Sword' for a moment—to show respect to the guild master who had dared to attack him.

"Rest now. When you wake up, you'll have to atone for your actions."

The last magic sword Cody chose was 'Bell Chime.' The guild master had no equipment to block sound—although it would be expected for an assassin, the collar had likely prevented him from using his knowledge. Cody had made this judgment.

The guild tag, cut along with the collar, fell to the ground. Cody picked it up and confirmed that it read 'Master Thief'—indicating that the guild master had once been a master adventurer, completing tasks and accumulating achievements.

Seeing the guild master, who had fallen into such a state, Cody realized that the Adventurer's Guild must always focus on 'adventures.' It shouldn't become a place where people hire others for their selfish desires.

Would Dick understand this? Cody believed he would listen—trusting this, Cody picked up the severed collar and left the Purple Scorpion Inn.

He also thought of something else he wanted to ask Dick.

Not a quest to defeat a demon king, but a 'true adventure' with Dick and the others. Realizing that, despite being recognized as an SSS-rank adventurer, he had never truly experienced an adventurer's life, Cody decided to take a substantial leave to do so.

--- However, at that moment.

"---!"

Cody sensed that Dick and Miralca were in combat through the communication magic device, a magic stone earring, given to him by Dick.

Unbelievably, they weren't overwhelming their opponents—they seemed to be in an evenly matched battle.

Cody decided to leave the aftermath of the Purple Scorpion Inn to the Silver Aquarius Inn's guild members and his subordinates in the knight order and rushed to Dick and the others. To the headquarters of the largest guild in the capital, located on 1st Street.