Chapter 54

◈ Chapter 54: The Red Snake in the Mud (1)

Ludger, or rather, Moriarty now, said something Dootry didn't know.

In this world, the first thing needed to survive was intuition.

Dootry immediately grasped the situation.

"Kill them all!"

Dootry's command was swift.

If Moriarty had come to eliminate them, there was no answer other than a full-scale fight, regardless of any deals.

Dootry's subordinates moved at his command.

They discarded their malfunctioning guns and drew daggers from their hands.

However, the situation wasn't that favorable. The lack of proper weapons due to the location had become a poison.

"Yaaaaah!"

"Die!"

But the opponent was a wizard.

Hesitation would mean death for this side.

If they all rushed in from all sides, there was a chance of winning.

Most importantly, the distance wasn't far, and Moriarty was sitting in the center of the bar, as if to show everyone.

Except for the black werewolf standing firmly behind him.

There were nearly 100 of them on this side.

"Of course."

Hans asked with his eyes as he watched the Red Society gang members rushing towards them from all sides.

What are you going to do now?

Hans was secretly impressed by the Red Society, who didn't run away despite the fear they might feel at the sight of him.

Loyalty? No, it was more like they were so full of venom that they would rush in and tear throats apart, no matter who the opponent was.

Just like the red snake that lives in the southern jungle.

The Red Society was made up of such creatures.

Ludger didn't answer Hans's question. Instead, he showed it through his actions.

Thud.

Ludger raised the cane in his hand and lightly tapped the ground.

At that moment, shadows began to swirl around the cane and spread throughout the bar.

"Wh-what?"

"What is this!"

The Red Society members were flustered by the shadows and tried to move, but their bodies wouldn't budge.

Or rather, their bodies moved, but they couldn't properly perceive it.

The darkness swallowed all the light inside the bar.

The shadows Ludger created were much darker and thicker than the alley outside without streetlights.

Complete darkness.

And in this darkness, only one person.

Ludger himself could move without any trouble.

"Kraaaah!"

"What! Ahh!"

"I can't see anything!"

Screams echoed in the darkness. They were all the final cries of the Red Society members.

Ludger had taken out a sword cane from his cane and quickly eliminated the members one by one.

"Please, spare me!"

"Boss! Help me! Boss!"

As the sounds of their comrades dying reached them, the remaining members couldn't keep their wits about them.

The fear of not being able to see anything.

And the sound of death approaching steadily, which they couldn't bear.

"Ugh! Die! Die!"

"Keh!"

"Here!"

Driven mad by fear, the members swung their weapons in all directions, unable to bear the terror.

And those weapons were aimed at their own comrades, and in an instant, the bar turned into a chaotic battle where they killed each other.

This wasn't just a simple spell.

More accurately, it was a complex spell that, after using darkness and shadows, implanted fear into the weakened minds of the opponents.

Manifestation-type elemental attribute.

Third-tier darkness magic.

[The Dream of the Fool]

It didn't work on those with strong mental fortitude or proper experts.

But in a space filled with low-level members, it had the greatest effect.

"Damn it! What are you doing! Stop them!"

Dootry clenched his teeth and shouted. Even though he couldn't see, his will wasn't shaken by such darkness.

He had something to rely on.

Following his command, two men who had been standing guard near Dootry moved.

Swish!

The two men swung their swords, and auras filled the blades, slicing through the magical darkness in a cross pattern.

Finally, the spell was dispelled, and light returned to the surroundings, revealing the bar in stark detail.

Dootry's lips trembled.

"Wh-what."

The bar was a chaotic mess, a scene of carnage.

Of the nearly 100 subordinates, fewer than 10 were still alive.

Even those few were covered in blood and riddled with wounds, almost on the verge of death.

Dootry's bloodshot eyes focused on Moriarty, who stood at the center of the carnage.

'Where did that wolf monster go? Where did it disappear to?'

The werewolf had vanished somewhere in the chaos, leaving only Moriarty.

Standing among the corpses, holding the sword cane, he looked like the Grim Reaper who appears just before death.

Despite the surroundings being drenched in blood, not a single drop had splattered on Moriarty.

The sight made Dootry's skin crawl involuntarily.

"Kill him!"

The moment Dootry's command fell, the two men moved.

One was a bulky man with a nearly shaved head, and the other was a slender man with long hair.

They split up and rushed towards Moriarty at a terrifying speed.

That speed was almost instantaneous.

An ordinary person would have allowed them to approach in the blink of an eye, and their necks would have been severed immediately.

Junior knights.

Though they hadn't become full knights, they possessed physical abilities far beyond those of ordinary people.

Not quite at the level of a full knight, but almost.

Stronger than an apprentice knight.

'They can't be underestimated.'

Not only had they split the spell he had cast earlier, but they also knew how to handle auras.

A level almost on par with a full knight.

A gap in their defenses that could be overlooked was nonexistent.

Ludger took a step back and dropped a vial under his feet.

Boom!

The vial exploded, and a purple smoke spread out.

"Poison!"

The long-haired knight stepped back to protect Dootry. After all, if the boss died, it was all over.

The bulky man surrounded himself with an aura to resist the potential poison.

At that moment, throwing stars pierced through the smoke.

Clang!

The bulky man calmly swung his sword and deflected all the throwing stars.

Though the attack came suddenly, he deflected them all with his transcendent reflexes.

But he had overlooked something.

Among the deflected throwing stars were poison vials.

Boom!

The poison from the exploded vials splashed onto his arm.

"Kraaaah!"

Sizzle!

No matter how much aura he generated, he couldn't easily block the poison that came into direct contact with his skin.

What Ludger had thrown was closer to a chemical agent that dissolved everything rather than a poison that reacted inside the body.

Without a shield-level aura to protect his body, he couldn't block it.

"Damn it!"

In an instant, the bulky man lost the use of one arm and swung his remaining arm at the purple smoke, his eyes filled with murderous intent.

Swish!

A large sword wind swept through, tearing the smoke apart.

The bulky man, who was about to pursue Ludger, was puzzled when he couldn't see him.

"Where is he?"

"Be careful! Below!"

At that moment, a colleague watching from behind gave a warning, but it was already too late.

Thud!

Ludger's sword cane, which had suddenly burst out of the shadow below, pierced through the bulky man's jaw and protruded from his forehead.

"A wizard doesn't avoid close combat."

Ludger said this while pulling the sword cane out of the corpse.

The bulky man's body wobbled and then collapsed to the side.

The reason for their defeat was that they thought a wizard would keep his distance and prepare the next spell.

Thus, Ludger was able to exploit their weaknesses and secure a quick victory.

The long-haired man clenched his teeth, having been forced to watch his comrade's death.

"You. What the hell are you?"

"I already told you. Professor James Moriarty."

"There couldn't have been rumors about a wizard fighting like this. It's also strange that there was no news about you for several years. Were you hiding your identity?"

"Do I have an obligation to tell you? You're about to die."

Ludger mocked the long-haired man and sneered at Dootry over his shoulder.

Dootry's face turned pale.

"K-kill him! Kill that guy! Earn your pay!"

One of the two main forces of the Red Society had fallen. Now, he could only rely on this long-haired man to protect him.

The long-haired man clicked his tongue and sized up the situation.

From Ludger's actions, which had killed his comrade, it was clear that he had extensive combat experience.

From psychological warfare to exploit weaknesses to not hesitating in close combat despite being a wizard.

There was nothing to overlook.

"Are you not going to attack?"

"Will you let me retreat?"

"Hey!"

Dootry's face turned ashen as he shouted.

"Are you betraying me now?!"

"Betrayal or not, look at this. A guy with similar skills to me couldn't even put up a fight. You want me to fight that monster?"

"I paid you!"

"That money isn't more valuable than my life."

"Twice! No, three times! Including the share for your dead friend! Kill him!"

Given that he usually received a lot of money, the offer of three times his usual pay was tempting.

Three times? That was worth a try.

He had already seen how Ludger fought.

Fights were about understanding the opponent's methods and reading their moves.

If brute force didn't work, the priority was to induce complacency and exploit weaknesses.

Ludger had fought that way.

If he was careful, he could manage.

At that moment, Ludger pulled out a gun from his waist and fired at him.

Clang! Clang!

"Ugh!"

He deflected the two bullets with his sword. But the sensation in his hand felt strange.

Not bullets. Rather, they were closer to magic-infused projectiles...

'Magic bullets? This is insane. To use something like this...'

It was definitely not the kind of behavior he expected from a wizard. While eccentric wizards sometimes did strange things, this was completely beyond reason.

At that moment, Ludger fired another magic bullet.

The long-haired man, who had deflected it with his sword, realized he couldn't maintain the distance and charged forward.

Ludger took another step back.

The speed at which the long-haired man, a junior knight, pursued was much faster, but Ludger had already dropped another vial under his feet.

'Will I fall for the same trick I just saw?'

He had already figured out Ludger's fighting style.

That vial was for spreading a poisonous mist. The long-haired man swung his sword before it could activate.

He intended to cut it before it could activate.

But his face soon contorted.

'My sword...!'

When he cut the vial, a sticky liquid splashed out, fixing his sword to the ground.

He tried to free his sword by surrounding it with an aura, but a few seconds of hesitation occurred.

Ludger aimed the gun at his forehead.

'If I can't block it, I'll dodge!'

With his reflexes, he could dodge a bullet just by seeing the opponent pull the trigger.

So, he focused intently on Ludger, but suddenly felt a burning pain in his abdomen and had to look down.

"Huh?"

A black spear-like object had pierced through his stomach.

With great effort, he turned his head to see a spear emerging from his shadow, piercing through his back and into his abdomen.

"How... how did you...?"

Weren't the spells used by wizards typically activated centered around the caster?

Did he cast a spell and then rotate it to attack from behind?

No, he would have noticed if that were the case. He hadn't taken his eyes off Ludger.

Then, there was only one possibility.

This spell was, literally, activated from a different direction to target him.

"I've never heard of such a thing..."

Bang!

Ludger's magic bullet pierced his forehead.

In the end, the two junior knight-level forces were killed by Ludger without leaving a single scratch on him.

Dootry, who had watched the entire scene from beginning to end, slumped to the ground, his face like he had met the Grim Reaper.

Thud. Thud.

Ludger slowly approached Dootry and looked down at him.

His face, illuminated from behind, was obscured by shadows.

"But then."

However, it was clear that he was smiling at him.

"Let's finish the unfinished conversation."