Act 2-45 - A Certain Adventurer's Last Moment(Side : Childick)

Chapter 45 : A Certain Adventurer’s Last Moment(Side : Childick)

After the fight against Dean, Childick was currently running by himself in the demon labyrinth by relying on the pale light of the demon core embedded in his enchanted sword.

Though he managed to shake off Dean, he might not be able to do so if another adventurer came after him.

Anyhow, he was fully focusing on trying to get as far away as possible for now.

Childick stopped for a moment, he spit out saliva mixed with his own blood as he tried to stabilize his breathing.

After taking a few steps, and confirmed that there was no demon beast around, he leaned his back on the wall.

「This should be far enough for me…」

Childick spat out a curse as he pressed on the open wound on his chest, the wound he received from Dean.

「Even though he is just second rate adventurer… who just learned how to swing his sword.」

In the eyes of veteran adventurers like Childick, Dean’s last attack on his chest was a poor, unsightly attack.

There was no fool who would use such a large swing which could easily be countered within a real battle.

Though such a crude attack wasn’t something that he had to worry about, he couldn’t help but feel irritated since that same crude attack was the one that inflicted the wound on his chest.

「What a foolish idea, just because he can’t read my a-…」

Childick started coughing again before he managed to finish his sentence, and then, he readied his enchanted sword.

Childick started to feel that the demon labyrinth’s miasma was invading into his body from the wound on his chest.

In addition, he also felt a slight headache from inside his head, an early sign of miasma poisoning with each breath he took.

Thus he judged that he should use 《Airla》 as soon as possible to purify the miasma around him and ease his symptoms.

Moreover, the demon beast who lives in the labyrinth would feel uncomfortable when they came into contact with purified air.

For demon beasts who are compatible with miasma in underground labyrinths, purified air is also similar to weak poison to them.

Though that alone was far from enough to weaken a demon beast, it at least guaranteed some degree of safety for him since demon beasts tended to avoid areas with purified air.

「《Airla》！」

Childick raised his enchanted sword and chanted the aria.

Soon enough, a pale gray magic circle appeared in mid-air.

But then, the magic circle crumbled down as soon as it appeared, and vanished into the darkness of the demon labyrinth.

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「… Eh?」

This was the first time for Childick to experience such a phenomenon.

But, he did feel like something was missing right before he activate 《Airla》.

It felt like the odo that was supposed to be used for 《Airla》 was taken out from him.

「《Airla》… 《Airla》!」

Childick kept wasting his precious mana to create the magic circle that would soon crumble down.

But, the number of times he failed to activate the magic was equal to the number of his tries..

Color drained from his face.

Without his 《Airla》, it was only a matter of time before Childick died in the most painful way in the demon labyrinth.

It might be fine if the stairs toward the 3rd floor were closer.

But, he knew from his years of experience that he wouldn’t make it in time from his current position.

Since the wound on Childick’s chest had already shown the first symptoms of miasma poisoning.

The moment he noticed that he couldn’t use 《Airla》 anymore, he felt that the density of miasma around him inflated at once.

At the same time, the slight discomfort he felt because of miasma felt much more painful.

He couldn’t help but have such a misconception in this kind of situation.

Countless beads of sweat appeared on his face.

「I-Impossible… h-how… can… it be? why… did… I…?」

He really had no idea what was happening to himself.

He knew that there was some magic that could seal the target’s ability for a specific amount of time amongst the curse magic.

But then, he realized that there was no way a second rate adventurer like Dean mastered such high ranking magic.

But then, he guessed that Dean’s sword might have that kind of power.

He also felt somesort of discomfort when Dean’s last attack tore into his chest.

Childick noticed that Dean sword’s blade clad in somesort of strange magical power.

「D-Don’t joke around! Just what in the hell did he do to me!? Does that mean that fu(cking brat did his last attack with full awareness of its danger and was actually aiming for this last harassment!」

Childick shouted to the top of his lungs, completely forgetting about his surroundings.

「《Airla》！《Airla》！《Airla》！《Airla》！」

Even after he started coughing blood from his throat, Childick was still trying to activate airla.

But, it was futile, none of his attempts succeeded.

Soon enough, he felt the effect of miasma poisoning getting stronger, and he broke down and fell to his knees.

He started to feel a nauseating headache as he vomitted on the floor.

The headache became so unbearable to the point that his consciousness started to dim.

And then, he heard several footsteps coming in his direction.

「H-HIIII!」

Childick screamed as he twisted his body.

Was it the demon beast, or adventurers who he betrayed just now, he had no idea which one, either way, he was done for.

Because both the demon beast and his former comrades would surely be itching to kill him right now.

「Look at how pitiful you’ve become now, Childick.」

A light brought close to Childick’s face.

He felt that the symptoms of miasma poisoning were eased.

When he raised his face, he saw a burly man with a haughty and unshaven face, wearing a simple robe was walking toward him.

There were several other men wearing the same robe walking behind the burly man.

There was also the figure of an environmentalist who focused solely on purifying the air, and the one whose job was to hold the mana lamp.

「C-Canvia… Magus Officer Canvia! Thank goodness… I almost failed to recognize you since you’re not wearing the army uniform.」

「The army never comes to this place. You know what I mean right, Childick?」

Canvia was grinning as he asked Childick.

「In addition, can you stop talking to me with that overly familiar tone of yours? I’m different from the me when I was still an adventurer.」

「… S-Sorry, Magus Officer Canvia. I’m just really glad. I’ve never expected to be able to meet you here.」

Childick was bowing to Canvia.

The connection that Childick talked about was none other than Canvia.

He was a former adventurer, and acquainted with Childick during his adventurer’s era.

Rather than that, for the sake of making connections with a magus officer, Childick made a careful preparation to betray the adventurer as his tribute for entering the army.

「Tell me what happened. Keep it short, I don’t have that much patient.」

「Yesh…! The grey cultists were annihilated. Though only one of them left, I’m sure that last cultist had already died by now. After that… I’ve killed the only environmentalist left in the group aside from me. Now, those adventurers should’ve already died from miasma poisoning.」

「Hou, that’s the most ideal development we can hope for. With this, there’s no need for us to eliminate them.」

Their original plan was to annihilate the grey cultists who were weakened after their confrontation with the adventurers, and make it look like both sides were annihilated by the other party.

In that situation, the army wouldn’t even care even if the grey cultists were using their hostage’s as a shield.

Since it was also a fact that the adventurers were the one who came in first, the army planned to feign ignorance and dump the responsibility to the adventurers.

「… Now as promised, I’ll become a magus officer once this matter is settled, right?」

Childick asked timidly to Canvia.

「Uhm… ? Ah, that’s right. If you’re still alive until that time, that is.」

「What do you mean… Magus Officer Canvia?」

Canvia unsheathed his enchanted sword in silence.

The moment Childick realized what’s going to happen, he found that Canvia’s enchanted sword had already stabbed into his flank.

「C-Canvia, you ba—!」

Childick’s body fell with a thud when Canvia pulled his enchanted sword.

Canvia stooping down, brought his face closer to Childick who was already on the verge of death.

「You fool, letting you live will only cause inconvenience for us. You think we’re going to take a risk to protect you, hah?」

Canvia was grinning menacingly and standing up again after he confirmed Childick’s death.

The light of odo came out from Childick’s corpse, and went into Canvia’s body.

「Quite a lot odo you got there, it seems you raised your level very well.」

Though he sent one last glance after he kicked away Childick’s corpse, he turned around immediately without even sparing a second glance to it.

「So you’re not gonna retrieve his enchanted sword, magus officer Canvia?」

One of Canvia’s subordinates asked him.

「Yeah, it’s the direct instruction from magus assistant Malty after all. It seems he didn’t want to leave behind any trace of Childick entering the army. Now let’s get out of here, we’re gonna be in trouble if a stray adventurer saw our face.」

「Are you sure that you don’t need to confirm the situation of those adventurers?」

「That will only increase the risk of us being discovered by other adventurers. Even if we meet demon beasts along the way, just kill them quickly and leave as soon as possible. Magus’ assistant-sama even gave special instructions to finish our job as fast as possible. Now let’s go back and tell him that everything goes according to the plan.」

「Y-YES!」

Canvia’s subordinates then turned around to go back to the surface.

Leaving Childick’s corpse behind as the demon beast’s feed.