Chapter 58

Temper 13 - Chapter 5

Damian was merely walking down the road. He didn’t recall doing anything that could be criticized.

However, the farmers suddenly blocked his path and asked who he was. Their attitude was far from reasonable.

Feeling puzzled, Damian soon came up with a plausible guess.

‘They must dislike me because I’m an otaku.’

Damian’s weapons were engraved with all sorts of phrases.

The phrases, written in golden cursive, formed a strikingly harmonious contrast with the white weapons, making them look very cool.

However, upon closer inspection of the content, one would realize that they were far from cool.

I love Rin Chan, Isabel Chan is beautiful, Luna Chan is cute, Rebecca’s daughter forever, and so on.

The content was nothing but cringeworthy and childish.

People who found this distasteful and started arguments with him were not few.

In both reality and games, otakus were targets of hatred and ridicule.

But Damian did not yield.

He wanted to freely express his love and affection for Rebecca’s daughters.

He couldn’t understand why purely and passionately loving someone should be criticized.

“I am a holy knight of the Rebecca Sect. Why are you asking who I am?”

Damian’s attitude was cold.

One of the farmers smiled.

“You don’t seem like an ordinary holy knight.”

Damian felt indignant.

“Right! I’m not an ordinary holy knight, but an otaku holy knight! So what! Do you want to hit me for no reason!”

“Otaku? I don’t know what that is. Anyway, would you like to challenge me? The holy power emanating from you stands out among all the holy knights and priests I’ve met, and it piques my interest.”

“Oh dear.”

Damian finally understood the situation.

These farmers weren’t picking a fight because he was an otaku; they were just crazy.

While their keen eye for his powerful holy power was commendable, a farmer challenging a holy knight to a duel was beyond nonsensical.

‘They are seriously crazy.’

Damian felt pity for the farmers. He sincerely prayed.

“May the Goddess of Light bless these poor people…”

A moment later.

After finishing his prayer in a reverent posture, Damian bid farewell to the farmers.

“May the protection of Goddess Rebecca help you regain your senses. Farewell.”

Damian didn’t look back. He didn’t want to deal with those crazy farmers any longer and hurried towards the city gate.

‘I must meet Lord Grid as soon as possible.’

He would ask Grid to seal the Lance of Raphael.

Although it was questionable whether the greedy Grid would readily agree to his request.

‘Even if it means giving away all my wealth, I will save Isabel Chan.’

He would even offer his soul for her.

Just as he reaffirmed this resolve,

Boom!

A sound like an explosion caught his attention, and he turned to see a hoe flying towards him.

“Huh?”

Clear intent to kill.

Overwhelming momentum.

If he didn’t block it, he would be seriously injured.

Sensing this instinctively, Damian hastily drew his shield.

Clang!

The mud-covered hoe collided with the pure white shield, generating a powerful shockwave that shook the surrounding wheat fields.

Damian was astonished.

‘So strong!’

The attack was unbelievable.

To think that a mere hoe could make him, the top holy knight of the Rebecca Sect, feel a chill down his spine!

While he was in a state of confusion, the farmer who had thrown the hoe was taking off his straw hat.

He was an NPC named Piauro.

Holding a sickle in one hand and a hoe in the other, as if they were swords, he wore an amused expression.

“Excellent defense. I will have to use the Unpaid Sword Technique against you.”

Piauro was excited.

After Duke Grid, the members of the Temper Team, and Crowell, now this Damian.

The presence of such powerful opponents within reach excited him.

‘Should I take this as seriously as I did with Crowell?’

When he faced Duke Grid at the waterfall in Rolan.

At that time, Piauro was not in a sound mental state and could not fully demonstrate his skills, nor did the situation require him to use his full power.

However, over the past few months with Duke Grid, Piauro had emotionally stabilized and could now fully display his skills.

“Let’s start the duel.”

“I don’t want to!”

Damian immediately refused. He didn’t want to engage in a meaningless fight.

But Piauro was insistent.

“To enter Raydan, you must defeat me.”

“What nonsense!”

Damian was flabbergasted.

A city where a farmer acted as the gatekeeper was unheard of.

Another farmer, who had been standing silently, whispered to Piauro.

“Handle him appropriately and then pass him to me. I also want to fight him.”

It was Crowell.

He had been working in the fields and training with Piauro for about a month.

Their relationship had grown closer, and he had become significantly stronger.

Now, when he fought Piauro, he could reduce Piauro’s health to half.

Even such a formidable opponent was looking forward to fighting Damian.

Despite being shunned by everyone and being a holy knight of the Rebecca Sect, Damian had risen to the second position in the holy knight rankings.

However, he had suddenly disappeared from the rankings, leading to rumors that he had obtained a hidden class.

Damian was so famous that Crowell had been following his news with interest.

But Damian himself was unaware of his fame. He was only interested in Rebecca’s daughters and indifferent to himself.

In any case, this famous person was now in a life-or-death situation.

The continent’s strongest swordsman, Piauro.

The pinnacle of 200 million users, Crowell.

He was destined to fight them one after another.

***

The Ice Flower Guild is one of the seven major guilds.

It has 30 members.

Though small in number, all 30 are elite, ranking within the top 100 mages.

Especially, the guild master, Bongdre, was an overwhelming powerhouse.

He was the undisputed number one mage and had been 11th in the overall rankings just a month ago.

Although his ranking had dropped to 17th due to the Temper Team, no one could deny his strength.

Well, except for Grid.

During the National Competition, Grid had logged Bongdre out in just 4 seconds.

But that was then, and this is now.

After the humiliation in the National Competition, Bongdre had been striving to obtain S-rank spells.

He had poured all his wealth, time, and effort into it.

As a result, Bongdre was now incomparably stronger than during the National Competition.

He possessed no less than three S-rank spells.

He planned to thoroughly avenge himself against Grid in the second National Competition, to be held in his homeland, France, nine months later.

“I’ll log you out in just 3 seconds this time.”

But before that,

“I’ll destroy your fiefdom today.”

Raydan, where that damn Grid is the lord.

He would turn the empty place into a wasteland today.

He would devastate, brutally and perfectly, the city that Grid had painstakingly developed over the past few months.

“I’ll crush it! Hahaha!”

“You’re having a relapse.”

The guild members, who had been muttering to themselves, looked at their master with pity as he burst into maniacal laughter.

After the National Competition, the master’s condition had deteriorated. They missed his former self.

“What? What’s that?”

A strange forest formed by unknown thorny vines.

Once they passed through here, they would be in the western part of the Eternia Kingdom, and the desert would soon be in sight.

Thinking this, the Ice Flower Guild members quickened their pace, but then they stopped.

They saw a crowd of several hundred people blocking the narrow path through the forest.

“Refugees, perhaps?”

“What terrible timing.”

They were close to Raydan, but the presence of about 900 refugees was delaying their march, causing the Ice Flower Guild members to become irritated.

“Should we just kill them all?”

Bongdre, with a scowl, casually suggested a terrifying idea.

The guild members, horrified, tried to calm him down.

“If we kill that many people, our infamy will skyrocket. We won’t be able to play the game normally for a while.”

“Come on, Master. Please calm down.”

“Damn it! Damn it! Damn it! I want to destroy Raydan right now!”

“Look! We can fly!”

Bongdre, who had lost his mind in front of his arch-nemesis’s empty house, was being calmed by the guild members.

They used the Fly spell and ascended into the sky.

“Let’s fly until we’re out of the forest. How about it? It’s fine, right?”

After the guild members spoke again, Bongdre finally regained his composure.

“Hmm… Alright. It’s a waste of mana, but it’s better than killing them all.”

Poof.

As Bongdre followed the guild members and used the Fly spell, a hand suddenly emerged from the thorny vines and snatched one of the guild members.

“…Huh?”

The Ice Flower Guild members were confused.

An alert window appeared in their field of vision.

[Guild member Ren has died.]

“What!”

“What the hell!”

What kind of dog situation is this?

Bongdre aimed a spell at the direction where the unknown hand had emerged.

“Who the hell are you!”

Crack!

A high-speed ice bomb rapidly cooled and then destroyed the thorny vines.

The dead body of Ren came into view.

‘The enemy is…?’

He had to find the one who killed Ren.

Bongdre and the guild members were on high alert, but they couldn’t detect any presence.

Thud!

“Ah!”

[Guild member Silver has died.]

Bongdre and the guild members’ faces turned pale.

Even though their comrade standing right next to them had been killed, they still couldn’t detect the enemy. It felt like they were under a spell.

‘An assassin.’

An assassin so stealthy that even Bongdre, at level 303, couldn’t detect them, and strong enough to instantly kill mages in the late 200s.

Yes, like Faker…

‘Faker?’

The thought made Bongdre’s spine chill.

‘No way.’

Could it really be Faker?

If it was!

Bongdre urgently shouted.

“We can’t stay here! Get out of the forest immediately!”

An assassin is a counter to mages.

Mages, with their low health, defense, and agility, have no way to handle an assassin who relies on speed.

Especially in a place with many obstacles and darkness, it’s even more dangerous. They needed to move to an open area.

The Ice Flower Guild members used Haste to increase their movement speed and tried to leave the forest.

But the dark reaper had no intention of letting them go.

The divine-level throwing knife technique began toying with the mages.