Chapter 58: You Owe Me One

Then, Ned...

"Die!" Three blade fragments held between slender fingers traced a silvery crescent moon in mid-air. With a sneer, Banny launched a vicious strike. Yet, whether intentional or accidental, fierce though his movements were, they were far from fast—at least much slower than when he had previously traded blows with Caron.

In Ned's mind, those fragments of the past instantly ground to a halt. A bitter smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, and he suddenly felt a flicker of annoyance. It seemed that death truly granted one a little extra time before its arrival, but never quite enough to make peace with the world.

[Forget it, I'm already exhausted anyway. Let's just leave it at this...]

Ceasing all further thought, the man who had labored in the fields, worked as a handyman, served as a mercenary, and spent his final years as a squad leader in the Marshall Autonomous Militia spread his arms wide, preparing to embrace death.

However, the bashful Lady of Death did not immediately favor him...

A soft chime rang out from his side. Realizing he was still breathing, Ned opened his eyes just in time to see Crab’s grime-covered, broad face grinning foolishly right before him.

The dark-skinned orc was half-crouched in front of Ned, his right hand hidden behind his back. The short-handled battle-axe he had replaced just two days prior bore three shallow gouges, having successfully intercepted the crescent silver blade that would have otherwise cleaved through Ned's neck and ripped open his chest.

"Captain," Crab smacked his lips, "does this count as you owing me one?"

"You!" Ned’s eyes reddened, his face turning ashen as he roared, "Get lost! This is none of your business right now!"

Crab remained silent, but Banny off to the side was grinning broadly. He gave the ground a light tap with his foot, and a concealed blade snapped out from the toe of his left leather boot. Without another word, he delivered a side kick straight toward Ned’s temple, his movements still appearing unhurried...

The outcome was entirely predictable.

A deep blue figure dropped out of thin air, colliding leg-to-leg with Banny in a head-on impact, and hauled Ned behind him with a jerk as he used the momentum to leap backward.

"Salazar!" Ned gritted his teeth as he stared at the lizardman monk standing half a head taller than an average elf, his voice trembling slightly. "Why did you too..."

Salazar, standing with his back to him, did not turn his head. He merely kept a wary gaze locked on the grinning Banny not far away, raised a hand to give Ned a thumbs-up, pointed from Ned to himself, and then raised a single index finger.

It was a very simple gesture. Ned, who in the past had always enjoyed teaching squad members mercenary hand signs just to show off, naturally understood its meaning...

[You owe me one~]

Yet today, Salazar was the one getting to show off!

"Well done, little lizard!" Banny chuckled, casually flicking the silver blade from between his fingers toward the three figures ahead. "Try this one next~"

Yet those three arcs of light had barely flown half a meter before being blasted off course by three feathered arrows that suddenly materialized from another direction. Not far away, Silverna crouched on the ground, still maintaining the pose of drawing her bowstring. She blinked at the trio and said, "You can't hog all the spotlight. Captain, you owe me one too. You'll have to take me out on a date later~"

"Ha!" Crab burst into sudden, roaring laughter. "He said it! Silverna, you lass finally said it after all!"

Salazar glanced somewhat in surprise at the bulky orc beside him. "You knew she had a crush on the captain?"

"Tsk tsk, I might be a bit slow on the uptake, but I'm no fool!" Crab cast a teasing glance at the Ned behind him, then shifted his gaze back to Banny, shouting in a deep voice, "I might not understand the big picture, and my brain might not bend that way, but... who likes who in this squad, who’s putting on a false front, and who treats me well—those things I damn well know!"

"Shut your mouth!"

"Who are you calling a false front?!"

Silverna and Salazar shouted in unison.

"Bastards!" Ned shoved hard against the two companions shielding him, but lacking strength due to his injuries, he could only roar at the unyielding orc and lizardman, "I order you to get out of here immediately!"

Banny did not press the attack, simply standing his ground with arms crossed, wearing the expression of a spectator enjoying a good show.

Yet the two of them, who would normally have obeyed no matter how much of a bastard they were being, showed no intention whatsoever of following their captain's orders this time...

Salazar ignored him entirely.

Crab merely curled his lip, glanced back, and muttered, "Boss Ned, you're already a traitor now, and there's no way you can keep being captain anyway, so it shouldn't matter if I disobey orders, right?"

"Silverna!" Ned shook his head, gritting his teeth as he called out to the elven girl in the distance who was pulling another arrow from her quiver. "Tell them to..."

"Don't be ridiculous." Silverna shrugged, turning instead to smile at the perpetually silent Shuang Ye and Mo Tan. "You two rookies who've barely joined for two days, get out of here now~ Do us a favor and keep the Fenrir unit's registry alive."

Of course, she knew the Fenrir registry could no longer be saved. Treason and desertion were absolute taboos at any time, let alone when Ned, proven to be a traitor, was the captain himself. The only reason Silverna said this was to give Mo Tan and Shuang Ye an excuse to leave of their own accord without feeling too guilty about it.

As for herself...

"From your human perspective," Silverna smiled faintly, "I've lived for nearly three lifetimes already, so dying here isn't a loss at all~"

Although from an elven perspective, she was currently just barely of age...

Still, Silverna gave those thoughts no further mind.

Mo Tan remained silent, pushing his brain to its absolute limits, desperately searching for a way to let everyone escape unscathed.

And Shuang Ye...

"Alright!" She nodded immediately, placing her hands behind her back and smiling at Banny. "I suppose I can leave, right? Just like this elf said, I'm merely a rookie who just joined the Fenrir squad a few days ago. You won't stop me, will you?"

Banny raised an eyebrow in mild surprise before breaking into an amused smile. "Very well. If you want to cut ties with them, of course there's no problem. Go back to the temporary camp and wait there."

Mo Tan froze slightly, then looked at Shuang Ye with an expression of sheer disbelief...

[Is she really thinking that? If I were her... no, if I were in a chaotic neutral state...]

"Uh, sorry, I'm a bit turned around." Shuang Ye scratched her head and pointed to the south. "Is the temporary camp that way?"

Banny rolled his eyes.

[No, that's not right, she should...]

"No, wait~" Shuang Ye shook her head in apparent distress, then pointed behind Banny. "So it's this way then?"

The latter shook his head impatiently. "Are you an idiot? The camp is..."

Boom—!!!

Red light flared abruptly!

Two massive crimson pentagrams appeared simultaneously right in front of Shuang Ye and behind Banny. With a blinding flash of light, a surging crimson radiance erupted practically grazing Banny's back, a pillar of light shooting straight into the sky that completely swallowed him whole in a split second!

"And they're just a bunch of A.I. after all..." Shuang Ye glared fiercely at Silverna and the others, muttering under her breath, "Trying to give this young lady orders! Humph!"

In the hand she had just pointed toward Ned, a small red scroll slowly disintegrated into wisps of ash.

[Magic Scroll: Crimson Pentagram • Cascading Great Red Lotus]
Category: One-time consumable
Quality: Excellent (?)
Requirement/Restrictions: Mage class, Intelligence 15, sufficiently wild imagination
Usage: Consume 200 mana to activate the scroll, creating elemental magic circles simultaneously in front of the caster and at a designated target direction within field of vision. The caster must channel mana to activate the nine mana hubs of the cascading circles, after which the corresponding main spell will erupt with a fiery elemental flash, dealing massive fire damage to all units in a linear path.
[Remarks: This scroll was hidden in an obscure corner. The magic sealed upon it does not seem to be a conventional fire spell, but rather a derivative magic born from arranging elements in an extremely unorthodox sequence. It defies explanation through knowledge and experimentation, nor can it be copied or replicated by any means. The signature at the bottom of the scroll reads: MDZZ. The archmage who first discovered it clearly could not comprehend this unprecedented lettering, and thus, lacking instructions for use, discarded it as the prank of some apprentice.]

"What are you staring at!" Shuang Ye noticed everyone looking at her in sheer horror, and shouted with a slightly flushed face, "Run! That hit might not necessarily kill him! And there's only one scroll like that!!"

As mentioned earlier, Shuang Ye had acquired several magic scrolls from the Slate City Mage Guild, most of which were given by her cheap mentor. However, one of them was something Shuang Ye had picked up herself from some out-of-the-way nook—namely, the magic scroll of the [Crimson Pentagram • Cascading Great Red Lotus] just used. Unlike NPCs, Shuang Ye as a player could view the item descriptions, so she had pocketed it without a second thought.

Never had she expected to actually use it this time...

However, even a scroll described as dealing 'massive' fire damage might not necessarily finish off Banny directly. After all, his strength completely surpassed the scope of what anyone present could currently handle. Thus, even with a successful sneak attack, Shuang Ye harbored no great certainty; she suspected Banny was very likely to survive, and perhaps might not even be all that heavily injured!

Unfortunately... she guessed correctly.

Just as the group was turning to flee back to Fireclaw Ridge under Shuang Ye's direction, Banny's figure materialized once again in the field of view of the six.

"Very good, very good." Looking seemingly unharmed, Banny gently clapped his hands and smiled at the six. "Very touching, very nice. Now I have more than enough reasons to kill every single one of you."

In truth, that was his intention from the very outset. If Banny had truly wanted to kill Ned from the start, a single intervening Crab could never have stopped him, nor could Salazar and Silverna.

His three attacks—using less than one-tenth of his power and intentionally slowed down—were merely bait to draw the others into action, all to engineer this exact scenario...

Yet Banny had miscalculated one thing!

Shuang Ye!

He might have anticipated that the girl had no genuine intention of staying out of it, but he never expected that initial attack to be so terrifying. The spell triggered by that scroll had very nearly cost him his life!!

Yes, he had nearly frozen... well, nearly charred to a crisp. Although he looked completely unscathed, only Banny himself knew what he had just lost...

It certainly wasn't something worthless like his integrity. In fact, a crucially important magical item had shattered—one he had originally reserved in case of a rainy day when fighting Caron!

Let us shift perspectives to examine the magical item Banny had just broken:

[Living Shadow Amulet]
Category: One-time consumable
Quality: Epic
Requirement/Restrictions: None
Passive Effect: Generates a shadow possessing all vital signs, intercepting a single attack that would otherwise kill you and rendering it null.
[Remarks: This dark purple amulet bears an indistinct leaf emblem.]

Anyone could tell from that simple, straightforward description just how useful this trinket was. It could essentially be summed up in two words—Death Immunity!

To players, an item like this was tantamount to a second life, and to NPCs, its preciousness was manifold, as they lacked any concept of character deletion and resurrection.

If Kordova had possessed an item like that back then...

Well, he probably would have used it before it even warmed up in his hands.

In short, this item with a heaven-defying effect had been triggered directly by the sheer force of that magic scroll, proving that the item description was definitely flawed. Something capable of killing Banny in a single blow could never be as simple as just 'massive fire damage'.

In truth, that was no exaggeration.

The description of the [Crimson Pentagram • Cascading Great Red Lotus] scroll wasn't wrong, it simply omitted a few unlisted effects...

Such as—a 100% critical strike chance, inflicting the 'Elemental Dissolution' status on the target struck, ignoring any and all defensive attributes and skills of the opponent, and an extremely high probability of triggering 'Combustion' and 'Fission' effects, etc.

Therefore, the breaking of Banny's life-saving amulet was hardly unjustified. Without that item, even seven or eight of him piled together would have been instantly vaporized.

Had they been squarely blasted by that thing, even a giant dragon would likely have been roasted to medium-well...

When all was said and done, this was never something meant to exist in this world.

Shuang Ye using it at this very moment was perhaps simply the will of fate...

Yet Banny remained entirely unaware of what he had just faced, because when the shadow bore the damage in his place, he had felt nothing at all. Hence, the slightly unhinged ace assassin was now furious...

"Rest assured~" he said with a chilling smirk, "I won't let you find release too easily..."

It was too late!

Ned knew that anything more he said would be futile, so he immediately roared at the others, "Run!"

With that, he broke into a sprint ahead of the rest, knowing full well that if he didn't run, none of the others would either...

Then...

A warm, heavy spray of blood drenched him from head to toe.

Ned stiffened and looked back over his shoulder...

There, amidst the terrified gazes of the group, Crab—who had just attempted to turn and block Banny—was slowly collapsing to the ground. Across his robust frame, at least a dozen fatal wounds had simultaneously torn open, blood gushing from his body like a waterfall, dyeing the sky red, the earth red, and painting everyone in crimson...

"Oh~ I take my word back. Granting release to just one first is not bad at all~~"

Chapter 58: End