Episode 1072.
In that moment, there was only one thought in the black man’s mind.
“Am I seeing things?
It was a natural question for the black-clad man to ask.
He is a mage.
A very skilled, very accomplished one.
He had no sudden kung fu, no martial arts that could be called divine, but he had complete control over hundreds of monsters.
But…….
“What the hell is this guy?
The Black Clothed Man stared blankly at the monster in front of him, or more precisely, at the unwelcome visitor who was clearly clad in a monster’s hide.
Only after pinching his arm hard to confirm that this was no dream did he manage to squeeze out the words he had been holding back.
“Who are you?”
The unidentified intruder, who flinched and jumped, answered in a stuttering voice.
“A monster, a monster.”
“…… speaks human?”
“He, aren’t there monsters that talk to people?”
“There can’t be ……?”
After a moment of silence, the uninvited guest spoke up after the black man’s expertly reasoned rebuttal.
“That’s right.”
“…….”
“Hmmm. Mmmm.”
“…….”
“Heh, heh, heh.”
The uninvited guest, now with his arms raised in the air like a ninja kung fu master, continued his unconvincing rant, and the black man, momentarily even more confused, shouted out.
“Stop!”
“Huh. Why?”
“What the fuck is this, what the fuck is this?”
“I tried to copy it as best I could…… Isn’t that last one similar?”
“No, but it was kind of close.”
“Wow, that’s it, thank you!”
How common sense conversations can paralyze thinking.
When the black man was at a loss for words, the uninvited visitor, whose joy was unmistakable, added in a cheerful tone.
“It’s worth all those two days of practicing. You were right about hard work not betraying you.”
At the unexpected answer, the black man blinked in confusion.
“Zee, what are you saying?”
“What?”
The unwelcome visitor cocked his head. His eyes, revealed beneath his rotting leathers, were clear and clean.
“Oh, you mean the one about not betraying your endeavors? That’s something my grandfather used to tell me when I was very young…….”
“Not that!”
“Oh, I see what you mean, big people. Well, I wouldn’t say people, but anyway, I hid in there and tried to imitate them.”
“Well, I mean.”
“Yeah, like I said, it’s been like that for like two days now.”
“……!”
Despite the innocence of the answer, the black man’s spine was instantly frozen in shock.
“Two days ago? And I didn’t know about it?
This was ridiculous.
He had gained the ability to control over five hundred monsters after rigorous cultivation, so he could sense the vital energy of living humans even with his eyes closed.
But…….
“It’s not a lie.
The black man could feel it instinctively.
He could feel instinctively that every word this mysterious uninvited guest who now stood before him was the truth, without the slightest hint of falsehood.
As far as he was concerned, the creature had neither the intelligence to lie skillfully nor the reason to conceal it after being so coolly exposed.
And this series of thoughts and circumstances helped to bring the black man, who had been in a state of extreme confusion, as if possessed by a ghost, to his senses at last.
“You’re a spokesman for the …… faction.”
The uninvited guest swallowed hard and threw up his hands in disbelief.
“Oh, I’m not.”
“Shut the fuck up. You’re a lunatic.”
“Crazy, that’s a very hurtful and bad word, and my grandfather told me never to use it.”
“You son of a……!”
The black man’s blood seemed to be rushing backwards.
He’d been played for a fool by this madman, even if only for a moment.
He shook the saber in his hand in anger.
Rattle!
He was not mistaken when he felt that the sound of the bell was particularly powerful.
The peculiar morale of the shamans, especially those who summoned monsters, made the sound more eerie and clearer, and the eerie notes contained two meanings.
One. To alert the other brewers in the area of the current situation.
And two.
Hiss! Kooong!
To entrust the hundred or so monsters you’ve brought for escort, to dispose of the madman.
“There is only one mercy I can show you now.”
The black man spoke through clenched teeth as he looked over the monsters that surrounded him like an iron wall, closing in on him with a speed unbecoming of his massive frame.
“If you surrender now and tell me everything you know, I promise you a relatively quick and comfortable death.”
The black-clad man wasn’t talking out of his ass.
Each of the monsters escorting him was at least as skilled as the best of the best, if not more so.
Their strength, speed, and, most importantly, tenacity, far beyond human limits, are the stuff of nightmares.
There are hundreds of such monsters.
Even if the uninvited guest in front of him was insane and extremely skilled, it wouldn’t change the outcome in the slightest, the black-clad man thought.
It wasn’t just the monsters here that he had to deal with.
“Go ahead, try your best. You won’t be able to do that after this.”
The black man’s lips curled up at an angle as he thought of his fellow brewers, who would have gotten the signal by now and would be on their way.
“Then why haven’t you heard back?”
The uninvited visitor asked, and the black-clad man reflexively asked back.
“What?”
“Your replies, or should I say, in this case, your replies? Anyway, from what I’ve seen over the past two days, you’re always sending and receiving bells and whistles.”
“……?”
Suddenly realizing something, the black man looked up in surprise and looked around in all directions.
Or, more accurately, he listened with all his attention.
He listened with all his attention, hoping to hear the eerie bell that resembled his own, to hear his fellow brewer’s answer that he was on his way here.
But all he heard was the wind blowing in the distance and the breath of the monsters that surrounded him. Nothing came back.
Nothing.
“……!”
For a moment, the black man’s heart sank.
Something was wrong.
Very solidly.
And then, with an ominous premonition flickering through his mind, his confused eyes moved toward a single figure.
Toward an uninvited guest who, despite being surrounded by horrific creatures, was listening to the sounds around him, ears pricked up, hands forming trumpets.
“Oh. I’m sure I can’t hear you, nothing.”
“You, you…….”
What the hell am I supposed to say?
How am I supposed to make sense of this?
In the blackness of the man’s vision, his voice muffled and unable to form proper words, I could clearly see the half-moon eyes piercing through the discolored hide of the monster.
“Thank goodness, it’s just Little Grandpa.”
“Little……grandfather?”
“Yes, he teaches me a lot of things, and he gets really mad whenever I call him little……, but sometimes I think he secretly likes it.”
The uninvited guest, who had been rambling on and on, shut up.
“Oh, don’t tell Little Grandpa what I said. If he hears, he’ll be angry again.”
The man in black didn’t answer.
Or, more accurately, he didn’t have the presence of mind to respond.
He stared blankly at his interloper, who had finally shut up, and barely managed to squeeze out the question that had just occurred to him.
“Are you…… or who the hell are you?”
My vision was suddenly dizzy. The words he’d just heard made him realize a truth he didn’t want to believe.
The thirty or so other bards who had come here with him were all dead.
Either by the way the Unwelcome One had infiltrated their ranks, or by something more subtle and deadly.
If any of them are still alive, it won’t be long before they become unwelcome guests.
If only the owner of the star sign were here at this very moment, to hear the words that flashed through the black man’s mind before he could answer.
“That little old man can’t be…….”
It was at this moment that the black-clad man stuttered, unable to finish his sentence.
“Now, what did you say?”
“……!”
The emotionless voice suddenly pierced his ears, and the black-clad man was struck as if a bolt of lightning had pierced his crown.
It had come.
He, no, ‘he’ had come.
Right up to his back.
Still, he didn’t feel his breathing.
Not even the slightest hint of movement, of life, of breath that should have been accompanied by a voice and touched the back of her head.
And then the breathless voice spoke again, this time into the ears of the black man, who had hardened like a statue.
“I asked. What did you say?”
The black man had forgotten how to speak aloud, had forgotten how to breathe.
He was simply doing the last thing he could do, an instinctive, last-ditch struggle for survival.
Before he could move the old, bloodstained knuckles that were all he had, a line of wire crossed his wrist.
A scoop. A snap.
Everything was a step too late.
The wrist that had lost its master fell to the ground, and the master who had lost his own found it.
Finally, the black man, recognizing the belated pain, lets out a scream of terror.
“Off……!”
Snap, snap.
His body collapsed helplessly as the blood was squeezed out.
The black man couldn’t even manage a scream as he plunged into a blackness that seemed to have no end in sight.
The voices of the two men, dreamy and muffled, were all that remained.
“I told you, if you ever call me that again, I’ll kill you.”
“I’m sorry, little old man.”
“Well, let’s go see him.” “……He’s going to turn around.”
“Yes, Grandpa!”
Seriously, it was a nightmare to the end.
