Chapter 978: [978] : Asking for Directions

The brute had finally grasped it—Shin was not joking around. Not even slightly.

"MY LORD, I WAS WRONG! I WAS COMPLETELY WRONG! PLEASE—SPARE ME! I SWEAR, I KNOW I MESSED UP!"

But Shin said nothing. He calmly drew his blade and brought it down across the brute’s legs, then his feet.

Agonized screaming tore through the air.

At that exact moment, Lucy let out a scream of her own.

Shin spun around, alarmed—and found Lucy trembling uncontrollably, her face drained of every drop of color.

It hit him then.

Lucy was afraid of blood.

He hadn’t noticed before—or perhaps he’d never had reason to. But now it was written all over her. She had an aversion to it. Always had. And this scene had pushed her straight past the edge.

But then again—hadn’t she been fine before? Why was this affecting her now? Shin turned the thought over, genuinely puzzled. The inconsistency didn’t quite add up.

Either way, he stopped. The last thing he needed was for Lucy to collapse on him.

"Lucy, you alright?" he said, his tone softening as he stepped toward her. "I had absolutely no idea this was your weakness."

Lucy, naturally, refused to admit a single thing. She straightened her back, lifted her chin, and reassembled her dignity as best she could.

"I... I’m the Princess. Why on earth would something like this bother me? I’m just a little light-headed, that’s all. It’ll pass in a moment."

"Stop staring. Have you never seen the Princess before?"

Shin smirked. He loved this about Lucy—she’d sooner walk off a cliff than admit to a weakness. He’d already picked up on her blood phobia a while back, but he’d let it go.

One look at her right now confirmed it without question. She was terrified.

"Hey, Lucy. Want to see a magic trick?" he said breezily. "Watch—see how he died? Now watch how he comes back."

"Pretty impressive, right? Very professional."

He reached down, grabbed the brute, and casually tore him clean in two.

Lucy let out a full-blown shriek and scrambled backward in a blind panic, nearly tripping over herself.

Shin burst out laughing. "So you’re not scared, huh? That’s genuinely hilarious."

"And the more I look at you, the more I think you’re kind of adorable."

He reached out and ruffled her hair.

"Now watch this."

"Edo Tensei—Impure World Reincarnation. Rinne Rebirth."

"See? He’s back."

The brute came to—completely disoriented. The crushing, all-consuming agony that had ripped through every nerve in his body moments ago—gone. His arms, his legs, everything—whole again, as if nothing had happened.

But then he looked up.

Shin was smiling down at him.

The memories came flooding back all at once.

"You... what are you going to do?? I’m warning you, I’m a—"

"No, please! I was wrong, my lord! I know I was wrong! Please, don’t—!"

"Ha."

Shin honestly wasn’t sure what state of mind this man was operating in. He hadn’t so much as lifted a finger yet—and the brute was already falling apart at the seams. It was, genuinely, one of the more comical things he’d ever witnessed.

"Now you understand what I’m capable of," Shin said, crouching down to eye level. "I really did kill your Guild Master. That’s not a bluff—and you know it."

"Which means you also know exactly where you stand with me right now."

"If I feel like it, I can drag this out as long as I want. And what just happened to you? That was no illusion."

"Every second of that pain was real. I think you remember that well enough."

"Whether the memory’s sharp or not—your body remembers. And if you don’t cooperate, the next round won’t have a soft landing."

The brute’s mind was scrambling. If what had just happened was real—then why was he in one piece? Why wasn’t he bleeding out in the dirt?

There was only one answer. The young man in front of him hadn’t just inflicted those wounds—he’d healed them too.

The sheer implication sent a wave of ice shooting straight down his spine.

Shin watched his expression shift and decided the timing was right.

"Alright—one question," he said pleasantly. "Think carefully."

"My lord, ask me anything. I’ll tell you everything I know—just please don’t kill me. If I genuinely don’t know, then killing me won’t get you any closer to an answer."

Shin looked at him evenly. "Don’t worry. You definitely know this one. That’s exactly why I’m asking you."

"Do you know where Guild Four-Two-Zero is? That’s all I need."

The brute blinked. That’s it? That’s the whole question?

"If I tell you that, you won’t kill me... right?"

Shin nodded.

"Thank god. Okay—that place is located at..."

Shin went completely blank.

Beside him, Lucy had already turned beet-red and was staring very intently at the ground.

The guild was right at the entrance to the city. The exact spot they had walked past when they first arrived.

Shin turned to Lucy with the most serene smile he could manage.

"Wow. That really is quite the trek, isn’t it? No wonder my dear little sister had no idea where it was."

"Tell me honestly—have you actually ever been to this city before?"

"My lord—" the brute chimed in meekly, "—may I... leave now?"

Shin glanced at him with cold, total indifference and said. "Get lost."

The brute vanished at a speed that defied all reason. Shin had seen fast people before—mages burning through enormous reserves of magic power, warriors sharpened by years of brutal training—but he had never, not once, seen a human being move that fast out of pure survival instinct alone.

"Turns out the will to live really is the most powerful force in the universe."

Lucy was already racking her brain for a way to change the subject.

But Shin wasn’t about to let her off that easily. Did she seriously think he’d forgotten how spectacularly her navigation had turned out?

"We have to walk all the way back," he said flatly. "Un-believable."

Then a thought struck him. He turned to Lucy.

"Hold on—you said Alice is the Vice Master of that guild, right?"

"So... think we could use the back door?"

Lucy tilted her head, genuinely puzzled. "What’s a back door?"

Shin briefly forgot that Lucy and he weren’t quite on the same cultural wavelength yet. "It means—since you know the Vice Master personally, we skip all the formal registration process and go straight to picking up a quest."

Lucy’s eyes lit up with sudden understanding.

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