Book 2: Chapter 439: …I can take everything? (2)

<...I can take everything? (2)>

The carriage carrying Cale headed toward the ancient castle.

Clack clack.

Cale slowly looked around and observed the forests to either side of the road.

– Human, I can sense stealthy gazes in the distance! In the 3 o’clock direction and the 7 o’clock direction!

Raon’s comment as he flew on top of the carriage while invisible…

Cale looked to his side.

– Oh.

The Super Rock sounded amazed.

– This guy seems to have noticed it too.

Cale was not seated inside the carriage.

Clack clack.

He purposely chose to sit in the coachman’s seat.

The reason was simple.

– Sniff sniff.

The Sound of the Wind was sniffing a divine item.

She was pointing toward the stupidly laughing blonde-haired knight who was supposedly a rookie.

Once that knight took the coachman’s seat, Cale said that it was stuffy inside and sat down next to him.

‘3 o’clock. 7 o’clock.’

And now…

That rookie knight was leisurely moving his head.

– Human, the 9 o’clock direction as well!

And 9 o’clock.

The rookie knight’s gaze headed toward the direction Raon called out regarding the stealthy gazes.

It was done extremely leisurely and naturally.

The rookie maintained his clueless look on his face.

‘Not bad.’

The knight seated next to him was pretty skilled.

‘Oh.’

And he naturally looked at Cale last.

“Sir, why do you keep looking at me like that?”

HE asked, while looking like an extremely good person.

Cale answered in a just as good manner.

“It is just weird.”

“Excuse me?”

The knight claimed that his name was Luam. The knight, whose real identity was Maul, the leader of the Demon King’s Third Regiment, looked at Cale with confusion.

‘This clueless looking guy-’

This second sibling of the five… Although he looked smart he laughed like an idiot, so Maul had no problem letting him sit up top in the coachman’s area.

‘Kaseh. That guy is a tough cookie.’

Terrosa had told him in advance that Count Ruiphe’s heir, Kaseh, was difficult to handle.

That was why he planned on using this second sibling to have some fun, but…

‘…Weird?

Who? Me?

Did this punk see through my act?’

As an eccentric heat was about to rise from deep within Luam’s eyes…

“Knight-nim, you don’t think it is weird?”

This clueless second sibling’s words made Maul, the guy known as the ‘hand behind the back’ because of his specialty of smacking people in the back, flinch.

‘He’s not saying that I am weird.’

This handsome man who looked sharp but had a clueless look on his face was saying that something was weird.

“What is weird?”

Maul continued his act of being a good knight and asked.

The second sibling blankly looked around as he answered.

“The forest is quiet.”

Maul flinched at those words.

‘This clueless guy-’

Unexpectedly.

‘He’s quite smart?’

The forest was quiet despite being the afternoon with the sun up in the sky.

Maul was well aware of the reason behind it.

‘There are gazes keeping their eyes on this carriage.’

Maul originally thought these gazes were spies from young master Simon’s side.

That Kaseh bastard inside the carriage was currently barging in to purchase young master Simon’s mine after all.

‘But it is too weird to be that.’

There had been a reason Maul had reacted sharply to this clueless second sibling’s words.

‘The level of the people is quite high.’

Since they are troops belonging to Count Ruiphe’s family, they should be pretty skilled.

They should have some skilled knights among their vassals as well.

But for it to be that, there were a few extremely skilled people that only the high-grade core members of his Third Regiments would be able to notice. Why use such highly skilled people just for surveillance?

‘Does that mean young master Simon’s faction has that many skilled people within their ranks?

To the point they could use these people just for surveillance?

How suspicious.’

He could not get this leery feeling out of his mind.

‘And-’

The bastard seated next to him…

‘I need to be careful of him.’

He had let his guard down because this guy looked so clueless.

‘Yes, you can’t judge people by their looks.’

The hand behind the back. Maul reorganized his thoughts to live up to that moniker.

At that moment…

“Umm, you know.”

The handsome but clueless bastard curled up his shoulders as he spoke.

“Lately there’s been that, umm, scary story. It made me think of that.”

“Excuse me?”

Maul was truly flustered this time.

‘Scary story?

There’s something like that?’

“Y, you don’t know about it, knight-nim?”

“No sir. I don’t know.”

Maul could see the handsome clueless bastard (HCB) looking at him with a pitying gaze. (TL: I’m tired of wasting time writing it out so its HCB from here on)

The HCB continued in an extremely pitying tone.

“Ah. You must not know about worldly things because you are too busy practicing your sword art. That must be why you are so slow at hearing information like this.”

‘What is going on?

Why do I feel so annoyed?’

Maul could easily act like a fool or weakling for his ‘goal,’ but for some odd reason, this bastard’s tone made him feel weirdly annoyed.

But Maul flinched at what he heard next.

“There is that scary story about the grey illness.”

– Human, there’s no scary story like that?

Cale ignored Raon and threw some bait toward this mysterious enemy.

“When the forests go quiet, the villages underneath are visited by the grey illness.”

A scary story made on the spot flowed out of Cale’s mouth.

“The bodies of the people infected by the grey illness completely turn grey before they turn grotesque and die.”

Shaaaaaaaaaaa-

A breeze that came from the forest swirled around Cale and Maul.

The horse just continued to trot toward the ancient castle.

Cale’s voice was carried by the wind to reach Maul’s ears.

“No medicines work on this grey illness and only death awaits those who are infected.”

Gulp.

Cale gulped, curled up as if he was scared, and continued to speak.

“That is the rumor spreading throughout the south right now. It is a very scary story.”

“…There is an illness like that……?”

‘I’ve never received any reports like that ?’

Maul’s face stiffened.

“Yes sir. We heard it from a village we passed through. They said their neighboring village caught the grey illness and instantly everybody died, leaving it an empty village.”

An entire village was killed and became empty.

Maul flinched for a moment.

‘Is it the Demon King’s army?’

The missing Sixth Regiment’s Viscount Deshuran and the other Regiments had destroyed a couple villages already to gain sacrifices for their experiment.

But rumors about that had never spread before.

They had been extremely thorough about keeping things under wraps.

‘Grey illness?’

But this grey illness sounded different from what the Demon King’s army had done.

‘Is it real?’

Was this scary story real?

‘Well, this clueless bastard has no reason to lie to me.’

He at least seemed to have really heard this scary story.

“So lately, I get scared whenever I see a forest being so quiet like this. I’m scared of catching the grey illness.”

The second sibling shivered before gasping as if he remembered something.

“Based on what I heard, villagers saw some questionable people going into the villages destroyed by the grey illness.”

“…Really?”

“Yes sir!”

“Who?”

Maul focused on the second sibling who seemed excited to see him getting interested.

“Apparently one of the Hunters of the village coincidentally saw it. He said they were knights wearing grey robes.”

Maul thought to himself.

‘Some of the information is too specific to just be a scary story.’

Knights wearing grey robes appear and it has a specific colored term as being the grey illness.

‘…The body gets dyed grey and turns grotesque?’

Furthermore, a Knights Brigade wearing grey robes did not kill people with their swords but spread an illness?

This was such a weird scary story.

But why was he feeling like this?

‘Something’s off.’

The leery feeling Maul was feeling was getting worse.

‘What am I missing?’

He went through the memories in his mind.

“Anyway, that scary story makes me scared whenever I see grey smoke. Of course, our great mana is grey as well, but thinking about my body turning grey and grotesque……”

The HCB’s words reached Maul’s ears.

“I think this is the first time I’m feeling this way about the grey color. Don’t you agree, knight-nim? Seeing grey, the symbol of the Demon World, being used like that is a first-”

“Ah!”

Maul finally remembered it.

Grey.

Not the Demon World’s mana but a different grey.

This was something he knew because he was the leader of the Third Regiment.

‘Viscount Deshuran!’

The missing leader of the Sixth Regiment.

The soldier who managed to escape had mentioned a group named Arm.

That group was supposedly a secret force of the God of Chaos.

‘And the God of Chaos-

Is grey.

The grey illness.’

If his thought was right about this illness-

‘This is being done by those bastards of the Church of God of Chaos!’

The Church of the God of Chaos, The Hunters, and the Demon King.

As one of the leaders, Maul obviously knew that these three factions were working together.

‘…Really-’

That was why Maul’s eyes filled with rage.

‘Are those bastards of the Church of the God of Chaos really dirtying the Demon World?’

As he filled with rage…

“Uhh, uhh-, knight-nim!”

The guy next to him placed a hand on his shoulder.

As Maul started to scowl…

“T, the carriage!”

The guy’s next words made him snap back to his senses.

He had temporarily filled with so much rage that he had clenched the reins.

“Ah, I’m sorry!”

Maul quickly returned to his current role.

He opened the window behind the coachman’s seat to apologize to the people inside before explaining to Cale.

“I became a knight to protect the Demon World, so hearing something like that made me filled with rage.”

“Ah, yes yes. Of course.”

The HCB vigorously nodded his head while looking scared.

Maul finally calmed down.

‘Seeing this clueless face is making me calm down.’

He slowly spoke to the HCB again.

“What a weird scary story.”

“Yes sir. Anyway, I just got scared passing a quiet forest like the one in the story. Haha.”

Seeing the HCB awkwardly smile while cautiously looking at him made Maul feel an odd feeling.

‘…A forest as quiet as the scary story?’

Yes.

This forest was quiet as well.

And people who were excessively strong to be young master Simon’s people were keeping their eyes on this carriage.

Of course, he wasn’t making it obvious that he noticed their gazes, but these persistent gazes did not feel good.

‘This-’

But his mind was thinking about a complicated scheme that he had no time to worry about such feelings.

‘Maybe-’

A thought that he did not dare to say…

‘Is the Church of the God of Chaos on young master Simon’s side?’

He recalled how the Hunter bastards and the Church of the God of Chaos had recently had a standoff in New World.

‘I heard that the Church of the God of Chaos had betrayed them-’

Maul, the expert in smacking people in the back…

He had kept that information in his mind because of the word, betrayal.

‘Maybe these fuckers really did extend their reaches to the Demon World as well?

They better not be thinking about smacking us in the back as well.’

Maul’s gaze sank coldly.

Clack.

Clack.

The carriage was getting closer and closer to the ancient castle.

Maul looked at the ancient castle and thought to himself.

‘Nobody knows this face of mine.’

He was currently in a ‘disguised’ face.

The hand behind the back. His skill in disguise had been a big help to earning that title.

‘I’ll need to infiltrate and gather information.’

He had been interested because of Count Ruiphe’s secret safe that he disguised himself as a rookie knight to come, but…

Something even bigger than that was in front of his eyes.

‘If I can find traces of the Church of the God of Chaos in that ancient castle, we should be able to use that information to smack them in the back.’

Maul felt a thrill down his entire body and got excited.

He subconsciously wet his lips with his tongue and smiled.

“…….”

Cale just watched him.

Maul was still pretending to be a rookie night, but a dangerous aura could be felt coming out of Maul right now.

– Cale.

The Super Rock commented in a low voice.

– The best battle is letting the enemies fight against each other.

Clack.

The carriage arrived at the ancient castle.

Someone had come out to wait for them.

“My name is Hitellis and I am the Chief of Staff here.”

A woman bowed and greeted them.

– Sniff sniff!

The Sound of the Wind reacted.

– I smell a divine item! This is the scent of a divine item from the Church of the God of Chaos!

Cale’s eyes sparkled.

– Human, this Chief of Staff looks very strong! She’s at the level of a rookie knight!

Raon informed him about her strength and Cale had to do his best to prevent the corners of his lips from curling up.

“Nice to meet you, ma’am! My name is Luam and I am a knight from the Lord’s Castle!”

Maul realized it as soon as he saw Hitellis.

‘She’s strong.

Very strong.

I don’t see any openings.

That fucker Simon really did align with someone.’

He needed to confirm whether that was the Church of the God of Chaos, but…

Maul’s eyes calmed down.

“Welcome. I’ll escort you all from here.”

As for Chief of Staff Hitellis…

She realized it the moment she looked at Maul.

‘The Demon King’s side sent a strong one.’

The person in front of her was strong.

She could feel it from how he showed no openings.

She closed her eyes for a moment before opening them back.

She recalled an order from the Pope.

After young master Simon frantically caused a fit about how Terrosa was sending someone…

The Pope had given her an order.

‘Hitellis.’

She dropped from the ceiling, bowed toward him before he spoke.

‘The Demon King’s side is going to scope this place out using the mine sale as an excuse, so deal with them properly. And-’

As the Pope’s shadow, Hitellis had always wrapped grey bandages all around her body to hide her appearance.

That was done for moments like this.

She had shown herself, and…

‘Kill them if they look like they will get in our way.’

Moments like this where they needed to kill the enemies.

“…….”

“…….”

Maul and Hitellis…

The leader of the Demon King’s Third Regiment and a core figure of the Church of the God of Chaos…

The hand behind the back against the person who had done all sorts of things as the Pope’s shadow…

As they scoped each other out in a few short seconds…

– Human, nobody is looking at you!

Cale just blankly stood there, observing the situation.

‘Ah.

A situation that resolves itself without me getting any attention?

Isn’t this what the life of a slacker is like?’

– …I don’t think that is the meaning of a slacker?

He easily ignored the Super Rock.

It was easy because he was feeling so good.

—

Translator’s Comments

Cale secretly misses the attention.