Free Web NovelIn the streets and alleys not far from the riverbank, a faint mist drifted on the light breeze.
The ethereal flute-song lingered among the low houses, passed through the narrow, stifling lanes, yet just outside a faintly flickering arc of electricity, it lost the target it had already locked onto.
Not long ago, the Rat King had still been proudly patrolling his vast territory; now he was as wretched as a rat about to die in a sewer, coughing up mouthfuls of filthy blood laced with shredded flesh.
“Kh... kh... you’re late.”
Even breathing was difficult for the Rat King.
But the panic and fear from just moments before were already gone from his face.
Because of his severe injuries, his blurred eyes could no longer make out the man’s features, but he knew that man must be wearing that black formal suit that fused wildness and solemnity into one, the tall top hat, and that deep, cold face.
His eyes were blue, like a lake—but in the depths of that lake, ice and flame clashed and sparked.
“Spare me, my dear Sam.”
Muen tore open a precious magic scroll. Surging vitality flowed out from within, beginning to heal the Rat King’s wounds:
“Belrand is just too big. Even for me, it takes some time to find my way around.”
“Heh, save that talk for fooling kids. I don’t believe for a second that you haven’t had people watching the situation in the Lower District.”
“Believe it or not, I really didn’t.”
Muen shrugged.
He hadn’t even been in Belrand these past days, let alone monitoring it.
At most, he had a few people from the ducal estate keeping an eye on things while they smugg—no, sold off the low-grade, obsolete weapons piling up in his father’s warehouse, earning him a bit of pocket money on the side.
Surveillance and so on... imagining him doing that was really thinking too poorly of him.
Besides, he had never actually planned to completely control the entire Lower District. That would be far too exhausting.
And there was no real need.
“Is that so?”
The Rat King withdrew his gaze.
“Since that’s what you say, we’ll call it that, then.”
“...We really ought to have a bit more trust between us, Sam.” fгeewёbnoѵel.cσm
Muen casually took out a good bottle of liquor. He thoughtfully opened it, poured himself a glass, then passed the bottle to the Rat King:
“Go on. What’s the situation right now.”
“...”
“Don’t look at me like that. I only just got back; I really don’t know much yet.”
“The other side is Old Ghost.”
The Rat King took the bottle and gulped down several big swigs. The high-proof liquor flowed into his stomach, gradually warming his chilled body.
“A ghost from ten years ago.”
“Old Ghost? A ghost?”
Muen raised his brows slightly.
Naturally, he wasn’t very familiar with that name. Ten years ago, Muen Campbell had still been a playboy who only knew how to flip the maids’ skirts; there was no way he would have cared what was happening in some far-off Lower District.
He had, however, come across the name before in the intel he’d collected from the ducal estate.
Old Ghost—real name unknown.
He had once built a massive gang and, ten years ago, nearly unified the entire Lower District. It was said even His Majesty had heard of him, which meant he was indeed something of a ruthless figure.
But as a representative of the Lower District’s shadowy side, catching the eye of that particular Emperor in itself meant he was already in danger.
Sure enough, Old Ghost had ultimately failed to completely unify the Lower District. Very soon after, he had been “taken care of” by some unknown big shot and vanished without a trace.
The intel had said he was most likely dead, yet unexpectedly, he was still alive.
“Old Ghost is back. He wants to rule the Lower District again.”
“Oh? Some ambition, at least. Still, for some old bastard from ten years ago to come back, he has to have something to rely on.”
Muen flicked the brim of his hat:
“Any leads? You couldn’t have just taken a beating this long and know nothing at all, right?”
“How would I know? He blindsided me!”
The Rat King slapped the ground in anger. Thinking of how he had just lost both his most loyal and his most elite subordinate at once, his heart throbbed with pain.
But then he remembered that the man was that Old Ghost, and he felt nothing but immense gratitude that he’d managed to escape with his life.
“Still, to be able to support his return at a time like this... we don’t even need to think about it to guess roughly who those people are.”
The Rat King exhaled deeply, regaining his calm.
“You got us out from under their control. There’s no way they’ll sit back and do nothing. The Lower District’s profits are a piece of truly prime meat. Only someone as strange as you would leave that meat untouched.”
“I’m broad-minded, so I’ll forgive your insolence for now. But... ‘roughly’? Sam, you’re really putting me in a tough spot here. In a city where black and white are all mixed together, the word ‘roughly’ is like the safety shorts under a girl’s skirt—whether you see them or not, it doesn’t make much difference.”
Muen cracked the joke lightly, then turned his head to look into the distance:
“All right, even if that is pretty troublesome, we happen to have a very obvious lead right in front of us, don’t we?”
“You wait here. I’ll go buy you a few oranges.”
“Huh?”
Naturally, the Rat King had no idea what cold joke Muen was making. He blinked, seeing only that still-blurry figure set down the now-empty glass, then pick up the repeating crossbow beside him.
“Let me borrow this.”
Muen pressed a hand to the brim of his hat, as if announcing the opening of a performance, then turned and strolled leisurely out of the alley where there was nowhere to hide.
The Rat King lowered his head and saw that the glass was resting atop the Heart Ace that belonged to him.
......
......
“What is going on?”
Sineel gripped the bone-white flute, his expression dark as he looked at the alleys shrouded in morning mist.
The flute-song, constructed from his magic power, still wandered through every corner of the streets and alleys. No movement could escape his perception, and he had personally watched the distant target take his attack head-on.
Yet in the blink of an eye, he had lost all lock on the target. freewebnσvel.cѳm
It was as if the man had simply evaporated from the world.
That was completely unreasonable.
Because according to the intel the robin had given him, his target this time—a man named Sam—was nothing more than a street thug with just a bit of cultivation scraped together through drug use. All Sineel needed to watch out for were those military weapons smuggled from who knew where; otherwise, the man was no threat at all.
But some street thug could slip so easily out of the magical lock of a Royal Mage like him?
What a joke. The Royal Mage Corps and the Royal Knight Order were, respectively, His Majesty’s sword and shield—the most elite forces in all of Belrand, chosen through countless layers of selection!
If some gutter punk could toy with him at will, ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) he might as well resign on the spot and go guard the academy gates instead. Only then would he be living up to the academy’s years of instruction.
Could it be that...
Growing cautious, Sineel rapidly deployed defensive arrays around himself.
And the instant the defensive formation finished taking shape, a bolt suddenly shot out from the shadows of a nearby alley.
It came from the same repeating crossbow. Sineel could recognize the identical magic aura.
But its power was worlds apart from before.
It was as if thunder had been poured into the bolt. The dazzling blue radiance stabbed at Sineel’s eyes, and the razor-sharp missile trailed a shrill hum behind it. With a metallic clang, it punched through several layers of his defenses in succession.
Clink.
An ornament at his waist shattered.
Sineel’s face grew even darker. Gripping the flute in his hand, he looked toward the figure slowly emerging from the thin fog.
“Damn that robin... I never heard anything about there being someone else involved in this.”
