Translator: imperfectluck Editor: Kurisu
“Elven Empress Harloys and Roland (whose identity is also you-know-who) came under attempted assassinations simultaneously. The assassins ‘Jade Flame’ Sirar and ‘Akaba’s Wings’ Venven died at the scene, while the assassin ‘Iron Emperor’ Sarwin was seriously injured, but managed to escape. The Mist Alliance has offered a great reward for Sarwin’s capture…”
Before the next day’s dawn even arrived, this shocking news astonished the entire Northlands.
Before it was even light outside, I reported to Reyne and the others that Harloys and I were still alright, and then we started analyzing this entire assassination incident.
Facing a veteran like myself who was far too much of an expert in matters of the soul, it would be impossible to lie. In fact, lies would only arouse my suspicion and vigilance. This meant that Sirar, who had disguised himself as Suana’s messenger, had told me nothing but the truth in order to attract my attention and obtain my trust.
Not only had Harloys been assassinated, her attackers had been two Level 4 elves. Those two elven assassins had managed to successfully assassinate the new Elven Empress Harloys’… clone while she was accompanied by numerous other Superior Elves.
“One assassin was a Level 4 elven archer, while the other was a Level 4 druid who specialized in transformation magic, restraint magic, and magical resistance. Both of them would be natural counters to any mage. My clone was killed in just a single round of attacks, and has now exploded into a pile of shattered slime bodies. How am I supposed to explain things now?”
Harloys was feeling quite frustrated. I now understood why she had reacted so slowly to my being attacked. It was likely that she had been concentrating mostly on her clone’s political tasks, and that her clone’s assassination had drawn all of her attention. By the time that she returned her mind to my side, it was likely that her assassination had already been over.
Both assassinations had occurred simultaneously. It was quite evident that this had been planned in order to prevent reinforcements from being sent to both of us at once. Simultaneously finding three Level 4 individuals whose abilities countered ours to try and assassinate us was truly such a grand scheme against us.
But right now, Harloys was still worrying about having exposed the fact that her clone was made up of slimes. This didn’t seem important to me at all.
“Well, since my clone exploded into slimes, I’ll just say that it’s actually an eastern ninjutsu technique.”
“A ninjutsu technique that exploded into slimes? Nobody will believe a ridiculous excuse like ninjutsu. Why not just say that you made your clone out of water? So what if you say that it’s just water or whatever you want? Do you really need a believable explanation? Isn’t it simply enough for you to show up and prove that you’re still alive? At most, all you have to do is to show your cloning ability.”
I felt that Harloys’ frustrations were quite unnecessary. As long as she was still around to control the situation, she wouldn’t even need to give an explanation, and if she was unable to control the situation, then no explanation she gave would be of any use.
Besides, for individuals with such status as hers, it would be quite common to have several lifesaving abilities. An explanation? You wanted me to explain to you how my secret lifesaving technique worked? Could it be that you want to murder me?
This sudden incident meant that there were many things we needed to think about. The recently coronated Elven Empress was assassinated right away, giving Harloys much to sigh over.
“…This incident wasn’t caused by the moon elves?”
Harloys held back for quite a while before finally saying this. Although she was asking it as a question, she had a definite tone.
“Of course it wasn’t the moon elves. If those moon elves had had such ability, they would have caused far more ruckus long ago.”
Although all three assassins had been powerful elves, the more they acted like assassins sent out by the elven kingdoms, the more I felt like someone else was actually behind them. Additionally, there was no need to guess too much who that might be.
“…The Holy Church.”
“It has to be them. Only they have the foundational power.”
The Holy Church was the largest human faction of all. Naturally, this meant that humans were the main members. However, there were also plenty of powerful individuals from other species who were loyal to the Holy Light. It wouldn’t be that difficult for the Holy Church to find a few powerful elves who were loyal to their cause.
“However, the moon elves are definitely related. Perhaps there are even human domain lords who suffered because of you that are involved.”
“…It’s likely. Let’s wait for the results of the investigation.”
We both felt rather helpless. Even though we clearly knew who wanted to kill us, it was difficult to take revenge right now. This was indeed frustrating.
“…Sirar was an incredibly precious high-quality chess piece.”
In this world, there was no such thing like the strongest or invulnerable. Every single ability would have advantages and disadvantages. The power of revenge was an ancient, powerful ability that was passed down in this world. It was said that this power originated from the ogres’ hunting witchcraft. Many elven rangers still had secret techniques passed down among them on how to cultivate the power of revenge, and they even had special job classes for this power.
However, very few would seriously cultivate the power of revenge, because this was a special power that would only work against one individual enemy at a time. So, even though the power of revenge was highly capable of allowing the weak to defeat the strong, its single-target nature made it quite impractical. Only those who had lives like the pitiful protagonists in stories would typically make use of the power of revenge.
And for every user of the power of revenge, the power of their weapon of revenge would be multiplicatively buffed each month, together with a multiplicative increase in the pain that the power of revenge inflicted upon the host. However, how strong a buff a weapon could contain would be limited by the weapon’s quality, and an individual’s pain tolerance would have limits, which naturally meant that the strongest possible attack power of revenge would also have its limits.
Logically speaking, with more than a century having passed, Sirar should have long ago died from his own self-inflicted pain due to never having canceled me as his target of revenge for all this time. Yet, he was still alive, with his hatred for me as if I had only done those misdeeds to him as Yongye just yesterday.
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“The Holy Church preserved Sirar’s life, keeping him around as a potential top-quality chess piece. Honestly…”
I bent over and suddenly stabbed Sirar with his Jade Tooth dagger. Blood splattered everywhere as Sirar’s own weapon stole away its master’s life.
I was no saint who was willing to let my enemies go to try and attack me once again. Someone wanted to try and kill me for revenge? They were more than welcome to attempt it, but they would have to be prepared for the consequences of failure, which would be death.
Although I wanted to learn more about what exactly had happened, I felt that it would be a waste of time to hand Sirar over for interrogation as a Level 4 individual like him capable of withstanding the self-inflicted pain from the power of revenge would feel that normal physical torture would be nothing more than light scratches.
The pitiful part was that his personal Myth-ranked weapon Jade Tooth no longer had such a lustrous glow once Sirar died. The green jade turned into ordinary white jade, an obvious evidence that the weapon had lost power levels.
I could faintly sense that something was changing about this dagger. I was carefully playing with it when Harloys glanced over at Sirar’s corpse, seeming like she was eager to try something.
“You want to try soul searching magic?”
“No, it would be too much of a waste…”
Soul searching magic wasn’t almighty. The more powerful the will, the more difficult an individual’s soul would be to analyze. There was no need to doubt that Sirar had an indomitable will, as he was a cultivator of the power of revenge. Additionally, since I was the person trying to search his soul, his soul would have tremendous hostility towards me, which might even end up injuring me in the process should I try.
So, rather than dragging out some mostly useless memory shards and wasting this precious corpse, I preferred to make the most of such a precious resource. Perhaps I could even have “Sirar” personally tell me who was the person manipulating things behind the scenes.
I directly tossed Sirar’s corpse into my bug-like personal Hell world as I started pondering just how Sirar had managed to survive until today. I had destroyed a significant number of elven kingdoms back when I was Yongye, and the power of revenge was no top-secret technique amongst the elves. It would truly be troublesome if another two or more individuals who cultivated the power of revenge suddenly jumped out to attack me.
“The easiest method is probably to separate the physical body and soul, put them both into storage, and then wake Sirar up when it’s necessary to use him. As long as Sirar can assassinate me before the next rising of the blood moon of revenge, he could avoid dying from pain, as the pain from the power of revenge only takes place once per month. Right, there’s also high-level Holy Light Divine Art techniques that can forcefully preserve an individual’s life. High-density Holy Light, along with taboo drugs, are capable of causing people not to feel pain…”
As I extrapolated, I kept feeling more and more like the Holy Church was definitely involved. Only a faction as ridiculously rich as the Holy Church would be capable of spending so much money to maintain a chess piece whose only possible use was to assassinate Yongye. Not to mention, Sirar’s life had probably been maintained even when Yongye had “vanished”.
No, I suddenly felt that there was an even more likely possibility: the Holy Church themselves had forgotten about this “chess piece” they had stored away so long ago, and they had only remembered about Sirar recently.
“…Roland, look at the dagger.”
Upon hearing Harloys’ words, I noticed that the jade dagger attached to my waist had already shrunken to one-third its original size. Not only that, the place where it touched my waist was actually causing me a faint amount of pain.
I unsheathed the dagger and carefully looked over its blade, which was still covered in its former master’s blood. Not only was the blade now cracked, it was also coated in a mysterious dark red.
Just looking at this mysterious dark red hue made me instinctively feel uncomfortable as if there was still yet another assassin hiding in the shadows, focusing straight on me.
[I will identify this weapon for you for a mere 5 Fate Points.]
“…Such a cheap price?”
My System was actually volunteering her services? That was so rare! I unhesitatingly agreed to her price because 5 Fate Points was basically no different from free.
[Dagger of Revenge: Death to Yongye (SemiGod Equipment).]
[This weapon was formerly known as Jade Tooth, belonging to the renowned elven ranger Sirar. Yet, not only did he die to his mortal enemy, his favorite dagger even ended his own life. At the very end of his life, his soul attached itself to his blood, and he sacrificed his full power of revenge to permanently curse this dagger, creating this SemiGod Equipment.]
[Death to Yongye has only one ability, (Mortal Enemy of Yongye). The holder of this dagger will instinctively loathe all undead, and view all Undead Emperors as mortal enemies. This dagger has a chance to instantly slay any undead that it touches. The holder of this dagger will be visited by Sirar’s curse of revenge every night, viewing Undead Calamities in their dreams every single night. Not only that, the holder of this dagger will start to subconsciously loathe the Undead Emperor whose name is Yongye. In addition, the moment that this dagger strikes the physical body of Undead Emperor Yongye, it will instantly pierce through all of his defenses, and directly destroy Yongye’s soul.]
[PS: Excellent job! You personally helped to create this weapon that can truly kill you! If for some reason one day you want to commit suicide, feel free to use this dagger to commit seppuku. I guarantee that you’ll have a fast and direct death.]
Well, now I understood why my System had “kindly” volunteered her services so cheaply to identify this dagger for me. It was clear that she wanted to see my reaction to creating something that could threaten me so much.
I shook my head rather helplessly. It was quite rare, and even a miracle, that this dagger had leveled up to become a SemiGod weapon rather than dropping in power level in the end as most Myth-ranked weapons should have upon the death of its original creator. However, since its miraculous power was a complete counter to me, I obviously couldn’t just keep this dagger around.
I held onto this dagger, and was about to have it destroyed when a certain idea suddenly entered my mind. I then changed my mind about destroying the dagger. Perhaps, as long as I used it correctly, this dagger would still have its uses, great uses, with its other abilities.
As for myself…
“Actually, I haven’t been undead for so many years already. Besides, my name isn’t Yongye…”