Chapter 73

I stared at Skis as he pulled out his blue sword from the back of the earth mage he had just killed. Whipping the blood off and sheathing his sword, I was stunned by how easily he had killed the earth mage.

Why was he here? How was he able to know where the spells were being cast? What is with that sword? Why does he seem like a different person?

Many questions filled my mind as Skis turned to look at me. Like a switch that was turned on and then turned off, Skis looked at me, and his aura completely changed back to his normal self, to someone completely unreliable.

We stared at each other for a short while, but I didn’t have time for it, so I tried to free my hands from the stone spikes that pinned me to the wall behind me.

Seeing me trying to free myself, his face turned pale as my hand started to bleed even more with my own blood.

“Wait, please wait. Don’t do that. Let me free you.”

Frantically running up to me, Skis draws his blue sword again and cuts through the stone spikes like butter, which surprised me a bit.

Then, frantically taking out a health potion, he pulled out the stone spike that pierced through my hand and doused it with the potion.

Seeing the hole in the palm of my hands starting to close up surprisingly fast, I look at Skis to ask him.

“Guild Master Skis, thank you, but what are you doing here, and what is with that sword?”

“Oh, umm, this is an artifact I have from my adventuring days; one of its abilities is to neutralize any spell. And, well, I’m here for guild business—at least at first.”

“At first?”

“Yeah, I was planning to talk to you and everyone else on behalf of the lieutenant of the fourth knight order to ask some questions, but the hospital I was planning to see you in exploded, and a couple of seconds later, I saw you running down the wall, chasing someone in which I’d followed.”

Hearing the last part, I respond almost desperately in my flat tone, which startles Skis.

“Did you see a person with glowing green hair carrying a person on their shoulder?”

“Uhhh… yes, I saw him going to the slums.”

“The slums… Thank you for the information. I need to get Clare back.”

“Clare?”

“She is an old and very close friend of mine. We were attacked in the hospital, and she has been kidnapped.”

Closing and opening my hands repeatedly to check the conditions of my hands, I felt an intense pain every time I moved them.

Judging by it, I guessed the bones in the palms of my hands were broken, which was to be expected.

I was surprised by the potion regenerating my bones, which means Skis gave me a really strong potion. So getting up, not waiting for Skis to respond, I suddenly felt dizzy and immediately fell down.

Concerned that I had fallen after trying to stand back up, he meekly asked if I was okay.

“I’m fine; I think I lost more blood than I expected.”

The world around me was unsteady, and I tried getting up again because, again, there was no time; I needed to find Clare.

However, my legs, for some reason, gave out on me again.

“Wait, please sit down; you are poison. Give it some time before the full heal potion I gave you to get rid of whatever poison is in your body and fully heal your injuries.”

A full heal potion? He really used a potion that valuable on me. It was basically endgame stuff. I am thankful to him, but I should thank him, but that is for later.

“I can’t; there is no time. I have to get Clare.”

“Huh? In your condition?”

“I’m fine; it’s just some mild blood loss and a couple of fractured bones.”

Skis looked generally shocked and a bit fearful by what I said, like I was the crazy one.

“You’re covered in your own blood, and what do you mean, fractured bones?”

Skis took a step back as I expressionlessly looked back at him.

“I can still fight even though my body is in a bad condition. Plus, fractured bones are nothing more than an inconvenience to me; after all, they barely impede my movements.”

“Wait, you call all that an inconvenience?”

Telling him “Yeah” in a flat tone, I then told him as I placed my hand on the alley walls to help me stand and walk.

“Thank you for the full heal potion, guild master Skis, but I need to get going.”

I made my way where Skis pointed, each step slightly less painful than the next, but Skis spoke up, stopping me.

“Nyx, please wait; let me come with you.”

I stopped and turned to look at him, causing him to flinch. It didn’t take much thought to decide, because I needed all the help I could get.

“Fine.”

We walked to where Skis saw Boras go, which was the slums. By the time we got there and began searching, my injuries had healed for the most part. The palms of my hands had been pierced through by stone spikes, leaving a hole through them, so it needed much more time to heal, but either way, it should not be a problem in a fight for me.

Looking at the slums, from the games and descriptions of the fantasy books I have read in my past life, it was what I had expected it to be.

Filled with filth and people in poverty, it was quite a sad sight because it reminded me of how I met Clare. There were even children, like how I first met Clare, on the streets searching for food.

I wish I could do something for them, but I saw that there was no point in doing so because the objective was to save Clare, not the people around me.

It was quite cold-hearted, but the mission takes priority no matter what.

On another note, since I was covered in blood, people did not approach us at all, if not actively avoiding us, which was a good thing because it stopped unsavory people from stopping us, especially Skis, who, even though he is the guild master of the adventurers guild in Acton, looks like a really easy target with him looking afraid of everyone we pass by.

However, this also posed a problem because whenever I tried to ask one of the residents if they saw anyone jumping between the rooftops, they would run away. In the end, I grew frustrated when I couldn’t find any leads on where Clare was, so I ended up asking Skis.

“Guild Master Skis, do you know where Boras took Clare?”

I had asked because Skis is the guild master of Acton’s Adventurer guild, so he must have skills I don’t have, like knowing how to track someone, for instance.

Flinching a bit.

“Boras, is he—is he the person who kidnapped Clare?”

“Yes.”

Oh, right, I haven’t told him who we were looking for or how dangerous he was. It completely slipped my mind.

“Umm, sure.”

Following Skis' lead, I was vigilant of my surroundings, watching if we were being watched or any surprise attacks, in addition to clues to where Clare was taking us.

As he said that, he then asked who the people were who were kidnapping Clare. I debated on his request and decided to tell him some of the information about Boras and my family's black knights.

I told him that the person who kidnapped Clare was Boras and the Black Knights under him, excluding that they were from my family and my connection to them. I'm doing this because, contrary to his appearance, I was guessing he was way sharper than he let on, and I should leave some things out and lie about some things.

“Wait, so this Boras person, why is he after Clare and targeting you?”

In my emotionless tone, which hid even the slightest bit of emotion, even from Clare.

“That, I’m afraid, I cannot tell. However, be extremely wary of Boras; he is a psychopath and likes seeing people suffer for his enjoyment.”

“Isn’t that a bit much to tell to describe someone?”

“No, it’s his actual personality. As you could see from the mage you’ve fought, they are not normal, which I don’t even know if they are even human or something else entirely.”

“I could see that, scary.”

I looked at Skis, who, for some reason, knew something about those mages I had fought that I didn’t know about.

“So you know what they are? Are they human or not?”

“I believe they are humans, but living, I don’t think.”

“What does that mean?”

“They are corpses.”

Hearing what he said, I slightly raised my voice in response.

“What?!”

Skis flinch at my sudden rise in my voice, which sort of surprises me too, because that is something I did not expect to hear in this world, even though this is a fantasy world.

In all my time living in this world, I’d never once heard necromancy was a thing, so I assume necromancy doesn’t exist in this world. But with Skis’s reaction, it made me suspect that that type of information is heavily guarded.

In addition, my father has a necromancer under him, which means that my father is much more dangerous than I thought.

“Explain.”

Stuttering a bit, like he wasn't supposed to say that, and then having a face of whether he should tell me or not, he said.

“Ummm, ugh…"

“Let me guess, someone who can control corpses, like puppets, is highly forbidden and secretive?”

“Something like that, but they are not mere puppets.”

“How so?”

“They can move and think on their own to some extent. It’s like slavery magic, where a magical circle is burned into their bodies to control people, but much worse because your soul is trapped inside your body, meaning your mind is still functioning and you’re still conscious of your surroundings, but you have no control over your body.”

Hearing that, a thought immediately came up: if I were sent back to my family, my father would probably do something like that, if not worse, with Clare.

“I see.”

I followed Skis and walked for what seemed like an eternity as Skis was trying to pick up Boras’ track, but in reality, it was around 30 minutes or so. I grew increasingly impatient because he hadn’t found anything yet.

“Skis.” My voice slightly raised again, I said, “Do you know where we’re going?”

“Yes, don’t worry, I do believe we have a lead now.”

Hearing his sudden tone and aura change to the one when he fought the earth mage, I was immediately on guard.

I looked around my surroundings to see what he was talking about, and I saw that we were surrounded.

The noise of the slums suddenly grew quiet, and the residents suddenly began leaving, leaving me and Skis alone.

So that was his plan… to use me as bait and wait for my family’s black knights to react. With how much I stand out, Boras would, of course, send someone to get me, but counting at least 20 is a bit much.

I glance at Skis's sudden, calm eyes, which gave him an aura of confidence again, very different from his usual self. Or is it his actual self?

Setting those thoughts aside, we prepare to fight all of them.

Skis moved first; he went straight toward what seemed to be the leader, who was silently communicating with the others through glances of his eyes.

Watching SKis’s actions as he parries and counters each of my family’s black knights, I knew he wanted me to cover for him because he was leaving me openings to attack. So with that in mind, I held my sword, which still had its scabbard on, firm and struck each of my family’s black knights with the openings Skis lent me.

I watch as Skis cuts down and kills each of my family’s black knights one at a time, leaving me some to deal with.

It didn’t really affect me too much because I was numb to seeing dead corpses in my past life.

In this life, I’m not about to start killing, but I better move because the number of my family’s black knights Skis left me to deal with was starting to grow.

So, swinging my sword with the sheath still on it, I hit each one of them in the head.

Blood started to fill the street with the number of my family’s Black Knight Skis was killing so easily.

As we were approaching what seemed to be the leader of the group, I sensed mana amassing from the people next to him, who looked different from the others, like the mages I fought earlier.

“Guild Master Skis.”

“I know.”

Surprised at his response, like he already knew that a spell was being cast before me, I watched as he raised his free hand to stop me and readied a defensive stance.

Mist and ice violently filled the street and came expanding straight for us. I was about to get out of the way and take cover, but I saw something I did not expect.

He said that his sword was an artifact, made from an unknown material that could neutralize mana. I knew the last part was a lie because I could sense mana instantly being sucked into his sword, not neutralizing it, but seeing his sword glowing blue really surprised me.

The mist and the ice spells spreading toward him started to have their mana stuck into Skis' glowing blue sword as he swung his sword at the spells in one giant arc, making contact with the mist and ice, causing both to stop just before they reached Skis.

Sword now glowing like when a mage is using mana, Skis looks at me coolly, signaling me to continue with a nod.

Sensing mana covering the blade of the sword, I was shocked again, seeing his sword cutting through the sword of one of my family’s black knights like it was nothing, then bisecting his torso in half, followed by the next one and the one after that.

Before the leader of the group of my family’s black knights could retreat, Skis closed in on him, ignoring the 3 black knights near him and focusing on the leader and the two mages beside him.

Seeing that he was completely exposed, he really must trust in my ability for him to do something like that.

I, of course, covered for him.

Time slowed down, and I moved my body in a way that would put a massive strain on my body because there were three of my family’s black knights, and I could barely take on one without the enhancement Sarah gave me.

I swung my sheathed sword at them, feeling my muscles overwork themselves to imitate my movements when I had Sarah’s support spell, and I hit their heads, knocking them all out.

Hitting the walls from my movement, moving at an extremely fast speed, I use it as support as I take heavy breaths, recovering my stamina from moving that way without Sarah’s support, while I saw Skis cut down the two mages and then cut the tendons of their leader to stop him from running.

Walking up to Skis, still using the walls as support, I ask him.

“How are we going to get information out of him?”

Knowing that the leader of the group of my family’s Black Knights and the others are trained to keep their mouths shut under any circumstances, even willing to kill themselves to not give us the information we need, I was curious about how Skis would proceed.

“Talk.”

Saying that in a surprisingly authoritarian tone, the leader of the group of my family’s Black Knights did not respond to Skis’s command.

It was to be expected, though, so Skis then severed his arm, down to the elbow, and asked again.

“Talk.”

This time, he reacted, but it was just him screaming in pain, which didn’t really help much, but it can’t be helped. I was short on time; any more time means more time for Boras to do whatever he wants to Clare, which I must stop, whatever it takes. So, torture is the best option here because there was no time for any interrogation. Granted, the information must be taken with caution and skepticism.

“Nyx, please watch him for me.”

Skis turned to look at me with a cold expression; I wondered what he was going to do.

Walking to one of my family’s Black Knights, whom I knock out, Skis said, “Strange.”

Turning to look at me again, he asked. “Did you knock out all the knights you’ve fought?”

“Yes, is that a problem?”

“No, just odd that you would spare them.”

“It’s personal, but I'd rather not have my hands covered in blood.”

“I see, then do you mind if I kill one of them?”

“No, why?”

I looked at the leader of the group of my family black knights, seeing if that would get a reaction, which it did.

His eyes shot right open as I heard Skis thrust his sword into the back of the one he asked to kill.

So with that, seeing that he was using my family’s black knight as hostages, I said, “Are you going to talk now?”

He gritted his teeth, and he finally spoke.

“La–”

Realizing he was about to say my name, I kicked him in the head, stopping him from saying my name.

That was close; he really is going to say my name, which I would rather keep a secret from Skis.

“Quiet, my name is Nyx.”

Skis looks at me questioningly on why I did that when I quickly glance back at him, but thankfully, he figures that he should not ask.

“Okay, now tell me, where did Boras take Clare?”

Looking at me, he opened his mouth and spoke.