Inside a dark and silent forest, a flickering fire was burning with an ever-growing intensity, as the occasional noises of crackling wood filled the air.

A dense thicket of barren trees surrounded the fire from all sides, as its faint, wavering light cast their long and eerily shadows into the distant darkness, trembling alongside the flames.

A small group of four brown-robed individuals sat around the crackling fire. Two of them fully focused on sharpening their glistening daggers, while another one absentmindedly threw small pieces of dried wood into the slowly intensifying fire from time to time.

The last one was tirelessly scanning through their surroundings with a sharp look in his eyes, not wanting to miss any signs of trouble that might be silently creeping nearby.

In the middle of his routine lookout, the sentry's gaze suddenly caught on the figure of their young apprentice-mage stepping out of the slave-carriage, empty-handed.

"...Hmm?"

Of course, the young man's appearance alone wasn't enough to take away his attention from his lookout duty at first, but when he spotted a huge splotch of crimson blood dripping from the neck portion of that apprentice's robe, his eyes slowly began to narrow.

His abnormal reaction wasn't missed by the others, as they stopped whatever they were doing and looked in the direction of the apprentice, before noticing the same thing as the sentry.

"Hey, what happened? Where did all that blood come from?"

The 'young man' didn't answer the sentry's question immediately, silently walking in their direction with a slight smile on his face.

"...I'm asking you something, Eddy."

The sentry spoke again with furrowed brows, while the smiling 'young man' swiftly closed the distance between them, before casually taking a seat between the two dagger-sharpening men – leaving them a bit dumbfounded at the young man's sudden show of friendliness.

"Ahh, don't be so impatient. This blood is from that demon boy. He just died a while ago."

The young man nonchalantly shrugged his shoulders, causing dark crease marks to immediately appear on everyone's foreheads.

"...Why would that one suddenly die? Did you...?"

The young man immediately put his hands up in the air, looking at the sentry with wide, disbelieving eyes.

"No, I didn't do anything at all! I was just quietly standing on the sidelines. It was that guy who left him halfway beaten to death!"

"Really? Why the hell did he do something like that? We had to pay for that demon, and it was from an exotic species too..."

One of the dagger-sharpeners sitting beside the young man said in a grumbling tone, not at all pleased to hear that such a costly and unique product went to waste, just like that.

"Yeah. Now Usmark is going to be pissed again."

The sentry also agreed with him, shaking his head with a light sigh.

No one really doubted the young man's words.

After all, they all had heard the loud noises coming from that cabin earlier. They even saw how that enraged man was mercilessly dragging the Lycan woman through the ground.

Whatever happened in there must have been something incredible to piss off that guy to this degree!

"Oh, you want to know what happened? It was really surprising to see just how malicious and provocative a demon's tongue can be!"

"Hoh. If you're willing to tell, then why not?"

The one who was feeding dried sticks of wood into the campfire showed a mischievous smile. He definitely knew that the young man would get into trouble for sharing such stories with them, but didn't intend to stop him anyway.

The others also somewhat shared his sentiments, similarly not letting their true thoughts show on their face, but still keeping their ears open for the incoming juicy story.

"Then everyone, come a little closer! Hehehe..."

Even the sentry was still a little dissatisfied at the prospect of losing one of their costly slaves, but he also leaned in a little closer like the others. After all, in this dreary darkness of the night, there were no better ways to pass their time than some old-school gossip.

"Then, I'll begin now..."

With a wide smile on his face, the 'young man' even grabbed the shoulders of the two adjacent dagger-sharpening men and pulled them closer to himself, seemingly a bit too eager to share his story.

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Their eyes did twitch a little when he did that, but in the end, they didn't say or do anything to stop him.

"So, when we first went in there, you know what that demon boy said to our guy?"

"..."

The four men silently exchanged awkward glances with each other for a moment, before the drywood-thrower guy decided to reluctantly engage the young man.

"...What did he say?"

The young man slightly leaned ahead, unconsciously pulling the two exasperated dagger-sharpening guys along with him.

"He said..."

To create a dramatic effect, he looked into all of their eyes one by one, showing a rare look of seriousness on his face, before finally opening his mouth again.

"...open the damned [Inventory]! "

"huh...?"

The look on all four individuals suddenly turned weird, unable to understand whatever the hell this 'young man' was saying.

Unfortunately, they weren't given any time to figure out the meaning behind those nonsensical words...

With a sharp glint suddenly appearing in his eyes, the young man flicked both of his wrists at the same time, causing a pair of straight, gleaming knives to magically appear within his grasp!

"What are y—!!!!!"

His hands started to move at lightning-fast speeds, not paying any attention to what the sentry was saying. And before anyone could react, both of those knives were plunged deep into the throats of the oblivious dagger-sharpening guys sitting by his side!

"Urrk!!"

"Gahk...!!"

Blood started gushing out like a fountain, spraying all over the 'young man' as it slowly drowned his victims in a shallow pool of crimson liquid.

"—STOPPPP!!!"

The enraged sentry roared, seeing as the 'young man' had now turned around to face the drywood-thrower man after finishing off the two dagger-sharpeners.

Hearing the loud roar, the young man's lips simply curled into a cold grin, seemingly having no intention of stopping his hunt anytime soon.

*Swish–!*

Quickly snatching the daggers meticulously sharpened by the currently blood-gurgling men on his side, the young man forcefully threw them at the drywood-thrower guy, one after another in quick succession!

"Shit!"

The daggers rapidly cut through the air, almost instantly appearing in front of the drywood-thrower man stuck in the middle of furiously chanting a magic spell, his emerald green eyes wide open in terror.

"[Shield Of Ab—] Arghhh!!"

Showing an exceptional level of agility and presence of mind befitting of Etheria's mightiest clandestine organization member, the dark mage barely twisted his head out of the dagger's trajectory, causing it to stab into his shoulder instead.

But unluckily for him, his throat now ended up directly in the middle of the second dagger's trajectory...

"Khhk...!!"

The speeding dagger easily pierced through the fragile throat of the dark mage, causing another fountain of crimson blood to erupt and bloom, adding one more victim to the young man's name.

Without the support of the dark mage's chant, the faintly glowing magic circle taking shape above his hands slowly disintegrated, dispersing the unused mana back into the atmosphere.

But the 'young man' didn't keep waiting for all this to happen. Instead, after throwing those two daggers, he had been focusing all his attention on the grim-faced sentry.

"Don't you dare—"

Just a few moments ago, when this grim-faced sentry was about to move to save his dark mage friend from the sharp daggers, a straight knife had suddenly appeared right in front of his eyes.

"—DAMMIT!!"

Sensing the danger, he had to hastily unsheathe his sword and parry away that knife, leaving the dark mage to fend for himself – resulting in those two daggers ultimately claiming that mage's life.

*Clanggg~!*

"Khh...!! Urrghhh!!!"

The shrill sound of metal clashing against metal, and the loud death cry of a desperate mage rang out at the same time, echoing in the air like a morbid symphony of slaughter and carnage.

Now, only the sentry was left standing, looking at his companions' corpses slowly bleeding out on the ground with a bloodshot pair of eyes.

"You!!!"

A growling voice left the sentry's throat as he forcefully gnashed his teeth together, slowly tearing his gaze away from the bleeding corpses and meeting the impostor's eyes with an unmatched level of ferocity burning in his own.

"You are not Eddy.... Who are you?!"

The 'young man' in front of him didn't have any expressions on his face anymore. His joyous smile was now gone, replaced by a cold indifference as he unblinkingly stared into the sentry's eyes.

"Don't worry. Very soon, you will join them in the afterlife too."

Hearing those indifferent words, the sentry now clenched his teeth even harder before taking an offensive stance with his longsword.

"Right, why did I even bother asking? I can always get the answers I need from your cold corpse later anyway...!!"

A bloodthirsty aura suddenly began to radiate from the sentry as a buzzing whirlpool of mana gradually started forming around his body. A human-sized magic circle glowing with a dark, ominous light slowly took shape behind his back, pulsating like a living being's heart!

"[Mantle Of Eligor]!"

The spell slowly started to take shape, the slight buzzing noise growing even louder as the invisible mana congregating around the sentry took on a unique jet-black hue, coating his entire body in a dense fog of pulsating power.

"Heh..."

The 'young man' didn't make any attempts to stop him from completing the spell, instead looking at his spellcasting procedure with an amused smile on his face, slowly bringing his hands up in the air like he was preemptively surrendering.

The sentry didn't know why this impostor didn't start attacking him as he was casting the spell, but he couldn't be bothered to care at the moment.

After all, since a while ago, all he could see was RED!!

However, just as he was about to lunge at the 'young man', a loud voice barked at them from behind.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU GUYS DOING?!"

The amused smile on the young man's face widened, before it quickly disappeared as a desperate look suddenly appeared on his face.

Turning to face the direction of that voice, he suddenly raised his empty hands even higher, before screaming hysterically.

"AARRGGHH!!! This guy has gone crazy! He killed everyone!! Now he's going to kill me too!!!"