Paradigm Parasite

Chapter 15: "Tavern"

"Why am I still alive? I wonder..."

I took back Hang's words, who was shaking in turmoil.

From what I could remember from Gervis and the others, there didn't seem to be any particular ambush, so I decided to go without hesitation.

For starters, I tied the relatively undamaged corpse of Baril to a tree and readied Korau's great bow.

I had some time before Hang and the others came out, so I waited while practicing.

I knew that just knowing how to use the bow would be difficult, and although it flew to some good spots, the accuracy of the shot was not as good as I remembered.

If I didn't hit the target, it was OK.

After waiting for a while, Hang and the others came out.

I set up my big bow.

Well, who should I aim at first?

At first I thought about going for Hang, but I think I'll go for Quinham, who seems to be the most troublesome to deal with.

I want to take away their memories, so I should aim for something other than their brains.

Aim for the heart then....

I aim and shoot.

Hit the target...but it's a little off.

It hit her in the throat. She looks dead, so it's okay.

After that, I shoot at random and wait for them to want to run into me.

They were screaming something, but I ignored them.

I wondered how they would break through. But then, they came at me, using their dead friends as shield.

They are a bunch of idiots to use their friends as shield.

Well, I guess that's what you get when you're in a relationship with people you don't know well.

Oh, that reminds me. That Hang guy looks just like the outwardly good committee chairman in high school.

He was a trashy guy who was nice only when there were a lot of people and teachers around, but when a bottom-feeder like me was with him, he revealed his true nature and became arrogant.

Yeah, it made me feel kind of uncomfortable. The hand that holds the bow and arrow gets stronger.

After a few more shots, I went into the shade of a nearby tree.

They came up to me and when they were upset by the dead body of Baril, whom I had used as bait, I hit Hongam from behind and killed him.

His head exploded. Oh, shit.

I knew I shouldn't use makana for memory taking. It would shatter into pieces.

And here we are.

"No, no! I'm asking why you killed your friends!"

Hang said, missing the point.

Ha-ha-ha.

What the hell is this guy talking about at this stage of the game, does he think I haven't found out?

Or is he just stalling for time?

I shrug my shoulders.

"Garbis and the others told me everything. You planted that stuff on me to kill me, didn't you?"

I didn't lie. I'm an honest man, unlike you guys.

Hang's mouth is agape.

Are you coming up with an excuse?

What does it matter? It doesn't change the fact that I'm going to kill him.

I'm pointing the makana at him.

I'll have to avoid the head and go for the body.

"Oh, you're going to kill me? Wait a minute. Don't you want to know how this happened? If you kill me, you'll just get another one!"

"Don't worry. I'll just ask the body."

"Damn it!"

Hang pulls out his sword, ready to kill me.

I swing the makana at his flank.

Hang knows it's not a good idea to fight, so he backs away and lets it pass.

I swung at him, and he sank down and closed the gap.

The goblin did well here. It's hard to hit someone from below when you have tall stature.

He's probably aiming for the neck, right? He can't aim at the torso because I'm wearing mail.

I grabbed the blade with my free hand and stopped him. The blade bites into my hand, but it's nothing to worry about.

"What!?"

I pulled the blade as hard as I could, pulling Hang along with the sword.

Hang did not let go of the sword, so his body also came to me.

I let go of the makana and grabbed Hang's hair.

I yanked to pull his neck to a reasonable position and bit off his head.

I turn Hang's body around before the blood spurts out.

I have to make sure my clothes don't get dirty.

I've learned my lesson before when I bit off a goblin's head and got covered in blood.

I'm getting used to it.

But still.... I wonder how it is that I feel less conflicted when I kill a human being than when I kill a goblin.

I don't feel one bit of pain in my heart.

They tried to kill me anyway.

They deserve to die.

Well. Let's see what you know.

[Hunters of Souls.]

That seems to be the name of the assassin guild they belong to.

Hunter of Souls...uh...yeah. I think it's cool, right? Maybe?

They seem to be active mainly in Royal Capital, but this time, one of the executives was contracted directly by a client with whom he has a relationship.

The details of the client are unknown. Again.

The name of the executive whom Hang calls the boss is also unknown.

In the first place, they have never even met.

This is a backroom organization, after all. The details of the client's case are not known at all.

But Hang is right. If I don't do something, these people will come back to kill me until I die.

I'm in trouble.

I'm supposed to be living modestly and not bothering anyone, but how did this happen?

Just as I was about to head for the royal capital, this is not a good thing.

"...huh..."

I let out a sigh.

It's troublesome, but it's obvious that it will become even more troublesome if I leave it unattended, so I guess I'll have to go to the Royal Capital after this matter is settled.

Before that...

"Let's have a meal."

Let's strip them down while I'm at it.

A few days later.

I was waiting for someone on the outskirts of Enkau.

It's a great place to have a secret talk, where nothing is going on and not many people are around.

I don't talk, though.

After a few minutes of waiting, a man appears, looking around cautiously.

I hide behind a tree and watch him.

Okay, he's alone.

I emerge from the shadows.

The man looks at me and gives me a hard stare.

"Wait a minute. I'm the one Hang sent."

"By... hang?"

"Yeah, Hang sent you, too, didn't he?"

"Tell me what you want."

"I got something for you."

I raise my hands to show that I am unarmed and offer him the bag of gold coins from my waist.

When the man saw that I was unarmed, he relaxed his guard slightly.

His eyes are glued to the gold coins peeking out of the bag.

The guy takes the bag from me.

"Wow, that's amazing! All gold coins! Why is Hang...?"

I grabbed him by the neck and spun him around.

It made a nice snapping sound.

The man collapsed with a strange look on his face.

...An assassin shouldn't be able to create an opening so easily.

I shoved a root into his ear and stripped him down while sucking the memories out of his corpse.

Oh, this guy has a lot of money.

The only weapon...is a dagger...I don't need it. I'll sell it later.

After that, I returned to the city and started hunting for Hang's friends.

I would kill members of the hunter of souls by surprise, and then steal their memories and attack other members that they knew.

The one lying in front of me now is the fifth, and I've been steadily adding to my tally without being noticed.

After all, it was someone he "knew."

It was not so difficult to find an opening.

Zev, whom I just killed, has a strong attachment to money and often gets into trouble over his share, so when I showed him the gold coins, his eyes were drawn to them.

He is a cash man. Cash only!

Like this, I went around killing the hit men in this town.

I knew where they were based, but there seemed to be too many of them, so I reduced their numbers to a reasonable number and then attacked the top brass.

It was a perfect plan.

Now, I buried the money-loving Zev.

Next, it was the turn of boy-loving Nalua and girl-loving Korn.

By the end of the day, they were both put away.

I lured the former by telling him I would introduce him to a cute boy and the latter to a girl, and then I crushed and broke their necks in the shadows.

I like this way of killing. No blood stains.

Well, it's time to drop the main body.

You've given me a lot of trouble, and I'm going to kill you and all your clients.

It's their stronghold... in short, a place where they mediate requests.

Normally, it's a bar, but behind the scenes, apparently, it's...

On the outside, it looks like just a bar.

The time is midnight.

I look at the sky and see a beautiful full moon.

It's not like I'm turning into a wolf or anything.

The bar is open and light is leaking from inside.

I enter the bar.

Inside, an adventurer-like man and his companions, whom I remember, are drinking and eating.

The seats are more than 80% occupied.

Even though it was late, there were quite a lot of customers.

The place is prosperous. Is the food good? From my memory, I don't think so.

Looking at the restaurant more closely, I see that there are quite a few friends here.

Did something happen today?

At any rate, I sit down at the nearest counter.

There was a procedure, I remember.

Order a drink, say the code, and hand over the money, right?

I was about to call out to the master...

"Gugu!"

Knives and arrows pierced my back.

Thanks to my chainmail, the arrows were shallow, but they were deep enough.

I turn around.

The people who were eating at the restaurant are all holding weapons.

What!?

An ambush! Why?

No time to think, it seems.

I jumped up on the counter, grabbed the master's arm who was about to stab me with a knife, pulled him in, and broke his neck.

"Hey, hey, how can he move like that with arrows in him?"

"It's not a problem. The arrow is poisoned. He'll be immobilized in no time!"

What!

Poison...yeah, I feel like I'm having a hard time breathing if you ask me.

...I just feel it, but it's nothing. Poison doesn't work after all.

Let's just wait behind the counter for now.

The idiot will come to check on me.

As I was waiting for him, the asshole peeked out from behind the counter, so I quickly got up and dragged him in.

I took the knife I got from the master and slit his throat.

Blood spurted out, and I got covered with it.

Oh, shit. You've soiled my clothes. What are you going to do!

"Hey! I thought the poison was working!"

"He must be wearing some kind of mail or something! The arrow didn't stick!"

No, it's stabbing me in the back with all its might, you know?

The footsteps around me are moving.

They seem to be moving to surround the counter.

I pull the arrow out of my back.

I don't know what's going on...

The dead bodies of the master and the idiot enter my field of vision.

...Oh, by the way, Hang and the others are doing it.

I grab the master's corpse and jump out from the counter.

Arrows fly at me, but I block them by using the master's corpse as a shield.

I ran into the guys holding the crossbow and threw the corpse at them.

Some of them hit the bodies and fell down.

I pulled out my makana and blew the head off the nearest one.

Two men cut at me from behind with swords.

I turned around and swung at their swords with the makana.

Both swords shatter.

I hit the closer one in the head with my free fist. His eyeballs popped out.

The rest kicked him in the groin.

I feel something crushing. This one is crushed.

An arrow pierced my shoulder. It hurts, doesn't it?

I pull the arrow out while running to the guy who put the arrow in me.

I put an arrow through his eye.

The other one comes at me.

I put a makana in his torso. He vomits blood and blows up.

My back is slashed. An arrow pierces my leg. It hurts. Stopping is not a good idea.

I grab the head of the guy who cut me and spin him around.

I run around and beat the nearest enemy to death with my makana.

The crossbow takes a few shots, but I use the corpse as a shield to block them, or throw the corpse at them to create an opening and beat them to death.

The enemy seems to be getting more scared by the fact that slashing me doesn't kill me rather than by the fact that their numbers are decreasing.

"What the hell is this guy...he won't die even if I slash and stab him."

"I'm sure I've put a lot of arrows into him..."

The reaction is that of a victim in a horror movie.

"I'm out! I can't do this!"

"Hey! You gotta be kidding me!"

Hey, hey, hey, don't run away.

I grabbed the sword from the corpse and threw it at him.

The sword went right into the back of the guy who ran away and fell out on his chest.

I'm starting to understand how creatures in horror movies feel.

I'm tempted to target anyone who tries to run away, because they stand out.

No one else is running away...

There are swords and knives at my feet, so I have no shortage of things to throw at them, so they can try to escape even more.

If I were in the opposite situation, I would use my friends as bait and somehow escape.

If they don't do that, then there must be some reason why they can't escape.

If that's the case, I'd be grateful.

It would be troublesome to look for them if they escaped.

Let's finish the rest quickly.

Over the next few minutes or so, the battle was cleared up.

When the number of people was less than five, they started to try to escape, but I managed to kill them all.

It used to look like an ordinary bar a while ago, but it turned out to be a pile of corpses.

...Not as bad as I thought.

They were stronger than your average thugs, but you'd think they'd be tougher than that, being assassins and all.

The people who have had their memories taken from them were mostly adventurers, so I guess they were more of a group of roughnecks.

At first I thought they were like ninjas, but I guess that's not the reality.

By the way, this is supposed to be a base, but I didn't see anyone who looked like a big man.

Did I kill him without realizing it?

If so, it would be great if his head was still here...

I was a little impatient as I went to check the body....

I felt a strange presence. What was this...?

Oh, I remember now.

I saw it in Quinham's memory.

It's a sign of magic.

The moment I remembered, a tremendous explosion occurred at the entrance to the store, a blast and shock engulfed my body.