Chapter 319.
Hillis looked at me coldly and said, "What did you come here to steal?" She had a chilling tone, as if she would aim her wand imbued with divine power at me right away. Her sharp look was new, in contrast to her usual playful expression.
"Well, I’m not here to steal this time." I shrugged and checked the sword. Perhaps because it had been a long time since I’d dealt with a sword aura-infused weapon using only an ordinary sword, the blade of my sword was damaged. Still, having just blocked that strike brought back feelings I’d had in my childhood to some extent.
"Then why—" Even before Hillis finished speaking, black masked people rushed at me.
Kang!
I deflected the strange swordsmanship that contained a mixture of black mana and divine power. Then, I kicked the stomach of a masked person who was striking at me with a sword, knocking him into the one behind him.
"All right. It’s fine this time,” I said to myself. Even though I had deflected a fairly powerful sword, the blade wasn’t damaged.
When I had learned swordsmanship under Elder Weger, I had faced an even stronger aura with an ordinary sword to learn technique. Compared to back then, it wasn’t difficult to hit away such a sloppy sword aura.
"What is this?!” Hillis exclaimed. She was also shocked to see the masked people using both black mana and divine power. It was natural to be surprised, because it wasn’t that common.
"When it comes to black mana, it’s possible to use what others inject into you, but it’s impossible for divine power,” I said.
"Then!?"
"Those priests are probably being manipulated by a black magician,” I continued.
Those masked people were probably paladins of the Great Temple. I had been wondering why only eleven people seemed to be moving when the enemy was invading, but it seems the others had fallen into the hands of the Demon King worshipper. Come to think of it, their outfits were the same as the ones I had seen at the princess’ ball in the past.
Hillis was frowning and seemed genuinely angry, which was rare. She asked, "This isn’t related to you, is it?"
I smiled lightly in response to Hillis’s suspicion. "It’s normal to be suspicious, but that’s not the case. Rather, I’m the enemy of the black magician controlling them."
Actually, if one got into the technicalities, I couldn’t say I wasn’t related, since I was their target. That was proven by the fact that the masked people, who had been headed toward Duke Asteria, immediately stopped and surrounded me on sight.
"Look, those masked people are releasing killing intent toward me, right?” I smiled playfully and raised my sword, and the masked people rushed at me all at once.
As they tried to enter the narrow passage through the smashed doorway, only three could move forward at a time.
I deflected a sword strike from the masked person who was running straight at me, and blocked another from the one on the right. Then, I ducked to avoid another strike by the one coming from the left and slashed the leg of the masked person in the middle.
Kang-!
When I struck the leg, the sound of metal rang out as if I had hit a rock. Normally, it should have been completely cut off and the person should have lost balance, but it was only cut through halfway. In addition, it seemed their consciousness was truly gone and they didn’t even feel pain.
"Crrrr!"
"Tch!"
I clicked my tongue, reaching forward and charging toward the chest of the masked person whose leg I had just cut, and stabbed the sword into their heart. Then, I twisted the masked person’s arm and stole his sword.
"What are you doing?! You said they were only being manipulated!" Hillis shouted, putting Arwen behind her.
I grabbed the breathless masked person by the collar and used them as a shield to block an attack from the left before explaining, "Unfortunately, they’re completely gone. This can’t be fixed even if a great madosa arrives!"
I was sure of that for a simple reason: Even if my mana had been intact, I couldn’t fix these masked people. Their brains were completely fried, so they couldn’t be restored. Even for me, just as one couldn’t bring back the dead, one couldn’t restore a completely shattered mind.
"How do you know?! One of my friends is an amazing madosa! I’m sure he’ll be able to fix it!" Hillis shouted and swung her wand, binding the masked people with a chain of divine power.
I didn’t know if the amazing madosa she was talking about was me or someone else, but it might be more merciful to let the masked people go without pain. At this rate, it would be difficult to avoid leaving them in a vegetative state.
I sighed and scratched the back of my head. "Do whatever you want. However, know that even great madosas don’t easily mess with magic that touches a person’s mind."
Hillis bit her lips. She probably also knew that well. Although she had mainly learned divine magic, she was a madosa of the highest level. She was at a level where she would certainly understand the situation. Nevertheless, she still hoped I might be able to treat it. She was so soft-hearted.
What were Albatoss and the consecrated paladins doing, for them to not be here with Hillis? No matter how far away they were from the Great Temple due to the internal politics of the temple, shouldn’t they have come immediately if there was a problem?
Just then, a warning came from Tristan.
-A pretty strong person is headed over there, Master.
As soon as Tristan’s warning came, a strong aura came from upstairs, breaking Hillis’s chain of divine power.
"Oh, it’s strong,” I remarked.
In terms of the aura’s power alone, that person was on a similar level to the Mercenary King. Judging from the fact that they seemed to be strengthened by black mana, her original skills were probably far below that, but I thought they would be a pretty fun opponent in my current state.
"Crrrr!"
When the chain was cut, the previously restrained masked people rushed back toward me. I ran through the door while avoiding them, kicked the wall in, and climbed upstairs.
"God!" Hillis tried to bind the masked people with another chain of divine power, but they quickly avoided the chain.
I didn’t know about Arwen, but Hillis should have no problem dealing with those masked people. Still, in the event of a mishap, I had left Lionel in Arwen’s shadow, so I didn’t have to worry.
"Are you going to play with me until that Demon King worshipper called Libra comes out?" I asked the woman wearing a black mask standing across from me in the central hallway.
She began to vent killing intent and shouted in an emotionless voice, "How dare you! He is not someone for you to speak of in vain!"
"Oh, this one retains its will,” I muttered.
Considering the divine power flowing through her sword, she seemed to be of the same kind as the masked people underneath. Nevertheless, she maintained her mind.
The human mind seemed weak, but it was also solid, so it wasn’t easy to brainwash someone while preserving their will. It was hard to make any headway in that regard; if it had succeeded, it must have taken place over several years.
"But aren’t you being too spineless? You followed Leo and even risked your life to protect him.” I deliberately provoked her to destabilize the brainwashing. If she could show expressions to that extent, it wouldn’t be easy to fully complete the brainwashing. In that case, I could undo the brainwashing by inducing extreme emotional changes.
"When you tried to kidnap the princess, where did the ones who sacrificed their lives instead of Leo go?" I called out.
"Uuk!"
In response to my sarcastic remarks, the masked woman held her head and almost vomited. The effect was much better than I had thought.
"What was the name of that guy? Was it Mario? If his comrade turned traitor so easily, I guess Leo was nothing much.”
"No... No... No...!"
She was reacting to Mario, not Leo, so I changed the direction of my provocation. I laughed openly at her cries. "What, dying for a guy who’s worth nothing? Such a death is called a dog’s death by other people. Wouldn’t you agree?"
"I’m going to kill you! In the name of God! I’ll at least kill you, without fail!” Her emotions exploded forth along with her killing intent.
From the look in her eyes, the brainwashing wasn’t completely broken yet, but if this continued, I could probably bring it to the edge of breaking. I taunted, "Why don’t you try killing me?! Hahahaha!”
The masked woman infused her sword with a powerful aura, stepped onto the railing, and jumped toward me. But just before she jumped, I ran away toward the stairs leading up to the third floor.
"Stop! You villain!" she cried.
"Ahahaha! Who stops when you tell them to stop? My sword is too weak to deal with that brutishly strong aura,” I replied. I climbed up the stairs, lifting my body with one arm as if I were pole vaulting.
"Die!" The masked person shot a strong aura at me, and I threw my body in another direction to avoid it.
Kwagwang-!
The strong aura completely destroyed the stairwell I had been standing in. I grabbed the fall safety net installed in the air, bounced off it, and landed in the central hallway on the third floor.
"Peek-a-boo! I’m here. Where are you shooting that strong aura? Do you only care about your comrades this much?” I taunted her.
"You punk!" she yelled.
Good. Get even angrier.
There must have been a reason why she was the only one to have been brainwashed so carefully using so much effort. The more I chipped away at it, the more the Demon King worshipper wouldn’t stay still.
The masked woman tried to jump up the stairs to the third floor like me instead of running up, as if she considered time too valuable to waste.
I flew into the air, grabbed the chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and used my momentum to launch a hectopascal kick.
"Keuk!"
The masked person was thoroughly caught off guard as she went up, trying to swing the sword while hanging from the railing. But I grabbed the arm holding the sword, bent it back, and pulled her into a rear choke from behind.
"Ugh!"
As her arm was bent and she was being strangled while hanging with one arm, she couldn’t fight back properly and just struggled.
"Kuk! Kuk!"
No matter how strong one was, one couldn’t exert their full strength if they got careless and their breathing was cut off. The presence or absence of mana could be sufficiently countered by high level martial arts.
That was what I had felt while watching Lisbon and Alphonso. Knights of the empire relied too much on the power of mana. They didn’t realize that like magic, mana wasn’t indispensable, but rather an extrinsic factor. That was why you could easily win without mana like this.
"I won’t kill you, because it looks like the brainwashing can be undone,” I remarked.
The masked person turned blue because she couldn’t breathe, dropping to the ground as her arm relaxed. I grabbed the masked person’s waist and landed safely on the first floor.
"Kuhuk! Hu-uk! Hu-uk!"
The masked person seemed to be in more of a hurry to breathe, rather than to worry about the shock caused by landing on the ground. To be exact, she was probably taking the breaths because her brain needed to replenish the oxygen she had been deprived of while choking.
Just in time, Hillis also finished overpowering the masked people.
"Okay, shall we finish undoing the brainwashing?” I asked as I kicked the sword in her hand far away and took off her mask. The psychological pressure of having one’s secret revealed was very helpful in undoing brainwashing.
Hillis was shocked when the masked person’s bare face was revealed. "Unni!?"
What? Unni?! I looked back at Hillis in surprise.
In that short moment when my eyes were averted, the woman imbued her bare fist with a strong aura and punched me in the face. I turned my head to narrowly avoid it, grabbed her punching arm, and hit her in the solar plexus.
"Den...?" Hillis began.
No matter how much I had tried to avoid it, the strong aura that had glanced off the mask completely smashed it, and it fell off my face.
Oh, this just got annoying.
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