novelraw Chapter 124: New Glasses
Chapter 124: New Glasses
"Seems like my future will be quite a busy time. I just want to relax, drink a cold can of beer, kick my feet up on a couch, and maybe smoke some marijuana."
"First of all, when have you ever done any of those things?" asked the shitty god. "Even when you were on vacation in your old life, I don't recall you doing any of that. Relaxing? Beer? Smoking? Hah!"
"...I mean, it's just an expression. You get the gist of what I'm trying to say though."
I was at a store and although I was speaking to myself, no one was questioning me because I had one earbud in my ear.
It was quite simply genius. Other people would just assume that I was on a call.
The store I was in, to say that you had to be rich just to even pass through the door would be an understatement.
Even rich people would have to cough up blood just to purchase a single item. Everything sold here were products of magical engineering which utilized runes, magical cores, monster materials, etc., to create.
For example, the glasses that I had been wearing were purchased here.
Why am I here?
Because the second version of the glasses had come out. And it also had multiple designs and they looked so unassuming that you could wear them regularly without people realizing that they weren't prescription glasses.
Time to upgrade.
"What about this one?" I asked as I picked up a pair of glasses with rectangular frames.
I put them on and looked at my reflection in the mirror.
'Nope,' Kimi said.
'You look absolutely handsome!' Liona said.
"...They're decent," the shitty god chimed in.
I tried on a few more pairs.
Round frames. The responses I got to those were that they made me look too scholarly, except for Liona, who hyped me up regardless of how I dressed or looked.
I reckoned that if I wore a trash bag and was bald, Liona would still call me handsome.
Putting on thin wire glasses, my immediate reaction was absolutely not. It also had this slight that made me look like I was trying a little too hard to look impressionable.
"This is something that would fit Peaches," I uttered.
'You look like a shady merchant,' Kimi commented.
'A handsome one!' Liona added.
Reaching for another pair, these ones were also round, but they were rounder than the round ones. They were basically circles. It was black frames and was slightly thinner than average.
Nothing flashy.
Once I put them on, something clicked. They reminded me of a fictional wizard from Earth. A kid who had circular glasses with a lightning bolt scar on his forehead.
"Huh," I muttered. I pretended as if I was holding a wand and aimed it at the mirror. "Abracadabra."
For legal reasons, I didn't cast one of the known spells.
Tilting my head left then right, I pushed the glasses up the bridge of my nose.
'This one!' Liona screamed. 'You should get these!'
"Agreed,' Kimi said. 'They suit you the most out of all the ones you've tried on.'
Even the shitty god didn't argue. "They're decent. Looks like you're treading a thin line of copyright infringement, but as long as you don't get the scar… you should be okay."
Seems like both of us had the same idea.
"You're one to talk about copyright infringement," I scoffed. Taking off the glasses, I walked towards the register and thought to myself that this was the one.
Just as I was about to come to a stop and turn towards the worker, that was when my instincts screamed.
Before my brain itself could process what was going on, my body had already moved.
Raising my arm, I created a layer of mana just in time for—
THUD!
Something slammed into the shield hard enough to make the air around me vibrate.
I could sense dark mana splashing across the cracked mana shield like a bucket of ink hitting glass.
Since I was the only customer in the store at the moment, the only people there with me were the employees and the three figures that stood near the entrance.
They were all dressed in these deep black cloaks that had visible stitches. Each of them radiated the kind of mana that felt wrong just to be near.
Dark magic users.
And I remembered the warning that Cyro had told me.
These three must be some of the ones that I wasn't able to put a hit out on.
Although I put a bounty on the heads of many dark magic users, I was only able to do so on the ones whose identity I knew. There were many users in the world, more than what my estimate probably was.
"In a store?" I asked. "Seriously? It's bright as hell outside. Aren't you people supposed to come out when the sun is going down?"
"You people? What do you mean by… 'you people'?" asked the one standing in the center.
He raised his hand again, chanted something under his breath, and a spiral of dark mana formed in his hand before compressing into a spear-like shape.
As I sighed and dodged the attack, I put on the pair of glasses that I hadn't paid for yet.
As another dark spear tore through the space where my head had just been, I rolled across the ground and threw a bolt of lightning back when I got up to my feet.
Then more runes flared, dark mana erupted, and a barrage of dark magic attacks was coming in my direction.
I dodged them as best as I could and when I got behind the counter, all of the employees had already fled. Good decision.
"Yeah, no," I muttered. "I'm not wasting my codes or artifacts on you three. None of you guys are worth the trouble or effort."
I reached for the five thin strings in front of me and pulled them lightly.
Five shadows suddenly appeared from behind the shelves, beneath a counter, and dropped down from the ceiling.
The five generic looking man in suits that my father had assigned to me a while ago.
Usually, I would try to take on as much as I could by myself, but I had to conserve as much strength and energy for more important things.
"I got the one in the center. Handle the other two," I said calmly. "And try your best not to wreck the merchandise."
Splitting into two groups of three and two, they lunged forward and peeled the two dark magic users away from the man in the center.
One of them laughed as he raised both of his hands and created three skulls that had black flames coating them. They shot forward and when they landed—
Boom! Boom! Boom!
They exploded, detonating on impact. Fire didn't spread where the explosions occureed but instead, traces of dark mana lingered, and if you were to touch them, you would be burned as if it were fire.
The other dark user, a female, had a staff that resembled the bones of a human's arm, except it was much larger and was almost as tall as her.
When she tapped the staff on the ground, black portals appeared on the ground and skeletons dragged themselves out from them.
Three skeletons rose, matching the three suited men that Bell had sent to face her.
With the other two dragged away, the distance between the man who had been in the center and me felt much more manageable.
"Looks like it's just us now," I said lightly, rolling my shoulders as purple sparks danced along my arms. "Isn't that nice?"
He snarled, "You think that makes a difference? You think you can kill one of us and expect zero retribution? You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us!"
"That sounds like something a minority group is supposed to say. You know, people who are mistreated. Not someone who deals in dark magic, which is based upon the suffering of others," I scoffed.
A spear had condensed in front of him. This time it was thicker, longer, and more unstable than before. It was writhing likeit wanted to eat everything around it.
Stepping forward instead of taking a step back, I watched as he launched the spear.
Leaning to the side, I let the spear pass me just close enough that the hair on my head had to worry about being cut short. But lucky for them, they were fine.
I snapped my fist and lightning cracked. This wasn't particularly a spell. It was just raw lightning mana I had infused to reinforce my knuckles.
The punch shattered another spear that had been thrown and fragments of dark mana dispersed into the air like ashes.
I continued moving. Stepping through here and there like a boxer, I was able to get inside his guard and as I drove an elbow into his ribs, the electricity traveled from my arm over to his body.
Zap!
He flew backward and slammed into the display case that was made of extremely tough material that wasn't meant to break, no matter what. But the man had hit it hard enough to create a thin spiderweb-shaped crack across the glass.
"Tch," I clicked my tongue. "That's coming out of my wallet."
He coughed and quickly got back onto his feet. His eyes were bloodshot and there was a thick vein bulging on his temple.
He started saying, "You think you're—"
Vanishing from his sight in a flash of lightning, my fist met his jaw. There was this meaty and bony cracking sound. His head snapped to the side and he rolled numerous times across the floor before finally stopping when he hit the wall.
You should've attacked me a few months ago. I've grown quite a bit since then.
Glancing over my shoulder, ignoring the fact that the man was beginning to pick himself up off the floor, I said casually, "Oh. Looks like that skull guy is about to meet his end very soon."
One of my men dusted his suit jacket while simultaneously kicking the man across his cheek.
"Ouch, that has to hurt." I looked over to the other dark user. The necromancer. "And yep. Just as I thought. She's not doing too well either."
She was shrieking while one of the skeletons had been picked off the ground and thrown into her body.
Getting attacked by your own summon has to be a bruise to your ego…
Now, back to my opponent.
"Finally, you're back on your feet."
His knees were shaking so badly that he could barely stand straight.
"How dare you look away from me!" he screamed as he charged at me with two spears in his hands.
With a sigh, I also stepped towards him. "You know, the most foolish thing a long-range attacker like you can do in moments like this is lose your cool and engage in close combat."
Ducking his swing, I hooked my arm around his and dragged it, pulling his shoulder out of its socket.
"Ah!" he screamed.
I followed it up with a simple punch to his stomach, then a knee to the groin.
He folded into the ground and was gasping for air like a fish pulled out of water.
As I adjusted my sleeves, taking off the glasses so that I could make the appropriate payment, I muttered, "Honestly, next time you see someone shopping, at least wait until they're done so that you don't create trouble for the store and its employees."