novelraw Chapter 31 : Chapter 31
Chapter 31 : Chapter 31
Chapter 31. Night Raid and the Truth (6)
‘Lancelot requested my rescue?’
For a moment, Riman was at a loss for words.
He also felt a little sorry for cursing him inwardly just a moment ago.
‘No, still, 5% was too much.’
While Riman was speechless for a moment, Kim Bong-sik continued.
“Isn’t the Sword Saint a high-ranking official of the World Federation government? Since someone of that stature made a direct request, our company had to send someone of corresponding rank. That’s why I came.”
“Aha……”
“But at this point, I'm more curious. What's your relationship with Lancelot?”
Right. What is our relationship?
Actually, I'm a criminal who committed mass murder, but I made a deal to have my sentence commuted if I cooperated in killing the escaped convicts from Mugan. So…….
“…It's a collaborative relationship.”
“Collaborative? What kind of collaboration?”
“Well… you could call it a collaboration for world peace……”
It was nonsense, but it wasn't a lie.
Whatever the reason, he was catching people who were throwing the world into chaos.
“World peace……?”
Muttering that, Kim Bong-sik suddenly noticed something wrapped around Riman's neck.
It was a location-tracking choker for monitoring criminals.
So, he came to the bizarre conclusion that the Sword Saint and a criminal were doing something for world peace.
Anyway, it felt like the story was about to get complicated.
Since he hated overthinking things, Kim Bong-sik just accepted it and moved on.
Instead, he asked one more question.
“Then since you're in a collaborative relationship, let me ask you one more thing.”
“What is it?”
“If I fought Lancelot, who do you think would win?”
“Uh……”
Riman was flustered and at a loss for words for a moment.
To this, Kim Bong-sik urged him by asking again.
“You saw my power just a moment ago, right? And you're probably close to Lancelot. So tell me. If Lancelot and I fought, who do you think would win?”
His eyes were glinting with a competitive spirit.
A fierce gaze, as if the real Lancelot was standing in front of him.
After a few seconds of thought, Riman opened his mouth.
“…It wouldn't even be a match.”
“For who?”
“For you.”
Riman said it as it was, truthfully.
At the same time, Kim Bong-sik's brow furrowed slightly.
Seeing that, Riman drove the point home once more.
“The you of now can never beat Lancelot. You would lose.”
“Hmm…mm……”
After a few seconds of suffocating silence.
“Puhahaha!”
Kim Bong-sik suddenly burst into a hearty laugh.
“Yeah, if it's the Sword Saint, he should be at least that strong. That's world-class, right?”
It wasn't a mocking laugh, but a genuinely hearty one.
The carefully chosen answer had hit the mark.
“I guess I need to work harder too. So, um, did you say your name was Leman?”
“Leman White.”
“Alright, Leman White. Let's meet again if we get the chance.”
Thwack!
Kim Bong-sik jumped into the air from where he stood.
He boarded the Aerobile that was hovering at a height of over 20 meters.
Ruuuumble……
Soon, the Aerobile quickly moved away.
From the direction the Aerobile had flown, sunlight began to spread faintly.
It was the moment the Demonic Beast escape incident was finally and completely over.
* * *
Ruuuumble-
Inside the Aerobile.
Kim Bong-sik was mulling over what Riman had said earlier.
-The you of now can never beat Lancelot. You would lose.
“I would lose, huh……”
A statement that predicted Kim Bong-sik's defeat as if it were a matter of course.
But strangely, he didn't feel bad.
Because—
“Yeah, the 'me of now' can't beat Lancelot, is that it?”
The 'you of now' can't beat Lancelot.
In other words, it was saying that he didn't know what the 'you of the future' would be like.
The way he spoke, coolly stating reality while also acknowledging the listener's potential, had a rather heart-tickling aspect to it.
“Puhuhu……!”
Kim Bong-sik was a straightforward and simple person.
As such, he hated beating around the bush and preferred honesty.
And that guy named Leman was honest.
Even after seeing his power right in front of him, he wasn't scared and maintained his honesty.
But he didn't stop there; he even had the eloquence to deliver that honesty in a way that wasn't offensive.
“…He's an interesting guy.”
Muttering that, Kim Bong-sik looked at the man sitting opposite him and asked.
“What do you think, Mr. Ha In-soo?”
Manager Ha In-soo was sitting in front of him.
With his hands and feet tied and a gag in his mouth.
“Ah, I guess you're not interested in this topic.”
Kim Bong-sik tapped Ha In-soo's cheek and said.
“Then what should we talk about now? About your disciplinary procedure?”
“Ugh-bub-bub……!”
Carrying the employee and the person scheduled for disciplinary action, the Aerobile cut through the dawn air.
* * *
Click.
Riman took a picture of the dead Jade with his phone.
Fortunately, his face was intact, so the bounty could be paid.
After transmitting the information of Jade's kill, Riman took a moment to catch his breath.
‘But how did that Lancelot guy know I was in danger?’
After thinking about it for a moment, the answer came quickly.
The location-tracking choker around his neck.
It seemed he had found out through that.
‘Well, the sourcebook did state that it could collect various information in addition to location information.’
It was a fact he had forgotten because it was an item he rarely used in the game.
‘Seeing how he immediately knew I was in danger, it seems my heart rate, perspiration, and voice are also transmitted through this.’
Thanks to that, he had survived this time, but…….
‘…It feels kind of unsettling.’
Being under 24-hour close surveillance was not a pleasant feeling.
In any case, he had learned one thing for sure from this incident.
And that was the prestige that a man named Lancelot Powell possessed.
‘To make the top-level personnel of a large corporation move with a single word.’
He was an NPC he didn't encounter often in the game, so he hadn't thought much of it, but experiencing it in person, he was a man with more power and prestige than he had imagined.
‘Anyway, since I have the backing of a powerful figure in the World Federation government, should I be happy about this…….’
No.
‘What am I thinking? There's no such thing as a favor without a price.’
The reason Lancelot had gone to such lengths to save Riman was simple.
Because he thought Riman was that valuable.
But the more Riman tried to rely on Lancelot's prestige, the less valuable he would become.
Therefore, trying to make things easier by relying on Lancelot's prestige was in itself moving away from the benefits of that prestige.
In the end, it was right to treat today's events as a kind of windfall and move on.
‘In the end, it's something I have to do well on my own.’
And crucially, the help he had received from Lancelot today was help he wouldn't have received if Riman hadn't held on for dear life.
In the end, nothing had changed.
To steadily grow stronger as he had been doing, and to diligently hunt down wanted criminals to obtain a pardon.
This was the only thing Riman had to do.
Ting-
In the meantime, the bounty was deposited.
15 million Credits.
With this, he had already killed 4 of the 12 escaped convicts in Korea.
‘This is not a bad pace.’
Thinking so, Riman turned off his phone screen.
When he turned off the screen, his face was reflected on the black screen like a mirror.
His bare face, not covered by his coat collar.
‘Come to think of it, I fought with my bare face.’
Until now, he had been covering half of his face with his coat collar.
It was to hide the choker on his neck, and he also didn't want to reveal the face of the criminal 'Riman Solaris.'
‘But I fought in my pajamas with my bare face, and no one knew I was Riman.’
Not only Kim Bong-sik, a high-ranking executive of a large corporation, but also Jade, who was imprisoned in the same Mugan.
They all called Riman by his cover identity, 'Leman.'
‘It seems Riman's face and notoriety are not as well-known to the world as I thought.’
It was a bit strange, but on second thought, it made sense.
For example, serial killers like Ed Gein, Albert Fish, and Charles Manson are famous by name, but few people know their faces.
Maybe for a similar reason, Riman's face was not well-known, he thought.
“Then from now on, should I just go around without covering my face……”
Let's just wear a turtleneck shirt to cover the choker, Riman thought.
“Alright then, now……”
The job was finished.
Riman was about to call Saya and return to the hotel room.
But……
“…Wait a minute, why has the connection become so weak?”
The connection between Saya and Riman was gradually fading.
Riman hurriedly called for Saya.
“Saya?”
But Saya didn't move.
A bad feeling.
To find out what was wrong, Riman turned on the sensory sharing with Saya.
Soon, Saya's vision was transmitted to Riman.
“What is this now……!”
Tap!
Riman started running towards where Saya was.
* * *
After running on the verge of collapsing from exhaustion.
Riman arrived at the rooftop of a nearby building.
The lock on the door leading to the rooftop was already broken.
A sign that someone had broken into the rooftop.
Riman threw open the door and jumped onto the rooftop.
The first thing he saw when he opened the door was three sprawled corpses.
All three were private soldiers of Ork Corporation.
Next to them, pieces of a tattered net were also scattered.
And……
“Saya!”
Saya was also sprawled in the middle of them.
Covered in a blue liquid.
“Damn it……!”
That blue liquid was none other than dragon's blood.
In other words, the blood shed by Saya.
Indeed, Saya's shell was cracked here and there, and its wings were drooping.
It was barely holding on to its breath.
“Why didn't you run away……!”
But after looking around, he could deduce that Saya had been in a situation where it couldn't run away in the first place.
First, the guys who came to catch Saya had used a net.
Saya's flight would have been immediately blocked by that.
But the net was torn to shreds.
From this, it seemed that if it wanted to escape by flying, it could have done so.
But Saya couldn't.
Because it had to carry out Riman's order to ‘protect the money bag.’
Indeed, Riman's money bag was thrown in a corner of the rooftop, intact.
To tear the net that had covered it and protect the money bag at the same time, Saya had to fight.
As a result, it had bitten all the enemies to death, but it had also suffered such a fatal wound.
“I'm sorry……”
Still, fortunately, Saya was alive.
Though its breathing was very faint.
Riman hugged Saya, took the money bag, and was about to leave the rooftop.
Just then.
‘Wait a minute.’
An unresolved unease flashed through his mind.
Riman turned his head and looked at the bodies of the Ork private soldiers.
‘How the hell did these guys track Saya?’
In the case of the hotel room, they could have found it out by tailing him or some other method.
But Saya's location was almost impossible to pinpoint or track.
How could they track a small, high-speed flying object that flew freely in this forest of buildings?
And at dawn, when the sun wasn't even up.
There was something.
A means to track Saya quickly and accurately.
‘No way.’
Riman put Saya down, opened the money bag, and rummaged through the inside.
As a result.
Between the inner and outer lining of the money bag, Riman found something.
A chip the size of a fingernail.
It was a location-tracking chip.
‘You son of a……!’
This solved the last mystery.
‘That Ha In-soo bastard, he gave me the money bag with a tracking device attached to it……!’
While paying a portion of the reward for the Demonic Beast hunt in cash, he had planted a tracking device in the bag and given it to him.
That's why he was able to pinpoint Riman's hotel room location and Saya's location immediately.
‘Ha In-soo…….’
He was a disgustingly meticulous bastard.
Fwoosh!
After burning the chip in his hand.
Riman picked up Saya and the money and organized his thoughts.
‘From now on, there's only one thing to do.’
A top priority that had to be done, setting aside bounty hunting and everything else.
And that was to save the dying Saya.