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n| The Strange Adventure of a Broke Mercenary | >>

nProofreader: Xemul

n“So, who the hell am I?”

nThat was the first thing Loren thought about after recovering from the shock.

nApparently, things would not end with Magna searching and finding him, and Yuri wanted to keep this matter hidden even if it meant destroying the mercenary group he had founded. No matter how he looked at it, Loren could no longer believe himself to be a mere mercenary.

nAnd yet, Loren had no clue what was so special about himself.

n“I’ve already met Magna many times, you know. I’m aware that I annoy him a lot, but there’s not the slightest indication that it’s going to be a big deal.”

nIf Loren meeting Magna was what Yuri was so fearful of that he did not want it to happen, then it was already too late, Loren thought.

nBut Magna, even after seeing his face, did not seem to recognize him, and so far, nothing had happened that should make Yuri worry.

n“That’s because… He doesn’t know what you look like.”

nYuri’s calm words made the three of them flabbergasted.

nThen, the man followed with something outrageous.

n“He doesn’t even know your name, by the way. It’s not that He doesn’t know you, just that He met you when you were still a baby.”

n“When Loren was a baby? Oh, I’m sorry, Loren is a human too, of course he must have been a baby at one point. I just can’t imagine what it must have been like.”

nLoren silently thrusted his fist into the side of Gula’s stomach, who waved her hand while saying something terribly rude.

nGula was literally hit in the area where a hard-enough blow could stop her breathing temporarily, and she began to writhe in agony on the chair, bending over.

n“With all due respect, how is he going to find Loren then? I don’t think it’s a case of ‘recognizing him as soon as they meet’ here.”

nLapis asked Yuri, ignoring the writhing Gula.

nIf Magna knew neither Loren’s name nor what he looked like, and if he didn’t recognize him when they met, then Lapis thought that Yuri’s worries were unfounded.

nHowever, Yuri shook his head gravely in response.

n“He would have known if he had checked. Fortunately, He didn’t recognize Loren, so He didn’t bother to check. But as soon as his relationship with me comes to light, He will try to.”

n“And how would he do that?”

nWhen asked by Lapis, Yuri pulled out a dagger from his inner breast pocket.

nIt looked like a simple, commonplace object, but the sheath was elaborately carved, and a yellow gemstone of unknown type was inlaid into the hilt of the handle.

n“It looks like a magical artifact, a quite old one. Is it from the Ancient Kingdom?”

n“It doesn’t have to be. As long as it is a magical artifact that meets a certain criterion, it can be used to identify him.”

nYuri answered and pulled the dagger out of its sheath, and the one-sided blade with a curved body glistened wetly in the light of the tent.

n“This is a dagger for self-defense that meets a certain criterion. If I sold it, it would be worth about… 30 gold coins.”

nWhen Yuri stated the price, Lapis and Loren simultaneously looked at each other.

nThe amount of money was unimaginably large for its humble appearance. It was equal to the amount of money that Loren had borrowed from Lapis through a period of time. In other words, it was not an amount of money that could be earned nice and quick.

n“It’s more valuable for being an antique than for its function. The function is not that great. It’s just that when you grip the hilt and channel magic power, it produces lightning on the blade.”

nAs he explained this, Yuri gripped the hilt of the dagger and held it out slightly in front of him with the tip pointed upward so that everyone could easily see. Immediately, a thunderbolt emanated from the blade with a cracking sound. As Loren and the girls backed away slightly, Yuri, smiling as if satisfied with their reaction, removed his grip on the hilt, then held the dagger by the blade and presented it to Gula.

n“What?”

n“Why don’t you try it?”

nYuri said to Gula, who looked doubtful, with a fond smile.

nGula looked at the dagger’s hilt, then Yuri’s face, and seemed lost for a moment. But then, perhaps thinking that the conversation was not going to go anywhere if she did nothing, she grabbed the hilt.

nSeeing that Gula had a firm grip on the hilt, Yuri gently removed his fingers from the blade, and in the next instant, there was a blinding flash of light.

n“Eeek?!”

nGula screamed, and at the same time, the dagger in her hand launched into the air, spinning around.

nAfter watching Yuri deftly and quickly catch the spinning dagger and return it to its sheath, Loren looked at Gula, who was sitting beside him.

nGula was arching over in her chair, her eyes opened wide. Thin white plumes of smoke were rising from her body, and a smell that suggested that she had been burned was beginning to pervade the air.

n“I am the owner of the dagger. When that ownership has not changed, if someone touches it while my hand does not, the anti-theft function will be activated.”

n“H-hey… Old man… You…”

nEven though she was gasping for breath, Gula still managed to squeeze out some words while white smokes were still rising from all over her body.

nThanks to this, Loren knew that she would not die, but he shuddered to think that if the anti-theft function was capable of damaging Gula, an Evil God, to this extent, it would have been powerful enough to kill a normal human being instantly.

n“So, here, you hold it this time, Loren.”

n“Do you want to kill me?!”

n“I would never do anything to make you die.”

nYuri answered in a tone of dismay, but Loren, who had just witnessed the damage Gula had sustained, could not fully trust the man’s words that such a thing would not happen.

nIt might be a function that would detect the opponent and inflict enough damage to render him incapacitated, if not deadly. In that case, Loren might not die, but he would be in a similar situation to Gula, and he would like to avoid that.

n“Come on, just grip it.”

nYuri unsheathed the dagger again, picked up the blade, and held out the hilt toward Loren, waving it slightly.

nLoren, looking at the swinging hilt, asked Yuri for confirmation.

n“You won’t kill me here just because you don’t want Magna to see me, will you?”

n“You have no trust in me… If I were the kind of person who would think such a thing, I would have done it when you were a baby.”

nLoren agreed with that logic, but he was still unable to shake off the uneasiness he felt as he gripped the hilt of the dagger Yuri held out to him.

nAt the same time, Yuri released his fingers from the blade, and Loren involuntarily closed his eyes in anticipation of the shock that was to come. But no shock came from his hand even after a while, and he cautiously opened his eyes to look at the dagger, which was still in his hand and not causing any trouble.

n“Is the anti-theft function not working?”

n“There is another setting, one for those who have higher ranking than the owner.”

nYuri’s explanation reminded Lapis of something: In the Ancient Kingdom’s ruin, the trap reacted and worked when other people passed through it, but it did not work when Loren did.

nAt the time, she was not sure about the cause, but now, after seeing it demonstrated as an experiment in front of her eyes and hearing Yuri’s explanation, she understood why Loren was not caught by the trap.

nTraps were there to prevent unwanted people from entering, not to stop those who have the right to pass through them. In other words, there was a setting for someone of higher ranking, and Loren fell into that category.

n“But if that is the case, it means Loren is recognized as a high-ranking figure in the Ancient Kingdom period… So Loren is actually very old?”

nThe Magic Kingdom of Noona, which had become known as the Ancient Kingdom, was a country that was destroyed several hundred years ago. If Loren existed at the time of the existence of such a kingdom, it was hard to believe that he was a human being, regardless of his appearance.

n“I don’t think so…”

nLoren’s denial did not sound very convincing. He was not sure of his origins to this point, after all.

nThe fact was, when the possibility of it being true could not be completely ruled out, words inevitably become muddled.

n“Loren is a human being, I can assure you of that. He is as old as he looks.”

n“I think it’s hard to judge from appearances, but whatever. If that is the case, what kind of person is Loren?”

nLapis asked, her gaze became somewhat stern. But Yuri kept his head down and refused to meet her or Loren’s eyes.

n“I can’t tell you that.”

n“You can’t after saying all this?”

nYuri stopped Loren, who was about to push for an answer, with a glance and continued.

n“It’s not that I don’t know, it’s that I can’t speak about it. I am sworn to not let it come out of my mouth. I can give out information that would be easy to guess, but I can never say a conclusive word, not a single one.”

nLapis thought that it was possible to make a ‘maybe’-level guess based on the information so far. However, they would not be able to make a push for a final conclusion.

nThis was because unless Yuri, who seemed to know everything, confirmed that their guess was correct, everything would remain a guess.

nAlso, it was possible that what had happened with the trap and the magical artifact was just a coincidence of some combination of factors, and that Loren was not the only one they were not responding to. They could not find out the truth from that fact alone.

nThe same might be true on Magna’s side, but Lapis thought that with Loren being by Yuri’s side and some information that Magna himself had, his guess could be a confirmed fact.

n“In any case, that’s all the information I can give you. If you really want to get information out of my mouth, there is only one way.”

n“If it’s torture, please leave it to me.”

n“Loren… You have a very troublesome young lady by your side.”

nYuri said to Loren as he looked at Lapis, who pulled out a small knife, a drill, and other dangerous items out of nowhere, with a fearful gaze.

nLoren pulled Lapis back to her chair as she stood up to approach Yuri with those items in her hands.

n“What’s the method?”

nLoren cleared his throat and asked, and Yuri told him.

n“You must command me in your full name. If it comes to pass, I will have to disclose everything I know to you.”

n“Not just ‘Loren’, you mean?”

n“That’s only a part of it.”

nAs he played with the dagger in his hand, Loren wondered if he was actually from someplace good since his name contained more words than just ‘Loren’.

nThe information Yuri had given them was probably true, but even if it was, he wondered how much they had to refine their guess until it became a conclusion while watching Gula, who had recovered from the damage of the lightning strike, take a swing at Yuri.

n| The Strange Adventure of a Broke Mercenary | >>

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