The Count’s Youngest Son is a Player

The Count’s Youngest Son is a Player 53

Chapter 53

“Capture them! Don’t let a single one escape!”

Crash.

Thunk-thud!

“Damn it, is this wrong too? Everyone scatter! It’s Plan B. Let’s survive and meet again!”

A man with a stubbly beard shouted as he drew two hunting knives, each as long as his forearm.

“What about the captain?”

“Is this really the time to worry about me? Just make sure you hide well. I’ll call you when the situation settles.”

With worried gazes, a few young men reluctantly nodded and exited the room through a secret door installed in the floor.

“Dreadful bastards…”

As the man muttered, sounds of clashing swords and smashing furniture continuously came from outside.

“Argh.”

“Damn it!”

It was clear the mercenaries hired on a temporary basis were of no use.

Before long, the noises subsided and the sound of footsteps approaching grew louder.

Clenching the knives in a reverse grip, the man gritted his teeth.

‘What the hell are these guys?’

* * *

Intelligence Guild [Wings of Freedom].

It was a well-recognized information guild in the capital of the Ruben Kingdom, Thurium, despite being relatively new and small in scale. Its information quality and reliability had earned it respect.

The man ‘Kane’ was the guild leader of Wings of Freedom.

Starting from scratch, he became famous in the industry for establishing one of the kingdom’s top ten information guilds within just three years.

However, very few actually knew his true identity.

He was not only the guild leader in name but also the most skilled member of the guild.

He was responsible for training the guild members and was the primary source of its most crucial information.

His exceptional skills and the mystery surrounding his identity earned him the codename ‘Faceless’.

It was only six months ago that Kane sensed something odd. Unusual groups started to emerge in the otherwise orderly underworld of Thurium.

At first, he didn’t feel anything particularly strange. It was common for thug organizations to form and dissolve daily.

However, it was extraordinary for one group to take over half of the back-alley thug organizations within just a month.

The problem was that the identity of the group’s leaders or members couldn’t be determined.

The situation was resolved so swiftly that even the victimized parties couldn’t identify who they were up against.

Eventually, except for a few significant ones protected by noble families, the thug organizations in the underworld were consolidated.

This consolidation process, and the actions that followed were so covert that only a few information organizations, including Kane’s, were aware of it.

The real problem started after that.

Various guilds in Thurium, including thug guilds, information guilds, and assassin guilds which form a hierarchical structure in the underworld, began to be attacked.

Of course, the might and organization of the guilds were incomparable to those of the gangster organizations. Yet, a reversal in the food chain that ignored such hierarchies had occurred.

Unlike the integration of gangster organizations, which had happened without significant casualties, the guilds’ assault led to many people dying and disappearing without a trace.

Overnight, small guilds would evaporate completely, with such incidents occurring frequently.

Initially targeting only small guilds, they gradually set their sights on larger ones, eventually attacking even those guilds that had nobles backing them or were national in scope.

That was when the guilds, sensing the urgency, began to retaliate.

But all was in vain.

Typically, there’s a clear reason and objective when wars break out in the underworld. So even if a guild went to war, staking its very survival, they would usually take in the surviving troops and recover their territory once the conflict ended.

However, the ones attacking the guilds now lacked such purpose. Or rather, their objective was simplistic: the complete eradication of the guilds. There were no negotiations, no attempts at incorporation.

The guilds sought help from their supporting nobles and even the guards, but with no knowledge of their adversary’s identity, they were helpless.

In the past six months, dozens of guilds vanished.

The only ones that remained were a few giant guild chapters that the kingdom itself couldn’t touch, and a handful of small guilds that seemed too insignificant to bother with.

However, this fact remained unknown to the public. After all, such was the nature of the underworld. Someone disappears, and in time, someone else takes their place.

The issue was the inevitable chaos and confusion of information in the underworld during the period of this vacancy.

“Perhaps this chaos was their objective from the beginning,” Kane thought.

The moment a gate appeared in the night sky above the capital, he sensed the purpose of those mysterious adversaries and felt the stirrings of a grand conspiracy unbeknownst to him.

Regardless, what mattered now was facing the immediate threat.

Over the last six months, he had used about a dozen secret bases to avoid their attacks as much as possible.

Yet, a fifth of his guild members had already lost their lives, and the rest had fled outside the capital.

Those who remained were the last of his members, sorting through data and trying desperately to figure out the identity of their enemies.

“To think they would continue hunting even after the gate appeared.”

He had wanted to confront them with his elite members, but after witnessing their brutal acts, he decided against direct confrontation. Losing this place would leave him nowhere to hide in the capital.

It was time to choose whether to die being hunted like a dog by them or to somehow escape the capital and plan for the future. However, his pride wouldn’t allow him to be outwitted and flee.

“Let’s buy some time for the others to escape, and see what kind of skill they have.” A deep green killing aura emerged, whistling from the hunting knives held by an expert of high caliber, ‘Faceless’.

Boom!

“You rats. This is as far as you run, guh!” Kane skillfully decapitated two men who had recklessly charged at him.

“He’s a skilled fighter!”

“Stall him! It’s just one guy anyway!”

Despite the two men falling, the others didn’t seem to panic at all. Accustomed to such situations, those behind shielded themselves with kite shields made of solid iron and pressed on toward Kane.

“Hmph. You think that mere shield will stop me!”

Kane leaped easily 3 meters high, kicked off the ceiling, and aimed to surpass the wall of shields to hit the enemies from behind. The ones in the rear, lacking shields, seemed like they could be taken down at any moment. Thump!

However, a semi-transparent barrier intercepted Kane’s hunting knife.

“A shield?”

Why did a shield spell pop up all of a sudden here? But there was no time to think. Kane swiftly lowered his posture and spun his body.

Swoosh!

“Aagh!”

A few, reacting too late, got their calves sliced, revealing an opening, and Kane nimbly escaped the encirclement of enemies. But the danger was far from over.

Whoosh! Thud, chop!!

The enemies behind him threw daggers and hand axes, and while Kane was deflecting them, a terrifying force was hurtling towards him.

Woosh!

A furious stream of fire engulfed Kane like a flamethrower.

Fwoosh!

Kane quickly crossed his two hunting knives and spun them rapidly, forming a faint green sword barrier in front of him, blocking the flames.

‘Fire Blast too! Damn it.’

He realized that there was at least a 5th circle mage among the enemies.

Whoosh.

As the stream of fire ended, Kane, with his hair slightly singed but otherwise looking fine, glared at the enemies.

Clap, clap, clap!

“Truly, worthy of being called a master in the dark world. Initially, I was going to kill you all, but your skills are too precious to waste. What do you say? Surrender and I’ll spare your life.”

The man who appeared, clapping, suggested with a smile on his lips.

‘A brass mask?’

The man was wearing a brass mask covering above his nose. The mask bore a fierce form, reminiscent of Cerberus, the hellhound.

“Save your nonsense! Are you their leader?”

Kane asked, pointing his slightly heated dagger forward, to which the man let out a slight laugh.

“And what if I am?”

“This will be your grave!!”

Kane dashed towards the man in the mask, his dagger emitting a serrated green energy that seemed capable of tearing through anything with a ferocious momentum.

However, his attempt was thwarted by a dark shadow that blocked his way.

Drrrrr!

His serrated energy was sparking against something it was grinding away. But watching this, Kane’s expression twisted.

“Power Armor! What the hell are you!”

“Hmph, you think that shield of yours can stop me?”

Kane leapt a good 3 meters into the air, kicked off the ceiling, and aimed to leap over the shield wall to attack the enemies from behind.

The foes caught off guard without their shields in the back seemed easily toppable.

Thump!

However, a semi-transparent barrier thwarted Kane’s hunting knife.

“A shield?”

Why would a shield spell appear out of nowhere here? But there was no time to ponder. Quickly, Kane lowered his posture and spun his body.

Swoosh!

“Argh!”

A few of them, slow to react, let their calves get slashed, revealing an opening, and Kane deftly slipped through the enemies’ encirclement.

Yet, the crisis was far from over.

Whoosh! Clash!

Enemies from behind threw daggers and hand axes, and as Kane deflected them, a terrifying force was heading his way.

Whooosh!

A ferocious stream of fire, like a flamethrower, engulfed Kane.

Barbaboom!

By quickly spinning his hunting knives against each other, a thin green energy shield formed in front of him, fending off the flames.

“Fire Blast too! Ugh.”

He realized one of the enemies must be at least a 5th circle mage.

Whoosh.

As the torrent of flames ceased, Kane, with only a slightly singed head, glared at his foes unharmed.

“Do you now realize the futility of resistance? I ask you one last time. Will you surrender?”

Kane, lips tightly pursed, did not relax his guard and glared at the power armor.

‘There’s a scratch on my forearm from blocking the blade energy. It’s definitely a standard issue, but where is it from?’

The outer appearance of power armor could be customized, making it hard to determine the model just by looking at it.

But, as the head of an information guild, Kane racked his brains, recalling the characteristics of various known power armors and comparing them to the one before him.

A few seconds later, a slightly tense Kane broke the silence.

“Are you guys with the Empire?”

“……!”

Though no one visibly reacted, Kane felt a sudden shift in the atmosphere.

The grip on his dagger tightened.

“Oh, the Empire, you say? That’s quite an interesting deduction. What makes you say such a ludicrous thing?”

The man in the brass mask asked, but Kane’s lips remained sealed.

‘It’s certain. Although it was during the war era, there was indeed a spy organization operated by the Empire. And I heard about the remnants of the Empire appearing in the Free Cities recently. How could I forget that!’

Unfazed, the brass-masked man clicked his tongue in boredom and ordered,

“Kill him.”

Whoosh. Slice!!

A barrage of magic and blade energy was unleashed at Kane.

Even for someone with expert-level skills, defending against all those attacks seemed impossible.

Boom!!!

And where all the attacks had converged, nothing remained.

“……!!”

“The nerve of this rat, to run right before my eyes! Chase him!! Hunt him down to the ends of hell and bring me his head!!”

The previously complacent expression of the man in the brass mask twisted into one of ugly rage.

“Let’s go!”

“He couldn’t have gone far. The effect of artifacts is greatly diminished within the capital.”

“Damn it. How does a mere leader of an information guild have an artifact?”

The hooded men spread out around the manor, checking the faces of people harshly.

Located near the slum area, their actions were rough.

“Look at me properly!”

“Move aside, you beggar!”

“Old folks, beat it!”

Their faces inspected, the people were left sprawled on the ground.

“Oh dear lords, please spare me!”

Terrified by their formidable presence, people lay flat on the ground.

Even after the hooded men had left their sight, they remained motionless for a while.

Shortly after,

A man dressed in tattered clothes and with a severely hunched back limped away.

That day, the Imperial Hound agents of the Empire’s spy bureau failed to capture Kane.

(To be continued)