"Why is it still pitch black?" EeDechi turned her head to look around, her face full of confusion.
"The domain created by his Innate Talent hasn't vanished, which means the domain's owner is still alive," Barrett said in a low voice. He and EeDechi walked over to the Lord of Despair Clovis's side, flipped the assassin—who had taken a slap from EeDechi right in the face—onto his back, and checked him carefully.
Clovis's half-face had been smacked crooked by EeDechi, his features twisted, mouth and eyes all lopsided, half a row of teeth scattered on the ground, one eye already burst open. Probably even his own mother wouldn't recognize him if she showed up.
But he really wasn't dead yet—his breathing through the nostrils was faint as a thread, so he must have just passed out.
Barrett had originally planned to wake this former cold-blooded killer with a stream of piss, but after untying his belt, he suddenly remembered there was a woman nearby, so he quickly tied it back up.
EeDechi shot Barrett a disdainful glance, pulled a bottle of water from her spatial ring, and splashed it all over Clovis's face.
Soon, Clovis came to with a groan. Using his one remaining good eye, he looked at EeDechi and Barrett, his lips—now whistling from the missing front teeth—moving slightly. "You... who... exactly are you?"
"I'll let you die knowing the truth. I'm..." EeDechi crossed her arms over her chest, about to answer.
Barrett tugged at her. "Captain, skip the 'die knowing the truth' crap that's just buying time. The longer we drag this out, the more things can go wrong. Just finish him off and be done with it."
EeDechi nodded. "Fair point. You handle it. I only took half his life— the other half's on you."
You're that scared of getting your hands dirty? Barrett shook his head helplessly, raised his sword, and was about to plunge it into Clovis's chest.
"NO! You... can't kill me!" Staring at the gleaming sword tip overhead, the lopsided-mouthed Clovis started trembling slightly, his eyes showing—for the first time—an endless craving for life and an infinite terror of death.
Who knows if, when he killed others in the past, their faces right before dying looked just like his?
"You... can't kill me! If... I die, my... brother... Slam Daguerre, and my employer... Odys Malcon Waverly... won't let you get away with it!" Clovis rasped, rattling off two names in a row, hoping to snag a chance at survival.
"Perfect, I've got those two little bastards' names memorized." EeDechi clenched her fists tight—it was clear that getting ambushed and assassinated on her late-night trip home had really pissed her off.
Barrett plunged his longsword down, piercing straight through the Lord of Despair Clovis's heart and claiming his other half-life.
With the Lord of Despair's death, his Innate Talent the Despair Domain vanished into thin air.
The night sky shifted from profound black to profound blue, like a deep blue velvet blanket draped over the heavens, speckled with golden shards of stars, a golden crescent moon flickering in and out of the clouds. Starlight and moonlight poured down together onto the ground, revealing the trees and roads around the carriage.
The enemy was dead, so next came cleaning up the battlefield. Of course, for adventurers, that meant time to loot the spoils.
The bracer on Clovis's arm caught EeDechi's eye. Earlier, Clovis had been strutting around all cocky, claiming this bracer was a treasure dug up from the Eight Greed Kings' desert ruins, and wearing it made you feel like you could rule the world. But this assassin who figured he could rule the world couldn't even hang onto his own life.
EeDechi slipped the silver bracer off and examined it closely right in front of her. The bracer was a dark silver all over, etched with wavy ancient patterns, inlaid with curved red crystals that gave off a faint red glow.
She cast a spell on the bracer:
5th Tier Magic: Artifact Appraisal!
Lines of text floated up before her eyes.
[Item Name: The Bracers of the Expedition Master]
[Category: Armor]
[Quality: Divine Artifact]
[Equipment Effect: Boosts mental strength, constitution, strength, agility, armor, magic resistance, endurance, health regeneration, mana regeneration, and so on by 33%. Greatly enhances all sorts of physical attributes.]
[For example, if you're a level 100 warrior, wearing the Bracers of the Expedition Master would bump your strength up to the equivalent of level 133...]
What a treasure! EeDechi was over the moon—she vaguely remembered she was level 100 herself, and if she hit 133, she'd thrash the big bad Ainz Ooal Gown without breaking a sweat!
HAHAHAHA! EeDechi's grin stretched wide; she could even picture herself storming back into the Great Tomb of Nazarick, yanking Ainz Ooal Gown off his throne, and then pounding him into the ground!
A few more lines of text hovered in her vision. EeDechi tamped down her bubbling excitement and kept reading.
[Note: This bracer is restricted to warriors below level 70 and above level 20.]
What kind of dumb example is that!
EeDechi chucked the bracer at Barrett. "This junky silver cuff is all yours."
[Note Two: At the start of the Great Imperial Expedition, one of the eight emperors, who took the Heavenly Punishment Flame and the Silver from the earth, spent four days and three nights forging these bracers. They were given to the general of the expedition army, with a vow to break the chains that bound them.
The wind knows no bounds, my head rests on my spear.
Iron horses shatter dreams, swords cover white frost.
The return is uncertain, separated by a thousand miles.
The blood moon dims, and longing grows even harder.]
Barrett caught the tossed bracer, a bit puzzled. He couldn't figure out why the captain had looked like she'd struck gold in a trash heap one second, only to ditch the bracer like yesterday's garbage the next, with a face full of disgust. Girls' minds were truly impossible to read, and quirky girls' even more so.
But he happily pocketed the silver bracer anyway. This was the gear that the Lord of Despair Clovis had been so damn proud of—it had to be something good.
Barrett slipped the bracer onto his wrist. His arm was sturdier than Clovis's, but the crystal's red light flickered on the bracer, and the whole thing surprisingly expanded a bit on its own, fitting his wrist like a glove, not a hair out of place.
After the two divided up the bracer, they stripped Clovis bare from head to toe, digging out several weird pieces of gear, plus a spatial ring.
They just couldn't break Clovis's soul imprint on the spatial ring for now, so they had no way to peek at whatever valuable junk was stashed inside—they could only pocket the ring first. You can't store a spatial ring inside another spatial ring; that's one of the rare rules in the bizarre magic that actually lines up with common sense.
Barrett then looted the other five assassins' corpses on the ground until they were picked clean, even yanking open their underwear for a look, netting several bags of gold coins in all.
Tonight's adventure had been heart-pounding, with a hefty haul to boot, but EeDechi clearly couldn't care less about these material possessions.
They were out in the suburbs now, the night wind howling cold, shadowy trees dancing in the chill breeze, no signs of human life anywhere around.
She couldn't help pulling her black coat tighter, sighing, "Out here in the boonies, I sure don't want to spend the night with some big lug in an open-top carriage."
"You think I want to spend the night with you?" Barrett muttered under his breath, but EeDechi caught it anyway.
The captain raised her voice. "If you don't want to crash here overnight! Then hurry up and figure something out."
She hopped onto the carriage, shut her eyes, and sprawled out on the seat. "Or how about you pull the carriage."
"I'm not a horse—I can't pull a carriage!" Barrett shot back right away.
He scanned the surroundings, spotting a blurry outline standing in the distant darkness. Going on a hunch, he walked over and sure enough, it was the horse Clovis had set loose.
Since it was the dead of night, this nag clearly wasn't some nightmare warhorse with night vision; after bolting a short way and losing sight of the path, it had just planted itself and dozed off standing up. Barrett smacked the horse awake, led it over, and hitched it to the carriage's harness.
The carriage had power again, but it still needed a driver. Barrett glanced at the captain, who was napping with her head lolled to the side on the seat, and had no choice but to step up as coachman himself.
He took the reins, followed his memory onto the capital's main avenue, and under the crisp, cold moonlight, steered toward the lodging near the palace that Princess Renner had set up for them...