Chapter 6
""....""
For a moment, no one could open their mouths.
It was a situation that defied all common sense.
Not just Carmilla, but even the assassins wore blank expressions.
"...It was blocked?"
A bewildered mutter.
Eyes wavered.
'Unharmed after being hit by the Stake from the God-Killing Bow...?'
A boy who had appeared out of nowhere.
Right before Carmilla's execution, he suddenly rose from thin air.
"It seems I've interrupted at a crucial timing."
A mask.
A bizarrely smiling mask.
"Was I perhaps being rude?"
The boy's reaction was nothing but calm.
As if nothing had happened at all.
Clatter-.
By the Clown's feet, the deflected Arrow rolled around.
Damaged by the aftermath of the shot, its tip was half-melted.
Sizzle-!
The floor blackened as if touched by lava.
That bubbling heat was undeniably the power of the Stake.
""....""
The assassins could only swallow dryly.
Despite taking a direct hit from such a strike, there wasn't a speck of dust on his clothes.
Just what was this situation?
How did he deflect the Stake?
What was his identity, and where did he come from?
Only meaningless questions swarmed in their heads.
"Everyone is awfully quiet. I believe you were all chatting quite nicely just a moment ago."
""....""
But that wasn't all.
Before those rational thoughts, something else gripped the assassins by the scruff of their necks.
'What is....'
It was pure instinct.
'This Intimidation, what is it...!'
Murderous intent.
A brutal energy swarmed from the boy.
Just facing him felt like a swarm of bugs was crawling all over their bodies.
It felt as though tiny teeth were gnawing at them, ready to peel off all their skin.
"Keuk, ugh...."
The frozen assassins.
The only one to snap out of it was the man who appeared to be the Captain.
He bit down hard on his tongue to force his consciousness awake.
Following that, he woke up his squad members who had fallen into chaos.
"Snap out of it, you bastards!"
The situation hadn't changed.
A strange guy had popped out, but their mission was ultimately the execution of the Princess.
"What are you scared of! If we fail here, we're all dead anyway!"
If they returned empty-handed, there was no way the King would leave them be.
It meant the assassins had no room to retreat either.
"Fuck, it's nothing! It's just one bastard!"
"He must have gotten lucky with that one hit."
"We just have to kill him!"
Roused by those shouts, the assassins came back to their senses.
Clink, they each drew weapons from their waists.
They all gripped spears and swords in their hands.
"Drawing weapons right away...! How rude."
"Don't let your guard down. We go in two at a time."
The Clown seemed to be reacting with deliberate exaggeration.
His fingers were stroking his own mask.
"You are quite ungentlemanly."
Was he crying, or was he laughing?
It was a sound impossible to distinguish.
Though they numbered five, the assassins ironically felt outnumbered.
"Destroy him!"
"Uwaaah!"
The precarious standoff was broken by the command.
Two of them took the lead and dashed forward.
Swoosh-!
The flashing blades tore through the air as they advanced.
"Whoops."
The Clown took quick, short steps in place, as if he didn't know what to do.
To the vampires, it was the first time they had seen such clumsy footwork.
A chaotic gait whose intentions were hard to read.
Thus, the assassins judged it to be a mockery directed at them.
"You son of a bitch...!"
"For a lowly human...!"
The surging blades.
Before long, the assassins had reached the boy's immediate vicinity.
It was then.
Crackle-!
The Clown's movements stopped entirely, as if caught on something.
Soon, he flickered with white noise.
Buzzing with static, he vanished without a trace.
"...?!"
"He disappeared...?"
The next moment.
"How scary."
The evaporated Clown appeared right behind their backs.
A mask that rose completely out of their field of vision.
"What...!?"
"Is it really necessary for you to carry around such hideous things?"
Before the assassins could even react, the Clown's hands grabbed their arms.
More precisely, the swords they were holding.
The boy's fingers touched them.
"I'll change them into something much cooler."
Immediately after, their heavy hands felt strangely light.
The assassins were no longer holding swords.
No, they were swords, but their form was clearly different.
'A balloon.'
A sword made out of a balloon.
The weapons they were gripping had instantly transformed into toys.
"What is, this...!"
Panicking, they looked back, but the Clown had already widened the distance considerably.
The swords the assassins originally wielded had vanished into thin air.
The boy spread both of his hands open.
"Ta-da, it's a magic trick!"
A refreshing line.
And hands nonchalantly dusting themselves off.
That atmosphere was as damp and gloomy as the air in a sewer.
"Since you all are holding such wonderful weapons, I should wield a fitting weapon as well."
Thud-.
In the Clown's previously empty hand, something was suddenly being held.
A stake.
An arrow forged of silver and dyed with sunlight.
Did he pick up the one abandoned on the floor?
Even though it was shattered to pieces, the fragment was as large as a decent dagger.
"Did they say vampires are weak to silver, sunlight, and stakes?"
The Clown smiled brightly.
"Fortunately, this single thing has all of them?"
"Damn it, kill him...!"
In the end, the vampires couldn't withstand that momentum.
The assassins kicked off the ground, instantly closing the distance to the Clown.
They surrounded him.
A judgment that they had to take the first strike no matter what.
However, it was a meaningless struggle.
Crackle-!
The Clown once again stepped with that clumsy footwork.
No.
Not just once, but multiple times.
Crackle-!
Crackle-!
Crackle-!
The Clown flashed in rapid succession.
Every time his body flickered, he appeared from all directions around the assassins.
Behind, beside, above, and sometimes even from beyond the walls....
"Caught you."
Stab-.
The Technique he used was nothing special.
He simply moved behind them and stabbed the assassins with the tip of the Stake.
But that alone was enough.
"Ugh, uwaaah! My, my legs...!"
"My hands are melting! My hands are melting off...!"
"It's hot, it's hot...! Kuaaaagh!"
The Stake.
Even if not loaded into the God-Killing Bow, it was already a powerful weapon on its own.
At the very least, against Vampires, it was an Affinity akin to a disaster.
The Clown casually took down the assassins one by one.
"Keugh, kuhugh...!"
Thud-.
Another Vampire collapsed to the floor.
His limbs engulfed in roaring flames.
"Now you're the only one left, aren't you?"
"Ah, aah...."
Now, all that remained was the Captain of the assassins.
The Vampire looked up at the Clown while sprawled on his back.
His complexion was incredibly pale.
The Mask slowly bent at the waist.
"What's the matter?"
Their eye levels roughly matched.
The Mask was smiling.
"Weren't you just boasting loudly about how you would kill me?"
"...."
"Come on, your prey is right in front of you, isn't it? Are you going to let it slip away?"
The Clown personally placed a sword into the assassin's hand.
As if urging him to hurry up and stab his neck with it.
The assassin couldn't move.
"Hurry."
"...."
Blinking eyes.
His breath trembled violently.
The assassin couldn't bring himself to take his eyes off the Clown.
The chills, the Fear, and the terror crushing him grew uncontrollably.
He couldn't breathe.
"Haha, aren't you trembling a bit too much?"
He
was
suffocating.
"Heugh, heugh...."
"Take a deep breath. I haven't even done any#~?%??thing ye?"
The Clown's voice shattered into pieces.
His vision distorted wildly on its own.
The Mask.
The smiling Mask.
The corners of the mouth that had been smiling bizarrely ripped wide open.
"You don't have to be so scared, a gentlemanly con>#{@}versation#@$????????"
The pitch-black mouth opened, revealing an inside larger than a sewer.
Tentacles swarming within it.
Sticky things licked the assassin's cheek.
A swarming sight that split and violated his brain.
His vision tearing into a myriad of colors.
'Eyes.'
Blinking eyes within that space.
Eyes wide and bloodshot even among the tentacles.
Eyes staring at the assassin.
Staring eyes.
Staring eyes,
Star
ing
eyes.
"Perhaps."
Eyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyeseyes
"?deracs uoy ereW"
An inverted world.
Spinning- a world shattering into pieces.
His mind collapsed, unable to maintain consciousness any longer.
"Ah, eueugh...."
Fear reaching its limit destroyed his brain.
In the end, the assassin fainted with his eyes rolled back.
Hiss-
A wet patch running down his pants mixed right into the dirty water.
***
"Ah, he broke."
I did use it for a long time.
I muttered, looking down at the fainted assassin.
"Was it that scary?"
It seemed stakes were definitively fatal to vampires.
I just held it in front of his eyes and said a few scary words, but he fainted just like that.
I stood up from my spot.
"Phew...."
My whole body was exhausted.
My back was drenched in cold sweat, and I was covered in blood.
My vision was dizzy, probably because I kept using that footwork.
'I'm so tired I could die.'
Fortunately, thanks to the item, I didn't suffer any injuries.
I lightly tapped today's MVP.
[Mask of the Evil God]
-Effect: Nullifies attacks directed at the wearer three times. Only activates while worn.
-Remaining uses: 2/3
If I hadn't had this guy, I would have been smashed to pieces the moment I was hit by the stake.
I wiped the blood-stained mask.
Then, I turned my back toward today's goal.
"Princess."
Carmilla.
She was slumped on the floor.
"...."
The girl held her breath, not giving an answer.
She seemed terrified.
'Well, she almost died, so it's understandable.'
I approached her with the intention of comforting her.
"There, this clown has defeated all the bad assassins."
Rustle-.
I handed her a bouquet made of balloons from my inventory.
I heard that presents were the best way to stop someone from crying.
It had a little blood on it, but whatever.
It's the thought that counts when it comes to gifts anyway.
"Shall we go now?"
"...spare me."
Carmilla muttered softly.
Looking closer, she was shedding thick tears.
"Sp, spare me...."
"Pardon?"
Her shoulders trembled.
The fear in her crimson eyes was clearly directed at me.
"I, I want to live...."
Carmilla was broken even more pathetically than when she was caught by the assassins.
She shrank back, as if trying to hide from me even a little.
I couldn't help but be flustered.
"Please, spare my life...."
"Eh."
What the.
Why is she suddenly acting like this?
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