The Strange Adventure of a Broke Mercenary

Ch. 47: Wrapping Up and Losing Consciousness

Loren shot off at a speed that was incomparable to the speed that he had been moving until now.

The fire that the No Life King shot out didn’t even graze him and burned empty s.p.a.ce that no one was standing on.

Loren then plunged within reach and struck a sideways blow, and the No Life King’s barrier tried to block it, but was cracked open.

It didn’t let out a sound or show any signs of surprise, but it dodged Loren’s attack by moving back, while giving off an air of dismay. It then proceeded to attack Loren again, but lost sight of him.

“This way.”

The No Life King turned around to the sound of Loren’s voice behind it, to see the tip of his great sword flying towards its chest.

It reconstructed its force field and tried to block the blade, but before its eyes, some sort of design on the surface of the black blade emitted a suspicious light and easily cut through the reconstructed force field, and grazed its chest.

It immediately used > and tried to burn Loren, who should’ve been in front of it, but seeing that his blow didn’t fully reach the No Life King, Loren immediately pulled back with the same speed. By the time the flames shot out of the No Life King’s palm, Loren was already out of its range.

His speed was unbelievable for someone who was wielding such a heavy weapon like a great sword, and thinking that it wasn’t going to able to catch him in an attack, the No Life King roared.

The roar, which if a living being heard, would have the life sucked out of them, wasn’t enough to stop Loren.

Not waiting for the fan of flames to die, Loren raised his great sword and rushed forward. The flames parted before the blade of his sword, as if letting him through.

The No Life King froze at the unbelievable phenomenon, and as soon as it did it was met by a series of strikes like a raging wind, and for the first time, it was forced to focus on dodging and defending itself.

The force field and the great sword met each other again and again, making an irritating sound ring through the air, and in the midst of parrying the unending attacks, it was desperately searching for a breakthrough.

The fact that Shayna, who became the host for the No Life King, didn’t have any sort of battle experience was working in Loren’s favor.

Not being able to make a breakthrough for this situation that it never experienced before, the No Life King was being exposed to Loren’s attacks and was being forced back little by little.

The flames that it shot out in desperation was swept away by the raging slashes, and didn’t even singe Loren’s hair.

But unlike the No Life King, Loren was but a human, so he eventually started tiring, and his continuous attacks stopped as well.

As his attacks started to slow down, the No Life King frowned as noticed that Loren was getting exhausted and was unable to continue his attacks as he wanted to.

But Loren still desperately tried to hold on, but eventually his attacks stopped, and he plunged his great sword into the ground, leaning onto it like a staff.

“d.a.m.n it…”

As the No Life King shot an empowered > in his direction, he faced the flat of the blade towards the and hid behind it to try to catch his breath.

Although the great sword became somewhat of a shield against the fan-shaped flames, the flames still engulfed the area around Loren, and the heat and the lack of oxygen would eventually stop him from moving completely. The No Life King was sure of its victory.

But the future that it predicted didn’t come to pa.s.s.

“Take this!”

Loren’s voice came from above the No Life King’s head.

It was unknown to anyone how relevant the motion was, but when the No Life King looked up, it was met by the sole of Loren’s boot crashing into its chest, making its small body lose balance and stagger back.

It swung its arms around, not knowing what just happened, trying to get Loren away from it. But since Shayna was still a child, no matter how much it swung its arms, Loren had the superior reach and physical strength.

Before the No Life King could even think of reconstructing a force field, Loren’s right fist, with the momentum of his whole body behind it, was driven into its chest, where Loren’s foot had caught before, along with a blunt sound. As it received the full force of the blow, it got knocked onto its back and slid quite a distance across the ground, raising clouds of dust.

“You’re pretty reckless. Engaging in hand-to-hand battle against a No Life King? Unbelievable.”

Lapis, who was watching from the side, saw everything from start to finish.

Loren making it seem like he was tiring was all an act, and he hid behind his sword with strength left over. When the No Life King used its flames, thinking it had won, he used his great sword as footing and jumped up, launching a kick at it.

He immediately followed up with a punch to its chest to make sure and was able to apply damage since it couldn’t block it.

“That’s not enough take you down, is it?”

He took a step back, reached behind him with his left hand, grabbed the handle of his great sword that was still in the ground, and pulled it out with just one arm.

Instead of taking a stance, he used the momentum and centrifugal force to mow down the upper body of the No Life King, which was trying to get up.

The blade of the great sword caught the glowing part of its chest and gave it a shallow cut. Along with the two blows Loren had landed before, a dry cracking noise sounded. The next moment, it shattered into small pieces and it scattered around the feet of the No Life King, which was trying to get up.

“Ah…”

As a small light returned to the hollow eyes of the No Life King, a small voice escaped from its lips.

Upon hearing it, Loren immediately stopped his next attack. At that moment he was attacked by fatigue and fell to one knee but managed to plunge his great sword into the ground and use it to support himself.

“d.a.m.n, the recoil…but…”

He could barely move his body.

This always happened, but normally by this point he would’ve easily gone unconscious, and although he was feeling a quite foggy, he was still conscious and could still see the No Life King in front of him.

Loren himself knew very well that it wasn’t that he got used to it.

If it was something that he could get used to, he should’ve gotten used to it a long time ago. Then why was he able to keep conscious? As he wondered that, his gaze naturally went to the great sword he was using to support himself.

“There’s no way…right?”

If there was anything that changed since the last time, that was about it.

But if the great sword was indeed the cause, the sword he held would be what was known as a demonic sword, and its rarity was immeasurable.

Of course, there was no way it would be sold at a store, and even if it did, its price would be two or three digits longer than the price he got it for.

As the thought went through his head, he was about to look at Lapis, but he heard something drop to the ground near him and his eyes turned to it.

“O…nii…san…”

On the ground was Shayna’s left arm.

From the section where it ripped off the shoulder, he saw that the arm was filled with some white substance, with no trace of any flesh or blood.

Shayna stared curiously at her left shoulder and tried to stand, but this time her right leg ripped off and caused her to drop down again.

“What the h.e.l.l’s happening…”

“Her body is breaking down. Turning a human into a No Life King is an absurd spell in the first place. The jewel was probably what was keeping her together, but since it broke it can’t maintain her body anymore.”

As Lapis walked over, she observed what was happening to Shayna and presented her speculation.

Shayna’s left arm, although it kept its shape for a while longer, eventually collapsed like it was made of ashes, and the white dust scattered off in the wind.

“Can’t we do anything about this?”

“I think it’s an illegal spell called >…. but on top of making a spell that you cast onto yourself into something you could use on others, it has been modified to be able to become high ranked undead like a No Life King. It’s just absurd in so many places. And the victim is paying the cost. There’s nothing…that we can do.”

Even while Lapis was talking, Shayna’s body was collapsing.

The white dust that dropped to the ground didn’t stay, and Shayna, who was watching it with an expressionless face, locked eyes with Loren, who was watching her, unable to move, and asked him in a hoa.r.s.e voice.

“Onii…san. Am I…going to die?”

“Yeah, apparently so.”

He didn’t feel like lying or be ambiguous, and simply told her the truth.

“I see…But if it means…I’m not causing anyone trouble…I’m glad.”

Although the jewel confined her in to be the No Life King, part of her consciousness was still there.

She had a grasp of what kind of damage and casualties she would bring about if she continued to be the No Life King.

That was why Shayna was able to say that she was glad that she was defeated before she hurt anyone else.

“It’s all thanks to you…Onii-san.”

“Don’t thank me. I didn’t do anything. All I did was cut you down.”

Putting aside whether it was a saving grace for Shayna, Loren cut her down because there was a need to do so.

But looking at it from the viewpoint of their original goal, it meant that they failed. In this situation, Loren didn’t want to hear Shayna thank him, and preemptively tried to stop her, but Shayna still opened her mouth.

“Thank you.”

“…Dammit.”

She seemed to have pushed herself to say that, as the collapsing sped up, and Loren, scolding his unmoving feet, inched towards her.

He wanted to at least hold her hand before her last, and seeing that, Shayna raised her collapsing right hand slowly towards him.

“Huh? W-wait!?”

Lapis was about to say something, but Loren didn’t stop and kept going forward to hold Shayna’s hand, and eventually succeeded in getting ahold of it.

But even that only lasted a moment, as the hand that he felt in his crumbled into white dust.

Only

“Onii-san, you’re a good person…”

Shayna, with her crumbling face, managed to smile and whisper one last thing to Loren, who couldn’t do anything except grip the white dust in his hand.

“But I think you’re a bit careless.”

Shayna’s voice suddenly became clearer.

Surprised, Loren couldn’t think of a reason why, but felt his consciousness fade away rapidly.

He couldn’t even ask Lapis what happened or keep his body up. He slowly sank to the ground, and at the same time his body fell sideways, Shayna crumbled away completely into white dust that seemed to cover Loren.

“Loren? Loren!?”

Although he didn’t know why, Loren knew for sure that this time he won’t even be able to move a finger, and he completely let go of his consciousness, listening to Lapis call his name.