I Pull Out Excalibur

27 – City of Opportunity, Cambria (3)

A place where light doesn’t reach well.

Dim, dark, humid, and with difficult visibility and narrow passages, it’s hard to move around. A back alley, or what is called a slum.

This place exists in any city, and the larger the size of the city, the larger this place becomes. In the city of opportunity, Cambria, there was naturally a slum. A place where fallen adventurers and mercenaries end up, a place like a huge maze where criminals hide.

If you’re sober.

If you’re living a decent life.

Just by coming to such a slum, you will feel a chill, and your nerves will naturally tighten, making your movements stiff. You would feel the need to get out of here immediately.

After all, a slum is such a place.

However, the boy who stepped into this place was a bit different.

Najin felt like he had come home.

The exhaustion of the mind, tired of seeing unfamiliar things for the past ten days, seemed to dissipate the moment he entered the alley, as if saying, “This is my home.” The tension eased, and his body moved smoothly.

An environment reminiscent of the underground city of Artman.

Najin swallowed the stuffy air and lightly brushed off his body. After a few deep breaths, Najin opened his eyes narrowly. In the darkness, his eyes shone with the color of sunset.

“I found it.”

-···What?

Najin muttered silently and took a few steps forward. With slow steps, he turned towards the inside of the alley. Far away, just as he felt a hint of presence, he lifted his foot and stomped it on the ground.

Thud.

A powerful step forward. Immediately after, in a moment, a surge flowed through Najin’s body. Now, Najin could freely invoke the enhancement of his body using mana.

Boom! Najin gave strength to the foot he had stomped on the ground and sprinted forward. A momentary acceleration. The man who had noticed the change too late and was hiding had already fled, but by then, Najin had already approached him.

“Kuh!”

With outstretched hand, Najin grabbed the man’s throat and lifted him up. The man looked like he had a decent build, but as Najin raised his arm, he effortlessly floated in the air. When the man’s feet didn’t touch the ground, he also seemed to feel discomfort, as he lowered his gaze.

Then, he locked eyes with Najin.

In the dimly lit darkness, Najin’s eyes shone brightly, resembling those of a wild beast encountered in the wilderness. The man’s legs trembled as if paralyzed.

“Why were you monitoring me?”

Najin asked.

The man didn’t immediately answer, so Najin grabbed the man’s fingers with his free hand. He knew how to make him talk.

Thunk.

A resounding scream. After repeating the same process several times and reducing the number of intact fingers on the man’s hand to less than two, he spilled everything he knew. Having heard all the information he needed, Najin crushed the man’s jaw with his fist, rendering him unconscious.

After tossing the limp man aside, Najin muttered to himself.

“They hired several people and placed monitors. When bounty hunters entered the alley, they would spread out to block the path.”

The information the man had revealed was quite basic.

However, Najin estimated how the wanted criminals had managed to escape with just a few pieces of information. Malin seemed bewildered by Najin’s ability to deduce so much from such limited information.

-You figured all that out from just a few pieces of information?

“If you catch enough of them, you start to see patterns,” Najin replied.

Najin shifted his footsteps.

Najin was well aware of how to catch people who used such tactics. There were safe and slow methods and fast and dangerous methods. What Najin had chosen was the latter.

“How did you do that?”

Najin took a deep breath.

With each step he took, Najin consciously considered the speed of his strides and the area of the ground covered by the soles of his shoes.

“I did something like this.”

Najin continued to walk.

It was Najin who had observed from afar how they moved and how they extinguished their presence. Recalling their movements, Najin took a step forward.

One step, then another.

At first, there was a faint sound, but by the third step, there was no sound at all. When Najin became accustomed to their movements, he began to run, suppressing his presence.

-···What?

Merlin, who had been watching them, blinked. The boy’s movements, which had been solid before, had become so stealthy that they would cause assassins to be on edge.

In the silence, Najin started running, crashing into the wall. Even though he passed right above the head of someone who appeared to be a lookout, they didn’t notice his presence. How many lookouts did he cross like that?

The center of the maze-like alley.

There, Najin noticed a man who was idling around. The man, who seemed to be a hired bodyguard, was playing cards with his companions. Cards and coins were scattered on the table.

Wanted criminal Lopez.

The a

Squeeeak!

A loud noise echoed. It was the signal to gather my comrades and hired guards scattered throughout the alley.

“This is me and Brom’s turf. Like bounty hunters, and you’re screwed, punk.”

He chuckled confidently.

In response to Lopes’s laughter, Najin smirked. Looking at Najin, who was smiling cunningly, Lopes felt a sense of discomfort.

“Easing the workload.”

Najin muttered.

Well, Brom, the wanted criminal, was also Najin’s target.

Listening to the footsteps approaching from all directions, Najin drew his sword. Swish, the sound echoed as Najin pulled the sword from its sheath, stretching it out with narrowed eyes.

···Bounty hunter, Lopes realized that something was wrong a few minutes later.

The dark alley. Najin, who had evaded professional pursuers called the “Shadow of the Guild,” and sometimes mocked and hunted them, considered these street thugs rolling in the alley as nothing more than simple prey in his growth process.

Five minutes.

It took Najin that much time to subdue all the street thugs who had gathered and toss Brom, the wanted criminal, near Lopes with his knees smashed.

“Take care of these two.”

Wanted criminal Brom. Wanted criminal Lopes.

Najin muttered as he tied them up and left them there.

“If I knew it would turn out like this, I should’ve brought all six.”

2.

“Lord Overlord, an adventurer has come.”

Early in the morning, Dieta blinked at the secretary’s call. This early in the morning? Dieta, who had just arrived at the Overlord’s office to start her day and was sipping morning coffee, wondered.

“Who is it?”

“A boy with gray hair. I heard he received a commission from Lord Overlord yesterday…”

A boy with gray hair.

It was the boy she bought a meal for yesterday. She did tell him the location of the Overlord’s office, but he came so quickly? Perhaps he wanted to inquire further about the information on the wanted criminals.

I’ve already given him all the information.

If he wants more, it’s a bit disappointing.

Thinking this, Dieta gestured. It was a signal to let him in. Soon after, heavy footsteps echoed up the stairs. After a short while, the office door opened.

The one who opened the door and stepped in was the boy from yesterday.

However, the moment Dieta faced the boy who entered the office, she realized. The boy didn’t come to ask for more information. He brought three wanted criminals with him.

Dieta’s pupils narrowed.

What surprised Diaeta was not just the presence of Fassion by her side. Fassion, the knight who stood beside her, also had his eyes wide open.

“These three people, right here?”

Whether it was those two or not, Najin gestured towards my back. There were three wanted criminals limping there. They only had their arms tied, but they weren’t resisting or trying to escape.

When Najin looked back, Fassion simply bowed his head as if trying to avoid her gaze.

“Yes… they are.”

Diaeta muttered absentmindedly.

Brom, Lopez, Miles.

They were wanted criminals from the back alleys. They were infamous for slipping away like a fish in various situations. However, contrary to the rumors that had circulated, the three men stood quietly in their places.

As if feeling fear from the boy standing before them.