Level Up Inquisitor [EN]: Chapter 65

65. Luck and Skill (5)

“An Inquisitor named Aiel. Has anyone seen him recently?”

“Inquisitor? Are you talking about those fanatics from the Order of Light?”

“Yeah, have you seen him?”

“No, not at all. If those lunatics had been in our area, I would have remembered.”

“Ha, this is just great…”

Lukas sighed and ruffled his hair.

Another dead end.

After their penalties ended, Lukas and his team members, who had been defeated by Aiel, resurrected and began investigating him, but it wasn’t as easy as they had hoped.

Despite the efforts of two Amaranth teams, progress was frustratingly slow.

Even when they were part of the previous mercenary guild, not just in Amaranth, it was rare for a low-level user to cause so much trouble.

‘I’m going to catch that bastard no matter what. I can’t just let it go after being humiliated by a level 20 player…’

The humiliating death in the Corpse Cave.

Lukas gritted his teeth, still unable to shake off the anger from that time.

“Wait… hold on!”

As Lukas was about to retrieve the photo of Aiel he had shown and leave, the man he was facing stopped him and continued speaking.

“Is Amaranth not interested in this kind of work? If you guys put your minds to it, you could make quite a bit of money…”

“What? Do you not know that if a guild of our size gets caught dealing drugs, we’ll be marked by the royal family and lose our heads?”

“Don’t say that… there’s a new product that’s really lucrative these days. Other guilds are starting to get involved.”

“No thanks. Just focus on your business.”

Lukas turned away without hesitation, and the man clicked his tongue as if he was disappointed.

“They won’t last long either. They should just stick to illegal weapon trading.”

Lukas shook his head.

From what he heard, the black market NPC was involved in large-scale drug trafficking, and he never expected them to make such an offer to him.

Even though smuggling was one thing, drug issues were strictly regulated by the royal family.

Of course, it was just useless junk to the players, but it was a great item for the NPCs in the back alleys, and they could make a lot of profit if they got involved in the distribution.

Only organizations that were desperate for money or not afraid of risks were mainly involved, and if they continued to expand their business recklessly like that, they would be wiped out before long unless they were extremely lucky.

It seemed like he should report that they needed to find a new information network to replace them.

“Lukas! We’re leaving now.”

Toulon appeared from behind and called him.

His urgent tone made him sense something was wrong.

“Where are we going all of a sudden? Did you find that guy?”

Lukas asked, hurrying after Toulon, who was already moving.

“It’s similar. This time, he made the first move.”

“He made the first move…?”

An unexpected reply arrived from Beken, the client who had commissioned this job.

However, Amaranth had never sent him anything like that.

Judging from the absurd content of the reply, it seemed that someone claiming to be from the Amaranth Guild had sent him a letter asking him to come to the back alley, which meant that Aiel was impersonating them to lure him out.

“Surely he wouldn’t fall for such a stupid trick…”

“Don’t judge clients by our standards. It’s easier to think of them as clueless kids.”

They had been through all sorts of PVP [Player versus Player] situations while working as mercenaries, while others mainly focused on hunting.

Of course, even if they were players who had played for the same amount of time, there would be differences.

It was too much to expect anything from a level 20 user.

The good thing was that the client was quite close to them.

However, judging from the target’s skills in the Corpse Cave, it was better to assume that he had already been captured.

“Judging from the location of the mailbox where the letter was sent, he’s likely to be in the eastern district of the city. Try to save the client if possible, and contact me as soon as you find him.”

“Understood!”

* * *

Creak, creak!

Beken, tied to a chair, struggled violently.

However, the ropes binding him were tightly secured, and he lost his balance and fell to the floor, hitting his head head-on.

“Keugh… !”

Beken, who couldn’t even scream because his mouth was blocked, couldn’t come to his senses and staggered.

“Hey, stay still.”

Aiel, who had gone out for a while to take care of other business, came to him.

Then, he removed the gag that was blocking his mouth.

“You XXXXXX woob… !”

As soon as his blocked mouth was opened, vulgar words poured out, and Aiel, horrified, gagged him again.

“Oh, did you swallow a rag? Let’s speak nicely.”

“Eup eup! Eup eub beup!”

As soon as he saw Aiel’s face, he seemed to be furious again, and he thrashed so much that the chair rattled.

It was questionable whether he had anger management issues.

However, Aiel didn’t seem to care, and just waited for Beken’s temper to subside in a relaxed manner.

When he seemed to have calmed down to some extent, he removed his gag again.

“Puhah! Do you even know who I came here to meet?”

“Yeah, you came to see Amaranth, who isn’t coming.”

“Wh-what?”

Beken looked at him in surprise when Aiel knew that he was on his way to meet the Amaranth Guild members.

In fact, it was obvious.

It was Aiel who impersonated Amaranth and sent a letter telling him to come here immediately without delay.

Aiel tracked Beken’s location and arrived in this city, watching for an opportunity while following Beken.

If he had any sense, he would have known that there was no reason for Amaranth to suddenly send a letter instead of using the original contact method, and he would have felt suspicious, but Beken didn’t have that kind of brain.

It was very easy to lure him into a deserted back alley so as not to be caught by the guards, and then subdue him.

However, he wasn’t completely relaxed.

Beken’s reply, which he wrote in front of the mailbox, would have also gone to Amaranth, and they would have known that he had tricked Beken.

He didn’t know exactly where the two groups of pursuers were, but they would be rushing to this city, so it was better to finish as quickly as possible.

“I don’t have much time. If it’s not resolved in 10 minutes, I’ll kill you and leave.”

“Resolved? What are you going to resolve? You dare touch me and think you’ll get away with it!”

Aiel sighed for a moment at his appearance, as if he had completely forgotten the cause and effect.

But soon, he drew his sword from his waist and held it to Beken’s neck.

Beken flinched and cowered without realizing it when the cold blade touched his neck.

“I won’t say any more. Cancel the request or die here. I’m giving you one last chance.”

“Hahaha!”

Beken burst into a violent laugh.

“Do you think I’ll listen to you? What am I afraid of?”

“You’re going to go all the way to the end?”

“Yeah, you XX. Go ahead and kill me a hundred times, a thousand times. I have to see you die. Of course, that’s if you can kill me.”

Beken’s eyes gleamed red.

He, who had been so proud, had nothing to fear after being defeated by Aiel once.

“Uaaaaa!”

Beken started thrashing recklessly.

The chair rattled violently because he was screaming and thrashing like crazy, and before Aiel, who was flustered, could take action, an incident occurred.

Stab!

“Keuheok… keueok…”

The sword was deeply embedded in the middle of Beken’s neck, and his health bar quickly decreased.

His health had already been significantly reduced during the suppression process, so he died as soon as he was stabbed, ending up dying from his own frenzy.

“C-crazy…”

Aiel stood there dumbfounded, unable to hide his bewilderment.

Going directly to Beken was already a choice with many variables, but this was completely unexpected.

And then, to make matters worse, he felt an unknown presence behind him.

Thwack!

The locked door was mercilessly torn off by a strong impact and rolled to the floor.

The three Amaranth Guild members who had been tracking him rushed into the room at the same time.

Lukas, who kicked the door open, was the first to enter and immediately drew his bow, and Aiel broke the window and ran away as soon as he saw him.

Aiel’s body landed in the backyard of the building’s first floor with a crash.

He could hear the pursuers chasing him from behind, and Aiel ran into the alley without looking back.

‘Damn it, I didn’t expect them to catch up so quickly.’

He had planned the timeline with some leeway, but Amaranth’s response was faster than expected.

‘But it’s not like I came here without calculating the possibility of this happening.’

Although things had gone wrong and the pursuers were right behind him, he wasn’t worried about being finished off like this.

He had already faced them once and knew all their skills, so he was confident that he could escape from them.

Above all, the current environment was different from when he was in a dungeon like the Corpse Cave.

In a city with guards, they couldn’t recklessly attack by shooting arrows.

Unless it was an attack that would definitely end the fight, it would only attract the attention of the guards, and they could end up being the ones being chased.

From the pursuers’ point of view, they had to attack Aiel when they were sure they could finish him off and end his life, and then somehow shake them off and escape the city so as not to be caught by the guards or have a bounty placed on them, so they had much more to think about.

And Aiel, who knew that better than anyone else and could use it, could turn it into an even more powerful weapon than the crude traps that filled the dungeon.

‘Yeah… try and chase me!’