CH 323

Furious from head to toe, Tim was stunned.  He thought he had completely fooled Zich and was shocked to find that Zich had known everything all along. 

“…Did you trick me?” Tim’s voice was low, expressing his clear rage. It was a funny situation. Tim was getting angry that Zich tricked him when that was what he had tried to do to Zich. But that was the kind of guy Tim Platt was; he never considered the harm he caused to others while he responded negatively to the damages he received.

“Yeah, I tricked you. So what? Aren’t you the dumb one to get tricked in situations like this?” Zich’s words infuriated Tim even more. 

Zich didn’t lose to Tim in terms of having a horrible personality and self-righteousness. He had no intention of consoling a stupid bastard’s rage for getting tricked. “Is that what you call tricking someone? I had to work so hard to pretend to be tricked by you. Even a three-year-old would not get their treats stolen from you.”

“…Ha, haha, hahahaha!” Tim burst out into laughter. Then, he hung his head low while his shoulders trembled like he had lost his mind.

“You…” Tim stared at Zich. Beyond his shaking front hair, Tim’s eyes looked piercing. 

“Die.”

Crash!

Tim stretched out his fist. As if he was planning repay Zich for his secret attack, he appeared in front of Zich as if he had teleported. He aimed for Zich’s face, specifically the jaw.

Whoosh! Zich managed to evade the punch by a hair's breadth. The wind pressure caused by the force of Tim’s punch seemed to swirl like a typhoon. Zich remained unbothered and swung Windur again.

Crash! A sword and fist clashed against each other. Zich and Tim backed a couple of steps away from each other.

“…What is this?” Tim scowled when he saw the back of his fist. Blood flowed down from the injury on his hand. Although it should have been surprising that he was left only with a small injury after the sword and fist clashed, Tim didn’t seem to think that way.

“…Although its shape is fucking weird, it seems to be quite a good sword.”

“Right? I think so too.” Zich swung Windur like he was showing it off. 

Tim bared his teeth. “Do you think you can beat me just because you have a good sword?”

“No,” Zich replied. Tim’s mood became slightly better from Zich’s denial; he thought Zich was realizing the situation he was in. However, the meaning behind Zich’s denial was completely different from what Tim thought.

“Even if I don’t have Windur, it’s not hard to beat a guy like you up. So, even if you lose, don’t blame it on my sword, okay?”

Tim’s face hardened. He struck the ground without saying a single word in response. His mouth, which usually never shut up from ridiculing and mocking his opponents, closed and he let out intense pressure. His fist overfilled with mana and swirled like a typhoon.

Babababang! A huge commotion broke out in an instant. As the sword and fist made contact, shockwaves broke out in all directions. The surrounding buildings creaked while the precious metals on the ground rolled. If the owner of the firm saw what was happening right now, he would have screamed in terror. Yet, Zich and Tim didn’t care what happened around them; they only thought of crushing the opponent right in front of their eyes.

Crash!

Tim backed away from Zich’s mana-filled attack and scowled, ‘This bastard is really strong!’ Zich’s skills were beyond what he had expected. Even when he had strengthened his mana, his hands and arms were full of injuries. He even had some deep wounds that revealed specks of bone. Yet, Tim preserved on.

Whish!

His injuries began healing at a frightening speed. His muscles contracted, blanketing the white bones underneath, and new skin grew on top. Small injuries disappeared without a trace.

‘His regenerative abilities are already amazing.’ Zich clicked his tongue. Before the regression, the reason why Tim had taken the lead most often when they fought with enemy forces was because of his regenerative abilities. Even when he was sliced, pierced, and struck down by his enemies’ attacks, he always healed himself completely and led the battlefield in the direction they wanted. 

Of course, Zich didn’t stand by and watch Tim heal himself. He moved to corner Tim more aggressively before he healed all his injuries. Yet, Tim managed to evade Zich skillfully. In the end, all his injuries disappeared.

Thud! After escaping Zich’s attack, Tim jumped down to the rooftop of one of the storage spaces. As if he wasn’t pleased with the current situation, his face was heavily scrunched up. ‘What the hell is this!’

It hurt his pride. Tim thought no matter how strong Zich was, Zich was still an opponent he could beat. After realizing the truth, he realized he was the one who was tricked and getting pushed back in this battle. However, Tim wasn’t afraid; he knew he was going to be the winner in the end. 

“Don’t make such a confident face, you bast—!” Tim curled up his fist to prepare for the battle when he realized that he was in a strange situation. “…What?” He looked around his surroundings and evaluated the situation. According to his plan, the city should have fallen into chaos by now; there should be paths of fire everywhere along with screams of the powerless and vile laughter from the bandits sounding in the background. However, the situation around him was completely different from what he predicted it to be. 

There were some paths of fire burning up the city, but they were very few. Although their original plan was to cause havoc inside the city by setting buildings on fire everywhere, the number of fires that burned right now didn’t seem much different from the number they had at the beginning of their raid announcement. Some flames were even disappearing until they were completely extinguished.  

He heard shouting and the sound of armies clashing in a battle. According to his plan, there shouldn’t be any clean-cut battles happening, or at worst, very few of them. At the least, he shouldn’t be hearing the sound of battle happening throughout the whole city like this. 

‘It’s almost as if some defense troops were left in this city!’ 

“Are you curious?” Zich’s voice dug into Tim’s ears. Before he realized it, Zich had already climbed on top of the rooftop with him. Tim’s fierce eyes glared at him.

“You won’t be able to raid the city as you and the other bandits planned. There’re soldiers all over the city.”

“…!” All kinds of questions swirled in Tim’s head. How did he know that they planned to raid the entire city? And who were those soldiers fighting the bandits right now? What more did he know? Tim was only sure about one thing—the plan he put tremendous effort into and thought had failed.

“If you’re curious, I can answer your questions.” Zich talked calmly like a victor was showing mercy to his enemy. “Of course, you would have to answer my questions as well.”

“…Questions?”

“This plan. Who made it?” Zich’s face instantly became serious. “This plan is much too meticulous for it to be made by bandits.” 

It was a plan that could have only been made if one had a perfect understanding of the current situation in the Campbell estate and Bambis. Moreover, they needed to have secret information about the city officials’ weaknesses to use them.

Could a random bandit have such a wide information network to gain these types of information? Zich doubted this.

“You probably didn’t make this plan. There’s no way you could devise a plan like this with your rock-hard head.”

“What the hell!” Tim growled in anger, but Zich had no intentions to take back his words.

‘In the first place, if he was preparing for a plan like this, he should have stayed low and quietly made his preparations. But he couldn’t control his personality and caused all kinds of havoc.’

Zich was able to find Tim in this way. However, Zich understood why Tim acted this way. His hot-tempered personality was the reason why Tim Platt was who he was.

“Hey, did you perhaps get that plan from suspicious people wearing robes?”

Tim’s face became ridiculously distorted at Zich’s question. He looked like he was caught with a secret he thought no one would ever know. 

‘As expected.’ Zich was sure that this plan was also a result of those robed figures’ actions. Then, at that moment, a dark cloud appeared in Zich’s heart.

Tim asked, “…You know those guys?”

“Of course! We’re really close! We ride or die together! So if you have information about them, why don’t you share a bit…” Zich stopped talking. He let out a sigh and looked down on Tim. “Well, there’s no way those guys revealed any information about them to a punk like you. Whatever. Just forget what I asked you.”

“…Haha, you fucking bastard!” Tim was so angry that his words came out calmly instead. The swirling questions in his head calmed down at once. The only thing left was his murderous desire to beat the crap out of Zich. At that moment—

Crash! The front door of the Demiro Firm opened roughly. Zich and Tim both looked at the door at the same time.

“He’s over there!” A knight wearing flashy armor stood on top of a rooftop and pointed at Tim while shouting. Ten more soldiers came rushing behind him.

‘Those idiots!” Zich saw them and grimaced. ‘I told them to not interfere here!’ 

They were part of the soldiers that had gone out of the city after falling for the bandits’ trap. After seeing the bandits moving out of the city walls, Zich thought that the bandits would soon ambush the city and immediately go to the mayor. If he went through a formal process, Zich thought the city official ratting out the city to the bandits might find out, so he infiltrated the mayor’s office. Since most of the skilled forces had been sent out for the war, it was extremely easy to infiltrate the mayor’s office.

Of course, the mayor was shocked, but as a result of Zich’s kind blackmail, the Count’s introduction letter, and the Karuwiman Honorary broach, Zich was able to quickly calm the mayor down. Zich immediately told the mayor the information he had, and then he made one request to the mayor whose face was now completely stiff. He asked for the soldiers who were just sent out from the bandits’ trap to be immediately called back to the city. 

Since quite a long time had passed since the soldiers were sent out, the mayor expressed the difficulty of the matter, but with Zich’s abilities, it was possible to catch up to them. Fortunately, the mayor was receptive and an easy person to work with; if the mayor refused to listen to him, Zich needed to come up with a different plan, but he didn’t need to do that.

That night, the soldiers dispatched to ambush the bandits’ home base quietly returned back to Bambis. In order to hide their return, the soldiers somewhat disguised themselves. However, since they were sent out for battle, they had little means to perfectly disguise themselves. On the other hand, the late time and darkness of the night covered their clumsy disguises, and above all, they weren’t caught because the mayor worked hard to hide them. The mayor was skilled, so they even perfectly covered their efforts from internal spies. Then, the only thing left was to hide the soldiers around the city. 

When the bandits began attacking the city, the soldiers stationed beforehand immediately began to expel the bandits. The sound of battle ringing throughout the whole city was from the fights between the soldiers and bandits. In addition, before the soldiers were stationed throughout the city, Zich made one more request to the mayor. He asked the mayor to not send any forces to the Demiro Firm. 

Zich judged that the current Bambis’ military forces with all its strongest soldiers sent out for war were too weak to fight the bandits in the Demiro Firm. Unnecessary casualties would just arise.

‘Those idiots…!’

Did the mayor just ignore his words? No, that was probably not the case. Zich thought this over again, but the mayor was really an easy person to talk to. Then, there was only one possibility that came to mind. 

‘They were blinded by seeking achievements and ignored orders!’

It was obvious to see what happened as the soldiers began surrounding the building. The knight jumped from the ground and landed on the roof.

“You low scum! Your evil deeds will come to an end here!” The knight ignored Zich and pointed his sword towards Tim.

Zich clicked his tongue without thinking; the knight’s actions were not even funny.

However, it could not even be compared to the annoyance Tim felt. “Hahaha! Today is a really shitty day!” Nothing was going to plan, and now some kind of trash was pointing his sword at him. 

In order to resolve this suffocating and shitty feeling, there was only one solution.

Destruction!

Was it just a light trick? Tim’s skin seemed to wriggle.