Chapter 123: Luzerio

Chapter 123: Luzerio

Shouts and screams erupted from the building’s exterior as presence detection went off and informed me of a series of enemies.

Sheet. It looked like Bluke wasn’t the only one that’d transformed.

「Bluke! Bluke, answer me! Whatever is the matter, Bluke!」

「Approaching, bad idea.」

「Blu-ugh!」

Rhodas ignored Fran’s warning and tried to approach his son, only to be immediately met with a kick therefrom despite the fact that Urushi was still holding the newly transformed Evil Human down.

「Sir Rhodas! Are you unharmed?」

「Worry not. I am fine.」

Rhodas stared blankly in a mix of shock and pain as Dannan helped him back up to his feet.

Naturally, his stare did nothing to halt, or even slow down Bluke’s transformation. The second son’s eyes were dyed a pure, jet black; his pupils almost seemed to disappear entirely. His skin had started to undergo a similar process; every last bit of it was tainted as black as the night itself as his muscles swelled till they bulged to the point of abnormality. Everything about him had changed, save for the features on his face. An eerie, sickening result.

I felt the urge to cut him down immediately, but refrained. His father was watching, and we wished not for Barbra’s lord to resent us.

Besides, there might actually be some way for us to turn him back to normal. Bluke knew tonnes about things areas in which we wanted more knowledge, so having him regain his sanity could potentially allow us to derive from him a fair amount of useful information.

「Guruuuuaaaaaahhh!」

He continued to struggle against his capture. It looked like he’d lost all sense of reasoning, and was unwilling to be detained.

Alright, for the time being, we should try having him drink a bit more of the Water of Recovery to see if it does anything.

And... nope.

Fine. What if we used Anti Curse?

And... also nope.

Our tests led us to realize that he wasn’t actually in an abnormal state.

Both the Insane and Rampaging states were considered to be his default states, and thus, we weren’t able to get rid of either condition. In other words, we were going to have one hell of a hard time turning him back to normal or taking him in quietly.

『Let’s see if we can make him stop moving around.』

「Nn. Urushi, let go.」

「Woof.」

「Stun Bolt.」

「Groooogaaaaa!」

Bluke had tried getting up the moment Urushi let go of him, but Stun Bolt had inflicted him with paralysis. And hence, he was now once again on the ground. He was still conscious, but no longer able to move.

『Alright Urushi, hold him down again. Have him stay there till we tell you otherwise.』

「Woof.」

『Let’s go take care of everything happening in the garden, Fran.』

「Nn.」

Fran rushed back into the hallway and leapt through one of the windows that faced the building’s garden, shattering it in the process.

『It looks like everyone that got arrested ended up transforming.』

All ten of the men that taken into custody had ended up breaking out of their bindings as a result of their “evolutions.” There were far fewer of them than there were guards, but they still seemed to have the advantage due to their disparately high stats.

「What now? Capture all?」

『Eh... nah. Let’s just kill them. Detaining each and every single one would end up being a huge pain in the ass. Besides, they’re criminals anyways, so they’d probably just end up getting sentenced to death even if we did find out how to turn them back to normal.』

I mean, that’s kinda just what happens to anyone with a hand in a failed coup d’etat.

「Got it.」

Fran accelerated through the use of Air Jump and used the resulting momentum to immediately cleave one of the Evil Humans in half. I threw in a wind spell and took out a second as she landed.

The captured men had been ruffians to begin with, so they were quite a bit stronger than Bluke. Evolution had turned each into an E or so ranked threat.

That said, they still weren’t anywhere close to being our match; it only took us about three minutes to finish them all off. I was honestly kind of disappointed by the results. They were actually pretty strong. I was expecting to be able to absorb their magic stones and get myself a few points. I was quite interested in all the skills they had too, but it turned out that they didn’t actually have magic stones. Oh well, can’t be helped, I guess.

The guards ended up falling onto their butts in exhaustion the moment they saw the last Evil Human fall.

We knew that they were tired, but, we would have to bother them a bit more. And so, Fran approached a man whose armour seemed a bit flashier than the rest, the guy we presumed was the squad’s chief.

「Hey.」

「Yes? What did you need?」

The chief immediately tensed up and straightened his back as he realized Fran wanted to talk to him. It looked to me like he was feeling a mix of respect and terror for Fran’s strength.

「All the people in the manor accounted for?」

「Yes ma’am. The only other people we found inside are the ladies right over there.」

Following the chief’s line of set led us to a group of young girls, currently huddled up and trembling in fear. Quickly appraising them informed me that there wasn’t really anything wrong with any of them as far as status abnormalities went.

「Zerais, alchemist. Rynford, old man. Both not here?」

「I didn’t catch sight of either of the two.」

I’d assumed that the troops had managed to arrest the two of them, but apparently that wasn’t the case at all. We went around and inspected the faces on all the Evil Humans we killed just to make sure, but we didn’t actually find either of the two.

In other words, Bluke was, in fact, not actually the mastermind behind all this. The real mastermind had somehow caught wind of our actions and escaped. Moreover, he’d even manage to retaliate. Was this whole Evil Human transformation thing time based? Or was it done through some sort of remote controlled device? I couldn’t actually tell which of the two it was, but I could at least say that both would definitely be a pain in the ass to deal with.

Hmm... What now? We could have Urushi try sniffing around in order to track the guy down. We could also potentially search the manor and see if we could find any sort of clue.

(Master.)

『Yeah? What’s up?』

(There.)

Fran pointed to the area lying behind the slaves we’d saved. There, we saw the gatekeeper, still tied up just as he’d been before.

Wait. He didn’t transform? What?

He was currently afflicted with the “Agitated Heart of Evil” status condition. Unlike the other guys though, he didn’t have the enraged thing applied to him. Hmmmm... I guess that means the whole transformation thing is based on the amount of the magic-infused water one ingests? If so, then we were in luck, as it meant that the townsfolk that happened to have the former status abnormality wouldn’t end up transforming.

General Information

Name: Luzerio

Age: 36

Race: Human

Job: Concealed Spearman

State: Heart of Evil

Status Level: 35/99

HP: 266

MP: 214

STR: 131

VIT: 129

AGI: 178

INT: 90

MGC: 121

DEX: 130

Skills

Assassination: Lv 5

Espionage: Lv 4

Evasion: Lv 5

Presence Detection: Lv 4

Sword Arts: Lv 2

Torture: Lv 6

Blink: Lv 5

Spear Techniques: Lv 7

Spear Arts: Lv 8

Short Sword Arts: Lv 3

Poison Resistance: Lv 3

Paralysis Resistance: Lv 6

Trap Detection: Lv 2

Vigour Manipulation

Pain Reduction

Titles

Mass Murderer

One who Inflicts Suffering

Servant to the Evil God

Equipment

Pointed Mithril Spear

Venomous Monkey Fang Short Sword

Black Wolf’s Leather Full Body Armour

Dark Mithril Gauntlet

Mantle of Espionage

Heat Resistant Bracelet

Ring of Escape

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Huh, that’s the first time I’ve ever seen the Torture skill.

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Torture

Rarity Level 3

Boosts idea generation during torture. Also increases the amount of pain inflicted to victims of torture.

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His titles honestly made him look like a piece of sheet. He was even apparently a Servant to the Evil God.

It was a bit different than Bluke’s title, which claimed him to be the Evil God’s Slave. This guy had the exact same title as the kobold we’d fought a few days back. I couldn’t tell the difference between being the God’s slave and servant, and unfortunately, Appraisal wasn’t really helping me as much as I wanted it to be. It just kept spitting out that the title’s description was unknown.

「Then, Zerrosreed’s subordinate?」

「You foockin kidding me!? You think I’d obey that retarded musclehead?」

It seemed that we’d flipped his switch. It was clear as day that he knew Zerrosreed, but the two didn’t exactly get along.

「Only man I’d ever foockin serve would be an Evil Arts User like Rynford. And you see, unlike that Zerrosreed retard, I’ve actually got brains, so Rydford trusts me ya know?」

Huh? Evil Arts User? That’s the first real thing we’ve actually learned about the old man. The way things sounded made it seem like he was the real mastermind behind all this.

That said, it seemed that this Rynford guy was real cold hearted. He was totally willing to order his subordinates to throw away their lives just so he could buy himself a bit of time.

『Alright, let’s tie him up and wring him of all he knows.』

「Nn.」

「Kuhahahahaha! You seriously wanna go? Alright, bring it on brat, I’ll make you regret everything.」

Luzerio took up a stance with his spear and readied himself for combat.