<..Hassan and the Nine-Headed Thief..>
157 – Hassan and the Nine Headed Thief #8
Clang.
The olive tree club I threw hit the lamp squarely. Honestly, the odds were 50/50.
Stone throwing was a common practice since the days of slaves and gladiators, and it seems that the accuracy increased because the dexterity was improved by the grace of the sun god.
When the last remaining light went out, the situation underground became completely dark.
Thieves running wild here and there.
“Turning off the lights is funny, it reminds me of that when I’m working.”
“It’s definitely more comfortable for us on the dark side.”
As expected of criminals who operate under the moonlight obscured by shadows and clouds, they do not show any sign of panic even when their vision is obscured by the light source.
It seems that the same was true for their leader, Ismail.
“Having good night vision is not a talent. Do you think you can hide from me just by turning off the lights?”
Chorus.
The guy soon took out a lantern with a small glowstone inside from his waistband. A soft blue light flowed out from the lantern, illuminating the surroundings and decorating the floor.
Swish, swish.
Ismail just flicks the lantern around.
But the guy can’t find me and just keeps wandering around the place he was looking for.
Someone said.
“It’s gone?”
“You hid during that short period of time? You really seem to be the holder of grace.”
70.
69.
68….
By activating the “Cloak of Graceful Night,” I gain a bonus to stealthy actions. In order to do so, I first need to disappear from the opponent’s sight.
So I turned off the lights to create a brief darkness. I figured that since they were thieves, they would be used to the dark.
Still, I thought that since we are humans, there would be a time when our vision would be obscured until our eyes adjusted to the darkness.
And my prediction seems to have been correct.
I hid behind a suitable light and watched the thieves around the corner.
Ismail, the leader of the thieves, continues to struggle to find me, wielding a lantern and a dagger.
“There’s no use wasting time. This fight will end when one of us dies, you or me!”
And then he starts swinging his sword at the air. Does he think that my body has become transparent and is attacking him?
Shayak!
Shayak!
The blade of the guy who cut through the air resembled the sound of snakes crying fiercely. It was a dagger coated with Hydra’s venom, so it was no different from the fangs of a vicious snake.
60.
59….
As I held my breath, the letters continued to change before my eyes.
As the guy said, if I stall for time like this, the grace will be lifted after a minute, and if that happens, I’ll eventually get caught and get wounded by that dagger someday.
If so, the only situation that can cause a change in this country is now.
I looked around to see if there was anything useful.
Then I see small pieces of stone lying at my feet. They seem to be pieces of the lantern that the thief leader Ismail had smashed earlier when he was showing off his strength.
The pillar I was hiding behind was that pillar.
After grabbing the rock that fell on the ground, he throws it with all his might towards Ismail. The best position to throw is from behind a pillar, sidearm throw.
What he’s aiming for is definitely the guy’s light.
Please, be right!
Phew..
My full-force throw of level 12 sent a rock flying like a bullet, hitting the bastard’s arm.
Bam!
“Ghhh!”
Ismail screamed as the stone hit him. Perhaps because of the pain from being hit by the stone, he even dropped the lamp he was holding.
Thud, thud,
It was difficult to get the lights to line up exactly, but the gap I created ended up going in the direction I wanted.
Knock knock.
I kicked my body from behind the stairs and rushed towards the leader of the thieves. At that moment, the grace was released and the surrounding guys started to stir loudly.
“Huh?”
“There you are!”
Ismail, the leader, turns his head as if reacting to the people around him noticing him.
“This kid!”
The guy moved his arms as if he was trying to counter my ambush, but I was a little faster than him because my arms were already outstretched towards him.
Phew, bang-!
I grabbed the guy’s head with my gauntlet and slammed him down into the ground.
“Ouch!”
The leader of the thieves screams with a loud crash.
During that gap, I climb on top of the guy’s body and raise my right hand holding the dagger and swing it hard towards his neck.
“This, this kid!! What kind of strength, damn it! This is, f*ck~!”
But Ismail was no pushover either. It wouldn’t have been strange if he had hit his head on the floor, suffered a mild concussion, and suffered a panic attack.
It must have been a particularly strong-headed creature, because it quickly came to its senses and began flailing its arms to block my attack. Perhaps it was an instinctive action to prolong its life.
Pok, bang, bang!
So my dagger, which was about to stab the guy’s neck, struck his palm, arm, shoulder, and chest, spraying blood.
Although he avoided instant death by being stabbed in the neck, it was definitely a fatal wound that turned his body red.
“Get behind me, you little shit!”
I raised the dagger I was holding in my hand high to strike a decisive blow. I swung it with all my might towards the bastard’s chest.
“Ugh!”
The leader raised both arms to stop it. The guy grabbed my wrists with both hands and tried his best to protect his heart.
I also decided to add the strength of my remaining arm to the arm that was being pushed down.
My instantaneous strength is strong, but my stamina is weak.
If I don’t take this guy down right now, at this very moment when I have the chance, it’s obvious that I’ll be the first to get exhausted.
So I strained my whole body as if my wisdom teeth were going to fall out.
“Ugh!”
“This, this son of a bitch -! I, I am the king on the mountain, Ismail…! I, I am!”
So my two hands started to push the tip of the dagger towards the guy’s heart,
Guuuk.
I can vividly feel the sharp tip piercing through the black island of clothes and cutting into the bones and internal organs on my arm.
“Cuckoo, ugh.”
At that moment, the strength left the thief leader’s body as if all his resistance up until now had been a lie.
It became clear to me that I had stabbed the guy in the heart with a blade.
But I wasn’t satisfied with that, so I pulled out my sword and stabbed the guy in the neck and heart a few more times.
Because there is magic, curses, and strange graces in this world, I had to make sure I killed them.
Pot, pop…
When I was stabbing the blade into the body of the boss who was not paying attention.
Ssuk.
I felt someone approaching behind me.
“Stop, he’s definitely dead. You can stop now.”
It was Dorthea, an officer of the Thieves’ Guild. She stood a step away from me, her buttocks thrust back, and she tapped my shoulder.
“It’s all over now!”
“after..”
Only then was I able to relax my grip. My vision, which had been dyed red, slowly returned, and the surrounding noises that I had not heard until just now began to flow into my ears again.
This must be because the adrenaline that had been rushing to the tips of my hair is slowly subsiding.
My chest and stomach are both aching and I feel like vomiting. It must be because I was injured when I was blindly punched by Ismail while he was resisting.
“flaw..”
I took another deep breath and touched the boss’s wrist.
I can’t feel a pulse,
No words came to mind either.
It is truly completely dead.
I killed a man.
The new feeling made his arms and legs start to tremble. The demon who had been exerting all his strength no longer had the strength to even hold the dagger.
Anyway, I won.
In this barbaric world, confrontation is a matter of life or death, so there is no room for emotions such as morality or ethics.
Ssuk.
I stood up from the head of the thief who was spitting blood and hardening. Then, I rummaged through the belongings on his body and took out anything of use.
No one tried to stop me from doing that. Everyone just stared blankly, wondering what would happen next.
Dalgrang.
I was able to obtain from the guy a lamp containing a blue glowstone, a poisoned dagger, five silver coins from the underground, and finally a key with a strange decoration.
“Key. The key to the leader’s safe.”
Then a big guy named Big Joe came up to me and pretended to know something about the key.
“A skull ornament on the end of a key, a skeleton key. It is definitely a key to a vault where the past leaders hid their treasures.”
As Big Joe said, it was a key with a strange skull-shaped decoration. But it was a safe where the past leaders hid their treasures? The unusual identity made my stomach tingle.
Do you have any gold coins? Gold bars? Gold bars would be nice. I’ve always wished to have at least one gold bar in my life.
Gold bar.
Just looking at it makes me feel full.
As I was thinking about the shiny stick, someone spoke to me.
“So, now you’re the new leader. You’re really going to take down Ismail. What should I call you now?”
Big Joe’s question made me feel like my mind was blank. What should I call you? Is he asking me to give you a title, a nickname, or something like that?
But as I always said, I had no talent for this kind of thing. The only names that come to mind are Olldolgol and Maenghwak.
Luna and Hippolyte, are they there yet? They should be arriving by now. But I accidentally caught the leader and became the leader myself.
Sval, what should I do?
Because it was an unplanned event in many ways, my thoughts are in disarray, as if an earthquake had occurred in my head.
Hassan, the king of thieves.
I have become the king of thieves.
I have now become the leader of a criminal organization known as Naero in Sodomora.
“So, what do we do now? Should we pretend that there were no plans for today?”
“There’s a new leader, so there’s going to be new rules. What are you going to do?”
I felt everyone’s eyes on me.
Now that it’s come to this, I’m definitely aware that I don’t feel like I fit in a position with decision-making power.
What’s more, he’s the leader of the criminals who cause trouble even in the city. If he gets caught by some strange law, he’ll end up in prison regardless of whether he’s a Gold Tier or not.
Maybe you’ll be dragged off to a prison city as a big-time criminal. A prison city of sval. That kind of future must be avoided.
So I racked my brain and opened my mouth.
“You said the leader’s orders were absolute, right? Well, as a celebration of becoming the leader, this is my first order. You all turn yourself in.”
“What the fuck?”
“What nonsense is that!”
The people’s reaction was intense. I did manage to take down the leader, but these guys are also known criminals. If these guys decide to draw their swords and rush at me, would I be able to subdue them when I’m almost exhausted?
The image of Caesar being stabbed by people comes to mind.
A cold sweat naturally ran down my back.
“No, I was just saying. You don’t have to turn yourself in. Then, what do you mean? How about disbanding the guild itself…?”
“Disband the guild?”
“Are you sure? That’s honestly not a bad idea.”
I just took it out because I thought it was going to hurt my head. The leaders of the Thieves’ Guild responded positively in many ways.
A man with a thin and slender build speaks. His name was probably Astrid.
“Honestly, Hydra is a thing of the past. There’s a lot of pressure from above, and it might be a good idea to disband the old guild and reorganize under a new name.”
Starting with what he said, you and I each add our own comments.
“Are you saying we should pretend to be defeated and disappear and then start growing stronger? This is the first time we’ve changed the name of a guild.”
“Good. It’s common for thieves to create new aliases.”
“I suggested this to Ismail… no, to the whole group many times, but it wasn’t accepted. That guy was strangely obsessed with the name Hydra.”
“But then who should I tell that I was disbanded? If I say that I was disbanded by some random adventurer, no one will believe me. It’s too obvious that I’m trying to abandon the old ship and join a new one.”
“And what about the rest of the underground market guys? They probably don’t even know that this kind of talk is going around.”
“Aside from our executives, we’re not really a thieves’ guild. Those guys are just parasites who cling to the name, so you know- ..”
With seven executives talking one by one, the large room itself became noisy as if it were a discussion room.
At that very moment, a truly amazing idea struck me as if a bolt from the blue. Is this what artists’ inspiration is like?
I said.
“Hydra has been defeated by the great archangel of the gods and the hero of the people. Spread that fact far and wide.”
“The popular support? You want me to lie to the gold tier adventurers and say that we’ve been subjugated? That would be too easy to find out. If they say they didn’t do it, that’s the end of it. But forcing it is dangerous.”
“No, not a gold tier adventurer. A bronze tier adventurer from the Mars Guild. Hassan of Samaria..”
When I was about to finish speaking.
Kwakwang!
There was a loud explosion, black smoke, and a feeling of heat as flames rose from all directions.
“Look, Elfie! If you follow the arrows, you’ll see some really lurking rats!”
“That is truly Mercury’s guidance. 2. I guess he has answered my prayers.”
Delphina appeared with flames. Next to her, her party members were seen armed with staffs, swords, and other items.
This is so annoying.
“They say that if you set fire to it, most of the rats will run away!”
—————————= Work Review —————————=
Catshi-nim!!! The main character is me. Nim!!! zmffldjf-nim!!! Instinctive-loyalty-nim!!! Joy-jang-nim!!! Man Seosa-nim!!!! Black-haired foreigner from another world-nim!!! A roughly made-up nickname! Nem-nim!!! Elaas-nim!!! Sherilyn-nim!!! Vurgil-nim!!! Potato Server-nim!!!
Thank you for the sponsorship coupon…!!!
There are also many people who have sent me anonymous manuscript fee coupons…!! I am saving up the coupons you have given me and using them to pay for fun illustrations..!!
I think there will be one more chapter coming out around the beginning of August…!!! I’m working hard to get the artist to do it…
I always appreciate your recommendations and comments..!!!
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