Emperor Has Returned

The fight seemed more difficult than anticipated.

It wasn’t because Kelmory was skilled, but rather Juan was having a difficult time, trying to make Kelmory’s attacks look close to hitting.

While Kelmory’s sword could be described as for decoration purposes, it still looked as if it could kill if stabbed with authority. Juan’s on the other hand was literally for ornament use.

Of course these factors didn’t matter in the grand scheme of the fight as Juan didn’t even have to lift his sword.

“Ooooh! That was close!”

“I can’t watch more of this.”

Shrieks and gasps cried out every time Kelmory’s sword scraped past Juan.

In their eyes, it looked as if Juan was outmatched, focusing only on dodging.

Kelmory was fuming to the top of his head.

He wanted to grab the bastard and shed blood, but Juan kept running away like a scared mouse.

“Does this bastard know only how to dodge!”

Juan stopped and bent his waist, ramming himself into Kelmory.

Kelmory, who had been attacking this whole time, fell over at Juan’s unexpected movement. A laughter erupted from the crowd, seeing Kelmory fall over in an amusing way.

Their interpretation was that Juan had bent over in fear, and Kelmory had tripped over him unexpectedly.

Kelmory’s face turned red then almost white. His eyes noticed his fiance with her hand over her mouth, stifling a laugh. He gritted his teeth.

“I’m going to kill you.”

Long time had passed since he was thinking about repercussions. At worst, he would need to pay back a standard price of a slave, back to the owner.

Juan sighed seeing Kelmory’s agitated face.

If he knew anything about fights, the first punch would have let him know, it was foolish to continue this fight.

Considering he was a trained knight, his skills were disappointing.

‘Lucky that there’s no one in the crowd that knows anything about swordsmanship huh.’

As he turned his head thinking this, Juan focused onto a particular individual. A large man wearing thick armor and a sword.

He wasn’t a guard.

The man who’d just come out from the building, looked towards the garden with a curious set of eyes. Juan felt a bit of his own mana in him.

‘Paladin.’

He saw a mark of a White crow.

Then at that moment, Kelmory’s sword grazed past Juan’s face. With his attention fixated on the Paladin, Juan wasn’t able to react on time.

A few strands of Juan’s hair was cut, and Kelmory smiled as if he’d just beheaded him.

“Hah! Running out of steam, are we.”

Juan felt sorry for Kelmory who appeared to be happy after cutting a few strands of Juan’s hair.

Juan whistepred.

“You should’ve aimed for my throat.”

“What?”

Juan didn’t reply.

Kelmory again swung his sword at Juan. Instantly, the relaxed expression on Juan’s face disappeared and he rolled to the ground, dodging Kelmory’s strike.

The strikes continued and Kelmory’s sword reached Juan, making him bleed.

The crowd loudly gasped. It looked to them as if tragedy would stroke upon Juan at any moment.

Many were wondering if they needed to stop the fight, but their curiosity held them back from acting.

“Ah, commander Ethan. Looks like you’ve finished your talk. How was it?”

“Huh? Ahh. As expected, bastard Hannbon is a fat oiled pig. My offer was refused.”

“I see. Should we ready the horses then?”

Even as he answered the questions from his senior officer, Ethan’s gaze was fixated on the fight at the garden. The officer gave a quick glance towards where his gaze was and turned his head back.

“One of the nobles started quarrelling with a child. The way he was using his sword was almost disgraceful, so I didn’t see the point in intervening. What a pitiful fight. And they call that dueling.”

“Hmmm. I thought I saw something different.”

“Sir?”

Ethan was looking closely at the fight between Kelmory and the child.

Kelmory’s skills were subpar but that was in the eyes of a Paladin. To a normal spectator, he would be considered an above average knight.

And on the other hand, his opponent looked like a child that wasn’t even ready for school.

However, the first feeling he got was that he was dominating Kelmory.

As Juan continued to dodge Kelmory’s attacks, Ethan watched Juan’s foot.

The movement belonged to someone who was skilled in swordsmanship.

The fact he was dodging every attack and yet not sweating a bit.

A fight took an immense amount of concentration and tension. It was natural that not only physically but mentally, one would tire very quickly.

The fact he wasn’t tiring, suggested that this fight wasn’t affecting him mentally at all.

This was true before…..but now, this didn’t look the case. The kid was only barely dodging attacks, and clearly he was being pressured.

“……..Maybe I was mistaken.”

Ethan mumbled something as if he was disappointed that he was mistaken.

He thought Juan was hiding his true strength. It was more difficult to fight while hiding their strength, rather than going at full power from the start.

If he was hiding his skill, even knight Sina Solbein would be miles below what he could potentially be.

It was highly unlikely that he’d meet so many talents in such a short period of time.

“Let’s go back. I need to clean my eyes.”

“Yes. I’ll fetch the horses…..”

Then an uproar was heard from the mansion.

“Intruder!”

A disturbance spread amongst the shouts. Kelmory was too obsessed with the fight to have heard it, so Juan quickly right footed Kelmory’s thighs while the crowd’s attention had turned towards the shouts.

With the sound of a crack, Kelmory grasped his thigh, as he fell down.

“Kuaahh-Arghhh!”

“Oh no, did you fall over. Well, that will do it for today’s fight then.”

More so than any other bone, a broken femur brought about the most pain.

Only then realising then their master had gone down, Kelmory’s servants quickly rushed across to help him.

Kelmory clutched his thigh and rolled on the ground unable to stay still.

He would be lying on a bed at least for a couple of months.

Juan hid himself into the crowd. Ethan tried looking for him but couldn’t find him.

Juan didn’t want to make things complicated for Heretia by getting involved with a Paladin.

Soon after, several knights smashed through the door and rushed in. The knights looked around with fierce looks.

“Where’s that kid that was with Lady Helwin?”

As soon as he heard this, Juan knew that things weren’t going to plan.

Hearing the knights, everyone looked around for Juan, but it was already long past since Juan had squeezed past the crowd and left the area.

The moment he had no one around him, Juan used blink to get onto the second floor.

‘Need to find Heretia.’

He couldn’t see any of the guards and servants, as they had made their way down to the first floor.

Juan closed his eyes and concentrated his sense to cover a wider area.

Finding Heretia was not easy, as there were alot of people with similar feel. But eventually he sensed two people inside the room across him.

One of them was a woman.

Juan quickly rushed over.

Instead of going through the main door, he used the terrace. Beyond a glass window, he recognised two figures. Heretia and Hannbon.

It looked like Heretia was still in talks, so instead of barging in, Juan decided to listen in to their conversation.

“Confining the Helwin family’s head just because of your speculation. As I thought, you don’t seem to be afraid of the consequences.”

“Oh I don’t know about that. Request for the indeterminate polyhedron through a deal but revert to extortion if talks don’t go smoothly….. Isn’t this your plan? I’ve just heard from a knight below that your cute servant is missing. Don’t tell me this is all coincidence?”

Heretia’s eyes shook at hearing that Juan had disappeared.

The silhouette of the thief that took the indeterminate polyhedron didn’t seem liek Juan, but she wasn’t certain as it was dark.

Heretia showed no sign of agitation and looked squarely up at Hannbon.

“It’s simply a coincidence. Instead of threatening a young lady, shouldn’t you be threatening your servants who couldn’t fulfill their duty? It would make more sense to send out more servants to search rather than use them for confinement.”

“I don’t think you understand your situation here. I’ve already sent out plenty of servants to search and the guards have been alerted as well. Soon, not a single bastard will be able to leave Hiveden.”

If that is the case Heretia was about to ask, why are you doing this, but then realised.

Hannbon wanted to have insurance.

In the case where he wouldn’t be able to retrieve his stolen Indeterminate polyhedron, then he would get Heretia to fulfill her end of the proposal.

Basically forcing her to accept that the thief was her accomplice.

Without clear evidence, this was blackmailing.

And this extortion was quite unfavourable for Heretia as it put her in danger.

It wasn’t too different from when gangs beat up the rich, to get what they wanted.

“……..This is tiresome.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said, the Helwin family’s reputation must’ve fallen so low for an irrelevant municipality to threaten the family head. Just because you’ve draped yourself with expensive crap over your body doesn’t mean you’re a noble. What would it take for you to know your place? Do I need to rip off your external shell that’s covering your vile demeanor?”

“Wh, what….? You! Do you even know the position you’re in right now! Do I need to break one of your fingers for you to understand?!”

“From your mouth, I’ll start cutting down vertically from there. Maybe your intestines could be turned into usable leaether. If you’re intending to hurt a member of the Helwin family, this is the least that you should expect.”

Hannbon’s face turned pale. He had never encountered a person that would spit such remarks back, when their backs were against the wall. It was different to the curses that he frequently heard from those who wildly retorted back in panic.”

Heretia was calm and coldhearted.

Hannbon briefly recalled the rumours about Helwin’s silent backers, then shook his head. Hannbon who had slightly backed off, bit his lip and drew out his dagger.

“You’re bluffing! How dare you act impudently when you look like a bitch who’s never even been scolded by your dad.”

“Bluff?”

Heretia grinned.

“Then you do what you need to do. However, the day you lay your hands on me, I’ll make sure you know what it’s like to have your face skinned and turned into a leather carpet. A carpet that will be put in a market for everyone to walk on. Along with your testicles.”

Hannbon couldn’t move. Heretia used the opportunity to grab his left pinky and sharply turn in outwards.

Hannbon’s expression turned pale.

The moment his mouth widened to scream, Juan broke through the terrace window and jumped through.

“Aughh ahhhh!”

Hannbon knees dropped to the floor at Juan’s sudden appearance.

He realised it’s the same kid that he saw on the first floor, but his aura was completely different.

Hannbon was distraught at his violent energy that compassed the room.

Heretia pointed at Hannbon.

“He tried to knife me. Skin him.”

“Ah, no no no! HUK!”

The moment Juan took out his dagger, Hannbon made a weird noise and toppled to the floor clutching his chest.

For a brief moment, his body shuddered and then it stopped.

Juan looked down at him, unable to comprehend what had happened. He murmured something.

“Heart Attack.”

“……….I did hear he had some heart problems.”

Juan couldn’t hide his dejected emotion. While he was intending to kill, he didn’t expect that he would die in such absurd fashion.

“He wasn’t even worth getting your knife dirtied. All is well.”

“Pity. I’m not someone that’s picky about who I use my dagger on. But….there wouldn’t be any point in cutting up a corpse….. Anyways, how did you know that I was just outside?”

“I didn’t.”

Heretia shrugged her shoulders and replied.

“Even now, my heart is beating hard. Our family has a knack of being skilled in bluffing, lying and trickery.”

“Your ancestors would be really proud.”

Heretia dragged the dead Hannbon out to the corridor. The mansion was silent as the guards had left to join the search. The banquet appeared to have ended.

Heretia and Juan quickly fled the area before they could be seen.

“Did you get the item you wanted? I believe you called it, indeterminate polyhedron.”

“Someone else got to it before me.”

“Someone else?”

Heretia glanced at Juan and replied in a spiteful manner.

“I’m not sure, but i think it’s the Hugin knights. I’ll have to look for their trace.”