"..."
For a moment, no one could open their mouths.
It was a situation that could not be understood by common sense.
Not only Carmilla, but even the assassins wore expressions of utter bewilderment.
"...Blocked?"
A desolate murmur.
Their eyes wavered.
'The [God-Killing Bow]... he's fine after being hit by the stake...?'
A boy who appeared from nowhere.
Just before Carmilla was to be executed, he suddenly surged up from the empty air.
"It seems I've cut in at a crucial moment."
A mask.
A mask smiling grotesquely.
"Did I perhaps commit a rudeness?"
The boy's reaction was entirely nonchalant.
As if nothing had happened at all.
Roll—.
At the clown's feet, the deflected arrow tumbled.
Damaged by the aftermath of the impact, the tip was half-melted.
Chi-ik—!
The floor scorched black, as if touched by lava.
That bubbling, boiling heat was undoubtedly the authority of the stake.
"..."
The assassins could only swallow dry saliva.
To take such a strike directly and not have a single speck of dust on his clothes.
What was this situation?
How did he deflect the stake?
What is his identity, and where did he come from?
Only meaningless questions swarmed inside their heads.
"Everyone is so quiet. I believe you were all chatting quite well just a moment ago."
"..."
It wasn't just that.
Before such rational information could be processed, something else tightened around the assassins' necks.
'What is...'
Instinct.
'What is this pressure...!'
Killing intent.
A bloody, brutal aura swarmed from that boy.
Just meeting his gaze felt like a swarm of insects crawling all over their bodies.
It felt as if tiny teeth were gnawing away, peeling off every inch of their skin.
"Kugh, ugh..."
The frozen assassins.
The one who managed to regain his senses was the man who appeared to be the leader.
He bit his tongue hard to awaken his consciousness.
Then, he woke his subordinates who were lost in chaos.
"Wake up, you bastards!"
The situation hadn't changed.
A strange guy had popped out, but their mission remained the execution of the princess.
"What are you scared of! If we don't do this here, we're all dead anyway!"
If they returned empty-handed, the King would not leave them be.
It meant the assassins had no ground to retreat to either.
"Fuck, he's nothing special! It's just one brat!"
"He must have just gotten lucky and managed to do something."
"If we kill him, that's it!"
At that shout, the assassins snapped back to their senses.
Seu-reung, each pulled their weapons from their waists.
Spears and swords gripped in every hand.
"Weapons right off the bat...! How rude."
"Don't let your guard down. We go in two at a time."
The clown seemed to react with deliberate exaggeration.
He was stroking his mask with his fingers.
"You are not very gentlemanly people."
Was he crying, or was he laughing?
A sound that couldn't be distinguished.
There were five of them, yet the assassins felt outnumbered.
"Kill him!"
"Uwaaaah!"
The precarious standoff was broken by the command.
Two of them rushed the front line first.
Swaa-aek—!
Gleaming blades tore through the air as they advanced.
"Oops."
The clown stepped in place with quick, short steps, as if he didn't know what to do.
To the vampires, it was the first time they had seen such clumsy footwork.
Steps so messy it was hard to read the intention.
Thus, the assassins judged it to be a mockery directed at them.
"This, son of a bitch...!"
"A lowly human dares...!"
The rushing blades.
Before they knew it, the assassins had closed the distance to right in front of the boy.
It was then.
Pa-jik—! (Static crackle)
As if caught on something, the clown's movement stopped.
Then, he flickered with white noise.
He crackled, and then erased his trace completely.
"...?!"
"He disappe...?"
The next moment.
"How scary."
The clown who had evaporated appeared behind their backs.
A mask surging up completely outside their field of view.
"What the...?!"
"You shouldn't carry around such hideous things."
Before the assassins could react, the clown's hands grabbed their arms.
Precisely, the swords they were holding.
The boy's fingers touched them.
"I'll change them into something cooler for you."
Immediately after, the heavy hands became strangely light.
The assassins were no longer holding swords.
No, they were swords, but their form was distinctly different.
'Balloons.'
Swords made of balloons.
The weapons they were gripping had turned into toys in an instant.
"What, is th...!"
They turned around in panic, but the clown had already widened the distance significantly.
The swords the assassins originally wielded were gone without a trace.
The boy spread his hands open to show them.
"Ta-da, it's magic!"
A refreshing line.
And hands dusting themselves off indifferently.
That atmosphere was as dank and humid as the sewer air.
"Since you all are holding cool weapons, I should hold a fitting weapon as well, right?"
Thud—.
In the clown's empty hand, something was suddenly held.
A stake.
An arrow forged of silver and dyed in sunlight.
Did he pick up the one discarded on the floor?
Even though it had shattered, the fragment was as large as a decent dagger.
"Did they say vampires are weak to silver, sunlight, and stakes?"
The clown smiled brightly.
"Fortunately, this one has all of them?"
"Damn it, kill...!"
Eventually, the vampires couldn't withstand the pressure.
The assassins kicked off the ground, closing in on the clown in an instant.
They surrounded him.
A judgment that they had to take the initiative no matter what.
However, it was a meaningless struggle.
Pa-jik—!
The clown once again performed those clumsy steps.
No.
Not just once, but multiple times.
Pa-jik—!
Pa-jik—!
Pa-jik—!
The clown flickered continuously.
Every time his body blinked, he appeared from all directions around the assassins.
Behind, beside, above, and sometimes even from beyond the wall...
"Caught you."
Puk—.
The technique he used wasn't anything special.
He simply moved simply behind them and stabbed the assassins with the tip of the stake.
But that alone was enough.
"Ugh, aaaack! M-My leg...!"
"My hand is melting! My hand is melting...!"
"Hot, it's hot...! Kkaaaahhhh!"
The stake.
Even if not loaded into the [God-Killing Bow], it was already a powerful artifact in itself.
At least against vampires, it was a catastrophic weakness.
The clown dealt with the assassins one by one with casual taps.
"Keuk, keu-heook...!"
Cheol-pudeok—. (Splat)
Another vampire sprawled out.
Limbs engulfed in blazing flames.
"Now only you are left?"
"Ah, aaaah..."
All that remained now was the leader of the assassins.
The vampire looked up at the clown while falling backward.
His complexion was pale beyond measure.
The mask slowly bent its waist.
"What is the matter?"
Eye level roughly aligned.
The mask is smiling.
"Didn't you shout loudly earlier that you would kill me?"
"..."
"Here, the prey is right in front of your eyes? Are you going to let it go?"
The clown kindly placed a sword in the assassin's hand.
As if telling him to hurry up and stab his neck with this.
The assassin couldn't move.
"Hurry."
"..."
Blinking eyes.
His breath trembled violently.
The assassin couldn't take his eyes off the clown.
The chills, the fear, the terror suppressing him grew uncontrollably large.
He couldn't breathe.
"Haha, you're shaking too much?"
He couldn't
Brea
the.
"Haa, haa..."
"Take a deep breath. I haven't done anyt#~?%??hing y?"
The clown's voice shattered into pieces.
Vision distorted of its own accord.
The mask.
The smiling mask.
The corners of the mouth that were smiling grotesquely ripped wide open.
"You don't have to be so scared, we can have a gentlemanly con>#{@}versatio#@$????????"
The pitch-black mouth opened, revealing an abyss larger than the sewer itself.
Tentacles swarming inside.
Sticky things licked the assassin's cheek.
Buzzing, swarming, a landscape that split the brain and ravaged it.
Vision tearing apart in various colors.
'Eyes.'
Eyes blinking inside it all.
Eyes glaring blood-red even amidst the tentacles.
Eyes looking at the assassin.
Eyes looking.
Eyes looking,
Look
ing
Eyes.
"Perhaps."
Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye Eye
"?deracs uoy erA"
An inverted world.
Spin, spin— a world shattering into pieces.
The mind collapses, unable to maintain consciousness any longer.
"Ah, ughhh..."
Fear reaching its limit destroys the brain.
Eventually, the assassin rolled his eyes back and fainted.
Shhhhaa—
A golden stream flowing down his pants mixed with the sewage water.
"Ah, it broke."
Well, I did use it for a long time.
I muttered while looking down at the fainted assassin.
"Was it that scary?"
It seems stakes are indeed poison to vampires.
I only held it in front of his eyes and spooked him with a few words, yet he fainted just like that.
I stood up from my spot.
"Phew..."
My whole body was exhausted.
My back was soaked with cold sweat, and I was covered in quite a lot of blood.
Maybe because I kept using the steps, my vision was spinning too.
'I'm dying of exhaustion.'
Fortunately, thanks to the item, I didn't suffer any injuries.
I tapped today's MVP.
[Mask of the Evil God] - Effect: Nullifies attacks directed at the wearer three times. Activates only while worn.
- Remaining Uses: 2/3
If not for this guy, I would have been done for the moment I was hit by that stake.
I wiped the blood off the mask.
Then, I turned my back toward today's objective.
"Princess."
Carmilla.
She was slumped on the floor.
"..."
The girl remained silent, holding her breath.
She looked terrified.
'Well, she almost died, so it's not unreasonable.'
I approached her with the intention of comforting her.
"Here, this clown has defeated all the bad assassins."
Rustle—.
I took out a balloon flower bouquet from my inventory and handed it to her.
They say a gift is the best way to stop tears.
It got a little blood on it, but so what.
It's the thought that counts with gifts.
"Shall we go now?"
"...me."
Carmilla mumbled quietly.
Looking closely, thick tears were dropping from her eyes.
"S-Spare me..."
"Huh?"
Shoulders trembling.
The fear contained in those red eyes was clearly directed at me.
"This lady, this lady wants to live..."
Carmilla, who had appeared broken even when captured by the assassins, seemed to have withered even more miserably.
She shrank her body as if trying to hide from me even a little bit.
I couldn't help but be flustered.
"Please, please spare me..."
"Eh?"
What the.
Why is she acting like this all of a sudden?