I Became A Thief Who Steals Overpowered Skills - Chapter 23

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 23. Lawless Zone Bandit Gang

‘Ignis.’

Blue flames bloomed from Krash’s blade as it struck the carriage floor.

Since Ignis was the flame of a higher god, it carried the power of purification.

‘Which meant.’

Crack!

The severed Black Human was engulfed in flames and melted away in an instant.

‘The compatibility with Black Humans was excellent.’

Krash cut through the Black Humans without hesitation, moving freely in all directions.

The merchant woman quickly picked up a staff and began destroying Black Humans — it seemed like she would manage fine.

“Crimson Garden.”

But Black Humans were appearing in such numbers.

If that was the case, there was surely uncontaminated World Erosion remaining nearby.

-Three hundred meters in the forward direction.

Not a terribly distant distance.

“Hey, I’m going to erase the World Erosion that’s creating these Black Humans, so keep handling them.”
“Yes! Please!”

Krash immediately gathered Aura beneath his feet.

Then he kicked off the ground, and his body shot forward explosively.

The more Krash ran, the more Black Humans appeared.

But there was little they could do in the face of Krash’s Ignis.

Arriving in the forest in seconds, Krash’s eyes caught sight of a mass of World Erosion.

The black liquid mixed between the trees, pulsing and releasing gas — it was unmistakably unpurified World Erosion.

“Will you absorb it?”

Crimson Garden, who had followed, asked from a perch on a branch.

“Yeah, you showed up at just the right time.”

Krash reached out toward the World Erosion without hesitation.

Then dark energy began flowing into Krash’s hand.

Krash’s body already contained World Erosion caused by Extreme Blood Poison.

Thus Krash absorbed it without any particular resistance, exhaling slowly.

Thanks to his Sixth Sense, Madness fortunately did not take hold.

This should be the end of any Black Humans spawning.

And so Krash turned back toward camp.

“Krash.”

Krash stopped at the sound of Crimson Garden’s voice.

As he looked up through the forest, he spotted a merchant woman and several others.

They had her surrounded, and she was wielding a staff with menacing force.

“Get your hands off my wagon! Get out of here, right now!”
“Come on, we’re all friends here—everyone passing through the Lawless Zone helps each other out.”
“Yeah, and while we’re at it, how about you play girlfriend for us? Hehehehe.”

They looked like bandits pure and simple.

But they couldn’t be dismissed as ordinary thieves.

The fact that they moved freely through the Lawless Zone meant at least one of them was skilled.

“Perfect.”

Crimson Garden laughed coldly.

“They’re ideal training partners for you, Dull Blade.”

Krash decided he’d chosen his mentor well, rolling his neck to loosen it.

“Agreed.”

Let’s get some proper warmup in before the martial tournament.

* * *

The Bandit Gang that primarily targeted wagons passing through the Lawless Zone numbered eight in total.

Their leader, Orel, swallowed hard as he eyed the merchant woman.

“Listen here—I saw her first.”
“You’re always like this, boss. So greedy.”
“That’s my business, you fools.”

He swung an enormous Axe in lazy arcs, as if testing its weight.

It was a display of how much raw power he possessed.

The merchant woman saw it too, and her eyes grew tense.

It was a mistake that the bell’s ringing from the Black Humans had distracted her.

She’d had no idea the Bandit Gang was closing in all this while.

He could have handled the others alone, but with their leader added to the mix, it was beyond his capability.

Thump—

In that instant, the sound of footsteps echoed through the air.

The merchant woman recognized who it was and her face brightened.

The bandits, catching on to her reaction, turned around too late.

“Huh? A kid?”

There stood a boy.

The moment one of the bandits felt bewilderment—

Whack!

A blade flew in a straight line, piercing through his skull.

For a moment, silence fell over the area.

No one could have imagined that this small boy would throw a blade and kill a bandit in one motion.

“Damn it, enemy! Kill him!”

Orel, true to his station as leader, was quick to assess.

He realized the boy was no ordinary opponent.

As it happened, the boy’s hands were empty—he’d just thrown his blade.

Seizing the opening, two bandits rushed at him.

But even as they charged, the boy showed no sign of fear.

He simply raised his hand.

In that instant, the blade he’d just thrown was gripped in his palm.

“Did you think I had no weapon?”

The sudden reappearance of the blade caught the bandit off guard.

And in that instant of hesitation, the boy’s blade drove straight into the bandit’s throat.

The movement was clean and economical—far beyond what a common bandit could contend with.

In the next breath, the boy’s fist crashed into the jaw of the other bandit beside him.

The impact rattled his brain, and he collapsed to the ground with his tongue lolling out.

The boy, without mercy, drove his blade through the man’s skull.

Whoooosh—

With the wind that swept through, the trees swayed slowly.

An unsettling tension settled among the remaining bandits.

A boy appeared out of nowhere, and three men fell in an instant.

The mood shifted entirely in that single moment.

“I’ll handle this. You lot make sure you keep that woman contained.”

The leader, Orel, finally stepped forward and advanced slowly.

Muscular and imposing, he towered over the boy in comparison.

The outcome seemed obvious before they even started.

Yet Orel did not underestimate the boy.

His instincts were screaming.

This child was no ordinary opponent.

“You sure about that?”

Krash gazed at him calmly while wiping blood from his blade.

“Come at me alone.”
“Hah!”

Orel burst out in a rough laugh.

“A kid like you? I could crush your skull between my fingers.”
“Fine. Let’s see whose head cracks first, then.”

The instant Krash spoke, Orel drove his foot into the ground.

Boom, boom, boom!

A reverberation as massive as his frame thundered across the entire field.

Like a charging buffalo, he brought the Axe down trailing a crimson Aura.

The Aura rippled like smoke, announcing his mastery at the Expert tier.

He channeled the full force of his charge into a downward arc aimed at Krash’s waist.

Clang!

In that instant, Krash’s sword rose to meet it, blocking the Axe.

But the difference in mass meant Orel’s raw strength was superior.

Krash’s body lifted slightly off the ground, driven sideways by the impact.

Orel’s eyes gleamed with realization.

Compared to how he’d dispatched those bandits earlier, Krash’s martial prowess wasn’t as formidable.

His Aura, too, was only slightly weaker than Orel’s own.

‘Those men fell because they let his appearance fool them into carelessness.’

Under normal circumstances, they wouldn’t have been taken down so easily.

Orel’s Axe cleaved through the air and crashed against Krash once more.

Bang, bang!

In the relentless barrage of blows, Orel became certain of one thing.

He was the stronger one.

What’s more, the man’s sword felt sluggish.

It was almost incomprehensible that such a blade could even parry his Axe.

“Where’s all that big talk from before?”

Orel bellowed with menace, swinging his Axe in wild, ferocious arcs.

Krash had no breath left to answer—he could only continue blocking the weapon’s relentless descent.

Hmph.

Orel decided he needed to end this quickly.

He had no particular appetite for tormenting the weak—unless they happened to be women.

His Axe began to swing with even greater ferocity.

Each clash of blade and Axe sent out a noise that made the ears ring.

One minute passed.

Five.

Ten.

“Hah—hah?”

Orel’s ragged breathing filled the air.

He was still swinging his Axe relentlessly.

He’d told himself dozens of times that the next strike would finish it.

Yet Krash stood unblemished, while Orel’s stamina drained away.

‘What’s happening here?’

Krash’s sword was slow enough to see with the naked eye.

The strength and Aura contained within it were unremarkable at best.

In fact, Krash staggered backward each time his blade met the Axe.

Yet when the next blow came, somehow his sword was already there to block it.

‘At this rate…’

It felt as though he were deliberately swinging his Axe toward Krash’s sword.

Or was that actually what was happening?

Was he truly swinging his Axe at Krash’s sword?

Confusion began to coil through his mind.

“Are you finished?”

Flinch.

Beneath the night where the darkness of heaven had settled, Krash’s blue eyes glinted with cold clarity.

Krash’s tone was the same as before.

Orel forced himself to swallow hard.

Then he gripped the Axe so tightly his hands threatened to split.

“Ha, haha—what clever trick are you pulling? That’s finished too.”

He forced out the words with false composure.

At the sight of this, Krash offered a faint smile.

“That’s fortunate. Thanks to you, I’m beginning to find my footing without relying on my Sixth Sense.”

Twitch.

The bandit leader’s thick brow twitched.

It was as if Krash were merely toying with him.

His pride deeply wounded, Orel drew a long, ragged breath.

He’d had no intention of resorting to that technique against a mere child, but if he suffered much more from the boy’s peculiar swordwork, he feared he would lose his mind first.

Boom!

Without warning, Orel stamped the ground again.

Krash, sword held loose at his side, waited for his attack once more.

It felt like he was thrusting his own head willingly into a serpent’s mouth, but Orel suppressed his fear.

Instead, an Aura wrapped around his Axe more fiercely than ever before.

Yet wherever his Axe swung, Krash was there again, bringing his leisurely blade to meet it.

‘Got him!’

Orel’s eyes flashed with sudden clarity.

In that moment, his Axe moved in a strange, unexpected way.

The Axe that had been driving down toward Krash’s sword left only the trace of its Aura, then veered toward Krash’s flank in a vicious arc.

Hwanyeong Toebu.

His trump card—his hidden ace.

With this, he would cleave Krash in two, split him clean down the middle.

The moment Orel smiled, anticipating the blood about to spill.

Clang!

The violent ring of steel striking steel echoed across the entire field.

Blink.

Orel’s eyes closed for an instant, then opened again.

He couldn’t comprehend what had just happened.

His axe had struck not flesh, but steel.

“Hey.”

Krash’s voice resonated low across the field.

“Where did you learn that?”

Beyond the axe and sword, his blue eyes blazed with a terrible light.

“Guh?!”

Orel’s body recoiled at the sight.

He felt like a small creature come face-to-face with a predator.

Krash’s brow was furrowed.

Because he recognized the Hwanyeong Toebu this man was using—and he knew whose secret art it was.

‘Did he flee from the Empire around this time?’

Not long ago, there had been a series of mass murders in the Empire.

A single man had massacred an entire village single-handedly.

Because of this, the Empire had dispatched its knights, and the butcher ultimately crossed the border and escaped.

Krash normally wouldn’t have paid much attention to something the Empire could handle itself.

But the real problem lay elsewhere.

‘He accepted the power of a World Erosion Entity and became its servant.’

Like Bianca during her time as one of the Hundred Ghosts, this man too was a servant of a World Erosion Entity.

Berkman, the Butcher Hound.

The Hwanyeong Toebu was his signature technique.

“Are you one of the Butcher Hound’s subordinates?”

Orel’s face went rigid.

‘It doesn’t much matter to me whether he’s the Butcher’s lackey or not.’

The problem was that the Butcher would later hide himself in the Staron Kingdom.

‘And he was caught by Charlotte.’

The reason Krash, who normally paid no attention to outside news, remembered this detail was because of Charlotte.

Berkman’s death had been the pivotal moment that made Charlotte’s name known throughout the Empire.

At sixteen years old, she had single-handedly overwhelmed and defeated a World Erosion Entity—a feat grand enough to be spoken of as legend.

“That’s enough. The flow’s broken.”

In that instant, Krash’s blade moved.

“What?”

The moment confusion crossed Orel’s face, his massive frame began to topple slowly.

Watching him collapse with severed neck, Krash walked on without pause.

Berkman would meet his end at Charlotte’s hands regardless.

There was no reason to concern himself with the man’s subordinates.

“My lord, my lord!”

The merchant woman fighting off the remaining four bandits called out to Krash, her voice trembling.

Seeing this, Krash clicked his tongue and ignited Ignis along his blade.

Best to finish this quickly and get some sleep.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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