I Became A Thief Who Steals Overpowered Skills - Chapter 26

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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 26. Misunderstood

The next day, the preliminary round of the Martial Arts Tournament.

Krash dragged a hand across his face, looking more exhausted than ever.

“I’m getting absolutely worked over.”

Even as Crimson Garden’s voice rang out beside him with snickering mockery, Krash couldn’t bring himself to answer.

It had started yesterday and gone on straight through to this morning.

Sizzley had thoroughly exhausted him.

‘This is why I hate geniuses.’

Especially when that genius belonged to the intellect.

Every word out of his mouth, she’d extract the information from it—his energy had been completely drained by the verbal sparring with her.

So now he just wanted to finish this Martial Arts Tournament and leave.

If this dragged on any longer, the existence of Valheim might be exposed.

“Now!”

A boy wielding a club came at him from behind, his voice preceding the attack.

Announcing yourself during an ambush—he was still too young, far too young.

Without drawing his sword, Krash raised his arm and drove his fist upward into the charging contestant’s chin.

“Ugh!?”

The boy cried out and tumbled across the ground.

Krash stamped down mercilessly on the boy’s stomach, and the youth’s eyes rolled back into his skull.

“Wow, how many is that now? Seriously.”
“It’s that scarlet-eyed monster.”
“And what’s with that Raven Mark? It moves like that and doesn’t even fall off his shoulder?”

When Krash turned his head at the sound of their voices, the contestants who met his gaze flinched and stepped back.

“Terrifying. He’s definitely from the Empire’s Dark Side.”
“Look how he finishes them off. Better not draw attention.”

Krash was in the Preliminary Test Arena.

The defining feature of this round was the free-for-all battle.

Contestants were divided into groups of one hundred, and only the top four from each group would advance.

In such a preliminary round, Krash had so much leisure he could afford to be distracted.

As if to prove his efforts had not been in vain, he dominated this place as the strongest.

‘Strong for fifteen-year-olds? What does strength even mean at that age.’

Among his peers, few existed who could truly stand against Krash.

And that was only because all the genuinely talented ones had already been culled into Rahelern Academy.

‘A fox rules where there are no tigers.’

Krash assessed himself with perfect objectivity, harboring not a trace of arrogance.

Having glimpsed true prodigies, he alone possessed the clarity to see himself as he truly was.

“Khahahaha! Why’re you all just standing there, you idiots! You’re all dead!”
“Aaaaahhh! Run!”
“It’s a monster!”

Of course, even here there were those with genuine skill.

Take, for instance, that muscle-bound pig currently barreling through the arena like a madman.

A frame so massive it defied any claim to being fifteen or under—stopping such a charge was simply impossible.

And that wasn’t all.

The Aura rippling across his body moved with intricate precision.

‘That one, I think…’

He recalls this must be one of those who’d entered Rahelern Academy through the Martial Arts Tournament.

Unfortunately, the name escaped him.

No matter how much Krash was dismissed as half-witted, he was Valheim.

He rarely bothered to directly engage commoners.

“Khahahaha!”

But that laugh was rather loud.

When Krash glanced over—his ears already stinging from the Aura-infused sound—their eyes met.

In that instant, the boy’s eyes flew wide open.

“Hey, what’re you staring at!”

And the words that followed made Krash’s eyebrow twitch.

“You looked at me. Pig.”

Krash didn’t hold back his response.

Immediately, the muscle pig’s forehead furrowed sharply.

“Pig? Pig?! Who’s the pig!”

And without hesitation, he launched a full-bodied charge straight at Krash.

The threat he posed was undeniable—charging forward on the strength of that massive frame.

But that prowess, after all, was merely human in scale.

Within World Erosion, a person—no matter how large—was nothing but a small animal.

And proof of this lay in the fact that Krash simply watched as the man bore down on him.

“Get out of my way!”

The muscle-bound brute drove his shoulder forward, ready to send Krash flying—but in that instant,

a low resonance erupted.

Dust billowed up from beneath his feet as he was forced to a complete halt.

Nothing more than Krash’s outstretched hand pressing down on his head had done it.

The man’s eyes blinked once, slowly.

Looking at those remarkably innocent eyes up close, Krash smiled softly.

“A strength contest, then? That’s your specialty?”

And the moment Krash’s fist clenched,

the blow landed.

The man’s face crumpled inward against Krash’s knuckles.

His body sailed upward and crashed violently to the ground.

He tumbled across the arena, suspended for a moment before gravity took hold.

With his face shattered, robbed of all consciousness, he lay with his front teeth gone and eyes rolled back.

The punch had driven the impact so deep that his mind had left entirely.

A long silence fell.

The arena was gripped in a brief, stunned quiet.

The children’s eyes darted back and forth between Krash and the muscle-bound brute, wide with disbelief.

That someone so much smaller than the muscle-bound brute could send him flying in a single strike seemed impossible—they couldn’t believe it even with their own eyes.

And Krash, seeing their stares, scrunched his face into a grimace.

“Got your fill of watching?”

At those words, the children resumed fighting amongst themselves.

Not one of them dared approach Krash again.

They’d reasoned that touching him meant immediate elimination from the tournament.

“Puhahaha, that was a masterpiece!”

Behind Krash’s back, a raucous laugh rang out.

Standing there was a man whose face was entirely wrapped in black bandages.

Whether from a growth spurt or simply tall by nature, he looked at Krash and smiled through the gaps in his bandages.

“Why are you smiling?”

Krash, who was invariably harsh with anyone outside his circle of favor, asked with visible displeasure.

Yet even after witnessing Krash’s display of skill moments before, he showed no trace of fear.

“Because an amusing opponent just walked in. You’re one of them, aren’t you? A friend the Night Raven sent this time—they’re famous for their assassination lineage.”

Krash found this utterly absurd.

‘The Night Raven is the most dangerous organization in the Empire’s dark side.’

Had they actually sent someone to compete in this Martial Arts Tournament?

Even Krash couldn’t possibly know every detail of what happened within the Empire.

‘But I’ve never heard anything about the Night Raven at Rahelern Academy.’

The Empire would have to be insane to admit the Night Raven as students.

‘Sigrin Epania.’

That damned third princess—the one who, like him, must have inherited memories from the same cycle.

A chill ran through him.

The feeling that this woman was scheming something in the Empire’s dark side.

The Empire’s collapse had more than a little to do with what happened beneath the surface.

“I don’t know what misunderstanding you’re having…….”
“Don’t play dumb. That raven on your shoulder is proof enough.”

A raven as evidence.

Krash glanced at Crimson Garden.

It seemed he’d picked up a troublesome misunderstanding because of her.

“Besides, the suspicious aura radiating from you is unmistakably from the underworld, no matter who’s looking.”

Darling’s Transformation Potion had apparently deepened the misunderstanding even in appearance.

“Don’t worry though. I’m not planning to monitor you or anything. With the backing you’ve got, there’s not much anyone else would dare touch anyway.”

He laughed that way, a smirk spreading across his face.

“Let’s get along well as fellow children of the underworld.”

He said his piece and left, waving his hand.

Krash watched him go for a moment, then fell silent in thought.

‘Talent dispatched by the Night Raven.’

He had no idea who it might be.

‘I have a feeling variables are going to crop up in a rather messy way.’

And not in a direction I’d welcome, either.

‘I should probably look into this.’

* * *

After finishing the preliminary round, Krash confidently remained among the four in his group.

Ever since he’d demolished that muscle-bound brute, no one else had dared approach him.

As a result, Krash had barely expended any stamina at all.

Now that same Krash was pursuing someone.

And who was that someone?

None other than the Bandage Man who’d spoken to him moments earlier.

‘He’s bound to have connections to the Empire’s Dark Side.’

Krash had never set foot in the Empire’s Dark Side before.

He’d only heard stories here and there; he had no real grasp of how those people actually operated.

As someone who wasn’t even from the Empire, there was no way Krash could know everything about how things worked within it.

So he’d decided to follow the Bandage Man’s footsteps in order to learn more about the Empire’s Dark Side.

“Is there really a need to go to such trouble?”

As Krash was moving swiftly through the Back Alley, keeping close to the shadows,

Crimson Garden suddenly spoke up.

“Go to trouble? What do you mean?”
“Tailing someone like that, I mean.”

Krash blinked.

His expression suggested he had no alternative in mind.

“Tsk, tsk. You know only how to learn from me, but not how to put me to use. You’re quite the incompetent student.”

In that instant, Crimson Garden spread her wings and took flight.

She soared through the air in moments, then landed with a sharp thud right in front of the Bandage Man.

“Ah—a raven?”

The Bandage Man, who’d been making his way down the alley, stopped short in surprise at the sight of Crimson Garden.

In that moment, the Bandage Man’s shoulders twitched with a rough, involuntary reaction.

When Krash caught up a moment later, the Bandage Man was standing there, dazed.

“What are you doing?”
“Light Brainwashing Magic. In this state, he’ll answer anything you ask him.”

Krash had known Crimson Garden was versatile, but he hadn’t realized she could do this.

With a method like this, there was no real need to tail anyone.

“Hey, Bandage Man.”

When Krash called to him, Bandage Man stared blankly in their direction.

Watching him, Krash pressed forward with his question.

“What happened with the Night Raven?”
“The Night Raven was destroyed not long ago—brought to the brink of annihilation.”

In that moment, news of the Night Raven’s destruction spilled directly from the man’s lips.

“Destroyed? But the Night Raven was supposed to compete in the Martial Arts Tournament.”
“They were destroyed, and placed beneath the command of a new master.”

Hearing mention of the Night Raven’s master, Krash frowned, seeking confirmation.

“Is it Sigrin Epania?”

Only Sigrin seemed capable of such a thing.

“No.”

But the answer that came back was different.

“No?”
“That’s right. The one who destroyed the Night Raven and took them for himself is the Second Prince.”

Krash’s brow furrowed.

‘The Second Prince has the Night Raven?’

Confusion deepened in Krash’s eyes.

The Second Prince had long since been consumed by the First Prince, relegated to nothing more than a pawn in his orbit.

The idea that such a man could have swallowed the Night Raven didn’t make sense.

‘And besides.’

Krash knew the Night Raven’s secret.

‘Their true backing was the Imperial Family itself.’

The Night Raven, jokingly called an assassination clan.

They hailed from the Empire’s Dark Side, yet were renowned enough to be called a house—a group unparalleled in the art of assassination.

What did it mean that such a group excelled in assassination?

‘The place that handles the Empire’s dirty work.’

Their specialty was assassination.

So they were a group that took high-paying contracts from various quarters and carried out assassinations.

Their distinguishing feature was simple: they possessed something connected to ravens.

The rumor had spread so widely that there were even whispers that carrying the raven mark in the Back Alley would keep you safe.

‘And the imperial family turned it to their advantage.’

The Empire’s imperial family monitored everything through the Night Raven—which nobles employed them, how they checked one another’s power.

The imperial family cleverly used the Night Raven to naturally regulate the balance of power among the nobility.

This was a fact that remained hidden until the Empire’s fall.

No one within the Empire knew of it except the imperial family itself.

So the claim that the organization had changed hands to the Second Prince made no sense whatsoever.

The Night Raven’s true master was none other than the imperial family.

And before that, there was something even more absurd.

‘How could some Back Alley street punk possibly know that the imperial house was involved—much less that the Night Raven had been destroyed?’

The inconsistencies were mounting.

‘Wait.’

Something flickered through Krash’s mind.

‘This is Sigrin’s doing.’

Krash’s brow furrowed.

‘She’s planning to crush the Second Prince beforehand to weaken the First Prince’s faction. This rumor was deliberately planted.’

Krash’s mind raced.

In Krash’s assessment, the rumor had definitely been manufactured.

It painted a picture of the Second Prince swallowing up the Night Raven and scheming something grand.

‘The Second Prince fell right into Sigrin’s trap.’

Sigrin had deliberately laid the trap so the Second Prince could claim the Night Raven, and the Second Prince—still hungry for the emperor’s throne—had eagerly swallowed the poison pill.

The Second Prince must have thought that if word got out about him controlling the Night Raven, he could expand his own power, so he’d spread the rumor himself.

And Sigrin, seizing the moment, had fanned the flames from behind.

Widely enough that even Bandage Man here had heard it.

With that much resolved, Krash fell silent in thought.

‘I understand the trap meant to snare the Second Prince.’

But what was the point of making him swallow the Night Raven in the first place?

The Night Raven’s specialty was assassination.

So the Second Prince is using Night Raven to assassinate someone……

‘Sigrin must know the First Prince well, doesn’t she?’

He was no easy mark.

No matter how much the Second Prince was manipulated from behind the scenes, assassinating the First Prince using Night Raven would be impossible.

‘So then — she’s using the Second Prince to assassinate someone else.’

But who?

Krash, who had fallen silent in thought for a moment, slowly began to raise his head.

“Hell.”

Krash’s eyes narrowed sharply.

He’d realized who Sigrin intended to assassinate through the Second Prince.

‘Sizzley Epania.’

The Fourth Princess.

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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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