The Last Place Hero’s Return - Chapter 93

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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 93. An Ordinary Day (5)
‘With just a snap of my fingers, I could turn every villager into a Demon Human,’ Harris had said.
While Elisha and Harris were conversing.
I turned over Harris’s words in my mind, examining them from every angle.
‘So that means the poison inside the villagers only activates upon a specific signal.’
In other words.
Without that ‘special signal,’ the poison the villagers consumed wouldn’t activate at all.
‘It’s less like poison and more like a bomb.’
If the effect doesn’t manifest naturally over time.
‘Then there’s a way.’
The medicine the villagers consumed only activates with a specific signal.
That is.
I could either kill Harris before he has a chance to send that signal, or block the signal itself.
‘The former carries too much risk.’
No matter how formidable Elisha is—ranked ninth on the Three-Nation Hero Rankings—she couldn’t suppress a Bishop-class Demon Human without giving him even a moment to snap his fingers.
That left only one option.
‘A mana-blocking barrier.’
To cut off the signal Harris sends at its source.
It’s like not stealing the detonator switch from a bomb, but blocking the signal the switch sends entirely.
‘A mana-blocking barrier is advanced magic that even most Magic Department professors can’t use.’
But who was I?
Sophia’s disciple (self-proclaimed) and a theoretical magic genius who’d solved two of the Great Sage’s three legendary problems (barely, after grinding away for thousands of years).
Deploying a mana-blocking barrier was well within my capabilities.
However.
‘With my current mana reserves, I can only maintain the barrier within a twenty-meter radius.’
Though my mana had increased dramatically lately, mana-blocking barriers consume enormous amounts of magic, so I couldn’t spread it wide enough to cover all the villagers scattered throughout the plaza.
‘I can’t get close to Harris and use it either.’
Mana-blocking barriers are defensive constructs by nature—they only block mana flowing from ‘outside’ to ‘inside,’ not the reverse.
‘If I were Sophia, I could instantly modify the spell on the spot to create a barrier that blocks mana flowing from inside to outside.’
Unfortunately, I don’t possess her level of magical intuition.
‘I need someone who can gather all one hundred villagers in one place while I draw Harris’s attention.’
You might think there’s no one who could instantly gather the villagers scattered across the entire Village Square into a twenty-meter radius barrier.
‘But there is.’
Right beside me, in fact.
[So you’re asking me to gather the villagers in one place while Dale draws Harris’s attention?]
Elisha Baldwin, the Spider with Baleful Eyes, furrowed her brow as she received my telepathic message.
[That’s an absurd plan.]
It was barely worthy of being called a plan—a crude, desperate gamble.
A perilous scheme where a single misstep would reduce everything to nothing.
Rationally speaking, it would be better to capture Jackal’s subordinate here and now rather than throw ourselves into this reckless gamble on such fragile hope.
But.
[Dale really is… unstoppable.]
Why was that?
Just moments ago, the suffocating tightness around my chest had vanished without a trace.
[Understood. I’ll follow Dale’s plan.]
At Elisha’s response echoing in my mind, I felt my lips curl into a grin.
[Focus. This is our only chance.]
Leaving Elisha behind, I kicked off the ground toward Bishop Harris.
“Ugh, uaaaaaaah!”
Letting out a terrified scream.
“Huh?”
“P-please save me! I’m just a candidate with no connection to Professor Elisha!”
I cried out with a desperate expression.
“I only came because they said I’d get bonus points, but suddenly you want me to fight a Demon Human?! I-I don’t even have my official hero license yet!”
“Haha. Well, this situation is getting rather entertaining.”
Harris chuckled softly as he watched me plead.
Even though the distance between us had grown considerably closer, he showed no sign of activating the detonator for the bombs he’d planted among the villagers.
‘To Harris, I’m not a threat at all.’
A small fish caught in the net alongside the big catch—Elisha Baldwin.
Surely he wouldn’t hastily pull up the net just because one little fish was thrashing about?
‘But that alone won’t make him lower his guard easily.’
Harris wasn’t a fool.
No matter how much of a candidate I was, he couldn’t completely drop his guard against someone Elisha had brought along personally.
The moment I made a wrong move, he wouldn’t hesitate to detonate the bombs hidden among the villagers.
‘Then.’
I simply needed to make him completely lower his guard against me.
And luring an opponent into complacency to exploit their openings was a tactic I’d worn thin from overuse in my previous life.
“Watching your own disciple transform into a Demon Human right before your eyes… that’s not a bad scenario either.”
Harris flicked his hand toward me.
I felt a faint magical signal flowing from his hand into my body.
And.
“…Hm?”
Bishop Harris tilted his head in confusion as nothing happened.
“Ah, that’s right—you didn’t drink the alcohol earlier, did you?”
Only then did Bishop Harris realize I hadn’t consumed the poisoned apple wine, and he smirked as he stepped toward me.
“What a shame. If you’d drunk it, you could have received that person’s blessing.”
“H-hieek!”
I let out a pathetic shriek and fell backward on my rear.
“P-please… spare me…!”
“My apologies. I don’t have time to entertain you right now.”
“Hack! Cough!”
A wet, gurgling sound.
A single tentacle erupting from Bishop Harris’s body pierced straight through my heart.
With a dull, tearing sound, blood cascaded down like water from a broken faucet.
Bishop Harris, clutching at his heart, turned his gaze from my fallen form toward Elisha.
“So, what will you do now? Abandon all these innocent villagers?”
“….”
“Hmm? Ah, so this Candidate is what concerns you?”
Bishop Harris chuckled softly as he watched Elisha staring down at the fallen Candidate.
“If I may offer some advice, even if you intend to use Candidates as mere servants, I’d recommend being more selective about which ones you bring along in the future.”
He shook his head with a disapproving click of his tongue.
“No matter how much of a Candidate they are, this pathetic display hardly befits a hero’s dignity… hm?”
Bishop Harris furrowed his brow and brushed at his cheek.
His fingertips were stained with a deep gray ash.
“Where did this come from…?”
As he furrowed his brow and tried to brush the ash from his hand—
A fierce blaze erupted!
Flames burning with savage intensity.
Harris recoiled in shock, evading the blade strike that came slashing toward him.
“What—what is this?!”
The Candidate who should have died instantly with his heart pierced by the tentacle was now standing perfectly fine, wielding a sword.
‘His heart wasn’t pierced?’
No.
I distinctly felt the sensation of piercing his heart.
Through the tentacle that penetrated his heart, I confirmed his breath had stopped completely.
‘Then why…’
Why was a corpse with a pierced heart now revived and swinging a blade at me?
“Krrgh…!”
The brain-devouring beast, also called the “Mind Eater,” could absorb all the experience and knowledge of those it consumed.
Having devoured the brains of hundreds of humans, he had accumulated knowledge and experience far beyond what any ordinary human could achieve.
Yet even he, who prided himself on such vast accumulation, found this situation utterly beyond comprehension.
And because of that, he had momentarily forgotten.
Jackal’s command to immediately transform the villagers into beasts if anything went wrong.
“Now!!!”
Dale’s cry rang out sharply across the Village Square.
“Huu.”
Elisha spread her arms wide and drew in a deep breath.
“Bind them.”
With a soft incantation—
A torrent of ethereal chains erupted forth!!!
Hundreds, thousands of ‘silken threads’ stretched out in all directions.
The gossamer strands ensnaring the bodies of villagers consumed by despair yanked them forward in an instant.
“Kyaaaaaah!”
“Wh-what?!”
“Mooooom!”
The villagers thrashed and writhed, bound by the transparent silver threads, yet none could escape Elisha’s web.
Whoooosh! Crack! Shrieeek!
The web sprawled across the entire Village Square.
Elisha had ensnared all hundred or so villagers in her threads and gathered them in one place.
“It’s futile!”
Bishop Harris, finally regaining his senses, stretched his hand toward where the villagers had congregated.
Snap.
As his fingers flicked, sending a mana-infused signal toward the villagers.
“Dale!”
With Elisha’s cry, Dale planted his feet firmly.
Stepping between the villagers bound together by the web, Dale spread both arms wide.
Whoooooosh!
A mana-blocking barrier unfurled, flames engulfing the barrier.
The mana signal Bishop Harris had sent was swept away by the inferno and vanished entirely.
“Huh?”
Bishop Harris’s eyes widened in shock.
He had been certain that the moment his fingers flicked, all the villagers would transform into Demons, yet somehow not a single person had changed.
“A mana-blocking barrier…? You’re telling me a Candidate used that?”
A mana-blocking barrier was an advanced technique that even most Magic Department professors couldn’t deploy.
Yet a Candidate without a hero’s license had just manifested it?
And in the blink of an eye, no less?
“What in the world….”
All the hundreds of experiences he had absorbed thus far felt utterly negated, and Bishop Harris stumbled backward in bewilderment.
‘Damn it.’
According to the original plan, if Elisha refused to obey, I would transform the villagers into Demons to bind her feet, then escape—but the situation had spiraled beyond my control.
‘I need to flee from here….’
I thought, turning my body to run.
Whoooooosh!
Hundreds of silver threads wove together like a web, encasing my surroundings.
A space consumed by the web.
A spider approached its trapped prey.
Step, step.
Footsteps echoed softly.
Elisha withdrew a cigarette from her pocket and placed it between her lips.
Click.
A cigarette flickering with crimson light.
“So, what’s your move now?”
The spider with the sinister eye gleamed fiercely, exhaling wisps of pale smoke.

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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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