The Life of a Wise Cult Leader - Chapter 115
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Fire
I stole a glimpse through Kalebrin’s vision. Two people had appeared and were beating up Kalebrin!
No way! My number one utility dealer is getting beaten up by some worthless thugs!
As Kalebrin’s thread trembled, I immediately searched for and sent nearby allies to her location.
Fortunately, Tuba and Erendor were nearby.
Tuba’s trust in me was already rock bottom, so communication was impossible, vision sharing was impossible – I couldn’t contact him.
But I could at least communicate with Erendor.
After frantically sending those two to Kalebrin, I stole another glimpse through her vision.
-“Kyaaah!”
Kalebrin’s shoulder had a hole in it.
Right after Kalebrin was attacked, her vision flickered like a TV with its plug pulled out, then disappeared.
“…Hm?”
I’m… in my room. I groped around with my eyes and tried to switch to her vision, but the connection wouldn’t work, like a TV channel with poor reception.
‘Dead connection?’
Or maybe…
Death?
I was blankly groping through the air in my room when I belatedly realized my vision had simply returned to the room.
I frantically searched for Kalebrin’s thread connected to me.
The thread was growing fainter and fainter.
Dim like a candle flame before it dies out.
No way.
No way….
‘No. No, that can’t be. Kalebrin isn’t someone who should die here.’
With trembling hands, I covered my lower face.
Someone who shouldn’t die here… I had already realized long ago that things were going in a completely different direction from the original story.
Characters who didn’t die could die, and characters who died could live.
This is reality.
No matter how much I try to act excited about being in a fantasy world, this is a savage world where anyone could die…
My stomach churned.
I grasped and embraced Kalebrin’s thinned thread floating invisibly in the air. That was all I could do.
*
The ‘Wolf’ was anxious.
All his attacks had missed.
Whispering hallucinations and distorted vision, a throbbing headache, a feverish body – he had forced an attack while leading this poorly conditioned body.
Aiming simultaneously for the head and heart, a soft mage would surely be unable to avoid it.
The Wolf thought this attack would kill her.
However, for some reason.
Quite mysteriously, as if possessed by a ghost, his properly aimed temple strike only managed to take away her cheek, neck, and a handful of hair.
The hand aiming for her heart somehow veered off course and was stabbing the shoulder he had clawed earlier.
She had offered up a shoulder that was already unusable.
An equivalent exchange that didn’t add up.
She had survived two attacks that would have killed her if either had landed, by sacrificing parts of her body.
The Wolf realized once again that what he was facing was not a mage, but a sorceress.
Curly black hair fluttered through the air. The sorceress’s pale, chilling red eyes stared directly at the Wolf.
“Hah.”
The Wolf let out a hollow laugh.
But by the time he realized it, it was already too late.
Red eyes captured him.
The Wolf grinned crookedly.
“This one’s completely lost her mind-“
Red color filled his vision.
Thud.
The tip of the staff aimed with her remaining arm was already at his head, and the price of his reckless attack returned as death.
The Wolf lay on the ground with his burst head, being pelted by the pouring rain.
Was this the fourth time he’d died?
*
Kalebrin gasped for breath as she steadied herself.
One shoulder hung limp and powerless, making her small frame look even smaller as she leaned against her staff.
Her neck and torso jutted forward, and with her messily cut hair and blood-covered upper body, she looked less like a human and more like a monster or amorphous creature.
‘One down, for sure.’
What had filled her mind just moments ago was: ‘I must be helpful so the Ascetic won’t abandon me. I must become stronger. I want to meet everyone again.’
But when she had just crossed death’s threshold, the sorceress Kalebrin felt an instinctive desire surge up.
I want to live.
To live, she had to kill the enemy before her.
Kill to survive. You must kill to live, you must kill, kill! Brutally! Tear off their limbs, rip out their head, gouge out their eyes, split their belly and drag out their intestines! Let’s curse them, we’re cursing, we hate this world so much. You’ve always been angry, haven’t you? Just do it!
The primitive and powerful desire to live, along with anger and some kind of urging, synergized with Kalebrin’s sorcerous talent.
She strengthened the curse she had placed on the ‘Wolf’, reducing his attack speed and power.
Additionally, she properly utilized buffs and debuffs on herself to create an exchange that was entirely favorable to Kalebrin and completely unequal.
Sacrificing her shoulder and part of her head was both a final struggle to survive and the result of her innate talent.
Be angry at the world, you’re someone who’s allowed to be. We killed us, Kalebrin. You came and killed innocent, blameless us…. Kalebrin, I want to live. I wanted to live, Kalebrin!
Ah, how hateful. How infuriating….
The boiling, viscous rage that usually lay buried quietly in the deep sea could no longer be contained.
This was sorcery that would have been impossible under normal circumstances.
Sorcery bloomed brilliantly, feeding on the caster’s desires, urges, and powerful emotions.
“Hyaaaaaaah!”
Kalebrin screamed until the veins in her neck bulged.
The man who had approached so recklessly without even testing the waters died the moment his attack failed.
Because the irrational, animal-like curse, refined through the aid of her staff, instantly blew his head off.
“Huff…. Huff, hah, haah.”
Her head spun and blood flowed down her wrist and hand from her unclotted shoulder wound.
With hollow eyes, she thrust the bottom end of her staff into the pool of flowing blood with a thud.
The tip of the wooden staff split and writhed against the ground like roots.
The roots absorbed the blood of both her and the one who had fallen at her feet.
The red gems attached to her staff glowed with a blood-red light.
The poison master called ‘Smiling Face’ was not one to miss the opening his comrade had created. He was a skilled assassin.
Needles that had collided in mid-air instantly rushed at Kalebrin from all directions.
Crown, face, back of the head, back, legs, arms. Needles flew from everywhere.
He had thrown the needles with time delays, so the first needles would break through the sorceress’s barrier, and in the gap while she reconstructed her barrier, the second wave of needles would pierce her skin.
The speed at which he threw the needles was sharper and faster than arrows shot by an archer.
She had lost a lot of blood. The poison must have spread too.
If left like this, whether from excessive blood loss or whatever else, she would be lying on the ground with the ‘Wolf’ within 15 minutes.
Smiling Face decided to retrieve the Wolf and escape. The Wolf would soon get up once his burst head was restored.
First, he would pick up the Wolf lying at her feet and move to the shelter…
“…!?”
It felt like lead weights were attached to his legs. It was difficult to take even one step.
“What is this…!”
I can’t create distance, can’t evade.
‘He was definitely someone I could easily kill just moments ago. Someone I could easily kill…!’
The Smiling Man was flustered.
Was a sorceress really capable of this kind of class?
Similar mages had died countless times under their coordinated attacks.
Probably a sorceress would be similar too….
Or so he thought.
That thought led to a grave mistake.
The red pomegranate-like gems dangling from the staff jingle.
“Break your bones and die. Die miserably. As much as you tormented me, repay it for eons. As many people as you killed, let your souls be gnawed by ants in the Abyss….”
Cold lips and eyes glowing bright red.
He had given the sorceress time to recite an incantation.
The staff that had drunk blood was aimed.
At that moment, the air. No, some kind of flow twisted and grotesquely broke the ‘Smiling Man’s’ arm.
Crack.
“Aaah!”
Next was his leg.
Crack crack.
“Uaaaah!”
The remaining arm, leg, wrist, ankle, fingers, lungs….
Crack, crunch, creak.
“Aaah, aaaah! Aaaah….”
His neck.
“….”
The attackers quickly fell silent less than 10 minutes after the assault began.
“Huu, hh…. Haah….”
Only one person was breathing.
Kalebrin gasped with a flushed face that hadn’t cooled from the heat of battle.
Step.
Footsteps from behind.
Whoosh-
Kalebrin instantly aimed her staff.
What appeared from the darkness had a somewhat lighthearted atmosphere…
“Whoa~ Calm down, Kalebrin! It’s me, the Ascetic’s very close friend!”
It was someone familiar.
“Erendor and Tuba came so now you can relax…. Oh, they’re all dead.”
He scratched the back of his neck.
The scene was already gruesome.
One died instantly from cerebral hemorrhage, one died from shock due to broken bones…. no, was it neck bone damage.
“I hope you don’t think ‘you should have come a little faster’! We were able to come like this because the Ascetic urged us who were nearby.”
“The woman’s condition…. doesn’t look very good….”
“Oh dear. We need to take her to the Ascetic.”
Kalebrin was leaning on her staff when she slid down. Erendor supported and lifted Kalebrin.
That’s when it happened.
Twitch.
The hand of the fallen wolf stirred. Tuba was the first to notice.
Tuba rolled his eyes to check the corpse.
The one who had died with dilated pupils unable to close his eyes was now looking this way with narrowed pupils.
Boom-!
Tuba immediately stomped his foot. With a loud noise like a bomb exploding, the ground cracked from the specially made heel of Tuba’s shoe.
The wolf raised his body that had been lying like a beast and fell away from the crack. Then he grabbed the ‘Smiling Man’ whose limbs were crushed and neck was broken.
“What, he wasn’t dead?”
Erendor, who was tending to the dying Kalebrin, reacted a beat late.
“Should we chase?”
Tuba shook his head.
“Already…. gone. Looks like he used…. an artifact….”
The sounds that had been heard disappeared.
“If we delay any longer…. we’ll lose the woman’s life too…. let’s head back.”
Originally this was supposed to be an operation they’d see for the first time tomorrow, but it was an emergency situation so it couldn’t be helped.
Tuba said this while picking up the fallen staff.
As Erendor nodded, both simultaneously disappeared from the scene.
*
Thud thud thud!
I was startled and looked toward the source of the sound. The window rattled.
The one who opened the window was Tuba. And behind him was Erendor holding a blood-covered corpse….
“Kalebrin!”
I ran to her.
Erendor slowly handed her over to me. As soon as I took her into my sight, I placed my hands on her and bestowed my power.
I could feel the single thread that seemed about to break at any moment gradually becoming stronger. Blood stained my clothes and repeatedly disappeared.
Her irregular breathing gradually returned to normal.
Her poor complexion gradually returned. Her blue lips also regained vitality.
Ah, I thought I was going to lose her like this, how much. How much I worried.
I knew she was fine, but I couldn’t stop giving her more power than necessary. I was anxious she might just die at any moment.
Erendor caught my trembling hands from behind.
“Friend, are you crying?”
Me, crying?
I fumbled at my cheeks. They were wet.
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“You looked like you wouldn’t shed such things.”
Damn, does he see me as some heartless psycho?
Of course the timing was always bad whenever he and I met, but Kalebrin is almost the second person who became mine!
The first was of course Antonio.
Unlike Cardil who was prickly from the beginning and still acts annoying now, Kalebrin was a little chick who followed only me from the moment I first saw her.
Of course I’d be shocked when such a chick was dying!
Moreover, she was someone who silently stayed by my side whenever anything happened.
I was filled with relief and simultaneously anger toward Erendor, but eventually calmed my anger thinking that he was the one who saved her and brought her back to me.
Inner peace. Inner peace….
Just the reactions I’ve shown so far are enough to deviate from the character of Sernuan Lumiere.
From the mistake in address to the urgency.
Of course, the benevolent Saint does react seriously to others’ pain, but reacting this much to an aide doesn’t fit the impartial Saint.
I placed her on my bed and greeted Erendor who was leaning against the wall.
“Thank you for…. bringing Kalebrin back.”
“Think nothing of it.”
Then I asked the main point.
I couldn’t manage my expression automatically. Because I was angry.
I asked with my jaw clenched tight.
“So. The bastards who did this to her, who are they?”
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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