The Strongest in Our Neighborhood - Chapter 43

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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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The Strongest in Our Neighborhood (43)
Laila swallowed dryly as she watched Jang Ga-in’s eyes gleam with an intensity that bordered on madness.
“Yes, it exceeds Ten Thousand Gold.”
“Your teacher really does surpass Ten Thousand Gold?”
―That much is true, but surely you’re not thinking of hunting down a high-ranking Gelato-Class Demon Race, are you?
“Of course I must. An unclaimed Ten Thousand Gold is rolling around within a kilometer, and the hand is conveniently pointing me in the right direction—there’s no reason not to catch it.”
―Even if you did sever a Gelato-Class demon’s arm before, the situation may be different now. Surely there’s an accomplice helping it remain hidden until now.
Jang Ga-in shrugged at the concern in his teacher’s voice.
Before, he had carried only a single sword, but now he wore a sword, a saber, a spear, and several short daggers across his body.
With more weapons came more options for attack and better efficiency.
“Then I can catch the accomplice too and earn even more.”
―Good heavens, even for a Master-Class warrior—don’t you wonder if you might be the one who falls?
“I’ve already fought once, so I know what to expect. There’s no cause for worry. While we delay here, the creature might escape, so I should hurry.”
Jang Ga-in took the high-ranking demon’s arm and headed outside, with Laila quickly bowing to her teacher before following him.
* * *
The blood-red mist that had filled the dark room swirled and compressed before entering Sbalwain’s nostrils.
Exhale.
A moment later, Sbalwain opened his eyes and clenched his left hand, then flexed it with satisfaction.
“Remarkable—the corpses of children so full of resentment have restored my hand completely, and my strength overflows!”
Flinch.
As he savored the recovered power, he suddenly sensed his severed hand—and not merely nearby, but approaching at tremendous speed.
The distance was roughly five hundred meters.
“What—what is this? Why is he coming here? Shouldn’t he be under attack from Count Johansson’s soldiers under Jakfuri’s command?”
While he had been absorbing the resentment dwelling in the children’s corpses, he couldn’t sense the hand’s location.
He rose hastily, and in that time the distance had closed to four hundred meters.
At this pace, even if he summoned Jakfuri through the magical communication device, the creature would reach him before Jakfuri arrived.
“Damn! I’d better head to where Jakfuri is!”
He flew upward through the darkness and opened the entrance to the Underground Chamber, his eyes stung by the sunlight.
‘Of all times, it has to be noon!’
This was a warrior whom he could not guarantee victory against even in darkness—daylight would only disadvantage him further.
He felt the distance to the hand narrow to two hundred meters.
When he spread his Aura Sense, his subordinate Jakfuri was still in the Count’s Inner Castle, quite far away.
With no darkness to ride upon, he had no choice but to push off from the ground and leap skyward, only to feel the hand’s distance close at a terrifying speed.
As he flew toward the Count’s fortress, he glanced back to see the monster-like creature he had fought in the forest bounding across rooftops and buildings like a grasshopper, bearing down on him.
“Stop there, Ten Thousand Gold!”
“Ten Thousand Gold? What are you saying? My name is Sbalwain, you pitiful insect of a human!”
If he fled as he was, the creature might bury a blade or spear in his back, so he had no choice but to turn and fly toward his opponent, hardening his nails into sharp edges.
Whoosh!
The approaching human hurled the spear he was carrying.
Sbalwain concentrated Demonic Energy into his claws and knocked the incoming spear aside.
Crash!
The Aura Energy embedded in the spear and the Demonic Energy in his claws collided and exploded, the recoil sending his body flying backward ten meters.
‘Grk! What—what is this? This human! He’s stronger than last time!’
Unbelievably, two of his claws were severed in that single collision.
As he fluttered his wings to regain his stance, the human who had thrown the spear made no move to retrieve it but bore down at terrifying speed, drawing a saber from his waist and swinging it down.
‘M-monster!’
Sbalwain poured even stronger Demonic Energy into his remaining claws, blocking the saber with his right hand while driving his left toward the human’s chest.
Scrape.
In that instant, two more claws on his right hand were severed, and his left missed the human’s chest, grazing it instead.
‘C-cut? Why?’
His claws were infused with Demonic Energy and the saber with Aura Energy—they should have exploded on contact, so why had his claws been severed instead?
As he reeled from this incomprehensible result, a flower blossomed from the saber’s edge—one he had glimpsed once before.
‘Im-impossible!’
That flower was a mass of pure Aura Energy, and its petals—released in the explosion—were blades forged from Aura. Knowing their destructive power, he instantly gathered all his Demonic Energy to both arms and crossed them defensively.
Crack-crack-crack, Boom!
“Agh—!”
His crossed arms, struck by the Aura flower, were instantly riddled with holes like a honeycomb, blood sprayed from his chest, and his vision went white.
Bang! Crash! Crumble!
Dazed from the terrible impact, his flying body smashed through the fence of a fine mansion, snapped the garden trees, and drove into the ground.
“Cough—!”
A moan escaped him belatedly, and the thought struck him that he would die if this continued.
‘Darkness! I have to find darkness and escape!’
Sbalwain watched his opponent hurl the short dagger before charging forward, then used Spatial Movement to slip into the nearest shadow cast by a tree.
In an instant, he’d teleported roughly twenty meters and was attempting to flee using his wings, but inexplicably, the short daggers he’d seen moments before were still flying toward him.
‘What? I definitely used Spatial Movement…’
He dodged the daggers hastily and glanced back at his previous location—multiple short daggers were smashing through the wall there.
‘Could he have predicted where I’d teleport and thrown more daggers?’
Pat, pat, pat, pat…
The human who had drawn near without warning was blooming another flower from his blade.
‘Damn it!’
He wrung every drop of demonic energy into his right fist and swung it toward the flower.
Crash!
The moment the two forces collided, an explosion erupted—and his entire right arm from hand to elbow simply vanished.
“Gaaaahhh!”
Despite the terrible pain that blanked his mind white, Sbalwain rolled his eyes to assess his opponent’s condition.
The human stood drenched in blood, gripping the blade with only the handle remaining in both hands.
‘He’s hurt too! Thank the gods for small mercies.’
With that bitter consolation, he moved to stop the bleeding from his severed elbow, but then watched the human discard the ruined blade and draw a sword.
‘How…how is that possible? He should have taken tremendous damage. How can he still move?’
Impossibly, the human drew his sword and charged, thrusting the blade forward.
“Chuangtian Xuejing!”
‘What is he shouting about?’
Sbalwain wrapped demonic energy around his left arm to block the sword, but his eyes went wide.
His palm, wrapped in demonic energy, was being pierced through like cheese.
‘How…?’
Even as the question formed, the blade that had tunneled through his hand continued through his left eye, through his brain, and erupted from the back of his skull.
In that instant, all thought ceased, and the world drowned in darkness.
* * *
Crash!
The sound of aura and demonic energy colliding and exploding reached the ears of Jakfuri, who stood within the Inner Castle.
‘That’s Sbalwain’s aura… S-surely not!’
Seized by urgency, Jakfuri flew directly to the watchtower built atop the castle ramparts.
From that vantage point, he looked down and saw Sbalwain and the human locked in combat.
Thinking he should rush down to help, he flew toward them—only to watch the human thrust his sword clean through Sbalwain’s skull.
‘No! Sbalwain has fallen!’
Any being capable of killing a Gelato-Class Demon Race so swiftly was someone Jakfuri could never hope to defeat.
Jakfuri immediately reversed course and fled.
‘Wait—is that Sbalwain’s hand?’
As he fled, he spotted a hand with seven fingers—Sbalwain’s hand—lying on the ground.
Jakfuri quickly scooped it up and changed direction toward the location where the Gate Magic Circle had been sealed away.
‘With this, I can activate the gate!’
Even without the blood of a saint and the reproductive organ of a man who had never lain with a woman, the hand of a high-ranking Demon Race could open the gate.
Once the gate connected to the Demon Realm, the concentration of demonic energy would rise, and the restrictions on power would diminish accordingly; depending on the gate’s activation level, he could summon demons and creatures of matching caliber.
“Phew! Fortunate that the demon decided to flee.”
Jang Ga-in, who had driven his sword through the high-ranking demon’s skull, watched the creature that had flown from the Count’s castle reverse direction and escape, releasing an inward breath of relief.
The truth was, even though he had already seized victory, he’d pushed himself to deploy Chuangtian Xuejing—his ultimate technique—specifically because he’d seen the demon approaching from the castle.
He feared that if the reinforcement arrived, the fight would turn against him, so he’d forced himself to kill his current opponent as quickly as possible.
“Are you all right, Ga-in?”
The mage Laila arrived as he stood catching his breath, recovering his depleted strength and inner energy.
“I’ve taken a few minor wounds, but I’m fine.”
“Minor wounds? You’re covered in blood! Please, drink this at once.”
As Laila extended a High-Grade Potion, Jang Ga-in accepted it and drank, his gaze following the demon that had fled beyond the castle wall into the distance.
“Just as your teacher warned, there were two demons, not one.”
“Indeed. Had that demon joined us, this battle would have been far more difficult.”
“It would have been a harder fight, but I still wouldn’t have lost.”
“The thought of you losing is something I cannot even imagine. This potion heals wounds—allow me to apply it for you.”
“Very well.”
“By the way, this demon I killed—is it actually Ten Thousand Gold?”
Jang Ga-in gestured toward the dead demon with its skull pierced through, and Laila hesitated before nodding.
“The thing is, this demon was actually sent by my teacher. When I told my teacher I was cutting off contact earlier, they said they would come here as quickly as possible. So when they arrive, they’ll be the one to pay you.”
“Understood.”
Jang Ga-in pressed his ear against the dead Demon’s chest, sensing that its heart was still beating.
Thump-thump, thump-thump…….
Remarkably, the heart was pounding far more powerfully and rapidly than that of any living human.
‘How can the body be this alive when its brain is shattered? The mages would pay good money to study something like this.’
Looking at the severed surface of the arm, he saw that it had somehow ceased bleeding on its own.
* * *
The back hill owned by the Johansson Count Family at the center of the Count’s Inner Castle was the burial ground of successive family heads and retainers, containing hundreds of graves and tended by dedicated servants.
It was here that Jakfuri had installed the Gate Magic Circle connected to the Demon Realm.
Whirr—
Jakfuri arrived at the Gate Magic Circle after flying swiftly, then turned to look back and exhaled a breath of relief.
“Phew! Thank goodness—he’s not chasing me!”
As he chanted the incantation to activate the magic circle, black shadows stretched out between the graves. When he placed Sbalwain’s Hand onto one of these shadows, its color deepened in an instant, transforming into absolute darkness, and soon that darkness began to billow like smoke and spread across the ground.
“Krahaha! At last, the gate is complete!”
Jakfuri approached the door taking shape as the darkness coalesced.
Thrum-thrum-thrum-thrum…….
As the darkness assumed the form of a door, the earth trembled and the surrounding space twisted grotesquely.
And when the door finally completed, Jakfuri’s eyes gleamed with elation.
“How long has it been since I’ve felt such pure Demonic Energy? Krahaha…….”
Laughter tore from his throat unbidden.
Having received the Demonic Energy, his body began to shed the false human skin he’d been wearing and revert to his original form from the Demon Realm.
His height swelled to nearly five meters, his frame expanding; three horns sprouted from his head, and his crude, bat-like wings transformed into great Wyvern wings.

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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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