The potion shop was dimly lit, and the tension inside had reached a freezing point.
Khajiit stood blocking the entrance, the black Orb of Death resting in one hand as dense negative energy radiated from it.
His murky eyes remained fixed on Lucien.
The sudden appearance of this stranger made him uneasy.
His instincts were warning him that something was wrong.
“No playing around this time, Clementine.” Khajiit’s hoarse voice carried both caution and irritation.
“Kill him quickly.
We’re inside the city.
If this drags on, we’ll attract the guards or other high-ranking adventurers.” Clementine, standing beside the counter, did not immediately move.
Her eyes swept over Lucien from head to toe with obvious wariness.
Lucien had appeared in front of the bearded coachman so quickly that even she had failed to see his movement.
More importantly, the man had used nothing but a light short sword to knock aside a full-force thrust she had been certain would kill.
She had sensed no trace of a Martial Art.
Based on the force transmitted through their weapons when they collided, Clementine quickly reached a conclusion.
This man was far stronger than his lean appearance suggested.
He had to be a strength-focused warrior.
Given her own fighting style and experience, confronting someone like that head-on would be idiotic.
“Don’t be so impatient, old man.” Clementine tilted her head and deliberately dragged things out in a sweet, playful voice.
“This handsome guy is really strong, you know.
That last hit made my wrist go numb.” “I’d never beat him in a straight fight.
I need a little time to find an opening~” Lucien remained where he was, holding his short sword horizontally in front of his chest.
He said nothing.
His mind was working at full speed.
While the two enemies hesitated, Lucien reactivated several passive abilities he had shut down earlier.
[Greater Threat Detection] [Magic Detection] [Detect Concealment] Confirmed.
There were only two enemies waiting here, the old man and the young woman.
With the possibility of additional hidden threats eliminated, Lucien focused entirely on the pair in front of him and began assessing the situation tactically.
One magic caster.
One assassin.
It was one of the most troublesome and unpredictable combinations to encounter unexpectedly.
Magic casters possessed crowd control, summons, and powerful burst damage.
Assassins had stealth, extreme mobility, and lethal attacks capable of ending a fight instantly.
Put those two professions together, and there were far too many possible combinations to account for.
If they were fighting in an open area, Lucien could easily exploit his superior Agility, create distance, and eliminate them individually.
But that was impossible here.
The potion shop was too cramped.
Wooden shelves filled with bottles and containers occupied nearly every part of the room, leaving almost no space to maneuver.
Worse, Nfirea and the two coachmen were standing behind him.
Any one of them could easily die from collateral damage.
Lucien studied the two opponents again.
They were dressed exactly as he remembered from the underground fortress.
Khajiit wore a ragged black robe and carried that strangely designed staff in one hand, while the Orb of Death in his other hand contained an enormous amount of necromantic energy.
The female assassin wore a broad hooded cloak.
Beneath it, glimpses of bizarre metallic armor could be seen, with almost no ordinary clothing underneath.
He could not allow this to drag on.
The fight needed to end immediately.
More importantly, he needed to eliminate the woman first.
If Clementine found an opportunity to slip around him and attack Nfirea from behind, the situation would become completely uncontrollable.
Lucien took a deep breath.
The short sword in his hand lowered slightly.
His previously tense combat stance visibly relaxed.
“Actually, I have a rule.” Lucien looked at Clementine.
His voice sounded helpless, even somewhat reluctant.
“I might be the type who solves problems with brute force, but I have a weakness for women.” “I can’t bring myself to be too harsh with them.” “If possible, I’d really rather not fight you.” He deliberately built on Clementine’s mistaken assumption, pushing both enemies further in the wrong direction.
Lucien sighed and looked between Khajiit and Clementine.
“But with the two of you trapping me from both sides, I don’t really have another choice.” “So if this turns into a real fight and I hurt you, consider this my apology in advance.” For a brief moment, the air inside the potion shop seemed to stop.
Clementine froze.
Then most of the caution remaining in her eyes disappeared.
In its place came twisted, feverish excitement.
A simple-minded brute obsessed with chivalry and ridiculous principles.
Exactly the kind of person she loved tormenting.
Nothing pleased her more than crushing self-righteous people beneath her feet, destroying the principles they were so proud of, listening to them cry and beg in despair, and seeing how much arrogance remained when death was finally in front of them.
Then came the torture.
Then the dismemberment.
The false information Lucien had deliberately given her completely reignited Clementine’s desire to play.
“My, my.
You can’t bring yourself to hurt me?” Clementine giggled with manic delight, her entire body trembling with laughter.
“You’re such a gentle man~” “If you’re going to be such a gentleman about this, then I should show you a little sincerity too.” Clementine reached out with her left hand and grabbed the edge of her oversized cloak.
“Take a look.” “This outfit of mine is made from the adventurer plates of lots and lots of brave people just like you~” Before she had even finished speaking, Clementine tore the cloak away.
To properly display the outfit constructed from countless adventurer rank plates, she deliberately spun around as she removed it.
From Lucien’s perspective, the fight ended the instant she made that decision.
Turning her body meant losing sight of him for a fraction of a second.
An opening that large was practically suicide.
The moment Clementine turned halfway and exposed her back…
[Dash] [Flash Step] Two movement abilities activated seamlessly one after another.
Lucien became a blur.
The distance of less than five meters vanished instantly.
Before Clementine could complete her turn, Lucien was already beside her.
The edge of her vision caught a dark shape suddenly expanding toward her.
Her playful smile froze.
Her pupils contracted sharply.
Danger!
She tried to forcefully stop her rotation and reach for a weapon to block.
Too late.
Lucien’s short sword swept upward from below, drawing a cold silver arc through the darkness.
Down.
Up.
The sound of steel cutting through flesh and bone was sharp and unmistakable.
Clementine’s right arm was severed at the shoulder.
Warm blood erupted like a fountain from the smooth cut and splashed across the potion shelves beside her.
The pain had not even reached her brain when Lucien’s next attack arrived.
Using the momentum of the upward slash, Lucien launched himself backward into the air.
He performed a clean backflip.
At the highest point of the rotation, while his body was inverted, both legs shot forward together.
His boots struck Clementine squarely in the chest.
The metallic outfit pieced together from adventurer plates immediately caved inward.
The impact happened so quickly that the plates did not even have time to scatter.
The sound of ribs breaking was drowned out by the crash that followed.
Clementine smashed through three heavy wooden potion cabinets in succession.
Wood splintered.
Glass bottles shattered everywhere.
The enormous force carried her all the way into a storage cabinet at the back of the shop.
A metal handle punched through her body, while broken pieces of wood tore into her back and pinned her against the cabinet.
Clementine’s eyes remained fixed on the ceiling.
Her body twitched several times.
Then she stopped moving completely.
The two sections of her plate-covered outfit broke apart under the impact.
Adventurer plates of various ranks clattered across the floor.
One combination.
Instant death.
Lucien landed steadily.
After confirming Clementine was dead, he turned toward Khajiit at the entrance.
Now only the half-dead old magic caster remained.
If fighting both opponents at once had represented one hundred percent of the pressure, then facing only one of them reduced it to perhaps twenty.
Khajiit stood in the doorway with his murky eyes stretched wide.
His face was filled with disbelief and terror.
Everything had happened too quickly.
From Clementine tearing off her cloak to losing an arm and being kicked through the shop…
Less than two seconds had passed.
Clementine was powerful enough to confront high-ranking adventurer parties directly.
She had once belonged to the Slane Theocracy’s Black Scripture.
And yet she had been killed that easily?
Khajiit could not begin to understand the strength and speed Lucien had just displayed.
The hand gripping his staff started trembling uncontrollably.
He instinctively stepped backward twice, leaving half his body outside in the street.
No.
Impossible.
He could not run.
That monster’s speed was terrifying.
Turning his back would only make him die faster.
Khajiit clenched his teeth.
A trace of desperate madness appeared in his clouded eyes.
For Zuranon.
For his mother.
He would fight!
Khajiit raised the staff set with purple crystal high above his head.
At the same time, the Orb of Death in his other hand erupted with dense black light.
“O great god of death!
Hear my call and awaken, you who slumber…” Khajiit began loudly chanting a spell, attempting to summon a powerful undead creature to hold Lucien back.
Lucien’s lips curved upward.
Casting a spell was certainly more appropriate in battle than removing one’s clothes.
Unfortunately for Khajiit, summoning magic that required an incantation left an opening far longer than a fraction of a second.
Lucien immediately seized it.
[Blink] The distance between them disappeared.
Khajiit had barely completed half of his incantation when Lucien appeared directly in front of him.
“You…” That single hopeless syllable was all Khajiit managed to produce.
In one instant, three thrusts came from different angles.
Left wrist.
Right elbow.
The final strike pierced through the throat and cervical spine.
Three attacks in immediate succession.
Khajiit’s eyes bulged outward.
His staff and the Orb of Death fell from his hands at the same time.
Lucien pulled his weapon free and kicked Khajiit’s corpse onto the floor.
The battle was over.
He flicked the blood from his short sword and looked toward Nfirea and the two coachmen, who were still trembling inside the shop.
“You can come out.” “It’s over.” Nfirea and the coachmen stumbled forward while supporting one another.
Their legs were so weak they could barely walk.
They stared at the devastated shop and the two mangled corpses.
They already knew Lucien was extraordinarily powerful.
But witnessing that level of violence and bloodshed at such close range still frightened them so badly that none dared even breathe loudly.
“Wait outside for a while.” Lucien escorted them onto the street.
“Stay somewhere with other people around.” “Don’t wander off.” After securing the three of them outside, Lucien returned to the shop and began collecting the spoils.
First, he picked up the dark-purple Orb of Death near the entrance.
It felt cold in his hand.
Ghostly images of tormented souls continued drifting across its surface.
His appraisal ability failed completely.
It was an item native to this world.
Next, Lucien collected the staff set with purple crystal and placed both objects into his inventory.
After searching Khajiit’s body, Lucien stepped across broken wooden boards and scattered adventurer plates until he reached Clementine.
He briefly examined her condition.
The corpse was still warm.
The two pieces of armor she had worn beneath her cloak had been almost completely destroyed during the collision, and the remaining metal plates had fallen away, leaving the body exposed.
Lucien turned the corpse slightly.
His eyebrow rose.
Aside from the stiletto that had been knocked away at the beginning of the fight, Clementine had been carrying three identical spare weapons at the back of her waist.
Unfortunately for her, the force of Lucien’s backflip kick had been enormous.
After being launched through several wooden cabinets, those three stilettos had effectively become weapons against their owner.
The sharp spikes had been driven into her waist, hip, and pelvis.
One had entered deeply through her back and pierced her internal organs.
In a sense, Clementine had partially died to her own weapons.
Lucien expressionlessly grabbed the handle of one stiletto and pulled.
Schlick.
He removed all three blood-covered weapons.
Lucien initially tried wiping the blood from them against Clementine’s body.
The blades were so sharp that they simply cut through the still-pliable skin instead, leaving several additional wounds without properly cleaning the weapons.
Lucien gave up and flicked off what blood he could.
After confirming that Appraisal could not identify the stilettos either, he stored them in his inventory.
Once everything was finished, Lucien left the potion shop and returned to Nfirea and the two coachmen.
“I’ve confirmed that it’s safe.” Lucien looked at Nfirea and thought for a moment.
“But the shop is a disaster.
You definitely can’t stay here tonight.” “Spend the night at one of the coachmen’s homes.” As he spoke, Lucien looked toward the outgoing bearded man.
The coachman flinched and nodded repeatedly.
“Y-Yes!
Of course!
My house is on the next street.
It’s very close.” Nfirea looked anxiously toward the entrance of his potion shop.
“Mr.
Vale, what about everything in there…?” “Leave the situation here to me.” Lucien paused.
“And it’s probably best if you don’t tell anyone about what happened tonight.” “I’ll handle the aftermath.” “Trust me.
I know what I’m doing.” “I understand.” Nfirea bowed deeply.
“Thank you for saving our lives, Mr.
Vale.” He did not dare ask anything more.
Together with the two coachmen, Nfirea quickly disappeared into the night.
Lucien watched until the three were gone.
Then he leaned against the potion shop’s doorway and lit a cigarette.
He opened the system interface and started a voice call with Ainz.
“Hey, Ainz.” The connection opened.
Lucien exhaled a ring of smoke.
“Where are you right now?” “Are you free?” “I’ve run into a minor situation.” “I’m at Nfirea’s potion shop.” Ainz’s voice immediately sharpened.
“What happened?” (To be continued.)