Chapter 35.2. Slums And Drunks

-???’s POV-

Realizing the identity of the crow, the men feel a sense of danger. But they didn’t run away. The old man doesn’t wear Magic Armor, and he’s drunk. They thought he was not much of a magician. After all, he had fallen into the slums. It must be shoddy.

“Then what are you going to do? Are you going to run away?”

The old man asks in a sharp voice that doesn’t sound like a drunk. But the men are convinced that’s a bluff. He was bluffing. It’s a sham. The old man only has a speaking raven.

The man looks at his friends, who are approaching behind the old man, and smirks.

“No, I just thought it would be nice if you had a magic tool!”

The man facing the old man shouts to draw attention to himself. In time with his loud voice, his companion pounces on the old man, raising an iron pipe from behind him.

“Really?”

Just one word. The old man mutters boringly, and the man swings his iron pipe on the old man’s head. There was a gulp and a bone-crushing sound, and he would fall. His companions began to wonder what they would do with their share.

Clang!

Then the men heard a dull bone-crushing sound, and the one that fell was the one that swung the iron pipe down. The blow caused him to wobble and fall to the ground, jerking and twitching. Blood sloshed from his head and became a pool of blood.

“Hey, what the hell, man!”

“Get him!”

The rest of the group didn’t understand what had happened, but they knew the old man had done something, and they all pounced on him at once.

The men clubbed him, stabbed him with knives, and tried to kill him. The old man saw what they did. But he was not in a hurry. He just stood there.

“Gah!”

“Gghh!”

“HuURTs!”

The men thought the old man would die. But he does not receive a single wound, and the attacking men groan in pain and roll to the ground.

One man had his head caved in. The others were bleeding from their torsos. The men’s attacks get repelled by something.

[Material Reflection].

“Physical attacks are always reflected once. You should have made it a check attack.”

The old man looked down at the fallen men with a cold voice. The leader, who’s watching them without attacking, pales and looks at the old man as if he were a monster.

“Magician! Why, what’s a magician doing here!”

“Hmm, that’s for several reasons. Anyway, I have a question I’d like to ask you. Is that alright?”

“Yes, yes, anything you want to ask!”

The old man is a magician. A strong wizard who uses solid magic, the leader understood, shaking his body.

The old man stroked his white beard and squinted. He opens his mouth as if he were rolling a pebble, not caring about the fallen men.

“There’s a dungeon in this slum, isn’t there? A dungeon that you secretly manage. Isn’t that right?”

“D, dungeon? Was the dungeon your goal? But that place is bad. Even in the slums, A group of people with magicians own the dungeon.”

The man is a member of the organization that manages the dungeon. The man resents that. He’s a lowly underling, though. He never imagined the old man would ask him for pinpoint, secret information. Had the old man targeted him from the start?

“As I thought, the young lady was right. There was a dungeon. Then tell me where it is.”

The old man asks, his tone commanding and intimidating. The man shakily pulls out a knife from his pocket and throws it at the old man.

“I won’t tell you! I’ll kill you, gah.”

The knife seems to have stabbed the old man, but ripples appear in front of the old man’s body, and fresh blood flows from the man’s shoulder. Seeing the man holding his shoulder, crouching, and screaming in pain, the old man snorted in boredom.

“Either you didn’t hear me, or you don’t have a good memory. Either way, tell me where it is.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake! If I tell you, I’ll lose my life!”

“Then you will die here.”

The old man told the desperate, resisting man. The ruthless voice made him realize that he meant it.

“Wow, okay. Just don’t say I tell it to you! There’s a dungeon hidden in one of the warehouses there.”

“Hmm, thanks.”

Satisfied with his answer, the old man produced a bottle of wine from somewhere, slurped it down, and disappeared into the darkness.

“Oh, I’ve survived…”

The man, preparing himself to die, looked around in relief. His friends are lying on the ground, badly injured. At this rate, they might die.

“Heh, heh. I can’t help it. No hard feelings, guys?”

He picks up the iron pipe lying around and smiles. He’ll put the finishing touches on his friends and retrieve the gold these guys are hiding.

The weak will get eliminated. The wounded will die. That is the rule in this slum.

The man who held his shoulder and tried to kill his nearest companion made the wrong choice. He should have run away.

“Gurururururru.”

Two wolves had appeared, slinking out of the darkness. They were massive wolves. The wolves are the size of tigers. They had the eyes of beasts that were aiming at the men.

“Hey, why is there a dog here? Hiiiyyy, wait, wait.”

That line was the last thing the man spoke.

Screams echoed through the air, and the sound of chewing could be heard, but soon the sound faded into the darkness of the night.