Blood ran cold. Life drained away. Arnold forced his emotions to flare, trying to fight back against a chill he rarely felt even in the land of mist, and glared at the man before him.
Barrel…!?
The name rang a bell. It was the target of the Thousand Transformations' designated request—the one Ruda and the others had talked about.
The Barrel Bandit Group. They'd been causing a stir throughout Gradius territory lately.
But the men surrounding the Thunder Dragon of the Mist were clearly far beyond the scope of ordinary bandits.
Back in Arnold's homeland, thieves were criminals who preyed on reckless travelers walking without guards or on weaker targets like merchant caravans.
Most of them were far weaker than Treasure Hunters, and even the most notorious bandit groups were several grades below Hunters. Arnold had crossed paths with them plenty of times himself.
But Barrel was different.
The scale was different. The capability was different. The strength was different. An organization that could field trained men and women of all ages in large numbers. And the sheer meticulousness—they'd actually landed a hit on Arnold, and had even coated their weapon with poison. Granted it was only a graze, but still.
If the target had been some small farming village, maybe. But Surusu was a sizable town. Its defenses weren't particularly strong, true, but it wasn't the kind of place you could just waltz into and attack.
Even Ei seemed caught off guard, her expression sharp as she scanned for openings in the enemy formation.
"Hah… hah… You've gotta be kidding… The thieves in Zeburdia are… on this level?"
When he'd heard the Level 8 designated request was a bandit extermination job, he'd assumed there was some ulterior motive. But seeing their methodology, a Level 8 assignment made perfect sense.
The poison was gnawing at Arnold's entire body, even with his high resistance. His heart throbbed with each pulse, and his strength seeped away with every passing second.
This was a seriously potent poison. That he hadn't died instantly was nothing short of a miracle.
The man sniffed disdainfully at Arnold, who could barely manage words between ragged breaths.
"Huh? We're Barrel—we're tough as hell! Don't lump us in with some backwater bandit group. We're invincible! Perfect strategy, perfect coordination, strongest leader—defeat is impossible! And once we crush the famous Thousand Transformations of the imperial capital, we'll leap to the next level!!"
The words were far too arrogant for a common bandit to spout.
But there was no uncertainty in the man's expression. He was convinced of his victory, like an absolute powerhouse who brooked no doubt.
"…Do you… really think… you can win!?"
"Unless we're damn sure we'll win, Barrel doesn't move! …Hey, what are you lot doing!? The boss said to尽量 avoid killing residents—you might need them as hostages! Just restrain them! You can do whatever you want after we've killed Thousand Transformations! The guys defending this place were never going to amount to much anyway!"
The man turned and bellowed toward the guard post near the gate behind him.
Hostages. A valid tactic in certain situations.
Treasure Hunters were, at their core, defenders of justice. For Thousand Transformations, whose name was widely known throughout the imperial capital, the impact would be enormous. Even if they broke through the siege by ignoring the hostages, the stigma would be inescapable.
Whether that would be enough to rattle that always-nonchalant man, though—Arnold couldn't imagine it would.
Ei's gaze came toward him. There was no particular signal, but he understood what she was saying.
They could only run now. There were too many enemies, and if every last one of them wielded poisoned weapons, things would get dire fast. They needed to pull back, reassess the situation, and reorganize.
The fact that the enemy wasn't rushing in immediately was probably because time was on their side. The man who'd launched the poisoned knife attack was arrogant, but he understood Arnold's strength well. He'd confirmed that Arnold could no longer stand before tightening the encirclement in earnest.
They'd been underestimated. Arnold bit down hard on his tongue and squeezed the hand gripping his sword hilt.
His fingers trembled. His arm trembled. It felt as though his body no longer belonged to him.
But—he could still swing. He could still swing his sword. That was precisely why he was Level 7.
Arnold let out a hoarse roar and raised the greatsword he'd been using to support his body.
"U-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O!"
"What!?"
The man's eyes went wide, shock spreading across his face as he stumbled backward.
The sword forged from Thunder Dragon materials—Mighty Thunder Flash—answered its master's call, wreathing itself in lightning.
One strike. He could only unleash one strike. Once he brought it down, he'd never be able to lift it again.
He berated his trembling, weakened body and poured every last ounce of strength into it. His golden eyes blazed with a fierce light that betrayed no weakness.
And then—Arnold drove into the ground the most powerful strike he could muster in his current state.
Even in his weakened state, Arnold's blow carried formidable power.
With a thunderous roar, the stone pavement shattered and erupted outward, and the blinding flash that engulfed the surroundings forced the man and the bandits surrounding them back several steps.
By that point, Ei had already threaded her arm under Arnold's shoulder, propping him up.
All strength left both hands, and the greatsword clattered to the ground. By then, one of Arnold's allied Mages had already summoned a dense fog that engulfed the area—a wall of mist so thick you couldn't see an inch ahead, enough to render anyone unaccustomed to it incapable of moving properly.
Of course, Arnold and his companions were well accustomed to such conditions. They hailed from the land of mist, after all.
A top-tier Treasure Hunter always had at least one means of escape.
Panicked voices could be heard from beyond the thick, milky-white fog. Arnold moved as Ei dragged him along.
This was a desperate situation. It cut him to the core, but he had no choice but to abandon his beloved sword.
Carried on her shoulder, barely breathing, he managed one last defiant snarl.
"Just… you wait. I'll make you… regret this."
"My, my—even in this state, you're still Arnold, through and through. Not sure whether to be impressed or what. Where should we head?"
He couldn't tell what was happening around them, but his allies were surely following close behind. In terms of spatial awareness and perception within fog, no one could surpass the warriors of Nebulnes.
To that voice carrying equal parts exasperation and admiration, Arnold answered without hesitation.
"Outside is… no good. Infuriating… but get me to… Thousand Transformations… to that man…"
That man had said earlier that his way was to never let anyone escape the city. If that was the case, he'd surely placed lookouts beyond the members who were present at the scene.
This was no ordinary bandit group. Arnold's anger toward Thousand Transformations hadn't subsided, but he wasn't about to misread the situation.
An enemy's enemy was… still an enemy.
"Yes, sir. I figured you'd say that, Arnold."
Ei wore her usual inscrutable grin, readjusted her grip on Arnold's massive frame with ease, and set off at a brisk walk.
§ Tino regulated her breathing. She swallowed the frustration welling up inside her at how poorly things were going and unleashed fluid slashing strikes fueled by sheer fighting spirit.
The battle had become a stalemate far beyond what she'd imagined. The enemy was individually weaker, but they had numbers on their side. Tino was at a disadvantage, and the moment the opponents resorted to hit-and-run tactics, she simply lacked the finishing blow to end it.
She'd already stripped off the yukata she'd so carefully chosen. The defensive value of a yukata was negligible anyway, and it hindered her footwork—which could be fatal. When everyone around you was an enemy, fighting in your underwear was nothing to be embarrassed about.
The stark contrast between her fair skin and the black undergarments she'd bought on a shopping trip with her sister was vivid. Her figure, modest by average standards, swayed with the violent motion of combat as beads of sweat slid down her snow-white skin.
"You're something, aren't you!"
Tino didn't answer.
She lunged forward, and the woman who'd deflected the overhead slash with a short sword of her own—having also shed her yukata to reveal a slash-resistant vest beneath—stumbled back several steps to create distance. Three men who'd engaged her in close combat already lay sprawled on the ground, but seven remained.
More than enough time had already elapsed. No—from the very start, Tino understood that she couldn't finish them off quickly enough.
She was being staled. They'd realized that taking her down directly would cost them too many casualties, so they'd switched tactics.
Their fighting style was built around leveraging numerical superiority. They were accustomed to fighting opponents stronger than themselves. More precisely, they were accustomed to winning by any means necessary.
Tino bit her lip but didn't stop moving. Retreat was impossible.
She couldn't turn her back. She was already thoroughly surrounded.
If she turned around, knives would fly. Setting power aside, their accuracy was reliable. The chance of them being poisoned was also high. She absolutely could not afford to be hit.
Tino was stronger than anyone in the encirclement, but she didn't possess the speed of Peerless Shadow.
However, Tino had her own reinforcements—her sister and Citry.
The attackers before her were likely members of a large-scale organization. Once her sister and Citry noticed something was wrong, they would surely come to Mastaa's aid first and foremost. The woman before her had claimed to have captured the two from the Mourning Specter, but there was no way her supremely skilled sisters—far beyond anything Tino could compare to—would lose. And Mastaa went without saying.
A knife flying in from the right—she deflected it with her short sword, careful not to let the blade touch it, then ducked beneath a knife launched from the difficult-to-avoid left side and slipped past it.
Her sister's spartan training regimen included countermeasures against ranged attacks as well. It only happened when Anthem, their Healer brother, was present, but Tino had been sliced to ribbons by thrown knives countless times. And Peerless Shadow's throwing speed was incomparably faster than these attackers'.
Compared to that hellish training, the movements before her now might as well have been standing still.
She was confident in her evasion skills. And that was an essential ability for fighting solo.
"So you really are the Mourning Specter they talk about?"
"Don't underestimate me!"
"Those are some inhuman stamina reserves."
She didn't lose her composure. The more pressure she was under, the sharper her focus became.
She'd been beaten half to death over and over throughout her life. She'd genuinely believed she was going to die more times than she could count.
The woman's movements were slowing. Unlike Tino, she'd never been forced to run until she collapsed every single day. She probably hadn't been told that Mana Materials were best absorbed in crisis situations, and she'd never been subjected to the hellish game of real tag inside the Treasure Hall where getting captured meant a sound beating.
Tino's body remembered how to move the way it had when wearing the mask. But it wasn't enough. She lacked power.
Back then, the weight of each of Tino's strikes had been on an entirely different level. If the mask's ability was to draw out latent potential, then Tino still had room to grow.
As Tino showed zero signs of slowing, the woman's cocky composure began to crack with traces of panic. A kick grazed her stomach, and she flinched violently backward to avoid a straight punch from Tino. Tino sensed genuine fear in that movement.
Everything she'd been through—her sister's lessons, Mastaa's teachings—had given Tino her strength.
She could do this. She flowed forward, pressing the attack.
A knife thrown by a comrade from the flank was aimed perfectly at Tino's blind spot, but she evaded it on sound alone. Her kick pierced through the stomach covered by the black vest, and the glinting short sword bit shallowly into the woman's shoulder.
Pain flickered across the woman's face. Dark red blood trailed down her white skin.
"If all of you drop your weapons and surrender, I won't take your lives."
"Don't be so—naive—"
She could win. He'd called her naive, but Tino still hadn't grown accustomed to killing the way her sisters had.
She had no intention of hesitating, of course. Monsters and people—they were all living things. But if she could avoid killing, that was better than the alternative.
The woman bit her lip under Tino's unwavering glare, as though pressured by sheer force of will. Then, suddenly, a voice came from behind.
"Hey, move out! We've captured Thousand Transformations!"
"What!?"
The voice was unexpected. The shock lasted only an instant.
The moment she turned, the woman body-slammed her, and Tino hit the floor.
Had she been stabbed? A searing heat ran through her abdomen. But Tino had no composure to spare for that—she raised her head.
What entered her vision was a thin man with both hands bound, a cloth bag over his head, being led away by five men. His mouth was gagged; he tried to cry out but couldn't produce a sound.
Beyond this spot, there were… more allies? She'd anticipated reinforcements, but she never imagined they'd already been searching the inn— She tried to spring to her feet by reflex, but a sharp pain lancing through her abdomen made her vision blur. She'd been stabbed countless times before, but this pain was different from the usual. Just as she'd suspected—the blade had been coated with poison.
She'd let her guard down. There was no way she could move the way she had before.
The woman pressing down on her shoulder looked at her with a puzzled expression.
"That easy? Are you really… Thousand Transformations?"
"We've checked every room. There are no other guests. No mistake!"
"Well done! Sorry about this—but your leader is ours."
The woman's eyes widened, and a savage grin spread across her face.
Their retreat was as swift as their arrival. The women filed out through the entrance like a receding tide.
Tino could do nothing but watch them go in a daze.
§ § § "Maybe I should put a hot spring bath in the Clan House, too… Would Eva get mad at me…? Would Lucia scold me?"
Bobbing lazily in the warm water, I let out a massive yawn and rubbed my eyes.