Wandering Mercenary in an Open World
chapter-64

“You caught him? Hey, what the hell is going on here? There were only two options. He gets hit in the head or in the chest.”

As soon as someone asked this absurd question, a roar erupted from all directions.

“Obviously, it’s the chest! Can’t you see he hooked him from the chest?”

“What does it matter where he hit him? He didn’t even hit him in the first place. You’re such a glutton. Is his head just for decoration?”

“What? Are you done talking? Do you want me to gouge out your remaining eye?”

What are they trying to do?

The situation was so ridiculous that Ruon deliberately stood still and watched them.

The inn in the quiet countryside village was occupied by a bunch of men who reeked of sour sweat. Judging by their fierce expressions and the large scars all over their bodies, they looked like mercenaries or something similar.

Suddenly, a man whose back was facing Ruon slammed the bottle he was holding onto the table.

With a loud clang, the glass and its contents scattered in all directions, and the noisy inn quickly fell silent.

“Damn bastards, ruining the taste of my drink…”

The man muttered in a hoarse voice as he slowly turned around. He spat out a phlegm with his chubby face and wiped his moist lips with the back of his hand. He said,

“Who was the bastard who threw the dagger?”

“I did, boss.”

The man who answered raised his hand and cautiously approached the pig who was called the boss.

“How stupidly did you throw it that you couldn’t even hit properly and caused this mess? Huh?”

The man lowered his head at the pig’s words, mixed with anger and pain.

“I threw it correctly.”

“You’re talking back to me?”

“Ah, no, boss, that’s not it…”

Before he could even finish his excuse, the man’s body flew backwards. He groaned as he hit the floor hard.

“How dare you talk back to me? Do you want to die?”

The boss wiped his blood-stained fist on his pants casually. He still stood at the entrance, facing Ruon who was also standing there.

“Hey, big guy. Our boys play a bit rough, don’t they? But you’re lucky. You saved your life thanks to that weakling’s turn.”

His henchmen started to laugh loudly and rowdily. They looked strangely unhinged. The boss smiled smugly and continued to speak.

“I’m feeling very good today. I caught the rat that was running away stubbornly. It feels like I’ve lost ten years of weight.”

He said, patting his bulging belly.

“So, just get lost while I’m being nice. I promise I won’t chase you if you do. I swear on my name.”

The boss said, making a gesture of putting his thumb on his tongue and his pinky on his forehead. Laughter erupted from all sides.

I should just get rid of him.

Leon sighed lightly and twirled the dagger in his hand. He had been watching quietly until now, but he didn’t want to play along with this childish farce anymore.

“Hey.”

As soon as the boss turned his head at the cold voice, a dagger flew through the air and buried itself deep into his shoulder.

He fell back with a sound like a pig being slaughtered, writhing in pain.

“Shit!”

His men jumped up from their seats, either out of anger at their boss being attacked, or out of reflex, or both. But they didn’t know who they were dealing with.

“What a coward you are!”

“You want to die, do you want me to kill you?”

Ruon strode into the room, curses dripping from one ear to the other, his fists outstretched lightly. But the result was anything but light.

The man’s face fell to the floor, unable to make a sound.

Grabbing the arm of the other man who lunged at him, Ruon picked him up and threw him to the ground. Despite the insane feat of throwing a full-grown man with only one arm, Piggy’s men pounced, one after the other.

Was he drugged?

Looking into their faces, with their slightly dilated pupils and uncanny heat, Ruon immediately swung his fists.

He smashed, snapped, twisted, and threw three or four times, and by the time he was done, none of them were charging at him anymore.

None of them were dead as they lay on the ground like garbage. Ruon had been careful to control his power. But his recent levelling had pushed him past the superhuman threshold, and controlling his strength wasn’t enough to keep him safe.

Passing by men so maimed they would have to live with the scars for the rest of their lives, Ruon grabbed the quivering pig by the scruff of the neck and asked.

“So what’s your name?”

His crotch dampened at the sound of the high-pitched voice.

“Far, Pablo.”

Ruon said, studying the interior of the inn in silence for a moment.

“Yes, Pablo. Where is the innkeeper?”

Unable to answer, Pablo’s eyes flickered towards the kitchen for a moment before returning to their original position. Not missing it, Ruon immediately grabbed his thick ankle and yanked.

Woof!

“Off!”

After breaking the ankle of his opponent, who couldn’t even think of escaping, Ruon headed straight to the kitchen.

It wasn’t hard to find the innkeeper. There he was, leaning on the kitchen table and gasping for air. Blood was gushing from his clenched stomach.

“Wh-who are you?”

Instead of answering, Ruon took off his backpack and rummaged through it. A moment later, he held a small bottle filled with red liquid in his hand.

Good thing I brought this.

It was a potion he had stored deep in his backpack, since he had no reason to use it after meeting Igor.

“Move your hand.”

He flicked his finger to open the cap and poured the contents over the wound without hesitation. Then, a hissing sound and smoke rose, and the blood that had been flowing steadily began to slow down.

The innkeeper, who had been biting his lip and enduring the pain, nodded his head gratefully at Ruon, who threw the empty bottle away.

“Th-thank you. Thank you so much.”

“Save your thanks. What’s going on?”

When the innkeeper hesitated with a nervous expression, Ruon added in a calm tone.

“I’ve taken care of the bastards outside, so you can speak freely.”

The innkeeper swallowed his saliva and opened his mouth.

“They’re human hunters.”

Human hunters?

Ruon’s brow furrowed naturally. And no wonder, for ‘human hunters’ were one of the most notorious beings in this world, where all kinds of trashy humans ran rampant.

They did various things.

Killing, kidnapping, selling, or playing with people who were drugged. He wasn’t sure if those could be called jobs.

I should have just killed them all.

He muttered to himself.

“Did those scum target you?”

“No. I just overheard them.”

“Then how did you end up with a knife in your stomach?”

“That’s because they tried to touch my daughter…”

The innkeeper’s eyes widened as he spoke.

“My daughter upstairs…”

Ruon got up quickly. He walked out of the kitchen and stepped on the back of Pablo’s hand, who was crawling with one arm, and crushed it. Then, he went up the stairs to the second floor.

At the end of the short corridor, a man was leaning on the door and dozing off. He must have been drugged, since he didn’t notice the commotion downstairs. Ruon walked over and kicked him without hesitation.

Crash-!

The man, who was kicked in the chest, broke the door and fell into the room. Ruon ignored him, who was vomiting blood, and approached the bed. There, a woman was lying with her hands and ankles tied, blinking her eyes anxiously.

He removed the gag from her mouth, and she licked her lips cautiously.

“Is my father okay?”

“He’s fine. How about you?”

“I’m okay. Nothing happened to me.”

“That’s good.”

As he untied the ropes, the woman stared intently at Ruon and asked.

“Who are you…”

Ruon sighed lightly and muttered.

“A guest.”

***

The matter was quickly settled.

The village’s self-defense force, composed of sturdy young men, rushed into the inn after hearing the screams, and they found the men who were horribly mutilated.

Ruon, who was coming down from the second floor, explained the situation to the self-defense force members, who were rolling their eyes in disbelief.

The innkeeper, who came out of the kitchen with his daughter’s support, backed up his story, and the young men, who finally understood what was going on, dragged the hunters out of the floor with fury.

One of the young men was engaged to the innkeeper’s daughter, so it was unlikely that the hunters would survive. They wouldn’t let go of the bastards who tried to defile their wives.

Ruon found it amusing. Who would have expected that the men who had a bad reputation would be beaten to death by the village’s young men?

“You find it funny?”

Pablo glared at Ruon with bloodshot eyes, as he asked curtly. What?

With a snap, his head turned and yellow teeth spilled out of his mouth.

“Hey, wait.”

Before Pablo, who was dazed by the slap, could open his mouth, a spark flew from the other cheek.

“Ugh!”

He spat out blood on the floor, and he lifted his head with a few teeth left, gritting them. Then, he shuddered as if he had been struck by lightning.

Pablo, who had lived as a ‘human hunter’ and stained his hands with blood, could feel it.

The smell of blood that came from behind Ruon’s calm eyes.

“Y-you’re a hunter too?”

He only saw what he wanted to see.

With a sneer, Ruon leaned back on the chair’s backrest. He and Pablo were the only ones in the small room. He had borrowed the room from the owner, thinking there was something to dig out.

Ruon said,

“Why does that matter now?”

“It’s, it’s important.”

“Explain.”

“I need to know if you’re a hunter first… Agh!”

Before he could finish his sentence, he twisted his body as his instep was stepped on.

Ruon chose to put more force on his toes instead of making empty threats. As a creaking sound came from the foot pressed by the tremendous force, Pablo screamed.

“A-ah! I’ll, I’ll talk! Stop! Stop! Please!”

Only then did Ruon ease his strength and tilt his head.

“Talk.”

“I, I had a connection with a witch and got a contract from her. She wanted me to catch a fairy girl. We, we’re experts at kidnapping people…”

He tried to glance at Ruon with a vague end to his sentence, but he quickly continued his words when he was startled by the indifferent eyes.

“Not only us, but all the scum in this place got the message. I don’t know what’s so valuable about that tattooed guy… Anyway, we were the lucky ones in the end.”

Ruon watched Pablo catch his breath for a moment and asked.

“Is that rat you caught earlier the fairy?”

Pablo nodded his head, shivering.

“Where is the fairy?”

“I was afraid of getting suspicious if I brought her into the village… I sent some of my men to a cave nearby…”

A witch.

Ruon bit his lower lip and pondered for a while. His intuition, honed by years of wandering, told him that there was something about this matter. Of course, his final destination was the Grand Cathedral of Ganak, but he couldn’t cut everything off with a knife.

Besides, wasn’t he involved with Hella, the crazy witch?

Ruon, whose thoughts reached that point, looked straight into Pablo’s eyes and said.

“Lead me to that cave.”