Dealing with Paladins

“My name is Mjanomin—"

“Yeah we heard you the first time. Why the hell would we…”

“Hold on Petra, what do you want with us?”

“We just need to ask you a few questions.”

“Then why didn’t you ask us in the village?”

“You were obviously avoiding us.”

So he noticed, he feels pretty strong too. They all do. We may be in trouble here. Even if I can take four of them, I’m not sure my friends can handle the remaining four.

“I’m not sure what’s going on but you could have just waited for us to get back to the village.”

“Sigh…Hana, they’re here to kidnap us.”

“Really? That’s inconvenient.”

“You guys should stay back, I’ll take them on.”

“Don’t try to take all the glory bro, I’m gonna help out.”

“…”

“You’ll die.”

“And you won’t?”

“…”

“Of course I won’t, I can take them on at once, I hope.”

“And I can’t?”

“Dude, the three of you can’t take two of them, you’ll just slow me down.”

“No we won’t. I’m tired of you doing all the badass thi—”

“ARE YOU TWO STUPID!?!?”

“Huh?”

“What?”

“You stand before the most elite agents in the Shadow Sect, all Warrior Rank Paladins. I, myself, am a Champion Rank Paladin and as far as I’m concerned, you three aren’t even strong enough to become common adventurers. You dare to stand before us and bicker like children? What insolence!”

“We’ll take on the one blocking our route to town and escape, Masayuki, we’ll leave the rest to you.” Hana, ignoring the paladin, casually told me.

“Glad we finally came to an agreement on something. Aoyama, help Petra and I escape would you?”

“Sigh, this isn’t over man.”

“Whatever, just get out of here.”

I threw a gas bomb—I personally created using some tightly packed smoke particles, a nitroglycerin-like substance and a magic-made shell—into the air. When it exploded, Aoyama and Petra rushed the surprised paladin and killed him. Together with Hana, the three of them fled the site.

“Cough, cough, I didn’t see that coming, but it worked out for us anyway.”

“Let me guess, I was your real target all along?”

“You are very perceptive, and I believe you are the strongest in the village.”

“Yeah I know, after you take me, you’ll kill my friends to tie up loose ends, right?”

“Well there’s not much we need to discuss anyway. Seize him.”

The two paladins behind me rushed me from behind, but I had already activated my skill, {Balancer}. One of the first skills I had when I was summoned.

{Balancer}—Allows the user to fight on even footing against stronger opponents for an hour a day.(Usable when facing more than one opponent).

I grabbed the two by their necks and slammed their heads into each other. The impact instantly killed them. The leader was visibly astonished by the feat I pulled and honestly, so was I. I knew that every paladin before me had experience, more training and great equipment--by Sodorra's standards at least.

“You truly are a god kin”

“A what?”

Another paladin managed to stab me from behind without me noticing his presence. The blade avoided my vital organs and was coated in a liquid--probably a sleep inducing drug or something of the sort, but unluckily for them I already had sleep and poison immunity.

Noticing this, the leader shouted: “Charge him at once.”

As I easily evaded them, I drew out my sword and slit the paladin’s throat. The remaining four hesitated, even though their leader commanded them to attack.

“I’ll have to take matters into my own hand.”

In a flash, he was behind me. He hit me on the head with enough force to break through a wall. I figured he was trying to knock me out but it didn't feel like it worked. All I felt was the pain--the pain anyone would feel if they took a brick to the head.

As I was falling, I tilted my blade and fell on my sword. I had gotten so used to killing myself--even though I had gotten myself killed only about eight times in total since coming to this world--so doing it this time wasn't hard.

“Noo!!”

“Blrgh, I’ll be back.”

I held on to dear life until the two hundred and fortieth second when I let go.

………………

…………

……

In the Pride Dorm…

I woke up in my bed in my home, back in Japan. I knew where I was so I just got up and walked to my dad’s room.

“Dad.”

“Hey there boy, you ever wonder why you can’t say anything else when you say ‘dad’?”

“…”

Again, I couldn’t speak. I could only hear what he said.

“Like last time, I AM HERE! Hahaha, get the reference? No? Anyway, there are a few more things you need to know. The book I gave you, the one only you can open, well it has some answers that I forgot to record in your mind. They won’t make sense until you are close to the situation.”

“…”

“I’m getting off track again. This is me, back on track, whoo, you are my greatest achievement, seven million years in the making. Do not ask my age. I worked hard in the background to cultivate your mother. I had to make sure she had power, a lot of power, enough power to make any child we had unstoppable.”

“…?”

“Yes, you. I made sure she had the power of one of the three great spirits, the power of a seraphim and made sure she was chosen as a summoned one to obtain the True God divine strength. Then finally, I made sure you received my demon power, my son, you are my greatest achievement. Pride needs to have things to be proud of, you know? All the other Original Demons will be so jealous.”

“…!”

“Oh, right, well I can’t release your other powers for you. You know, the whole angel-spirit thing, but there is one who can help you with that. All you need to do, is kill the guys here and leave their bodies anywhere. This is a quick way to get weapons, armor and valuable items, plus it’s the quickest way to meet the girl who will help you unleash angelic power. You could also use the bodies to attract man-eating monsters to grind levels but hey, you do you.”

“…”

“Thanks for reminding me, whenever you die and resurrect, you unleash a massive wave of energy that attracts powerful creatures, so be careful when you decide to die just so you can double your XP. There are already some key figures that have picked up on the distortions you caused so be careful.”

The headache from before returned twice as painful.

“You’re waking up, remember this; my power will help you so stop not using it. You are my son, you should boast of your demonic power. You should abuse it anyway you like because it is your right, just look at the girl you travel with, Lust’s daughter, she uses hers so much that she'll master it before you do.”

I was being sucked out of that room but it felt like something was holding me there, worsening the pain I felt.

"Last words I'll give you are these: The next time you see the real me, I will be different--side effect of reincarnation. You will have to use my demon power to beat me before I'll acknowledge you."

With his last words, I was sucked out of the space into my body again. The energy covered my body as usual but, this time I decided to redirect all that energy into my gear. In doing so, my body felt lighter and I felt a blade coming at me from behind so I ducked instinctively.

“Impossible, my best agent is undetectable, even our god kin cant sense his presence. What in the hell are you?!”

“Me? I am Son of Pride and Zaire, demonically empowered force of nature…I think… and your death!”

“[Life Sync]!”

“Wait, stop!”

“[Hell Blaze Slice]!”

“No…!!!”

As I loaded my blade with demon flames, I sliced the invisible paladin in half, killing everyone near us instantly.

[Life Sync] is a powerful spell my dad left me in the book, which can only be used by powerful demons of at least Arch-Demon level. It connects the lives of several living beings to one. Killing anyone connected, kills all the others connected. Despite being very powerful, it can’t kill every being. Examples include high level dragons, undead beings like vampires, zombies, liches and the like.

[Hell Blaze Slice] is a special move I created myself. I charge demon flames—which are blue flames hotter than your average flames—into the sharp edge of my sword, making it burn the surface of anything it touches while making the sword cut cleaner.

“Now to check my spoils of battle before saving the others.”

I quickly took off their equipment and as I was placing them into my personal space, I noticed my level up and was surprised. The seven paladins I killed while in my revived form, gave me enough XP to reach level thirty seven. I hadn’t noticed the extra strength but it hit me when I realized I leveled up.

“Okay I’m done with that, now to check whether the others need my help.”

I moved toward the village at a leisurely pace, checking my new skills while I moved. The most powerful new skill I got was {Blur}, which allows the user to move faster than sound. Mastering {Blur} allowed one to move at light speed, automatically using one’s mana to give sight and allow one to see color.

“Hey, there you guys are!”

I found them at the entrance of the village, relaxing and chatting with the traveling merchant.

“Masayuki!”

“You ran? Chump move, bro!”

“You killed them?!”

“Let’s go register already.”

“No answers?”

“Yeah, he ran.”

“Yeah, he killed them.”

We left the entrance for the guild after they finished bargaining with the merchant.

“We are here.”

Aoyama announced when we entered.

“Masayuki, you’re finally here to register?”

“Yeah, finally, you feeling impatient Cindy?”

“Naa, you just drew it out too long.”

“When did you learn each other’s names?”

“So, how do we register?”

“Just gonna ignore me?”

“Well, you have to register individually before you can register as a team. To register individually, you’ll have to place your hand on this—”

She pulled out a wooden orb from somewhere down under.

“It changes from wood to glass if you’re at least level five, wood to copper when level ten, wood to silver when level fifteen, wood to platinum when level twenty one, wood to gold when level thirty six, wood to orichalcum when level is forty six and wood to adamantine if you’re able to hit level sixty one and above.”

“Let’s start then, you guys should go relax while I finish my regis—”

“Hold it right there, you’re gonna have to use your real level for the registering.”

“She’s right, we want to know your level.”

“Yeah man, the girls are right, show us your level first.”

“…Umu, not to interrupt but, you guys do know that you’ll be able to tell his rank by the guild badge he’ll be wearing later.”

“Oh. Right. Well we’ll be waiting over there then.”

“See you in a while bro.”

“…”

“Sigh, so do I have to wear the badge?”

“Sorry Masayuki, but it’s required.”

“Fine let’s get this over with.”

I placed my hands on the wooden orb and waited for it to turn gold.

“This is strange.”

After half a minute the orb started glowing. Changing colors, it was very bright. Realizing what it was, I took off my gloves.

“Oh sorry. That was my degenerate skill.”

“Ah yes, the skill that hides your level. You bought the high level one or you just upgraded a low level one.”

“The latter. It gets stronger when I level up, plus I pour loads of mana into this thing everyday.”

With my gloves off, the orb changed to gold instantly. The adventurer, currently taking a quest from the representative on my right, had his eyes glued to the orb.

“Cindy, could you—”

“Incredible! You’d have to kill a dragon to go up so many levels in just two weeks and three days, what have you been doing out there? With these stats, you could easily climb the ranks to become a hero in about twenty years, that's amazing ”

“My badge?”

“ Huh? Oh I have to ask a few questions first. It won't take long.”

“Sigh…”