Chapter 5

Haring heard the details along the way. They had proposed an on-site inspection of the slave incident to Mirka, which allowed for Haring to be temporarily released. They would have to return him before the deadline lest they suffer heavy penalties themselves.

And...Haring also understood why Yuri had said he needed him. It was—

“Good of you to come here, eh Haring?”

He heard a sticky voice from the shadows. Navie the Tormentor appeared, raising the corners of his lips.

“I wasn’t expecting you, you know? Aren’t you supposed to be in the slammer?”

“...It ain’t anythin’ special. See, I’m leavin’ the city anyway, so I just asked a nice receptionist for permission to pack my bags,” Haring replied as he lowered the cloth bag slung over his shoulder to the ground.

They were currently on the first floor of the purgatory district’s forest dungeon.

Unless they were from a nocturnal race, it was rare for duelists to enter the dungeons at night. If they ran into monsters while visibility was limited, even the weaker ones could prove to be a threat. Additionally, hardly anyone stopped to hunt or collect resources on the very first floor, and there was no point in anyone setting up camp there. As the monsters were already hunted thin by the duelists who pressed on, there would be nothing to get between them.

That was why Haring had designated the dungeon to call Navie out.

“Oh really... So you want me to help you get your things in order?” Navie directed a spiteful look at Haring’s bag.

Haring made sure he was looking before opening it. Glistening brilliantly in the dark—a mountain of gold coins.

“This is everythin’ I own, everythin’ I’ve managed to save up. It should be more than enough; now you fulfill your end of the bargain.”

“Bargain? Did we have something like that?”

Haring could feel his anger flare up as he watched Navie play dumb, but he calmly kept his emotions in check.

“Those kids you still have under contract—I’m buyin’ the lot of them.”

The moment he heard those words, Navie could bear it no longer and burst into laughter.

“Hya—hahahahah! Oi, seriously? You really got it!? I was sure it was impossible for you, so I threw out a ridiculous ten million, but you really got it!? Even I’m surprised!” Navie held his stomach as he stared at the fortune placed before him.

Haring had definitely done some unreasonable things to gather this money. He trudged through the dungeon collecting materials day in and day out, and if he saw any duelist with anything valuable, he would challenge them, no matter who they were. Naturally, this pitted him against duelists far stronger than himself, and it was thanks to this that he had lost his rank before.

Haring threw out another bag. “And these here are the materials I got back from the brat who lashed out at you... It’s stuffed full of magic ores from the bottom floor. I know you ain’t an honest man, but all this together puts me at twenty million. Feel like sellin’ yet?”

“I see... If you’re going that far, you leave me with no choice but to hear you out.”

A gurgling giggle at the back of his throat, Navie spread his arms in an exaggerated display.

“To be honest, Haring, I had a pretty high opinion of you. I caught wind of a guy who would do anything for money, and the rumors didn’t lie. You really would do aaaanything. You cheated other duelists, you ambushed them in the dungeon at night, and you snatched all their materials... And when it came to watching those kids, you know?”

Navie was right. When Haring first came to the duel city, he needed money no matter what. A young girl who was practically family to him fought for his sake. He needed the money to treat her...and would do whatever it took to get it.

He used other duelists as stepping stones. He knowingly carried out the jobs from Navie without hesitation. Once, he put the abducted children to work, circulating their handicrafts to swindlers to rake in money from the sightseeing district. Once, he drove all the duelists from a floor so the kids could harvest materials for days without rest. That was his job, so he would fulfill his duty.

“That’s why I didn’t put you under contract. You’d do what I said as long as I paid, and you were always exceeding my expectations. I didn’t want to ruin what we had.”

Navie’s followers all exchanged a contract which stated they were “forbidden from taking any actions that will prove disadvantageous to Navie Ionesca.” It was unclear whether this was carried out through negotiation or threats, but it was because of this contract that Navie’s men followed his every word.

“I know a few things happened between us, okay. When you let that bitch get away, I’ll be honest, I was thinking up all sorts of ways to murder you, but...you didn’t say a word about me. That’s why I let you do as you please.”

After Haring let a girl get away, he didn’t offer a word of testimony. He knew that even if he did say something, a man as cautious as Navie wouldn’t leave a shred of evidence. And he knew if Navie ever learned of his testimony, the man would either force him into a contract or use every means at his disposal to seal his mouth.

He had...already seen those who lost their lives to keep their lips tight. That was why Haring refused to say a thing. He had to, if he wanted to honor his promise.

“If you join me again, I wouldn’t mind saving you,” Navie proposed with a chuckle.

But Haring knew him too well for that. “That’s what you said...when you killed her brother, isn’t it?”

The captured girl once had a little brother. They were determined to become duelists, both brother and sister, and came to the duel city together. That’s what she told him. Despite being placed in a bad situation, they endured it by supporting and encouraging one another.

But, one day, when they returned from a dungeon...the brother was gone. Only the sister stood, stock still, her mind not quite there.

“Oh...I think there was a kid like that? You weren’t around, so I took them to the dungeon myself, and they just kept bleating all sorts of annoying noises...”

He had heard the details from the girl. Having been forced to work without rest, the children were at their limit. Seeing the girl collapse, the boy begged Navie to give her some rest.

“Sure, I’ll save you,” Navie said. And then—

“—I think I shoved him into a monster nest after that.”

There was no way a newcomer who hadn’t been a duelist for long, who hadn’t received any decent combat experience since coming to the city, could properly take on monsters.

“Right, right, that was the best! ‘Save me, save me please!’ The sound kept coming from the hole like a broken record! All those other rebellious kids got all quiet all of a sudden; it was just what I needed. I sure as hell felt saved.”

He chuckled, speaking of his terrifying deeds with pride.

“But hey, I diiid step in and save him around the time the monsters had eaten through his arms and legs. Gave him medical treatment and everything. Unfortunately, he was completely broken from the shock, so I had to sell him off to someone who was into that sort of thing. Those kids are valuable merchandise to me.”

Like that, the little brother had died. Not as a lifeform; his dignity was trampled into the ground, his spirit rotted away through fear and pain. He had died as a duelist, as a person.

“...Sold him off, eh,” Haring repeated, sticking a hand into his pocket.

Once upon a time, the girl asked Haring, “Why are you doing this to us?” to which Haring replied, “I’ll do any job I’ve been paid for.” So the girl made a plea.

“I’ve...put this job off for quite a long time.”

Her hand quivered as she handed over the copper coin that day. A coin she had desperately searched for, her younger brother in mind.

She entrusted Haring with two requests. The first: she wanted to save the captured children. And if he wanted to carry out the other one, he would first need to see the children saved. Once the children were extracted, their safety secured from the threat that was Navie, he could finally carry out that request.

However...Haring’s comrades had taken over that part of the job.

“Looks like I can finally get to work.” Haring flipped the coin high into the air. “I’m here to beat the shit outta you, Navie Ionesca.”

The moment he said that, Navie’s cheeks nearly burst from laughing.

“Oh, oh I see! So that’s why you called me out to the dungeon.” He jovially hit his hands together again and again.

If they were temporarily away from the duel city, in a situation which would leave no evidence or witnesses, death could be written off as the result of a monster attack. An accident.

But that was all within Navie’s expectations.

“You sure are stupid...Haring. When I’ve used similar methods to murder idiots before, there’s no way I came here alone.”

Those words as the signal, silhouettes emerged from the dark behind Navie. One, two, three...more than ten of them. Navie’s tag-alongs circled around to cut off Haring’s path of escape.

“Now then... You came all the way here to rant at me. You’d prefer it if I took you on directly, wouldn’t you?”

His arms spread out, Navie smiled.

“It’s time to play—Nix Negate.”

The shadow that stretched out behind him squirmed. Bit by bit, it gained a definite outline and mass, creeping up in the shape of arms. Two massive shadow hands.

This was the Demon Tribe’s Tribe Skill: Familiar. An ability to create faithful servants who lived off the mana of their wielder.

“How about a game of tag?”

The massive arms launched at Haring, but Haring managed to react before they got the chance.

“That garbage attack ain’t gonna work!”

Haring smacked the ground, causing a mass of earth to form right before his eyes. This was an application of Dragonification.

The fundamentals of the Dragon Tribe’s Dragonification wasn’t simply to transform one’s self into a dragon. It was grounded in manipulating and reforming the basic elements. Dragonification was little more than the application of this concept to reform oneself as a dragon.

Haring chose to transmute an earthen wall to defend himself. However, a shadow arm appeared right in front of him like it had slipped through his wall entirely.

“What!?”

He reflexively raised his arms to guard, but the weight of the blow caused his large body to stagger back.

“Dammit...! They’re just as slippery as their master...!” Haring groaned as he held back the shadow hand that wouldn’t stop forcing its way towards him.

He had definitely erected a wall to block. But the arm had crept up from the shadow of the wall. A Familiar that could freely move within shadows.

“What now? What’s wrong? You like arm wrestling more than tag?”

The pushing arm was growing stronger, and Haring’s braced legs were sinking into the ground.

“I ain’t here to play around!” Aiming for the moment the hand grew stronger, Haring twisted his body. Having lost its oppositional force, the shadow hand shot off behind him. But, not a moment later, a different arm stabbed him in the back.

“......!?”

Without any proper means to block it, Haring fell flat on the ground.

“Hey, hey, heeey! Did you forget I showed you two of them at the start? Just how idiotic can you be, Haring?” He boisterously drummed the two hands against the ground, as if to rile Haring up.

By no means had Haring forgotten about the second hand. When he dodged, he made sure to keep wary of it.

“Nix Negate loves to play in the shadows...and it doesn’t care whose shadow it is.”

No matter how experienced a fighter was, there would always be a blind spot in their field of vision. It wasn’t easy to deal with attacks that came from right behind.

“Tsk... No wonder they call you the Tormentor.”

His opponent used attacks that slipped through defenses and attacked from blind spots. It wouldn’t be wise to take him head-on. But that much wasn’t a problem.

“...I got a feel for the strength of your Familiar.” Haring smiled and smacked his gauntlets together. “That puny hit ain’t enough to damage me.”

The stalwart bodies of the Dragon Tribe were not just for show. Their characteristic steel bones covered in hefty muscles were made to take a hit.

“Dragonification.”

With a quiet murmur, Haring’s body was cloaked in sand. He remained small. While his arms had swelled under their metal protectors, he was smaller now than he had ever been, the way he stood on two legs truly fitting of the term dragonkin.

“Hey, hey, what part of that is Dragonification? All I see is a sad little lizard.”

Navie’s followers similarly showered him with sneers.

Haring banged his gauntlets together. “Quit blabberin’ and come at me already—worthless worm.”

Seeing Haring take his stance, Navie’s expression bent in irritation. “I see... Then croak already!”

It took only a jerk of his chin for the two shadow arms to fly at Haring. And—all of a sudden, one of them was gone.

But Haring already understood the shadow mechanics of Nix Negate.

“Raaaaaah!!” He swung his fist straight at the lone flying arm. When the shadowy specter came into contact with his fist enhanced by an armor of sand, it let off a bizarre sound before being shot off course. Haring used the forward momentum from his punch to take a large leap. The arm hidden in his shadow sliced through thin air.

“—Fucking hell!” Navie cried as he hurriedly called his arms back.

But it was already too late. Haring had removed as much excess as he could. His current form was built for speed, and the shadow arms weren’t able to keep up.

“Your arms have to move from shadow to shadow.”

That was why Navie’s first blow was carried out with only one arm. As one flew, the other hid inside of its shadow. Once the first arm was close enough to the enemy, the hiding arm shifted to their shadow to launch a surprise attack.

And now, both arms were stuck in the air. There was no worry of a sneak attack; they wouldn’t be able to catch him.

“Here’s that first blow.”

Haring stared straight at Navie as he grew closer and closer, putting power into his fist. He hammered the strongest blow he could muster into the man’s lanky body.

“—Waaaaaaaah!?” Navie let out a pathetic shriek as he was blown back, the gold coins from the sack scattered into the night air.

Haring let out a light breath.

The fallen Navie showed no signs of getting up.

The Demon Tribe were physically weak, second only to the Spirit Tribe in terms of frailty. Without their Familiars for defense, even a single strike could prove fatal. He wouldn’t be able to stand after taking a blow from the Dragon Tribe, let alone in a Dragonified state.

But it wasn’t over yet.

“I’m far from through with you.”

He took a step towards Navie. Just one punch wasn’t enough to contain his rage.

“I’ll keep beatin’ you ’til you’re a bloody pulp...!”

As the flames of wrath blazed, and he approached a fallen Navie step by step—something suddenly grasped his leg. He looked down. His right leg was in the grip of an arm growing from his shadow.

“Just kidding!”

The moment he heard that irksome voice, Haring’s right leg was crushed in its grasp.

“Gah—aaaaaaaaaaaaah!!”

The creaking sound of something cracking resounded throughout his body, and Haring cried out in dismay. All the while, Navie stood, brushing the dirt off his clothing.

“Nice, nice, very nice! That voice, that expression! The despair that comes after convincing yourself you’ve won is the best.” He chuckled to himself in a mad frenzy—it was as if he had lost his mind. The two shadow arms floating in the air began to clap at Haring’s sorry state.

“A-A third one...!” Haring squeezed out, staring at the new arm grasping his leg.

In a complete reversal, Navie now sauntered over to a toppled Haring. “You’re pretty stupid, you know... I told you I started off with two. I never said that was all I had.”

Navie’s throat gurgled again after he kicked Haring in the face. The arms began to creep up from his shadow. They gathered around Navie like swarming flies.

“You really are an idiot.”

Eight shadow arms took to the sky. They grabbed Haring’s limbs and fastened him to the air.

“Let me guess what’s on your mind. You thought I’m the sorta guy who earned all his rate through underhanded means. That my rank’s just a decoration, right?”

He smiled wide as he admired his own handiwork keeping Haring in place.

“What if I told you I’m a genuine Adamant?”

Again came the jarring, cracking sounds of breaking bones. As his body was helplessly crushed in Navie’s grasp, a trickle of blood dripped from his mouth.

“Y...you...godforsaken...!!”

“Hya—hahahahahah! Pretty talkative for a guy with one foot in the grave.”

Slowly, slowly, the shadow arms increased in strength to inflict as much suffering as possible. It kept going on for what seemed like an eternity. He could still hear those wretched, painful sounds break out intermittently from different parts of his body. Navie was a man well-versed in torture, who knew how much it took to fully break someone. He was going to take his sweet time to reach that point.

Still, Haring wouldn’t stand down.

“I...made...a promise to that brat...!”

An inferno continued to burn in his eyes. Mustering all his might, he desperately reached his right hand for the demon.

“I gotta give you...the smacking she couldn’t...!!”

He didn’t take the job out of pity for the girl. His instincts screamed that he just had to do it. Her bottomless anger had spurred something strong within him too.

That was how it had always been. When those dear to him were insulted, his fist would fly as if it had taken on their honor. When those dear to him were injured, his fist would take on their regret. When the girl was beaten down, he would stand to his feet, having taken on her anger.

“I’ve always fought for someone else’s sake...” Leaving his body to instinct and indignation, he thrust his fist out despite the pitiful sounds it emitted. “I ain’t gonna let that end now!”

He would always find himself acting in someone else’s place, fighting to carry out their sentiment. That was the origin of the conflict within Haring’s heart.

“You’re the one guy I ain’t never gonna forgive...”

Despite Haring’s frantic attempts to make his plea, the eyes Navie saved for him were terribly cold.

“Oh, I see... Now that’s quite a reason you’ve got there.” He scoffed, disappointed, and nudged his chin towards Haring. “For now, how about you just die?”

The swarming shadow hands covered his entire body. The moment before they all contracted to crush Haring’s body in its entirety—

“No, the one dying here is you,” echoed a familiar voice.

A figure slowly walked forth—a boy with a black sword in one hand. The blood-stained visage of Yuri Eniastar.

◇

The sight of Yuri’s meandering trek caused some of the followers to shriek. That was simply how menacing the air about him had become.

Fresh blood dripped from his sword. His clothes were stained a sticky dark red, and with each step, parts of the dried blood clinging to his face would crumble away.

In such a ghastly, horrendous state, Yuri cheerfully grinned.

“A pleasure, Mr. Navie. It’s been...perhaps a few hours?” Yuri greeted him as casually as if he was meeting an old friend.

“Hey, hey, hey...what are you doing out here, pipsqueak?” Navie dubiously furrowed his brow.

“Oh? Is my appearance not telling enough?” The boy flaunted his blood-smeared clothes and laughed. “I came here to kill all of you.

“Not just you, Mr. Navie,” Yuri went on, the bone-chilling smile never leaving his face. “Those who helped you, those who sympathized with you...such folks are all equally the enemy of duelists everywhere. So I decided I would kill everyone who wasn’t a real duelist.”

Seeing Yuri calmly take his stance, Navie mockingly snorted. “Hah! Kill us all? Do something like that, and city management won’t—”

“Oh no, as a duelist, I won’t be held accountable.” His eyes filled with madness, Yuri joyfully spread his arms.

Once upon a time, there were the incidents where the God of Destruction, Wallis, ended up killing duelists.

“If I make my intent to duel clear enough, even if I attack with enough force to kill, it can be written off as excessive provocations—and I will say it loud and clear: I want to duel you. Do you know what that means?”

Slowly, Yuri trickled blood with another step.

“If you do not accept—it doesn’t matter if I do kill you.”

The smile of a lunatic on his face, Yuri looked at everyone gathered.

“I’ve already finished taking care of your comrades. Everyone who agreed to duel was bound to a contract, ‘I will confess everything I’ve done,’ but...those who refused to duel to the bitter end were killed by my hand.”

He painstakingly wiped away some of the blood.

“Go ahead and check if you doubt me. Of course, the people who dueled are being interrogated by city management, and the rest are either heavily wounded or dead.”

Navie continued to look at him suspiciously, but he eventually began working with his own Proof. Indeed, no one was answering his calls. Not a single one.

“Oh right, I’m sure you’re thinking, ‘we’ll be safe so long as we can return to the city,’ so I’ll tell you in advance. City management personnel are already on standby at the entrance to this dungeon. They will apprehend you the moment you’re out.”

“Tsk... Aren’t you coming out a bit too big for a bluff? My underlings are all bound by contract. They can’t say a single thing against me.”

“Yes, but what about everyone else?”

It was the surrounding tag-alongs who were flustered by those words.

“Certainly, they can’t testify about Navie Ionesca. But they can talk freely about their other comrades. You made it that way specifically so your men could take the fall for you. But if everything your little group ever did comes to light, you won’t be able to escape your crimes.”

If everything was put out in the open, the end of their dueling careers would be the least of their worries. They all understood what they had done well enough.

“And as everyone testifies, there will be a gaping hole left, the perfect size for a certain someone to fill... If it were only a few people, you’d get off with suspicions, but what about dozens of them? City management will be forced to conduct a thorough investigation of Navie Ionesca and keep him under constant surveillance.”

The individual known as Navie Ionesca would face societal death.

“I see now...but aren’t you forgetting something?” Navie said, nodding his head at Haring who was still a prisoner of the shadow hands.

“If you’re going to tell me it’s all over, I’m going to contort this guy to death, right? That is, only if you intend to sacrifice your precious friend to convict me.”

Navie had no need to lose his composure. He still had a usable hostage in Haring.

“—Mr. Haring, you can move now.”

Shortly after Yuri said that, Haring raised his lowered head.

“Well, thanks for that, I almost couldn’t hold in my laughter anymore.”

Haring went on to tear off the arms covering him with brute force. Navie’s eyes opened wide as he watched the man lightly land on the ground.

“It ain’t enough to damage me...I already told you.” A creaking noise came as Haring clenched his fist.

With his normal Dragonification made from dirt and sand, he wouldn’t have gotten off unharmed. That was why Haring made sure to prepare in advance.

“Ain’t no one gonna crumble this body of magic ores.”

He had brought plenty of high-quality ores along with the money. Not only did they disperse physical force, they were stones imbued with all sorts of properties. And Haring wore them as his armor for Dragonification.

“With your piece-of-shit personality, I knew you’d start tormentin’ me the moment you knew I’d been defeated. Slowly...takin’ your smug time to enjoy it.”

Navie grit his teeth. “From the start...you were just the decoy...”

Haring’s role was to call out Navie and stall him for as long as possible. During that time frame, Yuri and the others would take care of Navie’s other goons he had lured out.

With his comrades gone and nowhere to run, Yuri had snatched away all his options.

“Now...you can’t run away anymore.” Yuri informed him with a smile, holding up his black sword. “If you return to the city, you’ll be condemned for your crimes and face societal death. If you do nothing, you’ll be killed by me. Meaning you only have one option remaining.”

His smile widened as he took another slow step forward.

“There is only one path left for you to survive.”

He riled him up with maddened eyes.

“All you can do is fight us and win. It will do little besides protect what little dignity you have left, but fighting us is the only way you have to console your vile heart.”

Yuri’s deranged grin was as if he had been possessed by battle itself.

“You’re not just going to give up and die, are you? You’re not going to let a pipsqueak like me get one up on you, and run with your tail between your legs, are you? I mean, you’re Navie Ionesca, the guy who went on and on about how you’re the best.”

Each utterance out of Yuri’s mouth caused Navie’s fists to shake. Finally, Yuri turned to him with the decisive words.

“If you don’t fight here—you’ll be a pathetic loser for the rest of your life.”

The moment the words entered his ears, Navie held his left arm high. “Fine, have it your way. Damn pipsqueak!”

Consent on both sides established the duel, muting the color palette of their surroundings.

“I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you!! You’re dead, pipsqueak!” His malice on full display, Navie brought his eight arms close, like they were appendages attached to his body.

But this wasn’t a one-on-one battle.

“He’s all yours, Mr. Haring.”

“Got it...then I’m leavin’ those annoying arms to you.”

“Of course! Leave it to me!”

Still holding his sword, Yuri smacked his fists together. “It’s my job to open a path for my allies!”

Seeing Haring race forward, Yuri forcefully punched the ground. “Dragonification Armament,” he muttered, and his arms gave off a strange sound. Something was sprouting from inside of them, the creaking and cracking of bone and flesh torn apart. Jet-black branches—thin, like twigs—burst forth from both his arms, growing out as if to spread their roots into the ground. “Engorger.”

While this was going on, Navie kicked into action. “I’ll slaughter every last one of you!” He manipulated his eight wriggling arms, shooting them out at a charging Haring. The moment one of the arms was about to grab Haring’s neck—

A black branch shot up from the ground and captured it as if it was swallowing it whole. Sharp spines dug in as twigs grew to coil around the arm like a snake, until the shadow arm had been greedily devoured.

The sight caused panic to cross Navie’s expression. “Dammit, dammit, dammit! Nix Negate!” On Navie’s scream, a shadow arm crept up behind Yuri, but—

“It won’t work.”

A sapling sprouted as if it had been waiting for it.

Like a ravenous beast starved for flesh, it lustfully snapped up the approaching hazard.

“This branch doesn’t move on my will, it reacts to enemy hostility. Even if you launch a surprise attack from my blind spot, your attack will not reach me.”

Before he came here, Yuri had polished this power against Navie’s goons. He had tried to form a strong image around the words he heard from Haring. An absolute defense that would intercept enemy attacks. That was his Dragonification Armament: Engorger.

“If you direct hostility towards my comrades—I’ll protect them no matter what.”

Yuri declared his stalwart will as the branch constricted the shadow arm. But his words didn’t reach Navie. Navie was far too cornered to lend an ear.

“Damn—why, why isn’t my arm regenerating!?” He raised a voice of dismay, looking at where his first arm had vanished.

The Demon Tribe’s Familiar would regenerate so long as its user’s mana didn’t run out. But that arm showed no sign of wriggling back out from his shadow.

A mana-eating plant. The black branch didn’t just intercept strikes, it traced them back to their user and devoured the mana of whoever conducted the hostile attack.

In short—it drained mana from Navie, the master of these familiars.

“There’s no way...I’m going to lose to this pipsqueak...!!”

His arms moved in all sorts of nonsensical directions; it was clear he had grown desperate. Each time they aimed for either Yuri or Haring, they would be captured by a branch from the ground.

“Duelists are just idiots waiting to be sucked dry... There’s no way I’ll lose to them. It’s not going to end—”

His words didn’t go on. Haring was finally right before his eyes.

“It’s over for you, piece of shit.”

His raised fist smashed into Navie’s face. A fist with the might of the Dragon Tribe further enhanced by Dragonification shattered his cheek bone. But the force didn’t stop there. His frail cervical vertebrae snapped, his head continued to turn until it was facing the opposite direction and—the death of The Tormentor Navie Ionesca signaled the end of the duel.

The sepia-toned space regained its color, the only souvenir from it being Navie, who promptly fell flat onto the ground. The whites of his eyes showed through his cracked sunglasses, and he was frothing at the mouth. The faint scent in the air suggested he had soiled himself.

“Hah... A filthy end’s just right for you.”

Haring lightly kicked Navie’s body before turning to his followers.

“You’re up next.”

They shrieked out as Haring smashed his gauntlets together.

“Hey, you supported the bastard, and had your share of fun too. You’re not gonna tell me you don’t wanna die now, eh!?”

After being subjected to Haring’s roar, the followers timidly lifted their Proofs.

“Hey, you get ready. No slouchin’ on me.”

“Same goes to you, Mr. Haring. Please don’t ask for any breaks.”

Some light banter between them, they held up their Proofs in unison.

◇

They had finished dueling every one of Navie’s men. When they dragged their unconscious bodies out of the dungeon, the Babel staff members rushed over in a confused panic.

Perhaps having been dragged out of the other dungeons, those who were presumably Navie’s men were being carried around on stretchers. Those who were still conscious were being interrogated by staff.

“Ah, Yuri’s out too!”

Athena ran up, waving her hand and tail. Fram and Elias were already there.

“Did everyone make it through fine?” asked Yuri.

“Yes,” Fram replied, “I should’ve expected no less from that man’s followers. Not a spine to be found among them.”

“She’s right. They all got on their knees the moment I drew my sword,” Elias added.

“It was a pain to deal with them, so I blew them sky high!”

Seeing the three of them completely unharmed, Yuri broke into a wry smile...only to be firmly grabbed by the shoulder.

“Noooow then...Yuri. You’ve got quite some explaining to do...”

He fearfully turned his head to see Mirka, a vein popped up on her forehead.

“Yes, well...how should I put this?”

“Oh, I’ll listen to whatever you have to say. Especially after the terrible ruckus you’ve caused.” Her hand and wings were quivering as she read out his charges. “Abuse of Tribe Skills outside of the Field. Running around the duel city flaunting weapons and magic. Coercing powerless opponents into duels...these are not the sort of charges I can overlook with a smile.”

She wasn’t wrong, they had done precisely that.

After Haring called Navie to the dungeon, Athena, Fram, and Elias had gone around chasing everyone affiliated with Navie. Athena ran around waving her sword and flames, Fram sealed their path with ice, and Elias threatened them with his god-like sword swing.

They spoke on everything that didn’t pertain to Navie. Through this information, they were able to smoke out all the members Haring hadn’t been aware of, and with Yuri—who had been waiting in the dungeons—threatening further, they managed to expose every member of the gang.

This had all been done on Yuri’s suggestion.

“I am prepared to take full responsibility,” Yuri told Mirka up front. “I just couldn’t forgive that man, Navie Ionesca. He called himself a duelist despite doing everything unbecoming of one, and he openly insulted all the duelists earnestly confronting their challengers. That’s why I resolved it in this manner.”

“I see. Even if that means you would have to resign as a duelist?”

Yuri sullenly nodded at the question. “Even if I was told I would have to leave the duel city, I’m sure I would have made the same choice. I thought nothing would change if I didn’t take action, and considering what Mr. Navie had done, and the people held captive by him, I knew I just had to take action.”

Even if the method was wrong, what he accomplished was not. That was what let him stick out his chest.

“I am proud of what I did. I do not feel ashamed.”

A large hand was placed on top of his head. “Sure, the brat proposed the idea, but I’m the one who took lead. I’m the one who offered info about Navie’s mooks, and I’m the one who called out the man himself,” Haring said, taking a step forward.

Athena hopped forward too. “Here, here! I enabled him all the way!”

“In that case, I’m responsible for not putting a stop to you two.”

“I took part instead of taking control of the situation, so I share the offense.”

Seeing Fram and Elias back them up, Mirka held her head and let out a sigh.

“Haaaah! Well, I knew it would come to this, but...!” A wrinkle stretching across her brow, Mirka turned back to Yuri. “I’ll put your punishment on hold for now...but it won’t be that severe.”

“...Err, is that alright?”

“Of course, it isn’t because we’re friends. What you did is deserving of punishment...but what you’ve accomplished is worth enough to offset it,” Mirka said with a glance at the next few stretchers on the way out.

A series of deathly-thin people in filthy robes. The duelists captured by Navie Ionesca.

“You saved these unjustly-imprisoned duelists without a thought to your own safety. If you consider what he’s done in the past, and all the crimes he surely would have done that have been prevented in advance—the official penalty will probably be quite light.”

“But.” Mirka stuck up a finger. “Never Again! Never do something this reckless again! You’ve now been registered as a person requiring special attention, so next time you’ll be heavily punished, no questions asked! You got that!?”

“Yes! Thank you!”

Seeing Yuri diligently lower his head, Mirka let out another sigh. “Incidentally...why are you covered in blood? If you tell me you actually did kill a few of them, that does change things significantly...”

“Oh, this isn’t their blood.” Yuri vigorously rubbed off his brow before producing a leather sack from his breast pocket.

“...Blood paste?”

“Yes! A friend of mine assured me it would be very intimidating!”

He borrowed Eleanor’s blood pouch and used it for the production. It worked perfectly, and when he threatened, “Those who don’t negotiate get killed,” while covered in blood, they would cower and agree to testify under contract.

Having seen this process up close, Haring couldn’t help but grimace.

“Well yeah, if a guy covered in blood with crazy eyes and a smile like he’s clearly lost his mind points a sword at you, anyone’d freak out...”

“The blood aside, I just smiled like I normally do!”

“That’s even worse! That’s seriously your normal smile!”

“Ah...it was probably that one...”

“That same smile from training... Anyone would run from that...”

With a few ideas of their own, Athena and Fram exchanged an understanding look. Yuri didn’t think his smile was unusual, but he was coming to realize it was something terrible.

Whatever the case, the matter with Navie was now settled.

“It’s our win, Mr. Haring!” Yuri grinned and held out his fist.

While Haring hesitated for a moment, “...Yeah, it’s our win.” He returned the smile and touched fists.