Do Not Kick the Platform

Goldoh was a member of the secret team, and his task was to find Rajta Count's treasure.

"I haven't found anything. What about you?"

"Me neither. So the treasure is in the warehouse upstairs?"

Goldoh and Quinton looked at the end of the corridor, where the stairs which were lit from above by torches.

"Quick, find the treasure! If everyone outside dies, we will follow them quickly!!"

Tulpicano approached them with a worried look.

"Mr. Tulpicano, don't worry. We still have time."

Goldoh climbed the stairs whilst trying to calm Tulpicano down.

Quinton and Tulpicano followed him. They quickly found a door that looked like a warehouse's.

"Hey, who are you!??"

"Get out of my way."

"Sorry, go to hell."

The guard noticing the intruders drew out his sword, but he was quickly knocked out by Goldoh and Quinton.

"Hey, what are we going to do? There is no keys! ?"

"Doesn't matter, we will tear down the door."

With his golden magical power covering his body, Goldoh tore up the iron door.

"Hey, what…?!"

However, there was no treasure behind the door.

Behind the door was a thing that looked like a part of a living creature.

"Are these fingers?"

That shrunken black thing was a shriveled up arm with claws instead of fingertips.

But it was too big to be a human being's hand. It was probably thicker than Goldoh's arm.

The hand that looked like a monster's claw was fixed to the platform that was in the special warehouse.

"Where is my treasure!? I don't want this disgusting thing."

Tulpicano kicked down the platform, and started pacing around the room nervously.

"Where's my treasure? Where is it!?"

"Mr. Tulpicano, you are too loud…"

"Shut up! Your only task is to use my method to find the treasure!."

Tulpicano stopped suddenly.

His big belly was impaled on the shrunken claw. 

"Mr. Tulpicano!"

"Damn it!"

As Tulpicano's slaves, Goldoh and Quinton immediately took action to try to save their master, no matter whether they were willing to or not.

However Tulpicano died almost instantly after spurting out blood from his mouth.

Immediately Goldoh and Quinton both stopped their actions. They looked at Tulpicano's body, that still had the black claw in it. After impaling him, the hand started to suckhis corpse, as if to drain his blood.

"What is that thing?"

"I don't know. But we'd better not step in… let's retreat!"

Tulpicano was dead. And they did not find the treasure.　

There was no need to stay here anymore.

"Sorry, since you saw this, I won't let you go!"

Just then, they heard a low voice behind them.

"Who!?"

"You are — Rajta Count !?"

"Oh? You know me?"

Standing behind them was the city owner, Rajta Count.

At first he looked like a common middle aged aristocrat. But now, there he was, standing straight with no useless flab on his body. His sharp gaze was fixed on Goldoh and Quinton.

"Quinton, be careful."

"Goldoh.Kinmekki, I know."

They carefully kept a distance from Rajta Count. But the door was just behind him.

"You have troubled me. If it were not because of you, I just needed to hand it over to the cult."

"Cult⋯⋯? What the hell is going on? What exactly is this claw?"

"Fu… there is no doubt that this is the treasure you are looking for."

"How could you even say that that's a treasure?!"

"For people who know its value, it is. Well, so much for chit-chat."

Rajta Count the sword from his waist. It was a real sword for combat, not a performance one.

"—— you will be the sacrifice offerings for the Order of Diabolos!"

Then, the wind blew.

"Gaha?!"

"Guaaaa!"

Blood was spurting from Quinton' and Goldoh.Kinmekki's body.

Their legs felt weak, and they dropped on their knees.

"Oh – you are still alive?"

The two men who received a lightning fast strike from the Count struggled to even react.

Goldoh suddenly sensed the danger and leapt backwards, whilst Quinton moved his body away according to what his intuition told him.

That was how they saved their lives.

However, only two of them survived. All other members of the secret team who sneaked in the castle together with them were dead.

"Q… Quinton, are you fine?"

"Alright… Still alive…"

But their wounds were very deep.

Even though they raised swords, it seemed they couldn't defend against the next attack.

"I belittled you a little… No, it's my mistake, I'm a little rusty at fighting. Whatever it is, the next round is over."

As Rajta Count raised his sword again, their faces contorted.

"Damn, we got rid of the slave identity the hard way…"

"I thought it's a good idea to open a dojo…"

At that moment, great magical power suddenly burst out outside.

"What?!"

"What is it?!!"

"How powerful it is!"

Through a little window, they looked up at the night sky.　

There was a tremendous black rose in the air.

"Is that a rose…?"　

"It's a magical rose, which is constituted by condensed magic power… "

"Why is the [Black Rose] here?! It's impossible, how could it be?!"

Rajta Count was almost twice as shocked as Goldoh and Quinton.

Rajta Count widened his eyes staring at the [Black Rose], which was unusual in every term.

"Impossible! Why? The key doesn't still-"

Then the black rose floating in the night sky broke into pieces.

The petals of the broken rose fluttered down and landed beside Goldoh and Quinton.

The petals touched their right hands and carved two black petal-shaped marks.

"What is this…?"

"My wound is healed-"

When they touched the petals, the magic power began to emanate from petals and their serious wounds were healed in an instant.

"Strength is overflowing from me…"

"What is this power…?"

The black magic power constantly gushed out from Goldoh's and Quinton's bodies, like the heat emitted by the sun.

"This… This is the power of the [Black Rose] in the legend!! Such a powerful magic power, I can only kill you two here!!"

The count, driven by anxiety, launched another attack at them.