Chapter 97: The guy named Mu
「Looks like we have finally found them, Boss.」Discreetly hiding behind a large boulder in the field of unusually tall grass, Uri turned to Kibadios and whispered.「Just like the girl was saying, they are all Yin Empire's soldiers. The group of demihuman in chains over there must be the prisoners the girl was talking about. There are several Yves males in the group, I wonder which one is her father」
「That's not really important, isn't it?」Kibadios pointed out.「All we have to do is to massacre those soldiers and rescue the group of prisoners. The girl can find her own father among them.」
「I guess you're right.」
「Are you ready?」asked Kibadios
「At your command, Master!」The healer determinedly nodded.
「Ren and Yue?」
「Yes, Kibadios sama」The two nodded, though only Yue respectfully responded.
「This shouldn't be hard.」Ryuu observed.「I can probably take out half of them with a flick of my tail, Master.」
「Here's a lesson for you, Ryuu chan: Don't you ever overestimate yourself. Always assuming your opponents have a trick or two up their sleeves and be over-prepared for any engagement like Ainz instead.」
「In case you're wondering who Ainz is, Ryuu kun, he's a character from a light novel back in Kibadios' first live.」chimed in Reuk with a quick explanation.
「I understand, Master.」
「Good… Ready?」Kibadios looked at the group, all of whom simply nodded as a response. The only missing members in his entourage were Maia and Yuusei, who were tasked to stay back at the camp and continue taking care of the young Yves girl.「... Wait…」Kibadios suddenly halted the ambush.
「... That guy…」Uri's eyebrows were twitching the moment he noticed a androgynous looking shota, dressed in chinese clothing but with an unusually revealing short, walking toward the group of Yin soldiers.
「... is bad news.」Ryuu finished up Uri's sentence.
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「Yo, Boss, It's probably not my place to say this, but I think she's a bit too young for you.」Uri turned to Kibadios with a concerned look in the early hour of the morning, before the sun had risen from the east. Sitting in front of him, right next to the flickering campfire, was a shivering little Yves girl, who appeared no older than 5 years old. The girl was covered in a thick blanket that Maia had wrapped around her bruised body, her shaking hands held onto a small piece of bread that was given to her by Kibadios' group. 「Not unless you want the FBI comes knocking on your door.」
BAM!!!
「Ouch! That hurts, Boss!」Uri sulkingly rubbed the pump on his head, where Kibadios had just hit him.
「Don't assume the worst in me, Uri kun.」Kibadios complained.「I found her passing out next to our tent late last night so I took her in. She was muttering something about saving her dad?」
「Yes, please!!!」The moment she heard the word "dad", it suddenly brought her back from her trance-like state.「Daddy was caught by the bad guys!! They beat me, daddy and all the others.」
「Bad guys?」
「Yeah! They're Yin soldiers! Daddy said they're the bad guys that attack our land. Daddy led the villagers to fight against them, but we were caught! We tried to escape but they chased after us… Daddy sacrificed himself to cause a distraction so that I could run away. Now, they're probably taking him to a faraway prison.」The girl cried.「All… because I… was clumsy… and I fell down…Please help Tina save daddy! 」
「...」Kibadios remained in silence for a moment, not failing to recognize the similarity between her situation and his own more than a year ago. Though, the sympathy he felt alone was not enough for him to agree to her request. After all, it was not his job to help every single person he came across. 「Sorry, little girl, but we're on a mission to Alsen. The situation there is desperate so we have no time to spare.」
「But… but they will kill daddy!」Tears now streamed out from all four eyes of the Yves child.
「The best I can do is bringing you along to Alsen. Hopefully there will be some orphanages there that can take you in.」Kibadios coldly implied the inevitability of her becoming an orphan.
「What are you talking about, Kibadios?」Reuk scolded the hybrid as she sprung forward to console the sobbing child.「Why can't we help her? The group of Yin soldiers should be close by anyways and with your power, rescuing her dad should be an easy task.」
「... Master…」Maia and the others in his harem pleadingly looked at the cold hybrid. Only Ryuu and Yuusei, the two who were completely apathetic to the plights of anyone but Kibadios, seemed to agree with whatever decision their Master had come up with. 「Can we do something about it?」
「... Kibadios sama…」Haden called out to his master.「Why don't we use this opportunity to gauge the strength of the Yin army?」
「Huh?」
「It's inevitable that we will have to fight against them sooner or later since it's our mission to eliminate Wei Shimin. This group of Yin soldiers, which should not number more than 500 men, should be the perfect practice for you. By clashing with them, we can estimate the typical power of the foot soldiers and thus, the difficulty of this mission.」The former adventurer suggested. Though he knew the reason he gave was not as sound as he wanted to be since it would be the commanders under Wei Shimin that they should be worried about, not a typical soldier, but this was the only reason he could think of in order to prod Kibadios into helping the girl.
「... Fine, then.」Haden expected his Master to dismiss his suggestion, yet the hybrid had agreed with it in the end, causing the man to wonder if it was really him or the pleading eyes of his Master's harem that caused the hybrid to change his mind.「Tina, give us more information about this group of Yin soldiers and your father's whereabouts. If we cannot find them within one hour, we will proceed with our original plan to travel to Alsen.」
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「Who's there?」Before everyone could react to the young man's presence, he had suddenly jumped on top of the large boulder, looking down at Kibadios' group with his glowing red eyes. Wearing rather revealing oriental clothes, the feminine boy had tanned skin, short black hair with two long sideburns that ran down to his shoulder.「... Mother?」The young man's eyes widened as he looked at Kibadios.
「Go!」Wasting no time, the hybrid signaled for everyone to disperse and proceed with the plan to rescue the group of demihuman that were caught by the Yin soldiers while Uri and he stayed back to deal with the one individual of whom he had deemed to be the most problematic.
「My my my, what do we have here?」The young man grinned deviously.「A rescue attempt?」
Uri, an experienced mercenary who had fought for his life countless times, sprung forward to close the distance between him and the young man without saying a single word. The half incubus directed his Nen toward his right arm before delivering his signature deadly punch at the young man's face. Yet, the Yin soldier quickly reacted to the Vice Captain's attack, raising his palm up to receive the earth shattering blow head on, before skillfully swirled his hand and body to redirect the strike downward at the boulder he was standing on, leaving his own body unharmed. Upon making contact, the force of Uri's attack easily cracked the boulder into thousands pieces, causing a deafening sound that distracted most of the other Yin soldiers.
「Red hair covering eyes, an expert in close combat, most likely a
「Ho? You guys had expected us?」Uri grinned, though a small droplet of sweat could be seen rolling down his cheek, for he knew the person standing right in front of him was no push over.
「For quite some time.」The young man cracked his neck.「But who is the one standing behind you? That guy has been exerting so much pressure on me that made me unable to counterattack.」
「Ah, that's our new captain, Kibadios.」Uri introduced the hybrid to the young man.「What about you? Who are you?」
「... Ki…badios…」The man visibly reacted to learning the hybrid's name while shedding a single drop of tear, a detail that did not escape Kibadios' notice.「...My name? … Hou Yi called me " One ", though I go with the name " Mu ".」
「Mu, huh?」Kibadios finally spoke up.「That does not sound like an Yinese name. Why, then, are you working with the Yin soldiers?」
「Cuz I'm their "dog."」Mu answered cryptically.
「Well, since we all have introduced ourselves, I guess pleasantries are over!」Uri stood back up after his failed strike, cracking his neck before readying for the clash. Kibadios, who stood right behind him, also conjured up his signature dark scythe.
「I guess so.」Mu gazed at Kibadios as if he wanted to say something.「... < Yata No Kagami >」The tanned teenager elegantly called forth his Arte. As its name implied, the skill conjured up several floating mirrors surrounding both Uri and Kibadios. Before the two could react, cracks suddenly appeared, causing them to shatter into hundreds of sharp pieces, all being imbued in Mu's Nen. The teenager raised his arm, directing the shards to shoot at his two well prepared opponents.
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「Such reckless fighting style.」Mu reappeared from a mirror behind Uri, his hand held tightly onto a long crystal sword, which came swinging and aimed for the Vice Captain's neck.
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「Thank you, Boss!」The Vice Captain wearily grinned.
「He had activated his Arte, if you don't counteract it with your own Arte but just come swinging at him without a plan, you're just asking for death.」Kibadios lectured his subordinate.
「Well… You see, Boss..」Uri scratched his head.「I don't have an Arte…I have not yet awakened one.」
「Really? Yet, you made it to the position of Vice Captain?」
「Well, that's the thing, Boss…」Kibadios could feel Uri's eyes glowing under his bang. 「I'm just that strong without one!」The Vice Captain turned toward Mu.「Doesn't matter if you're hiding using your mirrors. All I have to do is to pulverize them all with my bare hands!」
The Vice Captain again ran head on toward Mu, knowing full well the man standing there might be just another doppelganger, but it mattered not.
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「Ha… Why does this fight remind me of Rock Lee vs Gaara?」Kibadios smiled as in front of him, an entire terrain was leveled and a large crater suddenly appeared as the result of Uri's determined attack.「You're an interesting individual, Uri.」 Standing from afar, even Mu now realized that although Uri's fighting style was straight forward and at times, reckless, the Vice Captain indeed had the strength to make even him struggling in a fight. On top of that, there was Kibadios who has been simply witnessing their fight and exerting pressure that limited
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The others in the group, as Kibadios had ordered, quickly took on the hundreds of Yin soldiers who were guarding the demihuman prisoners. Of course, the battle did not last for more than minutes, given how Ryuu was with them. Although the dragonkin was somewhat weakened compared to his peak due to the injury inflicted upon him by Aspen Seigeran, he was still undoubtedly the ace card that Kibadios possessed, much like how Diablo was for Rimuru. On top of that, the twin elves had also joined in the fight after erecting a barrier using their talisman, separating the prisoners from the soldiers to protect them. Rowan, as Kibadios instructed, rushed to heal all the injured demihumans, which were most of the group. Some of the demihuman was resisting the healer's assistance at first since they often did not have good experience when it came to interacting with humans, but seeing the green haired teenager was treating their wounded, the resistance within the group quickly faded.
「Damn it! Is that a half breed lizardman? How the hell can we stop him?」One of the Yinese soldier screamed. Though being distracted by Ryuu's power at this time was certainly not a good time since he was soon cut down by Ryan. The hero had come a long way since his time as a newbie hero, who had never even taken the life of a human being before meeting Kibadios. Now, even the hot blood of the human he just cut down splattered across his face, the hero was not flinching even once, since to him, he was merely executing his Master's order.
「I didn't know you're this good, Haden.」Reuk commented as she was fighting side by side with the former adventurer, who now had cut down more than a dozen soldiers with his own blood soaked sword. Since he was an former A+ rank adventurer, a young rising star who could have taken the promotion exam to S class had he not met Corey, his fighting skill surpassed that of many adventurers Reuk had met, despite him being locked up and abused for more than a decade.
「Really? Though I think I've been getting a bit rusty!」Haden smiled, nodding at the impressed Reuk.
「Damn it… If Lord Shimin can't have these prisoners, then these demihuman should just dieeee!!!」The captain of the guards, who had realized they stood no chance against the ambush by Kibadios' group, hurriedly took out a piece of talisman.
「Wait… That's…」The prodigious elven prince easily recognized the rune written on the piece of paper, before quickly glancing at the prisoners for a confirmation. As he suspected, all of them were wearing thick collars with Runecraft engraved on them, which can be activated to explode by the captain's Runecraft Spell. Even if a barrier had been erected to protect them against physical harm, it would not be able to stop the ignition spell.
「DON'T YOU DARE!」A voice shouted out, before a large beastman sprung forth from the tall grass behind the captain. With the incredible strength of a beastman, the man grabbed onto the captain's head before violently twisted it, immediately killing the man and stop him from completing the Runecraft.
「Huh?」Ryuu, who had just killed off the last soldier within sight, turn toward the intruding beastman.「Who are you?」
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「Well… it seems like your group was able to rescue the prisoners in no time… If I remain here any longer, I'd just risk being surrounded.」Mu looked at the panting Uri. Despite multiple additional exchanges, neither of them had come out on top, though it was clear that Uri was becoming exhausted. 「I guess it's time to take my leave… But don't worry, I'm sure we will cross paths again.」Mu looked at Kibadios, his eyes filled with emotions that Kibadios could not discern: Hatred? Happiness? Sadness? Love?
「... Do I know you?」Kibadios genuinely asked.
「No, no of course you don't, Brother!」Mu answered before shattering into thousands of mirror pieces and vanishing into thin air.
「Mu. Who's that?」Kibadios was left wondering.
Mu: https://imgur.com/EzqJD4M (click on comment to see picture)
Source: Novel AI
The beastman who kills Yin soldier: https://imgur.com/SygAJdw (click on comment to see picture)
Artist: Pozon
Pixiv ID: 16230371
Fun fact: I commissioned this drawing long time ago (there are several more drawings that I received ages ago but have not posted yet) and this character was intended to be in Kibadios' harem (as I said, I wanted to include a "bara" harem member) but I don't feel like he fits so I recycle his character design and use it for this "beastman" character instead.