Heavy Knight Volume 3 – Chapter 31

Previous | TOC | Next

Chapter 31 – Traitor

The atmosphere went cold around us.
None of us said a single word as we readied our weapons and turned towards the direction Celt indicated.

Finally, a silhouette of a person appeared and the sound of steps came closer and closer.

The one who appeared suddenly changed his expression from a tense one to a gentle smile and lowered his sword.
The wind blowing through the streets of the empty sunken capital ruffled his long silver hair.

“Oh, good…. So it’s you four. I thought it was the traitor, but since you were the ones who took down the Skull Lord in the graveyard, I can trust you without question.”

The one who appeared was the A rank adventurer, Kalos, the Back Flame Sword.
Celt let out a long sigh and with that, the atmosphere relaxed.
Taking a quick glance behind me, I saw from the corner of my eye that Luce and Mabel also lowered their weapons.

I also took a deep breath before looking Kalos in the eye.

“So it was you, Kalos.”

“You four are pretty amazing….getting this far already in such a short amount of time. It wasn’t a mistake to keep an eye on you after all.”

Kalos praised us with a fond smile.

“We shortened the route from our map a bit. Celt felt something bad due to his [Sixth Sense], so we ended up deciding to check it out.”

I gave a quick meaningful look at Celt to play along.

“Hm? Yeah, that’s right….”

Celt vaguely agreed, while shooting me a look that said that we will be having words about this later.
It was obviously because he didn’t really want outsiders to know about his Skills.

“Where are Hilde and the others? You should’ve been moving together as far as I know.”

“I have a detection Skill….called [Sense Presence]. With that, I noticed that some people were ahead of us, you see. I was pretty sure that they weren’t ordinary adventurers. Any traitor should be quite powerful, so I was worried about Hilde and the others not measuring up if we came face to face with them. Therefore, I had them seek out and alert another Party while I went ahead. Though….when I got here, it ended up being just you four.”

“Huh…..?”

Hearing Kalos’s explanation, Luce’s expression turned confused.

“Ah…uhm, Kalos-san, didn’t you have [Sixth Sense]?”

Kalos looked startled for a moment from Luce’s words.
It seems he didn’t know what she was talking about for a second there.

Like Luce pointed out, she and I had the fact that Kalos has [Sixth Sense] confirmed through Hilde before.
For a Magic Swordsman to have [Sixth Sense] is perfectly understandable, but for a battle oriented Class like that to have another, totally different type of detection Skill like [Sense Presence], would frankly be one extremely strange Build.
Even Luce, who learned quite a bit about this from me already, noticed how unusual that would be.

Kalos agreed with a wry smile right away.

“….so you heard about it from Hilde. Sorry, I didn’t want to deceive you. It’s just that I’m reluctant to share the details on what my Skills are. [Sense Presence] was meant as a bluff. I indeed have the [Sixth Sense]….”

“Wait, wait a minute there! Hey Mr. Kalos…..didn’t you keep chasing around these strange happenings for a while now while cooperating with the nobles and the Guild? Even though you have [Sixth Sense]….you didn’t come across those creepy things even once?”

Celt pointed out with a raised voice.

That’s right, Celt only entered two Dungeons where [Mourning Trapezohedrons] were spread around and he was able to find one both times with the help of [Sixth Sense]’s rare item detecting function.
Despite that, Celt was the first to find a Mourning Trapezohedron and report it to the Guild.

When spelled out like that, it’s obvious that Kalos not finding any of those with his [Sixth Sense] while chasing after those mysterious incidents is clearly not normal.
That’s something that can only be pointed out by someone who personally has the [Sixth Sense] Skill in this game world turned reality.
Therefore, Celt’s words have a significant weight in this matter.

Kalos’s expression went neutral for a second.From the corner of my eye, I saw Mabel raising her weapon again.

“I understand your suspicions, but I would like it if you could calm down first and let me explain. Elma….you are a level-headed one, I’m sure you understand. We are in the middle of a serious situation here, it’s not the time for us to feud among-”

I charged at Kalos and attacked with my sword.Kalos quickly drew his own sword and blocked my attack.A metallic clash sounded out between Kalos and I.

“I thought you would be more calm about this, Elma. I of course understand your suspicions. However, it wasn’t me who caused the Wandering Lord incident in the Graveyard of Sorrows. You can easily find that out from the testimonies the adventurers accompanying me at the time gave….”

Kalos had a perturbed expression on his face and spoke to me in an admonishing tone.

“I realized the trick for that alibi of yours.”

“Oh?”

The expression on Kalos’s face took a one-eighty and turned into a smile radiating interest.

By going through Halein, I got to go through the investigation notes about each adventurer that took part in the Graveyard of Sorrows incident.
At first glance, there was no-one that left their Party before the emergence of the Wandering Lord.

At the time, I had a theory in mind.
What if there was someone that had a detection type Skill and lied about detecting something, then said ‘I want to hide what Skills I have, so I would ask you to say that we moved only after we all saw something’, or something like that afterwards.

Celt and Mabel confirmed more than once that, contrary to the game it resembles, in this world information about an individual’s Skill Trees is extremely private and important.
Even if it happens in the middle of a dangerous situation like that, when a superior asks to keep it secret, people don’t even tend to question the request.

Kalos’s Party members testified that they all saw the Wandering Lord and he confronted it alone to allow them to escape.
However, the truth was most likely different.
Kalos must’ve told them that he detected the Wandering Lord with his [Sixth Sense] Skill, so he’s staying back to serve as a rear guard as they retreat, but then he went on to the boss room alone to trigger the Skull Lord into a Wandering Lord.

The other day I acted like I was tired after an all nighter and managed to trick Hilde into confirming the fact that ‘Kalos has the [Sixth Sense] Skill’.

However, in the end it was still an assumption built on assumption.
Even if I had shared my suspicions with Celt and the others, it was possible that all it would’ve done is make them worry for nothing. I wanted to believe in Kalos as well.
However, by running into Kalos right here and now, my suspicion solidified into conviction.

To make sure that even Celt and Mabel come to think of Kalos as someone suspicious, I layed another verbal trap, which served as a last check as well.
I thought that if he lied about having [Sixth Sense], then he would be reluctant to claim to have it in front of someone who indeed does have it.
That’s why I intentionally let it slip that Celt has it and watched his reaction to it.
Just after getting caught in one lie, Celt pointed out next that it’s clear that Kalos doesn’t even know much about the [Sixth Sense] Skill as well.

“Kalos is the traitor! Under the guise of Raid investigation, he worked to gather high ranking adventurers to lead them into a trap and sacrifice them to the Dream Lord!”

Just after my exclamation, Luce charged in from the side and attacked Kalos.

“[Stunt Barrage]!”

Luce attacked with a barrage of irregular knife thrusts.
Kalos used his empty right hand to send me flying even through my shield.
He gracefully used the sword in his left hand to redirect all hits from Luce [Stunt Barrage], even though this was the first time he saw it, then easily grabbed the arrow shot at him by Celt from the air with his right hand, breaking it in two.

“No way….!”

Luce gasped.

“Hahahahahahahahaha!”

Kalos let out a cheerful laugh, then swung his sword so hard that he sent Luce flying despite the fact that she was blocking with her knife.

“Luce!”

I thought that Luce would crash into the ground just like that, but she managed to gracefully flip in mid-air and neatly land on her feet.

Kalos then easily jumped a few meters in the air away from us, landing on a large boulder behind him.

I pointed my sword at him.

“I’ve found it suspicious that during the investigation you kept trying to persuade me that the incidents are caused by an internal conflict of the Marquis’ family.”

As I said that, I recalled the actions of Kalos until now.

There were some suspicious points about him, but no decisive evidence either way.
Also, I myself wanted to believe in Kalos in the end.

How he spoke about the kingdom’s future, the current state of adventurers…. and above all, how he interacted with Hilde, his apprentice; I just couldn’t see it as him acting.
That’s why I just couldn’t be absolutely sure.
I just never seen someone that could lie with a straight face like that before.

“Tell me….Kalos. An A rank adventurer could get as much money as they want. They are one of the individuals that are able to live the most free lives in this world. They have power, fame, freedom….what motive could you possibly have for doing all this?”

I felt he was telling the truth when he said that it’s because he has everything that he travelled around the kingdom, trying to stave off its destruction.

“Elma…..do you know why there are so many Dungeons in this world?”

Kalos calmly started to speak on top of the boulder.
I listened silently with my sword kept pointed at him all the while.

In the meantime, judging from the footsteps I heard, Celt and Mabel were bringing up the rear.
Kalos was clearly letting his guard down against us.
He wasn’t seeing us as credible enemies at all.

“It’s because the Creator God, Alzaroth hates the injustice and tragedies this world has. Alzaroth decided to wipe away the humanity the gods created….and return the world into nothingness.”

Kalos reached to his nape and tore open his collar.
There was a tattoo visible on his upper chest.
It depicted some kind of a humanoid monster restrained by chains.
It was most likely a depiction of the sealed Alzaroth described in the Sacred Testaments.

“By helping that come to pass, we, the Vanguard of the God of Dreams, want to remove all injustice and hardship from the world for all time. That’s why we want to create a Zork. As an Apostle of the Creator God, I will become the savior of this world!”

Kalos declared with a rapturous expression on his face.
It was an extremely bizarre sight.
Luce was simply stunned into silence next to me.

“Tell me that’s not true, Kalos-san…..”

“I never would’ve thought that the Black Flame Sword was such a lunatic…..!”

Celt was glaring at Kalos from behind me as he nocked an arrow.

However, I felt that Kalos was not being honest with his story.
He seems to be drunk on his ego, but I just can’t feel the conviction behind his words.
It’s like he’s just parroting what someone else said to him before; his words feel hollow.
With this, it all came together.

“I understand. Kalos, you…..just want to enjoy fighting.”

Ever since we uncovered his true colors, Kalos had a happy smile on his face.

Kalos doesn’t care one bit about the group that’s backing him.
He himself simply wanted some kind of ‘end contents’ for him to enjoy after reaching the top, so he can go all out to his heart’s content.
For that end, he adapted some bullshit ideology as an excuse to make the entire kingdom his enemy.

His complaints about the current state of adventurers were close to the truth.
There are only a small number of chosen heroes that can save this world.
I don’t think he cares if it’s the entire kingdom or the Vanguard of the God of Dreams, as long as he gets a fight fit from himself.

“So you do understand. I’m glad, Elma.”

Kalos raised his sword to the sky.
A large Magic Circle was deployed, then four large masses of black flames appeared around Kalos.
It was a Magic Skill called [Dark Blaze], obtainable from the Magic Swordsman exclusive Skill Tree, [Demonic Armaments].

“Elma, I knew we were going to clash sooner or later. Let me show you the power of a real hero. Do your best to entertain me, please.”

Previous | TOC | Next

4 thoughts on “Heavy Knight Volume 3 – Chapter 31”

  1. I was wondering how MC would catch him, but that was some skillful use of the other members as reference.

  2. Awsome and here I thought we’d never get a new chapter!!!

Leave a Reply