Underground cavern where a fierce battle between the Demonkin Guerrilla Unit and the Wraith took place.
“Keup! Geureuk…….”
Bloody phlegm that rose from his throat soaked the cloth covering his mouth.
Blood was continuously flowing from his severed arms.
‘Damn it.’
After long hesitation, he had driven the red stake given by the Legion Commander for the assassination mission into the monster’s chest.
And the stake that struck true successfully suppressed the monster.
Ralfer immediately turned his sword toward the human boy to avenge his fallen comrades.
A pure contest of blades, using neither holy power nor demonic power.
He thought the result was obvious.
The opponent was a brat who did not even look twenty, while he himself was a veteran who had crossed the line between life and death hundreds of times.
But that was a huge misjudgment.
Instead, he was defeated by the human he thought he would easily bring down.
And it was an overwhelming defeat.
The human’s swordsmanship was unlike anything he had ever seen from any holy knight before, and the sword felt heavy, as if it carried holy power.
In the end, the veteran lost to the one he thought was a novice and gave up both arms.
“—Keugh! Heok… heok! J-just kill me!”
The bastard did not kill him.
“That’s for me to decide. For now, sit here and wait. I’ll have a lot to ask you later.”
That was all he said before turning away.
Ralfer could only watch as his enemy did whatever he wanted right before his eyes.
The human soon finished off the monster he had already nearly killed.
If only he had not used the red stake.
If he had not, the monster would still be alive and would have torn the late-arriving human to pieces.
“Heup… keup, keueup…….”
He could not tell where things had gone wrong.
Was it when he received the order from the Legion Commander to assassinate the supreme commander of Avenu Fortress?
Or when he decided to climb the steep cliffs of Mount Rivero to avoid surveillance?
Or when he chose to use the isolated monastery as a base?
‘No!’
It was from the moment the gray-haired boy walked into the monastery they had made their base.
That bastard reduced his comrades, who had shared life and death with him for years, one by one, and finally wiped them all out.
“Keuuugh!”
If only he could, he would rip out those hateful eyes while they were still alive and chew them.
As he was cursing the one who had brought him to this state—
“Shouldn’t we settle things between us too?”
The bastard approached.
He was probably trying to extract information about the legion from him.
‘As if I’d talk.’
He would not give up a single piece of information.
That was the last revenge he could take on this hateful human.
As he thought that and twisted a bitter smile toward the human—
The human removed the cloth from his mouth and said,
“First… yeah. Shall we start with the red stake?”
“…What?”
He spoke a name he never expected to hear.
He had clearly driven it into the wraith’s chest, and the human in front of him had also seen it with his own eyes.
But as far as Ralfer knew, there was no human who knew that the name of that red spike was the red stake.
“How much… do you know……?!”
“How much, you say… hmm.”
The human rubbed his lips as if thinking. The answer that followed was even more shocking.
“That the one who gave it to you is called Penelope?”
“…?!”
Ralfer’s pupils shook violently.
In contrast, the human, Glen Wordsworth, wore a crafty smile.
“Do you think that’s all I found out?”
In truth, Glen had already grasped the overall situation.
He spoke to Ralfer only to confirm the hypothesis he had formed.
The series of events that took place in the monastery.
By piecing together what he had seen and heard there, Glen had obtained quite a lot of information.
“I know that you came to assassinate the commander of the Gray Wolf Knight Order, and that you used this monastery as your base for that purpose.”
“……”
Ralfer was left speechless, unable to continue.
Perhaps shocked by the name mentioned earlier, he did not even try to hide his agitation.
Thanks to that, Glen knew his hypothesis was correct.
“How…… did you know that?”
“How did I know? You fed me all that information yourself with your words and actions.”
A guerrilla unit is a group that moves to carry out special missions, so they do not commit unnecessary killings.
Yet they slaughtered every priest in the Ronian Monastery.
That meant they intended to use the monastery as a base. And the reason for using it as a base was obvious.
“Because Avenu Fortress nearby is the place where you had to carry out your mission.”
As he connected the puzzle pieces in his mind, Glen continued to prove his hypothesis.
“There aren’t many missions to carry out at Avenu Fortress. Figuring out the structure of the castle, setting fire to the storehouses, or assassinating a key figure.”
A strange light flowed through Glen’s eyes.
“In this case, it was an assassination.”
The basis was the red stake Ralfer used on the wraith.
The red stake.
A thin, long red spike used like an arrow, a deadly poison that gnaws away at the victim’s soul and body until they are erased.
An extreme toxin that not even treatment, let alone handling, is possible unless one is a priest of seven stars or higher.
If a mission involved using that, then it could only be a key figure assassination.
“In other words, the target was the commander of the Gray Wolf Knight Order, Jaber Remark.”
“Keugh……! As I thought, you bastard… cough! I should have killed you somehow.”
Judging by Ralfer’s reaction, it was the right answer.
That raised two questions.
‘Why did they come to assassinate Jaber at this time, and why does the red stake exist here?’
As said before, Demonkin guerrilla units move just before the war begins.
But according to the original work, there were still more than fifty days before the scenario was supposed to start.
That meant one of the two pieces of information was wrong.
“Ha…….”
Honestly, he wanted to deny it, but now he had to admit it.
The Demonkin assault would not begin in fifty days, but very soon.
‘Otherwise, there’s no way to explain why the guerrilla unit is moving at this time.’
The period between Jaber Remark’s assassination and the appointment of a new commander.
Starting the assault amid that chaos would be the most strategic move.
So the Demonkin assault would take place within two weeks from now.
‘At most, two weeks.’
He had been preparing under the assumption that the assault would begin in fifty days.
But it was being moved up by more than a month—there could be no greater crisis.
The existence of the red stake was the same.
In fact, there was only one Demonkin guerrilla unit that used the red stake.
‘The only unit that uses the red stake is the Demon King Army’s 5th Legion.’
That was because only Penelope, the 5th Legion Commander, could create red stakes.
But Ralfer had clearly introduced himself like this:
—My name is Ralfer. I am the leader of the 4th Guerrilla Unit of the Demon King Army’s 8th Legion.
Ralfer, who belonged to the 8th Legion, possessed a red stake created by Penelope, the 5th Legion Commander.
From this, one fact could be inferred.
‘The 8th Legion Commander is Penelope.’
