bestfiction Chapter 174 : What’s Your Name
Chapter 174 : What’s Your Name
Chapter 174: What’s Your Name
Kwaaaaaang!
A thunderous roar shook the corridor as if an explosion had gone off.
Although the Butcher was an outstanding swordsman, her opponent was the Imperial Knight Commander.
Moreover, the Butcher was injured and not in good condition.
“Haah, I hadn’t anticipated this situation.”
The moment the Knight Commander and the Butcher collided, the Butcher was pushed back.
Not merely pushed—she was blasted away as if struck by a battering ram.
Robin, who had been watching anxiously, caught hold of the Butcher as the Knight Commander’s sword strikes poured down.
Seogeogeogeogeok.
“Knight Commander! Please, just hear me out for a moment!”
“I gave you a chance, and the one who kicked it away was the skull mask.”
“At least for my sake, please stop for a moment—”
“The two of you are obviously in cahoots. Do you take me for a fool?”
He ended up being misunderstood unintentionally.
In cahoots with the Butcher.
“Move.”
She must have sensed the difference in their levels from that brief exchange just now.
And yet the Butcher did not let her fighting spirit falter.
Was it not said that the enemy of one’s enemy was a friend.
Seeing how hostile she was toward a knight, perhaps they might get along.
Not that he had wished for a situation like this.
“Don’t worry. I won’t butcher you like that psychopath.”
“Damn it…!”
Before the Knight Commander’s aura, the stone building was sliced apart like radish.
Countless sword marks densely filled the corridor walls and ceiling.
Even the entrance to the storage room collapsed.
Robin grabbed the Butcher’s arm and ran.
“I told you I’d hold him off.”
“Hold off the Imperial Knight Commander alone? In that injured state?”
“I can do it.”
“You’re out of your mind.”
“And what are you doing? Wouldn’t it be better to run away alone?”
The best choice would have been to use the Butcher as bait and slip away.
Still, he could not just leave her behind.
There was only a thin line between confidence and recklessness.
What she was showing now was not confidence, but recklessness.
“I was going to bolt on my own originally.”
“And?”
“But if I leave like this, it’ll bother me so much it’ll show up in my dreams.”
Kwagwagwagwagwa.
A blue line passed between Robin and the Butcher.
A deep groove was clearly carved into the floor and ceiling as if they had been pressed together and torn apart.
“Are you planning to bring the building down?!”
The only answer to Robin’s shout was aura.
It was clear he did not care whether this place collapsed or not.
As the Knight Commander chased from behind,
a light appeared in the distance.
The outside was right ahead.
“I’ll ask just one thing. Why do you need the Phoenix Feather?”
“I’m going to make an Elixir.”
“What are you going to use it for?”
“My master is ill.”
Unlike her cruel methods, it was a rather human reason.
That was why Robin’s heart wavered.
Soon, as they stepped outside the arena, welcoming sunlight poured down.
But it was not the place Robin had expected.
“Where is this?”
He had meant to emerge onto a main road crowded with people.
Instead of a road leading outside, they came out into a quiet alley.
It seemed they had taken a wrong turn.
“Where else? It’s a path only distinguished guests are allowed to use.”
The Knight Commander burst through the dust in pursuit.
Despite recklessly spewing aura, there was not a single scratch on his armor.
“You run quite well. But it ends now.”
The aura surging over his blade showed no sign of fading.
Was it because they had left the arena?
The Knight Commander seemed confident, as if he had nothing more to hold back.
Though it had looked like he was trying to destroy the building earlier, it seemed he had been controlling his strength after all.
“Phew. Must you truly take me in for your anger to subside?”
“Yes. You ignored my words and were captured, so I’ll have to drag you in by force if necessary.”
Sreung.
When Robin drew his sword, the Knight Commander tilted his head.
He must not have expected him to choose to stand against him.
“Butcher.”
Robin whispered quickly.
He was sharing a plan devised on the spot.
“That’s even possible?”
“We won’t know unless we try, but for now it’s the best option.”
After hearing Robin’s words, the Butcher felt they were absurd.
She had been about to say she would hold him off instead.
“Are you two going to keep talking among yourselves?”
Shuaaaak!
Without giving them time to respond, aura came crashing in.
The ground was carved in a straight line as if a sheath had been drawn across it.
Then the earth beneath Robin’s feet trembled.
Puh-eong! With an explosive sound, aura erupted from the ground.
“You dodged that? Not bad.”
As the Knight Commander charged at Robin, he glanced to the side.
The Butcher seemed to evade an attack, then chose to flee.
“What now? She’s bolting.”
“Seems like you could let me go as well.”
Kaaaanng!
Robin’s sword clashed with the Knight Commander’s.
The aura surging before his eyes was threatening enough, but the sheer strength behind it was no joke.
Even the Knight Commander seemed surprised that Robin endured.
‘An opening.’
Kagagak.
He barely deflected the strike and created distance.
No sooner had he taken a backstep than the Knight Commander’s sword pursued.
Kang! Kang! Kakakakakang!
A fierce onslaught poured down, almost too fast for the eye to follow.
But Robin was no ordinary swordsman either.
The sword of the Black Mask, infused heavily with fighting spirit, deflected every single strike of the Knight Commander.
“You—what are you?”
“I am the Black Mask.”
“Not that nonsense! What in the world are you that you can withstand my sword?”
“There are many experts in this world who remain unseen.”
The Knight Commander glared with blazing eyes.
Even using fighting spirit alone meant one was no ordinary person.
Robin, strangely enough, displayed swordsmanship similar to the Knight Commander’s.
As if he were watching and copying it exactly.
“You bastard….”
“Do not misunderstand. It is a sword style I originally wielded.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I am merely referencing your swordsmanship a little, Knight Commander.”
It looked as though he could split him in half at any moment.
Yet whenever he tried to seize him, he slipped away like a loach.
Though the Knight Commander held the upper hand throughout, the fight would not conclude.
“Enough of this—just crawl back into a hole!”
He had delayed this much already.
Aura stretched long from the Knight Commander’s sword.
When the aura, seemingly ten meters in length, traced a half circle, Robin sprang his body upward.
“I wasn’t going to say something like this.”
Tadadadadat!
As he fled with the Knight Commander behind him, Robin shouted.
“The Imperial Knight Order isn’t much after all!”
“What?”
“To think you can’t even catch a swordsman like me—isn’t that a bit much!”
“…….”
The Knight Commander clenched his sword tightly.
The Order was not so trivial as to be looked down on by someone like that.
And to dare spout such nonsense to the Commander of the Imperial Knight Order.
Thud.
As the Knight Commander stepped forward, the ground caved in.
“This won’t do, you.”
Wooooooong.
Aura burned quietly.
Robin shuddered at the power he felt at the back of his head.
The obvious provocation had made the Knight Commander see red.
‘Good.’
Robin stopped near the entrance of the arena they had escaped from.
The building was already slashed here and there by aura; with just a little more impact, it was bound to collapse.
When he slightly raised his head, he saw that the Butcher had finished preparing.
Now he only had to endure that monstrous aura.
“Before a beast as vast as Mount Tai….”
When he had felled the gigantic monster, the Potato,
he had opened the path to building his own realm.
He was far stronger now than he had been then,
and he should be able to withstand even the Knight Commander’s strike.
“…With a blade bearing earnest desire. Even a mountain shall be cleaved.”
Soon, the Knight Commander’s sword swung down, and Robin drew his blade in response.
Thud. Kuguung.
Fighting spirit and aura collided in midair, writhing fiercely as if trying to devour one another.
“Keuugh…!”
The aura made his teeth clench on their own.
He endured for over ten seconds, burning with fighting spirit.
Pebbles fell from above his head.
“Now!”
At Robin’s signal, the Butcher lifted her foot and stomped down.
Jjeok. Jjeojeojeok.
Cracks spread from the ceiling down along the walls.
Robin counted to three in his mind, then released his strength and flung himself away.
“You were taunting me, and now you’re running?!”
The Knight Commander’s aura showed no sign of stopping and raked through the spot where Robin had stood.
A building on the verge of collapse and the Knight Commander’s indiscriminate attack.
Combined with the impact delivered by the Butcher, the arena entrance crumbled in an instant.
Under normal circumstances, the Knight Commander would have escaped with ease, but Robin was a step faster.
“Calm down for a moment.”
Puh-eok.
Caught off guard by the ambush, the Knight Commander stumbled several steps forward.
Those few steps aligned perfectly with where the building collapsed.
“You bastard….”
Ku-gung. Kugugugung.
The entrance collapsed in an instant.
Though the Knight Commander spewed aura like a madman, it was enough to hold him there for a short while.
The Butcher came down from above and muttered,
“You really pulled it off.”
“We were lucky. More importantly, let’s get out of here.”
Though the building had collapsed, there was no way the Knight Commander would fail to break free.
As she followed Robin, the Butcher spoke.
“I have somewhere else to go.”
“Right now?”
“Yeah. Sorry.”
She meant she had to leave without even borrowing the Phoenix Feather.
He did not know the details, but it seemed something urgent had come up.
“It can’t be helped.”
There was nothing to gain by staying longer in this chaos.
It was a shame, but parting here was the cleanest option.
“Hey.”
He was about to head to where his companions would be waiting,
when the Butcher grabbed him.
“Aren’t you in a hurry?”
“Your name.”
“What?”
“What’s your name.”
She asked again what she had asked before.
Even after he had deflected her with “Black Mask,” she persisted—she must have been quite curious about his identity.
“Come to Narvik. Then you’ll find out.”
“Narvik…?”
“Even if you figure out who I am, don’t go around shouting that I’m the Black Mask.”
Though they had been rivals entangled by chance, it had not been a bad encounter.
What impressed him most was that she had stepped forward to block the Knight Commander.
Perhaps she had something she trusted in, but it was clear the Butcher had shown him goodwill.
“…Alright.”
The Butcher unfastened the sword at her waist and handed it to Robin.
“Take it.”
It was a Dwarf-Forged Sword.
It was supposed to be awarded to the runner-up of the Arena—when had she taken it?
“I defeated Nelson, so it’s practically mine.”
“Hmm, if second place dies, wouldn’t I, as third place, automatically move up?”
As the Butcher subtly tried to pull her hand back, Robin swiftly snatched it.
Before he knew it, he had obtained a Dwarf-Forged Sword.
It was nice, but he had no idea why she was giving it to him.
“I’ll come to retrieve it. Keep it safe.”
“You’re really coming to Narvik?”
The Butcher nodded and ran off in a different direction from Robin.
To entrust a treasure that was priceless and not easily obtained.
What in the world was she thinking?
“Thanks! I’ll use it well!”
Just before she disappeared from sight, the Butcher turned her head.
It was obvious she was about to protest that it was only a temporary loan, not a transfer of ownership.
It was then.
Tuk. Tuduk.
The Black Mask that had covered his face crumbled like powder.
Now that it was all over, it did not matter anymore.
If he went just a little farther, he could board a carriage.
Amid the chaos, there would not be many who would recognize him as the Black Mask.
‘Come to think of it, she said she wanted to see my face.’
Remembering the Butcher’s request, Robin grinned and waved his hand.
“What are you doing? Go already!”
The distance was too great for her to make him out clearly anyway.
The Butcher stood there blankly, as if struck by lightning.
In contrast, Robin kept moving, and their meeting ended there.
“Ro… bin?”
The Butcher called out his name in a hollow voice.
He neither showed his face again nor answered.
The Black Mask who hurried off on his path—no, Robin—vanished like a mirage.
“You were… alive……?”
Bang. Kwagwagwang.
Hearing the thunderous noise from her destination, she moved the legs that had stopped.
She had thought it impossible—yet was it truly?
Perhaps she had been mistaken, seeing him from afar.
Still. If he were truly alive…….
“You said Narvik.”
Imelda could not contain her pounding heart.
If things were resolved well,
she would definitely go to find him.
Holding a resolve close to determination, she headed toward her destination.