75 – It Was There, But Now It’s Gone.
“Hey, the boss over there has a message for you. Open the door for a moment.”
Clearly, the person on the other side seemed to have mistaken the room.
Creak, creak!
The doorknob shook vigorously as they tried to forcefully open the door, but it remained locked and wouldn’t budge.
“If you don’t open the door in 3 seconds, I’ll break it. One, two-…”
Thinking that they would eventually leave if ignored, Iris raised her eyebrows in surprise at the unexpectedly aggressive words and looked up from Lian’s clothes.
“Three!”
Crash!
With a loud noise, the door shattered.
“Huh? There was no one in front of the door, right? Huh, so you never intended to open it in the first place?”
Iris’s gaze turned towards Lian’s clothes. Fragments of the door flew and tore the edge of the clothes. Iris’s eyes sank with disappointment.
“Oh, I heard those girls over there are quite attractive. Isn’t that true? Hey, why don’t you come over to our side? I’ll treat you well, as best as I can. hehehehe…”
The person with a massive stature that resembled an orc turned out to be a woman, not a man. With a appearance reminiscent of a gorilla, the woman displayed her desire openly to the young Iris.
Iris found everything about her behavior that messed up her territory, ruined Lian’s clothes, and gave her a displeased look unpleasant. No, it was beyond unpleasant, it was disgusting.
The moment she tried to turn a woman into a wo/man.
“Kreugh!”
With a sound like a giant beast roaring, something rushed towards the woman.
Thud, swoosh!
“Grrk-…”
Jess, infuriated by the invasion of her territory, grabbed the woman’s head and tore it off.
Thump!
The headless body rolled on the floor.
“Aoook!”
Letting out a long cry, Jess casually licked the blood on her hand and quickly turned to Iris.
“Gasp! Is, is it okay to kill her?”
Jess asked, his ears pricked up belatedly. Iris approached the corpse, kicked it in the stomach, and replied.
“Yeah.”
At that moment, Lian’s voice came from the bathroom.
“Iris! Is something happening outside? I heard a loud noise.”
Iris’s previously frozen expression instantly softened. She approached the bathroom and spoke.
“Uh, no. It sounds like someone…fighting outside.”
“Really? Can I go out?”
“…Yeah.”
If Iris were to say that she should come out now, I thought that Lian might see her naked body, so after a long silence, I finally replied.
“Okay. If something happens, let me know right away.”
“Yeah.”
As Iris finished speaking, the sound of water could be heard again. Lian was the type to take long showers.
Partly because the shower costs were included in the inn fee, and partly because there weren’t many opportunities to shower with warm water during the trip, it had become a habit for Lian to take long showers whenever he had the chance.
Anyway, for these reasons, Lian didn’t realize what kind of commotion was happening outside. It was quite common in the world of comedy.
Thud, thud!
Before Vienna’s blood could dry, people with similar builds and appearances came crashing down.
“Ugh! Lady Vienna!”
“Vienna is in trouble!”
“T-That can’t be!”
They approached the direction of Lian’s party’s lodging and froze when they found Vienna’s head lying in the hallway.
The giants couldn’t move, frozen by Vienna’s death, who had been their leader. The one standing at the front among them gritted his teeth and shouted.
“Damn it! It’s war!”
“B-But!”
“After our leader’s death and failing our mission, do you think the boss will spare us? The only path left for us is to dominate these two years!”
Clang, clang!
Realizing that there was no other choice, the giants drew their swords and tried to attack Iris and Jess.
“Thank goodness.”
Iris muttered in a low voice, as if whispering, and smiled beautifully.
“There are so many things that can be killed.”
Iris was genuinely delighted by the fact that there was a place where she could release her anger.
She drew her sword leaning against the wall and dashed out into the corridor in one motion. She didn’t want to further dirty the room with the blood of filthy things.
Swoosh!
The body fell.
***
10 minutes ago, in the most luxurious room of the inn where Lian and his party were staying.
A spacious living room with a fancy carpet, and a plush leather sofa with an elegant wooden table in the middle, facing each other.
Noah was sitting with his legs crossed on one side of the sofa, and on the other side, a grizzled old woman was sitting. Behind each sofa stood a member of the organization as their guard.
Noah, due to continuous training and his innate abilities, didn’t look like a child of his age. At least he looked 17.
“I didn’t know the boss of Nest would be this young.”
The middle-aged woman with a square jaw scoffed and spoke with a mocking tone. It was a clear mockery, but Noah just shrugged his shoulders with a casual expression.
“I didn’t know the boss of Vian would be an old lady like this. Oh, are you a grandma?”
“What…?!”
Her face turned red and purple. Hearing the sound of her grinding teeth, Noah looked at her with a cold gaze.
“She’s even more unpleasant than I thought.”
Why was Noah sitting face to face and having a conversation with such an unpleasant person?
To understand that, one must have a simple understanding of the current situation in Cardisian.
The dwarf boss who ruled the northwest region of Cardisian, the Deviatan who ruled the east, and the Verimosa, an organization alliance constantly at war in the southern region.
Among them, the northwest region occupied by the dwarf boss became unstable after the boss’s death and began to crumble due to internal conflicts.
To obtain even a piece of bread, to occupy even a small territory, to establish a new power in the midst of chaos, and so on. People gathered for various reasons.
At first, there was all sorts of confusion, but as time passed, the incompetent ones easily crumbled or withdrew, and the structure of the fight became clear.
The fight between Noah’s organization, “Nest,” which had grown to be terrifyingly powerful despite being a newly formed organization, and the “Deviathan,” which had been waging war relentlessly, aiming for the land in the northwest, became a reality.
It was inconceivable that Nest, where most of its members were rookies, would fight on equal footing with Deviathan. No, everyone agreed that it was inconceivable.
A twist occurred. Nest went beyond being on equal footing with Deviathan and began gradually swallowing up the territories.
But that was the limit. To push aside Deviathan and swallow up a vast territory, they needed more power and more people.
Noah, with overwhelming charisma, swallowed up relatively clean organizations and expanded the size of his organization through such efforts. But even with such efforts, it was not enough to completely push aside Deviathan.
The method that came to mind in such a situation was an “alliance.” They formed a temporary alliance with an organization that had been cruel and didn’t even attract attention, and quickly pushed aside Deviathan by increasing their size.
Currently, there was no other viable method besides that.
That was why Noah was facing this unpleasant person.
“Tsk, I thought we could have some conversation at least.”
He was a person who made judgments based on age and appearance and mocked others. There was no chance of having a proper conversation with such a person.
Noah could clearly see the disdain and desire in the woman’s eyes. When he faced the desire to devour the plump prey called “Nest,” his mood sank.
“I guess I should give up on collaborating with trash like you.”
Forming an alliance with someone who might stab him in the back at any moment was no different than suicide.
Noah looked at the woman with a cold expression and stood up. No, he tried to stand up.
At that moment, the guard standing behind the woman drew his sword. Noah furrowed his brows and pressed his slightly raised buttocks against the sofa. The guard put his sword back.
“Hey, hey, where do you think you’re going without even having a proper conversation? Above all, I came here against my will because of your damn request.”
“I’m sorry, but I think the conversation can end here.”
“Wow, I spoke so rudely. I apologize, but when bosses meet, it’s a habit for me to establish dominance like this.”
She smiled as if it was a genuine mistake, her expression instantly softening. But Noah remained on guard.
“Well… yes, it was a difficult situation, so let’s have a little more conversation to gather information about the other party.”
Even without forming an alliance, they could obtain information about the other side through conversation.
“Alright. Then—”
As Noah slowly began to bring up his matter, the boss of Bian gave a signal to his escort. He lightly scratched his neck and tapped his shoulder three times. Then, the escort grabbed the lower part of his robe and activated the signal device.
In the room right next to the room where they were having their conversation, about 20 people were gathered.
They were mostly women, with massive muscular bodies. They had so much muscle that even their facial muscles were twitching, making their overall appearance look different.
They were the Orc unit of Bian organization, gathered to carry out the plan under the boss’s command.
The order they received was simple: to take Noah’s subordinates as hostages.
Biana, the leader of the Orc unit, smiled as she looked at the signal device.
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“It’s the signal. She clearly said that her subordinates are resting in Room 2023, right?”
In response to Biana’s words, her subordinate raised her head and spoke.
“I heard that it’s not Room 2023, but Room 2024… cough!”
Thwack!
Biana struck her subordinate’s back of the head with her fist, terrifyingly accurate, as she delivered the correct information.
“So, are you saying that I misunderstood?! If I say it’s Room 2023, then it’s Room 2023!”
“Y-Yes, yes!”
Biana said with a determined expression.
“For now, I’ll go and take care of it quickly. You guys come down in five minutes.”
“Yes? But…”
“What? Do you have something to say?”
“Ah… No…”
His subordinates tried to rebel against his statement of devouring all the powers, but when Vienna raised her fist threateningly, they had no choice but to submit.
“Well then, I’ll go first. Wait quietly!”
After Vienna left, about 5 minutes passed, and the members of the organization went downstairs.
…And they all disappeared to a place they could never return from.
The boss of Bian, who had no idea about this, nodded in agreement with Noah’s words and laughed inwardly with malice.
“Heh heh, foolish woman. She’s blabbering nonsense without even knowing what kind of situation my subordinate is in.”
Because of her foolish subordinate, the main force of the organization was annihilated, so the real foolish woman was herself, but Bian’s boss had no way of realizing that.