She had only crawled through the sewers one more time, so how could something have happened in the city again?
“What happened over there?”
Yuri could only stop a fleeing passerby, hoping to learn from them what exactly was going on ahead.
However, the person seemed scared out of their wits, only repeating the same words.
“Monsters… there are monsters!”
‘Are those humanoid monsters emerging from underground?’
‘Tch… how unlucky.’
‘Where are the knights? Why is the street in such a mess, yet there isn’t a single sign of a knight?’
She couldn’t worry about that much for now. Unlike the other fleeing residents, Yuri ran toward the center of the chaos.
But before she could even get close, a distorted humanoid monster jumped down from a nearby roof, lunging straight for Yuri’s face.
“Get back!”
Yuri raised her left hand, and with a click, the grappling claw grabbed the humanoid monster’s head. The monster’s body suddenly stiffened in midair, and then Yuri gave her left hand a violent tug while her right hand gripped her pendant. The moment the monster was pulled in front of her, the flaming longsword pierced through its body.
Retracting the longsword, she didn’t bother to look back at the monster’s corpse as it collapsed and gradually turned into ash. Yuri continued forward to the center of the street.
Her luck was relatively good, as she hadn’t arrived too late. At this moment, the humanoid monsters had only just begun their destruction.
However, several human corpses already lay on the street. Some monsters were still crouched over the bodies, devouring them and making a bone-chilling chewing sound.
Seeing her appear, the monsters turned one after another and lunged toward Yuri.
‘This is perfect. I won’t have to search for them one by one.’
The longsword in her hand traced a crimson arc. Every time the sword fell, a monster would go down, turning into ash and dissipating.
Yuri could feel that compared to when she was still Xili, her strength had improved by leaps and bounds.
As for the reason, Yuri glanced at Iris beside her. It likely had something to do with that Little Evil God. However, she wasn’t entirely sure what Iris had done to strengthen her body.
‘Perhaps because we exchanged parts of our bodies, and Iris gained a certain amount of control over me, she also gained the ability to enhance and modify my body?’
She wasn’t sure. Even if she asked, Iris probably wouldn’t give her an answer.
In this manner, the humanoid monsters were defeated one after another before Yuri. Even if they were slightly stronger than low-tier monsters, as long as they hadn’t stepped into the middle-tier, Yuri was confident she could handle them easily.
For Yuri, she might even have the strength to fight a middle-tier monster now. At the very least, she wouldn’t struggle as miserably as she did when she first encountered that gargoyle.
After confirming that she had slain the last humanoid monster on the street, Yuri retracted her longsword and panted slightly.
‘Phew… there sure were a lot of them.’
She had handled more than twenty of them in total. Now, every single one should be dead.
‘For them to suddenly pop up at this time, it’s possible that Bartol and the others have moved to the next step of their experiment and started randomly picking passersby for testing.’
‘Tch… they really don’t care about human life.’
She didn’t know if this was happening in other places as well, but Yuri couldn’t worry about that now. The priority was to meet up with Keledon; he might know something.
Coincidentally, Yuri heard a familiar noise. it sounded like the knights were rushing over.
‘They sure arrived at the perfect time. Any later, and they wouldn’t even have seen my shadow.’
Since the knights were here, she would leave the cleanup of the scene to them.
Yuri released her grappling hook to grab a nearby eave. After flying up to the building, she flipped over the roof and landed on the street on the other side. This way, she didn’t have to worry about the knights chasing her.
***
Yuri didn’t encounter any other unexpected situations on her way to the guild. When she pushed open the guild’s doors, the familiar receptionist lady was still standing at the reception desk.
“Miss Yuri? Are you here to see the Guild Master?”
“Yes.”
“Alright, please follow me. The Guild Master is back, but he’s not in a good mood.”
“Did something happen?”
“I don’t know. He might have gotten into an argument with someone.”
Judging by this, the conversation between Keledon and Bartol probably hadn’t gone very smoothly.
As for obtaining new information, Yuri didn’t have high hopes.
After all, he had conducted secret investigations before. Since he hadn’t gained much then, it was normal for him to come up empty-handed this time too.
She would first go and hear what happened when he went to the City Lord’s Manor today.
“Guild Master Keledon, Miss Yuri is here.”
“Let her in quickly.”
Pushing open the office door, Keledon was still sitting behind that wooden desk, his face clouded with obvious worry.
After Yuri walked in, the receptionist lady closed the door and left.
“Guild Master Keledon, how is the situation?”
“Don’t mention it. The talks collapsed. Bartol has changed—he’s changed so much. He completely refuses to listen to me anymore.”
Thinking about what happened inside the City Lord’s Manor, Keledon’s brow furrowed even tighter.
“He wasn’t like this before. He used to view Iron Anvil City as more important than his own life. He would never allow the citizens of the city to come to harm. But why has he changed? Why has he become like this?”
Keledon’s voice was tinged with a hint of pain. His friend’s change in personality was completely beyond his expectations.
“He doesn’t care about the lives of the people. He’s heart and soul into the matters he’s conducting in the dark. I told him that the most important thing right now is to protect the safety of Iron Anvil City, that we need to strengthen the city’s defenses and stop wasting strength on senseless searches within the city. But he… but he…”
Although Keledon didn’t continue, Yuri could guess the outcome. It was eighty percent likely that Bartol had rejected him.
“I asked him why. He clearly wasn’t like this before. He said it was because of hatred.”
“Hatred for the Deep Abyss?”
“No.”
Keledon shook his head. “It’s hatred for Roderick. The target of Bartol’s revenge is Roderick.”
‘Eh?’
Although she had never been there, Yuri knew that the Royal Capital seemed to be called by that name.
Before Yuri could ask why he wanted to seek revenge against the Royal Capital, the receptionist lady’s voice suddenly sounded from outside the door.
“Guild Master Keledon, Master Pegum from the City Lord’s Manor says he has something to discuss with you.”
‘Pegum?’
‘Why did he come looking for us of his own accord?’
This was bad. Although she didn’t know if her identity had been exposed, Yuri didn’t want to meet Pegum right now.
Before Yuri could even stand up to jump out of the window, the pale, lanky man pushed the door open and entered. In his hand, he still held that black wooden staff.
This was bad; there was no time to escape. Now she could only hope that Pegum didn’t recognize her.
After Pegum entered the office, he scanned the room. His gaze shifted from Keledon to Yuri.
“I didn’t expect Miss Yuri to be here as well. It seems I won’t have to make an extra trip to find you.”