"Sorry uncle, but it's just bad luck," Tyrone laughed as he pulled the sword back from Rowan's heart.
Back there, all the goblins had already died while Rowan was focused on the main boss.
With Cordelia open for cleanup and Jack and Tyrone as amateur hunters with prior experience, they had finished it off quickly.
Sadly, they did it because they had a plan.
[You have suffered damage. Spending 12 Soul Points to recover.] [Soul Points remaining: 12]
"You were given a warning."
But instead of dying, Rowan slowly pushed himself off the sword, knife steady in hand.
"W-What..." Tyrone was speechless, terrified as his sword trembled in his grip.
"But you were E rank! How!"
At E rank you either had boosted physical ability or gained a minor skill.
Having both meant you should at least be D rank.
Rowan's wound was completely gone without a trace as he returned from death.
[Reaper's Body (SS): When damaged, spend SP to recover. Prevents instant death.]
"I was, but that is not the point." Rowan sighed, his eyes down with disappointment.
"There was no hesitation in your blade. At least struggle a little, this is a human life you tried to take. Did you forget that?"
It was not the first time he had been killed by a human. On the contrary, it had happened many times before, both when he saw it coming and when he did not.
But every time he knew it was coming, he welcomed it. Because he could die as many times as needed. He was willing to spend these worthless SP from dungeon monsters if it meant saving just one more person from their own sin.
Still, not everyone was smart enough to take that chance
He had been doing this long enough to tell those who could be redeemed from those who could not, just from the way they fought.
"I'm sorry for your loved one loss, but you can't live."
[Dash]
Rowan's blade was swift. In a single blink he sliced Tyrone's jugular before he could even react.
As Tyrone's eyes widened in shock, Rowan drove the knife through his head, killing him instantly.
And unlike Rowan, Tyrone could not come back.
[SP:13]
"And now..." Standing on Tyrone's corpse, he looked back toward the boss's room gate.
"What are you going to do, kid?"
Lee lay on the floor coughing up blood, a wound on his side from Jack's blade.
In front of his eyes, Jack had Cordelia pinned to the ground, her hands tied and her wand pushed out of reach.
"If you move I'll skin your little boyfriend alive~" Jack's voice seethed with excitement.
He and Tyrone had been plotting this for a long time.
"You monsters! I'm going to kill you!" Cordelia fired back fiercely, buying time for her mana to regenerate enough to blast him to cinders.
"Ah~ Yeah, keep that face. I want to see what it looks like when I'm done." Jack laughed as he began unbuttoning her shirt, revealing black lingerie underneath. "Whoa, jackpot~!"
"You scumbag!" Cordelia couldn't fight back and felt disgusted to her core.
This was supposed to be her boyfriend's celebration after clearing the gate, not this.
She was a mage build and Jack a warrior build, their physical strength too far apart to overcome.
Even if she was D rank and had physical enhancement too, Jack still had more points in Strength than her.
Lee tried to heal his own wound but Jack called out to him, "Don't worry Lee, Tyrone won't leave you alone for long." His words made Lee's spine shiver.
"Right, Tyrone!" Jack shouted to his friend who had killed the outsider, only for a shotgun blast to come back as the answer.
Tyrone's head was tossed toward him as an answer.
"Your friend is dead." Rowan's voice was flat.
Now, looking at this, he wondered if that way of thinking was wrong.
'I know all your weaknesses, Rowan.'
He really was too hesitant when it came to harming other human beings.
Still, it couldn't be helped.
Because only in crisis can a hero be born and a villain be discovered.
"How long are you going to just sit there?" He looked over at Lee.
All of this happened because the boy wanted to raid this dungeon. It was his responsibility as much as anyone's, and so it was his story to see through.
Lee flinched slightly, trying to push himself up despite his wound.
"You failed, huh? Not surprised." Rowan sighed and shook his head. Maybe he had placed too much hope in the boy's determination, without any skill or competency to back it up.
Lee could not even discern their true intentions from their actions.
"Don't come closer! If you come in I-I'll kill her!" Jack quickly pointed his blade at Cordelia's throat.
"Then what?" Instead of panic or annoyance, Rowan kept walking toward Jack.
"You kill her, I kill you. So, what is the point?" Rowan kept walking until he was close enough that Jack's face flooded with fear, his sword hand trembling.
"STAY BACK, I'M GOING TO DO IT!!" Jack was fuming.
Rowan stopped. He loaded a buckshot round into the chamber and took aim.
"Block it," He said.
Without hesitation, Rowan took the shot.
The blast spread out even with Cordelia positioned as a shield between them, but Cordelia was a rank D hunter. She was smarter than Jack gave her credit for.
A barrier of red glass appeared and caught the shotgun pellets before they reached her.
As for Jack? Not so much.
"Ah!!" Pellets tore across his face, skull cracked, mouth split, the pain soaring so high he couldn't hold the blade anymore.
Jack, with the durability of a tank build, bit through his teeth and scrambled for his sword, but Rowan was already on top of him, firing into both his legs and arms, crippling him to the ground without finishing the job.
"AGHHHHHH!!!!!"
Jack writhed and screamed in excruciating pain.
"Kill him, just kill him," Cordelia might have wanted that, but the howling of a human at death's door was shaking her heart.
She couldn't even bring herself to look at the state Jack was in, blood pooling out everywhere.
"No, I'm not going to kill him," Rowan used his foot to kick the sword into Lee's hand.
"You will."