TBAGM Vol. 3 Chapter 4 Part 2

“Now that the course is set, the next issue is how we’re going to bring down Noir.”

“In that regard, I shall explain.”

“Yeah, I’m counting on you, Serina.”

After that, Serina began speaking one point at a time.

“So you’re that Seriana! That’s hard to believe all of a sudden!”

“I’m shocked someone that skilled has been working as a maid. I never noticed at all.”

Loren and Mint looked at Serina in her maid uniform and shrugged.

The first thing she spoke about was her true identity.

That Serina was in fact the great criminal Seriana. Then, after coming to know Ellis and His Majesty the King, she had received a pardon and become Serina, Ellis’s guard.

The next thing she explained was why Serina had committed such massacres in the first place.

“…You had it rough too.”

“No, I was just glad I could vent my resentment.”

At Kyros’s unusually considerate words, Serina shook her head.

Even so, that did not change the fact that she had suffered terribly.

“Noir used my family to transfer skills three separate times. He forced three of my younger sisters to transfer their skills to my youngest sister.”

“Then doesn’t that mean your youngest sister is still alive?”

“No. It seems a person can only accept one skill given by another. Her mind collapsed, and little by little her body began to fail as well.”

“““…………….”””

“The moment those three sisters were stripped of their skills, they died on the spot and became corpses.”

The scene Serina described was hell itself.

Because she had been able to take revenge on Noir’s subordinates, she had vented her resentment?

There was no way that could be true. The number was different, but I had lost just one precious sister, and it had tormented me this much.

Serina had lost four precious younger sisters.

Trying to imagine the depth of that pain would have been presumptuous.

“Well, let’s leave my past at that. Next is Noir’s whereabouts.”

After I had been abducted by Noir, Rei and Serina had come to save me.

After that, Rei had secured me and escaped, while Serina had continued fighting Noir, but…

“Noir escaped using teleportation magic. However, during the battle I placed tracking magic on him, so I know where he is hiding now.”

“As expected of someone with S-rank-level ability.”

Everyone, Kyros included, was impressed by Serina’s actions.

Without her, we never would have been able to launch a counterattack against Noir so quickly.

“So where is he?”

“In the slums of the royal capital of the Fereia Kingdom. More specifically, in the southern district where there is absolutely no foot traffic.”

“That really is the perfect place to conduct illegal research and experiments.”

I had lived in the slums for years, but I had never gone near that area.

Do not approach the south side. That had been one of the rules of the slums.

The southern district had become a den for thugs and criminals who had even been cast out from the slums. I had heard that kidnappings and murders never ceased there.

“And according to the information we have gathered, Noir’s objective is to reclaim the skills from Lord Kyros and Lord Lloyd. And given the kind of man he is, of course he will not go about it peacefully.”

It was certain that we would be targeted from here on out.

If Noir’s words had been true, then his goal was to carry out skill transfers more than a hundred times and obtain whatever boon came afterward.

Then there was the error that had occurred among Kyros, me, and Lishia.

He had appeared before us once more in order to restore that to its original state.

“Our opponent is Noir. If we dawdle, there’s no telling what form his next move will take.”

There was still far too much we did not know about Noir.

I had not even been able to see through his power with 【Appraisal】.

After all, he possessed the mysterious ability to transfer skills.

That being the case, it would be better to strike with everything we had before giving him any time to prepare.

While I was thinking that, Serina added another detail.

“By the way, Noir is immortal. During the battle just now, Rei and I each beheaded him once, but he simply reattached his head like it was a doll’s.”

“““Huh?”””

At that sudden bombshell, we all let out ridiculous cries before we knew it.

“S-Something like that is even possible?”

“He is the kind of person who can steal skills from others. It would not be strange if he had modified his own body.”

“Even so, surviving after being beheaded…”

It sounded like utter nonsense, but if the two of them had seen it, then it must have been true.

“Even monsters die if you cut off their heads, don’t they?”

“Guts! So in the end, can it all be solved with enough guts after all?!”

Loren was being her usual energetic self, but what Mint said was correct. Even monsters with absurd regenerative powers like those had a weak point. If you destroyed the core that served as their heart or severed their head, they died.

“Could it be a clone?”

I voiced a possibility that had occurred to me.

I felt like I had once read in some document that a skill for creating clones had been discovered somewhere. I remembered thinking at the time that it sounded useful.

“I thought so too at first. However, the feel of the strike was not that of a clone.”

Serina denied it with complete confidence.

“A clone is a clone. Even if you cut one down, you do not feel much resistance from it.”

“How do you know that much about clones? There shouldn’t be anyone in this country who can use a skill that creates them.”

Perhaps because Serina had sounded so certain, Kyros asked her that question.

It was something I had also been wondering about. Together with Kyros, I had investigated all the notable talent in this country. If someone capable of using a clone-making skill had existed, there was no way we would have overlooked them.

Then Serina let out a small laugh.

“Yes, I think it would be quicker to show you.”

It was at that moment.

“Excuse me!”

An employee of the Adventurer’s Association entered the conference room.

If I remembered correctly, he had been guarding this room.

“Lord Orgus, may I have a moment?”

“What is it? We are in the middle of an important meeting. I told you not to let anyone in under any circumstances.”

“That is true, however… it seems someone has arrived late.”

“Who?”

“A maid claiming to be Serina. Under normal circumstances I would turn her away, but her name is listed on the roster…”

“What?”

Orgus immediately turned to look at Serina.

She, in turn, gave a satisfied nod.

“…Permit her entry.”

“Understood. Excuse me.”

The employee bowed and left the conference room, and another person entered in his place.

That person was wearing a maid uniform and bowed politely.

Then, with a meaningful smile on her lips, she asked us:

“Everyone, why do you all look so surprised?”

“““…!?”””

The one who had entered was none other than Serina herself.

The exact same clothes, the exact same gestures, and even the atmosphere she gave off was identical.

“Hehe, my apologies for startling you. But that is precisely why I know so much about clones.”

Saying that, the Serina who had just entered came to stand beside the Serina who had been there from the beginning.

“Um… does that mean you can create clones, Serina?”

“Yes. The skills I possess are all derivatives of 【Replication】. Creating clones is one of them.”

With that, she snapped her fingers, and the newly arrived Serina vanished.

“““…………….”””

We were left speechless.

We had understood that she was an overwhelmingly capable person.

But surely none of us had imagined she was capable of this much.

“…Serina. Would it be all right if I appraised you?”

At this point, I could not help wondering just how many skills and how much power she had been hiding.

Besides, my nature as an Advisor was crying out to see her true abilities.

“I do not mind, but I doubt it will be possible.”

“Impossible?”

“Well, please try it once.”

For now, I used 【Appraisal】 on Serina.

“Huh?”

This was the first time anything like this had happened.

No matter how many times I tried to view her status values, it was as though they were covered in mist and I could not see them. Perhaps it would be easier to say they looked blurred.

“Lord Lloyd’s 【Appraisal】 is S-rank. In contrast, my 【Concealment】 is SS-rank. That is why you cannot see my status values.”

“Whaaaat?!”

Everything about her was so far beyond the norm that it made my head hurt.

If she had been contributing to the guild from the very beginning, wouldn’t we have become a top-ranked guild in an instant?

No, none of that mattered right now.

“But having someone as capable as you helping us defeat Noir is incredibly reassuring, Serina.”

Even compared to S-rank adventurers, Serina stood far above the rest.

By herself, she was worth about as much as an entire top-tier guild.

“I am truly sorry about that, but I do not believe I will be of much help to you, Lord Lloyd.”

“Huh?”

That unexpected response made me blurt out my surprise.

“I usually serve as Lady Ellis’s guard, but in emergencies I also guard His Majesty the King. Since we do not know what may happen when Noir is subjugated, I likely will not be able to leave the royal palace.”

She certainly had a point.

The importance of defeating Noir was far greater than everyone imagined.

He had killed well over a hundred people at minimum, and he had escaped from the subterranean prison. He was a criminal severe enough that the kingdom itself should have mobilized against him.

However, if information about Noir were to become public now, it would only cause chaos.

In that case, it was better for a small elite force to storm Noir’s hideout and subdue him.

“What about your clone?”

“Of course, I must also guard Lady Ellis, so I will send one of my clones with you. However, a clone’s strength is only around A-rank. Whether it will be of use to you, Lord Lloyd, I…”

“That would still be a tremendous help!”

What in the world did Serina think A-rank meant?

Just adding one A-rank adventurer to our side would boost our strength tremendously.

It would raise the chances of the operation succeeding by a huge margin.

“We have gotten sidetracked. In any case, regarding Noir’s immortality, I can say with certainty that he was not a clone.”

Serina was the one saying it, and she was capable of creating clones herself.

That meant we could rule out the possibility that Noir’s body had been fake or a clone.

“Did you notice anything at all, even if it seemed trivial?”

“Let me think… if even something truly minor is fine, then there is just one thing.”

Serina spoke with a furrow in her brow.

“When I cut him, the sensation had a kind of stickiness to it. I do not know what that was, however…”

“Stickiness? Stickiness, huh…”

Nothing came to mind when she said that.

Even being told there was a sticky sensation when cutting him did not make me think of anything.

Apparently I was not the only one, because everyone else wore troubled expressions as well.

It did not seem like we would get any further by continuing to think about it here, so I decided to put the matter of his immortality on hold and move on.

“Well, let’s set that aside for now. We do not need to kill Noir on the spot immediately.”

“We don’t have to kill him?”

“We were talking on the assumption that we could, but for now, subduing and capturing him will be enough. We can deal with the immortality issue after that.”

There was something more important we had to decide first.

“We need to decide the day we’ll launch the operation to subjugate Noir.”

That was the most important matter of this meeting, and it had to be decided as quickly as possible.

“We have no idea when he’ll make his move. At most, we have three days.”

“Right. And I want to limit the members to B-rank adventurers and above.”

I agreed with Kyros’s opinion as well. If we took longer than three days, the chances of Noir making a move against us first would rise drastically.

And the members participating in the operation would be better off as a small elite force.

However, according to Serina’s report, Noir had subordinates in the past. The possibility that he was operating alone was low.

We needed numbers, and we needed strength.

That line was B-rank and above.

“B-rank and above!? If that’s the case, neither our guild nor Loren’s can even send ten people!”

“Yeah! Even if we don’t know Noir’s full strength, shouldn’t we at least make it C-rank and above?”

“No. If something happens, C-rank adventurers won’t be able to escape. But if they’re B-rank or above, we can leave it to their individual judgment.”

When it came to dungeon exploration, only B-rank adventurers and above could go into the lower levels, below the twentieth floor.

A B-rank adventurer would have a fair amount of experience and should be able to make calm decisions even in dangerous situations.

But that would be difficult for C-rank adventurers. Not every single one of them would necessarily panic, but in most cases they would fall into confusion. That was how large the gap in both ability and experience was between B-rank and C-rank.

“If Lloyd says so, then fine. We at Greenpeak aren’t doing any dungeon exploration right now anyway, so we can join the operation right away starting tomorrow.”

“The same goes for us at Azure Sea Whitecaps!”

“For Incarnation of the Sun, the First and Third Units are not a problem. The Second Unit was just recalled from a dungeon, so I would like one day of leeway.”

The three guildmasters all said they could join the operation immediately.

Taking the resupply of provisions into account, I wanted one more day.

“I think we should set the operation for the day after tomorrow.”

“““Understood.”””

No one objected to that decision.

And so the emergency strategy meeting regarding Noir came to a close.

The next time we would gather would be early in the morning the day after tomorrow.

That would be the day we launched the operation to subjugate Noir.

†