The Duke's Son :Re
Chapter 55

Chapter 55

A Named monster!

Any relatively high-level monster would exude overwhelming pressure. However, very few monsters could talk, and those that could were unique beings possessing human-level intelligence and individual goals.

These high-thinking monsters were often classified as Named.

“The monster’s level is low,” Loren analyzed.

The green-haired boy had awakened his Bloodline Skill a few years ago and experienced several wars since, so his level was at the standard of an active player. Combined with his high Insight stat, he could sense the level of the Death Knight. It was less than level 80—in other words, the Death Knight was on the verge of reaching A-class.

“......”

Shinra Kyeong silently agreed.

However, there were those in the world whose strength surpassed their level. Shinra Kyeong himself was an example of this, so he knew better than to ignore the power of a Named.

The monster’s actual combat power must be A-class or higher.

The Death Knight wielded a longsword and was armored in full plate. By all appearances, it seemed like it would use a heavy swordsmanship style, but they couldn’t make hasty predictions. A Named undead was unlikely to be constrained by the weight of its armor, so its swordmanship was unbound by convention.

It will be troublesome if the Death Knight uses swift swordsmanship.

The average level of the Class A students was still below 30.

If the Death Knight used speed-based swordsmanship, most students would be unable to react and would die.

“Is it impossible for you to dominate it?” Shinra Kyeong asked Loren. In addition to turning corpses into the undead, there was a famous story that necromancers could also dominate the wills of wild undead monsters. They were called one-man armies for a reason.

Loren replied, “No, the ego of a Named one is stronger than that of a human’s, especially for an entity like this—which has existed for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. I cannot possibly dominate it at my level.” Being a necromancer didn’t mean being almighty. Moreover, Loren was still growing. He was a National Treasure candidate—not a National Treasure. He asked, “What about your divinity?”

The Shinra family could manipulate nature with mana, summoning fierce winds and storms. Many people paid attention to the splendid sight of it, but the Baus family was different.

The Baus family had produced necromancers for generations. They had always been attentive and wary of the Shinra family’s divine power.

A Saint or Saintess.

The members of the Shinra family had been called such titles for generations.

“I don’t think my feeble divinity will work either.”

However, like Loren, Shinra Kyeong was also still young. It would be hard for him to face a Named undead.

In the end, the two boys came to the same conclusion.

“It is best to avoid fighting.”

Loren moved immediately, leaping back and disappearing into the bushes. As an exchange student, he didn’t feel the need to be loyal to his classmates. In the first place, South Korea was just a cursed land that happened to have Do-Jin in it. He didn’t care what happened to the students responsible for South Korea's future.

“Young Master, let’s leave.”

Oh Ja-Ha had noticed Loren fleeing and urged Shinra Kyeong.

There was only one purpose behind the young vassals of the Shinra family entering Lion’s Castle, and that was to protect Shinra Kyeong. For them, the safety of other students was unimportant.

They only needed to protect Shinra Kyeong, and they were confident they knew Shinra Kyeong’s personality, so they expressed their intent to leave openly.

After all, during the Leech King raid, Shinra Kyeong hadn’t bothered to help his classmates. Why should it be different this time? However, Shinra Kyeong’s reaction was completely different from what the vassals had expected.

“Aristocrats have a duty to protect the people. If we run away, what about the others? ”

“Haaap!”

Even as they spoke, the freshman runner-up, Chae Da-Hee, had assumed the duties of an aristocrat by charging forward and stabbing her rapier at the Death Knight. “Yoo-Jin! Take the others and run!”

It seemed she hoped to give the other students time to escape.

“She’s really crazy.” Oh Ja-Ha clicked his tongue. He had felt a sense of disgust toward Chae Da-Hee from the moment he’d first seen her.

At first glance, her attitude of acting on her emotions without thinking resembled his own, but the goals she pursued were the exact opposite of his: Oh Ja-Ha pursued his own safety while Chae Da-Hee prioritized the safety of those around her. Despite their small similarities, her behaviour was so naive and pretentious that it nauseated him.

It was the same now. Throwing away her life to save the others? What was the point? Oh Ja-Ha was glaring at Chae Da-Hee when he suddenly came to his senses. “Y-Young Master?”

Shinra Kyeong had taken out a huge zweihänder from his inventory. It seemed like he would seriously fight instead of running away this time.

“This is different from the situation of the Leech King. This disaster came out of nowhere, and it isn’t the others’ fault.”

“Hah... ” Oh Ja-Ha sighed and pulled out two swords.

“I don’t like this.” Oh Ja-Ha’s twin, Oh Ja-Du, pulled out a shield twice as large as her body and stood at the front of the group.

The short-haired hippie perm girl silently cast her buff Skill. It was a rare AOE buff.

Not only Shinra Kyeong but all the Class A students had their stats increased and their minds sharpened.

“Everyone, retreat while we buy time. Make sure to scatter while you move. That includes you, Chae Da-Hee.” Shinra Kyeong was elegant in every way. Whether it was how he talked, acted, or looked, his manner was reminiscent of entering a garden or a ball, not a battlefield.

However, the result was devastating.

Baaaaaaang!

With every step, a gust of wind carried Shinra Kyeong forward by a few dozen meters. He filled his huge zweihänder with white divinity and swung it towards the Death Knight’s head with a thunder-like roar.

The purple flames in the Death Knight’s hollow sockets glowed brighter as it raised its longsword to block the zweihänder.

[Hm? It’s a Power, albeit weak.]

The zweihänder in Shinra Kyeong’s hands let out a sound that was like a scream. Unable to handle the Death Knight’s strength, Shinra Kyeong was gradually pushed back. At that time, Chae Da-Hee and Oh Ja-Ha stepped forward. They stabbed and slashed relentlessly at the Death Knight’s joints. It was a near-perfect attack on the monster’s weak spots, and Shinra Kyeong didn’t miss the moment when the Death Knight’s balance wavered. He used Holy Wind, and the wind currents from his next swing propagated into a storm of glowing white wind blades. The Deah Knight was temporarily trapped and faltered.

Shinra Kyeong’s level might be relatively low, but the power of divinity itself was deadly for the undead.

Oh Ja-Ha asked Da-Hee, “Weren’t you told to run away?”

“No, only after all the students have left,” she said.

“You’re really stubborn for someone so weak,” Oh Ja-Ha criticized before using his Skill.

Linked Kill.

It was a Skill that was classified as one of the best among the physical attack Skills. Awakening this Skill had been the reason that Oh Ja-Ha was evaluated to become an S-class player.

However, ridiculously powerful Skills always came with backlash.

His Skill involved continuously slashing and stabbing the target, which placed a tremendous strain on his muscles and joints.

Vertical and horizontal slashes were forcefully linked to thrusts and vice-versa. The radical alterations in his sword’s path were at a level that ignored the laws of physics, so bones often broke. Therefore, Oh Ja-Ha chose to use two swords. The side effects of the Skill were reduced by slashing with the sword in his left hand and stabbing with the sword in his right hand.

[Stupid bastard.]

The Death Knight finished slicing through the storm with his flaming sword and sneered as he easily crushed Oh Ja-Ha’s Skill.

[You have ruined that sword technique.]

The Death Knight saw through the true power of Linked Kill immediately.

“Ugh, I’m going to die.”

Oh Ja-Ha’s face turned pale as he took a kick to the chest and coughed up blood.

He would’ve surely died if it hadn’t been for Oh Ja-Du hurriedly using her Skill to appear before him and block the Death Knight’s follow-up blow.

“Are we going to be okay?” Oh Ja-Du anxiously asked after being startled by the Death Knight’s sword piercing a hole through her shield.

The nervous Da-Hee couldn’t help thinking of Jae-Hyeok.

If only he were here. He would definitely say that we would be okay. The moment she thought this, Shinra Kyeong gave the answer that Jae-Hyeok would’ve given.

“We will. I will make sure of it.”

Unlike the time of the Leech King raid, the silver-haired boy now looked like the heir of a grand duke, like a true aristocrat.

[You are quite... Um?]

The Death Knight had been watching with interest as Shinra Kyeong’s eyes started to turn gold, only to suddenly turn his head to the east.

He smelled blood.

[The sword-crazed demon! Is he here too?]

The delighted Death Knight left without a moment of regret.

The students who were left behind were stunned, except for Shinra Kyeong, who tried to settle the situation quickly.

“We will track the teacher’s movements. The rest of you should request support from the security forces.”

Who the hell is the sword-crazed demon that made the Death Knight ignore us and leave?

Shinra Kyeong suppressed the questions welling up inside him. This wasn’t the time to focus on his pride.

***

“Gasp, gasp...”

Teacher Park Joo-Bong of Class A was very confused. Shortly after parting with his students, a Death Knight had attacked him. What was such a creature doing in the snowfield?

The Death Knight had taken him off guard and was so strong that he had only exchanged a few blows before being seriously injured.

A Death Knight has never appeared in the snowfield before.And it was even Named.

If that monster targets the students... Park Joo-Bong accelerated his pace despite his injuries.

His gaping chest wound hadn’t closed after drinking a low-grade potion, but the students’ safety occupied his thoughts. He knew some students looked down on him for lacking talent and retiring early from active player duty. Even so, they were his students. He was in charge of teaching and caring for them...

***

Watching Park Joo-Bong, Jae-Hyeok thought, The world operates safely today because people are faithfully engaged in their roles... Having grown up watching his father’s back, Jae-Hyeok knew this well.

It had been a long time since he’d started hunting the monster procession. No matter how many he killed, there seemed to be no end to the monsters. Along the way, he had accidentally witnessed Park Joo-Bong covered in blood, crawling in the snow, and hurried over to him.

“Wait. Calm down and open your mouth.” Jae-Hyeok took out a blood-red potion and poured it onto his wounds and into his mouth.

It was the high-grade potion he had gotten from Cho Seong-Hyeon.

“J-Jae-Hyeok, how are you here?”

Park Joo-Bong’s eyes widened once he recovered from his wounds and noticed the identity of his unexpected savior. His trembling gaze was fixed on the empty potion bottle. “Why did you give me something so precious?”

“Then who should I give it to if not you?”

“Uh?”

“Let’s get out of here first,” Jae-Hyeok said. Things were becoming ominous. Previously, the monsters had been moving without paying attention to the slaughter of their kind, but now they stopped in place and started to panic.

Their tense muscles and bristling fur made them look like they were suffering from intense anxiety and fear.

Jae-Hyeok glanced at Park Joo-Bong and was about to run as hard as he could. Suddenly, a ferocious voice entered his mind.

-I found you.

Theodore. Jae-Hyeok remembered the name he’d heard from the lion statue and shuddered at the terrible killing intent washing over him. Why is he here? I should’ve had four months left before he appeared.

Recalling what the lion statue had told him before, Jae-Hyeok quickly resolved his own question.

-Four months?After four months of recovery, he will barely be able to swing his sword.Well, he indeed isn’t the type to wait long.It wouldn’t be strange for him to look for you the moment he is able to move.

The lion statue had already given him a big hint. This bastard Theodore doesn’t have any patience. Things have gotten out of control.

There was no time to hesitate. Jae-Hyeok deliberately ran in a different direction from Park Joo-Bong. His destination was the location where the monsters were heading.

His best chance was the nest where the lord had been born. An armed force would be monitoring the nest. He planned to use their power to ensure his safety.

...However, when he arrived a short time later, there was no sign of life around the cave.

The cave was situated at the bottom of a canyon valley, so Jae-Hyeok’s footsteps echoed eerily in the silence. Why is no one here? Jae-Hyeok was taken aback by the unexpected situation and looked back.

The outline of a big knight loomed in the distance.

-Sword-crazed demon, where are you going?

The voice echoing in his mind grew louder.

Jae-Hyeok had no choice but to step into the cave.