Spectre of the Sinner - Chapter 6 part 3: The beast's underbelly

POV: Rosaria Finnegan, quinta hora noctis, Vest Schëld, Mellanphalia Kingdom

“Huh, to think that there exists such an interesting man,” with a meaningful grin on her slightly pale face, my friend served me a glass of my favorite drink before continuing the conversation, “seducing people is your specialty, right, my dearest [Dreamspeaker]?”

“If only he’s not too preoccupied with that tomboy of a knight,” I casually sipped the chilled honey-tasting liquor before voicing my grumbles, “I hope that his taste isn’t warped though…”

“This little old me would like to dispute that though,” a familiar voice sounded right beside me, accompanied by a dry metallic clank, “I do appreciate the beauty that any self-respecting lady possesses, so please, have more confidence in your looks.”

Startled by the suddenness of the situation, every presence in the hall quickly unsheathed their weapons and pointed the business end at the source of the disturbance: an imposing black-clad foreigner holding a working staff of the [Shadow Guild] hostage by skillfully restraining her in a way to stop her from effectively resisting.

Agitation, wariness, and killing intent flooded the space, stagnating the alcohol and drug-filled air.

A lonely glass of spirit rolled and spilled its content onto the floor, like an unnecessary note of music in an otherwise somber drama scene.

“Hold on for a moment there, folks,” the intruder brandished a pouch-sized, black-colored weapon and aimed at us, freezing our footsteps accordingly, “I come in peace, so please, hear me out, ok?”

A brief, tense moment, which felt like an eternity, where everyone wordlessly exchanged glances with each other, slipped through in the blink of an eye.

“Who would hear out a fucking vile scum like you, huh?”

“Yeah, who wants to hear from a hostage-taking bastard like him?”

I internally groaned at hearing such outrageous remarks as I sent a glare toward the utterers.

“Then how about we just blame the death of our dear [Kathy] on that son of a bitch? Hell, I bet that the loot from his corpse would be worth a fortune, hehehe.”

“Yeah, looks like that black toy could be passed around till we got bored, hahaha.”

Uproarious snickers erupted and spread throughout the tavern as the short-sighted rogues started calling his bluff, making my nerves much tenser than they should be. After all, [Kathy’s] life was being threatened by that black-haired outlander, yet those scoundrels were too carefree to properly think up a suitable action plan. I could not help but have my opinion that knives-for-hire sank lower than ever as I contemplated a way to get my brunette friend out of trouble.

“Gotta be honest here, I’m ain’t a fan of pulling off this fucking cheap trick either,” the foreign intruder offered a shrug as he adjusted the position of the knife against the white skin on [Kathy’s] neck, “let’s see what kind of outcome the fourth time will bring, shall we? By the way… Let me be clear with you fucking lot: you guys are being fucking trapped with me, not the fucking other way around. Think carefully about what move you gonna make.”

Suddenly, cold sweat started to gather on my back over the man’s confident statement. A fool may have dismissed the black-clad hostage taker’s words as a mere ruse to buy himself an ever-slim advantage, but for me, my gut feeling told me otherwise.

Brrrrrt!

Startled by the sudden outburst of an ear-deafening blast, everyone except for the preparator winced in agony. Weapons were sporadically dropped onto the floor, echoing throughout the tavern space an offbeat musical piece.

“Tango down,” a cold, inhuman, matter-of-the-fact announcement reverberated from the black-clad figure, waking us from the earache-induced daze.

As our nostrils were being invaded by an acrid scent of death, our attention was stolen by a faint thud sound. My eyes turned toward the source of the noise, a lean-looking man was seen collapsing, his hands desperately clutching his chest as if he was stabbed, his mouth weakly flapping around, trying to squeeze out incoherent wordings. Soon a pool of blackish-red liquid seeped out from underneath his body as the light in his eyes slowly faded away, and his breathing slowed to a stop.

“Oh, by the way,” the black-clad man calmly pointed his instrument of death toward the bottom row of shocked folk, “I can see what you’re trying to do, the sneaky little guy at the very back end of this room. Yes, I’m talking about you.”

All pairs of eyes quickly trained their focus toward the subject of his reference: a short-looking fella dressed in a dark brown custom-tailored robe, whose trembling dominant hand was pointing a short scepter-like knife at the intruder. The guy’s stature shrank further as the muzzle of the black device of death was trained squarely on his forehead, yet his quivering lips were still trying to finish the spell.

“If you think that you can ejaculate out a pinpoint [Lightning Lance] spell at me with that kind of long-winded chanting, then I have bad news for you, son,” the black-clad terror of a man glared at his audience at once before resuming his heartfelt mocking, “I can fucking unalive you just like that son of a bitch there, and I fucking guarantee that my trigger pull and the muzzle velocity of my [Veresk] is far faster than the speed that your fucking sorry little mouth can fucking flapping around.”

The cruel words had done their intended job, for the little bloke’s spirit was broken. He hastily turned back and ran away toward the staircase, desperately wanting to escape from the dreadful man. While we were questioning the foreigner’s words, the sound of frantic banging echoed from the top of the stair.

“The damn door… It’s locked! Hey, old man [Gert]! Open the damn door!”

“See, I was telling the truth the whole time,” with a tinge of mockery, the black-clad man slightly relaxed his left arm, “almost fucking forgot, I’m not in any mood for a human steak tonight, kid. Anyway, is anyone here interested in hearing me out? Because I’ll release this lovely lady here, and besides, I have something that may catch you guys’ interest.”

An air of suffocating oppression and despair engulfed the space following the man’s words, making the armed ruffians and staff restless. Some of them seemingly had already given up, while others wore a sullen look on their visage. Cold sweat started to form on my forehead at the stifling impasse as I thought over his proposal.