"Don't miss out on this! A Legend Holy Knight versus a Dark Elf Anti- Knight. The odds are 1: 1.5 for the Gold-rank female Elf, 2: 1 for the Legend Holy Knight, 1: 3 for a draw. This is a once in a blue moon opportunity. You have to place your bets quickly!"
I casually took out a blank account book from the counter and quickly made a betting list. Then, I waved it around.
"Right, do you guys want to participate? I, Carlo, am a veteran. I guarantee that I won't cheat anyone. "
Duelists' companions would usually bet on their teammates. However, when I tried to sell the betting list to the clergymen, I noticed that the scene had strangely quietened down.
"… Aren't duels in bars very common?"
I was a little surprised. However, following everyone's gaze, I saw the furious Holy Knight. Some of them had furious looks on their faces and some were even unsheathing their swords. I immediately came to a realization.
Alright, although duels in bars were common, Epic and Gold-rank duels weren't common in the countryside's Rhino Bar. It didn't matter if the newbies fought or the veterans joined in the fun, but a duel between high and mighty "big shots" was a little "presumptuous".
From a certain standpoint, these Knight and Clergymen were considered nobles. They were completely different from commoner mercenaries.
"That? Give you 450? Don't be angry. Alright, alright, I'm serious. I'm just joking. "
Looks like it would be difficult to do business here. I shook my head and shrugged my shoulders. Then, I ran back to the adventurers who were still eating their breakfast.
But this time, my gambling coupons were selling like hotcakes. Two copies of the coupons were quickly sold out.
Not surprisingly, most of the people were still optimistic about the epic holy knight. After all, the difference in power between the two was very obvious. Also, the holy knight's weapon was obviously not an ordinary weapon. When the difference in power was not that big, it would be an important chip that could decide the final result. With these 2 factors added together, it was natural that most people were optimistic about Head Commander White, who had come prepared.
"Looks like, if the Holy Knight wins, I'll go bankrupt this time. If I knew, I wouldn't have started the bet. "
At this moment, my face was filled with bitterness. It seemed that I was worried that I would lose too badly this time.
"Don't think about regretting it. You cheater, you went bankrupt long ago. Carlo, don't even think about reneging on your debt this time. We'll be watching you. "
"Come, bet 100 gold on the Holy Knight. Ha, Carlo, boy, I'll be waiting for you to cry. "
"I'll bet on the female elf. Has Carlo ever lost a bet?"
Of course, there were also some very cunning people, but this did not affect the overall situation. For the sake of gold coins, most people still chose the stronger side, even if the profit they could get would be much smaller.
His identity as a clergyman determined that this was not a scam prepared in advance. Soon, the total bet quickly exceeded two thousand.
"Hurry up and fight."
"Waiting for you guys to see what I'm doing. Dog fighting? If you're a wimp, go back and hug your mommy to drink milk. "
The boorish mercenaries didn't care about the big shots from the capital. When these mercenaries waved their betting slips and started to clamor, it was time for the familiar dogfight.
If it was an ordinary Myth rank expert, there wouldn't be any need for a duel under normal circumstances. They would first take care of these bastards and teach them a lesson about the dignity of a Myth rank expert.
However, the current Knight Captain White no longer had any room to retreat. He kept his eyes on his opponent without any hesitation or wavering.
He represented the dignity of the Church. Challenging them in his own name was a decision he made from the very beginning. Even for him, taking the initiative to challenge a low-level Knight was a form of humiliation in itself.
"Those who bet on us, just treat it as around 2500 gold coins."
The others didn't react, but Goblin Thor tossed out a silver coin. It drew a silver arc in the sky above the bar and landed on my hand.
I touched it, and it was actually the ancient Great Demons' voodoo mithril coin. Following the return of the Great Demons, many of these ancient currencies, which were both antiques and precious metals, appeared on the market, and their prices weren't low.
These voodoo mithril coins were even more special. Many mages collected them in order to research the possible witchcraft hidden in them. The market price kept rising, and recently, it was about the same amount as what Thor had reported. However, if it was thrown into the Mage Country, the price would probably double.
"As expected, the goblins won't miss any chance to make money."
As I put away the mithril coin, I revealed a delighted expression on my face. However, I was cursing in my heart. Wasn't this guy intentionally trying to scam me? If his side won, wouldn't I be making a huge loss?
However, I had no choice but to accept the bet. After all, on the surface, I favored that bearded middle-aged man. If I didn't happily accept the bet, wouldn't I directly reveal my true strength?
Thus, I became even more hesitant … Don't misunderstand, it wasn't because I was worried about losing money. The reason why I won every time I gambled definitely wasn't because I had good gambling luck. On the contrary, my luck had never been good.
"The only reason why I could win every time was because I cheated every time. Although I could still cheat now, letting that idiotic Holy Knight win and letting someone else's Church win would probably be even more unpleasant than losing money."
Originally, I could have taunted those fellows from the Church of the God of Justice and Commandment so that they would place more bets to make up for my losses. But when I considered the fact that this God's "Concept" was discipline, and that gambling was completely forbidden, I had a slight headache.
"Then let's postpone the duel and activate the backup plan. Harloys, let's move the plan forward."
"… Can't you do something more serious? Didn't you say that the backup plan would be activated tomorrow?"
"Isn't what we're doing serious right now? Who knows if there'll be new victims tomorrow? The safety of the innocent is the most important. It's our duty to eliminate evil cultists! Besides, with their investigative skills, how long do you think it'll take for them to find the truth? I'm so warm-hearted that even I'm moved by my actions. "
"Hmph, I can't be bothered to argue with you. Be careful that you don't screw up …"
While the two of us were still glaring at each other angrily, we didn't know that their duel was destined to end in failure.
Soon, in the mountains behind the town, due to the carelessness of an outside adventurer, a sudden explosion would cause a small-scale landslide, and the secret of the mountains behind the town would be revealed — the burial ground of the demon dragon Winlair.
That evil cultist from the Death Council had hidden himself quite well. In fact, I hadn't been able to find his hiding spot over the past few days. It was highly likely that he didn't even live in the nearby villages. Considering that they often had some undead characteristics, it was even possible that he had buried himself in a cemetery and waited for the adventurer to leave. No matter if it was their life signs or appearance, they would be no different from a corpse. If the adventurer was patient enough, it would be impossible to find him.
But unlike those amateurs, experienced investigators wouldn't run around like headless flies, as that would only alert the enemy. They would only gather information and analyze the possible situation of the case. Among the many investigative methods, deducing the next target from the killer's characteristics was an old-fashioned method, but it was indeed quite practical.
"Since we already know that it's the Death Council, it's actually quite simple. The Death Council only has two goals in this world. The first is to open up a Dimensional Door to the Undead Planes and summon an Undead Calamity to spread death. The second is to create even more, even stronger undead creatures to expand their master's undead army. "
The first goal could be directly eliminated. Even in this day and age where the Elemental Tide was constantly rising, the conditions required to open a Dimensional Door weren't just a few. Even if the entire town was used as a blood sacrifice, it still wouldn't be enough. Furthermore, this place wasn't a Dimensional Link with an unstable spatial structure, so it was impossible to open up a Dimensional Door to the Undead Planes.
In that case, there was basically only the second possibility. And creating a powerful undead creature required a sufficiently powerful corpse to be used as a material, and this wasn't something that couldn't be found.
The rest was simple. I opened up the town mayor's archives and flipped through all the historical documents, legends, and so on. I eliminated all the meaningless distractions and came up with the only possible answer.
We only found the story of the Dragonslayer from over three hundred years ago from a hero's hymn. The story was so old that there was nothing new about it. The general idea was that a few adventurers were commissioned by a certain lord and successfully killed the evil dragon that stole the lord's precious daughter. In the end, the adventurers chose to live in this area, and one of the spear-wielding heroes was the source of this town's name, Anton. The other two heroes also left their legacies in two other towns.
After finding out the story of the Dragonslayer, Harloys, who was known as the "Mobile Library", looked up the local history books and compared them to the names of the characters. She was able to find out which unlucky dragon had been killed here.
"Magic Dragon Winlair, that's the name of an elf. It's said that he once lived with the elves for a period of time. Yep, as the elves' mortal enemy, the Green Dragon, he had a good relationship with the elves. He even had two elven wives. What's even more strange is that even though he's a Wind Poison Dragon, he's an expert in fire magic. He even invented several unique fire magic spells. "
Countless facts proved that the truth of the legends was definitely a lie. Most of the Epic heroes praised by the world were unreliable, but I still couldn't understand the difference between the actual records and the legends.
"An ancient dragon with three elements? He even invented specialized magic spells, which means he was at least a top-level archmage. Even a SemiGod couldn't deal with such an opponent, yet three heroes who haven't even appeared in the history books of our country did? According to the records, there might not even be an Epic-ranked one. "
We definitely didn't look down on this Magic Dragon just because of the records. First of all, he had been with the elves for seven or eight hundred years, so he was definitely an ancient dragon. Secondly, apart from his natural wind and poison magic, he also practiced fire magic, which was his specialty in war and slaughter. He was definitely a frightening war machine.
For now, let's not look into what happened in this small town. Since we knew that this powerful Magic Dragon had died here, the Death Council's goal was obvious. And so, as an extremely qualified undead mage, I had countless methods to find the remains of powerful creatures. In just an hour, I found the dragon bones buried in the mountains behind the small town.
* Boom! *
The violent explosion caused the ground to tremble, and the entire wooden structure of the bar was put to a great test. Very quickly, the dragon bones that had been blasted out from the explosion had attracted the attention of the Death Council's followers. Naturally, these fellows were unable to continue fighting.
Originally, I had planned on waiting for another day to gather more information. But since there was such an unexpected event, I might as well do it earlier. Yep, I was just being hot-blooded, not because I couldn't bear to part with my gambling money.
However, the entire ground was still shaking, and the wine glasses on the table were smashed to pieces. It seemed that I had gone overboard in some areas. The power of the explosion was too ridiculous.
"Heloise, how many explosives did you bury? That's a bit too much. "
"I have two pieces of news, one good and one bad …"
"Just tell me directly. After all, life is full of pitfalls."
"The good news is that our plan succeeded. I've already discovered the Death Council's followers. They sent people to keep an eye on this area, and they're currently hurriedly looking for companions to help."
"The bad news is that you weren't able to catch him?"
"No, the bad news is that the Death Council went overboard. This dragon bone can't summon a bone dragon at all. Their plan was doomed to fail from the start."
"Isn't that good news?"
"Of course it's bad news. The reason why it can't be summoned as a bone dragon is because it's not a dragon bone at all. What's buried under the mountain is a dragon lich that's gone mad from anger. And, we just blew up his home!"
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
