‘Riccario's been hit.’
It happened so fast.
Riccario had been gathering energy to prepare a four-star spell, and now he was dead before he could scream.
He hadn't been caught off guard, and even with four mages protecting him, it didn't change the outcome.
‘That monster is too dangerous!’
He's just an individual.
In other words, the only person Delan hired to pull off something of this magnitude behind the scenes.
It's not without question why Delan would only hire one person. After all, more couldn't hurt, right?
But now I know why.
One Osian was all he needed.‘Finish him before he gets to me!’
I knew Osian was fast, so I planned to finish him off before he could get close.
It was a good thing I'd brought a powerhouse to amplify my abilities.
"Die!"
Lightning crackled all over Rachel's body, her eyes sparking with a violet glow.
A storm of lightning raged as localized lightning struck in the great hall of the mansion.
There were no thunderclouds, and the source of the downpour was Rachel.
‘This is dangerous.’
The rain of lightning struck far and wide, and each bolt was a threatening strike.
With the power of Starlight, it would have been possible to break through head-on, but not with Moonlight.
In exchange for the leap in speed, his defense was paper-thin.
However, the warning sent by intuition was too strong to trust only the body of a max-level knight.
‘I was greedy to think I could take them both at the same time.’
Riccario and Rachel.
It was inevitable that the moment he caught either of them, he would have to deal with the other's offense.
Osian never stopped moving.
Now that he was faster, he would use that to his advantage and find a gap somehow.
‘Besides, this is my natural way of fighting.’
While the knight's physical body favored charging head-on into enemies, his gamer mind did the opposite.
Evasive, taking his time, analyzing his opponent's patterns and exploiting gaps, that's what Osian did best.
-Fazik! Fazik!
The lightning bolts were falling indiscriminately, making it difficult to get close to Rachel but Osian realized there was a pattern in the irregularity.
‘In the midst of all the random lightning strikes, there's a lightning bolt that's specifically targeting me.’
If he stops, he'll be struck by lightning in the blink of an eye and reduced to charcoal.
Slipping across the ice, Osian swung his Moonlight Sword to deflect a flying bullet.
‘And the mutants backing her up are annoying as well.’
One sealed the Starlight, and another amplified her abilities.
Those two were all the mutants left.
Neither of their abilities were suited for combat, but that didn't stop them from pulling out their pistols and firing at Osian.
As non-combatants, they needed some means of defense, and in this age of gunpowder and science, there was no better weapon than a gun.
Moreover, the way they predicted the path of the fast-moving Osian and fired, it was clear that they had been trained in marksmanship.
'So the mutants in the organization are different.’
Lightning crashed and bullets flew.
It seemed impossible to get to Rachel through the gap but it was too late to retreat.
He was already in Rachel's range, and trying to run from here would only make him lightning fodder.
‘I need to get closer.’
Crossing his swords, he slashed at the flying bullets.
He could see the two mutants reloading their pistols as they reached the limit of their magazines.
Now was his chance.
Osian, who had been dodging all along, charged at Rachel while Rachel smiled at him.
The gap between shots was something she knew, that was why she had deliberately set up this situation.
This was the moment when Osian, who had been running away like a mouse, would come head-on.
Rachel reached out for him and clenched her fist.
Then, the trajectory of the vertical lightning changed and headed toward Osian.
The random lightning bolts had been a trick for this moment.
‘Gotcha.’
The purple lightning striking from all directions will pierce his like a sharp awl and burn everything from his internal organs to his skin.
A smile tugged at the corners of Rachel's mouth at the thought of reducing him to a pile of charcoal without leaving a single cell behind.
-Pach!
And then Osian was struck by lightning and shattered to pieces, Rachel couldn't help but wonder.
‘What the hell?’
He's not some kind of glass artifact, why would he be shattered?
Her ability was to defeat her opponents with lightning, not to freeze them and crush them.
‘What?’
Rachel's wide eyes turned to the shattering piece, what she'd thought was Osian was a shard of ice instead.
Shards of crystal glittered in the moonlight, melting away.
"Fake, huh?"
A technique unlike anything Osian had ever shown.
Even more than the question of how he'd done it, there was something else that puzzled Rachel.
"Then where is the real one?"
"Here."
Osian had appeared right behind Rachel's back.
A powder of light or more precisely, shards of ice created from the coldness of the moon was used to refract light, deceive opponents, and create a false alter ego.
It was a technique that utilized the characteristics of the moon and was named.
"Water Moon."
It means "moon reflected in water," and it was a technique for deceiving opponents.
In the game, it was a decoy, like setting up a scarecrow, but in the real world, it could be used as an alter ego.
And with it, Osian was able to get to Rachel's location.
"E......!"
Rachel spun around, lightning in both hands, and swung her arms but Osian's sword flashed faster than she could.
A blast of frost carved through the air and in the time it took her to swing her arms once, Osian's twin swords had already finished more than ten attacks.
"Ah."
Rachel stumbled backwards.
Her pupils were completely frozen and her life force was draining out of her.
The lightning crackled around them as Osian dusted off his twin swords and stared at the two remaining mutants.
With Rachel gone, the odds were stacked against the two non-combatants.
"Aaaah!"
They fired their loaded pistols, but it didn't have any effect and Osian's sword sliced cleanly through their throats.
As the mutant sealing his powers died, the translucent box floating above his head reopened.
The pure white light contained within leapt outward and was absorbed back into Osian's body.
Osian sighed as the Starlight glowed within him.
It was a strange feeling to fight without Starlight for the first time after always using Starlight.
Still, it wasn't bad. Moonlight was also his strength.
With this, Osian had gained not only Starlight, but also Moonlight.
'Of course, this is still not the end.’
He could only use three skills that could be considered the foundation of the Nine Fortunes.
-Moonlight Sword.
-Water Moon.
-Snowy Sword.
These were the three basic skills given when following the Moonlight tech tree in the game, serving as attack, dodge, and movement abilities.
The real Moonlight was much more than that.
‘There's no need to feel impatient, I'll get them back someday.’
Most of all, he was excited to have more abilities to use.
‘In the game, each class could only use one talent.’
If you increase your Starlight talent, you only get Starlight.
If you upgraded Moonlight, you could only use Moonlight.
Sub-quests unlocked dual talents that allowed you to learn other talents, but it was all for show.
Even if you focused on Starlight and learned Moonlight, its power was so low that it was completely useless.
‘It's a game, and there's a system for damage and balance, but it's different here.’
He could still use Moonlight after learning Starlight.
Neither was underpowered. Both were more than satisfying, they were unimaginably powerful.
‘Especially compared to the reckless nature of the Starlight, the multifaceted effects of Moonlight would allow for a more varied and dynamic combat experience.’
Just looking at the Water Moon that deceived the opponent right now, it was extremely versatile.
If he were to gather more power and master the higher-level skills of Moonlight.
At that point, instead of just a decoy, he'll be able to control a true clone as if it were a part of his body.
Not just one, but several.
"Oh, no."
David squirmed as the men he hired died at Osian's hands.
Osian stole a glance at him, and his face turned pale, and he fell to the ground.
David's pants were soaking wet.
He'd only made eye contact, but he'd been so scared he'd passed out and peed himself.
Shaking his head as if he'd seen the unseen, Osian stared down the hall, his eyes sharp.
"Are you done watching, why don't you come out?"
He already knew that someone had been watching this fight.
At Osian's point, Elise came out of hiding.
"Are you going to fight too?"
Elise was not alone.
On either side of her were the two skeletons she had summoned with Command.
They were different from the troop skeletons she had used to fight the ghosts.
They appeared to be a male and female pair, one wearing a wedding dress, the other a tuxedo.
"No."
Elise denied Osian's words.
"I tried to help you if you were in danger, even though I didn't have to."
"You mean you didn't see the right time to intervene."
"Yes. You're strong."
The warlock's praise didn't seem to please him.
Instead, Osian eyed the two skeletons warily.
"Curious?"
"Are they special skeletons?"
"Yes. Their names are [Groom] and [Bride]."
"Skeletons with outfits like that and names like that. Are you playing with dolls or something? That stinks."
"That's what they told me to name them."
"Who."
"My parents."
"......."
Osian, momentarily speechless, asked cautiously.
"When you say your parents, you mean those skeletons?"
"Yep. Let me introduce them. They're my mom and dad."
Osian felt his eyes light up.
It's not like she was the worst kind of degenerate, but to use her parents' corpses for necromancy?
"So, you're saying those skeletons are your parents?"
"Yes."
"Or in some other figurative sense......."
"My real mom and dad. My biological parents who gave birth to me."
He was stunned.
Osian's emotions were almost tangible, as if he wasn't surprised by the whole thing.
"What the hell, how did that happen?"
"It runs in my family."
"......What, you have skeletons of your grandparents, too?"
Elise asked, her eyes widening at the mention.
"How did you know that?"
"......."
‘This is why I hate warlocks.’
Osian decided to give up trying to talk to Elise.
"So, the youngest girl in this house is friends with you."
"Yes. She's from the same academy as me."
"......Wait a minute. The same academy, you mean the one that teaches black magic?"
"Yep. Caligo Biblio. Maria goes there, too."
Osian quickly revised his opinion of the youngest, Maria Goldiron, who was relatively normal compared to the rest.
‘The family's in good shape.’
It seemed like Dyke's parenting had completely failed.