Death Again and Counterattack

His mind hazy, wind roaring in his ears, Duke woke from a sharp pain beneath his right ribs. Through his blurry vision, he realized the scene had changed from the fire-speckled Northshire Abbey to Elwynn Forest, filled with pitch-black branches.

"Kid, can you hear me?"

"Uh..." Hearing the deliberately hushed voice, Duke knew there was no way he could tell who the other person was. Besides, Duke swore he had never met this guy before.

Opening his mouth wide, Duke discovered that all he could spit out was a bubble of blood. Only then did he notice the dagger buried beneath his right ribs. The paralytic poison had dulled his senses, but the searing pain still exceeded what the poison could numb, sending waves of wrenching agony through him.

"Kid, I'll let you die knowing why. If you hadn't embarrassed Sir Brando so badly during the day, perhaps the Brando family might have taken you in for your talent as a mage and made you a family mage guarding the gates. Heh... what a pity for that talent of yours."

"Urgh..." Duke wanted to curse, but the stab wound had caused a great deal of blood to flow into his lungs. With over half his lungs flooded, he was in too much pain to speak.

Damn it!

Nobles really were all scum!

An emotion called regret stained Duke's heart completely. As a law-abiding college student, Duke had yet to fully adapt, and so he had fallen into their trap.

He had been brought down with absurd ease by the other man's revenge. Brando had merely sent some no-name rogue to take him out.

"Kid, don't think anyone will stand up for you. No matter how gifted you are, if you can't turn it into strength, you're still just a fragile little runt. Don't worry, I'll take good care of you." The man grabbed Duke's face, forcibly twisted his neck, and pointed toward the hazy distance.

There was a lakeshore there, lined with several crude triangular houses. By the lake stood a large group of monsters with fish-like upper bodies and strange humanoid limbs.

Duke recognized them at once.

"That's right! Murlocs!" The man laughed maniacally, his face twisted with viciousness. "A kid unfamiliar with the area gets too excited to sleep at night, wanders into Elwynn Forest by accident, runs into Murlocs that eat anything with meat on it, and gets devoured. Isn't that a perfect script? Even if someone suspects something, they won't have any evidence proving it was Sir Brando."

Duke's body trembled. The thought of his body being torn apart by those sharp, foul-smelling teeth made him nauseous.

His vision went dark, and Duke died.

The man had still overestimated Duke's frail body. Perhaps he thought a commoner brat could hold on for around twenty minutes.

"What? He died already!? I wanted to hear you scream as the Murlocs swallowed you alive, then record it with a magic crystal and bring it back to Lord Brando." The man looked deeply annoyed, but a moment later, he relaxed. "Forget it. I'll bring back whatever scraps are left after the Murlocs devour his corpse. As long as my lord knows he suffered enough before dying, that should barely be acceptable."

With that, the rogue assassin stepped forward, intending to grab Duke by the legs, hoist him up again, and toss him to the Murlocs.

The instant he lifted Duke, he suddenly realized that the weight on his shoulder had vanished.

"Oh? Is that so? Then you won't mind if I use the same method on you, right?" Duke's icy voice rang out behind the rogue like a ghost.

The system sprite's voice kept ringing in Duke's ears. Continuous speech should have been slow and taken a great deal of time, yet Duke suddenly realized that the voice had been compressed. Like an advanced computer capable of performing countless calculations in a second, the system's voice became words, images, and even information synchronized directly with his mind, all of which Duke understood instantly.

Outside, not even one thousandth of a second had passed.

"Host detected in a critical situation. Estimated enemy reaction time: 0.3 seconds. Casting process ignored... No usable external elements detected. Automatically switching to drawing mana from the host's body... Entropy calculation in progress. Spell model reset..."

"Special skill [Presence of Mind] activated."

"[Presence of Mind]: Metamagic feat. Automatically ignores the casting time of the next non-instant spell, making it instant."

"System auto-calibration... Level 1 [Pyroblast] fired!"

Before he could react at all, the rogue saw a blazing flash erupt behind him in horror. A flaming boulder as large as a washbasin came smashing down on his head...

Bang— Caught completely off guard, the rogue practically took Duke's [Pyroblast] head-on! His whole body flew backward, engulfed in flames, as he let out a shrill scream.

Was it over?

No! Not yet!

Duke had no idea how strong this guy was. Enduring the discomfort caused by the system forcibly firing [Pyroblast] for him, he almost forcibly swallowed the churning urge to vomit rising from his chest and abdomen, then began casting a second [Pyroblast].

Duke did not know whether he would succeed, nor whether he had enough mana left. But instinct told him that this guy was definitely not dead yet. He had to follow up with another blow.

"Mana backlash detected within host. Casting failure probability increased by 38.78%. Automatically beginning to balance fire elemental input... Casting time extended to 8 seconds. Spell power increased..."

Eight seconds!

Eight seconds that would decide life and death!

If he had any choice, Duke would never have stupidly stood there casting a fireball for seven whole seconds. The tragedy was that this so-called magic apprentice had one spell and one spell only. He had somehow learned [Pyroblast], yet he didn't even know [Fireball], the spell that came before [Pyroblast].

Against a high-agility, high-speed rogue whose strength exceeded his by an unknown margin, Duke knew that any other melee attack would be useless.

He could only cast [Pyroblast]!

The rogue was still rolling on the ground, engulfed in flames. Although the fire clinging to him dealt continuous damage in addition to [Pyroblast]'s initial hit, Duke could clearly see the blaze weakening.

The moment the rogue regained his mobility would be the moment Duke died once more.

Eight seconds! The eight seconds that felt as long as eight hundred years finally passed. Carrying Duke's hope of finishing his enemy, another flaming sphere as large as a brazier surged from his palm.

One detail shattered all of Duke's hopes. To his horror, the rogue who had been rolling around suddenly stopped. He lifted his head, opened his eyes, and revealed a pair of fierce, vivid eyes filled with murderous intent—Kid, I'll tear you into ten thousand pieces!

Those eyes said exactly that!