"Wh-what bullshit is that?? 'About to become a mercenary'?", another thug pointed out.
Despite witnessing the horrific state their leader was in. Some charged, unable to think.
"K-kill him!"
Archehon didn't acknowledge their attacks, it was too easy to predict, as it was by a group of thugs.
The first person charged in front of the joker, slashing with his knife downwards,
"Slice-, Ting!"
But ended up hitting the spears head as Archehon distanced himself from him.
Another joined him, charging behind the black cloak,
"Just a little faster and you would've got me.", the joker cackled.
"What??"
The joker crouched slightly down and rotated the spear so it faced behind him, next to his left arm.
"Wooosh!", the spear performed a cutting wave, slicing both the opponents near him. Causing a large amount of blood to escape,
"Fuck! Aaaahhh!", they screamed at the pain.
Immediately as he performed his slash, he looked around, searching for his last victim,
Nobody was there.
"Spray!", sand blew through his mask as someone threw it.
"Now! Slice!", another smaller thug aimed at his chest.
Did he dodge it?
Of course not.
The knife sliced towards the joker as he turned around and tried to dodge, although, it ended up scratching his arm during the attempt.
"Hoooo.. bloodlust, unleash."
The same aura he used numerous times, travelled, enveloping all three of the thugs. Their petrified faces told how little resistance they had towards it.
"K-hukk.."
"Slash!", the joker finished the job at last.
The joker glanced at the dead bodies for a few seconds.
'I couldn't even kill them without my bloodlust.', Archehon clenched his fists.
'And I even took a slash to my arm. All the experience I have at my fingertips may even account for nothing when facing someone stronger than I am.'
'I need to be harsher with my training.'
"Or I won't even be able to handle mere thugs.", he muttered to himself with a resolve.
Archehon looted the bodies and found nothing useful other than the dust the gangster used which managed to travel through his mask.
"This is something I need to do research on.", he held the pouch with the sand.
"System, do you have a place where I can store extra items?"
'
"Yep."
Archehon still wore the black joker mask as he advanced towards the civilians. When he set foot onto the same area they were in, he held the same old crumpled paper showing the commission,
"Can I get my reward for completing the commission?"
"Ah- Y-yes, as you wish, d-dear sir.", a man that was around the same age as the woman who argued against the thugs, stuttered.
They handed over a very small pouch holding the five bronze coins. Afterwards, many voices whispered to each other,
"W-what are we going to do? The Lord of this area will certainly not let this go.", a man whimpered.
The man caused a chain reaction, provoking the others to blabber in fright.
"Y-yeah, he might kill us now."
"D-definitely, he'll know that we're of no use since we ran out of finances to supply him with..",
Everyone thought it was over, prior to,
"I'll defeat the Lord."
The whispers silenced. Nobody thought they were ever going to hear those exact words.
"B-but you're injured. I mean no offense sir but you struggled to handle three people. H-how are you going to manage to handle ten times the amount by yourself??", the same man who handed the reward asked.
"What's your name?"
"Huh? Uh- it's A-Albus."
"Listen well Albus, I'm going to defeat them, no, we're going to defeat them easily.", he pointed his index-finger up.
"H-how?"
"Listen to my plan well.."
Archehon explained to all the villagers and they closely listened. After he was done explaining Albus asked,
"Are we going to manage to pull this off?"
"Of course!", the joker raised his arms confidently.
"You see this confidence.. This! Is what you need and nobody will ever be able to lay their hands on her, him! Anyone!"
After hearing the enticing speech, all of their worries vanished.
"Yes! We can do this. After all, we have this many people.", one raised his hands displaying large amounts of people.
"Yeah!"
"We got this!"
"Woohoo!", everyone cheered and raised their hands.
Archehon's face hidden under the mask was completely different to his actions. If one truly saw his expression, they would be petrified, having shivers moving through every single bone.
'Nice~ The stage and pawns have been set..'
'..It's time to start the Symphony.', he thought with an ingratiating smile.
* * *
"L-Lord Brody..", a subordinate of the man sitting on a throne in a place which looked more like the sewers called out his name.
"What?"
The chubby brown-haired man with braids sat pompously, acting like a rat had climbed its way into his domain.
"Th-the people you sent to one of the three villages you controlled, were k-killed.", he struggled as his tongue tried to stop the news from moving out of his mouth.
"Tch. Couldn't you rats just do your job properly?!?", Brody screamed at his subordinate.
He vented his anger by smashing his alcohol bottles at the walls and kicking his subordinates. After he cooled down, he sent out an order,
"Tell all my subordinates to kill everyone in the village!!"
"B-but Lord Brody, you will lose a decent amount of funds-"
"You dare order me?", the man clenched his teeth and intimidated his servant showing his amethyst ring.
"Ah- s-sorry, Lord!", he squealed as he hurried away from him.
'Tsk, what am I going to do now. I'm supposed to give these funds to 'them' in exchange for this power.', he guzzled his beer.
'If I fail to do it on time..'
Brody remembered the flashbacks of men in brown cloaks, not revealing their faces.
"Brody, we will grant you this ring in exchange for funds.", the men revealed a purple gem ring on their hand.
"But if you fail to keep your end of the deal.."
The men emitted a dark, black aura towards him to signify their presence.
"You can say goodbye to everything you own."
He suddenly stopped thinking about the men and grabbed both of his arms, frightened.
"It's okay, even if my subordinates fail at any point in my life. I still have this ring to protect myself.", he spoke as he put all his trust into the ring.
(WARNING: Some readers may find the next parts disturbing. If you might find it disturbing, Skip until you see: "@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@")
After his thoughts ended, Brody's subordinates were already moving. They marched down the path, towards the area where Archehon and the rest of the civilians stayed.
"We're almost there. Keep your eyes peeled as they might try to hide.", another man, far stronger than the rest of the thugs but weaker than Brody commanded them.
'It's unfortunate that we have to kill them. It's going to be harder for me to afford that new axe I want.', he thought.
The entire gang of thirty men got into the village and looked around. It was completely isolated, this was to be expected as it was only natural for someone to flee danger.
The men searched for the civilians at every angle. While they did that, a boy glared at them as he placed his back to the wall. He left the position and stood in front of them.
"Captain! There's a kid there!", a voice called.
Everyone else instantaneously gathered and the captain of the thugs asked,
"Kid, where are the rest?"
But he never answered.
Instead, after a few seconds passed, he ran.
"Half of us will chase after him! Go!", the captain ordered his crew.
"Tch. There's a chance that this is a trap. But I don't expect anything from weaklings who struggle to even deal with a single person."
From the perspective of the thugs who were chasing the boy, they sprinted in a maze-like place.
"Surround him by going that way and the other way!", another gangster pointed towards to different alleys.
The men searched and searched, and their wishes were granted.
"There he is!"
The boy just stood there. Normally. No fear. Nothing, could and would be seen.
"Kekeke, kid, you know.. if you tell us where your parents are. We'll let you go."
Contradicting their expectations, the boy grinned and made full eye contact and pointed down. Their feet.
The thugs all then felt a viscous liquid. Thick. Not enough to trap them but good enough for another sinister purpose.
"Oil?", a thug realised after feeling the liquid.
His eyes trembled, not wanting to believe what his brain told him. The eye pupils slowly raised towards the boy where a man wearing a black joker mask and other black clothes walked out behind the shadows.
"Good job, Bill. You can go to your parents. I'll play a little game with them.", the joker, aka Archehon, told the boy.
The boy ran away and the joker brought out a wooden stick lit with a large orange substance that flickered.
"N-no wait-"
The joker dropped the torch with no hesitation and it bonded with the oil pool travelling quickly towards the men.
"AAAAHHH!", the men screamed as they burned with the flames hugging their bodies.
Lucifer- not Archehon- watched through his mask with pleasure. Only sipping tea would complete his satisfaction from watching the baleful performance.
The black burnt corpses laid on the ground, too disturbing for anyone but the monster to look at.
"If I'm going to stick to being a villain despite having this weak 'heroes' body. I better start acting like one.", he despicably grinned, like a snake about to strangle its food.
"Now.."
"I hope my Pawns are doing as I told them to.", he looked towards the east side of where he stood.
* * *
(@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@)
The rest of the men stood in the same spot together.
"Nevermind, it looks like those idiots are taking too long playing around with their prey.", the captain of the remaining thugs hit his head in frustration.
"Everyone! Follow me! We're forgetting about the rest.", he ordered his bunch.
The other fifteen men searched around the place, some less intelligent beings were lazy while the others were the opposite.
"Captain! There's someone else here!", a voice called out.
The whole group of thugs found a shadow silhouette and it ran away.
"Chase after it!"
They did the same as the previous group but,
"Why am I getting a bad feeling about this?", the captain muttered.
A sudden thought flashed into his head.
'Wait a minute.. what if this is a trap?', he thought.
"Everyone! Stop!"
The entire gang listened to the captains orders and stopped,
But it was too late.
"Whack..! Whack..!", many gang members continuously hit from behind.
The attacks scattered and they were unpredictable. Nobody could predict where the attacks would land due to the shock from witnessing the horror.
"Everyone retreat-"
The captain was interrupted by the shouting of someone, not from his men.
"Sir, we've knocked them all out as you've asked us to!", the civilians shouted out to a black cloaked man sitting on top of one of the slums tiny houses.
"Good job."
"Wh-who are you?!?", the captain exclaimed.
"Me?"
The joker jumped down and wiped the dust off himself.
"Why does a dead man need to know that?"
"Y-you bastard. Even If I die.."
The captain bolted towards the joker with all his rage and swung his axe while coating it with tiny amounts of mana,
"I'll kill you!"
"K-hukk..", the captain was hit in the back of the neck and fainted.
"Good. You'll be a great pawn to use..", the joker looked down at the passed out man.
"Leave the rest to me! You will not need to worry about the slum area Lord anymore!", he waved his hands up and resiliently brought across his second speech.
"S-sir, are you sure you don't need any more compensation??", the same boy approached the joker.
"No.. I'm fine. Now go!"
The civilians exited the area happily, not worrying about anything.
"Now.."
Archehon casually took a stroll, going to all the passed out bodies, other than the captains.
".. is it time to eliminate the remaining few badgers?"