Chapter 313: Rioters Called Adventurers 3
TL/Editor: raei
Schedule: 5/Week Mon-Fri
Illustrations: Posted in discord.
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Amid the dust clouds, I hid for a moment and checked Han Se-ah''s camera feed to see the harpy city inplete disarray.
The word "chaos" suited it perfectly.
The opulent building was toppling sideways, the tall, slender structure was copsing straight down, adventurers were breaking into something that looked like a bank through the walls, and harpies were fleeing in panic while others crashed into each other as they tried to capture the thieves.
In that pandemonium, I could see arge group scurrying around; they were our party members, rescuing the stone dwarves.
‘They''re moving pretty openly… but no one''s paying attention.’A madman pushing over buildings, a crazy woman pulling bombs out of thin air, thieves looting mana stones and minerals from banks, markets, and luxury mansions.
With the adventurers turned rioters wreaking havoc across the city, no one had the time to care about mere ves.
Besides, the harpies of the Empire weren''t obsessed with the stone dwarves like dragons hoarding treasure.
“Ha-ha-ha, found it! Jewels!”
“Damn it! I should have gone over there!”
“Humaan—! It''s a robberyyyy—!”
My worries were momentarily eased when a thief burst out of the ruins of a nearby luxury building, holding a giant gem the size of a human torso, and disappeared into the shadows.
The harpies, startled, flocked to that side.
Even though it wasn''t an unfertilized mana stone, the stolen gem appeared to be a valuable artifact belonging to the harpy nobility.
They''d prioritize retrieving treasure over saving ves crawling on the ground.
The thief, dangling a dagger from his waist, vanished into an alley with the giant gem, and the harpies quickly pursued.
Seeing this, I raised my shield again and dashed out of the rubble of the copsed building, charging forward.
If I wanted to, I couldpletely destroy this city, but the goal this time was to rescue as many stone dwarves as possible.
They could provide us with valuable information, and it would also ease our budding saintess''s troubled heart.
So, I''d quietly stick to smashing buildings.
I''ve pushed over about five luxury mansions already, so maybe "quietly" isn''t the right word.
"Here I go again!"
"Kyaaaahhh―! That crazy human is still aliveee―! Even being crushed by a buildinggg― he didn''t dieee―!"
"Is he even human―!?"
To draw aggro, I shouted with mana, and the dust clouds were swept away by the shockwave.
They must have thought I was buried under the copsed building, since their attention had shifted to the jewel thief.
A top-tier adventurer, a high-level warrior, and a 6★ pure tank wouldn''t be incapacitated just by being buried under rubble.
The only way to knock me out of a fight would be to throw me off a cliff in the hignds.
The more buildings fell victim to my brute-force advance, therger the dust clouds grew.
It was so thick that it felt like I was a child following a truck fart.
The harpies'' interference didn''t matter as it was blocked by my armor, so I kept smashing things with glee.
“…You know, I think Rnd charges with his shield and destroys way more than I ever could with my bombs. Maybe I should have just joined the rescue team and helped save the stone dwarves?”
-This guy is a real bomb maniac. Look at her getting all sulky because her bombs aren''t as powerful as Rnd''s shield, lol.
-Weren''t you saying earlier that you needed people to cause a distraction, haha?
-Just grab some popcorn and enjoy the show, lol. Is this even a distraction? It''s more like city copse.
-Meanwhile, the adventurers are carefully collecting gems. You want to join them?
-Se-ah, just grab anything valuable in your inventory and make a run for it. That''ll help the party more.
When the camera drone disappeared, I nced at the hologram window and saw Han Se-ah on the verge of switching from bomb maniac to petty thief.
Even so, she hadn''t attracted the harpies'' attention and was hiding well in an alley amidst all this chaos.
Judging by the viewers'' teasing, it seemed that Han Se-ah had a peculiar talent, as she had used most of the bombs in her inventory.
Seeing her pretending to give in to the donation pressure and slyly moving toward the market district, it seemed like there was nothing to worry about.
As I was peeking at the hologram window and preparing to charge out again, something dropped down in front of me.
"…A spear?"
A thick ck spear with a strange sheen, possibly crafted by the stone dwarves,nded right in front of me as if blocking my path.
Sure, I could shove a building aside, so a couple of spears wouldn’t stop me.
But when something suddenly drops in front of me, curiosity makes me pause.
How did the harpies throw a spear without hands?
Intrigued, I stopped and looked up to see a pale bottom.
…?
---
Raei Trantions
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The Harpy Empire seemed more organized than I had thought.
It wasn''t just a simple division between civilians and soldiers; even the soldiers were organized into units like a regr army.
And that was the identity of therge, pale bottom I saw.
“Catch him! Catch himmm!”
“What kind of dwarf made that armorrr!”
The harpies flying around and screaming in sharp voices.
Just as the ck eagle harpies have a separate named-grade that can carry people, the red harpies seemed to have arger named-grade too.
The evidence was this one,rger in size and speaking clearly and fluently.
Slightlyrger than the bureaucrat harpy draped in fancy silk robes and jewelry, her size was difficult to gauge from the sky.
But she was clearly a head taller than the armored soldier harpies, possibly around 2.1 meters.
The difference was that, unlike the soldier harpies wearing greaves and leg guards, she was barefoot and holding a strangely shaped rod.
Was it a device for shooting small projectiles or a javelinuncher?
“Hold ground! The human is afraid of the spears!”
“He’s still just a human!”
In one foot, she held the long device, and in the other, a thick iron spear.
Her bare thighs, unprotected, flexed as she gracefully moved through the air, sending spears whistling past and embedding them deep into the ground around me.
Perhaps because she wanted to capture me alive, she wasn''t aiming directly at my head but rather fencing me in like an animal.
…Indeed, it''s better to cover up a little than to bepletely naked.
“Advance! Advanceee!”
As I dodged the steels and javelins raining down from above, I found myself surrounded by harpies of the Empire.
It seemed their size determined their rank: the smallest ones scurried around, deliverings and javelins while being berated by therger ones.
The rest wielded ded talons or javelinunchers, depending on their size.
It looked like the lower-ranked soldiers handled closebat, while therger, mana-wielding ones oversaw bothmand and ranged attacks.
In territorial battles, regr soldiers usually formed the front line while knights moved independently, never leading the charge themselves.
“Ha-hah! Bro, I''m outta here first!”
“What the hell is this?”
“Thanks a looot―?!”
As I moved forward, the building I was about to demolish copsed before I got there, and someone shot out from the rubble.
The thief I had seen earlier was holding a dagger, but this one seemed to be a warrior wielding a one-handed blunt weapon.
With jingling pouches on his back, he looked like a typical thief character.
Heughed happily and ran forward over the debris—
Only to be skewered by a thick ck spear.
The jewel thief I saw earlier had used stealth skills to escape, so what gave this guy the courage to run in a straight line out in the open?
All sorts of jewelry spilled out of the pouch he dropped on the ground.
Whether he had robbed a harpy jeweler or not, gold and gems scattered across the building debris.
"Got oneee!"
"Kill the thief! Capture that crazy humannn!"
"He''s strong! Send him to the capital!"
It seemed like the adventurer who had confidently charged out after watching me from hiding was impaled within a minute.
As for me, I was simply going around demolishing buildings, and they seemed to think I was just a strong but reckless human.
They were only trying to capture me, so they were attempting to intimidate rather than directly attack.
As soon as he appeared, he died, an absurd story.
I paused for a moment, and the harpy soldiers, surrounding me, grinned maliciously as if to say that it turned out well.
I pushed the spear embedded in the ground away with my body, and I tore apart the iron before it could fully cover me.
Despite bouncing off the thrown handcuffs with my armor, I could feel an iprehensible obsession in the way they stealthily closed the distance, determined to capture me until the end.
No, how many buildings have I destroyed that they are trying so desperately to capture me?
To understand the situation, I casually turned on the hologram window, and what I saw was my face.
It seems that with the harpies focused on me, Han Se-ah''s camera naturally ended up filming me.
"Hehe, a top-notch product! Before sending it up... Hehehe!"
"Are they nning to capture Rnd and use him as a breeding stallion? Thinking of capturing him without even scratching his armor. Does a born 6★ look like a joke to them?"
-So you''re saying in the Harpy Empire, if you flex your specs, they''ll kidnap and breed you?
-LOL, let''s level up to 6 stars before hitting the 46th floor, damn LOL
-In the midst of this, look at the adventurer who got skewered in one strike, like a bandit.
-No, it''s just that Teacher Rnd looks sofy, but right now, he''s getting mobbed by dozens of high-level monsters.
-Now our alpha male teacher is even seducing monsters... The chosen one can even destroy buildings.
...I kind of get the reason now.