Chapter 112: Three In One Go
"Help me!"
The two shepherds in the other rooms swiftly rushed toward where the shout had come from, their abilities ready. The moment they got in, they witnessed what appeared to be a self-defense act made by their fellow shepherd, whose face was visibly shaken by the situation.
They stared at him for a brief moment before Khaleed tried to explain the reason behind his actions.
"He suddenly attacked me!"
Khaleed shouted, his voice full of regret, as the blade in his hands was covered in blood. His arm itself was shaking.
This made the group frown, their eyes shifting back and forth between Khaleed and the corpse lying lifeless on the ground.
It was easy to say that it belonged to the one who had joined their group just earlier, who went by the name Raymond. They had a good impression of that guy. Unfortunately, attacking a fellow shepherd was not something they had expected.
They were supposed to be a team here.
Then, one of the shepherds approached Khaleed while the other started walking towards the corpse.
[Mimicry Activated]
[Mimicry Success]
Khaleed’s nose started to bleed, which made the nearby shepherd ask in concern upon seeing it.
"Hey, your nose is bleeding... Did it hurt you in any way"
Khaleed, who couldn’t help but smile strangely, wiped the blood from his nose as he let out a chuckle. His eyes glanced toward the other shepherd, carefully observing the corpse while standing up.
"I’m fine. I think you should look at the corpse right now. Maybe there’s a reason why he had attacked me?"
’Or maybe not.’
Just then, Khaleed spotted the other shepherd kneeling on the ground, inspecting the dead shepherd closely, who appeared to be bleeding from his neck.
The shepherd moved his hand closer to remove the robe from his head. This made Cillian, who is using Khaleed’s face and voice, act quickly.
[0:30]
Cillian used the knife on his hand to grab the shepherd right beside him.
Slash—!
[Sleight of Hand Activated]
Using Sleight of Hand to achieve the greatest result, Cillian targeted the shepherd’s back first before moving toward his throat, cutting him down cleanly.
The other shepherd, who had already uncovered the robe and seen the corpse’s face, was shocked to find another Khaleed, this time, a dead one.
Thud—!
[Mimicry Activated]
[Mimicry Success]
This shepherd turned his head around, only to see the other shepherd collapsing after his throat had been sliced. Then, another vision appeared before him, Khaleed, who was Cillian, rushing toward him with the same knife that had been used by the dead Khaleed lying on the ground.
"Shit!"
The shepherd tried to retaliate, but since he was still kneeling on the ground with his back not fully straightened, the only thing he could do was release the ability he had already readied.
"Light arrow!"
The arrow with a bright trail shot toward Cillian, who dodged it by performing a backflip before landing his blade on the unprepared shepherd.
Slash—!
The shepherd groaned as he felt the blade pierce through his shoulder while he tried to make yet another light arrow.
But Cillian was much faster than him.
Cillian called out to his inventory, grabbed his sword from inside, and made a sloppy slash towards the neck of the shepherd, who was unable to defend himself any longer.
[0:20]
Everything happened within the span of ten seconds. Even so, it was already enough for Cillian to execute his movements, despite how sloppy he still was when using a sword. Still, there was an apparent improvement, a rather great one.
Cillian removed the sword from the shepherd’s neck before striking the same spot he had targeted again. He wasn’t able to cut the head off completely, but he only made the wound worse, leaving a grotesque sight for those looking at it.
Still, it was more than enough, as this left the shepherd unable to breathe any longer, causing him to collapse onto the ground.
"Hahh..."
Wiping the blood from his nose while feeling the slight headache coming from his head, Cillian let out a small smile as, after almost a hundred attempts at mimicking an ability, he finally managed to copy two abilities in one go. One was from the first person, which was why he had been smiling earlier, and the next one was from his current kill.
As long as he wasn’t experiencing much pain, Cillian knew everything was worth the risk. He looked through his reserved mimicked storage with glee.
[Reserved mimicked Storage: Jack Trade’s voice, [Buddy [Two]: Buddy Hop], Eve Salme’s Voice, Cale Hentuse’s voice, Orion... Troy Kisher’s voice... Green Vines [Four], Light Arrow [Three],]
Information already surged from Cillian’s head regarding them, something that Faceless provided as long as he mimicked them.
It wasn’t an ability that was overpowered enough like Aster’s swords. Still, a mimicked ability is a mimicked ability.
’Man, I keep thinking about Aster’s five swords. I mean, that was my latest op ability that I had mimicked, and recently, there have been only voices since there’s no opportunity to watch out for Ruiners openly using their abilities for me to copy.’
[0:00]
Putting the sword back into his inventory, Cillian checked the bodies of the dead shepherds and somehow stumbled upon a few items, not artifacts, from their pockets.
Under the pockets of the shepherd he had killed using a sword, Cillian saw a bunch of wrapped cloth with a small, circular container inside.
There were three of them, and Cillian could tell that they were the same kind of items he had seen during the Flame Conjuration Classes back at the Academy, something Meister had taught his students firsthand before moving on to basic fire spells.
’Yeah, Meister mentioned that this was another way of conjuring spells. By concocting the right ingredients and making a pseudo-type of spells instead of using Mana. Still, the reason this isn’t widespread and was tasked to the sorcerers is that it is expensive and tacky to create an item related to spells.’
Cillian had liked studying when he came to this world, and he had already researched this during his free time during his academy days.
It was said there were many stages that needed to be completed, and all of them were difficult. However, if someone already had the required ingredients, which were said to be many, had perfect mastery of the concoction, and wasn’t afraid of failure or losing a large sum of money, then they could have a pass to learn it.
’I remember Meister also demonstrating more of this type in his lessons, but we merely focused on Fireball, Red Showers, and Flare at the end, on which I ultimately focused on Fireball.’
For some reason, Cillian couldn’t help but miss the time he was at the academy, something he wasn’t even feeling back when he was on Earth.
’I guess the school ain’t that bad. Too cliché though.’
Once he saw that there were no more items available from the dead bodies of the shepherds, Cillian exited the room while bringing one wrapped item he had retrieved into his hand.
He wanted to see what this item contained, and he could only test it right now.
Positioning himself far from the room while leaving the door open, Cillian threw the item inside, where the dead shepherds were lying lifeless.
Then, full of expectation, the only thing Cillian did was witness smoke emitting from the container, and soon his expression went blank.
It was simply a smoke grenade that produced smoke thick enough to cover a decent area with a wide radius.
’How... simple.’
With a low sigh, Cillian started running away again, putting the robe back over his head.