Ainz Ooal Gown: Noble Knight.

Chapter 86 Rune the Lazybones

The passageway to the side door was narrower than Rune had anticipated.

Grayish-white stone bricks pressed down from both sides, and every few steps there was an oil lamp that was about to burn out.

The air was thick with a damp, musty smell, mixed with the scent of cheap grease and rust, as if something had been rotting in this corridor for a long time.

Five guards stood at the entrance to the passageway.

They wore leather armor of varying styles, and their weapons were also of different quality.

The burly man at the front held a two-handed battle axe, the tall, thin man on the left held a crossbow, and the other three held a sword, a flail, and a short spear, respectively.

A typical mercenary setup. The overall lineup isn't perfect, but it has the advantage of numbers. In this confined space, five against one would indeed be a tough challenge for a normal person.

Rune looked around to make sure there were no hidden forces lurking in the shadows.

"Who goes there!"

The burly man wielding the axe spoke first, his voice echoing dully in the narrow passageway.

The unfamiliar faces matched the secret code, a situation that occurred during a special period, making him very nervous.

He took a step forward, the blade of his battle axe gleaming dimly under the oil lamp.

Rune did not answer.

He simply continued walking forward. His pace was neither hurried nor slow, and his boots made a rhythmic, soft sound as they trod on the stone slabs.

"court death!"

The burly man's expression changed. He gave a wink to both sides, and the five men moved almost simultaneously.

The tall, thin man with the crossbow was the first to attack. He pulled the trigger, and the crossbow bolt flew straight toward Rune's chest with a sharp whooshing sound.

This arrow was fast and accurate, with a tricky angle; it was clearly not the first time a crossbow had been used to kill someone.

Rune turned to the side.

The crossbow bolt grazed the edge of his breastplate and embedded itself in the stone wall behind him, its fletching humming.

At the same time, two men wielding swords and flails flanked them from the left and right, with a short spearman close behind. The burly man pressed forward head-on, raising his battle axe high and, using his weight and arm strength, bringing it down in a single blow.

Their teamwork was fairly good. They provided frontal suppression, flanking maneuvers, and crossbowmen reloading from the rear.

In the street battles of the capital, this formation would be enough to throw most adventurers into a frenzy.

But Rune didn't even lift an eyelid.

He took a step forward.

This step was taken just as the burly man's axe was about to fall, his body slightly to the side, the blade of the battle axe gliding past the edge of his shoulder armor, striking empty air.

The burly man's force hit nothing but air, and he staggered forward half a step.

Rune's sword was already drawn.

The silver-white blade traced an arc under the dim light, as if writing a word in the air.

The sword tip grazed the burly man's throat without pausing, then slashed to the right, deflecting the iron ball of the flail, which bounced back. Rune then used the momentum to flick his wrist, the blade slicing across another man's chest.

Three cries of pain rang out almost simultaneously.

As the burly man clutched his throat and collapsed, Rune had already turned around to face the remaining two.

The tall, thin man with the crossbow had just loaded the second arrow, his finger still on the trigger. He looked at Rune, at the three still convulsing bodies on the ground, and his lips trembled.

The arrow was shot.

But it's crooked.

Whether it was a mistake or fear, the crossbow bolt flew past Rune two feet away, without even touching the hem of his clothes.

Rune stepped forward. The spearman gritted his teeth and thrust out a spear, which Rune casually deflected, the tip of his sword slicing across his throat. The spear fell to the ground with a crisp metallic clang.

The tall, thin man threw down the crossbow and ran away.

Rune didn't give chase. He bent down, picked up the short spear from the ground, and tossed it casually.

The short spear pierced the tall, thin man's skull, and he fell straight to the ground.

The passageway fell silent.

The five mercenary guards, who had worked together fairly well, were instantly killed.

Rune sheathed his sword.

The sound of the blade sliding into the scabbard was exceptionally clear in the silence.

He looked down at his hands; not a single drop of blood was on them.

People really do need to beat weaker opponents to regain their confidence.

When the thought popped into his head, Rune himself found it a little funny.

The shadow of having my sword shattered by Sebastian's punch a few days ago seems to have finally dissipated a little bit at this moment.

Although in essence, it was just fighting a few weaklings who didn't even know martial arts.

These gatekeepers are probably a little stronger than the kingdom's ordinary soldiers, but not by much. If we were to convert them into levels, they would be around Lv7.

The Warrior class doesn't have a player panel in this world, making it too difficult to determine.

Without data, we can only estimate based on experience and intuition.

Unless one possesses special skills, one can only have a general understanding of the specific profession one is engaged in, but the exact level or number remains unclear.

On the contrary, magic class is easy to determine. Just by looking at which rank of magic one can cast, one can deduce the casting level.

Levels 1 to 7 allow you to cast first-tier magic. Levels 8 to 14 allow you to cast second-tier magic. And so on, until you reach level 64, at which point you can cast tenth-tier magic.

Once you exceed Lv70, you can access the realm of super-level magic.

As for Rune himself.

He genuinely didn't know his exact level. He could only roughly estimate that it was in the Heroic level range, which was Lv29.

Between Lv35 and Lv35.

They are still some distance from being considered abnormal (Lv36~Lv42).

The Kingdom's Warrior Captain Gazev Storonov serves as the standard combat unit in this other world.

Its strength is Lv28.

For the Eight Fingers to deal with Gazef, at least three of the Six Arms would need to be deployed.

The information that Gazef was coming to raid the brothel was relayed by Rune through the so-called "Viscount".

That's right.

Rune knew all this so clearly because the viscount who relayed the message to [Eight Fingers] was his man from beginning to end.

After accumulating reputation points for several years, Rune chose to cash them out today.

A chess piece, buried at the edge of the core circle of the eight fingers, only conveys true information and never lies.

Over the years, the other side has come to have complete faith in this intelligence line.

So when the "Viscount" told them that the Kingdom's Warrior Captain was going to wipe out the brothel all by himself, they believed him.

The reason it is described as a single warrior captain rather than a team of steel-class adventurers is because the warrior captain is a suitable unit of combat strength.

Strong, but not strong enough to instill despair. Strong enough to threaten [Eight Fingers], but not strong enough to make Kekedaoer consider giving up and running away.

That way, he would be able to persuade as many "six-armed" people as possible to stay behind, instead of running away with the money.

Sebastian can eliminate at least three members of the "Six Arms" faction, so the chances of his silly sister encountering danger when she later wipes out the other branches of the "Eight Fingers" faction are almost zero.

Rune walked slowly forward in the passageway.

He was in no hurry.

Rune only needs to guard this side door and stop anyone trying to escape from here.

As for the main players, we can leave them to Sebastian.

Facing a simultaneous attack from multiple six-armed beings, it was a tough battle for Rune. But for Sebastian, it would probably be a matter of taking them down with a single punch.

So Rune was perfectly at ease slacking off.