Former Ranker's Newbie Life

As Do-Jin was getting ready to hit yet another hideout, Anemone picked up on a group quietly slipping out of the base instead. He tailed them, captured them, and learned they were moving a massive shipment of mana stones elsewhere. The smugglers had already halted all transport of drugs, alcohol, weapons, and every other kind of contraband. Yet they were still hauling mana stones in bulk. That alone was strange enough to turn suspicion into near certainty.

“We were told mana stones were needed,” one of them blurted out. “They said there’s an item that needs to be transported, and just moving it takes an insane amount of mana stones. It’s an important operation, so they told us to make sure the stones were ready without any delays.”

Because the job was both secret and critical, the man assigned to it held a decent position within the organization. That meant he actually knew something useful, even if it was vague.

“So where were you taking the stones?” Do-Jin asked.

“Aaagh! K-Kula. Kula,” the man screamed. “We were ordered to stockpile them there because the important cargo is supposed to pass through tomorrow.”

“And after that?”

“Ugh... we were only told to handle Kula and Odev. We honestly don’t know anything beyond that. Another team is supposed to deal with the rest, so we didn’t ask questions.”

In his head, Do-Jin recalled the map of the Central Continent and where those two cities were located.

From Kula to Odev... Straight along that same direction leads to the capital...

Do-Jin looked down at the man bleeding all over the ground. “You have been in this organization long enough to get a job like this, right? Then you should at least be able to guess. If that important cargo passes through Kula tomorrow and heads to Odev, where do you think its final destination is?”

The criminal answered in a panic as he stared at Do-Jin’s gauntlet, which was glowing red-hot. “The capital. Alterus Castle! That has to be it.”

“Yeah,” Do-Jin said. “That’s the most likely answer.”

“S-so you will let me go now, right?”

“Let you go? Come on. Don’t be stupid. You’re guiding us there first.”

The man’s face twisted in despair, but Do-Jin ignored him and sank back into thought.

They’re aiming straight for the capital? Jeez.

The Cult of Ruin was made up of insane bastards who had caused countless disasters, but even they didn’t have the gall to slam headfirst into the Empire. They preferred to stir up small-scale chaos, build power slowly, and wait until their enemies were sufficiently weakened before making a real move.

Guess they are properly pissed now.

Either that, or their long-term project involving Galante’s revival had failed, and they were rushing to set up a replacement plan. Do-Jin didn’t really care which one it was. He was going to stop it either way.

“Can we actually handle this?” Deneve asked quietly. “You’re incredible, I get that, but if they’re mobilizing this much, they have some serious combat power.”

They were already making preparations to head straight for Kula when she spoke. From Deneve’s point of view, things had spiraled completely out of control. She had only wanted enough information to stay alive. Instead, she had been swept along as the conspiracy grew into something far beyond what a lone informant should ever be involved in. Her anxiety was only natural.

“Don’t worry,” Do-Jin reassured her. “You won’t be fighting. You just stay somewhere safe and report exactly what you see.”

From the start, he had never intended to use Deneve as a combatant. There was only one role he wanted this nooblet to play.

It occurred to Do-Jin that if the witness was an NPC and the testimony came directly from them, the information might actually be passed along. With that in mind, he scooped up the massive pile of mana stones the smugglers had been transporting and dumped them into his inventory.

At this rate, my inventory is going to fucking explode.

Do-Jin picked up the pace and moved toward the next destination. The hideout the captured men had guided them to lay deep in a forest on the outskirts of Kula.

***

Do-Jin watched the hideout for a while to confirm the information was legit, and before long he saw teams hauling in mana stones from elsewhere, slipping through an entrance carefully concealed by trees and dense undergrowth.

Once the man’s job as a guide was finished, Do-Jin dealt with him and settled in to wait. If he struck too early, the so-called important cargo might divert elsewhere instead of coming here. That was a risk he couldn’t afford.

Security keeps tightening, he thought.

More and more personnel began patrolling the area around the hideout. One of the teams assigned to deliver mana stones had failed to show up, so they were clearly bracing for an attack. Given that news of other bases getting wiped out must have reached them already, the reaction made sense.

Don’t tell me they’re not coming after all...

Just as that unease started creeping in, a small carriage made entirely of steel rolled into view.

They’re here.

It was a vehicle powered by mana that was painted in heavy camouflage. Nearly twenty members of the organization surrounded it as guards, and the people inside the hideout poured out to receive it. There was no doubt that this was the real deal.

“If anything looks even remotely dangerous, run straight to the nearest Elthomagia branch and wait there,” Do-Jin said. “I will come find you.”

Before Deneve could even respond, Do-Jin launched himself straight at the enemy. He had been observing from afar using Farsight, so the distance was considerable. Even so, it didn’t take him long to close the gap.

The smugglers on lookout finally spotted him.

“Enemy spotted!”

“Block him!”

All the thieves dropped their stealth at once and rushed in to intercept. Arrows and daggers cut through the air from every direction. However, most of the projectiles were crushed by the raging Gale swirling around his body. Anything that did break through failed to deal real damage to Do-Jin, whose body was reinforced by Psychokinetic Enhancement.

He crashed straight into the thieves’ formation and began cutting them down at close range. In the panic that ensued, the smugglers shouted over each other.

“Don’t let him get close to the cargo!”

“They said he moves with a wolf! Keep your guard up. It has to be nearby!”

However, at that moment, Anemone was inside Do-Jin. When he called her name, she briefly appeared from his right arm, smashed the man who had mentioned the wolf, and vanished again.

“Gk—”

The man’s scream cut off as his chest collapsed inward.

“Tch. It’s still just a single mage. If we don’t give him time to cast, we can overwhelm him!” one of them yelled.

As blades came slashing in from all sides, Do-Jin responded by casting Whirlwind. Mixed into the spell was the drug they’d found earlier. He had packed as much of it up as possible and was now pouring out so much that the wind itself turned green. Even trace amounts of that drug wreaked havoc on the human body. Forcing people to inhale that much of it directly into their lungs was practically a death sentence.

“Ghhhaaa—!”

The amount of powder Do-Jin scattered through the storm was enough to kill a hundred thousand ordinary people outright. Even high-level combatants with strong resistances couldn’t escape the result. At best, they collapsed on the spot, completely incapacitated.

They die to the poison they were planning to dump on the world. That’s karma in its purest form.

“Shit. That’s Ghoul!”

Even the smugglers themselves feared the drug that rotted flesh from the inside. The moment they realized what was swirling through the wind, terror ripped through them. In the middle of that chaos, though, someone had forced their way through the gale.

“You’re playing boring tricks.”

A crescent-shaped slash followed the voice, cutting straight toward Do-Jin. If Do-Jin had reacted even a fraction of a second slower, the blade would have split his throat clean open. He locked eyes with his attacker. Everything about the man felt different. His presence alone put him on an entirely different level from the disposable trash surrounding them.

So you’re the boss, Do-Jin thought.

The fact that the man charged in without hesitation, ignoring Ghoul as if it didn’t exist, said enough. That level of poison resistance was no joke. The man might very well be their leader.

Do-Jin began preparing a spell, but the instant the man saw mana lighting up along Do-Jin’s circuits, he rushed forward to close the distance.

“You’re not getting any time to cast.”

Do you think I’m an idiot? Do-Jin thought. I already prepared the previous spell ahead of time.

“Die.” The man growled, lunging in carelessly with his dagger.

No. You die.

A violent surge of electricity exploded outward from Do-Jin’s body. It was an area-of-effect spell, which meant dodging wasn’t an option. The casting time was long, and the range was short. With those two weaknesses neutralized, the spell delivered overwhelming impact.

“Ghk—”

The shock was so severe that the man’s consciousness was nearly sucked away. Do-Jin piled on damage immediately after, but he stopped short of killing him. Anyone this strong was either a leader or a high-ranking lieutenant, and that made him more valuable alive.

Do-Jin used Wind Blade to sever all four limbs, no more and no less. He then sealed the wounds to keep the man from bleeding out. After that, he finished off the remaining smugglers. The ones closest to him were already convulsing, overdosed on Ghoul and twitching like half-formed zombies, so cleaning them up was easy.

“Filthy bastards,” Do-Jin mumbled. He had no problem with the gore, but the stench of vomit, piss, and defecation from those overdosing men was almost too much.

The ones watching the situation from a distance began to pull back, whether it was a tactical retreat or genuine panic-driven flight. Either way, they started putting real distance between themselves and the battlefield.

This takes priority right now, Do-Jin thought.

Chasing down scattered fugitives one by one was effectively impossible. Instead of wasting time on low-priority targets, he decided to check the cargo they had been guarding like their lives depended on it.

It’s locked.

The cargo compartment looked like a mobile vault, and the lock was solid. He could probably force it open, but messing with something like this the wrong way could damage whatever was inside. Do-Jin searched the clothes of the man whose limbs he had severed instead.

“This should be the key. And this is...”

He pulled out a notebook with a leather cover worn smooth from heavy use. It reeked of something straight out of a crime movie.

A ledger. This is an unexpected bonus.

Do-Jin tossed the notebook into his inventory and stood in front of the carriage’s cargo hold with the key in hand. Curiosity and tension rose in equal measure. He wondered what the Cult of Ruin was so desperate to move into the capital?

This could be dangerous. I should prep first.

Do-Jin layered on every precaution he could manage and then opened the box.

Before he could even register what was inside, a young-sounding voice exploded out along with a brutal impact. “Aaah! I was sleeping. Why the hell did you open it!”

The instant it opened, someone inside drove a punch into him, the impact echoing through the clearing as Do-Jin was sent flying.

Fuck!

Thanks to the defensive measures he had just taken, Do-Jin avoided the humiliation of tumbling across the ground. He bled off the force midair with Psychokinesis, steadied himself, and landed cleanly on his feet. Do-Jin stared forward to identify his attacker.

“Have we already arrived at the destination?” said the voice in the box. “This is a super delicate item. I told them not to let outside air touch it. Did I not say that? Did I?”

Climbing out of the cargo hold in a foul mood was a small, slender figure with an androgynous appearance. They looked somewhere between a beautiful boy and a beautiful girl, with a face that burned itself into memory after one look.

Do-Jin’s expression hardened the moment he recognized the child of Laves, one of the six Star Children of the Cult of Ruin.

Why is this monster here?

“You must be Nepas.”

Nepas stared at Do-Jin with eyes like those of a beast.

“Oh. Ohhh... my sharp little instincts are telling me something. The source of all that annoying noise lately feels like it’s standing right in front of me.” Nepas’ right arm twitched, as if the thing trapped inside human flesh was trying to claw its way out. “See? I told them we should be careful. I told them to hunker down. And what did those senile idiots say? That I was talking bullshit.”

Nepas laughed sharply before continuing, “Look at this. If you actually try, the stars answer you. You useless, mortal fucks.”

As Do-Jin listened to the unhinged muttering, a thought crossed his mind.

I did poke the Cult of Ruin hoping to get a reaction... But I didn’t mean for them to completely lose their fucking minds.

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