Nightmare System - Volume 1 Chapter 59 Cursed Swordsman

“A sidequest?” Hell was taken aback with the unexpected notification which shook him out of his fury. “Why now of all times?”

Hell contemplated why this Frederick guy could become a sidequest like this when it had never happened before.

“Is he somehow related to the system?” Hell contemplated.

“My king, you have been busy,” Miur’s voice was heard from the door at this moment.

Finally noticing Miur at the door and looking around the room, it was truly hard to explain. Jack had also entered the room after one moment and looked a tad defeated after seeing the scene. None of the remaining members was all that important, but they took care of various jobs in the large building.

Even keeping it clean would be a hassle, otherwise. But Jack could understand that his king was just this type of man, he may do things like this.

“I will find someone to clean the corpses right away,” Jack said and turned to leave.

“No, wait!” Hell yelled behind him, also glancing at Miur. “For the first time ever, I really am not responsible!”

“That is quite all right,” Miur said, flashing a grin. “I doubt any of these humans were important.”

“Oops, we are caught,” Pseudo Hell, the copy, said.

“Don’t be such a dipshit,” Hell said to his own copy in a comical moment. “Go and be useful to Annette.”

Pseudo Hell immediately vanished from his place, appearing outside the building. He got down and ran in speed toward the Anti-Monster Department.

The copies, although never ignored Hell’s orders, they had a certain individuality to them. Hell would confess that had he been in the copy’s place, he would also be an annoying bastard to the original, which would explain the reason behind their actions.

“Well, whatever,” Hell scoffed. “Who is looking after Devlin?”

“We left Annette with Devlin for a while, she is not weak.”

“I know, I made sure she wouldn’t be. More importantly, did you lose all your men?”

“Looks like,” Miur truthfully answered, pointing at the corpses. “You humans are far too weak to be made into good vampires.”

“I have a way to get more men, but I may need you to help kill someone first.”

Miur’s creepy grin surfaced again. He felt like a kid who found a mountain of candy ever since he saw Hell again. He had endured years of torture and annoyance, but with his long life lived, waiting for a few years was nothing.

“Will things finally be interesting again?”

“What do you know about the Defence Minister?” Hell asked promptly, ignoring Miur’s antics.

“He has strong men around him. Furthermore, I don’t think you could barge inside the Golden Palace to kill him.”

Golden Palace was the president’s official residence. After the country was torn apart with the appearance of players and monsters, the government collapsed with the defence ministry replacing the presidency.

“Stick around, we’ll do it soon.”

“I wouldn’t miss it,” Miur giggled. “Finally!”

“I’ll go find a room for myself. If someone named Lance shows up, don’t kill him.”

“As you command.”

Hell left the room quickly and starting walking around his headquarters. Devlin probably still didn’t know he was declared to be the new leader by Magnus, but it would probably fine. He was never someone who coveted power.

Looking into each of the rooms on the top floor, he eventually stumbled into a room very similar in design to his old room. It seemed Devlin had installed a bookcase just like the one he had before.

Even his bed sheets were the same. Hell had always used the superhero bed sheets his mother had bought him before the accident. He never liked superheroes nor enjoyed their shows. He always thought simply risking your life for other people just because you got powers would never be something he would do, either.

He sat on the bed and slowly laid down. He was used to sleeping here, after all. He quickly drifted into a nap with the extreme relaxation he experienced.

Taking a nap for just a few minutes, he was suddenly jolted awake with the realisation that something had happened. He always felt a faint mental connection to his copies, he would even faintly feel their locations if he concentrated on the feeling.

“Can’t I just have a day to myself?”

Hell clearly felt the connection between himself and the copy snap. That would only happen if the copy had died. He left the room, fuming. It was enough time that he should have almost reached the Anti-Monster Department.

“Miur!” he yelled. “We are going hunting.”

“Already?” Miur suddenly materialised from a patch of shadow on the ground, which almost caused Hell to jump with fear.

“You creepy bastard, just how much do you like living in shadows?”

“Very.”

“Whatever. The problem is that someone killed the copy I sent out.

“I’ll stay very close,” Miur said and melted into Hell’s shadow, following him.

Hell made three more copies and sent them out, ordering them to make sure Devlin would be safe. They ran toward the Department with all their speed. Pseudo Hells used their mana to the limit on their Fly ability. Some abilities could outperform their original strength with more mana pumped into it. Fly was one such ability.

Even though the copies only had 10% of Hell’s mana, 640 mana was enough for them to be fired ahead like bullets.

Even if it was a copy, they still originally retained 60% of Hell’s abilities which was then boosted by 60% after the reduction due to his Puppet Mastery skill. Which meant that they should be pretty hard to kill even without any abilities.

Just as Hell also left the building, he felt another copy disappear.

“They found him,” Hell whispered and started running forward using Quickening. Even though running so fast still attracted attention, it was still quite more inconspicuous compared to flying there.

He ran through crowds of people of all ages, who were shocked to see a blur running past them. Regular people couldn’t even properly observe Hell if he used Quickening to boost his speed to unbelievable levels. He was just a blur to many people on the streets.

On his way toward the Department, he suddenly stopped in his tracks and took a sharp left, running at another direction.

“The copies must have followed something.”

He felt another connection snap, there was only one left. He rushed at the area the last copy was. Whatever this was, it sure was able to finish off the copies.

He finally reached an industrial site with no one around. Must have been abandoned. Without giving it a second thought, he rushed inside, he saw the remaining copy standing there.

“What the f.u.c.k is happening here?!” Hell yelled at the copy, only seeing its back.

A large blade suddenly went through him, with the shape of a scythe. The copy fell on the ground and turned into a puddle. The copy falling down revealed a teen around the ages of 15-16 with white hair poking out of his hoodie.

“Hey, another one!” the kid said, holding a large sword with the blade of a scythe at the end. “How many of you are there?!” he asked with a large grin on his face.

“Why did you kill them?” Hell questioned the kid. He would feel no pity killing someone of his age, either.

“I kill monsters wherever I see them. I don’t know how someone could mistake you for a human with that rancid miasma seeping out of you.”

The kid rested the sword on his shoulder as he added: “You are the boss monster, aren’t you? If the others had ponds of miasma, yours is like a waterfall.”

“I am the boss, all right.”

Hell was only curious as to why he was attacked, but it wouldn’t actually matter what the reason was, it was easier to punish him with death.

“Melee-type humanoid bosses are always the most annoying,” the kid said. “Listen here, the one to make love to you with the business end of this sword is called Dean Collins.”

Since it looked like his copies were still killed even three to one, he didn’t want to be reckless. He summoned the Sword of Blood and stabbed himself with it amidst the confused looks from his opponent. He could immediately feel his blood pumping and the strength infusing every inch of his body.

“Have you given up already?” Dean mocked Hell.

“They call me Hell,” he said as he also used the Gaze of Pain on the kid with 500 mana to test his limits.

Dean collapsed on the ground, screaming with pain. He was, after all, a kid. Hell also used his Fire Channelling on the kid and sent balls of fire at him through the tip of the sword.

Fireballs fell on him and created a small explosion, obscuring the kid. There was no one where the kid was lying after the explosion, instead, he was far back with his hoodie singed from the fire. Dean leaned against his sword to stand up.

“I forgot to mention, I am an enchanter,” Hell cackled. “You won’t leave this place alive.”

“I can’t believe he would send me to my room like a kid!” Devlin complained. “He is always like this!”

Devlin sat down with Annette consoling him. After sitting there, defeated for some moments, he raised his head, looking at her.

“Do you know what your brother talked about the most while he was in our world?” Annette asked with a soft voice, and answered after a short silence: “You!”

After hearing so much about Devlin, she had come to know him quite a lot and cared for him almost like a little brother of hers, as well. She then told her about the time Menaroan King Bloodhound had visited their city and Hell had almost scared him away with endless stories about his little brother.

Devlin listened with great attention, not missing a word. It was obvious how much his big brother loved him. They had no other relatives who would care for them, either, so it had been the two of them for long years. He knew his big brother had always his interests in mind.

“You know,” Devlin said. “He made great efforts as to not expose me to any trouble ever since our parents died. He would always tell me to be strong and stand tall before that.”

“He would do anything for his kid brother.”

Devlin sighed again, that was the problem. Too much of anything could be harmful, this even included love. But he never said anything to Hell, it seemed his kid brother being happy was also how he managed to cope.

“There must be an uproar after the recent events, I need to go back to the headquarters,” Devlin finally said. “Miur and Jack already left, they must be there.”

“That is quite all right, we’ll prepare a car right away,” Annette said as she moved toward the door.

“Also,” Devlin said. Do you have anything going on with my brother?”

“What do you mean?” Annette turned her head and asked.

She was truly a mesmerizing beauty even before living as a killing machine in the other world. The mild climate of this world, along with a multitude of personal care products, had turned her even more beautiful.

“I mean, you always talked about him so lovingly, so I thought”

“Me?!” she shrieked in surprise. “He is just my king! I mean- we never-” Annette mumbled a few words as she quickly ran away from the room, as red as a tomato.

“Oh yeah,” Devlin smiled. “There’s definitely something going on there.”

He would be elated to have found out his brother finally had someone so loving in his life. He had never made any meaningful connections between his working life and looking after his little brother.

Devlin also started making plans to introduce his brother to the city. There were beautiful landmarks all around, he would love to make a day out of it with Hell. There was a knock on the door after a few more minutes.

“You are back early,” Devlin yelled.

“Indeed, I am,” a man answered as he opened the door. It was Magnus. “Your brother left me with the journalists all by myself! Even after I was going to do him the favour of showing him to your headquarters.”

“Magnus?” Devlin asked with a curious look on his face. “Is there a problem?”

“Not at all. I just wanted to talk to you.”

“Of course, what is it about?”

Magnus walked around the room, trying to choose the right words to say.

“As you know, Knightdom suffered a great loss of manpower in the recent clash with The Blessed.”

“Yes.”

“This would mean that Knightdom no longer has enough members to become an official faction.”

Devlin looked slightly distressed, but he eventually decided he didn’t care about the title and replied: “We will still help as much as we can.”

“However, this does not mean Knightdom doesn’t have the power to stay an official faction,” Magnus explained. “Your brother decided to help out, after all, as we spoke before.”

“What are you saying, then?”

“The Department declared that your brother will take over. His power should be deterrence enough that people are kept safe.”

“I see, this also means there won’t be any infighting between the smaller factions.”

“I knew you would understand!” Magnus said when Annette appeared at the door.

“What are you doing here?” she asked with a threatening tone, her fist covered with fire.

Magnus turned to Annette and his large frame towered before her. His amicable voice disappeared, replaced with an arrogant tone.

“Don’t be presumptuous, little bloodsucker, you won’t live long that way.” Magnus then turned back to Devlin and wore his smile again: “Defence Minister Frederick will want to see you two soon, be prepared.”

“Shouldn’t you tell that to my brother if he is the new leader?”

“I have a feeling you’ll definitely be able to convince him to attend the meeting. We will call you.”

Magnus followed up with leaving the room without another word. After moving away from the room, he took out his phone and called a certain number.

“Devlin won’t be an issue; he didn’t cause a problem passing the torch and I believe will be useful in controlling the demon. The woman Annette may need to be eliminated. I’ll have her monitored for now.”

“Good job,” the voice at the other end said.

“Thank you, Frederick sir.”