Harley used a cloth to cover his nose, going into the captain's cabin. There, he saw that there was a fragile bag made with cloth that was torn and the entire room was dusty.
The six knights were all on the ground, including Eman. He looked up at Harley, seeing him covering his nose.
The entire dusty atmosphere wasn't dust; it was desert ash. Incredibly light and just like normal dust, and it was everywhere in the room at the moment.
Only Eman was still partially awake.
"Finally. It's better if you all die now. I can't trust you guys to not try to make me some kind of slave," Harley said, looking Eman in the eyes.
"W—what are you talking about? You put the ash here on purpose?" Eman tried to scream so badly.
There was an obvious shock in his voice, but Harley didn't respond; he was calm.
"I have better hearing than normal people. When you all gathered yesterday on the deck, I overheard you talking." He moved, taking a step towards the captain.
"You were talking about how you would bait me with glory and use me as bait for a dragon. No thank you. I've been considering killing all of you after you killed the pirates."
The knight captain seemed shocked; he was struggling to stay conscious as the dust was already getting to him, and Harley pulled out a knife and walked over to the tall, slender guy first.
Then he stabbed him right where his heart was. The steady beating soon stopped, and he smiled.
"Didn't want to risk him calling his arrow here."
"Damn you!" Eman tried to scream, managing to raise his hand.
Harley, still with a hand on his collar, stepped on the hand, making Eman grunt uselessly.
"I took you to be a very determined person. I taught you how to use a sword—"
"SHUT UP! YOU SAID IT CLEARLY, THAT I WILL DIE! DID YOU NOT?!" Harley pressed on the arm even further. He noticed that his vision was getting blurry and he rolled Eman over, only to see that the knight immediately fell unconscious.
'Goodbye.' Harley gave them a final salute as he proceeded to stab all of them.
...
An hour later he sat alone on the deck, looking at the floorboards. The bodies were all still inside the captain's cabin.
He wished he had a cigarette to just wash away the guilt he was feeling right now, but there wasn't one. He had killed over seven people so far just entering the trial. And that wasn't even what he was sent here to kill.
"You're a wicked one, huh." He looked up at the sky, addressing the Oracle.
"What kind of trial is this supposed to be? A zero percent chance of survival? Less than zero percent chance of passing the trial?" He gritted his teeth, looking at the sky in multiple directions.
"Come on! Why not something simple like a puzzle...?"
As Harley kept on ranting his problems out over and over again, the voice of the Oracle finally resounded in his ears.
{You have discovered the third scenario, details would be given once you get inside}
Shocked to stupor, Harley immediately got up and ran to the front of the ship, and that's when he saw a huge wall in the distance.
He looked at the artifacts that the knights used and he picked up the silver arrow. It was quite heavy, as if he was holding pure iron. Even with his enhanced strength he could feel the weight.
There were beautiful symbols carved onto the surface which he didn't care about. He would be using it to kill anyway.
He held the handle of Eman's sword which looked like a root but he didn't know the verse to use it. And it wasn't bonded to him, so he couldn't check his world record for information on it.
He dropped it down and picked up the silver longsword that the blue-haired knight lady had. Its blade looked blunt, but he had seen her use it to chop off heads before.
And he knew a single verse she used.
"Light as a feather, sharper than a blade."
As he said that, the sword let out a low humming sound, and the symbols on the body of the blade lit up. He could see a small layer of what looked like wind—or was it essence?
It wrapped around the entire thing, making it sharp.
Harley looked at the axe that belonged to the bulky man and the daggers the twins used.
"Now that I think about it, I never actually got to know any of them. It's all an illusion anyway." He told himself, accepting reality.
The ship was approaching the shore of where he was going and he strapped the weapons with a cloth and took off his boots, tying them to his waist as well.
With that, he jumped over the deck into the water, choosing to abandon the bodies of the knights in the ship.
The shore of the land wasn't that far. Harley popped his head above water to observe.
Before the wall there was a stretch of land, and there was a knight in silver armor, having the crest of a raven on his breastplate.
"Knights of Knave." He immediately recalled the description from Eman.
These people have taken over the kingdom of Gord and were supposed to be what they would all gather against.
"By my guess this is the northern wall." He swam closer to the shore, using the rocks as cover from the knight on the wall.
Harley sat on a rock and summoned his world record; he should be able to gain a bit of power now.
[Unfinished Subjugations: 0
Story fragments: 5
Subjugated fragments: 4]
"Six, I killed six of them, not five." Harley frowned, looking at the number of story fragments he had.
Then a bad premonition came upon him, and his eyes widened.
'If one of them indeed survived a stab to the heart.' He gritted his teeth.
Holding the wish locket, he recited the verse calmly.
"Kneel, and be remembered."
Instantly, a flood of energy filled his body, permeating his very being. It was much more than any of his previous absorptions and he smiled, feeling the rush of power in him.
{You have reached Scheme 7. You have reached a stage of ascendancy. You would need a big amount of essence to ascend further.}
The voice of the Oracle whispered in his ears and he raised his head, looking at the knight who was holding a long telescope; he had spotted the ship.
Harley brought out the arrow and whispered the verse. "Pierce through."
The arrow flew out of his hand at an incredible speed, heading towards the knight.