Antagonist Protection Service-Chapter 201 - Refuge In A Ruined World (3)

201: Refuge In A Ruined World (3)

201: Refuge In A Ruined World (3)

With a massive, prolonged creak, the metal gate slowly slid open, grating across the dirt floor.

Waiting for it to reveal the other, there stood a party on each side.

“O-oh!

Hello, please take us in!”

“Yes, please save us!

We need help!”

“Quickly, there’s a monster on the way!”

On one side, standing just outside the entrance, a group of three men pleaded.

They wore dirty, tattered clothes beneath old cloaks, and as they let their voices free on the first sign of light peeking through the crack in the gate, they seemed to wait with bated breath for a positive response.

And then, as the gate continued to open, a single figure was revealed.

From head-to-toe, he was veiled in dark, almost sinister gear that even concealed his face, causing the three men to instinctively flinch.

Nevertheless, they were here out of necessity, were they not?

The men continued to beg.

“Please, don’t waste time and quickly let us inside!

We need to get away fr–”

As one of them stepped forward, a sly attempt to slip to the other side, he was stopped, an object abruptly pressed firmly against his chest.

“Uh…

W-what is this…?”

“…”

The silent figure held a long, metal pipe against the man’s chest, preventing him from taking another step forward.

At that moment, the world appeared to freeze for a second, when all of a sudden.

“G-get him!”

The man at the front shouted, hastily snatching a knife hidden under his clothes―

Bonk-!

―And being forcefully knocked to the ground before he had a chance to wield it, smashed across the face by the opponent’s heavy pipe.

Immediately thereafter, before the other two even had the chance to process what had happened, they had already drawn their concealed knives too―

Bonk, bonk-!

―Causing them to also have the metal pipe slammed into their heads, downing them in no less than two beats.

The sneaky rogues, who had been planning on killing everyone in the Sanctuary and taking it over, had their lives exterminated as swiftly as that.

❖─────★★★☆☆─────❖

Swinging the metal pipe around in my hand for a moment, I glanced down at the three bodies.

‘Jeez, this thing’s deadlier than I thought…’

It was no Hero’s Holy Sword, nor was it a silenced pistol purposed for assassination, but it was more than enough to get the job done.

I guess it was basically just a metal bat, but the blunt force damage it could exert was still crazy enough to surprise me.

‘No wonder they use them so much in movie gang fights…’

It was one of the weapons the others were using to practice with at the training area, and I could see why.

Incidentally, the reason I had borrowed such an odd thing instead of either of the two aforementioned items was because of the same thing I was concerned about before with regards to exposing myself.

In any case, the Protagonist didn’t seem to question my choice, and immediately after I took care of the threat, he approached my side, followed by the ex-military twins from earlier.

“Hey, that was quick.

Don’t worry about these guys, we have a place to…

dispose of them.

Dong-ha, Dong-min, you know what to do.”

“”Yes Boss!””

Saluting the same as before, the two muscular men effortlessly picked up the corpses and carried them through the Sanctuary.

I watched them disappear round the back of some tents, then flicked my head back to the gate at the grating sound of it closing again resounding, realising a small group of golems were getting the job done themselves.

The Protagonist had already paid me with one mana crystal beforehand, which quickly found itself deposited in Storage alongside the others, so there was no need to worry about that.

Still, he remained standing next to me quietly as if waiting for something, and once the golems were finished closing the gate and barricading it, walking off to continue with whatever other duties they may have had, the Protagonist finally opened his mouth.

“From now on, whenever an opponent appears, if you determine it to be an enemy, you can kill them without requiring my permission.

If it’s a group of pesky guys like what happened just now, you’ll receive the same reward as one mana crystal for the whole lot, but if it’s a strong enemy, I’ll bump it up to one mana crystal per two opponents.

This is assuming all crystals are the same quality.

Does that sound fair to you?”

I thought about it for a moment, and though it seemed like he was offering a lot at first glance, I soon began to feel like he was trying to scam me.

If it was an alien like either of the two I had seen so far, I could assume that would be counted as a ‘strong enemy’, and he wanted me to accept that killing two of those was worth one crystal?

Of course, in an isolated setting, I could accept that with no problem.

The crystals themselves were high-quality, after all, so even if I only got one for every three or four I killed it would still be a massive gain.

The problem was, in both cases before, the Protagonist’s “extract” ability gave him one of those high-quality crystals per alien.

In other words, he would be taking a fifty percent cut of what came from my work.

I was sure that was a fair exchange in the game he was basing it on, especially considering the crystals he obtained were probably useful for upgrading his own abilities in some way, but…

Well, I simply didn’t like the thought of getting used like that.

Sure, I wouldn’t have been able to get any crystals if I was by myself, but still…

‘Tsk…

Maybe I shouldn’t be too greedy and just accept it…’

Perhaps it was because the work each of us was putting in didn’t feel equal.

Either way, I knew I had to compromise at least a little in the present if I wanted to maximise my future gains.

Before I did that, though, I had one question.

“What about stronger enemies?”

If there was something even stronger than those aliens we encountered before, something that would force me to use the Holy Sword or White Death for example, I thought just one crystal per two slain was far too little.

At that, the Protagonist only smiled.

“I’ve never seen something that strong, so I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

“…”

‘He’s lying.’

I could sense the falsification easier than I expected, but seeing how he was going to play, I figured it couldn’t be helped.

“Fair enough.

I accept your terms.”

Like that, I had fully secured a steady supply of high-quality mana crystals, at least for now.

From that point on, I counted the days carefully.

The moment I decided I had obtained enough, everything would be over.