The Villain is Too Good at Sniping - Chapter 149



Only Krnovel

Episode 149

Episode 149. Things That Will Not Be Forgotten (3)

I landed lightly.

The steel structure I was standing on was cut off. I couldn’t see what hit me. The huge steel tower tilted and soon completely collapsed. Even at that moment, Assistant Professor Exion looked at me with a smile.

“We finally meet. Sion-kun. No, Sion Esperland-kun.”

Exion clearly attacked me, but strangely enough, I didn’t feel any hostility towards him. He really came to me to make me a proposal.

However, my [instinct] warns me fiercely. My honed intuition is urging me to pull the trigger right now.

“I have many questions for you. How did you find out about the professor’s plan and prepare to sabotage it so actively? We had no idea.”

Exion made a miserable expression.

“Zion Army conducted an investigation on me, right? Without anyone knowing, using Esperland’s power.”

I didn’t answer and just drew up my magic power.

The opponent is Arsene’s assistant professor, and even if he doesn’t come to the front line, he is far beyond my current level. If the fight drags on, I will definitely lose.

During the vacation, I spent time at Arsen, preparing to face Professor Edinburgh and Professor Björn. Not just physically, but mentally. I had already finished preparing myself mentally to kill the villains before they even appeared.

That’s why there is no hesitation. [Hunter’s Eye] reads Axion’s weaknesses. The weaknesses are the head and the heart. If Axion is not a mine, he will die instantly if the head and heart are attacked.

‘If possible, you should subdue him with one foot.’

The sniping attempt has already been detected. All I can do is respond with a burst of firepower that Exion can’t even handle. Fortunately, Exion doesn’t seem to have any intention of killing me.

But there was one surprising fact.

“Since when did you know that I was following you, Assistant Professor Axion?”

“A long time ago. At that time, I thought it might be possible since the Sion Army was Esperland’s assassin, but now it’s certain.”

Even as I unleashed my ominous magic, Exion still had a bright smile on his face.

“The Zion Army has investigated me, so you know. I am an Inquisitor of the Holy Church, and I am just as good at working in the shadows as the Zion Army.”

“So you noticed?”

“Actually, I realized a long time ago that there were eyes following me. I thought there was no need to catch them, so I just left them alone.”

As a result, Professor Björn’s lab was in shambles, Exion joked. It was a trick to dispel my hostility, but I didn’t fall for it. I couldn’t let my guard down, especially since the opponent was a heretic inquisitor from the Holy Church.

The Inquisitors of the Holy Order destroy the unclean in the name of Ad. This means that they are allowed to abuse their authority to a certain extent as long as they use Ad’s name.

Now corrupt and twisted, the heretical inquisitors of the Holy Order are no less cunning and adept at working in the shadows than the assassins of Esperland. They are especially merciless towards those they regard as enemies of the Order. Each and every one of them is strong and a force to be reckoned with.

-Do you really not regret it, Father Isabelle?

-I… have already decided.

However, I have already seen the power of the Inquisitors before. The Inquisitors I faced together with Priestess Isabel were strong, but they had some strange overlap with the assassins of Esperland.

It is probably because the Holy Order was influenced by Esperland. The Holy Order has been working with Esperland for a long time and has borrowed Esperland’s power. In the process, the Holy Order’s heretical inquisitors have been transformed into something similar to Esperland’s assassins.

It seemed like the parts that had been unclear for so long were finally becoming clear.

Professor Björn kidnapped many students to fulfill his wish. Sometimes he even deliberately expelled them. After he forcibly kicked them out of Arsen, he kidnapped them when people’s attention had disappeared. More than twenty students died that way.

However, the original work did not describe how Professor Björn kidnapped so many people. This was also a gap in the original work.

‘That makes sense, if Exion is the heretic inquisitor.’

Exion, who was good at working in the shadows, helped him. I don’t know the details, but I had a rough idea of ??the situation in my head.

Professor Björn is a magician of the Magic Tower, and is currently working as a professor at Arsen. Since he is being watched from all sides, it is difficult for him to directly intervene in the dark affairs. My unfair admission, which he personally came to greet me, is a special case.

On the other hand, Exion is good at working in the shadows. Whatever connection there was between Björn and Exion, Björn knew that he was a member of the Holy Order.

Exion made a deal with Bjern and became his assistant professor. The image Exion showed as an assistant professor was not a completely fake one. It means that he was satisfied with his work as an ‘assistant professor’ and truly enjoyed living as an assistant professor.

That assistant professor Exion disappears when Professor Björn collapses. His life or death is unclear, and there is no mention of him. He quietly disappears from the original work without anyone knowing.

‘He was a member of the Holy Order, so he may have returned to where he came from.’

That would make sense if Exion was a member of the Holy Church.

The Inquisitors, like Esperland’s assassins, do not reveal their identities to the outside world. This is also true for their comrades in the same sect. Therefore, the setting was that even those in the same sect would not know clearly who the Inquisitors were.

“You knew that the person chasing you was from Esperland, so why didn’t you catch him?”

“Of course. The person chasing me is Esperland, so what if I catch him? If I do that, my relationship with the Sion Army will be ruined, and I might get scolded by Professor Björn.”

Even though things had become like this, Exion was still acting as Arsene’s assistant professor Exion Vante, not Exion Van Ivanter. For a moment, my brow furrowed at the pretense.

“So, I just let them go. And this is what happened. The lab was destroyed, and inside, other students are fighting monsters, and they’ll reach Professor Björn soon enough… It’s a disaster.”

Exion spat out with a bitter voice. On the other hand, I looked at him with my bullets of belief loaded.

“Is there anything you would like to ask me, Sion-kun?”

“Isn’t this too far gone to be resolved through dialogue, Professor Axion?”

“But you know what? Why did you kidnap the cadets? What is your purpose? Or even if you don’t want to listen to my proposal? Even though you don’t seem to want to listen to it, I have prepared quite meticulously what I will talk about with the Zion Army.”

I pointed my Glock at him as if nothing happened.

There is nothing to talk about with Exion. He is the villain of Act 2 who sympathizes with Professor Björn, and he is a character who should disappear from the stage.

You will die by my hand because you are my enemy. I could have said something like that. Just as the villains I have met so far have been defeated by the protagonists, Professor Björn and Exion will also follow the same path.

If things didn’t go that way, I was going to twist the story to make it so.

I saw Exion smiling bitterly. He probably realized that the negotiations had fallen through before they could even begin.

“Zion Army is Esperland and I am the Inquisitor. We two are pretty good friends… no, I thought we could be colleagues.”

“It can’t be helped, Assistant Professor.”

Since he wanted to remain as an assistant professor, I plan to treat him as an assistant professor, Exion Bante. I have received help from him before, so I could treat him to that extent.

Just as Exion is good at doing things in the shadows, I am also good at doing things in the shadows. That is why I have helped people like Kyle and Serin Annette in places they do not know about, knowingly or unknowingly. In that sense, I felt a subtle sense of kinship with Assistant Professor Exion.

All the hard work is done behind the scenes, but the credit goes to those who are working in the sun. Of course, that can’t be helped since they are in the shade.

If he had wanted fame and power, he should not have become an inquisitor. Neither should I.

I am an assassin of Esperland, and I entered Arsene under false pretenses. No matter when or where I die, I will only be remembered as ‘Zion Illionheart’, and the existence of ‘Zion Esperland’ will never be known to the world.

Even if Exion dies here, he will remain as Arsene’s assistant professor. The name ‘Exion van Ivanter’, the heretic inquisitor and distant blood relative of Grander, will never be mentioned in the news.

Even if someone dies here, their past will not be revealed. Exion and I will die wearing masks, just like we did when we first visited Arsene. In that sense, I feel like we are of the same race and I respect him as an assistant professor.

I don’t know what Professor Exion was trying to suggest to me, but in the end, Exion’s words resonated with me to some extent. The fact that I felt a kinship with Exion is proof of that.

“I will at least listen to Zion Army’s will.”

The words were quite creepy, but Exion did not show any hostility until that moment. As a heretic inquisitor, it was a habit that became ingrained in me, so Exion would probably not exude murderous aura until the moment he killed me.

Exion was calmly confident of his victory.

To be blunt, he’s right. If I confront Exion head-on, I’ll be in trouble. Exion will overpower me in an instant, just like Rebecca, and the moment I realize I’ve been overpowered, my breathing will stop.

To defeat Exion, I had no choice but to snipe him before he even realizes it, as was originally planned. That plan has already gone down the drain. Exion is already in front of me, and my plan has been destroyed.

So it was time to move on to Plan B. He was not someone I could defeat one-on-one. That’s why I called for reinforcements as soon as I heard that he was the Inquisitor. He probably knew that it was time for him to step forward without me giving him any special signals.

“… … !”

Exion, who was looking at me, stopped for a moment. He felt the murderous intent rushing towards him. Exion looked embarrassed and stepped back fiercely.

Kwaaaaang… … !

Something flying from the sky struck the ground, creating a crater where Exion had been standing.

***

Same time. Kion’s research building.

Crunch-!

The blue trail swept across the monster’s body. However, the monster was still alive. Only after several arrows were fired that pierced its body did the monster’s breath completely cease.

“after…….”

“Good job, Ashley!”

Kyle Ivanstairs managed to join Esili, who was staying outside the barrier. There were now four of them. Even if the opponent was a professor, he felt a sense of elation that it might be worth it.

“Why on earth are there monsters wandering around the research building?”

“I guess these are the monsters the professors were researching here.”

As the magic tower collapsed, all the cages opened on their own. Normally, these research facilities would have additional auxiliary magic towers installed, but the announcement said, ‘A chain of explosions has been detected.’

All the magic towers that supported the Gray Zone Kion collapsed, and even the barriers that were blocking the cadets’ approach were lifted. Thanks to this, Esili joined. However, as a result, the monsters that were released from their restraints were roaming the entire research building.

“You’re here, but what are you going to do now, Kyle?”

As if to confirm, Esili asked Kyle. There was no subject, but Esili was asking what he was going to do with Professor Björn.

“I’m going to go see Professor Björn. I’m going to go see him and ask him why he kidnapped the cadet, why he did it, and why the person he was targeting was a cadet.”

“Water next.”

“I wish we could solve this through dialogue, but… that would probably be difficult.”

The opponent is Arsene’s professor. You can’t subdue him. If you try to subdue him, you’ll end up getting subdued first.

“No matter what, one thing is certain: Professor Björn must be stopped.”

The group soon reached the end of the research building. An unusual magical power was rushing through them. Professor Björn was probably waiting for them beyond this point.

“So I’m going to stop Professor Björn. Anything.”

Kyle took up the sword.