Maruyama Kugane - The Invaders of the Large Tomb

"…Well then, I’ll be returning to my team then. If there are any problems just call me."

Eruya bowed, and walked off.

Hekkeran’s face slightly twitched after seeing a number of women following Eruya. However, showing one’s emotions here was simply unacceptable. It was not uncommon for situations to suddenly turn unfavorable after one’s emotions were exposed. As the leader of a team, this kind of behavior would be unacceptable.

Hekkeran suppressed his emotions, and removed all facial expressions.

Looking away from what he considered as trash, he greeted the final person.

"Hello, elder. I see you’re still healthy and well."

"Hoi, Hekkeran. You’re also looking well."

The sounds produced from the words said were due to the loss of frontal teeth.

Parupatra 'Green Leaf' Ogrion.

Also known as the ‘Origin’, he wore armor that looked as if it were brimming with lights reflected from green leaves wet from the morning dew. The armor wasn’t made from metal, but rather from the scales of a Green Dragon. Parupatra’s team was able to successfully hunt a dragon. Of course, from the size of the scales one could tell that it wasn’t that powerful. However, even then a dragon of that size was still an existence that posed a severe threat to adventurers and workers alike.

Furthermore, Parupatra was over eighty years old.

Typically, in this line of work, the majority of people would have retired by their early forties, sometimes even before forty. There were very few adventurers above the age of fifty. As harsh as it may seem, for a profession which is constantly surrounded by death, it’s hard to ignore the decline in one’s physical abilities.

In fact, even as a special case, when compared to his peak, the time when he was at Orichalcum rank, his skills had dropped considerably. Even so, Parupatra still hadn’t left the front lines.

Many people within the industry respected Parupatra for continuing to adventure despite his advanced age.

"Fumuu. However, that guy seems a bit dangerous."

The wrinkled face of Parupatra became tense as he spoke in a hushed voice. Hekkeran also agreed.

"That’s right. It doesn’t matter if he ends up killing himself, but it’ll be bad if we end up getting dragged down with him."

"Indeed, it’s true that guy is really strong, but his overconfidence could endanger the rest of us. He’s like a walking hazard."

Greenham also chipped in with a whispered "So troublesome to deal with". After seeing Eruya’s attitude, almost none of the workers would think otherwise.

"Also, just how strong is that guy anyways? I haven’t been to the arena recently."

"Does thee not know? I however, do—does elder also know?"

"I’ve only heard about it but never witnessed in person. I might be able to find out more if I ask my comrades. In the end, how do we define the threshold for strong? If we use Gazef Stronoff as the reference point, from what this old man currently know of… for example, ah that’s right… where would we place the Four Knights of the Empire?"

"The knights titled 'Heavy Explosion', 'Unmovable', 'Lightning', and 'Violent Wind' huh… That’s quite difficult to judge. Although it’s true that when compared against that man, the Kingdom’s Warrior Captain, the Four Knights are slightly weaker. However, the time of Gazef Stronoff being the strongest is already over. The passage of time have finally triggered the arrival of stronger beings, signaling the birth of a new era."

"Are you talking about Uzruth? Is he really that strong? Besides, I’ve never witnessed the actual strength of the Empire’s Four Knights in person… The strongest that I’ve seen so far would be the captain of the Mithril Imperial Guards under the direct command of the Emperor. He’s also quite strong… maybe on the same level as the Four Knights?"

"From what this old man knows so far, the strongest amongst all would be the Dragon Lords from the Republic. Those aren’t something that humans can go up against."

"I did hear that there were five or seven of them… Opps, let’s first get back to putting a rough estimate on the strength of Uzruth. Let’s limit it to just the swordsmen among humans for now."

"If we’re doing it this way then we’ll have to exclude the swordsmen from the Argrand Republic since they’re mostly composed of demi-humans. It’ll be the same for the Warrior King of the arena.

What’s left would be the Valkyrie Knight of the Holy Kingdom who wields the Sacred Blade, but that means we’ll only be comparing sword skills in the end."

For workers, gathering information on those who were strong could be extremely important for the completion of requests. Because if they ever ended up as opponents that needed to be faced during a request, one could quickly decide how to proceed. Beyond this, it’s also natural for those who live by their swords to collect this kind of information.

That was what was happening right now. Originally, it was supposed to be a discussion on just how strong Uzruth really was, yet it was slowly turning into an information exchange of those who were strong. It was almost becoming like an argument between children where phrases like ''that guy is so strong!'' could be heard.

''While the overall skill level of those in the Slane Theocracy is quite high, I’ve yet to hear of any particularly prominent ones. Anyways, even if there are, we won’t be including divine magic casters here right?'

''Doesn’t the Kingdom also have a female warrior that is of the highest adventuring rank? How good is she?'

''Ah, that 'Boob-less Big Chest'. She’s quite strong indeed. However, I heard that she lost to the Warrior Captain during the tournament.''

''…I seem to recall that she had almost beaten an adventurer to death for calling her that. Hya, hya, hya... Such a scary woman!''

''At the pace we’re going, it’s getting more and more difficult to name more. Let’s see, the one referred to as the Dark Knight of the City Alliance, Serabright the 'Flash' from the adamantite rank adventuring team 'Crystal Tear' and Optics the 'Crimson' from the worker team 'Great Blaze of the Crimson Lotus', both from the Draconic Kingdom. Also, hailing from the Kingdom… Brain Unglaus.''

The conversation stopped for the first time.

''Brain Unglaus? Who the heck is that?'

Parupatra inconceivability asked Greenham in a surprised manner.

''Does elder not know? He’s also a famous swordsman of the Kingdom… how about thee?'

Hekkeran shook his head. It was a name that he did not know.

''I see, thou knew it not…''

Unable to hide his disappointment, Greenham used an unreliable tone as he tried to recall what he knew.

"Although this was from before, back during the time when I entered the tournament held by the Kingdom, he was the opponent I faced during the quarter-finals. The me of that time couldn’t even reach his ankles."

"Wasn’t that the tournament where Gazef Stronoff also participated in?"

"That’s right. The result was that Brain Unglaus lost to Gazef Stronoff. However, a match between the strong can truly be described as spectacular. It was almost like a perfect textbook play for swordsmen, how they deflected and parried each slash, how they decided the angle of one’s swing based on the given situation at hand… et cetera. Those can only be described as eye openers truly showing you the depth of swordplay."

For a man like Greenham to be saying this, it definitely showed just how skilled that Brain Unglaus must have been in order to be able to fight evenly against the strongest warrior known in the Kingdom. His skills would definitely be first class.

Hekkeran sighed. It appeared that there were still plenty of strong guys out there that he didn’t know of.