Opportunity in the Game Becomes Reality Chapter 227
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Opportunity in the Game Becomes Reality Chapter 227
51. Opportunity Seeker (4)
"Come here, he says...."
Naturally, Count Elfried and Duke Christopher had to look baffled.
This was no time for jokes, and what kind of place did they think this was....
So Count Elfried tried to press her disciple about who it was that sought them, but the other party had thrown out the words "Come here" and without permission flung the door wide open.
And the one who appeared was a young man with handsome features.
"Wh-What?"
A young man with black hair and red eyes, wearing a black uniform reminiscent of a military uniform.
Count Elfried and Duke Christopher tried to scold him for such rudeness, but the moment the young man swept back his long black hair and looked at them, they froze in place as if their limbs had been bound.
His blood-red eyes were like an abyss, and his intense presence gifted them an inexplicable sense of defeat.
"Wh-Who might you be?"
Was this what it meant to be an 8th Circle?
Where had his usual airheaded demeanor gone? Duke Christopher composed himself and asked with a face full of wariness.
In response, the young man whose eyes were indifferent even as his lips alone curved in a smile sat down at the head of the table as if it were only natural, and spoke.
"No need to stand there all stiff."
At that, the restraints that had held Count Elfried unable even to open her mouth, subdued by some unknown force were released.
She could not understand what was happening.
Nor could she make sense of it.
But first, she thought she needed to get her disciple to safety.
The man before her, whose identity was unknown, was far too dangerous.
"You, step back."
"B-But."
"Now."
In the end, Viscount Joseph the adjutant and disciple of Count Elfried, the Intelligence Chief had no choice but to yield to his master's urging and withdraw.
As a result, only three people remained in the conference room: the young man with black hair and red eyes, Duke Christopher, and Count Elfried.
"This is the Bringham Empire's dedicated team searching for Grand Duke Lucas's Opportunity Seeker, right?"
The young man did not answer the duke's earlier question about his identity, but instead continued with a question of his own.
The duke and the countess were confused, but feeling that they must not provoke the other party, they both nodded.
"That is correct."
Satisfied with their answer, the young man with black hair and red eyes finally introduced himself.
"My name is Brangish. I'm a friend of Adrian El Lawrence, the Grand Duke of the duchy."
A light tone.
But the moment the name Brangish left his lips, an unknown surge of mana swept through the room.
At the same time, Duke Christopher could sense the bustle of people moving urgently outside the conference room.
Surrounding the conference room in force were Vangas and even those leading secret forces that were not yet to be revealed to the outside.
'What is the Heaven-Piercing Fortress doing?'
With all these people moving so urgently to prepare for any contingency, he couldn't understand why the Heaven-Piercing Fortress was remaining silent.
It should have reacted to the abnormal mana.
"I wasn't aware that His Highness the King of the duchy, Grand Duke Lawrence, had a friend of the same caliber as Sir Brangish."
At the very least, the opponent was 8th Circle or above.
However, given that he seemed capable of using 'spoken commands,' even if he were truly 8th Circle, he was absolutely not on the same level.
But Duke Christopher would soon realize that his guess was wrong.
"Of course."
Perhaps annoyed by the forces waiting outside, Brangish's aura surged outward, and people collapsed one after another.
Duke Christopher and Count Elfried could feel in the aura Brangish emitted a wall so towering it was on an entirely different plane.
"Only a handful of humans have survived facing me."
Brangish laced his fingers beneath the lamp on the table, casting a shadow one that soon took the shape of a dragon.
There was no need for him to give such hints.
The two had already figured out Brangish's identity.
"We b-bow before the great one."
"Indeed."
The duke and the countess knelt on one knee and paid their respects to Brangish as if before the Emperor.
At the same time, they felt a sense of utter dismay, for the dragon before them had called himself Adrian's friend.
'This is insane.... He befriended a dragon? When in the world? Could his genius have been because of the dragon's influence?'
'As expected of Grand Duke Lawrence. I thought he was an extraordinary figure, but to think he could move even a dragon.'
Thanks to that, the two of them the Duke and the Count couldn't help but feel conflicted.
"You know why I've come, don't you?"
It was a tone utterly unbefitting a dignified dragon who had lived through the ages, yet it was precisely this unordinary demeanor that felt all the more bizarre and terrifying.
"You've come to protest the investigation into Grand Duke Lawrence..."
In response to Duke Christopher's answer, Brangish's blood-red gaze flashed.
At the same time, a fierce killing intent crashed down upon Duke Christopher.
"You're a nation that, they say, would unhesitatingly wage war just to get your hands on Manuel Lucas's Opportunity. Hearing that you've set your sights on Adrian in such a country how could I, as his friend, just sit by? I'm not here to protest. I'm here to warn you."
Even as his breath caught in his throat, Duke Christopher could clearly understand Brangish's words.
As it stood, the Bringham Empire could easily handle two or three dragons.
That was how overwhelmingly powerful the Bringham Empire's military might was.
But that was only a story for when the Empire's full strength and a dragon faced off head-on.
If a dragon were truly determined to harass them avoiding a direct confrontation while striking wildly here and there then even Bringham would have no choice but to be led around by the nose.
In other words, the power of a collective and the power of an individual who possessed strength proportional to that collective could never be the same.
"Understand?"
At the dragon's question, the killing intent that had been choking him subsided.
Thanks to that, fear crept across Duke Christopher's face.
"Ah, understood. We'll back off from Grand Duke Lawrence."
It was Count Elfried who answered.
Duke Christopher, having narrowly escaped death, also seemed to decide he needed to appease the being before him, and rapidly nodded his head in agreement.
"Mm, good. But I can see clearly that you're thinking something else, aren't you?"
However, what made the dragon race terrifying wasn't simply their strength alone.
Every single one of them was a being called a sage.
Naturally, he caught onto Duke Christopher's shallow thoughts and thrust his face forward.
Duke Christopher swallowed air vainly, insisting that wasn't the case at all, but he had already lost any trust.
"Perfect timing. I'd been thinking it'd be nice to have a human servant I could order around freely."
Brangish reached out, and Duke Christopher's neck was seized into his grip as if sucked in.
"If I only deliver a warning with words, the sense of crisis won't sink in. I'll be taking this human with me."
"What?"
Count Elfried floundered, not knowing how to react.
Even the Ice Witch of the Bringham Empire was just an ordinary young lady before a dragon.
"Kugh! Great one !"
In a panic, Duke Christopher struggled within Brangish's grip, but it was all futile resistance.
"Be grateful to Adrian. I'm acting behind his back, so the only reason I'm not killing you is that I don't want to hear him scold me later."
With that bold declaration of abduction as his final word, Brangish walked out of the meeting room as calmly as if he'd stepped out for a stroll and stopped by a supermarket for groceries one hand carrying Duke Christopher.
Outside the meeting room, already in complete chaos, no one dared to stop Brangish, and just like that, the two of them vanished from sight.
"M-Master!"
A moment later, Viscount Joseph, pale as a ghost, hurried into the meeting room.
Seeing him, Count Elfried slumped onto the floor.
-Thud.
"Are you alright? Are you hurt anywhere!"
Her disciple's voice, full of concern, reached her ears as dull as a sound echoing from underwater.
Count Elfried covered her forehead with her palm and let out a sigh laced with both relief and bewilderment.
"Haah..."
What in the world was happening?
A single visitor's arrival had turned the headquarters of the Opportunity Seeker investigation team into a wreck, as if a typhoon had swept through it.
And to make matters worse, Duke Christopher had even been kidnapped.
People always said Adrian was the one who caused shocks by creating situations beyond all expectations, but this really crossed the line.
"Everyone around me always said I overestimated Grand Duke Lawrence."
"What?"
"But looking at the result, it seems I was actually underestimating him."
At Count Elfried's dazed words, Viscount Joseph helped her up, steadying her.
Count Elfried's head was already throbbing at the thought of how she was supposed to report this to His Majesty the Emperor.
But she hadn't expected
"How do you do?"
At the time when they were recovering the knights who had fainted from the dragon's energy and, under Count Elfried's lead, gathering the key figures of the intelligence department for an emergency meeting.
Once again, the meeting room door burst open without warning, and a man walked in.
"Dark Elf?"
"I heard you lot were trying to bully my dear friend, the husband of my disciple."
"S-Surely you can't be "
"My name is Blake Russell. Are you the one in charge here?"
And like a déjà vu, Blake who had once appeared on an official stage claiming to be the Lordmaster overpowered everyone in his way and hoisted Count Elfried up like a bundle under his arm.
"W-Wait a moment. Just earlier you also visited..."
"Quiet. Sleep for a bit."
-Thud!
Blake knocked out the noisy Count Elfried with a simple blow, then spoke to the key figures of the intelligence department, including her disciple Viscount Joseph.
"I'm taking this woman with me. I've heard the Bringham Empire is a powerful nation, but I doubt you've ever made an enemy of a Lordmaster. I hope your arrogance never points my blade your way."
And so Blake disappeared, having kidnapped Count Elfried.
Following Duke Christopher, the team's overall commander, Count Elfried, the working-level commander, was also kidnapped an unprecedented crisis within the Bringham Empire.
Moreover, seeing both a dragon and then a Lordmaster appear and cause such chaos, everyone thought the same thing.
'Grand Duke Lawrence must really be an Opportunity Seeker. If not, there'd be no reason to go this far!'
* * *
Just as the gap between the 7th Circle and 8th Circle was vast, so too was the gap between the 8th and 9th Circles enormous.
As if savoring the presence of the nine circles resonating in my chest, I closed my eyes and relished it.
It felt like a miniature universe had unfolded within me, if that makes sense.
It was a library of truth for me, capable of containing any record whatsoever.
'My entire body is brimming with power.'
No, it would be an understatement to describe it merely that way.
Upon reaching the 9th Circle, I felt a confidence that I could accomplish anything.
Like, if I so desired, I could place the entire world beneath my feet.
It was arrogant, but I could truly feel that my own level had changed that much.
It wasn't for nothing that the realm of the 9th Circle was described as dragon-class.
"Huuup, haah!"
I took a deep breath and gathered up the fearsome energy I had been radiating in all directions.
Normally, spewing out energy like that would be a foolish act inviting danger, but the reason I wasn't too worried was because I could feel, nearby, the presence of nearly boundless mana and a formidable aura that could not be taken lightly.
That had to be the energy of Brangish and Blake.
With those two standing guard, what was there to worry about?
With a smile on my lips, I took off the virtual reality headgear I was wearing.
"Adrian-nim!"
Upon reaching the 9th Circle, all the fatigue that had accumulated was thoroughly washed away.
I patted the back of Arcia, who ran to me and clung on, and offered words of thanks to Blake and Brangish, who stood behind her like a screen.
"I could feel the two of you keeping watch by my side, so I was able to gather my energy in peace. Thank you so much."
At my gratitude, the two nodded deeply and smiled.
But, is it my imagination that their smiles seem a little strained?
I had to tilt my head and ask.
"Is something the matter? Why are your expressions like that?"
At my question, the two averted their gaze as if they had committed a crime.