I charged toward the Warhoog, confident in my partner’s ability to decapacitate him in time. I felt a slight pain in my chest when I tried to use my flames, which was a new occurrence, but I pushed through it and successfully set my body on fire.

Just a couple more fights, and I’ll take a rest…

Harnessing the power of the flames, my physical strength was much higher than it used to be. That in addition to the fact that my enemy no longer could use his system skills made the task much easier than it was supposed to be.

I made sure not to cause fatal damage to vital organs, but I tore off both of his arms and legs. It wasn’t a comfortable thing to do to a living creature, but coating my hands with flames allowed me to achieve the feat quite easily.

I don’t even feel any remorse for this guy…

To say that he was surprised would be an understatement, as Vivian’s latent ability caught him off guard and he didn’t expect to be unable to defend himself.

What was left in front of me was a shadow of the former Warhoog’s proud self. Well, it was him, minus his limbs, plus flames burning his abdomen.

I stripped him out of his armor, leaving him in basic clothes that covered what was left of his body. I also took away all of the items that he could use offensively against me and put them in my storage ring.

This way, he shouldn’t be able to do much even if he escapes Vivian’s ability…

I made sure to keep the fire burning him going so that it sucked the mana out of him in case he broke out of Vivian’s ability and regained his powers.

“So, Karflel, what are you doing here? You should be busy organizing the mortal combat events, right?” I asked, “Since you’re walking around the hostages’ prison, I’m going to assume that you have something to do with this aspect of the event too, or at the very least some knowledge concerning confidential matters.”

I had many questions to ask, but I knew that this vile person wouldn’t answer any of them unless he was under real risk.

Karflel ignored my words completely, not even registering my presence, for his focus was on my colleague.

He was still staring at Vivian’s eyes, as her ability forced the victim to maintain eye contact with her. His eyebrows were furrowed, and his agitation was apparent as his face kept shaking uncontrollably.

“You bitch… You’ve done this to me!” He screamed, “Whom do you work for? What’s in it for you? Ruining a poor man’s body isn’t a small matter, and it’s not something that random people can achieve either.”

I guess he realizes that she’s the bigger threat among us… I hope she handles this situation well.

She kept her silence and ignored the babbling fool. It seemed like her ability required considerable concentration, and his attempts to distract her were futile thus far.

Seeing that Vivian paid him no heed whatsoever, he addressed his next words to me.

“And you, why go so far as to detach my limbs? Do you even realize how much work it takes to recover from this kind of injury?” he spoke erratically, staring at the lady standing behind me, “What do you want? Is it money? If that’s the case, then fuck you because I won’t give you a dime!”

“You’ve ignored my words earlier, Mr. Karflel, and I don’t like that. Do it again, and I won’t hesitate to destroy more organs, perhaps even your reproductive ones,” I spoke calmly, “Now, where were we? Oh, right! You see, I’ve been looking for a certain person that I believe your company took as hostage. A gnome going by the name of Ratska, and don’t act stupid because we’re short on time.”

His breathing went back to normal, and he stopped shaking.

“Now, now, we should be reasonable, shouldn’t we? I mean, I’ve been taking good care of you so far,” his tone of speech changed dramatically in an instant, “Of course, I remember your friend! My brother was the one to kidnap him, so there’s no way for me to forget!”

“So, where’s he? I can’t find him, and I sure hope he’s still alive.”

“Oh, rest assured! He’s alive! The Grand Church took him, so he’s no longer our problem. We even have the papers to prove that, but I doubt you’d be able to get them anyway. Whatever they want to do with him, we don’t care. Slavery, labor, brainwashing, and even death! It’s not uncommon for such a thing to happen, just don’t be a wuss and take it out on the church instead of me...”

He kept babbling and spouting bullshit, but I didn’t pay attention as his next words held no real value to me.

What? The Grand Church…

This made sense somewhat, but I couldn’t understand why the church would go so far if all they wanted was to kidnap the Alchemist Gnome.

Wait a minute…

“Didn’t you tell me before my first fight that the people we came to save would still be alive and safe as long as we kept on winning?”

“Well, that’s true,” he smirked as if he enjoyed the current situation, “We’d have to honor that agreement as long as you kept on winning. For example, let’s say you kept winning but suddenly had a heart attack. That would prevent you from fighting, or existing in the first place!”

They planned on killing me!

It wasn’t surprising for a mercenary organization to do such a thing for money, but I didn’t expect this Warhoog to be so forthright about it.

It seemed like their area of work was much wider than I expected. They weren’t mere mercenaries that acted in the open; they also dirtied their hands in the shadows when the circumstances were suitable.

“So, you already planned on killing me if I didn’t die when fighting?” I spoke to him.

“We were going to kill you tomorrow by the way, so don’t make a big deal out of it as it was going to be a swift and silent death. Since the super-strong Schweizz couldn’t do it, we had to do it ourselves,” He shrugged his shoulders, “Don’t take it personally, we had to get rid of you the moment those three fellows took the Gnome you came all the way here to save. We can’t let you win the tournament only to find out that you can’t achieve your goal in the first place.”

…The moment those ‘three fellows’ took the Gnome… I think I know where this is going.

“Three fellows, you say?” I tilted my head and raised my eyebrow, “Two boys, one of them taller than the other, and one girl. Humans. The girl has silverish hair and gray eyes. Do these characteristics ring a bell?”

He went silent for around two seconds, then spoke softly.

“I don’t know, and you can probably guess that I won’t be able to say anything even if I knew and wanted to tell you. Someone in my position would have to keep a lot of secrets, y’know,” He sighed, “I’m pretty sure you’d probably kill me after this, but I would have told you anything to save myself, provided that I could. I didn’t think I’d end up dying this way, but I guess all the ass-kissing and back-stabbing went in vain.”

I could infer from his words that he knew many details about Ratska’s kidnapping, yet didn’t want to reveal them. It was probably the effect of a strict contract, but he could also be lying and trying to hide information from me and make it seem like he could do nothing about it.

Eh… So, all in all, I guess this guy is useless to us.

Just as I was planning to strike his skull with a straight punch to end him, I felt a sharp pain in my neck and fell to the ground on my back with a loud thud.

The flames coating the area around the painful spot got noticeably weaker, and I felt something viscous covering the area.

I was still in shock, but upon regaining some lucidity, I instantly checked the unsettling spot. There was a hole in it, as wide as my thumb, and blood was pouring out of it by the minute.

The injury was too close to the carotid artery for my liking, but it seemed to have missed it as the blood was pouring slowly.

Thankfully, my flames increased my regeneration speed so I wasn’t worried about dying yet. However, the injury itself was concerning, as it happened despite the presence of my danger-sensing ability, [Flawed State of Being].

It had to be the result of either a skill that launched a high-speed energy beam from a distance, or a projectile launched at an unbelievable speed.

Since the back side of my neck is still intact, then either the energy beam wasn’t strong enough to penetrate all the way or the projectile is still inside the wound…

As I expected, I managed to pull out something, and it wasn’t pretty at all. A yellowish-white piece of bone that reminded me of the fangs of predators.

Pulling myself together, I stood back up and looked at Karflel.

The motherfucker was smiling, and a small streak of blood was trickling out of the side of his mouth. He opened his mouth and laughed.

“Ahh, too bad, I only managed to do this much, too bad,” he shook his head, “I guess I won’t be taking you to the otherworld with me, you can thank your partner for that. Things would’ve been a lot different if only she was slightly weaker.”

So this Warhoog still has ample willpower… I should’ve been more guarded around him.

I looked back at Vivian, only to see her sweating and shaking slightly.

“I’m sorry, Jason, but he’s a lot more powerful than me, and control of the latent ability slipped out of my hands momentarily,” she spoke softly with a hint of regret in her voice, “I’ll make it up for you.”

“Don’t sweat it,” I shook my head slightly, “I may not look like it, but I can take a beating. Besides, it’s my fault in the first place for not disposing of this bastard sooner. Even after taking away all of his offensive weapons, he still dared to shoot me with a tooth! His tooth!”

Karflel was a shrewd bastard, and he still had the willpower to launch a surprise attack even under his current miserable conditions. I didn’t know what else he had under his sleeves, or inside his mouth for that matter.

Looking back at the Warhoog, I grinned. He had been smirking since he launched the surprise attack, and his eyes still hadn’t lost their light yet.

“You still have some fighting spirit, huh?” I sneered at him, “If only you spilled the beans, you would have been alive. Too bad.”

Just as I was about to deliver fiery judgment on Karflel, someone grabbed my right arm with enough force to completely stop my movement.

I looked back in alarm, afraid that it was one of Karflel’s companions coming to save him, but it was someone covered in a black robe that I recognized all too well.

A Glitcher that was slightly taller than me with a build that I’d seen before. I wasn’t sure about his identity yet, as he was covering his face with a hood.

“Not yet. We still have uses for that one.”