Chapter 68 – Explanation… for the Secret?

I hit the road toward my destination again as soon as I confirmed my current position.

「…Uhm?」

It was at that moment I noticed that something was amiss.

「Smoke?」

It wasn’t that far from my current position.

Black smoke was rising from the alley between two houses.

「…Is someone’s house on fire?」

When I went in that direction to make sure, I saw a house on fire.

Although there were many onlookers gathered around the area, they had no way to stop the fire and could only watch as the house was slowly burned down.

At that moment, I heard a young woman’s cries.

「MY CHILD! MY CHILD IS STILL INSIDE!!」

She seemed to be the owner of the house.

It seemed her son was still inside the house. I mean, she literally was about to jump into her burning house; the onlookers around her tried to stop her.

「Stop trying to kill yourself! Wait until the fire brigade arrives!」

「LET GO OFF ME!」

At that moment, I pushed the onlookers aside and walked in front of that house.

「H-Hey, that’s dangerous, you know?!」

Although I understood their worry, I was an undead.

I wouldn’t die so easily with this level of fire.

「…Leave it to me.」

I jumped into the burning house after leaving those words behind.

I almost couldn’t see anything in front of me since the smoke was simply too thick.

Thus, I tried to release a little bit of my mana.

I did so to get the gist of the structure of this building by using the echo of my mana.

「There’s a human somewhere. On the second floor, huh.」

The moment I realized that, I went up from the stairs on the first floor.

Since the stairway was on fire and seemingly about to collapse any moment now, I jumped up as soon as I stepped on the stairs.

The second floor was also filled with smoke, but fortunately the fire had yet to reach this place.

It seemed the fire came from the first floor.

I walked along the corridor and checked into the first room.

There he was.

I found a five-year-old kid collapsed in the middle of the room.

I didn’t see any wounds on his skin.

Maybe he simply passed out since he inhaled too much smoke.

「…Still alive.」

I held the kid in my arms.

At that moment…

Suddenly, my posture crumbled slightly.

Oh no, the building had collapsed!

I instinctively hugged the kid and jumped from the window.

My body smashed through the window and came out from the burning house.

The onlookers raised a cheer with 「OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH?!」 upon seeing me land safely on the ground.

「…Safe.」

I quickly got away from the burning house and placed the unconscious kid on the ground.

「Linda!!」

The mother of the child rushed in immediately with a pale face.

It seemed a healer also came along with her, and after a simple examination, the healer said to the mother that her child was alive.

「It’s okay, the child is still alive. But, I’ll use healing magic since there’s a possibility that the child might be poisoned by the smoke―Heal.」

And then, after the healer applied healing magic on the child, the onlookers started focusing on me since they had pretty much confirmed the child’s safety.

「That’s amazing, lad! You saved that child from the burning house!」

「You’re so cool!」

「And ya ain’t suffering from burns at all!」

The onlookers kept throwing one praise after another.

No, it was only natural that I was okay… but calling me cool was exaggerated. I mean, I was just a shy person with abysmal communication power.

「T-T-That white hair, could it be…」

「Eh? You mean… the one is a hot topic right now?」

Nevertheless, I heard such a voice from one of the onlookers.

Oh cr*ap! The hood that hid my face was burned by fire, thus ending up exposing my white hair in bright daylight!

「…Fu. This should be enough.」

「Aah, thank God! Thank you very much! And thank you very much for saving my ki— Eh? where is he?」

When the mother was about to say her gratitude toward me, I had already pushed my way through the crowd of onlookers and left that place.

◇◇◇

===A Certain Silver Rank Adventurer===

「Now then, I think it’s about the time for you to tell us about the secret of No Life King that you told us before, Belleaile!」

「Yeah, I guess you’re right.」

I nodded to Ilran who was shouting at me as we ran.

Seeing that the other two members of our party’s attention had also focused on me, I started to tell them about my own hypothesis regarding the No Life king.

「Despite being hailed as No Life King, strangely, there’s almost no damage caused by him so far. All adventurers who met him, none of them died. So I keep pondering why such abnormalities happen so many times? So I wondered if the No Life King actually has no power to kill them.」

「Hey, hey, did you forget the story about him singlehandedly butchering the Tarrasque Lord?」

「Your question is plausible. But what if that story is nothing more than a big fat lie?」

「What?」

And then, I get into the point of my hypothesis.

「This is the conclusion that I arrived at after pondering over the situation. The Tarrasque Lord and the Thunder Dragon Emperor are nothing more than illusions.」

「I-ILLUSION?!」

「Yes. In short, he can use an extremely powerful illusion magic…」

The same type of undead, Wraith King, was equally powerful, but it specialized in illusion magic.

Nevertheless, it could show a terrifying illusion to a small number of humans and make them experience fear.

「The hero king, including the army that came with him and many civilians of the royal capital, witnessed the appearance of the Thunder Dragon Emperor. That’s why they failed to notice that it was just an illusion.」

Properly speaking, who in their right mind would show the same illusion to thousands—no, tens of thousands—humans. It was absurd.

And I was sure that the secret of his power lay in this part.

But knowing that all of that was mere illusion was enough to erase the fear toward the No Life King.

「So do you have a way to protect yourself from such powerful illusions?」

「The answer is this.」

I showed the thing that was equipped on my left-hand to answer Ilran’s question.

「Is that, a bracelet?」

「It’s a special bracelet that gives me a resistance toward illusion. Don’t judge it for its simple appearance. It’s strong enough to protect me from the No Life King’s illusion magic. By the way, I spent my entire savings just to buy this. Well, it’s just paltry change compared to the reward from subjugating the No Life King.」

「Ahaha! Contrary to your appearance, you’re the type who loves gambling, huh! I like it!」

Naturally, I only had enough money to buy for myself, but I should be able to do something for my comrades as long as I wasn’t affected by the illusion.

Because his real strength aside from his illusion magic might not be that strong.