Chapter 156: 156. The true advantage of nobility
As he spoke, Lucius walked closer, standing over the pair of twins, his eyes glowing with a deep, bloody light.
"You two snuck out here in secret. Right now, nobody knows where you are. Simply put, even if you were to disappear off the planet, who would suspect me?"
Hearing Lucius's words and seeing the terrifying smile on his face, the two brothers felt their hearts sink. Tyler opened his mouth to speak again, but Lucius was done talking nonsense. Lifting his foot, he kicked Tyler in the head, brutally knocking him out on the spot.
Chris saw the sorry state of his brother and lurched towards Lucius, asking with a sheepish smile on his face, "Can you please be gentler?"
Lucius looked at him and smiled without saying a word. At the same time, he mercilessly raised his leg. Seeing the leg flying towards him, Chris only had one thought on his mind in his last moments of consciousness.
'That vicious red-eyed bastard!'
"Bang!"
A brutal sound echoed as Chris was knocked unconscious in an equally brutal manner.
Lucius looked at the two unconscious twins, and his heart chilled. Although he was confident and almost arrogant during the entire encounter, the power of the pair of magic artifacts and magic scrolls shocked him. If he hadn't prepared properly, he might have let them escape or, even worse, lost the fight outright!
He finally understood the saying 'capsizing in the gutter.' Before, Lucius's displeasure against the nobles was solely because of their identity as part of the revolutionary army; now, he truly understood it. How was a regular person supposed to compete with this?!
All things considered equal, Lucius could have crushed the pair of brothers at the same time, but half a magic artifact let Tyler compete with Lucius for a long time on his own. If Tyler had been allowed to wear a full magic artifact, Lucius would definitely have been the one suppressed. This was not to mention the use of spell scrolls that could have left Lucius in a truly ugly situation.
Lucius now understood the thinking of the ruling nobles. It was not that they despised the commoners and peasants because they were arrogant and conceited; they were simply stronger! Even if there were someone similarly talented to them (something already nearly impossible), they could crush that person with a mountain of spell scrolls and magic artifacts.
This was simply no different than smashing someone to death with a mountain of gold coins! It was a complete and utter pay-to-win playstyle!
Despite traveling to another world, Lucius never imagined that he still couldn't escape the dominance of pay-to-win players. The more Lucius learned about the nobles, the more he realized how ridiculous the dream of the revolutionary army was. It was really a stupid and idealistic dream.
They had not eliminated the revolutionary army not because they were incapable, but because they couldn't be bothered.
With an ugly expression on his face, Lucius looked towards the two twins and mercilessly ripped the gauntlets off their hands, wearing them with a look of satisfaction on his face. Although Lucius had been surprised by the true power of these noble sons, he had made sufficient preparations and successfully captured them.
Thanks to these twins, Lucius had at least acquired a magic artifact; in a way, he had really picked up a bargain for nothing.
While Lucius was lost in his thoughts, Reina came up to his side, her explosive figure still visible through her leather armor, and spoke.
"Now that we've looted them, boss, should we put them out of their misery?"
As she spoke, she raised her thumb, drawing it across her neck in a swift motion. Lucius saw this and chuckled.
"There's no need for that this time. Some people are more useful alive than dead."
"Let's bring them back for interrogation. Ryan, bring them over."
"Alright, boss, I'm on it."
Hearing this, Lucius couldn't help but pause with a strange expression on his face and asked, "What's with the boss title?"
In response to the question, Ryan just rubbed the back of his head with an embarrassed expression that Lucius hadn't seen in a while. "Well, when other children used to follow around the twins, they either called them boss or young master. I thought young master would be a bit weird, so I used boss. If you want, I could use young master."
Hearing this, Lucius quickly waved his arms. "No! No! Boss is good, let's stick with that."
Ryan nodded with a big smile on his face and hung his shield on his back before lifting both twins with one hand each. He then slung them over his shoulders like sacks of potatoes and walked behind Lucius and the others.
Despite the fight causing quite a bit of noise and disturbance, neither Lucius nor Camilla could detect anybody watching them, but that was to be expected. This was the slums of the outer city that even the imperial guards turned a blind eye to. If someone was too nosy and got involved in a battle, they could be injured or crippled, if not silenced in the aftermath.
Lucius couldn't speak for others, but the very reason he and Camilla were searching was to make sure there were no people who needed to be disappeared. Messing with nobles was too taboo; he couldn't afford to have any accidents.
Luckily for the residents, they all seemed to have their heads screwed on right, and as soon as the sound of fighting was heard, they avoided this place like the plague, saving them from an unfortunate fate.
Seeing that there were no loose ends, Lucius and the others quickly traveled towards the base of the gang headed by Reina. Although this was only a glorified front filled with rabble, it was still a good place to do things not fit for the public eye…
.....