The Extra Villain's Second Chance: A Hero's System

"Hurry up! We need to take care of our target right away."

"I know. So, shut up!"

"Although the royal path is very quiet because it is only traveled by members of the royal family, once a member of the royal family passes by, we will die on the spot."

"Ugh! Why won't you shut up? If only the captain was with us. We already know what you said, which is why we have to make the most of this time."

"According to the information from our master, our target is a disabled person, so we should be able to take care of our target easily. Even though we're only novice-level warriors, we've been promised a generous reward if we manage to clear our target, hehe."

They continued talking as they ran towards the carriage.

They raised their face mask when they were almost near the carriage.

The swords that they had previously holstered at their waists were now pulled out.

Their eyes were all fixed on the carriage, until finally, they fell down one after another. Their eyes no longer looked at the carriage that stopped in the middle of the road, their gaze suddenly plunged down.

They were too late to realize the existence of the Mana String that Lev had installed.

Their legs had been neatly cut off. Even the leg guards they had installed in their shinbone were cut off like tofu.

"Urk!"

"Gah!"

"What is this?"

One, two, three, four people fell to the ground and rolled miserably.

Some had their eyes stuck in the grass to the point of tears, and some were hit by puddles of melting snow. They all rolled around for a while until they finally collapsed miserably while clutching their ankles.

"Arghh!"

They cried out in pain.

'Looks like they weren't trained to do missions quietly,' Lev thought to himself. He regretted having called them assassin soldiers. 'Looks like they're opponents I can beat.'

Lev decided to attack them when he saw they could fall for the trap he set.

If they were strong people, they would definitely stay alert and realize the traps he set.

There were indeed two people who were not hit by the trap he set, however, not because they realized the existence of the Mana String in front of them, but because they ran behind and managed to jump in time before their legs were struck by the Mana String he set.

The remaining two men stood in confusion while alert and pointed their swords around.

"Who is it? Come out!"

The two people slowly brought their backs closer to protect each other, but before their backs touched each other, Lev was already running towards them.

Lev loosened the Mana String in his hand that was connected to the dagger stuck in the tree trunk first before pulling it hard so that the dagger could be released.

Once the dagger was detached from the tree trunk, he twirled the dagger in the air like an air propeller.

He intended to strike their heads off with the dagger flying through the air, but a warning voice suddenly came from the opposite direction.

"Be careful!"

The voice warned the two people who had already stuck their backs together to watch out for an attack from an existence they didn't see—Lev.

It turned out that their friends who were planning to ambush from the left side of the road had come while jumping over tree branches like frogs.

Lev only applied the One with the Shadow skill to the people ambushing from the right side, so when the people from the right side came approaching, they could warn their companions.

Moreover, the One with the Shadow skill was not suitable for use during the daylight—plus the number of individuals he applied it to was not just one, so it seemed natural that the One with the Shadow skill decreased in effectiveness.

Slash!

Slash!

Although the two people he attacked using the flying daggers had gotten a warning sound, they still did not manage to completely avoid Lev's attack.

They were late in responding to Lev's attack so Lev's flying daggers managed to slash their upper arms. One of them was hit on the right arm and the other on the left arm.

Even so, they managed to escape the fatal blow. If they hadn't gotten the warning sound, they would have jumped too late and Lev's flying dagger would have slashed their necks.

As a result of the deep wounds, they both compactly cried out in pain and tried to stop the bleeding on their upper arms with their other hand.

No one breathed their last among the six who were felled by Lev, but Lev managed to make the six successfully paralyzed and unable to fight him anymore.

Lev left the six who had lost the ability to fight back. He now focused on fighting the people coming from the left side of the road.

Swoosh!

Lev kept spinning the dagger above his head like a cowboy trying to catch a running bull.

Despite only using his left hand, he managed to launch follow-up attacks on the people who were approaching him from above the tree branches.

They were only half as many as the ones Lev had already knocked down—they were only three in number.

Swoosh!

Kang!

Lev launched an attack at the one person at the front of the line. He was aiming for the moment when that person was in the air—jumping between one tree and another—but, his attack was blocked with the sword by that person even though that person had no foothold on his feet.

The sound of the clash between his dagger and that person's sword echoed.

As the impact echoed, Lev's dagger was shattered into pieces.

'Looks like he's not a novice warrior. Is he their captain?'

When that one person successfully parried Lev's attack, that person raised his left hand to signal the two people behind him.

"Stop! Make a defensive formation."

Seeing the man giving orders to the two men behind him, Lev knew that his guess was right—that man was their captain.

The three people immediately climbed down from the tree and covered each other's backs. Their defensive formation was a triangle formation.

[One with the Shadow - Deactivate.]

Lev canceled the One with the Shadow skill, and he decided to take the sword from one of the soldiers he had knocked down. The sword was lying as they fell to the ground.

[Swordsmanship - Active.]

Lev swung the sword with his left hand as if warming up. This was not the first time he had fought with only his left hand.

In his previous life he also often fought with only his left hand because his right hand was often injured while participating in the war.

'Have I lost my touch?' He wondered to himself. The feeling he had this time was the same as the feeling when he first held the sword. It was difficult to move the sword at his will as it was when doing so with the right hand.

The experience he had when fighting with his left hand in his previous life was purely using his survival instinct. The movements he did were also simple, just stabbing and slashing irregularly—as long as the enemy fell, he didn't care about the sword techniques he did.

So, when he lost the adrenaline rush he had previously felt from the thunderous battlefield, he came to understand how deficient he was in using a sword when using only his left hand.

'Weakness creates strength.'

There were so many motivators on earth who said that everyone had their own strengths. Especially for those who were considered handicapped, their strengths in other areas must be enormous.

He wanted to realize such a quote.

"Captain! Look at that. There's someone over there. Is he our target?"

"Eyes that don't see. A deformed right hand. That's right. It looks like he is our target."

"But, seeing as he's the only one standing there, does he have the help of hidden warriors protecting him? It seems unlikely that he's the one who took down all six of our men."

When Lev canceled the One with the Shadow skill, the three people who were focused on maintaining the defensive formation suddenly turned their gaze toward him. The one who looked like their captain came forward and said,

"I will execute our target. You guys watch my back. If there's a surprise attack, you can prevent it, right?!"

"Leave it to the two of us."

What was originally a sneak attack had now turned into a one-on-one duel. Lev smiled at their pathetic state.

"Don't blame us for the bad luck that met you, Kid."

The captain lunged forward at Lev with his sword ready to slash his head.

Although Lev could not use his Observation skill, he could gauge the captain's strength. From the way the captain breathed, walked, and gripped the sword, as well as his attacking posture, those indications were more than enough for Lev to conclude that he could defeat the captain.

'Expert warrior, huh.'

Although he already knew that he could defeat that captain if he used everything he had—more than enough—Lev's heartbeat could not help but beat a little because he intended to use only his Swordsmanship skill to defeat that captain.

"Looks like the one who met with bad luck is you," Lev muttered to himself while breathing in and out. He pitied the fate of the captain who lunged forward without much consideration.