In the blink of an eye, only Deresy was left standing in the field of Ghoul Spirit.
"Bastard!" His baboon-like long face was twisted with anger and fear, his eyes fixed dead on Erza not far away.
Although he vaguely felt something was wrong, he didn't expect this girl would really dare to be bait alone.
But at this moment, he had no time to be angry.
The archer in the dark was too terrifying, taking down everyone instantly. His only way to survive now was to capture the culprit in front of him!
Deresy roared, his muscles bulging all over, charging straight at Erza like a wild boar driven to desperation.
He calculated the distance in his mind; just a few more steps and she would enter the effective range of his magic...
But Shane's arrow came faster than he thought.
Whiz—!
A sharp stream of light tore through the air, accurately predicting his route, coming head-on with a deadly scream.
"Get out of my way!" Deresy's veins popped out, and Magic Power erupted all over his body, actually forcibly knocking that arrow off course!
The arrow shaft grazed his shoulder, bringing up a string of blood beads, but he blocked it after all.
The ecstasy of surviving a disaster and a fierce aura rushed to his head instantly.
A hideous smile appeared on Deresy's face. In a few large strides, he rushed in front of Erza, his five fingers filled with Magic Power raised violently.
However, the panicked expression of the girl he expected did not appear.
Erza stood quietly in place, even having sheathed her sword.
The look in her eyes as she looked at him contained no fear, but instead carried a trace of... pity?
"You... what kind of look is that?!" Deresy was stung by this gaze.
Erza didn't answer, just raised her chin slightly, signaling him to look at the sky.
He looked up subconsciously—
Then, he saw a scene of despair.
That stream of light he had just barely blocked by exhausting his Magic Power and almost suffering backlash wasn't a lonely one anymore.
One, two, three... ten...
Dense streams of light streaked across the sky, casting swaying spots of light on the ground—beautiful, yet emitting absolute death.
...
A few seconds later, Shane leaped down from the tree, landed lightly, and patted the corner of his clothes casually.
He walked to Deresy's lifeless body and kicked it lightly with his toe.
"Watching companions fall one by one, yet still able to suppress fear and charge up instead of turning to run... indeed has a bit of Dark Guild ruthlessness." He commented, his tone indistinguishable between praise and mockery.
Unfortunately, in the face of an absolute gap in strength, so-called ruthlessness was meaningless.
The value of Arash's normal attack being an ultimate was still rising.
After confirming that the other party was completely dead and there was no fake death counterattack drama, Shane smiled with satisfaction and raised his voice toward Erza: "Let's clean up the battlefield, Erza!"
It was rare to come out once; they couldn't just call it a day after completing the commission. In the Ghoul Spirit guild, those unused Magic Items, explosive Lacrimas... were all solid wealth.
Couldn't miss it.
Erza still stood in place, panting slightly, her cheeks flushed red from the battle, looking as bright and beautiful as if slightly drunk.
She was subconsciously gripping and releasing the hilt, replaying every detail of her intrusion, provocation, and luring the enemy in her mind.
Hearing Shane's shout, she came back to her senses.
"Okay!" She responded, her voice crisp.
Shane thoughtfully let her collect from the warehouse inside Ghoul Spirit, while he endured the bloody smell in the air and checked the fallen corpses one by one.
His movements were nimble, though his technique... wasn't very skilled.
But he still quickly piled up about a dozen various Magic Items carried by these people.
Then, he casually tore off a relatively intact cloak from a corpse and wrapped up all these spoils.
Shane didn't know much about the specific market for Magic Items, but thinking that Dark Guilds needed to fight frequently, the price for weapons used to save lives or kill enemies surely wouldn't be too low.
The only thing that disappointed him was that perhaps due to the Dark Guild's "carpe diem" style, the cash on these people was pitifully small, adding up to less than 700,000 Jewels in total.
"Over twenty people, only this little money... really unworthy of a Dark Guild's 'reputation'." Shane was a bit depressed.
At this time, Erza walked out of the building and waved to him.
Shane's eyes lit up, immediately throwing this little depression to the back of his mind, and walked up quickly: "How is it, any good stuff?"
Erza grinned, stepping aside to reveal a large wooden basket half the height of a person behind her.
The basket was filled to the brim with variously colored Lacrimas the size of pigeon eggs, and some other miscellaneous items.
"Tsk tsk, as expected of a Dark Guild, this inventory... enough to blow up two streets, right?" Shane clicked his tongue, his face instantly beaming with joy. The small regret of no cash vanished completely.
He ran over happily and began to pick through the things in the basket to see if there was anything he could use.
"Eh? What's this?" Shane uttered a light surprise, picking up three pairs of ordinary-looking glasses from beside a pile of Lacrimas.
Curious, he picked up a pair and put them on, looking around.
Because he was particularly sensitive to things related to "eyes," he immediately noticed the anomaly.
His vision seemed to become clearer and more stable, especially when his gaze swept over the blurred small print on an old label on the side of the wooden basket; a feeling of "significantly improved reading speed" arose spontaneously. His mind seemed to process the text information received by his eyes faster.
"Good stuff!" Shane said pleasantly, handing one pair to Erza. "Try it; it seems to improve reading efficiency."
Erza took it curiously and put it on. Her eyes blinked behind the lenses, and a look of surprise appeared on her face too.
"With this, the speed of learning Requip Magic should be much faster," she said softly, with rare excitement in her tone.
Shane carefully put away the remaining two pairs. One for himself, and the other he planned to bring back to the guild for Levy.
He remembered Levy seemed to like reading very much; she should like this gift.
Next, the two began to organize all the spoils.
Shane carried that heavy basket of explosive Lacrimas on his back, his movements involuntarily lightening, unable to help complaining:
"These guys are too unprofessional; not even a cart in the warehouse. Such dangerous things have to be carried back by people."
Erza's hands weren't empty either, carrying the packed Magic Items in one hand and the remaining odds and ends in the other.
Just like this, the two returned to Duke Everlue's mansion with big and small bags.
When the servant announced their quick return, the short and fat Duke's face was stunned at first, then a look of suspicion appeared.
But when he saw the basket full of Lacrimas on Shane's back, even knowing they wouldn't explode without magic activation, the strong visual impact still scared him pale. His fat body bounced up violently, retreating repeatedly.
"Stay... stay away from me! What do you want to do?!" Everlue screamed, his voice trembling.
"Just spoils of war," Shane said lightly. "I won't do anything outrageous; no need to be nervous, Lord Duke."
He really didn't have any good feelings for the short fat Duke in front of him.
It's precisely because you've already done outrageous things that I'm scared! Everlue thought speechlessly.
But after swallowing, he understood the implication of "spoils of war," though he still couldn't quite believe it.
"You... you really solved it?"
"Of course." Shane shrugged casually. The basket on his back swayed gently, causing another wave of nervousness in the Duke. "If you want to confirm if it's true, just send someone to check. But please be quick; we have to catch the last train back to Magnolia."
Everlue was skeptical but immediately sent a trusted aide to verify with all speed.
The waiting time wasn't long. The person sent ran back in shock and whispered the report into Everlue's ear.
The Duke's face became paler and paler. He shrank back a few more steps, his voice pointing at Shane changing its tune: "You... you killed them all?!"
"Dark Guild, couldn't hold back during the fight, no choice," Shane explained dismissively.
Actually, according to formal procedures, they should usually try to capture them alive and then hand them over to the Magic Council for trial and conviction.
But that was too troublesome. Anyway, those guys all deserved to die; it was better to solve it directly to save trouble.
As for the procedure not complying with regulations? Well, that was a problem Master Makarov needed to have a headache about.
"There should still be one person alive in Ghoul Spirit."
Probably not having fully integrated into the guild's style yet, Erza suddenly spoke up, remembering the person she knocked flying at the beginning, and reminded.