You Will Be Blessed If You Do Good Deeds¿ - Chapter 115

The location James had designated for the exchange was one of the D-rank dungeons on the outskirts of East City.

The dungeon was nearly useless, lacking productivity, and wasnât properly maintained. Even the nearby CCTV cameras were nothing but ornamental, nothing more than trash.
Drug-addled homeless people wandered the streets, but those intoxicated on drugs couldnât remember who came in and out of the dungeon.
It was the perfect place to make a secretive meeting.

And when James entered the dungeon and arrived at the designated locationâ¦
"Youâve arrived."
Leila Lopez stood there with a pale face.

Even when she saw James Chen break the promise and bring his subordinates, she didnât even flinch.
James smiled, his lips curling up.
It was a sight to behold.

A woman who had acted arrogantly, always striving to be above others, had lost everything and now looked so miserable!
She was even wrapped with a makeshift bandage around her thigh, blood staining it as if she had been injured.
James couldnât hide his laughter as he spoke.

"Whereâs the promised hostage, Leila?"
"I never thought you would actually keep your promise from the start."
Leila said, quietly raising a pistol and aiming it at James.

Click!
At the same time, the hunters standing behind James all aimed their weapons.
James glanced at the hunters behind him.

"It doesnât matter if you resist, Leila. Itâs just a matter of time. Letâs not make this unnecessarily difficult for both of us. Whereâs Jeong Da-on?"
"Money first. If you pay me, Iâll tell you where Jeong Da-on is."
"Hahaha, do you still think you have a choice?"
James was practically giddy with excitement, the exhilaration of chasing down his exhausted prey coursing through him.

As he looked at Leila, who was clearly rattled, he bit his lip.
"Are you really going to keep doing this, all the way to the end?"
"You know me well enough."

"Is this really how it ends, between us?"
"Maybe it was always meant to end like this, from the moment we met. Isnât that romantic?"
Their beginning had been similar.

Both had received potential A-rank status, and both were versatile huntersâJames, raised in a wealthy family with a belief that he should protect the weaker, and Leila, with a similar sense of duty, entering the Hunter Association.
When they first met, yes.
They probably shared some sense of camaraderie.

Perhaps it was a faint mutual affection.
But such fragile feelings had been burned away in the flames of jealousy, ignited by James himself before he even realized it.
In the face of inferiority, no emotion can retain its pure form.

Even a mild affection simply became kindling for his jealousy.
Leila bit her lip.
"â¦You really need to die, Chen."

"Youâve been gone for over ten years. Donât push it."
"Youâll only know when you try."
Leilaâs eyes glinted.

And then, at that momentâ¦
Boom!
James felt the ground beneath his feet shift as if something was about to burst from the soil.

"Youâve really brought out something troublesome."
It seemed like she had buried a small magical mine beneath the ground, designed to trigger with magical energy.
It wouldâve been quite effective for facing multiple opponents aloneâ¦

Whoosh!
Jamesâs sleeve puffed up dramatically.
A blue light, like falling rain, seeped into the ground and nullified the fuse of the mine just before it could explode.

Leilaâs face turned to one of shock.

"You, how did you�"
"How did I prepare for it?"

Seeing the shocked expression on Leilaâs face, James twisted his lips into a smirk.
"When fighting you, I had to be prepared."
Dispel Magic.

It was an item that nullified magic.
It reversed the flow of magical energy as it was cast, rendering the spell ineffective.
Of course, it couldnât work on all magic. Different types of magic had vastly different flows of energy.

"I knew you had a bomb."
He had known about the bomb Leila carried, thanks to Estella accidentally tipping him off.
Thatâs why he had been able to prepare the Dispel Magic to neutralize the bomb.

Thanks to that, there were no explosive soundsâsounds that should have gone off in succession if things had gone as originally planned.
James burst out laughing in victory.
"Hahaha, really? This is all youâve got? What a disappointment, Leila!"

"James, youâ¦! How much of the research did you steal from the headquarters?"
"Youâre not surprised? You did the same thing, didnât you?"
"What⦠What are you saying?"

"If all the crimes you were accused of were lies, then no matter how hard I worked, you wouldnât have been arrested."
"Thatâs utter nonsense! I neverâ!"
"Oh, still lying even after all this? Be honest, Leila."

James couldnât understand why Leila was still so indignant.
"Stop pretending to be righteous. Youâre just like meâwilling to do anything for your own benefit. Youâre trash too."
"Youâ¦!"

"Youâve got nothing to be ashamed of. Humans have desires, and being true to those desires isnât a sin, is it?"
"Donât be ridiculous!"
Leila shouted, her frustration evident.

"Donât treat me like you! At least I didnât steal items to kill foreign hunters!"
"Well, Iâll admit it. Iâm a piece of trash."
James raised both hands and laughed.

It felt like he had returned to when he was twenty, the same naive young man he was when he first met Leila.
"But thatâs the same for you. If you were such a noble person, would you have kidnapped Jeong Da-on?"
"Thatâsâ¦!"

"When people are cornered, their true nature shows, right? Admit it. You were planning to kill everyone if things went wrong, werenât you?"
"I⦠I wasnâtâ¦!"
Leila recoiled, her face growing pale at the accusation.

The sight of her vulnerability brought a surge of pleasure to James.
He couldnât believe that the once superior opponent was now in such a weakened state, scrambling like this.
It felt like conquering the summit of a mountain.

Such exhilaration!
"See, you and I are still quite similar."
Jamesâs sly words dug into Leilaâs ears.

Leila, clearly annoyed, covered her ears.
"So nowâ¦"
Just as James was about to continue,

Whoosh!
Bang!
"Aaargh!"

Blood splattered everywhere.
Arrows, made of magical energy and glowing with light, had struck the shoulders of Jamesâs subordinates, halting their advance.
But these arrows werenât Leilaâs magic.

"Itâs an ambush!"
"Protect the boss first!"

James turned to look at the source of the arrows.

And there, standing wasâ¦
"The one who doesnât care for plants should die. Do you agree?"
It was a girl, one whose image James had seen in videos and photos countless times.

A young, still youthful-looking Asian girl.
She had been in Jamesâs mind for months.
"Jeong Da-on!"

Jamesâs eyes gleamed.
"Of course, I knew youâd be hiding somewhere else."
"I thought the same thing, actually."

Jeong Da-on gave a subtle smile and raised her hand.
"Apparently, itâs more satisfying when you do it yourself."
Magical energy swirled around Jeong Da-onâs hand, and within moments, that energy took the form of arrows.

Jamesâs eyes widened.
âSheâs already at this level of magical control?â
The magic itself wasnât that impressiveâa basic 2nd-circle Lightning Arrow.

However, it was the sheer amount of magic power she was wielding!
Behind Jeong Da-on, dozens, at least, of arrows began to form.
James stared at her with burning anger.

"This is so unfairâ¦!"
Is this what it means to have natural talent?
James had quickly learned magic when he first awakened, but nothing like this!

Crack!
The shield James had summoned shattered under the barrage of arrows.
It was clear nowâthis was a difference in overwhelming talent.

"Hahaha!"
However, James broke into a manic laugh.
"Yes, yes! Now this is worth investing in!"

He didnât know why this girl, who had kidnapped Leila, was helping her and attacking him, but it didnât matter.
What mattered was that the mage who wielded incantation magic, something James had spent decades trying to master, was standing right in front of him!
"Iâm actually glad. Iâll defeat you here!"

She was a flower with immense potential, yet still not fully bloomed.
No matter how great a mage she was, in close combat, she couldnât compete if she was outnumbered.
"Everyone, charge!"

At Jamesâs command, his subordinates, all experienced swordsmen trained to handle mages, moved forward.
No matter how powerful a mage was, every spell required casting time.
The spells that had already been cast could be blocked by his subordinatesâ bodies.

There would be sacrifices, but that cost was nothing.
"Youâve gotten cocky because you have some talent, but itâs too bad. Iâve never missed my target."
"Target?"

"Yes, my goal is to thoroughly study you and rise to a higher level!"
He would dissect Jeong Da-on, figure out the secrets of her incantation magic, and finally gain Estellaâs approvalâ¦
"â¦Why are you laughing?"

But then, at Jamesâs words, Jeong Da-onâs eyes curved into a crescent shape.
It was a mischievous smile.
"Looks like your target is wrong. What a shame."

"What?"
"And thereâs a huge barrier you still need to get through to reach Jeong Da-on."
James realized, almost instinctively, that something was wrong.

Something was off.
Years of surviving on intuition, James shouted for his subordinates to be on alert.
No, he was about to shout.

Bang!
At that moment, the ground trembled.
James spotted a man.

A man wielding a massive bastard sword like it was a feather, slicing through his subordinates.
It was like a white lightning strike.