Chapter 328: The Fang Arrow

Luke had told the whole story of how he killed the Beast Lord—leaving out certain details, of course. He’d made a point of saying up front that some things would stay hidden. But he explained enough. How he’d gotten trapped in a trial that forced him to slay the Statue Boss while pushing to level up his profession and class. How that ordeal gave him the strength he needed to face the giant serpent.

He spoke of the trap he’d prepared, sacrificing his own arm in the process. He’d handed the monster a limb packed with enchanted seeds which, once swallowed, germinated inside the Beast Lord’s stomach. Dropped into its corrosive acid, they dissolved and reacted, creating something not unlike… a violent medicine. For diarrhea and vomiting.

“A poison. You poisoned a serpent.” Erza actually sounded amused.

“Not poison,” he tried to clarify. “More like… a super laxative.”

The assassin queen laughed, a low and genuine sound, her eyes shining with intrigue.

He went on, explaining how he had used the creature’s own fang to craft a makeshift arrow. The fang was a rare, epic-grade magical conductor, capable of holding vast amounts of mana.

“Using the monster’s own fang to kill it… poetic, and murderous,” Erza murmured.

He explained how, once the creature was crippled by the sudden sickness brewing inside it, he used that opening to fire the mana-charged arrow directly into its eye. He had already weakened that spot with earlier strikes from his kukris. The arrow drove in deep, and once inside the skull, detonated like a mana missile, tearing the Beast Lord apart from within.

“So… first, you baited it. You opened the fight with a powerful arrow infused with stamina, tricking the serpent into believing that was your ultimate weapon. From there, you deliberately faltered—pretending to struggle, letting it wound you, dictating the pace as if you were on the edge of collapse. All the while, you were manipulating its confidence, making it arrogant.”

Erza had risen from her throne now, pacing slowly, her tone more thoughtful than mocking.

“And that’s how you convinced it to swallow your arm. Because if you had simply thrown it, the Beast Lord never would have taken the bait. You forced the decision, nudged it into impulse, and it bit. Quite literally.”

She circled as she spoke, voice low, absorbed in her own analysis. “From there, the enchanted seeds in your arm reacted with the serpent’s stomach acid, creating a kind of medicinal toxicity, capable of triggering systemic collapse in a creature that size. That bought you only seconds… but enough seconds.”

She stopped, eyes locking onto Luke.

“But the seconds you gained were enough, because during the fight you had already pierced the creature’s eye with your kukris, and at the right moment you drove an explosive arrow straight into the monster’s brain… and that was how you killed your target. Am I correct in my analysis?”

Luke blinked, caught between embarrassment and awe. He had never thought about his plan in such clinical detail.

“Yes,” he admitted.

“Fascinating,” Erza breathed.

When Luke glanced sideways, he found the others staring at him with horror and disbelief.

“You really downplayed your achievement every single time you talked about it,” Allison said.

He’d never told the full story before. Not once.

“So even you didn’t know all the details?” Erza asked, shifting her gaze across the group.

“No,” Allison admitted.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Eleanor pressed.

“The truth is… when I first reunited with the people from the Haven, they didn’t believe me. If I’d explained it like this, no one would have taken me seriously.” Luke’s tone was flat, almost tired.

“And why didn’t you ever try to tell us afterward?” Evangeline asked.

“You see how much I had to explain?” Luke asked. “It started with my first mistakes in alchemy, when I brewed a faulty potion, and even with gathering random plants. All those failures gave me the knowledge to come up with the plan. It didn’t happen overnight.”

He lied a little, mixing truth with omission. There were two reasons he hadn’t told the whole story.

The first was Samael. He still refused to reveal how he’d gained his profession or his encounter with the demon.

The second, well, he wasn’t exactly eager to admit he’d killed a powerful enemy by giving it a magical case of explosive diarrhea. Yet strangely, when the assassin queen rephrased that part in her sharp, intelligent way, she looked at him with something close to admiration.

So that’s it. The fascination isn’t about the gross details. It’s the planning. The strategy.

He realized that when he thought back on what he’d learned about the art of assassination while plotting Bartholomew’s downfall. To an assassin, the act wasn’t a crime, not even an evil deed. It was art. A painting. A masterpiece crafted in silence.

“So you believe me?” Luke asked. “You don’t think I made all this up, even though I’m refusing to show the item I got?”

“I believe you,” Erza replied, settling back onto her throne. “Even with some things left unsaid, your words carry truth. Besides, no one here would lie about killing the Beast Lord. Allison knows our deal binds the honor of our families.”

Questions flew from every side, but Mason alone had stayed silent, lost in thought. Finally, he spoke.

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“How did you kill the Beast Lord?”

Luke blinked, confused. “I just explained.”

“Not how in general,” Mason cut in. “I’m talking about the arrow.”

“I used part of the fang I ripped out with the axe I gave Jack,” Luke answered.

“I understood that part. I mean the skill. You’re not an archer. Your epic profession skill is a single arrow. But you don’t have any skill that would trigger magic in a projectile, do you? So how exactly did you create a bomb arrow? From what you described, it sounds a lot like an epic skill.”

“It was mana,” Luke said simply. “I just poured mana into the tip of the arrow. Enough that it was about to explode, then fired it.”

“Oh, now this is more interesting,” Erza remarked.

That was when Luke noticed the three of them, Erza, Mason, Allison, narrowing their eyes, trading glances.