Beware the Executioner (1)
Beware the Executioner. Surprisingly, Cain was actually quite intelligent. Before his possession, he had been a rather capable web novel PD. He studied characters, plots, and world-building as thoroughly as any author.
Coming to this world and dealing with demons had dulled his edge somewhat, but one thing remained certain: Cain was not the male lead of a romance fantasy.
“Who are you? At this hour, suddenly… ugh!?”
The man responsible for designing the Academy’s administrative sewers. He would deny it with his dying breath, but the verification was already complete. A cleverly concealed secret passage that only the designer would know about.
In true romance-fantasy fashion, no one else had suspected a thing. Cain, however, had torn the entire Academy apart like a man hunting lice and found it—the hidden entrance that led inside.
“Hurk! Huff!”
He removed the gag from the man’s mouth and pulled back the hood.
Wh-where the hell am I?
Just moments ago he had been resting peacefully in his own home. When he regained his senses, he was in an unknown, pitch-black space. There was nothing here. An empty room. Not even a window. The only things present were himself and the man sitting across from him.
“….”
The man stared at him with tranquil eyes. At first the noble thought they looked ordinary, no different from anyone else’s. But then—
What the hell are those?
Looking closer, he realized they were not human eyes at all. No person could have eyes like that. They were bottomless. Eyes that had sunk into an endless abyss. They carried the power to dye the viewer’s very soul with terror.
“Wh-who are you, sir?”
The man was a noble, yet he began with honorifics from the very first sentence. The atmosphere of the place, the opponent’s presence—everything fused into pure fear. Frozen terror paralyzed reason and awakened raw instinct. The desperate will to live. The obvious, primal survival drive.
“….”
Cain offered no answer to the question. He never asked first. He waited until they spoke. Asking a question only confirmed that the other party possessed information. It planted the mistaken belief that negotiation was possible.
Yet in every romance fantasy, the captor always insisted on asking questions anyway. It was so frustrating. Why ask after you’ve already caught them?
“Excuse me?”
There was no escape from this place anyway. If he waited patiently, the man would eventually spill everything on his own. Occasionally someone held out, and that was when Cain used his fists.
“Just what… what is this about? What did I ever do wrong…?”
They say third time’s the charm. The man had asked three questions instead of answering. No matter how Cain looked at it, he had waited long enough.
He rose from his seat and swung his left hand in a light arc.
SLAP!!
Skin tore open instantly. Blood poured down. The shock must have reached his brain; the man couldn’t even focus.
“Ughhh…”
It hurt. It hurt too much. He couldn’t form a single coherent thought. He felt like he was going to die from the pain. The only idea left in his head was that he was truly about to die.
Pain and fear had paralyzed all rational judgment. Who the person in front of him was no longer mattered. The only thing that mattered now was escaping this pain and fear. Figuring out how he could survive.
“I was wrong, I was wrong. I made a mistake…”
SLAP!
“I’m sorry. Please stop, please just stop…”
SLAP!
“I-I killed a commoner. He kept hounding me about when he’d receive the promised wage, so…”
What the hell is this? An unexpected murder confession. The old saying really was true. The rod really is medicine. As if to say keep talking, Cain swung his hand again.
SLAP!
“I embezzled material costs during construction! The amount was… Ah! I remember it now!”
“I met a woman behind my wife’s back! She’s quite popular in the brothels!”
The affair had come out after the murder. Truly impressive, Cain thought as he continued slapping the man’s cheek. He couldn’t let him die yet. Like swatting a fly—very carefully.
SLAP!
SLAP!!
“Ughhh…!”
And finally, the answer Cain wanted flowed out.
“The sewers. The Academy sewers. I handed over the blueprints of the section I was responsible for… to them.”
He waited a moment so the man could register the shift. One second. Two seconds. Three seconds. Then he slapped him again. The man, whose survival instinct had reached its peak, finally understood. That was the signal. It meant he should elaborate on what he had just said.
“They were people I’d never seen before! They were all covered in hoods… I re-remember…”
Hypnosis could drag memories from the subconscious. Unfortunately, Cain didn’t know how to do that. What he did know was shock therapy.
SLAP!!
“Ah! O-one! I think I remember one of them! It was a voice I’d heard several times! S-so… who it was…”
“….”
“W-wait! Give me time! Just a little time!!”
You don’t turn off a computer while it’s rebooting. Cain decided to observe at least basic manners.
“I remember! Count Zailitz! It was definitely Count Zailitz!”
Count Zailitz. Cain pulled a notebook from his pocket. The name was also listed in the kill list Wilhelm had prepared. The man had supported the Academy’s construction far beyond what was necessary. He had shown unusually passive behavior during battles against demons.
After the war ended, he had subtly suggested among the nobles that it was time to reduce the army. Decisively, he had received the sewer information from this very man. At this point, even in a romance fantasy, he qualified as a suspect.
“Count Zailitz came to me! You can ask him!”
That was enough. Cain stood, kicking his chair back.
Yuris, who had been waiting quietly, approached at once. She carefully wiped Cain’s hand with a handkerchief, treating it as if it were the most precious treasure in the world.
“You’ve worked hard.”
“I leave the rest to you, Yuri.”
“Will you head to Count Zailitz immediately?”
“I have to.”
In romance fantasies, there was always one predictable segment: because the opponent was a noble, because touching them would cause problems, the protagonist would hesitate, giving the villain time to escape or prepare countermeasures.
It wasn’t exactly frustrating like a sweet potato arc—it was buildup for the next development. The villain would return as an avenger or become a reformed ally.
Cain had zero intention of allowing any of that. Any time not spent killing demons was wasted.
“I told you everything I know! So please, at least spare my life…!”
Yuris glanced at the man, then stepped forward and kicked him without hesitation, knocking him onto his back.
“Guh!”
“Shut your mouth. Lord Cain is speaking.”
“C-Cain?!”
Only now did the man realize who the person who had been about to kill him was. It had been too dark. His vision had been blurred by fear. But now he knew. That Cain. The Executioner himself. Despair flooded him.
“Aah… Aaaaaah…!”
Pathetic fool. Yuris clicked her tongue and bowed respectfully to Cain.
“Please go ahead. While you’re gone, I will extract every last thing from him.”
“You always do your job so well. I trust you, Yuri.”
Cain gave her a thumbs-up. A faint blush colored Yuris’s cheeks. I trust you. Those three words became the greatest motivation in the world.
“Please! At least spare my life! I told you everything! Please!!”
Cain had not killed the man. He had deliberately left him alive. There must have been a deeper meaning. As his subordinate, she would follow that meaning.
Yuris called over the Special Task Force members waiting outside.
“Shall we dispose of him, Captain?”
“No. He’s a ‘stuffed doll.’”
“We’ll prepare immediately.”
From now on, only two kinds of words would come from that man’s mouth. Either every memory he had accumulated throughout his life, or a final desperate plea to be killed.
Count Zailitz’s mansion was not far. As they approached, the guards demanded to know who they were. A response delivered by fist was far clearer than one delivered by words. Having already confirmed no one was behind the door, Cain acted at once.
BOOM!!
With a single strike he crumpled the steel door and stepped inside. Startled soldiers grabbed their weapons to block the intruder. Several men who appeared to be knights stepped forward.
Casualties during an execution were treated as cleanup. Even if he slaughtered all of them, it would not affect Cain in the slightest. Normally, this would be the moment the knights began ranting about commoners daring to cause trouble here.
“Cain…”
“?”
But this time was different. The knights exchanged glances. These were men who would charge forward declaring that loyalty was their sole reason for existence. Yet now they hesitated.
“What business brings you here?”
“What’s this? Talking instead of the usual act? No ‘filthy commoner’ nonsense?”
The absence of the usual routine actually left Cain feeling slightly disappointed. From the knights’ perspective, however, they could no longer afford to act that way.
They had all seen it. They had all heard it. The incident from a few days ago. The demon slayer they had dismissed as soldiers’ exaggeration. The colossal magical power that had swallowed the Academy whole. They had witnessed everything.
“Is Count Zailitz still in the mansion?”
“His Lordship returned to his territory a short while ago.”
“Really?”
“We all saw him leave the mansion.”
“Hmm.”
Unlikely. The corner of Cain’s mouth rose as he examined the floor. Around here? He tapped the ground, then lightly stomped.
THUD!
CRAAAAACK!!
When he channeled his power, the ground trembled violently before collapsing. An underground entrance leading somewhere was revealed.
“What in the…”
“Not bad. You’ve got a decent head on your shoulders.”
Hiding it in plain sight so it wouldn’t look suspicious. Making even his own subordinates believe he had left the mansion. The traces of considerable effort only heightened Cain’s anticipation.
The underground entrance was sealed tight with solid steel. It even blocked intruders’ magical power. Quite the investment. The knights tried to warn that it should be handled carefully, but—
CRACK!!
Watching Cain casually rip the door off its hinges left them speechless. Since it blocked magic, that meant he had done it with pure physical strength. Could a human even do that? Was this man actually a demon?
“Last chance. You’re really not going to stop me?”
This had never happened before. He always clashed with knights. They would shout about the incarnation of loyalty, about following their lord. The title of Executioner had not been earned by killing nobles alone.
In truth, the majority of those who became headless ghosts had been knights. Their crime was offering the wrong loyalty to the wrong master. It was unfortunate, but what could be done? They were moths charging into the flame.
Cain had neither the patience nor the leisure to spare such moths. He needed to save every second to kill even one more demon.
“….”
“….”
The knights remained shrunken and silent. They had no will to fight. He could crush them where they stood. But right now the mole hiding below took priority. He left the rest to the Special Task Force that would soon arrive and descended underground.
The interior was simpler than expected. No branching paths, no traps. He had been slightly hopeful, but this was disappointing. Cain clicked his tongue.
After walking for a short while, faint light appeared ahead. What had been prepared at the very back was not an exit. It was a room.
“Well, well.”
The place resembled an altar, covered wall to wall with portraits of a single woman. The pathological obsession on display made Cain sigh.
So it was another romance-fantasy cliché? Love as the reason for betrayal?
“Come out.”
One call clearly wasn’t going to be enough. He picked up a nearby torch and brought it close to the paintings as if ready to burn every last one.
“…You wouldn’t understand.”
As expected, the owner of the room appeared. Count Zailitz.
“Mad Dog Cain. You could never understand.”
The count glared at him with bloodshot eyes.
“I loved her. I devoted everything I had to loving her. But she left me. She betrayed me and went to another man! I wanted her back. So I borrowed the power of demons! Even if I had to offer everything, I had to love her!!”
Were the protagonists and even the villains all obsessed with love? If the male leads heard this story, they would shed tears of sympathy. A villain with a tragic backstory. It was such a common trope that it was perfectly understandable.
“I loved her to the point of madness. Yet that woman abandoned me and left. What could possibly be worse in my life than this? You don’t know. You could never know why I did this.”
Cain let out a long sigh and slowly approached the count. Instead of raising his right hand, he sat down beside him. He even began patting the count’s shoulder as if offering comfort.
“Hey. Having the person you love betray you isn’t actually the worst thing that can happen.”
“What… you…”
“You could meet someone even more beautiful than her and fall in love again. The woman who betrayed you might meet a man worse than you, regret it, and come crawling back.”
“….”
“So, no. That woman leaving you is not the worst thing in your life.”
The count stared blankly at Cain sitting beside him. He had expected cold, cutting mockery. Instead he was receiving consolation from the infamous Mad Dog. It was so unexpected that, for a brief moment, he even felt touched.
“Thank y—”
“The real worst thing in your life is,” Cain said, clenching his fist, “meeting me.”