Chapter 33
Chapter 33
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Translator: uly
Chapter: 33
Chapter Title: All-Devouring Crows
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The place where he spent his childhood was a church in the city that doubled as an orphanage.
His only friends were the other orphans living at the church.
Among them was always one timid kid trailing at the very back.
That was Jonathan.
"Hey, you mangy mutt! Bark!"
"Go scoop some shit from the sewer! Let's make it eat that!"
Tormenting the neighborhood stray dog.
The most groundbreaking game poor orphans without a dime or parents could come up with.
'I'm a little different.'
Watching them, even as a child, Jonathan felt a sense of superiority.
He prided himself on being the most mature, faithfully following the nuns' teachings and never joining in on bullying the dog.
Then came a shocking day.
"Gaaah!"
"Holy shit! The dog bit Tom!"
Had they stepped on its tail or something?
The neighborhood stray latched onto their friend Tom's throat.
It happened in an instant.
His friend Tom collapsed, clutching his neck and gushing blood as he wailed.
The other kids fled in terror to find a nun.
But Jonathan, unlike them, stood frozen in place.
'Heh.'
Watching his friend get mauled by the dog, young Jonathan realized something.
'Heh heh.'
He wasn't mature at all.
If anything, he was worse—far worse.
'Heh heh heh.'
That day, he redefined himself.
'I'm a little different.'
His sensibilities were somewhat distant from those of ordinary people.
For years, Jonathan diligently hid his true nature.
But every night, the vision of Tom's gruesome end in his dreams was as sweet and seductive as a succubus.
In the end, Jonathan ventured out for his nighttime pastime.
It wasn't anything special.
He headed to the entertainment district in the city.
The place was rowdy every single day.
Drunk on booze, bumping shoulders, craving women.
Fists flew at each other constantly, and knives weren't uncommon.
That night was no different.
He slipped out of the church at dawn.
Prowling the streets like a hyena starved for the scent of blood.
That's when he overheard some drunks lamenting.
"Heard about it? Packs of man-eating crows are prowling nearby."
"They're raising hell to exterminate 'em."
"Sigh, my boy's in the guard. I'm worried sick."
In that moment, Jonathan felt his body heat up.
Man-eating crows—magic beasts the size of a man, right?
'They're gonna die.'
A whole bunch of them.
Just imagining it sent waves of excitement and ecstasy he'd never felt in his life.
It felt like time to bid farewell to Tom, the fixture of his dreams for so long.
Because from now on, the carnage wrought by those crows would haunt his nights.
A few days later.
Before Jonathan could even seek them out, the man-eating crows flew over the city walls into town.
"Jonathan?!"
He shook off the nun's hand and bolted out of the church.
The metallic tang of blood.
The familiar streets painted with flesh and entrails—it squeezed his heart like a vise.
'Heh!'
Laughter bubbled up.
'Kuhuhu...!'
He never dreamed he could feel something like this.
It was pure ecstasy.
Euphoria.
Bliss.
"J-Jonathan!?"
The nun's terrified voice from behind.
This bizarre betrayal toward the woman who'd raised him his whole life.
Taking her sobs as his symphony, Jonathan spread his arms wide and joined in her grief.
Tears of conviction.
'Ah, I—'
will live like this.
Wearing the skin of a human.
But as something not human.
I'll live just like—
Boom!
The black clouds blotting the sky split in two.
It was the flock of man-eating crows, their wings flapping wildly as they plummeted to the ground.
Crimson sword aura.
Everyone called it rose-pink.
But in truth,
it resembled blood far more than any rose.
[......]
Red hair whipping in the wind, a man strode indifferently down the main road, gripping a massive greatsword.
His name was Arandel.
Arandel Helmunt.
The great and glorious head of House Helmunt.
'Ah.'
Before he knew it, piles of corpses meant nothing to Jonathan's eyes.
The thick scent of blood receded, replaced by a faint rose fragrance.
'Aah—!'
Just one sword stroke.
And countless creatures were cleaved apart.
What he cut wasn't merely a horde of beasts.
He slashed the tragedy invading the city.
The death creeping into peace.
The chaos the crows would bring.
And finally,
Jonathan's crumbling life.
Just like that.
'Great Helmunt—!'
Jonathan's life was utterly transformed.
"Brothers! Awooooo!"
"Shut your trap!"
Blackened tears streamed down his cheeks. Jonathan's voice, hoarse from screaming, brimmed with desperation.
"How can you betray us like this, brother?! Don't deny your own blood!"
Nortemus wept bitterly.
But Jonathan ignored him and bared his teeth.
"I am a knight of Helmunt!"
"That title means nothing?! Your blood isn't Helmunt's! Don't delude yourself, brother!"
"What does that—! What does it matter?!"
His will stood firm as a greatsword.
"What unbreakable resolve...!"
There was one reason he didn't succumb to Nortemus's temptation.
The shock of that day still burned vivid.
The symbol of Helmunt etched in his mind.
Nortemus couldn't deliver a greater blow than that.
"Brother! How can you deny yourself?! Denying your instincts brands our very existence as evil!"
"......!"
He wanted to retort, but no words came.
Black smoke pouring from Nortemus's body flooded Jonathan's mouth, gagging his teeth and tongue.
But then.
"Focus."
The response came from the opposite side.
The air split.
A sword strike clear as a crescent moon.
"What—?!"
Squish!
Nortemus's right arm hit the ground. Veins bulging in his eyes amid the spurting blood, he gasped.
"Isaac!"
Isaac's wakizashi had severed Nortemus's elbow in a flash.
Krunch!
A spear sliced through the air, piercing his gut.
Pinned under the greatsword, it made Nortemus vomit blood instead of words.
Silberna glared at Nortemus, frozen in her throwing stance.
Hidden from view by the greatsword, but Nortemus grasped the situation perfectly and spat fury.
"Gaaaaah! You bastards! You—!"
No one listened.
Faster than anyone, Isaac reversed his grip on the wakizashi and plunged it into Nortemus's side.
Squish!
"Kuh-hurk! Gaaack!"
Nortemus screamed, choking on the blood surging from his mouth.
But Isaac didn't stop—he drew back into a sheathing stance.
Two blades left at his waist.
Not the uchigatana, but the wakizashi—Isaac's eyes traced its path forward.
A red line traced Nortemus's pale neck.
The blade's tip had already passed—blood gushed, silencing even his screams.
Clutching his dangling head with his left hand, Nortemus glared murderously at Isaac.
"Puaack!"
Nerves be damned, even with his head lolling, Nortemus opened his mouth and spewed smoke.
'Can't even use your legs, so why tell me now?'
Isaac felt his grandmaster's grumbling echo in his ears as he backpedaled frantically.
"Should've watched closer."
It was the perfect chance to finish him.
Squish!
Silberna's spear responded to her aura and yanked free.
Jonathan seized the opening Isaac created and retreated like a fleeing rat.
A thick book and greatsword impaled his heart.
A spear hole through his gut.
Right arm severed, rolling on the ground. Neck half-off.
Yet.
"Still not dead?"
Nortemus stood firm on both legs, glaring at them.
"Guh... guh guh!"
Writhing in agony, unable to breathe.
The attention once fixed on Jonathan now turned to Isaac, who cried out in outrage.
"How dare you—! Mimic our sword?!"
Isaac didn't answer.
There was no worth in it.
"Hah! Hah!"
Nortemus's long hair, slashed ragged where the wakizashi grazed, fluttered in the wind.
Practically a walking corpse.
Black smoke billowed from the greatsword wound at his heart, spreading everywhere.
"Trying to escape?"
Silberna swung her aura-charged spear wide.
Fierce winds like sword ki blew the smoke away.
But when it cleared.
Nortemus reappeared elsewhere.
"Hah! Hah!"
Right in front of the villagers' trash pile.
"Block him!"
Before Isaac could shout, Sharen nearby was already swinging her greatsword.
Helmunt instincts kicked in the instant she spotted him—she charged.
Red aura bloomed on her blade.
Like water spilling from a bucket, it unleashed a wave of crimson flames.
But.
"Nngh!"
Nortemus sacrificed his remaining left hand to block it.
His left hand mangled into meat pulp.
In the end.
Both arms gone, greatsword still in his heart, he kept spewing black smoke.
"Brothers—!"
Sharen swung again.
"I apologize for not seeing this through to the end!"
To cleanly sever what Isaac had missed, her greatsword retraced the same arc—
"Farewell!"
Slash!
She beheaded Nortemus.
His head spun through the air before splatting into the trash pile.
The black smoke from his heart scattered in all directions, repelled by Sharen's greatsword.
"We did it!"
The moment Sharen shouted triumphantly with a bright smile.
The black smoke began coalescing toward the trash pile mingled with Nortemus's remains.