Sinner of the Black Hand (1)
"Are you kidding? You can't even do this? You planning to live as a disgrace to the family?!"
The boy's sin was his lack of interest in the sword.
"Why are you so weak-willed? You trying to tarnish the family name? How the hell are you supposed to face them like this—?!"
Another of the boy's sins was his inability to muster courage in the face of threats.
"You, cooking? Praise? Has anyone seen a lunatic like this? Fetch the switch right now!"
Liking to cook and wanting to show it off—that, too, was one of the boy's sins.
"Why did a kid like you have to... Haah, you should've been born in some slum instead of coming out of my belly—."
The boy's greatest sin was probably being born into this place, Black Hand, without knowing his place.
"Kuhahahahahahaha!"
A roar-like mad laughter erupted as Polru thrashed about like a maniac. The black liquid that had gushed from his body was now seeping back in through every orifice.
He trudged through the snowfield. The yeti beside him had also been overtaken by the black liquid and was following Polru obediently.
"Sik... euum, sik... euum."
Its speech was slurred, as if its brain had rotted, but the yeti was clearly marching toward its target with purpose.
And soon enough, at the frozen creek bank, the rest of the scouting party's comrades came into view.
"Polru..."
"It really is you."
At Isaac and Meladic's mutterings, Polru grinned, lifting the corners of his mouth.
"I've returned, everyone."
A far cry from his former timid self. His once-pale skin was now bumpy with welts, darkening to a pitch black. If not for the 'bone' still piercing his heart, no one would have recognized him as Polru.
"I'm back! I even subjugated a yeti! Kuhahahaha! Can you see? I've been useful to you all, right? Yeah? Isn't that right?"
The scouting party had no answer to Polru's obsessive questions. Amid their confusion at the situation, only Isaac stepped forward slowly.
"Polru, calm down and listen."
"Huh? Isaac? Who the hell are you? You abandoned me! Tell him, Silberna!"
Silberna approached with a furrowed brow. At that, Polru's mouth gaped wide, drool dripping in thick strands like some beast.
"Aban...don me? Silberna? Huh? Abandon me? It's fine. You're pretty, so it's okay. Silberna's pretty, so it's fine. But abandon me? Was I that useless? Did I do something that wrong?"
"...Polru?"
"No, no. Don't be scared. I won't kill you. But I could. Not sure, actually. But Silberna really is pretty. I've thought so since I first saw you. You handle that spear so well, totally different from me, huh?"
Polru spewed words unlike his usual self, his mental filters gone, babbling on instinct. Then, vitality drained from his eyes as he nodded.
"Gotta kill 'em."
Whoooosh!
The yeti's fist swung wide. Silberna, who had anticipated it, leaped back in one step to evade.
"I'll handle the yeti! The rest of you, subdue Polru!"
Absurdly, the first to respond to her command was Polru himself.
"Subdue? Subjuuue?! Subdue Polru! Yeah! Kill 'em! Kill the trash! Purge Black Hand's ashen star! The darkest star among them all! Cleanse the family's sinner!"
"Wh-what's wrong with him?"
Isaac bit his lip at Anna's bewildered question. Leaving the yeti to Silberna, everyone charged at Polru.
The first strike came from Sharen Helmont.
Wham!
To end it swiftly, she erupted with Red Aura from her entire body and lunged at Polru like a bolt.
Claaang!
"...!"
Sharen's red eyes trembled. She stared in shock at Polru, who had effortlessly blocked her blow with a single thin sword. Not even a quiver.
It was as light as catching snowflakes falling from the sky.
"Huh?"
Polru himself was equally surprised, staring wide-eyed at his own sword. As he pushed back with force, sending Sharen reeling, the corners of his mouth tore into a grin.
"Kuhh, heheh! Hahahahaha! Father! Can you see me now? Are you watching meee?! I'm! I'm pushing back a Helmont!"
Polru's mad laughter rang out as a spear thrust into his side.
"Huh?"
Anna had hidden behind Helmont's Red Aura to land the blow, but the spear tip bounced off like it had struck steel. Polru casually swung his arm, knocking her spear aside. Meladic, who had chased after with sword sheathed and fist raised, halted in his tracks.
Everyone realized now—no attack was getting through to Polru.
"He turned into a monster all of a sudden."
"Lately, my spear's been getting blocked a lot."
Sharen and Anna fell back. They formed a encirclement around Polru, but he paid it no mind, simply reveling in joy.
"Hahahaha! So that's why! Father! Mother! That's why you kept telling me to get stronger! To swing the sword! To train! Every single day!"
"..."
"Ah, seriously! I never wanted to swing a damn sword! But now I get it, now that I know what it means!"
Limp and drooping, Polru hung his head and sniffled.
"But I still don't wanna."
The scouting party's members felt their own confusion mirroring Polru's jumbled emotions and state.
"He's like a psycho."
"What the hell happened to him?"
Sharen and Meladic muttered in bewilderment. Conversely, Anna instinctively glanced at Silberna battling the yeti.
It seemed like something they couldn't handle among themselves, but...
"We can't spare Silberna."
Isaac gave a cold judgment upon catching her gaze.
"Huh?"
"The yeti's not in a normal state either. It might not be as extreme as Polru, but strictly speaking, it's under the black liquid's control."
The yeti's body was dulling with that murky light—clear evidence. Especially its strength and speed, incomparable to before. Normally, they would rush to aid Silberna.
"This is our best shot, with her handling the yeti."
If Silberna fell to the yeti, it was over. No one here could withstand a pincer from both.
"Do you have a plan, Lord Isaac?"
At Anna's question, Isaac eyed Polru again. The black liquid had oxidized around him, billowing like black aura smoke. To Isaac, it looked like roaring firewood ready to burn fiercely.
"We drag it out long-term, we win. That state can't last."
"... "
"But we can't afford a war of attrition. So we target that."
Isaac's sword tip pointed to the 'bone' embedded in Polru's chest—the yeti's initial ambush, the trigger for all this.
"We use that to kill Polru."
Meladic and Sharen shot Isaac stunned looks. Even as former comrades, did they really have to kill him? But...
"We have to."
No hope left. Isaac knew that form. He'd never seen the black liquid before, but in his previous life, he'd encountered people changed like that.
"The moment he became that, he stopped being human."
Isaac's voice was laced with regret.
"If you can't, I will."
His hand gripping the sword didn't tremble as he stepped forward. Anna cautiously asked.
"What exactly do you know? Please tell us too."
"... Subordination."
"Subordination?"
"The sorcery transcendents use to turn humans into their possessions."
It rapidly boosts the body but twists the mind into something grotesque. They act on pure instinct. They blurt whatever pops into their heads. They spew forced truths.
"I'm sorryyy! Father! Mother! I'm so sorryyy! Sorry for being such a worthless wormmm!"
"Those words—"
"Kuhhuuugh! I shouldn't have been bornnn! Me! Someone with this power who just doesn't wanna swing a sworddd!"
Anna's gaze filled with fear as it turned to Polru.
"Kill meee! I'm a disgrace that shouldn't have been bornnn! The filial deviant making Mother cryyy! Black Hand's sinner!"
Every word pouring from him now was unfiltered truth, devoid of lies.
"I'm a sinner! A sinneeeer! Aaaagh! Kyaaaagh! Kill meee! That way Father won't be disappointed anymore! That way Mother won't cry anymore! I have to atone like thaaat!"
Black Hand's sinner pounded his chest, confessing his heartfelt truths. His life, stained with tears and regret, seemed to have erased even the name Polru.
Perhaps that's why.
"Polru! Snap out of it, you idiot! You can't give in to crap like that!"
Meladic bellowed, chest heaving with some overwhelming emotion. Desperate against Isaac's insistence on killing him, he'd thrashed for any other way, but...
"Kuhk!"
Black Hand's sinner whipped his head around. He stared at Meladic, nodded, drool spilling.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah."
And then.
"I wanna live."
He charged straight at Meladic, swinging his sword.