Chapter 104
Chapter 104
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 104
Chapter Title: Divvying Up the Loot
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Soldiers gathered weapons and armor from the mangled corpses. Arsen and Marun decided to talk a short distance away from them.
As soon as they were far enough, Marun asked urgently.
"Did you perhaps find a way to control the ruins?"
"Something like that."
"'Something like that'?"
Arsen had no intention of telling the full truth.
Spilling everything would mean admitting from the start that he hadn't trusted or believed in Byulburmi.
So, Arsen laid out the excuse he'd prepared in advance.
"Ever since entering these ruins, I've been hearing things—like hallucinations."
Arsen explained that faint, strange voices had started back at the two ruins he'd visited before, and once inside this one, they'd turned into proper language.
He added that an unidentified voice—likely the ruins themselves—claimed he could turn the traps on and off at will if he wanted, so just in case, he'd shut them down.
"I wasn't sure if it was just auditory hallucinations from an overactive imagination or if the ruins were really speaking. I couldn't risk being treated like some lunatic."
Marun nodded skeptically at Arsen's words.
Confirming that reaction, Arsen pulled out the counterattack he'd prepared earlier.
"Besides, Byulburmi never mentioned anything about this, so I figured it wasn't normal. Did the previous inheritor ever hear voices?"
When Arsen turned the question back, Marun stroked his distinctive foreign mustache with a flustered look.
"I've never heard anything specific, but I'm not sure. Probably not."
"Why do you think that?"
"Well, when I was a kid, the adults told me how they first learned to open the door. They said it opened after they tried everything at the entrance and lamented for it to just open. No one imagined it would open simply by asking..."
If that was true, the previous inheritor either hadn't heard the voice or had ignored it.
Arsen nodded in acknowledgment, then continued his explanation.
At first, he'd thought it was just hallucinations, but when the voice guided him to open the inner doors, he began to suspect it was real.
With everyone busy collecting items, he'd planned to explain about the voice after leaving the ruins and seek advice.
But they'd been ambushed on the way out, and in that dire moment for everyone, he'd chosen the best course of action...
His explanation flowed smoothly like a clear mountain stream. There were a few gaps, sure, but Arsen filled them with the persuasive appeal he'd learned from Rasur's oratory.
His eyes locked clearly on his listener, his tone firm.
In lying, the most important thing wasn't the words' persuasiveness—it was the speaker's demeanor.
Even truth sounded false if delivered hesitantly, while a lie delivered with firm conviction rang true.
"I see..."
Marun nodded, chiming in. His face no longer held betrayal, but guilt for doubting a comrade-in-arms he'd fought alongside, even briefly.
Seeing that expression, Arsen realized his excuse had landed perfectly.
"Oh, the ruins called us 'combat puppets.' Do you know anything about that?"
"'Combat puppets'?"
Marun's eyes widened in surprise.
"That..."
He started to say something, then abruptly shut his mouth and glanced around cautiously.
It was a familiar pattern—the reaction of someone who knew something but realized it was a secret they shouldn't share.
Arsen's eyes narrowed slightly as he observed.
"You seem to know something."
The conversation's dynamic had flipped completely.
Marun, who had been ready to grill him, now shrank back as if pressured to reveal his own secret, while Arsen leisurely pressed the advantage.
Marun spoke as if he might break into a cold sweat.
"Well, I don't really..."
There were plenty of ways to press him.
Like pointing out how Marun had pried freely into his side but offered no real answers himself, or warning that this evasiveness would shatter their mutual trust.
But Arsen didn't push.
"Fine. Prying into something hard to discuss would just make things awkward for both of us."
Marun nodded with a strange mix of apology and gratitude.
The reason Arsen didn't dig deeper was simple.
He already had a rough idea of what "combat puppets" meant, and he could guess why Marun hesitated to mention it.
All he wanted was Marun's reaction.
Whether he knew or not.
*This is maddening.*
Arsen's thoughts drifted back months ago, to when he'd received the helmet in Belluan.
Anything worn on the head was often a symbolic tool for control. Just look at the Kingoa.
*That helmet back then... was it just to test if I was the inheritor? Or to subdue me right there?*
It might be a stretch, but Arsen hypothesized the helmet was an ancient relic for controlling knights.
And when it failed, they'd realized he was the inheritor.
Swallowing his suspicions, Arsen feigned cheerfulness.
"Anyway, let's head out. Looks like they're done over there. We can discuss the details with the elders after we leave."
"Got it!"
Relieved to dodge the heavy talk, Marun's expression brightened.
* * *
The mages selected a few riding beasts from the enemy soldiers' mounts that weren't too badly injured and cast healing spells to make them mobile again.
The soldiers packed the weapons, Jins, and armor onto the beasts.
Searching the ruins interior for survivors was tedious—and stomach-churning.
Few had died "peacefully." Most were charred, melted, crushed, or torn apart.
"Ugh..."
One soldier grimaced in disgust, banging his scavenged weapon on the ground to shake off the grime.
It was a rude way to handle a weapon, but its owner—melted into a floor stain—couldn't complain.
The haul of weapons and armor was substantial.
Of course, most—especially the armor—was in terrible shape.
The least damaged were just singed or warped from melting; others were hacked into pieces or reduced to puddles where sections had liquified.
Passing one room into the next, the group was first greeted by a knight's corpse hacked into over ten chunks.
Clearly relic armor, meaning they'd have to scrape out the cooked flesh inside. The soldiers sighed in dismay.
Then someone spoke up, peering ahead.
"Isn't that guy over there still alive?"
"Where?"
A faint groan came from farther back in the room's center.
Up close, amid corpses riddled with massive holes, one knight clung barely to life.
Spotting Arsen's group, the knight's eyes widened in shock, then he dropped his head in resignation.
A soldier checked his neck pulse.
"He's dead."
No one knew his name was Rati, or that despair over lost comrades had driven him half-mad to charge the traps, or that in his final moments, he'd hoped for a savior.
No one cared to know.
Before the knight's lonely corpse, the soldiers indifferently tallied the others.
"All counted?"
"Fifty total. Two left."
"Isn't that them?"
Bazkal pointed to two piles of ash scattered on the floor.
The scorch marks nearby and ash volume suggested they'd once been human.
Two soldiers clicked their tongues, staring down.
"What the hell happened to them to leave just ashes?"
"Who knows..."
Adding the two, Arsen nodded.
"Good. That's everyone."
Exactly fifty. How little time it had taken for so many to meet their end in these ruins.
Arsen felt a quiet emptiness at life's fragility—but also relief. Now, every enemy who knew he could control the ruins was dead.
* * *
On the return trip, burdened with riding beasts and loot, they looked more like a merchant caravan than an excavation team.
Eloise whispered through her earring.
[Things go okay with Marun?]
[Yeah. Not certain, but seems like they don't know anything either. About the ruins' voice, at least.]
Of course, Marun not knowing didn't mean Byulburmi was clueless.
Truth be told, Marun wasn't the type to keep secrets well.
But even if Byulburmi knew about the voice, there'd only been one prior inheritor. They couldn't be sure if the voice was always clear or needed a "developmental process" like Arsen described.
Shaking off the thought, Arsen changed the subject.
[How about the Jins? Fixable?]
[Yeah. With all these hands, shouldn't take too long.]
They'd salvaged four Jins; the enemies had brought seven, but three were beyond repair—little more than scrap.
One crushed flat against a wall, one dissolved by some mystery solvent, and the last hacked to unrecognizable bits.
All shared destroyed cores—hearts and innards, the essence of a Jin.
Externally damaged, maybe salvageable. Internally wrecked like that? Better to build new.
As they talked, the city's outer walls came into view.
Entering the city, every onlooker stared at Arsen's force.
Piled high with weapons, armor, and Jins, they screamed "ruins raid success."
Other excavation teams wondered which ruins they'd cleared—and if it was now picked clean.
No one liked succeeding through hardship only to find scraps.
But none dared stop the infamous "Neck-Snapper Knight" to ask, so they returned to the inn unhindered.
"We're back—!"
"My homeland!"
Bazkal and Marun burst through the inn door together.
Moments later, they sulked under a scolding from the astonishingly valiant innkeeper.
"Do that again, and I'll really throw you out!"
The sight of a mere innkeeper dominating a knight and mage-knight drew admiring applause from the common room.
* * *
Once settled, they divided the ruins' haul.
They agreed to sell the internal spoils and split the proceeds half-and-half, but divvying the enemies' loot proved tricky.
Calling it "ruins spoils" because they'd fought inside stretched the point.
Yet excluding those who'd shared the risk entirely could breed division.
Here, Marun declared flatly.
"The spoils are all Sir Arsen's. We won't touch them."
With Arsen having taken down most of the foes himself, taking a share pricked their consciences, he said—and withdrew.
Personal feelings likely colored that decision heavily.
Expressing polite thanks, Arsen allocated one Jin to Bazkal and offered the rest for the mages to ride.
"After all, we're practically a shared fate now. Boosting the whole group's strength matters most."
For Arsen, it was pure pragmatism: better mages piloting intact Jins than letting them sit idle.
If a knight emerged among his subordinates, he'd redirect Jins there for efficiency.
Marun and the mages seemed deeply moved by the words.
Thus, they smoothly navigated the world's most divisive process—profit-sharing.
What remained: selling at market.
The haul wasn't for casual street vending in the inner district's flea markets.
To offload that volume without a proper merchant house or equivalent? They'd slave away for ages.
And big deals always needed connections.