A Twisted Affection
"A price? Don't make me laugh. You bastards just slaughter and devour people whenever the mood strikes you," Yohan sneered at the Troll Chief.
The Chief widened his half-closed eyes and tilted his head. "Now that I look closely, you exude an energy quite different from the others."
"Of course. I'm the Grim Reaper who's going to send you and your lackeys straight to hell." Yohan shot back with a sarcastic smirk, but internally, he was startled by the monster's sharp perception.
The Goddess seemed equally taken aback. Until now, even though Yohan had never revealed it, only one being had ever managed to vaguely sense the Goddess's divinity. It was the demon that had possessed the body of the Undercity Family's Big Boss.
Although he was certainly as cruel and atrocious as a demon, the creature standing before them was by no means a demon or any other divine entity. Yet, for him to perceive the divine energy Yohan exuded...
"Wait a moment." Just as Yohan was about to speak, Billy, who had been frozen in panic this entire time, suddenly stepped forward.
"What on earth happened while I was away from the village? The white bones scattered everywhere... why did you tie people to stakes and just leave their corpses to rot?" Billy demanded, his voice trembling with confrontation.
But the Chief looked as if he genuinely couldn't understand Billy's question. "I do not know what you mean."
"Of course you are man-eating monsters. But, but... at least before, you didn't decorate yourselves with the bones of the humans you ate." Billy pointed a trembling finger at the Chief's massive body. "And you never painted those bizarre patterns on your skin, either."
A heavy silence hung in the air. The pure-blood trolls standing behind the Chief merely waited in silence.
Amidst the awkward silence, the Goddess called out to him. Yohan nodded and placed a hand on Billy's shoulder.
"I don't know how it got into them, but those bastards... they've been corrupted by demonic energy."
"T-that can't be," Billy rejected Yohan's answer.
"Oho. So you can recognize it as well." But the Chief confirmed that Yohan's explanation was correct. "At some point, I began to hear a 'revelation' in my head. It said it wanted more blood, and more corpses."
The Goddess spoke with a voice tinged with bitterness. The troll tribe's cannibalistic customs were undoubtedly atrocious, even by the moral standards of this world. Over a long period of time, a passing demon must have laid its eyes on the slaughterhouse they had created.
Divine entities in this world were fundamentally born and sustained through the collective consciousness of mortals. If the Goddess's second hypothesis was correct, it meant their cruelty was so extreme that it had literally birthed a new evil god into existence.
Falling prey to the whispers of a demon born from their own atrocities, only to become an even more terrible evil. Whichever it was, it wasn't good. Yohan shook his head and clicked his tongue.
"Well, whatever." One thing was certain. These damn cannibal trolls had no right to exist in this world. Especially that Chief—the dissonance between his soft, polite voice and his horrific actions was deeply unsettling.
Whoosh. The Troll Chief drew the sword strapped to his back. The blade was so colossally massive that even a slight movement produced a heavy, air-rending sound.
"My child. Back then, I let you off with a light punishment, but this time, even I cannot overlook this." The Chief spoke with a voice laced with regret. Indeed, he cast a genuinely troubled look toward Billy.
It was fine for them to kidnap, torture, kill, and eat humans, but Billy harming his 'own kind' was unforgivable.
He heard the Goddess sigh in his mind. She was right. To these trolls, eating humans was no longer a 'custom'—it was daily life itself.
Whoosh! "Urgh!" In an instant, the Chief swung his greatsword. Yohan moved quickly to dodge, but the sheer wind pressure from the swing nearly knocked him off his feet.
"Holy shit. How the hell is he this strong?" Yohan was genuinely horrified. This wasn't normal. In terms of pure physical strength, this guy might actually be stronger than the demon he fought in Valifield.
"I thought you would grow up and challenge me again someday, but I never expected you to try and kill us all like this." What was even more terrifying was that the Chief hadn't even targeted Yohan. It was merely a gesture to scold Billy. Like a parent disciplining a misbehaving child, lightly tapping a switch against their palm.
"If we try to block that head-on, our bones will be turned to dust. We have to dodge everything," Yohan told Falco and Jack. The two nodded in unison.
Alright, then just like last time, let's blast him with a beam of light and vaporize him completely. Yohan made up his mind and adjusted his grip on the Light Sword.
"A challenge?"
"Yes."
Meanwhile, Billy and the Chief continued their exchange. Yohan watched them, ready to swing the Light Sword at any moment. Although they were currently in a standoff, the dozens of cannibal trolls before them could charge at any second. If he was worried about that, he could always strike first. But Yohan didn't swing blindly. He could gather more information through Billy and the Chief's conversation.
"Do you know what a member of our tribe must do to be recognized as an adult?" At the Chief's question, Billy nodded silently. "To kill several people alone and return," he murmured in a low voice.
"That is not it." But the Chief rejected Billy's answer. "It is to find a strong enemy outside, defeat them, and return."
Billy froze at the Chief's response. Yohan quickly realized why Billy was so shocked. Until now, Billy had believed that the villagers were slaughtered simply because they had caught the Chief's eye by chance. But that wasn't the case. The Chief had come to the village from the very beginning with the intention of challenging Billy's father, and had slaughtered the villagers who got in his way in the process.
"What... what does that mean?" Billy asked in a trembling voice.
"And, my child. You are currently refusing to be a member of our tribe. Therefore, the most suitable opponent for your challenge is..." The Chief himself. He didn't need to finish the sentence; everyone present knew exactly what he meant.
"You're completely out of your mind," Yohan, who had been listening quietly, chimed in.
"That was your goal from the very beginning?"
"Of course." When Billy asked in a quiet voice, the Chief nodded once more.
"The reason you killed my family and friends right in front of my eyes..."
"Your father was indeed a strong warrior, but he was too old to take over the tribe in the future."
Thud. As if all strength had drained from his legs, Billy collapsed onto the ground. At the same time, the club he was holding rolled away.
"The reason you turned a blind eye to me living near the village and turning travelers away..." Billy muttered in a fading, quiet voice.
"Because once you become an 'adult', you will inherit my position." The Chief answered in his soft voice once again.
From the start, Billy was a member of the tribe, and even if he was away for now, he was destined to return. That was why they had tolerated his actions so generously until now. Even then, they had only spared Billy from responsibility. In reality, the number of travelers who had successfully escaped with Billy's help was surely minuscule. Otherwise, the sheer volume of corpses and bones filling the village area could not be explained.
"My child. So, why don't you end this childish rebellion now? Of course, you will have to take responsibility for this incident." The Chief added, lightly glancing over Yohan, Falco, and Jack.
"I... I can't..." Billy couldn't even think of standing back up.
"Now. Let us begin." Saying so, the Chief slowly raised his greatsword and pointed the tip at Yohan. "Kill all the rest. However, I shall handle this peculiar one myself."
"Hehehe."
"We've been waiting."
As the Chief's order fell, the trolls who had remained silent finally spoke up.
"Hey, hey. You all heard him, right? Keep your wits about you," Yohan shouted to his companions, refusing to be outdone.
"Yeah."
"Do not worry."
Falco and Jack replied from behind him.
"Tsk." Yohan clicked his tongue. He had been curious about the details, but he hadn't expected such a twisted form of affection.
"Forget human meat, let's try some elf meat today."
"Good idea."
"Twist the arms and legs, don't just tear them off."
The trolls' attention was focused on Falco as they spoke. But instead of being afraid, Falco actually smiled faintly.
"Yohan. I am extremely angry right now."
"Yeah, yeah. I can tell." She had held back when the village youth was grabbing Yohan, but it seemed Falco had completely lost her temper now.
"Bring it on, you bastards!" He couldn't lose either. Yohan raised his Light Sword and roared at the trolls. "Snack time!"
As if in response, the cannibal trolls shrieked and began their assault. And at the center of it all was the Troll Chief, charging directly at Yohan.
"Whoa!" Despite his massive build, the Chief was incredibly fast. Furthermore, every time he leaped, the ground caved in, and a mere swing of his greatsword whipped up a gale reminiscent of a typhoon. He was a literal monster.
"Hey! Dummy! I don't have to hold back my firepower this time, right?" Yohan asked the Goddess while dodging the Chief's strikes.
"Alright!" Leap. Yohan, who had been clashing with the Chief at point-blank range, suddenly leaped backward to create a massive distance. The moment he landed, he gathered the Goddess's energy circulating through his body. The condensed divine power gathered into the Light Sword, transforming its neat blade into a violently blazing flame.
"Hee-yah! I don't care anymore!" It was literally do-or-die. Yohan swung the Light Sword, which had grown far larger than usual.
"Where do you think—!" The Troll Chief charged with a panicked expression, but the distance between them was too great for him to stop Yohan.
Roar! The Divine Flame, which reduced all evil to ash, swept through the Troll Village.