Chapter 38
Chapter: 38
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>Translator: penny
>Chapter: 38
>Chapter Title: Predator (2)
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Marta hailed from a rural village in Rohan, renowned for its fine grapes.
Her beauty had quite the reputation around those parts, with villagers whispering that she’d soon become the lord’s concubine and live a life of luxury. That is, until a band of bandits turned the village into a wasteland.
Marta became the woman of the bandit leader, Jerome.
It was an unexpected marriage by plunder, but she adapted to her new life soon enough. There wasn’t much difference in hardship between toiling under the scorching sun in the lord’s vineyards and serving as the wife of a bandit chief.
Moreover, though Jerome occasionally lost his temper and raised his hand roughly, he generally cherished the beautiful Marta.
But soon another misfortune befell her. When her pregnancy had advanced and her belly swelled prominently, Jerome, in a drunken rage, struck her abdomen with his fist, causing her to collapse in a pool of blood.
She regained consciousness after a full day, but the child had already been lost.
Jerome watched her sit blankly in the hut, lost in a daze, with troubled eyes. Not long after, he brought over a tiny infant wrapped in swaddling clothes and tossed it unceremoniously before her.
It was a pretty boy with soft red newborn fuzz and eyes black as obsidian.
Marta could never forget the moment their eyes first met.
The bundled infant didn’t cry; it simply stared at her. Those pitch-black eyes were so deep and dark they seemed to reflect no light at all, as if devouring her tear-streaked image and sucking in her very soul.
Terrifying. It was utterly terrifying.
For a split second, Marta felt the urge to hurl the swaddling away, but a vague fear gripped her—that doing so would make the thing swallow her whole right then and there. She could do nothing.
“A… pretty baby.”
Jerome was pleased to see her smiling through tears, oblivious to the fact that they stemmed from fear rather than joy.
The baby Kaien grew robustly.
The few women in the camp would stroke the doll-like pretty face of the child and envy his mother, Marta. Jerome, too, was satisfied with the quiet baby who rarely cried.
The only one who felt an ongoing unease in the child’s presence was Marta, who spent time with him.
Whenever she failed to feed him on time or couldn’t catch him when he fell while playing, those black, expressionless eyes would stare right through her, filling her with a crushing terror that squeezed her heart.
Occasionally, when a drunken Jerome raised his hand toward the child, Marta had to throw herself in the way to block his violence. It was because of an irrational anxiety that failing to shield him properly would bring some horrific consequence from the boy.
Ah. Was she going mad? Whenever she gazed at the innocent, sleeping face of the child, she questioned her own sanity.
Was it because he wasn’t her biological son that she couldn’t love him fully? Perhaps the spot in her heart still held by the unborn child who had died tainted her view, making her unfairly resent and mistrust the quick-witted, clever Kaien who had taken his place.
But her anxieties soon became reality.
One day, while she was at the river washing clothes with the other women, Jerome came home early in a rare sober state and, for some unknown reason, suddenly lashed out at the child. That day, Kaien was flung against the hut wall, severely twisting his left knee.
The boy, who would never walk properly again from the grave injury, opened his eyes and silently glared at Marta with an impassive face. The gaze sent chills down her spine.
And the next day, Jerome, lost in a drunken stupor, returned home and unleashed unprecedented brutality on Marta.
His men and neighboring women, alerted late to the commotion, pulled him away, but by then Marta’s left elbow was utterly shattered.
It could have been coincidence. Yet when Marta awoke in her battered state, she came face-to-face with Kaien smiling brightly at her for the first time.
* * *
“How much has that brat figured out, huh? Mom.”
Marta numbly replayed Kaien’s voice in her dazed mind.
“I figured sending off that annoying lump would make him poke around familiar spots first, so what did I miss? Should I have just let Dad kill him yesterday after all?”
Stagger. Stagger. Her footsteps climbing the cliff were precarious.
“But if he died too soon, that suspicious old man would’ve started sniffing around elsewhere, right? Letting that Aslan scum off easy was already sticking in my craw. So I tried to buy just one more day, but was that too greedy?”
Tears streamed helplessly down her face. Yet regardless of Marta’s will, her feet steadily carried her toward the cliff’s edge.
“That’s why I need you, Mom. If you just do this right, everything gets solved.”
She had thought this grueling life would end someday, but not like this….
“At least you’re useful for once. Lucky, huh, Mom.”
With a final image of Kaien’s second bright smile directed at her, Marta’s foot kicked off the cliff’s edge.
* * *
Bam.
The door burst open violently as bandits stormed in, startling Aslan awake from his doze against the wall. Bart was already on his feet, watching them.
Before he could ask what was happening, one of them barked an order with a stern face.
“Get ready. Someone fell off the cliff.”
Fell off the cliff? That towering western one?
Then it’s already too late, isn’t it?
Aslan thought so, but the intruders’ grim mood suggested it was someone important.
He hastily grabbed some trauma salves, painkillers, and bandages before being all but dragged out of the hut with Bart.
By the time they reached the base of the cliff, a crowd had already gathered.
Before even reaching the patient, Aslan realized he was beyond saving. The man’s limbs were twisted every which way, his head submerged in a pool of his own blood. The metallic stench of blood hung heavy.
Only upon approaching did Aslan recognize her as Marta. Jerome stared down at her mangled form with a rigid expression.
Under the heavy silence, Aslan hurried to her side and knelt.
But no matter how he racked his brain, there was nothing he could do. Her skull was crushed in the back, and though she still drew ragged breaths, they wouldn’t last. Her dilated pupils shook unfocused.
Bart, who had quietly approached, selected a small pouch from the herbs they’d brought and held it out.
Aslan glanced at his face, took the pouch, and struck flint. Soon the pouch ignited, emitting a bitter herbal scent as it smoldered slowly.
“…What’s that?”
At Jerome’s hoarse voice, Aslan replied.
“It’s a plant for pain relief. It’ll ease her suffering.”
“…….”
And so they kept silent vigil by her side.
How much time passed? At last, her breathing stopped entirely, her pupils blown wide. Jerome personally closed her eyes, resting his hand over them in silence for a long while.
Finally, he spoke, his voice thick and sunken.
“…Who found her?”
“Hans from the search party. He was off duty today, out gathering wood….”
“Lock him in the barn.”
Gasps escaped the bandits. The pale-faced Hans scrambled forward, trembling as he knelt before Jerome.
“B-Boss! I reported it the moment I found her! Why me…?”
“Then tell me who pushed Marta off the cliff.”
“…What?”
Jerome spoke coldly, not even glancing at the stunned Hans.
“If no one pushed her, then you’re the culprit.”
“That’s not…!”
“What are you lot standing around for?”
He rose slowly, sweeping his gaze over his men. His face promised violence to anyone in his path, so a few who’d been eyeing the situation hesitantly grabbed the still-dazed Hans and backed away.
After glaring at them a moment, Jerome turned his gaze to Aslan, seated by Marta. The venom in his eyes froze Aslan like a mouse before a snake.
“Useless, all you so-called pharmacists.”
Spitting the words like gravel, Jerome turned and left.
The remaining people at the cliff base exchanged uneasy glances, at a loss. Forget the truth of the accident—their volatile leader’s rage could erupt anywhere now.
Aslan was mulling over Jerome’s parting words when a thud sounded—someone collapsing limply to the ground. It was Kaien.
The boy shook violently, his face ashen as if he’d seen a ghost.
Even a human scum like him turns out human at his mother’s death. That’s what Aslan thought at first, but soon realized otherwise. Kaien’s gaze wasn’t on Marta, but somewhere else entirely.
Specifically, on the figure standing beside Aslan….
‘Bart?’
Bart and Kaien stared each other down.
Aslan glanced up at him instinctively and froze, breath catching. Bart’s usual stoic face now looked utterly mechanical.
Yet an overwhelming fury radiated from him, far eclipsing Jerome’s menace—a bone-chilling pressure.
It was probably those eyes. Reflecting the early afternoon sun in an eerie silver sheen, they held a glacial chill that could freeze onlookers solid. It was no wonder Kaien reacted that way under their direct glare.
Bart pinned Kaien with his sword-sharp gaze for a long moment before speaking. His calm voice carried a tightly restrained rage that sent shivers through Aslan.
“Were you the one who left the souls in the mountains in that state?”
“You… what are….”
“I stood by, watching some foul thing meddle and perpetrate this farce, and it’s beyond absurd. What have you been devouring? Do you even grasp its meaning?”
Devouring? What?
Bewildered by the cryptic words, Aslan puzzled over them, but Kaien seemed to understand. His eyes bulged, the whites stark, nearly crossing in shock.
“W-What…? How do you…!”
Sweating coldly, Kaien scooted backward on the ground.
Noticing the odd tension at last, a few bandits—the same plunder squad that had watched Aslan since morning—wedged between them.
Rolling up sleeves with fierce scowls, they tightened the encirclement.
But with most bandits gone following Jerome, the rest seemed unsure how to handle Aslan and Bart.
In that moment, Kaien staggered to his feet and bolted, limping away.
Now’s the chance. Aslan thought.
Judging by Jerome’s parting mood, he had no intention of letting them live peacefully.
And Bart seemed to think the same.
“Prepare yourself, Aslan. We leave this place now.”
Thwack. Bart swung his arm, smashing his fist into the foremost bandit’s skull. No—his forehead caved in the shape of the manacles.
“……!”
“That bastard!”
“Kill him!”
The encircling bandits charged as one. In an instant, they were all sent sprawling by Bart’s blows.
Thud. Thwack.
It was exquisitely precise.
The wiry man who’d seemed aura-less dispatched them effortlessly with single strikes. He slipped past their flailing fists like a breeze, landing knuckles—no, manacles—on vital points via the simplest paths.
Most astonishingly, no aura activation emanated from him. He wielded only the heavy manacles and chains efficiently, battering their skulls.
Soon, no upright bandit remained at the cliff base. Each head bore the imprint of the manacles like a stamp.
The manacles’ power was tremendous—even wrists shredded just by resistance. Bart himself seemed surprised by the devastation as he stared at his own wrists.
“Thought it was just some shoddy prank, but this thing’s more prepared than I figured.”
No, whatever you’re thinking, that’s not it, Bart.