Chapter 46
Chapter: 46
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>Translator: penny
>Chapter: 046
>Chapter Title: Premonition (4)
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Let me take a brief step back into the past.
At the time, young Nate was deeply immersed in his culinary travels, and there was a period when he was particularly obsessed with seafood dishes. He stayed for several days in a port city famous for its shrimp cuisine, where he encountered an old man whose dark circles reached down to his chin.
The man introduced himself as the Guardian of Delcros. He was in the midst of battling a dire threat looming over the dimension he protected, and it was wearing him down to the bone.
"Uh... um..."
Even back then, the boy possessed innate spirit sight and exceptional divine power, so he could immediately tell the old man's words weren't mere bluster. Hoping his sincere sympathy would reach the man, Nate crunched into a piece of crispy fried shrimp.
"So help me out! Don't just pretend to care with words!"
"Uh... um..."
"You rotten bastard! Do you think this is just about me getting ahead on my own? The dimension you live in is about to perish!"
The important thing wasn't whether it would perish, but when.
"So the crisis is imminent. In a hundred years—no, at least within a few decades—a terrifying calamity will strike this world!"
A hundred years, or even decades. That was beyond his scope of consideration.
Nate nodded.
"Please stay healthy and continue serving the world."
"What?"
Veins bulged prominently on the old man's forehead.
"You're the only one on this continent worth asking. All I need is for you to wield my authority from time to time when necessary!"
"Isn't your authority something that can't just be invoked at will, sir?"
"I'm not asking that much of a human like you! Just assist me a bit, yeah? Lend a hand. Otherwise, I'll drop dead before any dimension is at risk!"
"Well, I'm planning to die in a few years myself..."
"Gahhh!" The old man looked ready to breathe fire.
Yet just a few years later, the Guardian of Delcros stared in bewilderment at Nate, who had come running to him on his own two feet, the man's face pale as a ghost.
"Sir, when exactly is that world's crisis? What do I need to do?"
This was right after Nate had received word from the information guild that he was the father of three more children, just before Melody's due date.
* * *
'Isn't this all karmic retribution from back then, sir?'
As the bandit shook him by the collar, rattling his head back and forth, Nate couldn't help but think such pathetic thoughts.
If only he'd helped the overworked old man a little sooner.
If he'd rolled up his sleeves and actively assisted from the start, maybe he wouldn't have wandered around so recklessly, chasing romances left and right.
Then again, if he had, he never would have met these children. A world without the kids he'd already met was now unimaginable to him.
"You little shit! What nerve! You planning to clam up to the end?"
The bandit gripping his collar lost his temper and swung a fist. Reflexively twisting his torso just enough, Nate let the punch graze past by a hair's breadth, lost in thought.
By the way, what on earth was that kid Kaiyen thinking?
It seemed the boy had been born with spirit sight like him, but Nate never imagined he'd resort to devouring souls.
Had he gone hungry as a child? Had abuse under someone like Jerome twisted his personality? Or had he suffered a severe head injury young, leaving him unable to think straight?
When Nate first learned the child was doing such things, rage had boiled over. But in truth, wasn't it all his fault for not finding and caring for the boy in time?
"Huh? This bastard just dodged?"
As the bandit raised his other fist, Nate spun his body around the gripped collar, wrapping both legs around the man's neck and twisting. The weight wasn't quite enough to topple him fully, but luckily, the bandit released the robe hem in panic, bracing himself on the ground with his arms.
In that gap, Nate rolled aside and sprang up, sweeping the ankle of another dumbfounded bandit low before pivoting to kick the jaw of yet another standing nearby.
Gurk! Hack! The bandits staggered but didn't fully collapse.
It was a disaster born of the homunculus body's excessive lightness, plus no aura to bolster his strength. If only he could swing handcuffs like before.
"That bastard? He's no ordinary prisoner—he's professionally trained!"
"Everyone, rush him! Kill the fucker!"
Uwaaaah! The bandits charged at him en masse, but Nate was still lost in his daze.
At least he'd found the kid now, he thought with relief.
His bad premonition had spurred him to hurry here; if he'd waited around for the guild's investigation, he might have lost the trail entirely after the subjugation squad swept through the mountain village.
First things first, he needed to find Kaiyen and have a talk. He'd already placed a barrier on the child's soul at the cliff base, so pinpointing his location was effortless now.
Whoosh. Ducking a bandit's vicious haymaker, Nate whipped his leg back around, slamming the man's nape into the ground. Crack!
He spun to let another attacker's rush glance off, then used the momentum for another rotation, heel-kicking a nearby bandit's temple. Thwack!
The constant spinning was a bit annoying, but channeling his strength that way actually landed solid hits this time.
He feebly turned toward the next bandit.
"...This guy's insane!"
"How's he still moving like that when he's staggering so bad?"
Just as the bandit said, without aura, his body could barely muster one full-powered strike before collapsing—yet fortunately, divine power restored him enough for one more after each hit.
In other words, Nate wouldn't go down mid-fight. It was just excruciatingly exhausting.
He dashed toward the bandits at the entrance, leaping off his running momentum to up-kick one's jaw. Gah!
Regrettably, the power fell a bit short this time. As the bandit reeled but blocked the entrance, the ones behind charged.
Nate leaped back, headbutting the nearest bandit's jaw. If once wasn't enough, he'd just hit multiple times.
* * *
"I never imagined it'd turn into this..."
By the time Kaiyen reached the clearing's shed, all the bandits inside were already sprawled on the floor.
Nate had used the dagger meant to threaten the boy to cut the ropes and was pondering whether to slice off an arm while at it. He hesitated because the short dagger wasn't ideal for severing a limb without aura, and the homunculus body actually benefited from the weight of heavy handcuffs in combat.
The boy, peeking cautiously through the slightly ajar shed door, flinched at the unexpected sight. Nate called out softly.
"Kaiyen."
The boy scowled fiercely, lips twisting in a pout.
"What? How do you know my name? Who the hell are you to call me?"
"..."
"What the hell happened here? Your doing?"
His pitch-black eyes darted wildly.
"You... you're really Asin's spy, aren't you?"
"We need to talk."
"...?"
Kaiyen eyed Nate's face closely for a moment. But reading meaningful emotions from the impassive man was no easy task. As the boy stared at Nate's cool features, his own expression drained away like an ebbing tide.
His furrowed brows relaxed, and his exaggeratedly twitching lips drooped. He'd consciously mimicked the bandits' faces to no effect and saw no need to continue.
Soon, the two facing each other wore eerily similar blank expressions, like mirrors.
Kaiyen impassively scanned the downed bandits inside the shed. Seeing no sign of the freshly handcuffed ones stirring, he limped in, locked the door, and slowly turned to Nate.
"...Talk about what?"
For Kaiyen, this was his first encounter with someone who could see souls like him. With time before the subjugation squad arrived, and the man wanting to talk, there was no reason to refuse.
Plus, he needed to figure out what that guy had done to him recently.
"Why are you eating souls? Since when have you been doing it?"
"Why should I tell you?"
The boy seemed less mocking than genuinely curious.
"Your answer will determine how I stop you."
"Like what you did last time?"
"Like what I did last time."
Nate nodded, and this time the boy's brows truly furrowed.
That was a problem.
"Then the talk's off. If you're set on interfering no matter what, what's the point of talking to you?"
He turned toward the door but halted at Nate's next words.
"Have you ever examined your own soul?"
"...?"
"Did you truly not know what devouring souls does to your own?"
It implied the act was harming him.
Kaiyen quietly contemplated his soul. It looked much like his usual body.
The difference? The souls he'd gorged on in the past few days hadn't digested properly, protruding from various parts of him.
[You want to kill Aslan, right? Why me? Huh? Why me?]
Conrad's face poked from his gut, weeping bloody tears. The guy he'd killed with Rodrigo days ago by pulling out his nails.
Rodrigo's leg dangled from his back, and Marta’s right arm swung from his neck.
Jerome's freshly devoured face protruded from his side, wailing.
[Uwaaaah! Marta, Marta, Marta!]
"Hmm, a bit of a mess."
This rarely happened, but scarfing too many souls lately had caused the old ones to pop out too.
He shrugged it off nonchalantly, but Nate's expression grew subtly odd. Tilting his head, he asked.
"You're not feeling your soul's pain? The raw dark emotions from all those souls flooding in at once—that's no ordinary human burden..."
"My soul's in pain?"
Kaiyen cocked his head. He couldn't comprehend it.
He'd been emotionally numb since infancy. Growing up, he'd realized he differed from others, but the clever boy quickly mimicked the bandits' faces, erasing the odd vibes they sensed.
It wasn't hard. Bandits were always angry anyway.
Scowling, yelling, cursing—that was enough for them to accept him as one of their own. That was how he'd survived till now.
Maybe his soul couldn't feel emotions like others'. His spirit sight couldn't see his own expression, so no way to confirm.
But if it didn't bother him now, wasn't that fine?
Nate shook his head at his words.
"You think a crumbling soul leaves the body unscathed? Eventually, you'll have to bear it somehow."
"Hmm..."
Come to think of it.
Jerome's soul had shredded and gone half-mad in an instant.
Just yesterday, the boy had mocked his foster father for not realizing what his soul craved while eating Jerome's. But was he no different from that fool?
"Fine, whatever. So why are you interfering? The ones I ate have nothing to do with you. If there's fallout, it's my problem—not yours."
Nate met the boy's gaze steadily.
"It's not unrelated. All your mistakes become my responsibility, and your problems become mine."
"What? Why would that be?"
The boy grumbled skeptically, but Nate's next words left even Kaiyen gaping dumbly.
"Because I'm your father."
Huh? Wh-what?