Chapter 303
Chapter 303
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 303
Chapter Title: Master, You're Too Cruel
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A heavy pressure bore down on my shoulders.
Attacking this place was definitely a rash decision.
Even with my growth in strength, this was Flower's home base.
I'd overlooked the possibility that a cadre member might be here.
With so many places we'd raided, I'd assumed this was just another fringe outpost, like the one with Lee Siheon—an uncontrollable cult hideout.
'To think I'd run into a cadre member here.'
Should I run? The thought flashed through my mind.
I knew Sistus handled clones.
From the one time I'd met her before, her self-detonation could deal a fatal blow not just to my master, but even to me now.
A walking bomb that could turn an entire factory to dust.
'Suicide Flower, Sistus.'
Sympy, Goroshi, and I had once pooled all our mana to create a barrier and block her explosion.
Even that hadn't been enough—I'd been exposed once, and I'd truly been on the brink of death.
⚙ SPIRIT LINK ⚙ <Master.> 'Yeah.'
⚙ SPIRIT LINK ⚙ <That one... seems a bit grotesque.> 'Grotesque? What do you mean?'
Woodpecker Lucy's spirit eyes gleamed as she watched Sistus.
⚙ SPIRIT LINK ⚙ <The Spirit Eye pierces not just mana, but essence itself.> 'I can't see it.'
⚙ SPIRIT LINK ⚙ <Master hasn't reached that level of spirit assimilation yet.> The Sistus in my eyes.
A toddler with short limbs.
Now assimilated with spirits, I could tell the mana packed inside her was no joke.
Lucy stammered a bit more.
As if questioning what she was seeing.
Her voice was filled with terror.
⚙ SPIRIT LINK ⚙ <Neither alive nor dead... Ah, no. That is...> 'Calm down. What's wrong?'
⚙ SPIRIT LINK ⚙ <...I see children's corpses.> What made up the being called Sistus.
⚙ SPIRIT LINK ⚙ <Probably used to make that clone. Children's corpses.> The ensuing silence was profound.
Styrax's branches swayed wordlessly.
A child used to make that clone?
My eyes turned to Sistus's face.
It looked like the most ordinary child's face.
But now, it seemed vaguely distorted.
Like eyes and nose forcibly torn from someone else and pasted on. Cold sweat trickled down my back.
It felt like looking at a human-like doll.
Sistus watched me from afar.
Her eyes scanned me from top to bottom. Then suddenly, she stepped forward.
The clone vanished right before my eyes.
-Whoosh!
I barely read the movement.
I jerked my head back just in time to dodge the kick.
The crude kick whipped up air currents. Dust piled thick on the church floor was swept up by the wind she created.
"...Hoh."
Sistus's voice held a note of surprise.
Her intent to gauge me was obvious.
'When we first met, she acted like she knew me. Does she not now?'
At the factory, Sistus hadn't hidden her identity.
She'd seemed to recognize me. Now I could guess why.
Within Flower, my existence was already well-known among the cadres.
Famous as the Wood Spirit King's successor.
'Even if this one doesn't know, there's no way for me to tell.'
I thrust my fist forward.
Transforming my staff into leather gloves, I wrapped them around both hands.
'I don't even know if clones share memories.'
Dark flames spread as I infused them with mana.
'I don't know when this clone was made.'
It might have been created recently.
Or maybe it was unused stock, knowledge not yet inputted.
Either way, it didn't matter to me.
Kidnapping children seemed like Sistus's plan.
Even within Flower, it looked like forbidden behavior. It would erode the goodwill of people in Flower territories.
But with her clone here, she was doing it knowingly.
In short, there was infighting among the cadres.
[......]
Styrax stood speechless.
Trembling like an aspen in fear.
"Your punishment can wait."
[S-Sistus...]
Sistus slowly descended from the air, her expression still blank.
Her next move was obvious without looking.
I commanded the spirits without time to think.
"Both of you, fall back."
[Mas— Kyah!]
Eleonore was flung away by the shockwave.
-Boom!
A crater formed in the stone floor of the church.
Sistus's heel had slammed down.
A child's body. Physically ill-suited for martial arts.
Yet the killing intent pouring from her fist was nothing to ignore.
No sense of fighting a child at all.
Lucy and Eleonore, knocked away, soared into the air.
Targeting them? Sistus bent her knees.
I couldn't trade punches with such an opponent.
-Thud!
I struck down Sistus's leaping body.
She crossed her arms to block.
Naturally shifting the target back to me.
'Manageable.'
Opponent was a suicide weapon.
Pure combat power wasn't that high.
If specialized for battle, maybe different. But at best, high-output A-rank.
Couldn't control her strength well either.
Seemed incomplete, or just a safeguard for this place.
I poured mana into my body to boost speed.
-Boom!
Sistus's airborne body crashed into the floor.
Her head smashed through, and blood seeped from my grip on her face.
Damn, the disgust of fighting a child overwhelmed me.
"......You."
Sistus spoke between my fingers.
"Are strong."
Her tiny hands couldn't fully grasp my forearm.
In other words, that childish a body.
Blood leaked from Sistus's twitching eyes.
"No choice. Have to abandon this body."
Between my fingers, the child's eyes met mine.
"Not bad for a bastard wearing human skin."
"......"
More verbose and natural than the one I'd seen before.
Emotionless eyes and voice the same, but clones improving over time?
Sistus continued.
"Congratulations."
As if trying to etch trauma into me.
"You've killed ten innocent children."
Sistus's face twisted grotesquely.
It reflected children's faces one by one.
So horrific I averted my eyes—blood-soaked expressions on the verge of screams flashed before me.
Probably another of Sistus's schemes.
Easier to break a hero's conscience than kill him outright.
Why hunters go mad.
Likely because of existences like Sistus.
I raised my fist.
After all ten faces, she might detonate.
I brought it down first, ending her.
What if the children weren't dead, still alive in her body?
Maybe savable.
Maybe those faces were really theirs.
Such thoughts weren't absent.
But I was too exhausted to care.
Sistus's ploy was cruel, but futile.
-Crunch!
Her head burst, meeting its end.
⚙ SPIRIT LINK ⚙ [Master, are you okay!?] "Yeah."
I roughly washed the blood off my fist with magic.
I covered Sistus's body with sand.
Killed ten, saved ten.
I glanced at the children behind me, then back at Styrax.
[...Si-Sist...us?]
Styrax muttered in shock.
Never expected a cadre to fall. Her will to fight was gone.
As I approached, her roots panicked, blocking me.
"Now."
Sistus's punishment.
Now it was my turn.
"Spill everything you know, bitch."
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ "Dead."
As expected.
Sent a clone, and it didn't even fulfill its role.
"Should've authorized self-detonation."
Sistus lounged on her throne, tilting her head lazily.
No one around her.
Her attendants were clones; all her daily life supported by clones.
Possible with that manpower and ability.
"Thought it'd at least relay info. Couldn't even do that."
Useless thing.
Even an innocent tree would end up doomed.
Just a church in Texas. Could collapse anytime without issue; awkward position for support.
No top secrets or info handled there, no terror acts, so hunters and church ignored it.
One of hundreds of sites for clone production.
Still, shocking that even a clone fell.
"...Not surprising if defective."
Sistus narrowed her eyes at the front of her throne.
The long red carpet stretched endlessly, like owning a whole castle.
Size of four or five soccer fields.
Filled densely with her clones.
30,000.
All Sistus clones.
Sacrifices consumed, needless to say, numerous.
Proper use required tweaks; detonation ones set aside.
Each equivalent to B-to-A rank hunter.
Sistus, in a 15-year-old body, yawned lazily at them.
Her personal combat power was no slouch either.
Explains how she reached third petal.
"Not much time left."
Revenge on Wood People and World Tree.
Sistus calmed her burning heart, a smile on her lips.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ Handling the completely broken-willed Styrax was easy.
No resistance, just cowering.
[....]
I sent Tina and the kids to a slum I knew first.
Then met alone with the two spirits.
Priests remained, but after the clone died, they seemed unwilling to come.
🪵 Tree Footrest [Spit it out already!]
Tree Footrest pecked branches aggressively with her claws, berating her.
[Just kill me.]
"Annoying again."
How deep her ties to Flower to guard secrets this hard?
🪵 Tree Footrest [......All for humans. You're human too. Why do this to us?]
"Look at that."
Now appealing to me.
Never thought a tree's words could stir emotions.
Humans joining Flower for human rights?
Even if, a hundred concessions.
Arguing with me? Maybe the pearl case warrants it.
"But you're a tree."
I wasn't clueless anymore.
How World Tree treats humans.
Learned much from Sage about underworld.
Understood why.
No intent to oppose those beliefs.
Just inevitably entangled with Flower, must fight.
World Tree too.
"Like humans so much you joined Flower? Want me to believe that?"
🪵 Styrax [......Don't believe if you don't want. It's sincere.]
"Liking humans, but kidnapping kids to kill is okay?"
🪵 Styrax [Killing kids? Lady Sistus just protects them from the vile World Tree.]
"Oh."
This bitch was thoroughly insane.
From killing her clone myself, bullshit.
Spirit Lucy had confirmed long ago.
That clone made from children's sacrifices.
🪵 Styrax [She said she'd provide homes for starving humans every day.]
In her own body, no less.
Mentally ill hard to reason with.
Had to threaten to change attitude.
I stepped toward Styrax.
🪵 Styrax [W-Why approach?]
"Told you. Spill everything. Why this place exists, how it runs, whose purpose."
🪵 Styrax [Can't say. Kill me instead.]
"Fine?"
No choice then.
"See how long you hold out."
I reached out, snapping a branch in one go.
Grabbed her clothes and yanked back.
-Rrrrip!
Clothes tore, revealing her plump tree body.
🪵 Styrax [...Hic.]
Her reaction always annoyed me.
Styrax covered knots and body with branches.
I pulled them away, exposing the knot she'd hidden with hands.
It trembled.
"Won't talk?"
🪵 Styrax [......Gonna torture me sexually?]
"Trees endure pain well, weirdly."
🪵 Styrax [...Ha, ha. Won't talk. No matter how you defile me. Never.]
Tear branches like limbs, torture till honest.
Useless on lunatics.
Then brainwashing or clouding mind without hiding.
"Lucy."
⚙ SPIRIT LINK ⚙ <Yes, Master.> [Yes, Master.]
"Climb on here."
⚙ SPIRIT LINK ⚙ <...Pardon? Yes, understood.> Perplexed but obedient, the woodpecker perched on Styrax.
I stroked Tree Footrest first.
"You, go back."
🪵 Tree Footrest [Why, Master? Am I useless?]
"Might be too stimulating for you."
🪵 Tree Footrest [...I-I can handle it.]
I unsummoned her silently.
🪵 Tree Footrest [M-Master—]
Tree Footrest urgently called as she returned to the spirit realm.
Just me and Lucy now.
Soldier Lucy probably had such experience.
⚙ SPIRIT LINK ⚙ <Um. Master. What exactly...> I said dryly.
"Woodpecker."
⚙ SPIRIT LINK ⚙ <......Pardon?> "Peck."
Three seconds to comprehend.
⚙ SPIRIT LINK ⚙ <...!!!!> Styrax freaked out.
🪵 Styrax [W-Wait a sec.]
"Scared?"
🪵 Styrax [What... such vicious...]
Too late.
Lucy looked shocked but understood her duty. Peck-peck-peck. She started bobbing her head.
Woodpecker drilling wood: 20 times per second.
Head reciprocating at 7m/s.
Football players head clash: 80g impact.
Woodpecker beak on wood: 1200g.
🪵 Styrax [Ugh... Eugh... Eek, ughii!]
Not bad for on-the-spot torture.
I sat, watching Styrax shudder.
"Better talk before your knot's worn bare."
⚙ SPIRIT LINK ⚙ <...Master, you're too cruel.> I knew that.