Chapter 702: Monsters and Talent
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 702: Monsters and Talent
The man who resembled Odinkar had come here on his Master's orders.
His Master had said:
"Go and kill her."
The reason? There was no need to know. His Master was a god. Obeying a god's word was the only natural path for a follower.
Besides, was killing a mere girl such a big deal? He had set out with a light heart.
What he actually had to do would only begin after this was over. In his mind, this task was no different from going into a city slum, finding some child running errands for a thieves' guild—one destined to have their limbs severed to become a future pickpocket or beggar—and coaxing them to come along.
It was that easy, and that insignificant.
Obtaining a single test subject was something he could have easily ordered his subordinates to handle. Because he had been tasked with such an unimportant chore, a small spark of discontent flared up inside him.
Wasn't I destined for much greater things? Why am I doing this?
How impious, the man scolded himself. He was a follower. Therefore, he had to remain faithful to his god.
Though it wasn't visible on the surface, his Master surely had a grand design behind everything. That was what a god was, after all.
To test one's faith, a god might strip away a man's wealth and kill his children. Even when covered in boils from head to toe, pushed to the brink of drowning in an ocean of suffering, the god would watch to see if the man still believed. Some might call this a sick joke, but to the man, it was faith.
Returning to this trivial task, nothing would change just because a slum child resisted. He had a pack of mutated monsters behind him, and he himself wielded deadly poisons.
All he had to do was subdue the rebellious child. A knight stood in his way, but that shouldn't have been a major obstacle either.
"Do you think my poison is so easily—"
The man shook his head, intending to mock the insolent pair before him, but his words were cut short.
A thunderous roar tore through the pouring rain.
BOOM!
It was the sound of a sword ripping through the air.
A greatsword split a Scaler—a monster whose hide alone was as tough as the follower's own reinforced skin.
To be precise, the monster had targeted the girl's back, but the bastard wielding the greatsword had lightly spun around and swung his blade in a fluid arc.
And this was a man who was supposed to be poisoned.
Why is he perfectly fine?
Knights were monsters. He knew that. That was why he used poison and threw acids that could melt bone.
Whoosh!
The roar of the rain quickly filled the brief silence left by the sword strike. It felt as if a flood were imminent. Water flowing from the room spilled into the hallway, splashing around their feet. It should have been uncomfortable, but Ragna casually kicked the water aside, shifted his stance, and swung the greatsword held in both hands.
Thud, slash! Crack!
Two Owlbears and a black-scaled Scaler that had blindly rushed him were split open and collapsed to the floor.
In the flooded hallway, the Scaler's black eyes spun wildly before stopping. Even with its body cut in half, it struggled with its persistent vitality before finally dying. The creature, its eyes rolling, twitched its remaining half-leg one last time and went still.
Right in front of it, the monster with the greatsword casually held his weapon in one hand while rotating his other shoulder. He seemed to be checking for stiffness.
"What kind of medicine was that?" the monster wielding the greatsword asked the girl beside him.
"It's nothing much. It looked like a crude neurotoxin, so I just gave you an antidote I made a while ago. At a glance, it seemed to be a paralyzing neurotoxin extracted from snakes. You catch a few venomous snakes, extract the venom, and inject it in small amounts into goats or camels until their blood develops the strength to overcome the poison. You refine the serum from that—but would you even understand if I explained it?"
The target girl stopped talking and looked up. There was no pride in her red eyes for what she had done. Her tone was entirely nonchalant.
"That's impossible!" the follower shouted.
He had refined this poison multiple times until very recently; how could she already have an antidote? Furthermore, the recipe for the paralyzing neurotoxin he had just used was only developed last month.
What this girl was saying made absolutely no sense.
"What doesn't make sense?" the girl asked.
"You couldn't have made an antidote without knowing my poison!" the follower replied.
To this, the girl spoke as if it were nothing, like plucking a common wildflower by the roadside.
"What's so special about a poison made with such a crude method that anyone could do it?"
Indeed, to make sense of her words, one had to accept a single hypothesis: that the poison he had spent decades—practically his entire life—researching was nothing more than a crude recipe to her. In other words, his life's work was just a passing theory to this girl.
Did that make any sense? If it did, then she was a monster among monsters.
To the follower, she looked far more monstrous than the beast wielding the greatsword.
"Die!"
The follower's eyes burned with boiling jealousy. He had to kill this pair right now. He didn't know why, but a sudden sense of duty surged within him.
He pulled out a new poison. This one caused hallucinations, driving the victims into a state of frenzied lovemaking until they died of exhaustion. If they were outdoors, the wind and rain would have washed it away, but they were indoors—it was just their bad luck.
The follower rubbed the powder between his palms. It crumbled into even finer particles and dispersed into the air.
This is a different poison. There is no way it will fail, he muttered to himself, scattering the poisonous powder.
"You keep doing useless things. What's wrong with your face? Did you have surgery?"
Anne reached into her bag—the one she always carried, made of three layers of oiled leather, crafted by a former Border Guard Standing Army tailor renowned for his exceptional sewing skills. She pulled her hand out, popped a pill into her own mouth, and popped another into Ragna's.
The monster with the greatsword had his own arms and hands, yet he readily accepted the pill from her.
The follower hated seeing that, too. It only fueled his burning desire to kill them.
Despite the powder dispersing, the two remained perfectly fine. Their faces didn't flush, their eyes didn't turn red, and they didn't even let out a simple cough.
Since the powder didn't work, the man threw a liquid potion. It was his signature concoction—an acid that, upon contact, would burn through armor made of demonic beast hide, let alone bones. Human skin would melt from the mere fumes.
As he splashed the liquid into the air, he threw a short spear with his other hand. His modified muscles produced strength comparable to a knight's. Theoretically, at least—but trying to match a knight with raw physical strength alone was an absurdly foolish endeavor.
The follower knew this. That was why he used poison-tipped short spears. He still had three short spears with shortened handles at his waist, designed for close-range throwing. He had originally started with five, having thrown one through the window and another after entering.
The monster swung his greatsword as if it were a rapier, deflecting the short spear, and nimbly stepped aside to avoid the falling acid—all while holding the other monster in his arms.
"Attaaack!" the follower shrieked, losing his mind.
His heart pounded, and his vision turned red. He had to kill them right now, especially that little monster.
A dozen monsters rose from the darkness and lunged. Scalers modified with bat wings scurried along the ceiling of the hallway.
The dangerous one is the little monster. I can kill the greatsword guy somehow.
He quickly realized that was a delusion. The moment the greatsword twitched, it moved at a speed his dynamic vision couldn't possibly track.
Boom! Boom!
Consecutive tearing sounds echoed through the air. Four of the lunging monsters were instantly shredded, crushed, and blown away.
The follower froze, his arm still stretched back to throw another short spear.
"...You crazy monster bastards."
It was rich coming from someone who had modified his own body and reconstructed his face through surgery, but from his perspective, it was a natural reaction. The reason he had abandoned his humanity and lived among monsters was his desire to become a superior being.
Yes, to be completely honest, he wanted to catch up to the talent of those damn geniuses and feel a sense of superiority. Yet here were two monsters standing before him, casually rendering his entire life's path meaningless.
Seeing beings who were far superior to him purely through talent, without even abandoning their humanity, brought a sense of self-loathing he had never felt before.
Why? Why? I even gave up being human, so why?
The monsters he brought should have given any ordinary knight a hard time, and with his poison added to the mix, he should have been able to kill them.
Not a chance.
The monster with the greatsword protected the smaller monster while 'casually' slaughtering all the beasts, and then brought his blade down toward him. Aside from that first glance, the follower had never been able to properly keep Anne in his sight. The monster with the greatsword simply wouldn't allow it.
It was the same at the very end.
The monster rushed straight at him, swung his greatsword down, and retreated—his movement path perfectly shielding the female monster behind his back. The monster was even faster at retreating than he was at advancing.
He had no more tricks up his sleeve, but even if he did, they would have been useless. That man did not let his guard down for a single second until the very end.
"Gurgle."
As his head was split by the greatsword, the poisons that had been kept in balance within his body ran wild, tearing through and eating away at his internal organs. In the end, he would die from his own toxins before the sword wound could claim him.
Before his final candle flickered out, he realized why that burning sense of duty to kill the small female monster had arisen within him.
She will get in Master's way.
A talent too brilliant inspires fear. Moreover, this girl seemed to possess the kind of talent that could thwart whatever his Master had prepared.
The thoughts he had right before his death could never be conveyed to anyone. He simply died.
*
"Are you alright?" Ragna asked, stepping a reasonable distance away from the corpses of the dead monsters as he wiped the blade of his greatsword.
Looking at the blade, he could clearly see its uneven edge. The blade had been damaged. The monsters' bodies were entirely composed of toxic substances. The blood of one of them was identical to the acid thrown by the man mimicking Odinkar. It was a substance that burned anything it touched.
Regardless of whether one had an antidote, it would damage and burn the skin upon contact, making it highly dangerous. However, Ragna had simply calculated the trajectory of the blood splatters and avoided them all.
Only a few drops of poison had landed on his shirt. The leather-reinforced doublet he wore instead of a regular shirt was made of high-quality demonic beast hide, making it useful as armor on its own. Of course, the standard practice would be to wear iron plates over it.
A few holes had opened up in that armor. As for the blade, it was only slightly damaged from slicing and dicing monsters filled with poison.
"Aside from my stomach feeling a bit upset, I'm fine," Anne replied.
As she spoke, she fastened the triple cover of her bag, which could easily be considered a masterpiece.
Whoosh.
With this, the items inside wouldn't be damaged even in a storm of this magnitude. It was a bag designed to keep out every single drop of water even if submerged, so it would easily withstand a mere rainstorm.
"I think we should head to the Captain," Anne said again.
There was likely a commotion outside as well, but they couldn't tell right now. Even for Ragna, capturing any sound in this raging storm was difficult.
Crash!
Lightning struck repeatedly in the background. Ragna walked slowly, keeping Anne behind him, remaining vigilant in case an enemy he hadn't detected approached.
"Are you protecting me?" Anne asked.
Ragna spoke his mind directly. He was, after all, a man devoid of falsehood or pretense.
"As long as I'm alive, you won't die."
Anne's face flushed slightly.
Isn't this a confession?
* * *
Encrid stood with the Head of House Zaun in front of him and the fastest swordsman he had ever seen behind him. That swordsman's name was Alexandra.
And between the two of them, an interloper named Schmidt had slipped in. He was an Imperial squire who used a fast sword and exuded the scent of spells.
"What on earth is going on?" Schmidt asked, looking like a drowned rat.
Even though he was soaking wet and his hair was plastered to his face, he didn't even think to brush it away, his expression filled with sheer bewilderment.
If this is an act... Schmidt would easily be the greatest actor on the continent.
Setting aside a knight's intuition, his reaction was genuine.
Encrid asked the Head of House Zaun, "Why did the woman named Milestia die?"
He asked why. Even if he didn't fully grasp the unfolding situation, his intuition told him her death had been planned. He asked with that implication, and the Head of House Zaun, contrary to his appearance, understood immediately.
"She died to bring about this situation," the Head of House Zaun answered, turning his head toward Encrid.
Whoosh.
The rain, falling like sheets of steel, showed no signs of stopping. Crash! Lightning struck repeatedly, filling those holding weapons with anxiety. If they were unlucky, they could be struck by lightning and die. Originally, fighting with iron weapons was forbidden in Zaun during this season. Given the geographical characteristics of the basin combined with lightning's affinity for iron, one could truly suffer the misfortune of being struck dead.
"May I ask a favor of you?" the Head of House Zaun asked.
The source of Grida's anxiety was the Head of House Zaun himself. She suspected that, for some reason, he was betraying the family and plotting something.
"Yes," Encrid replied calmly.
"If I should die, I ask that you clean up the aftermath. My successor is..."
Cutting himself off, he leaned in close. Bringing his face to Encrid's ear, the Head of House Zaun whispered the rest. Hearing this, Encrid nodded.
"I will."
"Thank you."
"It's nothing."
"It must be our good fortune that this fellow arrived with Ragna at a time like this, wouldn't you say?" Alexandra spoke while they shared their quiet exchange, her gaze shifting to the pouring rain and the people facing off against each other.
One might expect a trace of sentimentality in her eyes, but to Encrid, they held nothing but fighting spirit.
She continued, "Even if it isn't, well, there's nothing we can do about it."
Indeed. Encrid agreed with her. Especially on the part about there being nothing they could do.
The Head of House Zaun is likely not an enemy.
Grida had her doubts, but that was Encrid's judgment. Looking at the situation from a broader perspective made it clear. The Head of House Zaun was already the most influential person even if he did nothing. There was no reason for him to step forward and plot anything.
Furthermore, if his intention were to ruin Zaun, there was absolutely no need to go about it this way. He could have easily summoned them one by one in secret and killed them.
Also, Odinkar's disappearance was likely the Head of House Zaun's doing. To be precise, it wasn't a disappearance, but rather him hiding himself away due to a request or an order. Odinkar had mentioned that his reason for coming to the Border Guard was the Head of House Zaun's command, and if he hadn't vanished of his own free will, only one possibility remained.
Although many details were still hazy, Encrid could deduce this much through speculation alone.
Well, there is also the possibility that the Head of House Zaun fell into some cult and did something strange.
But would someone who had achieved the rank of knight be so easily corrupted by external influences? Especially those who wielded Will as their weapon? The probability was too low.
Of course, those standing before and behind him might have become enemies for some reason unknown to Encrid. But even if that were the case, it didn't matter. That was why he had followed them here alone.
The man who had loudly called out to the Head of House Zaun earlier stepped forward. His name was Rynox. Although he was the most vocal critic of the Head of House Zaun's actions, he had not betrayed the family. His reason for calling out to the Head of House Zaun was to demand that he clean up this mess.
He barely managed to calm the two factions, whose fighting spirits were flaring.
"Damn it. If anyone swings a sword at each other, I'll smash your head in. I mean it. Don't fight. Got it? There won't be a warning. I'm not joking."
It was hard to tell if he even knew what he was saying. His words were disjointed. Yet, his message seemed to get through, as the two divided groups refrained from fighting for the moment.
Having calmed the two factions, Rynox approached and said, "Hescal stabbed Grida."
Encrid noticed that Rynox, who had made his way through the pouring rain, had tightly wrapped his six swords in cloth. It was likely to protect against lightning. He had probably been quietly in his room, pondering how to spar even while lightning struck, when this incident suddenly erupted, and he must have been attacked as well. Scratches were visible on his cheek and shoulder, with dark blood welling up from the wounds.
The Head of House Zaun replied to Rynox's words, "I see."
"This is no time to be so relaxed. They said Andante is dead too. I was attacked as well. Some of them over there are saying Hescal would never do such a thing, but Hescal killed Jerry, Iven, Roist, and Pale. Damn it, and a few others followed him. What are you going to do now, Tempest?"
The Head of House Zaun's name was Tempest. 'Tempe' was a nickname only a friend would use. Since Rynox was a personal friend, it was natural for him to use the nickname.
Tempest Zaun weighed his options, balancing what he had anticipated against what had caught him off guard.
"We find the enemy."
"And once we find them?" Rynox asked back.
"We fight."
The deed was done, and now only action remained. Encrid nodded at the wise decision of the Head of House Zaun. It was the right call.