Chapter 25
Chapter 25
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 25
Chapter Title: And Then There Were None (2)
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Under the glittering chandelier, the rat-like faces of the vermin came into view.
Federback drew his sword without a word.
"Get down."
The rats huddled into the corner in terror.
Federback spoke again.
"If you lie down quietly, I'll kill you without pain."
Then, one vicious-looking noblewoman bellowed.
"Bullshit! If we're dying anyway, at least I'll take one of your arms!"
At her shout, the secret door at the back swung open.
Knights clad in black heavy armor poured out from within.
Some of the old gentlemen also made subtle gestures with their eyes and hands.
Doors in the ceiling and floor burst open, and assassins wielding daggers leaped forth.
They had hidden private soldiers in secret even here.
...Of course,
"One arm?"
Shing—
The white blade slid free.
"Not one arm—if you can so much as nick a single hair on my head, I'll pardon all your sins."
Federback strode toward the knights and assassins before him.
Whoosh!
One knight swung his greatsword.
But Federback raised the shield in his left hand to block it.
Clang—!
Even after clashing with the massive greatsword, the shield from Cardina showed not a single scratch.
Slash!
The tip of Federback's sword lightly grazed the gap between the knight's helmet and breastplate.
"Grrk!?"
A massive fountain of blood erupted from near the neck, and the hulking knight toppled in an instant.
Meursault 1st Form: Bloodletting
This alone was enough to crush the trash in front of him.
Slash! Slash! Slash! Crack! Slash!
Federback's sword tip swept across the floor.
The ankles and cruciate ligaments of the heavy-armored knights snapped one after another.
"Kk!?"
"Aaaack!"
"Grooo..."
The knights in their bulky armor collapsed to the floor, wriggling helplessly, unable to rise again.
With the knights down and thrashing, the lightly armored assassins' paths became a chaotic mess.
Unable to leverage their numbers, they were stabbed in the eyes and groins by Federback's blade, soon joining the knights on the floor.
Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab!
Federback roamed the room impassively, slitting the knights' and assassins' throats.
Meanwhile, the noblewomen and old gentlemen who had summoned them trembled with ashen faces.
The high-class salon's ceiling and walls were dyed the same crimson as the floor.
Drip— Drip— Drip—
Blood splattered to the ceiling rained down like droplets.
Federback halted his sword only after piercing every soldier's neck.
As he swept back his white hair, a few blood drops speckled his face.
At last, everyone prostrated themselves before Federback.
"Mercy! We were wrong!"
"Spare our lives!"
"We'll surrender everything we own—please!"
Federback nodded.
"We'll handle confiscating the hidden assets. From you, I'll take just one thing."
The noblewoman who had shouted earlier lifted her head, her face lit with faint hope.
"Thank you! What shall we offer?"
"Your lives."
Federback's sword slashed diagonally.
Splurt splurt splurtsplurt!
A chain of blood fountains.
The noblewoman's and old gentlemen's heads rolled across the floor.
It was the end for the trash who had spent their lives sticking straws into the commoners' backs.
The slaughter was finished.
The floor of the once-elegant social club, now indistinguishable from a slaughterhouse, brimmed with black beast blood up to the ankles.
The maids who worked in the salon retched endlessly at the sight.
But amid the hill of corpses and river of blood,
Scrape— Scrape— Scrape—
Federback calmly tended to his sword.
A white handkerchief wiped the blood and grime from the blade.
Federback addressed the knights behind him in a casual tone.
"Report."
"Yes."
One Meursault knight stepped forward and reported to Federback.
"We've captured a total of 134 disobedients from the social club's lower level. Fifty-three were on the wanted list; the rest were mere participants."
"Guide the simple participants, then release them."
"Swords for guidance, or clubs?"
"Do clubs guide anyone? Use swords. Among the fifty-three wanted, any dead besides these?"
"None outside these. Just crippled."
"Toss them in the underground prison. Injuries on our side?"
"Of course not."
The Meursault knight snorted proudly, nodding.
Gazing at the sprawled dead in the social club, he continued with evident relief.
"Circumstances suggest they were gearing up to assassinate Young Master."
"Everyone's got a plausible scheme. Right up until their throats are slit."
"What now?"
"What do you think? Drag in the dead ones' families, cram them in the underground prison, and torture. Confiscate all remaining assets for poor relief and welfare."
"As you command!"
The knight thumped his chest with zealous vigor at Federback's words.
...Meanwhile.
"You. Come here."
Federback beckoned to the room's corner.
One survivor huddled and shivering amid the corpses.
A middle-aged man with a long goatee.
Federback's eyes narrowed.
"No need to fear. Didn't I promise to protect the informant's safety?"
The goatee man looked up.
Sancho.
He was a traitor to the anti-Meursault alliance.
The internal whistleblower who had tipped Federback off about this gathering's time and place.
The quick-witted rat scampered straight to Federback.
"A-as expected of Young Master! I believed in you. Knew you'd wipe out this wicked pack in a flash. J-just... didn't expect it to be this much of a flash."
With colleagues who'd been laughing moments ago now sprawled spurting blood like butchered livestock, his babbling was understandable.
But Federback offered no quarter for Sancho's panic.
"That all of them?"
"Pardon?"
"Is that everyone you were gonna rat out?"
"!"
Anxiety clouded Sancho's face.
Federback prodded Sancho's chest with his sword tip.
"You should've been lying here bleeding out too. Considering the damage you've inflicted on the territory's people all this time, you're still way short."
"Oh mercy, spot on, sir! Th-there's more! Way more! Mountains of rats to turn in!"
"Good. Was starting to worry that was it."
Federback sheathed his spotless sword at his waist.
"I'd hate to stain my freshly cleaned blade with blood and filth again."
"Eek!?"
Sancho trembled, head bowed.
Never dreamed he'd cower before a kid half his age like this.
But Federback's eyes weren't those of a fifteen-year-old boy.
Fierce predator eyes.
A human shell barely containing something beyond imagining.
Federback gripped Sancho's shoulder.
Then murmured low.
"All sorts of black money must've flowed through this salon. Confess every detail—where it came from, where it went. Everyone who entrusted laundering, everyone who did it... all die."
"... ... ..."
The underground economy—once deemed a necessary evil impossible to eradicate.
Federback's ironclad resolve to uproot, dismember, and annihilate every trace of Meursault's shadow dealings left Sancho speechless.
This boy... he could actually pull it off.
The anti-Meursault alliance's rats were boxed in.
Blood soon began filling the crate.
Even the surviving rats faced drowning in their dead kin's blood.
Quick-witted ones clambered atop others' heads without a second thought.
"Might as well rat first."
"Fetch the ledgers on everyone we've dealt with."
"Hurry. Gotta snitch ASAP."
"Side with Meursault, save our skins at least."
Fire now scorched the feet of those who'd long mocked the law while bleeding commoners dry.
Denunciations exploded.
Black money poured back in droves; back taxes collected themselves.
...Soldiers peddling military supply graft.
...Merchant guilds dodging taxes.
...Human trafficking rings rampant with abductions.
...Shadow outfits doing hits and beatings for pay.
...Meursault bureaucrats taking bribes to ignore crimes.
All the shadow-dwellers living high got dragged into the light.
Straight into the iron fist of the "Federback Special Law."
Federback yanked the guillotine rope without a flicker of hesitation.
Chop— Chop— Chop— Chop— Chop— Chop— Chop— Chop—
Villains dropped daily.
Lilies in the execution ground flowerbeds turned wholly red.
Federback ordered the executed dumped in the castle's rear garden plot.
"Grow potatoes, millet, beans here. My meals from now on—crops from this soil."
Even Meursault knights shuddered at those chilling words.
If knights quaked, imagine the criminals' terror.
Rumors flew: Federback farms criminal corpses as fertilizer, eats the harvest.
Self-reports skyrocketed.
Underlings rat bosses; bosses rat big bosses.
Big bosses haul in underling dossiers to confess.
A bizarre daily spectacle.
At this point, less "war on crime," more "war among criminals."