Giving Freely
I could imitate a human's abilities to a certain degree after eating them.
It was because I read their memories in the process of devouring them, and inherited those memories intact.
If I ate a swordsman, I could make the path of the blade they had walked my own. If I ate a mage, I could claim their methods of mana control.
And living as a monster in the back alleys, there was one ability I needed more desperately than any other.
Stealth.
I was in a position where I had to move quietly without anyone knowing, yet I was clumsy at hiding myself.
I had been rewriting the memories of every person who saw me, but the fact that rumors about me still leaked out said everything.
Tampering with another person's mind was more mentally exhausting than I had expected, and far more dangerous.
That was why I needed a talent that would let me hide my body with ease.
I could not keep relying on memory manipulation forever.
"······!"
Beorn had exactly what I wanted. So Beorn had to die for the sake of my survival.
I held no personal grudge against him, but this world ran on the principle of the strong devouring the weak.
Had he not tried to sell me—or kill me—for monetary gain? It was pure self-defense.
After exchanging a few blows with me, he vanished from sight once more.
It was not merely that the naked eye could not see him. There were no footsteps, not even a trace of presence.
Unless he closed to point-blank range, even I could not pinpoint his location with certainty.
But that was fine.
An attack with a sword usually carried killing intent without the wielder realizing it.
I was particularly sensitive to murderous aura, so parrying his strikes was never difficult.
And then—
-Clang!!
The moment we made physical contact, the perception-hindering magic scattered and vanished.
It was the same when our blades met. Anything beyond a certain level of impact seemed to break it.
Once again Beorn clashed swords with me in the middle of the corridor, and the shock on his face was plain.
He had every right to be surprised. Until the instant of contact, the blade had been invisible. No one had ever blocked it before.
"You···. What the hell are you, you little bastard?"
Beorn took a step back, scowling.
What the hell was I? A difficult question to answer.
Not knowing what to say, I simply released a thin thread of magi from my body.
A dense black mist settled over the floor. An indirect way of telling him I was not human.
"······A monster?"
I did not deny his question. I only raised my blade and waited for him to move.
This was not a situation that required conversation. This was a slaughter.
For our own reasons, we each had to kill the other. There was no good or evil in it.
It was simply so that we could live a little more comfortably in this world.
I was the same. So was Beorn.
Struggling to survive was an instinct common to every living thing.
Nothing about it was wrong, and so I respected his will as well.
He wanted to kill me.
If he could manage it, that was fine. In the end we were all just trying to get by. He was not in the wrong.
It was merely a difference of position.
"Hm."
I lifted my knife and settled into a stance. At first I had planned to subdue him with an illusion, but he refused to meet my eyes.
Sharp instincts, perhaps.
Whenever I tried to catch his gaze he looked away, and when it seemed he could not avoid it he simply widened the distance.
From that far away, even locking eyes would not let me show him a hallucination.
Had he already seen through my ability?
It might have become known because of all the chaos I had caused in the underground prison.
The people I had tormented had been his subordinates, after all.
But—
It doesn't matter.
Sometimes a conversation of blades was not so bad. And the human I had eaten yesterday had been a knight.
I gripped the knife's hilt with both hands and prepared to leap.
And then—
-Clang!
Beorn and I sprang forward at the same moment.
I accelerated by crossing the ground in rapid successive steps; he vanished from sight.
I swung several times toward the places I thought he might be, but of course nothing connected.
Even with my eyes closed and every sense focused, I could not feel his presence. I raced through the narrow corridor hunting him, yet I could not find him.
So I used my head.
The deliberation was brief, the decision bold. Invisible or not, he had to be nearby.
I changed the direction of the blade. The knife that had been aimed at Beorn now pointed at myself.
I raised the sword in my right hand and drove it through my left. With a wet sound, crimson blood burst into the air.
-Whoosh!
I swung the hand that now had a hole punched through it. I was scattering blood toward something unseen.
The spray arced through the empty air and finally struck Beorn, and only then could I see him clearly.
He had hidden his form and made no sound, but he could not erase the scent of blood.
Especially since it was my own blood; finding him was no trouble at all.
"There you are."
I settled into stance at once and leapt.
Both hands on the knife, I carved the sword forms into my body.
One great sweeping cut, followed immediately by two more.
It looked as though a single stroke had split into three branches.
Imperial Sword Style, Third Form.
A technique that used one large cut as a feint while embedding two more blades—once it entered my hands, it became something entirely different.
It was no longer a feint.
The single great cut existed solely to shatter the opponent's weapon completely, and the two strokes that followed were meant to carve certain fatal wounds.
A technique created by humans to kill monsters was now being used by a monster. Naturally its power was on another level.
A coarse shearing sound rang through the air. It was the sound of Beorn's body being cut apart.
"KRAAAAAAAH!!"
In an instant one arm was severed, and he screamed in pure agony.
The sword he had swung in defense shattered midway, and I carved through his now-defenseless body.
Beorn's stealth dissolved and he reappeared. Clutching the stump of his arm, he writhed in pain; at that moment he almost looked pitiful.
"Khhhk!! You son of a bitch!!"
"······."
On closer look, he was not pitiful at all.
I walked forward with the blood-smeared knife in hand.
As I approached to finish things, he recoiled in horror, stumbling backward.
"You fucking bitch!! Stay back!! Stay the fuck away, you dog-shit whore!!"
Dog-shit whore, was it?
That hurt my feelings a little.
I took another step closer.
"W-wait!! I—I was wrong!! So please!!"
Rage, then terror.
Nothing he said sounded particularly nutritious, so I did not bother listening.
I kept walking.
"You fucking—"
They say a cornered rat will bite a cat.
I was no cat, but Beorn yanked a dagger from his belt and swung it at me.
A hidden weapon, apparently.
But he had already lost the will to fight, so the swing was nothing like before.
He simply flailed the blade in blind panic.
It annoyed me, so I casually knocked it aside and cut.
"AAAAAAH!!! My arm!! AAAAAH!!"
He still seemed to have strength left to move, so I made sure he could not.
At last Beorn, mortally wounded, sank to his knees. This time he would not be getting up.
I reached him. His eyes were already clouding, his face twisted with pain.
I had no hobby of torturing living humans. I decided to give him peace as quickly as possible.
I crouched low, matching his eye level.
Then I made those fading eyes meet mine.
"Sleep well."
I cupped his cheeks with both hands and whispered softly. What was he seeing in the final moment before his eyes closed?
To absorb his ability I slowly locked gazes with him and read his memories.
The first thing that appeared was the most painful landscape of all—a winter day.
That was when I understood.
Until the very last moment he closed his eyes, he had been trapped in a vicious nightmare.
The business with the slave trader seemed to be finished.
After eating Beorn, I tested the ability by making myself disappear.
"······."
Did it work?
From my own perspective it was hard to tell what had changed.
It was not that my body became transparent; it was closer to casting a perception-hindering spell on the surroundings.
To my own eyes my body was perfectly visible. But the mirror did not reflect me.
Maintaining the state drained my stamina, so there were limits of a sort.
That aside—
How much is all this?
I had no idea why Beorn had been carrying so much money.
I counted it: one hundred gold coins. Who walked around with that much cash?
I quietly pocketed the purse.
It had tasted good.
In high spirits I climbed the stairs to leave.
At the top stood a man I had never seen before. Reading his memories told me he was the owner of this slave shop.
The moment our eyes met, his face drained of all color.
"Y-y-you—!"
What was this?
I casually struck him across the head and knocked him out. In his hand was another money pouch.
I counted that one too: another hundred gold coins.
What?
Was he giving it to me?
I took that as well.
Becoming rich turned out to be easier than I had thought.