Chapter 18
Chapter 18
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 18
Chapter Title: Fake Church (7)
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The worship hall was a scene of utter carnage.
Pastor Myer, who had come with us, spotted the middle-aged priest being choked by the collar up on the pulpit and muttered in a panicked voice.
"C-Cult leader..."
Before he could finish, a hand shot out and clamped over his mouth in an instant.
"Mmph—"
"Quiet."
After issuing a low warning not to make a sound, Esty turned to me and whispered cautiously.
"They haven't noticed us yet. What are your orders?"
"...Let's watch a bit longer for now. I want to know what the hell is going on."
So we all held our breath again, peering through the crack in the door at the two men inside the hall.
Up on the pulpit, a young man with bloodshot eyes had the middle-aged man—whom Pastor Myer had called the cult leader—by the collar. The cult leader's face had already turned blue from lack of air, managing only faint, wheezing gasps.
Suddenly, a roar erupted from the young man.
"You promised!!!"
His voice was thick with rage.
"Remember?! I trusted your one promise and... I gave everything!!"
The cult leader twisted in agony from the vise-like grip on his collar, but the young man didn't let up and kept shouting.
"That ridiculous fanatic act...! The agonizing combat implant surgeries that made my teeth chatter! I endured ripping my body apart over and over, modifying it, remodeling it—that horrific pain...!"
His voice bordered on a scream.
"All of it! I held out because I believed your promise! You said if I just did as you asked... you'd heal my sister... my one and only sister! That's why I spent years handling all your filthy, dirty cleanup jobs!!"
"Guhk...!"
As he spoke, he shook his victim like he was trying to wring him out.
"And now what? Now you say... now you say there's no way?! Then what the hell was all that bullshit you spouted? That thousand-day prayer crap?! The holy water! All those miracles you babbled about in front of the believers every time—what the fuck were they?!?!?"
Blood vessels burst in his eyes. His pupils dilated from extreme agitation.
By now, he didn't even seem to want an answer.
"Say it again with that fancy mouth of yours! Say it!!!"
His rage boiled over, snapping the last thread of reason.
The young man let out a beastly howl and seized the cult leader's lower jaw with both hands. The cult leader's eyes bulged in terror.
"Uh, ugh... ughhh—!!!!!!"
Blue veins bulged on the young man's arms, followed by a sickening crack...
The cult leader's lower jaw tore clean off.
"Gahk...!"
Blood gushed out like a faucet left fully open.
The cult leader's body swayed and collapsed, dead.
But the young man wasn't satisfied. He started stomping on the corpse with all his might, kicking and hurling it around. And as he did, he began laughing like a madman.
"Haha... ahahaha!"
His completely deranged laughter echoed chillingly through the worship hall.
After laughing for a while, he abruptly stopped and looked down at his wrist.
With a click from inside his modified forearm, a built-in firearm slid into view.
Like a man possessed, he turned and fired at the scattered corpses one by one.
Bang! Bang! Rat-a-tat-tat!
This wasn't even a mercy kill. The bodies were already stone-cold.
Emptiness. Fury. Despair over the irreversible.
All those emotions had exploded, shattering his sanity.
"Ha, haha, hahaha! Hnngh..."
Thud! Splat!!
The young man kept savagely tearing into the surrounding corpses.
In this space devoid of any living soul, his body driven purely by impulse—laughing and crying maniacally—was all too familiar.
This was the horrific side effect of excessive neural implants and body modifications.
The end for those who became more machine than human.
'Cybernetic Rage...!'
I swallowed a gasp without thinking.
It was a tiny sound, but the cyborg's hypersensitive senses, lost in madness, caught it.
In that instant, his gun trained on a nearby corpse froze. Slowly... ever so slowly, his head turned toward us. His bloodshot, unfocused eyes locked exactly onto me through the open door crack.
He stared blankly for a long moment before murmuring in a childlike voice.
"Yoanna...?"
An unfamiliar name slipped from his trembling lips.
His pupils were fully dilated, his face a mask of confusion.
Suddenly flustered, the young man backed away.
"Y-Yoanna...! Th-this... I mean, no! Listen to me! It's not what it looks like!"
Hallucinations, visions, auditory distortions.
They were classic symptoms of implant addiction.
He was looking at me, but not really seeing me.
"Th-this... I didn't really want to do it... No, that's not it...!"
His face frantic, he stammered disjointed, incoherent excuses desperately.
Then, like donning a new mask, his expression flipped entirely.
The prior confusion vanished like a mirage.
As if nothing had happened, he called out to me in a gentle, affectionate tone.
"Yoanna! Why are you standing there? It's dangerous. Come here. Yeah? Something good happened today. I'll order tons of tasty food when we get home."
With that, he started striding toward us.
Bodies squelched under his feet, but he paid them no mind.
His bloodshot gaze fixed solely on me through the door—or rather, on whoever he was overlaying in his mind.
The gentle smile on his face sent chills down my spine.
I instinctively stepped back.
"...!"
In that moment, Esty stepped in front of me, blocking his path.
"Stop. Don't come any closer."
At the firm command, the smile vanished from the young man's face. Bloodshot fury returned.
He glared at Esty like he wanted to kill her and bellowed.
"Get out of my way! Who the hell are you to interfere! Stay away from Yoanna!!!"
"Eve, please fall back as far as you can."
Without even glancing my way, she issued the order firmly.
It felt a little off coming from her. Esty always dispatched threats effortlessly while protecting me, without a hint of strain or tension.
But this time, the atmosphere was different.
Did that mean the guy in front of her was that dangerous?
"........."
I nodded silently and backed away, tension coiling in my gut.
One step, two steps—and on the third backward step.
BOOM!!!
I didn't even register the movement.
Somehow, their forearms had clashed. What followed was an exchange too fast for the eye to track. I couldn't tell who struck first or who blocked. It was insanely quick.
'Reflex acceleration...! Both of them...?!'
I strained my eyes to follow, but all I caught were flickering afterimages and collision shockwaves.
Kr-boom! Clang! Krunch!
Dull thuds, sharp metal clashes, and shattering sounds filled the hall nonstop.
KRAAANG!!!!
As the fight intensified, deafening impact blasts hammered one after another, nearly deafening me.
No bombs or firearms—just the aftermath of two bare, or mechanized, bodies colliding. The massive shockwave tousled my hair wildly. It was unbelievable.
'No way...'
Was combat between top-tier implant users this overwhelming? Nothing like what I'd seen in games. The sheer power rooted me in place.
A superhuman clash, where they'd abandoned their humanity for strength.
"Gahk!"
The lightning-fast brawl ended just as quickly.
In the final exchange, the blood-soaked young man was sent flying.
"Grk—!"
His body staggered with a scream.
Before he could fall, Esty grabbed his hair and slammed him into the floor.
Thud—!
The hall's floor spiderwebbed with cracks.
And the young man didn't move again.
"...Hoo."
Esty caught her breath lightly.
Despite the fierce battle, she showed no notable injuries.
'Taking down a monster like that without a scratch...'
The young man's display had been shocking enough, but Esty's clean suppression left me awestruck anew.
Suddenly, she turned to me and spoke.
"Eve, I have a proposal."
"Yes?"
She glanced down at the fallen young man.
"This man... he's a mercenary of rare caliber around these parts."
Her tone was as calm as ever, but the suggestion caught me off guard.
"And during that brief clash just now, there was a gap in your protection. My oversight. This incident made me realize—even I can't eliminate every threat perfectly alone."
Esty candidly acknowledged her limits—or lack thereof—and got to the point.
"So... how about recruiting him as a new bodyguard?"
"A bodyguard...?"
I looked again at the motionless figure on the floor.
He'd probably killed dozens here alone. Whether it was Cybernetic Overmodification Syndrome or his true nature, I couldn't tell yet.
'He seems to have a story, though.'
As I pondered, Esty added as if reading my mind.
"If he refuses the deal or proves an irredeemable killer... we can dispose of him then."
Her confident advice eased my decision. Worst case, Esty was here—no uncontrollable scenario would arise.
Leaving him now meant certain death. Cybernetic Rage-level Overmodification had no treatment, not even symptom relief.
Maybe letting him slip away unconscious would be kinder.
But...
'Everyone deserves at least one chance.'
Treating people as people started with offering that chance.
The first step to resolving misunderstandings and understanding others was communication.
I looked down at the fallen young man one last time and made my choice.
"Then for now... shall we at least talk once?"