Lawless Zone Requitas, Part 3
It wasn't particularly surprising. After all, most forms of trust were bound to shatter eventually. In the first place, wasn't trust a commodity that was rarely ever reciprocated? If it were otherwise, the very word "betrayal" wouldn't even exist. What had to happen had simply happened.
Surely, it shouldn't have felt so novel, yet a bitter taste lingered in the girl's mouth. Her green eyes swept over the corpse sprawled on the ground. It was the body of a woman all too familiar to her. A childhood friend who had shared her youth. The very person she had relied on in her most perilous moments had just died by her own blade.
In this lawless, godless hell, childhood was synonymous with "the time when I was weakest." Harsh training, hostile factions constantly gunning for her life—this friend had been her sole comfort as she navigated that brutal environment. Perhaps that was why she had been so soft. Even when she noticed her friend acting suspiciously, she hadn't been able to press for answers. She hadn't wanted to believe her only friend could betray her. More likely, she had simply been terrified of hearing the truth. She had fled from reality like a coward.
In the end, she had to pay the price for her cowardice. Her childhood friend's betrayal had exposed their hideout, forcing her to slay the "enemy closest to her" in that very instant. The face of her friend, coughing up a torrent of blood, refused to fade from her mind. Had their eyes met at the very end? She couldn't remember. Suddenly, a suffocating tightness gripped her chest. At times like this, she preferred physical pain.
Get a grip. Do you really have the luxury to be daydreaming right now? Ironically, inflicting pain upon herself was the easiest thing in the world. All she had to do was move. Her slender leg took a single step forward. The moment she did, a searing, hot pain flared in her thigh—the result of a slash she had taken earlier. Blood trickled past her knee and ran down her leg, making her blood-soaked clothes cling uncomfortably to her skin.
"You still want to keep going?"
Glancing back, she saw three men. The one in the lead wore a mocking sneer. Earlier, she had managed to slash his chest once. It hadn't been deep. She had aimed for his throat and failed, leaving herself open to a fierce counterattack. As a result, blood was still seeping from various wounds all over her body. None of them were fatal yet, but it was becoming increasingly difficult to move. Perhaps due to the blood loss, her breathing was growing ragged.
"Come on, let's make this easy on ourselves. At this rate, it looks less like you're running to your boss and more like you want to play with us."
"Ha! If that's the case, you should've just said so earlier."
The men were already acting as if they had her cornered. They tossed out vulgar jokes and loudly bantered with crude, suggestive remarks. Isha didn't particularly care about their words. It wasn't as if she hadn't heard such threats before. Living in Requitas, one was bound to hear some variation of "kill the men and rape the women" at least once a week. While some places might reverse the roles, that was the standard threat around here.
Yes, the men's words weren't the problem. If anything, their stupidity was almost pitiful. It seemed they assumed every woman would blush and cower at crude jokes, likely because the only women they had ever encountered were the prostitutes in the southern pleasure district. However, unlike their foolishness and vulgarity, their combat skills were not to be underestimated.
Their coordination is too tight.
The training she had endured all her life had not betrayed her. If it were a one-on-one fight, she could have managed to take one of them down. But there were three of them, and their teamwork showed a seasoned coordination. Coordination meant they weren't just common thugs relying on brute strength.
Which means they're likely former mercenaries...
Mercenaries were the most frequent visitors to Requitas. This was because the front lines where humanity clashed with the demons lay just beyond the borders of this lawless zone. There was a reason why vast amounts of gold flowed into this otherwise wretched city. Mercenary work paid handsomely, but there was never any guarantee of surviving the next battle to spend it. Since hoarding wealth was pointless once you were dead, they were inevitably a debauched bunch.
Paid mercenaries spent their fortunes indulging in the vices of this lawless city. Once their pockets ran dry, they headed back to the front lines. Meanwhile, Requitas periodically bribed the neighboring nobles, and those bribes eventually became the funds used to pay the surviving mercenaries. Thus, alongside simple-minded thugs, battle-hardened mercenaries were a common sight in Requitas. Some who came as customers realized how lucrative the local syndicates were and chose to settle down. These men were likely of that breed. This time, the cliché threats she always heard might actually become reality.
If it comes to the worst, I should take my own life.
If she were captured like this, she would become nothing more than their trophy. She had never heard of anyone in Requitas showing mercy or respect to the family of a rival syndicate's boss. The most merciful end here was death, and even then, they would often mutilate the corpse to make an example of it. Since she couldn't protect her honor after death anyway, she had to at least avoid the humiliation she would suffer while alive.
Just as she steeled her resolve, the men's blades began to close in on her throat once more. Even as they spewed vulgar jokes, they left no openings. She swung her sword a few times, but her strikes were blocked at every turn, met only with sharp counterattacks. The more their blades clashed, the more she felt it—the overwhelming gap in their strength. By now, she had no choice but to realize the truth: the only reason she was still breathing was because they hadn't chosen to kill her yet. She was only able to resist because the Sewer Rats' goal was to capture her alive, not execute her. But even that stroke of luck was slowly running out.
"This is getting tedious. Come to think of it, she doesn't really need both arms, does she?"
Their onslaught intensified instantly. As the men pressed their attack in earnest, she was forced to retreat. A counterattack was out of the question, and the chaotic slum alleyways were far too narrow. How many minutes had passed? No, had it even been minutes? The clash was brief but relentless. When she blocked a sword, a kick flew at her; when she dodged the kick, a new gash opened on her arm. By the time she gathered her bearings, she was battered, bruised, and cornered. With nowhere left to run, she lashed out in a desperate, final struggle. The outcome was grim. One of the men's blades pierced her flank.
"Ahhh!"
"Ah, damn. My bad. I think that went in a bit too deep."
It was a fatal wound. Intense pain and a profound weakness washed over her entire body. The strength drained from her arms in an instant, and she staggered. One of the mercenaries didn't miss the opening. Her sword was wrenched from her grasp, and she was seized by the hair. Despair clouded her face. Regret flooded her mind. The moment she had been cornered, she should have slit her own throat.
The mercenary pulled his arm back, preparing to strike her across the face. Had his palm connected, it would have left a violent red mark on her cheek, but his intention was never realized. An axe, flying out of nowhere, buried itself straight into his skull.
"Gurgle...?"
"What the hell?!"
The remaining mercenaries panicked, immediately dropping into defensive stances, while Isha, forgotten, collapsed to the ground. She looked around in a daze, her beautiful green eyes spinning. Beyond the fresh corpse, a man clad in black was drawing near. He possessed a rugged, imposing countenance. With a sudden flutter of his black coat, he severed another mercenary's neck in the blink of an eye. Having wielded a sword herself, Isha could recognize it instantly. It was a breathtakingly beautiful trajectory. The very act of drawing his sword from his waist became a single, fluid strike that cleaved the mercenary's body. For a brief moment, a clean, surreal cut was visible before the bifurcated corpse fell to the ground.
The last remaining mercenary fared no better. The man strode forward, seized the mercenary by the throat, and lifted him off the ground.
He let out a soft chuckle.
"Now that I'm close, I can tell. You haven't been on the drug for very long, have you? I was worried because I couldn't catch that fishy stench from a distance."
Snap!
Like a fragile twig, the mercenary's neck broke. It was an end that left no room for final words. Was a human neck truly something that could be twisted so effortlessly? Even wringing a chicken's neck wouldn't result in such an instantaneous death.
Isha swallowed hard. In a moment that stretched into eternity, three corpses lay scattered on the ground, and the man finally turned to look at her. He had dark black hair and piercing blue eyes. The instant their eyes met, her breath caught in her throat.
"H-Hieee..."
To her, the man looked like death incarnate—a brutal, savage death. His mere presence seemed to evoke a primal terror from the deepest depths of human instinct. She curled her toes tightly. If she didn't, she felt she might wet herself right then and there. A single glance from this man carried more weight than all the hundreds of crude insults and threats she had ever heard combined.
Death swept its gaze over her, then tilted its head slightly. He looked exactly like a beast of prey contemplating whether to devour her, causing her fingertips to tremble violently once more. Soon, Death spoke. His voice was a deep, resonant baritone that seemed to echo inside her head.
"You're badly hurt. What is your name?"
"I-Isha... My name is Isha."
"Isha? You are Isha of the Shadow Moon?"
"I... I didn't hear you clearly, but yes, my name is Isha."