Vessel and Execution
Vessel and Execution
Between the lips of Ines, who was gnawing at her own flesh like a beast, red blood flowed without pause.
I pressed her tightly against my broad chest and held her.
"Stay still. I am here."
Kung, kung, kung.
As the sound of my heartbeat reached her, her struggles subsided slightly, but the torn wound on her forearm was still gruesome.
I couldn't leave it like this.
If the Church's healing didn't work, I needed the knowledge and eyes to dig into the cause.
I roughly tore off the buttons of my shirt and took it off.
I firmly placed my shirt, which still held my heavy scent and the warmth near my heart, into Ines's arms.
Ines bit down on my shirt with her blood-stained lips and curled up as if it were a lifeline.
The time I could be away was at most fifteen minutes.
With a dagger at my waist, I silently leaped over the dark dormitory window.
Academy outskirts, a secluded empty lot.
Soon, the sound of a beast in pain was heard.
"Aaah... dog-like bastard. Mad dog, fucking bastard..."
Clutching the jaw I had broken earlier, Erden was crawling on the ground, pouring a healing potion into his mouth.
Curses filled with pain and anger flowed endlessly.
"Me, to an ignorant sword-wielding bastard like that... Ugh! Someday I'll pour hydrochloric acid down that throat...!"
Seuk.
"Whose throat."
As my dry voice fell from behind him, Erden's body stiffened as if struck by lightning.
"Hii, hiik?!"
Before he could even turn around in shock,
I roughly grabbed his collar and the back of his worn robe with one hand.
"What, what is it! Let go! Let go, you crazy bastard!"
Erden struggled and tried to gather mana, but my fist mercilessly struck his solar plexus.
Peok-!
With his breath cut off, Erden rolled his eyes like a frog and vomited dry heaves.
"That mouth of yours, it sure talks a lot."
Without any compromise or explanation, I dragged the limp bastard like a sack of goods and ran through the darkness.
His shoes scraped against the ground, making a strange friction sound, but I didn't care.
Kwadangtang-!
Erden crashed ungracefully onto the dormitory floor.
"Keo, heok! Kkeulkeok! Th-this fucking bastard! You smashed my jaw, and now what insane thing are you doing...!"
Coming to his senses, Erden screamed and lifted his head.
But his anger didn't last long.
With the cool smell of iron, the tip of my dagger was precisely pressing against his Adam's apple.
"If you open your filthy mouth one more time, I'll slit your vocal cords right now."
At my murderous intent, Erden swallowed dryly and held his breath.
I stared straight into his eyes and warned in a voice even lower.
"And remember this. The moment you dare lay even a fingertip on that girl."
The tip of the dagger dug slightly into the skin of his neck. A drop of blood formed.
"You will die bleeding from every hole in your body. Got it."
Erden, terrified, nodded frantically.
"Look over there."
At my chin gesture, Erden's gaze turned to the corner of the bed.
In the darkness, Ines, hugging my shirt and whimpering like a beast.
Erden's dull eyes shook violently as he noticed her torn forearm and bloodstains.
"Figure out that girl's brain and body condition. Find out the reason."
My coercive command.
Erden, who had been terrified, was soon consumed by his inherent grotesque curiosity and the scholar's zeal unique to mages.
Forgetting that a knife was at his throat, he crawled on the floor and cautiously approached Ines's side.
"Euh, eueu..."
Ines shrank back at the unfamiliar aura and hugged the shirt more deeply.
Erden kept his distance and began to observe her condition by scattering fine mana around her.
Soon, Erden's brow twisted grotesquely.
"...Hey."
Erden rubbed his jaw and opened his mouth as if wronged.
"Listen without misunderstanding. I'm not saying this out of spite because you broke my jaw. I'm asking because it's something I investigated while setting up that hypothesis last time."
Erden pointed at Ines's wound with his finger.
"Almost every day, the priests of the Church are healing this girl, right?"
"Yes."
"But didn't you notice something strange? No matter how low-level the priest, the essence of holy power is perfect 'restoration'. Then why does it take days for even a small teeth mark or scratch to heal? Didn't you think the healing was abnormally slow?"
"...!"
My breath caught.
Erden was right.
The whip marks from the slave trader had disappeared, but not through an instant miracle—they had healed slowly over time, like scars fading.
To the point where I couldn't tell whether it was from the potion I poured or from the holy power.
Why did I only now realize that obvious and terrible contradiction?
As my eyes shook roughly, Erden spat out a diagnosis with a confident voice.
"Of course. This girl's 'vessel' itself, the one that should hold mana and holy power, is completely shattered."
Erden added with a chuckle.
"No, it's not shattered. It's just 'gone'. It's more accurate to say it was never there from birth, or it entirely evaporated to the point of nonexistence."
"...What?"
"It's not even like pouring water into a bottomless jar. If the jar itself is missing, even if you pour water, it won't stay in the body and just scatters. The high-ranking priests poured in holy power every day, so only the skin barely healed."
A complete vacuum of mana and holy power, with no vessel at all.
Erden swallowed dryly as if it were bizarre.
"This is insane. For a human, there should at least be a vessel as tiny as a speck. The fact that she's alive and breathing despite having her vessel completely evaporated is a phenomenon beyond a miracle. It's surprising that her heart hasn't stopped right now."
Thump.
My heart felt like it was plunging off a cliff.
A massive cognitive dissonance struck my mind.
My vision flickered dizzily.
That Ines had no vessel to hold holy power at all?
That she couldn't hold even a handful of external power inside her body?
Then what about that overwhelming and dazzling pure white holy power that poured out every night as she leaned against my chest?
The gears of thought meshed into a grotesque contradiction.
If the vessel is completely absent, unable to hold even a handful of external power inside the body,
then Ines should not be able to emit or transmit holy power.
Yet, every time she was held in my arms, a miraculous light poured in.
If it didn't come from Ines's body,
then from where did that sublime light bloom?
A chilling question ran down my spine.
An inexplicable thick fog swallowed my mind, shaking the very foundation of the truth I had believed without doubt.
"Haa..."
A cold breath escaped.
A lover who was only an empty shell, and a miraculously sourced light that was bizarrely untraceable.
Every premise was contradicted, and a fierce question followed.
But as my inner self sank into a swamp of confusion,
in Erden's eyes, a terrible and grotesque madness began to swirl.
"Keuheu, keuheuheuheu..."
Erden began to laugh like crazy, covering his face with both hands.
"With a completely absent vessel, how is she alive and breathing and emitting such bizarre waves? How? This is... the ultimate unknown that even a mage devoting a lifetime could never reach."
The eyes of a predator mad with knowledge.
His desire for inquiry completely swallowed even the fear of death.
"Hey, commoner. This is the discovery of the century."
Ppajik-!
Erden pulled out a protective magic tool that emitted a red light from his bosom and broke it like a beast.
The mana flowing from the magic tool wrapped around him.
Kwaaaaang-!
With a grotesque burst, a translucent blue magic barrier shot up in the middle of the room.
A barrier of 4th-class level, activated by borrowing the power of the magic tool.
It was a high-level magic far beyond his own ability, but with the aid of the magic tool, it was completed in an instant.
The barrier split the room in half, blocking my view.
"Kuhahaha! You fool! No matter how skilled a swordsman you are, you can't break through this barrier!"
From beyond the barrier, Erden sneered at me mockingly.
Blinded by greed, he seemed to have completely forgotten the fear from moments ago.
"You'll never break this barrier in your life! I'll take this girl to my master's lab and dissect her from head to toe!"
Erden cackled like a madman and reached his hand toward Ines.
'Fuck.'
I had been thinking too much.
Because of the shock and questions about Ines's condition, my reaction to his sudden move was a beat too late.
I was disqualified as a hunting dog.
"Take it away."
My voice was colder than a midwinter ice sheet.
"That dirty hand."
I reversed the dagger I was holding.
There was no need to maintain rationality.
The limits of this underdeveloped body? The pain of my body breaking? I didn't care about such things.
I instantly exploded the murderous intent coiled deep in my lower abdomen and the holy power that had formed in my heart.
And then I threw myself straight at the barrier.
Uuuung-! Kwajik!
"Uh...?"
Before Erden's stupid voice even came out,
the blue magic barrier that was supposedly unbreakable shattered like thin glass from my blow and scattered into the air.
Ppaggak!
At the same time, my shoulder joint screamed, unable to withstand the barrier's repulsion.
The sound of muscles tearing and bones developing fine cracks hit my ears.
But like a beast that felt no pain, I leaped through the fragments.
"What, what...! You're using holy power like a paladin? How...?!"
Erden froze in shock.
But he wasn't even given time to grasp the situation.
I burst through the crumbling barrier fragments and drove into his chin.
Seogeok-!
"...Kek."
There was no mercy.
Even the rational judgment that I needed his knowledge to fix Ines's brain
was nothing but dust before the rage toward the beast who dared covet my possession and reach out.
My dagger, without hesitation, perfectly pierced through Erden's throat.
The carotid artery severed, and a fountain of bright red blood shot into the air.
"Keo, heok... keok...!"
Erden clutched his neck and collapsed to the floor.
His dull eyes, convulsing and spitting blood foam, looked up at me in disbelief.
I shook off the bloodied blade on the ground and mercilessly stomped on his cooling face with my shoe.
"I never trusted a heretic like you from the start."
Because mages are trash who sell even their souls to explore the unknown.
"Keuk, kkeuu..."
The death throes stopped, and the mad genius mage's breath was vainly cut off.
The room was a sea of blood.
But my heartbeat was eerily calm and peaceful.
To prevent Ines from being startled by the unfamiliar smell of blood, I covered her eyes and nose with my shirt.
Then I coldly rummaged through Erden's cooling corpse like handling a beast.
From his bosom, a single encrypted 'research journal' with bizarre patterns came out.
After taking only that, I stuffed Erden's body into a rough burlap sack that was under the bed.
I mechanically wiped the blood splatters on the floor with a wet cloth.
I opened the window to let the night wind blow away all the blood smell.
There wasn't a single tremor in the entire process.
I carried the sack with the corpse and leaped out the window again.
The deepest part of the monster forest beyond the barrier.
I threw the sack into a pit swarming with hungry beasts.
By tomorrow morning, not even bones will remain, and he will be completely erased from the world.
After washing off the blood thoroughly and returning to the dormitory, I embraced Ines with the gentlest and warmest touch, as if I had never slit a man's throat.
"It's okay now."
The throbbing pain in my shoulder was of no concern.
When I moved the shirt away, Ines rubbed her cheek against my chest in relief.
I quietly looked down at her empty eyes filled with questions.
'If there is no vessel, if that's the problem, I will make one for her.'