Chapter 25
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 024
Chapter Title: Guard Quarters
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Our date wasn't a long one.
The bastard lacked more persistence than I'd expected,
and I had even less patience than that.
"......"
I looked down at the hunk of meat sprawled across the chair.
His jaw was completely crushed and dangling loose,
and his fingers and toes were bent at grotesque angles.
To commit such a gruesome act,
it had to be some guy with a really nice face and a massive cock, right?
"Anyway, it was informative. Thanks for spilling everything so easily.
And for the pocket money, too."
The first thing I'd asked about
was the safe sitting on the table.
[Big brother, big brother, big brother, you got money?]
Sure enough, just as he'd said, it was stuffed full of gold coins,
and I'd swept them all up into my pockets a while ago.
Thanks to that, my formerly empty coin pouch was now bulging.
"Well, sayonara."
I bid farewell to the guy whose breath had already stopped and turned away.
"Heh... uhihihi..."
In the corner of the room, the women were still crawling around on the floor.
Even after watching limbs get severed and blood spray right in front of them,
they hadn't screamed once.
Their unfocused eyes floated aimlessly in the air,
and their lips still bore those mad, delirious smiles.
Drug-soaked brains burned to a crisp, mistaking even pain for pleasure—broken dolls.
If there's a life where death would be preferable,
this is exactly what they'd mean.
I hesitated for a moment, then drew my dagger.
"Better than burning to death, right?"
I aimed the blade tip at the heart of a woman staring blankly into space with vacant eyes.
"I've been through it myself, and trust me, that shit hurts like hell."
Puk.
The dagger plunged into the woman's chest.
A single strike piercing straight through her heart.
The woman dropped her head with a thud, not even letting out a final gasp,
her lips still curved in that smile.
I calmly pulled the blade free and approached another woman in the corner.
"You too."
The dagger pierced precisely below her collarbone, straight into her heart.
That was the moment.
"......!"
The woman's hazy, dilated pupils suddenly contracted for an instant, snapping into focus.
As if the fog of drugs eating away at her brain had cleared, if only briefly.
Her eyes locked straight onto my face.
In those refocused eyes wasn't fear, but a strange sense of relief.
Her lips trembled faintly.
"......Than......k......"
A whisper like deflating air, barely audible.
"......you......"
Thud.
The hand reaching for my clothes fell limply as her body slumped.
The smile on her lips looked truly peaceful now, unlike her earlier mad grin.
"......"
I gazed at her unclosed eyes for a moment,
then gently swept my palm over them to close them.
"Go on to paradise. Should be better than here."
Now, I was the only one breathing in the room.
An unpleasant silence settled in.
"Sigh, more cleanup."
I picked up the remaining wine bottle from the table
and the oil lamp the bastards had been using.
Without hesitation, I began splashing it all over the room.
Gurgle, gurgle.
Over the crushed viper's corpse,
over the bed stained with blood and semen,
and around the bodies of the women I'd just killed.
I pulled a matchbox from my pocket.
With a crisp scritch,
a small flame flickered to life.
Thud.
The moment the matchstick hit the oil-soaked floor.
Whoosh—!
Red flames leaped up like a starving beast, swallowing the room in an instant.
The blaze climbed the curtains to the ceiling, dancing as a massive inferno.
Crackle, crackle.
Leaving behind the smell of burning flesh and the screams of wood,
I turned without regret and walked out.
"Ah, fuck, when did I get burned?"
The moment I stepped out of the warehouse,
a delayed pain surged in my right calf.
Pulling up my pants, the skin was bright red and cooked,
with a blister the size of my thumb.
Probably from a spark when I set the fire, or grazed by the heat.
"Hoo..."
I grimaced and pressed the blister with my finger.
A sharp pain stabbed through my brain.
"Yeah, fire and I just don't mix."
I spat on it to cool it roughly and pulled my pants leg down.
Behind me, the wooden building groaned as it collapsed.
Rumble... boom!
The entire abandoned warehouse lot engulfed in flames.
A massive pillar of fire staining the dawn sky red.
I gazed bitterly at the spectacle
and organized the info I'd squeezed out of that viper in my head.
[Ugh... Th-the distribution points... there are three more...]
[District 9 market, District 11 sewers... and the abandoned mine...]
[But those are just small fry... the real deal is...]
Even writhing in agony, he'd spilled it all to save his skin.
'Scorpion.' He's the one... managing the whole slum...>
The powder... all comes from him up top...>
Three distribution hubs.
And above them, the massive boss overseeing the slum's crime syndicate: Scorpion.
After Viper comes Scorpion.
Real creative naming, huh.
"Haa......"
Tons of bastards to kill, but time's running short.
Regardless of whether the street rats find out,
if the kingdom guard dogs sniff it out, it'll be a headache.
And Sharl? Don't even get started.
If that house bitch suddenly disappears from sight, she won't stay quiet with her temper.
A powder keg ready to blow at any moment.
A countdown with no end in sight.
"Argh, gonna go bald from stress."
I scratched my head.
I'd figured as much, but the scale was bigger than expected.
A crime org spanning the entire slum. This wasn't cleanup; it was war.
"Three places, huh..."
Hunt down each remaining distribution point one by one? Incredibly inefficient.
It'd take too much time, and since I've turned this place into a roast, they're no idiots.
By morning, word'll spread that this spot got hit,
and the others will beef up security or hole up like rats.
No time for playing tag all over town.
So, only one answer.
"Head or meal,"
I muttered, staring at the blood-red moon in the night sky.
"Gotta blow the head off first."
Their den in the deepest, darkest part of this slum.
No choice but to take it down somehow.
Leaving the roaring flames behind,
I limped into the shadows.
My body felt heavy, like it was coated in lead from exhaustion,
but I had to move.
No time.
No time.
"......What? He's injured?"
Sharl's eyebrows shot up sharply.
She set her teacup down roughly.
Clink—the sound echoed irritably through the wide drawing room.
"Yes, well... that's how it happened."
In front of her,
Kain scratched the back of his head with a troubled expression.
"Lately, he's been getting cocky relying on my skills...
Got reckless, and a stray spear grazed him."
"......"
"Blood pouring out, but he acts tough like it's nothing,
so I gave him a knuckle sandwich and locked him in his room. Told him to slap on some salve and crash."
Kain played it cool as possible, bullshitting smoothly.
But inside, cold sweat poured down.
How the hell do you explain a guy who's been out since last night and still hasn't come back?
He'd thrown out the injury excuse in a pinch, but...
"Hmm."
Sharl narrowed her eyes and glared at Kain.
Eyes full of suspicion.
Her long fingers tapped the table: tok, tok.
"Grazed by a stray spear, huh..."
Yesterday's memory flashed in her mind.
Her father, Duke Kaintrea, had quietly summoned Leon alone.
And today.
Instead of Leon, who always came to report in person, Kain shows up,
and suddenly he's injured?
"......"
Sharl's brow furrowed.
Too perfect timing for a simple accident.
"Kain."
"Yes, miss."
"How serious is his condition?"
Kain swallowed hard at her question.
"Psh, guys like us get scratches eating steel for a living.
Just stitched the cut and slapped on salve.
No issue moving around, so no need for you to worry..."
"No issue moving around."
Sharl slammed her teacup down with a sharp clack, cutting him off.
Her gaze bored into his eyes.
"And he didn't come report?"
"......"
"As if."
Kain clicked his tongue inwardly.
Tried to downplay it too casually, slipped up.
But he kept his cool, shrugging like it was a hassle.
"The bleeding just wouldn't stop, you see."
"Bleeding?"
"Yes. Drips every time he moves, staining the floor...
Can't send him to you looking like that."
A decent excuse, all things considered.
But Sharl's expression didn't soften.
If anything, it shifted to a mix of curiosity and displeasure.
"If it's bleeding that bad... that's serious, duh."
She rose slowly from her seat.
"Can't have that. Gotta see him."
"Pardon...?"
Kain's eyebrow twitched.
"R-right now?"
"Yeah. Need to check with my own eyes."
She headed for the door without hesitation.
"Whether he's really hurt... or dodging me for side gigs.
If it's bad, might need a priest."
"...Miss. No need to go to that shabby place yourself."
Kain blocked her path politely but firmly.
"I'll go fetch him right now.
Wrap him in bandages if I have to. You just relax here..."
"Kain."
Sharl stopped and turned.
Her cold gaze nailed the knight's face.
"Since when do I ask your permission to move?"
"......"
"I said I'm going."
This wasn't mere stubbornness. It was an order.
Kain swallowed a short sigh and stepped aside.
Blocking further would just fuel suspicion.
"......Understood. I'll guide you."
Praying desperately that the guy was back,
Kain led the way, and Sharl followed with a frosty face.
Destination: Kain's quarters.
The guard quarters behind the mansion.