The Blasphemous One
This blasphemous wretch─!
[ 2 ]
The Bahon Highlands were home to the Bahon Tribe. It was as obvious as saying fish lived in water. The reason Sister Celine even bothered to recall a fact that every three-year-old in the Holy Kingdom knew was simple: the man standing before her was a Bahon tribesman.
Even at a glance, he stood well over two meters tall. A thick beard completely covered his jaw, and his hair—wild and unkempt—looked as though it had been stolen from the color of midnight. Every movement sent waves of overwhelming muscle rippling beneath his skin. Most telling of all were the tattoos that covered his upper body. (She decided to firmly ignore the fact that the man was completely shirtless.) They proved beyond any doubt that he belonged to the Bahon Tribe—the northern terror, the eastern despair.
“I’ve come to fetch you, Sister─!”
Celine, who had been overwhelmed by his sheer presence, felt her consciousness forcibly dragged back to the surface by his words. It was like being a fish yanked out of water. For a moment, she had the strange illusion that she was standing inside a vast cavern rather than a log cabin. The man’s voice was so deep and resonant that it seemed to make the very air—and her own body—vibrate.
“Uh… uh… uh…?”
And just like a fish hauled onto dry land, Sister Celine could only flap her consciousness about in a daze.
The man frowned slightly, stroking his beard as he watched the stunned nun.
“Hm? Aren’t you the one? How strange. I was told the sister had come this way. If it isn’t you, then it must be another sister.”
“Pardon? Uh? Yes?”
“If it isn’t you, I’ll be on my way. I’ve wasted enough precious time already.”
With that casual remark, the massive man turned and took a step back. The single step sent a tremor through the ground, a heavy thud that was enough to snap Celine out of her stupor—and the bandits who had been frozen in place as well.
“S-Stop right there! You crazy barbarian bastard! Who the hell are you, and why are you causing this mess?!”
One of them drew his sword and pointed it at the man. The others quickly followed suit. Several men now surrounded a single man with blades drawn—a situation that should have been extremely dangerous—yet the barbarian’s expression never changed. He merely glanced around with his pitch-black eyes.
Just as his lips began to part, the half-closed door of the log cabin creaked open.
“I’m here, boys! So, where’s the woman…? What the fuck?”
The man standing in the doorway was large and well-fed. His head was shaved clean, and his clothes hung loosely, exposing rolls of belly fat. The bandits’ faces lit up at the sight of him.
“Boss!”
“Boss, you’re here!”
“Boss, it’s this guy! This barbarian bastard suddenly showed up and smashed Polcott’s head in!”
The bandit leader’s brow furrowed as he looked at the completely shattered head of Polcott. He stepped into the cabin, a curved blade already in his hand.
“What the fuck. A real barbarian? You piece of shit…! What the hell is a barbarian doing crawling into the western frontier? Shouldn’t you be scuttling around on that plateau of yours? Yeah, fuck. So you’re the one who killed Polcott? Typical barbarian—can’t even read the damn room. You think having some size and muscle makes you hot shit? You really think you can take on ten men by yourself? And here we were about to enjoy some drinks with a woman, but you had to come ruin the mood…!”
The leader glared up at the barbarian—who was a full head taller than him—while aiming the tip of his blade at the man’s throat.
The next moment, the leader couldn’t even manage a proper glare. The barbarian was grinning from ear to ear, teeth fully exposed.
“My apologies! I didn’t realize you were in the middle of listening to a missionary sermon from the sister! Though it seems this fellow here had no intention of listening in the first place. When I first asked if the sister sent by the Church of the Chief God was here, he had the audacity to say something blasphemous like ‘What the hell is the Church of the Chief God?’”
“Is this guy completely insane? What? A missionary sermon? Why the fuck would we listen to that garbage?”
“……What did you say?”
For the first time, a noticeable change crossed the barbarian’s face. His brow furrowed deeply, as though deep valleys had formed across his forehead. But the leader was too busy responding to the nonsense he’d just heard.
“Why the hell would we listen to that garbage, you lunatic? Fuck, now I get why you charged in here alone. You crazy bastard, I don’t know how you managed to kill my brother by catching him off guard, but……”
The leader’s wrist twitched ever so slightly. Seeing this, the other bandits began to move their wrists in the same way.
“You’re about to lose more than just your head—your arms and legs are coming off too─!”
It was the wrist holding the sword.
Clang─!
The leader smiled. That sound had definitely been the noise of bone flying through the air.
‘As expected. No matter how much of a barbarian you are, or how big and muscular, there’s no way your neck bone survives a surprise slash like that. Did you think we’ve been idling around in the western frontier for nothing?’
The leader, who had closed his eyes to avoid any splinters if the blade shattered, opened them again to retrieve his sword embedded in flesh. He confirmed once more that his assumption had been correct.
The bone had indeed flown off. The only problem was that it was his entire wrist—including the bone—that had been sent flying.
“……!!!!”
Screams of shock erupted from all around. Sister Celine was no exception. Though the reason for her shock was somewhat different from the bandits’.
The object in the barbarian’s hand—the long wooden handle with a metal blade attached that had completely severed the bandit leader’s wrist—was unmistakably a hoe.
“Graaaah─!”
When a person feels pain, screaming is a perfectly normal reaction. It’s a biological defense mechanism meant to alert others to one’s crisis, request help, and prepare others for the situation.
“Guhk……?!”
But the bandit leader found even that normal reaction impossible. After all, anyone would have the same problem if a cold hoe had been shoved into their mouth.
“Is this the mouth that was spouting blasphemous words against God?”
“Guhk…! Guh……!!”
It would have been better if he had at least shaken his head. But the searing pain from where his right wrist used to be made even normal thought impossible for the leader.
“Thish ish a dishgrash─! This fucking bastard─!”
The method the leader chose was to spit out an incomprehensible curse while swinging his left fist forward. It was as if he were proving that he had indeed uttered blasphemous words toward God.
Crack─!
As always happens with poor judgment, the result was far from encouraging. The boldly thrown punch connected with a solid impact.
“Guhk……!!”
The problem was that what had been struck was the leader’s own left fist.
Where the leader had thrown his punch, the barbarian’s rock-hard elbow jutted out like a sharpened stone. The leader stared at what had once been his left hand—now twisted at an angle that made each finger point in a completely different direction, as though his fingers were finally realizing their long-dormant potential to face every which way—and screamed.
“Graaaah─!”
Crunch─!
Fortunately, he didn’t have much time to scream in agony. That was only natural. After all, someone whose head had already been torn off and sent flying couldn’t possibly scream in pain.
“Hm!”
After casually glancing once at the now-headless leader, the barbarian turned around. He folded his arms and nodded with satisfaction.
“Now that the blasphemous voice is gone, it’s finally quiet!”
The bandits, who had been momentarily dazed by the incomprehensible scene, snapped back to their senses at the low voice.
“Aaaagh!”
“He’s insane…! He’s fucking insane!”
“Kill him! Kill him─! Everyone at once!”
The first to charge was the bandit who had made the joke about Polcott’s sweat. Even in the most generous assessment, his condition wasn’t good. His face was soaked with tears and snot, and a foul smell of urine wafted from between his legs. At the very least, if he had wiped his tears before charging, he might have had a clearer view—but humans are easily affected by their surroundings. Since his comrades were also charging without properly wiping their tears, he had no luxury to think such thoughts.
That was why he couldn’t properly block the something that suddenly came flying at him.
“Kuhk!”
A sharp pain assaulted him. His nose throbbed. It seemed his nasal bone was broken. When he felt around with his hand, he realized his assumption had been wrong. An enormous pain exploded. His nose was completely crushed.
‘Fuck, that crazy barbarian bastard! What did he throw? A rock?’
After cursing internally, he quickly wiped away his tears to see what had been thrown at him. He immediately regretted it.
“Hurk─?!”
What had flown at him was the head of the man who had been his boss.
The bandit instinctively threw the head aside and sprang to his feet, looking ahead. He couldn’t predict what that crazy barbarian bastard would throw next. And the bandit felt regret for the second—and final—time.
What he saw was a hoe flying straight toward his neck.
That day, the sister had no choice but to add one more line to the definition of “hoe” in her mental dictionary.
Hoe: 1) A useful tool for tilling fields and removing stones from soil. 2) Also extremely useful for removing heads from human bodies.