Chapter 6
Translator: True Detective
Chapter 6: As Long As It's Not Me (3)
Bullfighting.
A game and ritual that has continued since ancient times.
Although the rules differ by region, generally known bullfighting involves waving a red cloth to lure and hunt the bull.
The moment he saw the clothes turned red with blood, Irion thought of this bullfighting.
Although it’s a monster, the Minotaur’s head is a bull. Thinking that if the appearance is similar, the instinct might be similar too.
Irion, having taken off his top and hung it on the pickaxe, waved it with all his might.
Deliberately exaggerated.
To be eyesores.
—Flutter!
The Minotaur’s gaze reacted immediately. Its wide field of vision narrows to a single point. Its breathing becomes rough and it scratches the floor with its hooves.
“Kwuoooo!”
A roar burst out. The Minotaur rushed in like a mad cow that had lost its reason.
Hooves dig into the sand and kick off the ground. Sand shoots up like waves from the recoil.
‘Not yet.’
But Irion didn't move a muscle.
The core of bullfighting lies in movement, not the color of the cloth.
Because bulls, being colorblind, cannot recognize red. They recognize the roughly fluttering cloth as an enemy and rush at it.
At that time, the matador’s movement must be minimal so that the bull’s gaze goes solely to the cloth.
Only then is it safe.
‘Not yet.’
Like Irion now. Not moving rashly, quietly waiting for the moment.
—Rumble!
As the Minotaur’s huge body gets closer, time stretches. Caught in the illusion that the world in front of his eyes is slowing down.
‘Not yet.’
Irion still does not move. Holding his breath with his gaze fixed on the Minotaur.
More.
More.
Just a little more.
The Minotaur had closed in right under his nose before he knew it. The moment when he wondered if Irion would be hit by those huge horns.
“Hup!”
Irion twisted his body with all his might.
The Minotaur’s trajectory cut through empty air. A fierce wind slapped his cheek. The clothes hanging on the pickaxe fluttered as if tearing.
The Minotaur didn't stop and collided with the stone wall of the arena.
“Wooooaaah?!”
The spectators shouted in panic.
They wondered if it was collapsing, but a barrier protecting the spectator seats was set up in preparation for times like this. It just shook a little and stopped.
The Minotaur, detaching its body from the wall, shakes its head. Stone dust splatters like raindrops.
In that gap, Irion widens the distance and inhales a short breath. He immediately waved the cloth again.
—Flutter!
Without fail, the Minotaur reacted.
Second charge.
The Minotaur rushes in like a tank. This time too, Irion endures until the end and pulls his body away only at the last moment.
But was the evasion slightly late? The wind pressure created by the charge pushed his flank strongly.
His balance broke and he rolled roughly on the floor, but he stood up straight away. And waved the clothes again.
Third time.
Fourth time.
A series of processes where the Minotaur rushes in and Irion barely evades repeats.
Actions that seem to deliberately embrace danger, inexplicable by the word 'running away'.
Eccentric behavior that could be mistaken for a show.
Irion performs a precarious tightrope walk on the line of death where a single mistake leads to death.
Some might say he went crazy due to fear, but this was the best Irion could do.
One mistake means death?
‘Then I just have to not get hit.’
Thanks to it rushing only looking at the cloth, the Minotaur’s movements become simple.
Evasion is much easier than before. The width of evasion decreases little by little.
‘With this feeling...’
He doesn't make large evasions.
He doesn't make unnecessary leaps either.
To the side just enough.
Just one step.
He learns the movements and engraves the timing into his body. As composure settles in his movements, a fleeting moment to plan the next move is secured.
This time, Irion mixed in an attack, not just evasion. He struck the passing Minotaur’s back of the neck with the pickaxe.
—Clang!
“Kugh...!”
The recoil rode up his wrist and scraped his whole body.
A tingling pain.
He almost lost the pickaxe for a moment.
It wasn't a meaningful hit.
Irion knows too.
Still, he doesn't stop.
Because he didn't hope for a fluke from the start.
‘Originally, mining is repetitive labor.’
Isn't there such a saying?
There is no rock that doesn't break after being struck ten times.
If it doesn't break at once, just hit it until it breaks.
—Flutter!
The Minotaur rushes again.
Sand splatters, dust spreads, and horns push in.
Irion dodges.
—Whoosh!
And strikes again.
—Thud!
Toying with the Minotaur’s simplified trajectory, he drives the pickaxe in without rest.
Without even a moment’s pause.
With the tenacity of a miner carving out a mountain.
“.......”
The arena, which had been full of mad shouts and jeers, was submerged in a strange silence before anyone knew it.
Spectators who were clinking glasses and spitting curses now watched the death match between the boy and the monster with bated breath.
As if even blinking was a waste, with their gazes fixed.
Renoa was the same.
For the first time, an unfamiliar light dwelt in her eyes, which had cooled down from boredom.
Her lips parted slightly, forgetting sophistication, and her palms were soaked with cold sweat.
Irion struggling desperately to win the right to his own life and death.
To some, it might be nothing more than a bug’s struggle, but to her, it approached as a brilliantly alien radiance.
—Thwack!
With Irion’s pickaxe strikes, uncountable in number, wounds are gradually engraved on the Minotaur’s back of the neck, which was like an iron wall.
Small scratches soon become large grooves, and crevices to dig into.
“Kwuooooooo!”
A roar races out.
The Minotaur takes a stance.
Irion intuitively sensed that a final charge squeezing out its whole soul would come soon.
It was what he hoped for.
He too had reached his physical limit, and the sensation in the hand holding the pickaxe had become dull.
He gripped the pickaxe stronger.
And fluttered it.
“Come here (Irion).”
The Minotaur, spewing hot steam from its mouth and inflating its muscles to the limit.
It rushed in honestly without any technique.
The distance between the two shrinking in an instant as if the space in front of his eyes was narrowing.
—Rumble!
The floor shook from the reckless charge. A coercion enough to make the body stiffen for a moment.
Irion did not shake.
He gripped the pickaxe as if to crush it.
‘I see it.’
The crack in the back of the neck dug up by countless repeated blows. That gap, hideously gaping with blood and flesh mixed together.
—Crash!
Head-on collision.
The Minotaur’s horn grazed Irion’s shoulder and tore off flesh. But he ended up just frowning slightly.
Fear and pain have long been dulled by the pumping adrenaline.
Rather, he entrusted his body to the collision. Irion’s body drew an arc over the monster’s head.
And, he swings the pickaxe in mid-air.
—Thwack!
Point strike.
The blade embeds in the gap.
He pulls the handle.
In the opposite direction of the charge.
Weight is added, and the monster’s speed is added.
—Snap!
A gruesome rupture sound of tough leather tearing and spinal segments dislocating.
The Minotaur’s head caught on the tip of the pickaxe is torn off.
—Crack!
At that moment, the handle of the pickaxe, overworked to the limit, couldn't withstand the shock and broke. Irion was flung away by the recoil.
Irion flinched, but there was no waste in his subsequent actions. He picked up a dead slave's sword and rushed in.
“Kwuoooo!”
The Minotaur, holding its half-dangling neck with one hand, swings its other arm as if shaking him off.
A heavy sound of cutting wind that deafens the ears.
Irion utilized his small physique without regret. He slid on the ground as if slipping to dodge the attack, then kicked off the floor and sprang up.
He kicked the Minotaur’s knee and climbed onto its neck.
He tightened his legs to secure himself and stabbed the sword into the wound.
—Stab! Stab! Stab! Stab!
“Uooooooo!”
The Minotaur roaring in pain.
It hits with its fist and shakes its body violently to shake off Irion, but the more it does, the tighter Irion locks his legs.
The notification rang, but he doesn't give it a single glance. Just stab, stab, stab, stab with the sword into the neck.
Even if his whole body is dyed with fresh blood, even if his vision blurs with blood, he doesn't care.
Only the rupturing sounds of stabbing the neck rang in the arena for a long time.
Then, at some moment.
The Minotaur, which seemed like it would never fall, knelt on one knee. Soon its body tilted forward.
—Thud......
It fell helplessly on the floor.
Dust scattered.
“.......”
The silenced arena.
A stillness where even breathing sounds aren't heard.
Even in the tension where hearts seemed about to pop out, no one made a sound.
As if waiting for something.
Everyone’s gaze focused on one place. What was there was a boy.
Irion stood up slowly. He staggered as if he would collapse right away, but he stood up in the end.
A body covered in dust and fresh blood.
“Hoooo......”
He exhaled a breath looking at the underground ceiling.
Flash.
He raised his arm high into the sky. In his hand, the Minotaur’s huge head was held.
Then, as if they had been waiting only for this moment, thunderous cheers exploded in the arena.
“Woooooaaaaah!”
“That’s it! That’s it! I believed in you!!!”
“Irion! Irion! Irion! Irion!”
Thousands of spectators chant the boy’s name.
The crowd that was spitting and jeering until now, until just a moment ago, is now screaming looking in only one direction.
It was a praise that should rightfully be given to the victor who overcame death and won his life.
Immediately after, Irion, whose energy ran out, collapsed like paper. Arena staff ran over and started the cleanup.
“.......”
Back to the VIP seats on the 3rd floor.
Renoa was looking down at that scene while holding onto the railing. Perhaps because she unknowingly put strength into it, the veins on the back of her hand stood out.
The arena rocking, engulfed in shouts. In the middle of it, a black-haired boy declaring victory while covered in blood.
Everyone here was sure he would be defeated, but he won against a monster twice his size as if to show them.
The cowardly boy who trembled as if having a seizure upon seeing her.
Above the fear, something more primal was riding.
It was an obsession with survival.
Something she doesn't have.
It came to her as a violent beauty enough to ring Renoa’s soul.
Renoa’s mouth, staring as if to glare at Irion being carried away on a stretcher, slowly opened.
“Sir Zain.”
“Yes, My Lady.”
“I changed my mind.”
I withdraw saying it was a waste of time.
This outing today was more valuable than any other time. No, it was dazzling beyond measure.
Gray.
Her world was always gray.
A cage decided from birth. A decided future.
The flashy lights of high society, expensive jewelry, to her, they were just dead achromatic sceneries.
But now.
The boy who raised the pickaxe down there was different. On her retina that was achromatic, color was painted for the first time.
In her life filled with gray.
In her soul that was rotting with boredom.
“Bring him.”
Interest arose in him who engraved a trace that can never be forgotten.
“That slave, to my side.”