Chapter 28: The Rose That Falls Too Easily (2)
Chapter 28: The Rose That Falls Too Easily (2)
Translation: Godtl
During the height of the war with the Alkand Empire.
The Kingdom of Britannia had a special organization called the 'Secret Burial Squad.'
On paper, they belonged to the secret counterintelligence bureau under the cabinet, but even the director of counterintelligence didn't know the identities of all its members—such was the secrecy surrounding them.
Those were turbulent times when imagining the current peace would have been impossible,
and the Secret Burial Squad was an organization that did what needed to be done in such chaos.
Purging traitors within the royal family.
Assassinating nobles who fled to enemy nations with critical intelligence.
Hunting down vile Black Mages.
Covert infiltration and sabotage of key strategic facilities in enemy territory.
Establishing contact and conducting espionage with high-ranking enemy officials who couldn't be met through official diplomatic channels.
They carried out missions that would never appear in official records.
Han-bin was the central figure who led that Secret Burial Squad.
Many bonds were formed.
As with all relationships, there were good ones, those that could never be reunited, and even ill-fated ones.
"Boss, why are you being so cold? Acting like you don't even know me. We fought back-to-back as comrades for five years. Don't you remember how loyally I followed you?"
The Undertaker—that is, Cain—removed his mask.
His left eye socket, marred by burn scars, was completely hollow.
"At least until you gouged out my eye, Boss."
Cain's remaining eye blazed with hatred, as if sparks would fly from it at any moment.
"Look at this. Every time it rains, this empty socket throbs like hell. At first, I was just angry, but when I saw you again, I wanted to ask—why did I have to suffer like this?"
"..."
"I followed orders without question, even when you sent me on a suicide mission to infiltrate the Alkand Empire alone and blow up a train. Because it was for the Kingdom! Even when those vile IIB bastards captured and tortured me for a month, I didn't utter a word. All for the Kingdom!"
"..."
"But then, Boss—why did you, the one person I trusted more than anyone, do it? Why did you try to kill me? Say something!"
None of it was untrue.
Cain had been loyal, brave, and a fiercely patriotic member of the Secret Burial Squad.
He cherished his comrades like family and never hesitated to throw himself into the most dangerous missions.
However.
He was far from a good man.
"Didn't I already give you the reason back then?"
"...That was the real reason? Over just a few dead people?"
"292. That's the number of civilians you murdered for 'fun.'"
Cain was a pleasure killer.
During missions, outside of missions, staging accidents, manufacturing 'unavoidable situations'—
he killed civilians as part of his hobby.
For five years, he had skillfully deceived his comrades and slaughtered countless innocents.
"Just a few? How many Britannian citizens do you think I saved? A hundred thousand? Half a million? Look! The number I saved is far greater! I'm a hero who saved the Kingdom! A few sacrifices for my mental health shouldn't matter, right? Huh?"
It was Han-bin who, sensing something amiss in his conduct, had tracked him down and purged him.
Though, as could be seen, he had failed in the end.
He had shown too much mercy.
He had hesitated to deliver the final blow, swayed by Cain's absurd lies—that it was all a setup, that he should trust him.
As a result, Cain had become the Undertaker of Nortaris, harming who knows how many lives.
"You are my failure. My stain."
"Boss..."
"I should have ended it with my own hands back then."
"..."
Cain's eyes widened as if struck by shock, and he bit his lip until it bled.
Like a son abandoned by his parents.
"I thought of you as a father..."
"A pity. But I never had a son like you."
As Cain wiped his tears, venom seeped into his gaze.
Cain remembered Han-bin from his days as the leader of the Secret Burial Squad.
Han-bin, the specialist of assassination who commanded the awe of every squad member.
He had ruthlessly hunted down the Black Mages who plagued the Kingdom like a pestilence, and without exception, he rooted out the nobles entangled with those demons and sent them straight to hell.
If Cain in his current state were to face Han-bin at his peak, he wouldn't stand the slightest chance.
But Han-bin had suffered damage to the critical mana circuits necessary for wielding a knight's power during a Demon Realm subjugation in the past.
Cain also knew that he had since changed his path to become an alchemist.
"I've always dreamed of the day I'd kill you, Boss. Never imagined it would happen like this, though."
From the moment he fled, Cain had been preparing for revenge.
"Cola? Don't make me laugh. What kind of bullshit is that? What happened to the Boss who used to make the squad piss their pants?"
Now, Cain possessed the Vermilion Cloth, a creation of human sacrifice by Black Mages.
The Demon Eater—the nightmare of every alchemist.
With the Demon Eater by his side, Cain stood a chance against 'Alchemist Han-bin.'
Cain drew out his mana and activated his Battle Will.
A shadow far deeper and sharper than what he'd shown against Penelope now revealed its fangs.
"Miss Penelope, I'll be borrowing this for a moment."
Jurgen had no catalysts left in hand.
Preparing for his cola venture had exhausted all his Dice—the specialized catalysts for Material Creation.
Thus, he picked up a Sulfur Match from Penelope's palette.
It wasn't an expensive catalyst crafted with the costly and intricate methods of something like the Red Rose.
After all, Penelope was only a 4th-Rank Alchemist; the highest-grade catalyst she could provide Han-bin was the Red Rose.
"You kidding me, Captain?"
Cain let out a hollow laugh.
An alchemist's power was heavily dependent on their catalyst's grade.
The Sulfur Match in Han-bin's hand could barely stack two codes at most.
As someone who'd buried countless Black Mages with the Secret Burial Squad, Han-bin should know that a 2nd-Rank spell couldn't surpass the Demon Eater's anti-magic resistance.
Still, being called Britannia's greatest alchemist, he must have some trick up his sleeve.
Cain decided to take the first strike to gauge his level.
Whoosh!
Flames ignited in Han-bin's palm.
Cain prepared to activate the Demon Eater at any moment while tracking the flow of mana with his eyes.
'An alchemist's weakness isn't just their vulnerability in close combat.'
The mana fluctuations from stacking codes inevitably signaled an impending attack.
With Cain's level of combat experience, he could roughly guess what codes were being stacked.
Hmm— Hmm—
Cain's eyes swept over the dispersing fluctuations across two cycles.
At a glance, the codes were Formation and Compression.
If so, the prepared spell would be a Heat Ray.
A disgustingly common universal code.
Paired with a cheap catalyst.
With two stacks completed, the attack would come any second now.
Compared to other 2nd-Rank spells, Heat Rays were high-speed and high-power but had an extremely narrow attack range, making their trajectory easy to predict.
Against this, he wouldn't even need the Demon Eater.
Just as Cain, who had been intently watching the sparks dripping from Han-bin's fingertips, was about to evade—
"Recursion."
The flames that seemed ready to burst forth retreated back into Han-bin's fingertips.
"...?"
Recursion?
He'd never heard of it.
A unique code?
For the first time, Cain's breathing faltered.
Hmm— Hmm—
After the recursion, Formation and Compression were cast again.
'Right now—!'
Thinking the Heat Ray would finally come, Cain twisted his body—but again, nothing flew toward him.
Instead, Han-bin's low incantation reached his ears.
"Recursion."
Only then did Cain understand what was happening.
Han-bin was withdrawing the nearly completed spell and stacking codes atop it again.
Defying the fundamental rule that 'alchemy inherently cannot stack the same codes.'
A spell that should have ended at two stacks was now transcending its limits, stacking over and over.
"Recursion."
The result?
An unbelievable concentration of scorching mana gathered at the tips of Han-bin's extended index and middle fingers.
The most terrifying part was that Han-bin's expression remained perfectly serene despite this absurd feat.
This was impossible alone.
Cain prepared to receive the spell, even resorting to the Demon Eater.
The black skull—its upper nose horizontally severed—gaped open, ready to devour the magic.
Simultaneously, he summoned every ounce of his shadow's Battle Will to form a shield.
"Graaaahhh!!!!"
A near-impenetrable dual defense against an alchemist.
He just had to endure.
Just once.
Cain strained his mana until the veins in his eyes nearly burst.
"Severance."
Han-bin's fingertip traced through the air.
A pure white Heat Ray extended in a straight line from his fingertip, diagonally splitting the void.
Cain's bloodshot eyes sluggishly followed its trajectory.
The shadow shield—capable of blocking even a warship's main cannon—was sliced apart like cake.
Even the Demon Eater, which could absorb most magic, instantly overheated before cracking into pieces.
—Shhk.
There was no grand resistance, no violent collision, no deafening noise.
Like a cutting line drawn by a god, 'Severance' cleaved through all resistance, burning everything in its path.
Beyond the bisected, charred remains of the shield and the Demon Eater's ashes—
"Damn... I knew you were the Captain..."
Cain's body, split diagonally from top to bottom, collapsed.
Jurgen stared at Cain's corpse, still smoldering from residual heat.
Severed in half, death had been nearly instantaneous the moment 'Severance' struck.
"So Cain was the one who smuggled the Demon Eater out of the Secret Burial Squad's vault..."
It had been so long ago that he'd even forgotten the fact that it had been stolen.
Given that he'd maintained his skills as a 5th-Rank Knight even after all this time, and that despite that, he had earned the terrifying notoriety of being the Undertaker—
It seemed he had relied quite heavily on the Demon Eater.
True, the Demon Eater was an alchemist's nightmare, but against Severance—a technique that surpassed all limits through the unique code of Recursion—it held little significance.
No matter how much one tried to dismiss it as a mere matter of compatibility, raw damage at that coefficient was impossible to withstand.
All that remained of Cain, whose bones had been reduced to ashes in an instant, was a single crumpled beret.
As was always the case with death, it was pitiful and fleeting.
Jurgen picked up the beret and placed it on his own head.
"...A bit too big for me."
It had been a while since he'd thought about those days.
There had been plenty of time to dwell on memories since then, but he had consciously avoided them.
Strictly speaking, they weren't even the kind of memories worth recalling.
Back then, he had been desperate.
Stranded in an unfamiliar world, the comrades he had barely managed to gather were precious to him.
To protect Britannia—the land those comrades had devoted their lives to—
Han-bin, too, had given his heart to his homeland.
Perhaps it wasn't out of some grand patriotism or sense of duty.
He had simply wanted to protect the country they all loved, together.
The irony, of course, was that almost none of those comrades had survived.
"Ughh... my blanket..."
A groan rose from below.
Penelope, uncomfortable on the bare floor, furrowed her brow as she muttered in her sleep.
Jurgen chuckled softly.
"To think I was getting lost in such old memories."
No matter what had happened in the past, didn't he have a clear goal now?
Cola and the Gastronomic Revolution.
A noble endeavor to make the country his old friends had loved even more radiant.
The past was meant to be left behind—what mattered was moving forward toward the future.
"Excuse me."
"Zzz..."
He lifted Penelope, who was fast asleep—so deeply that she wouldn't notice even if someone carried her away.
The car was wrecked, and with no way to know when Penelope would wake up, he couldn't use alchemy either. It looked like they'd be walking for quite a while.
"Ugh..."
As the sunset faded into dusk,
Penelope awoke.
"Awake now? Wipe your drool first."
"...?"
Penelope, momentarily stuck in a loading state, soon realized her condition and reacted with something close to a seizure.
"I-I-I don't drool in my sleep! A-And put me down! What kind of manners are those, touching a sleeping noblewoman's body?!"
"Now that I think about it, that was a thoughtless remark."
Normally, he would have teased her for at least another thirty minutes, but today, he held back.
No matter how fiery she seemed now, she was probably still shaken inside.
After all, it was the day she had used circuits she'd never activated before, performed computations, and even unleashed her first unique code.
"Ah... come to think of it..."
Penelope sensed something off.
She had been too flustered upon waking up—first by finding herself on his back, then by the accusation of drooling—to remember.
But the last scene before she blacked out was...
Factory. Undertaker. Ambush. Battle. Garden of the Fool. Explosion. Thud. Blackout.
"Where's the Undertaker?"
"..."
Jurgen fell silent for a moment.
The Undertaker had absorbed Penelope's attack with the Demon Eater.
Had the Demon Eater not been there, her strike would have worked splendidly—but in the end, it was Jurgen who had finished the job.
But to explain the reality, he would have to reveal the truth as well.
The truth that Jurgen was Han-bin Ainsworth.
Originally, he had planned to reveal his real name at an appropriate time—when Penelope wouldn't be able to jump out the window in shock—
But seeing Cain had changed his mind.
Telling Penelope now would only burden her with a dangerous secret.
"Don't you remember? You defeated him splendidly, Miss Penelope."
"Huh?"
After all, Penelope had blacked out immediately after casting her spell, knocked unconscious by the explosion's aftermath.
The last thing she would have seen was Cain engulfed in flames.
Still, he was slightly concerned.
If sharp-witted Penelope sensed something amiss, he'd have to come up with another excuse on the spot.
"Hmm..."
Penelope let out a low hum.
Had it sounded unnatural?
Maybe he should have gone with a different lie.
"Ufufufufu..."
But what followed wasn't a suspicious interrogation—no "Really?" or probing questions.
"Ahahahaha!"
It was a laugh so self-assured it bordered on arrogance.
"Of course it was me, right?"
Penelope hadn't noticed a thing.
Well, that was just like her.
"The Undertaker? Pfft, was that supposed to be impressive? For a 5th-Rank Alchemist like me, some two-bit hitman is nothing."
"..."
"Jurgen, you wanted me to teach you alchemy, right? I'll give you special instruction. After all, I'm a 5th-Rank Alchemist."
"..."
"Don't be discouraged if you can't keep up with the lessons. Talent can be cruel that way."
"..."
Even if it wasn't purely for her own safety.
Something tells me it's best to keep my true identity hidden for as long as possible.