The Confucian Girl (2)
Under the moonlight, what bloomed was not a flower. It was a hellscape of blood and flying flesh. And standing at its center was a massive werewolf that had lost all reason, thirsting only for blood.
“GRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!”
The beast’s roar tore through the silence of the night. Pure terror crawled up the spine, yet Klaus chose not to flee. Instead, he drew his sword.
The fundamentals of fighting demonic beasts begin with suppressing fear. The imperial army’s officer training had been more than sufficient. Without even glancing at Thirin, Klaus shouted.
“Bounty hunter, fall back! That’s a demonic beast! You cannot handle it!”
“......”
There was no reply. Klaus turned to check on Thirin. He had no idea what this reckless woman might do next. But Thirin wasn’t trembling in fear or trying to run. Quite the opposite.
Thirin was staring at the werewolf in the middle of that blood-soaked hell with the same intensity as a man who had discovered an oasis in the desert.
“...That bastard… he just transformed… he transformed right now…!”
As a modern person, Thirin had always been weak to temptation. No—among all people, she was especially weak. Temptation was Thirin, and Thirin was temptation itself. Therefore, the phrase “Thirin fell for temptation” was logically impossible. After all, you cannot drown a water droplet in water.
TemptationThirin. TemptationTemptation. Mimi.
If the devil in the wilderness had offered her bread, she would have snatched it without hesitation. If Mara had held out milk porridge under the bodhi tree, she would have slurped it down in one go. If a succubus had beckoned from the bed, she would have dived right in. And if an incubus had beckoned from the bed, she would have likewise…
‘Wait, that’s not right.’
That part was wrong. Anyway, the important thing was that Thirin was extraordinarily weak to temptation. Especially when that temptation looked anything like Rebirth.
Transformation. Changing the body. Becoming something else. No longer being the current self. Regaining the former self.
It was the ultimate goal she had never forgotten for even a single moment since falling into this wretched world. To Thirin, martial arts had only ever been a means to achieve that goal. The joke that she would have trained in demonic arts if she had fallen into the murim world wasn’t a joke—it was fact. For the sake of Rebirth, Thirin had never been picky about her methods. No, even Rebirth itself was merely a means to her. She simply wanted to reclaim what she had lost.
“That bastard is mine……!”
Thirin muttered “mine” without even knowing what that truly meant. In truth, she didn’t even fully understand what exactly she had lost. All she had was a vague awareness that if she could restore her body, if she could achieve Rebirth, she would get it back.
Of course, transforming into a werewolf and achieving Rebirth were fundamentally different. But Thirin could not see that truth. Because those blinded by temptation can never perceive the essence.
Thirin swallowed hard.
‘If I can just take one solid hit from that thing…’
Then. Maybe. Couldn’t she obtain a clue to Rebirth through Physical Realization?
“Hehe…!”
A strange giggle leaked from Thirin’s lips. Her eyes, burning with ecstasy, gleamed with greed. Klaus felt a chill run down his spine at the sight. The cold-blooded interrogator who had faced down criminals was gone. Those were the eyes of a madwoman.
Klaus’s shouts didn’t even reach her ears. Thirin drew Bjorn’s sword.
“Move!”
She roughly shoved Klaus aside and shouted.
“That bastard is mine!!!”
Klaus didn’t even have time to be shocked by the fact that the power contained in that slender hand was on par with the charge of an imperial heavy infantryman’s assault shield. All he saw was the back of the witch charging toward the werewolf, openly mocking his warning.
Klaus gritted his teeth. He didn’t have time to play along with this crazy woman’s suicide attempt. He awakened one of the imperial engravings.
Mind’s Eye
The eye that pierces all things on the battlefield, imitating the authority of the ‘Thousand-Eyed Watcher.’
It was not a ‘blessing’ from the gods. Instead of relying on the fickle blessings of the myriad deities, the Empire had chosen to analyze, imitate, and ‘standardize’ that power. Just as they had imitated the authority of the ‘Two-Faced God of Letters’ to create identification papers that verified everyone’s identity, the Empire copied divine powers and turned them into their own tools.
The Mind’s Eye engraved upon Klaus was a standardized authority for imperial officers, modeled after the power of the god known as the ‘Thousand-Eyed Watcher.’
Every movement in the world slowed down. Just like when he had faced the back-alley thugs, the chaos before his eyes was distilled into refined information that flooded his mind.
Enemy: one. Werewolf. Height: approximately three meters. Weight: incalculable. Primary weapons: claws on both arms and jaws like steel. Berserk state with complete loss of human intellect.
The most efficient solution was obvious. Maintain distance, cooperate, and deliver precise strikes to the neck and heart from its blind spots.
But Thirin was plunging straight into the werewolf’s embrace as if laughing at Klaus’s common sense.
“How did you do it?! How did you transform?! Tell me! Tell me!!”
Thirin charged while spewing words like a madwoman. The werewolf’s massive arm came crashing down toward her head.
“!”
Thirin’s body fluttered like a sheet of paper, effortlessly deflecting the attack. Klaus could not predict her movements. It was just like that dance under the moonlight. The bizarre, profane beauty he had witnessed in that narrow alley.
But the movement now was different from then. If the earlier movement had been ‘flower petals’ scattered by the wind, the current one was a ‘storm.’ The petals were swirling, rapidly transforming into an uncontrollable tempest.
Thirin didn’t stop at merely dodging the werewolf’s attacks. She rode their trajectories, relentlessly digging into its openings. Her blade severed its wrist, grazed its waist, sliced its thigh and ankle. Wounds bloomed ceaselessly like a raging storm.
Even if Klaus couldn’t predict Thirin’s movements, he could see the results. From the results, he could infer her intent.
‘...She’s deliberately avoiding vital points.’
It looked less like she was trying to kill the werewolf and more like she was inducing its attacks. Thirin spun around the beast, irritating it like a persistent fly.
“Tell me! How did you pull off something so amazing?! Teach me too! Huh?!”
“Grrrrr…… GRAAAAH!”
Finally, the werewolf’s patience snapped. It roared and lunged at Thirin. Only one wrist was attacking, but it was sharp enough. Klaus doubted his eyes.
His Mind’s Eye finally predicted Thirin’s next action. Because she was simply standing still.
Thirin didn’t dodge. Instead, she spread her arms with a delighted smile.
In the slowed time, everything became vividly ‘predictable’ to Klaus. The trajectory of the werewolf’s attack. The claws were aimed at Thirin’s abdomen.
Klaus finally realized it. Thirin’s actions had been consistent all along. She specialized in pursuing violent felons with bounties on their heads. She deliberately exposed her blind spots to back-alley thugs and let herself be surrounded. She tracked kidnappers alone without knowing what awaited her. She openly revealed herself to the five remaining bandits in the barracks. And now, at the end, she was exposing herself defenselessly to a werewolf.
‘This insane woman……!’
Klaus finally identified the sense of déjà vu he had felt from Thirin this entire time. This wasn’t a fight. It was a suicide attempt. She wanted to die by someone else’s hand.
‘Goddammit.’
Of course, this was Klaus’s misunderstanding. Thirin simply wanted to achieve Physical Realization. Though she had gone a little off the deep end.
Klaus couldn’t just stand by. He awakened another engraving. The god with winged feet and a staff. An imperfect miracle of the Empire that imitated that capricious authority.
Acceleration
-BOOM!
The world stopped for an instant, then moved again. Thirin felt a powerful impact send her flying.
“...What the?”
When Thirin, who had rolled across the dirt, lifted her head, an absurd scene greeted her. Klaus’s sword was already buried deep in the werewolf’s throat.
“Kk… krrgh……”
The werewolf’s massive body convulsed before collapsing backward powerlessly.
-THUD.
Silence fell.
“Haa… haa……”
Klaus leaned on his sword, breathing raggedly. The strain of using two engravings in succession weighed heavily on his entire body. Unlike divine blessings, the engravings were terribly incomplete.
Thirin stood up.
“Stalker, you……”
Klaus, his face drained of color, spoke.
“Are you out of your mind?”
He unintentionally raised his voice.
“What?”
“From what I saw, you looked like someone who had resolved to die! What the hell were you trying to do?!”
“......”
Thirin had researched many methods to obtain Physical Realization without pain. She didn’t like pain. Intense pain tended to fry her brain-to-tongue wiring. To that end, she would sever ankle tendons, slash thighs to sap their strength, or cut off wrists to reduce attack range, and so on. Just as she had established methods for interrogating criminals, she had also established methods for Physical Realization.
Of course, there was no way Klaus could know that. Thirin felt slightly annoyed. Klaus knew nothing.
“You don’t know anything.”
At Thirin’s slightly irritated words, something inside Klaus snapped.
“That’s right. As you said, there’s a lot I don’t know!”
Klaus unintentionally shouted.
“I don’t know why you’re doing such insane things! I don’t know what happened to you in the past! But I know exactly what you’re forgetting right now!”
“What am I forgetting?”
At Thirin’s curt retort, Klaus looked her straight in the eyes and spoke each word with force.
“We are on a mission.”
“...!”
Klaus’s voice was low and calm.
“We must track down the human trafficking organization and rescue the kidnapped children. I don’t know what grand thoughts you’re having, but we cannot ruin everything after coming this far.”
Klaus steadied his trembling legs. He could not collapse here.
“According to regulations, the moment we discovered this barracks we should have immediately requested reinforcements from the main force and withdrawn. That would have been the safest and most certain method. But I trusted you. I believed in your confidence.”
“......”
“What exactly were you trying to do? After coming all this way, was this all you wanted to accomplish?”
“......”
What she wanted to accomplish. Those words pierced Thirin’s mind. They were words she herself had once said to someone in the past. Thirin frowned. Who was it again? She couldn’t quite remember.
Instead, another face came to mind. That’s right. That freckled idiot who ruined everything. All of this had happened because of that girl.
Freckles. The kidnapped children.
“......”
Thirin let out a sigh. She had forgotten. Blinded by a massive temptation, she had momentarily forgotten the starting point of everything. What had tempted her so deeply?
Without realizing it, Thirin muttered.
“I should have said hello before leaving.”
“...What did you say?”
Thirin didn’t answer Klaus’s question.
“......”
A chilly silence flowed between them.
“Tsk.”
Thirin clicked her tongue. Klaus tensed slightly. What was this woman going to say now?
Looking at Klaus, Thirin suddenly blurted out.
“...I owe you one.”
“....”
Klaus felt a strange sensation. For some reason, those words sounded like something an honest person who couldn’t bring themselves to apologize would say instead.