Don't Do This (5)
My vision had seemed a little red for a while now.
I felt a flicker of curiosity about that fact, then promptly stopped caring. Part of me figured it was just my imagination, and even if it wasn't, it was probably nothing more than a few spatters of blood.
It wasn't particularly bothersome either.
More than anything, I had far too much to do to spare attention for something as trivial as my field of vision.
"Run!"
"Aaaaagh!"
See? Even now. A vermin was still alive and fleeing.
Ah—not vermin. A person. Had I gotten too deep into the Demon Knight concept? A slip in word choice.
"Guhk!"
But wouldn't vermin be fine? Looking this pathetic.
I drove my hand through the back of the one trying to escape me. My scimitar was broken, and a two-hander was useless indoors, so this time I had no choice but to use my bare hands.
"A little too cruel, maybe."
I tore out the heart and crushed it. It was a bit grotesque, but so what? Stabbing someone to death with a sword or with your hand—it was all the same.
Besides, who were these people? Mass murderers, weren't they? The ones who had ruined this city and the last, and countless villages besides, plunging everyone who lived there into misery.
For the likes of them, even this death was a luxury. They deserved something far more wretched—torn apart until the pieces could never be put back together.
In that regard, hands were wonderfully convenient. Humans were all so soft that they died easily enough without a weapon… and tearing them apart one by one was easier with hands than with a blade.
But when had the Madness Gauge crossed fifty percent?
I sank into a late-blooming worry over the fact I'd only just noticed. Of course, having something on my mind didn't mean I could stop moving, so I didn't forget to snatch the next one trying to run.
It shouldn't matter. Nothing feels particularly off.
I raked my fingertips down his back. Four claw-like gouges remained, as if a beast had torn him open, offering a glimpse of bone and entrails.
It was a rather impressive mark. The mark alone was impressive.
"Got dirty, did I."
I suddenly realized how filthy my hands had become. Blood and mashed scraps of flesh clung to them in thick layers.
I knew they'd clean up later, but it was still unpleasant. Should I have just grabbed any old sword and killed them with that?
But if these bastards hadn't been here in the first place, nothing would have gotten dirty, would it?
Once my mood had soured, it didn't bounce back easily.
It's their fault. Those bastards are the ones who did wrong. A spiteful little voice in the corner of my mind ranted and shoved the blame onto them.
"Vermin."
Of course I knew it wasn't really their fault. But knowing didn't make the anger go away. Irritation was like that by nature.
"All of you die."
So what else was there to do? Kill them.
"Guhk!"
"Aaaaagh!"
"Ghhk."
I advanced, snapping necks and trampling entrails whenever I saw a person.
They deserved to die anyway. I was just killing a few more as a way to vent, so there was no need to worry about anyone watching.
"Open the door! Open the damn door!"
"Those bastards blocked it from the other side!"
"Do something!"
"Pirates! Get out there and buy us some time!"
"Fuck—he's cutting through swords with his bare hands! How the hell are we supposed to buy time?!"
Then a familiar corridor came into view. It seemed to be the passage leading to the central garden…
The criminals' flimsy sense of camaraderie must have done its work again in the meantime. I smirked at the ones thrashing in front of the closed door.
"He's coming! He's coming!"
For wiping out a bunch like that in one go, Chamgyeok was still the best. But without a weapon, I wasn't sure it would work.
I glanced around for anything I could swing.
Bare-handed?
Then my own hands caught my eye. Nothing strange about that. This body could shatter rock once it was wrapped in mana—what couldn't it do?
As a vessel for mana, a sword and a body weren't all that different. Firing mana outward shouldn't be any different either.
Mana began to seethe and gather in my hands.
"Damn it, I'm not going down without—!"
I swept my arm in a smooth diagonal. A thick, rough Chamgyeok shot out. It looked a little less stable than when I fired it from a blade.
Shhk!
But the power was every bit as good. The bodies of the men at the far end of the corridor were sliced on a slant.
A faint pleasure ran a shiver down my spine.
Thud.
It didn't stop there—the door leading to the garden was sliced clean through as well. Beyond it, the central garden in question came into view.
"He's here! He's here!"
"Ready the attack!"
"Stick to the plan!"
So that was where all the demon contractors had gone. They'd dug in here.
I glanced at the magic circle packed densely across the floor, then back at the demon contractors. Their scheme was painfully obvious. They meant to use the blood and sacrifices they'd gathered to try and erase me.
"What are you doing? Cast the magic!"
"I—it won't cast."
But of course—something had gone wrong. Not a single one of them could activate the spell. Even the mild interest I'd had in watching their thrashing for a moment went cold.
"It won't cast? What do you mean—!"
"…It's the demon. The demon is trying to kill us."
How rude. I hadn't even done anything particularly demonic yet. All I had was the setting that I carried a demon in my right arm—I wasn't a demon myself.
"Has everyone already run?"
Still, watching enemies die helplessly had its own kind of fun. I gave a light flick of my hand toward the ones who had realized their attacks wouldn't work and were trying to flee.
Slash!
Dozens of lives fled in a single stroke. Truly—humans were this fragile.
"Heh."
Enough to make a laugh slip out on its own.
"Hah… hahh…"
"Hhup."
But what was this…?
I stopped mid-smirk and noticed the prisoners scattered messily across the garden. They were flattened to the ground like insects—I'd almost walked right past them.
Should I kill them?
The impulse stirred for a moment, then I shook it off. These were people I was supposed to save. Not targets to kill.
Really?
…They should have been.
I pressed my fingers to the corner of my eye. Something felt a little off. I couldn't quite place it, but for a while now… my head was… a bit…
This isn't the time.
…I didn't know. Fatigue had piled up—maybe that was it. Or maybe the Madness Gauge's penalty effect was this fog in my head.
"Go."
Clearly aware of the sudden settling in my mood, I tore through the people's shackles. Now that I'd properly learned how to load mana into my hands, it wasn't even hard.
"H-hyaaagh!"
But why did they scream every time I approached to help them? It was putting me in a foul mood.
Even the ones I'd already freed ran without looking back. Not a single word of thanks existed among them.
It was… a little unpleasant.
If someone hates me for no reason, shouldn't I give them a reason to hate me?
I considered giving these people a real reason to be afraid, then forced myself to hold back. I couldn't harm civilians. That went against ethics. It went against them, so… I… that…
That?
Irritating. Unpleasant. Everything grated. It had been fun just a moment ago.
Something hot seemed to rise from inside me. Everything was irritating. No—I was angry.
Would it be easier if I erased everything in front of me? Or should I just kill them? If I tore every last thing limb from limb, ripped out the entrails and scattered them across the earth, then burned it all—would this feeling ease?
I didn't know. Simply, Wrath surged up.
A fire that felt as if it wouldn't go out even if I burned the entire world.
My vision grew even redder.
The Inquisitor fought through the swarming demons and somehow managed to reach the castle. From a certain point on, the demons had stopped attacking them and fled instead, so it hadn't been all that difficult.
"Aren't demons the sort of creatures that just run away for no reason sometimes?"
"…No. Demons do not flee."
With a single exception, demons almost never ran.
"Everyone, ready your weapons. And… if the worst comes, don't look back—just run."
There was only one case in which they fled: when a high-ranking demon overwhelmingly stronger than themselves came hunting them.
"What?"
The Inquisitor strode toward the castle that grew more spine-chilling the closer they came. At the far end of the castle's front grounds, the vague outline of a mound came into view.
"The ground looks like it's been gouged out in a straight line."
"You're right… Who did this?"
They approached the mound, following the unnaturally carved trail.
"That is…"
The first to make out its true nature was Deathbringer, who had the sharpest night vision among them.
"…Gruesome."
But he couldn't finish the thought, and another of the thieves spoke in his place. The Inquisitor—being of the Middle race and not particularly gifted with night sight—stared into the darkness for a moment.
"I can't see well. What do you see?"
"…Demon corpses."
She walked at the front without letting her guard down. The thief's words only continued after she had taken three more steps.
"Torn into dozens—hundreds—of pieces."
Only then did the mound's true form become visible to her eyes as well. It was the remains of a massive demon that had been minced like ground meat.
What made it even more horrific was that the mincing had been done not with a blunt weapon like a mace, but with a sharp blade. The clean, even cross-sections—as if the flesh had been diced—were proof of that.
"…Who could have done this?"
One of the thieves muttered to himself. And the answer to the question that mutter implied was someone both the Inquisitor and Deathbringer knew. They had never seen it with their own eyes, but they were certain.
"Sir Knight, no doubt."
Including the marks carved into the earth itself, there was no one else who could have done something like this.
A veil of silence settled over the party.
"We're going in."
They passed the mound in silence and entered the castle. With even the faint moonlight gone, the interior was so dark that almost nothing could be seen.
"There's no presence. Shall I light something?"
"…Do it."
Click, click, whoosh. After a few tries, the oil lamp finally caught.
At the same time, the world flooded crimson. The stone walls, the floor with its worn carpet, the ceiling—even the blood soaking everything and the former owners of that blood.
"……!!"
In truth, it wasn't a particularly surprising sight. If the one who had killed the demons outside was the Demon Knight, and if he had gone into the castle instead of leaving, there was no way he would have left these people behind.
They had all sold their souls for wealth and glory, after all.
But…
"Sir Knight wouldn't kill people this cruelly."
Deathbringer felt a doubt. The Demon Knight's method of killing, as he knew it, and the way these corpses had died were vastly different.
The Demon Knight might not have been especially merciful, but at the very least he usually sent people off with a single stroke. And whatever weapon he used—dagger or longsword—it was always a blade.
If he wasn't holding a sword, it was usually for the purpose of subduing someone. "Subduing" often meant breaking an arm or a leg, but still.
"And this… this wasn't done with a sword."
Analyzing the cause of death on the corpses, this hadn't been done with a blade. This was more like…
"Torn apart by hand?"
It looked like they had been killed by hand.
"Hand?"
"The wounds are too rough to have been made by a blade. There are a lot of four-pronged gashes, too. And this one… his heart was ripped out."
Too large to have been a stab, too rough to have been cut out with a blade. No weapon he knew could have produced a shape like this.
"Sir Knight knows how to reinforce his body with mana… so if he wrapped his hand in mana and tore the heart out, that would explain it."
Of course, he didn't know if that was actually possible. Before meeting the Demon Knight, he had never even encountered a mana user.
But given the Demon Knight he had seen—or more precisely, given that martial prowess—it didn't seem entirely impossible.
"Could you do it?"
"…If you're asking whether it's possible, then yes, it is."
And if even the Inquisitor, whose combat power was comparable to the Demon Knight's, admitted it was possible—
"…We'll have to be prepared."
The fact that he had killed demons told them the Demon Knight had not fallen to the demons. But there were far too many suspicious signs to simply treat him as an ally.
At Deathbringer's words, the Inquisitor pressed her lips tight. For some reason, her instincts as a heresy inquisitor were sounding an alarm.
"Wait—I hear people running this way."
Just then, one of the thieves pricked up his ears. The claim wasn't false; a group of people soon came into view from the far end of the passage.
The Inquisitor took the lead and raised a shield. Its source was a full plate that had been standing as decoration.
"Who goes there!"
"Hyaah—p-please, spare us!"
The Inquisitor scanned the faces of the ones who had come running with sharp eyes. She felt no Demon Energy to speak of, and their clothes were filthy. Just like the slaves they had seen before—and the one they had even brought back to the hideout.
"We came to kill Bipurit. Who are you?"
"W-we… we are…"
But you never knew. She had known the corrupted who fell without a trace of Demon Energy—some who had even infiltrated the Order itself.
The Inquisitor never let her guard down.
"They're safe."
If a familiar voice hadn't spoken up for them, she would have stayed that way for quite a while longer.
"You—!"
His name had been Luquan, hadn't it? She was certain he had gone with the Demon Knight.
"You're alive!"
They had assumed she was dead. If the Demon Knight had fallen into a trap, Luquan—whose combat power was far lower—would almost certainly not have survived.
"Luquan!"
"Big Sis—you're alive."
But he was alive. He had kept his life intact.
The Inquisitor allowed herself a brief moment of relief at that small stroke of luck.
"I got lucky."
In the meantime, Luquan approached with a complicated expression and jerked his chin toward the people.
"There's a lot I want to say, but… for now, these are people who were going to be used as sacrifices. They're safe."
"Is that so."
They weren't close enough for absolute trust, but neither was their relationship so thin that she couldn't extend this much faith. The Inquisitor trusted Luquan's word and lowered her shield.
The people who had been watching for cues let out breaths of relief—and a little impatience.
"W-we have to run."
Then one of them mustered the courage to stammer out more. It was a strange thing to say.
"What's inside?"
"Th-there's a monster…"
"It's going to kill us all."
"Please let us go!"
When she asked what they meant, the responses that came back bordered on hysterical.
"Kill you all… what on earth—"
"They mean the Demon Knight."
But when a reality she had anticipated yet not prepared for suddenly struck home, the Inquisitor couldn't help but grow agitated, just as the people had.
"He's… not himself anymore."
The Inquisitor's hand clenched tight around her mace.
Kill them. Don't kill them. But I want to kill them. Why, though? I don't know. I'm angry. Everything is irritating and it all grates.
Killing just a few would be fine, wouldn't it?
"Go!"
No. It wouldn't be fine.
"Get out of here right now!"
I roughly snapped the ropes that bound the people like a string of dried fish. I didn't have the leisure to undo every shackle one by one.
At least I'd cut the lines that limited how far they could move—I hoped they'd have the sense to run on their own.
"H-hhk."
"P-please, spare us."
I'd already shown more than enough mercy—why were they still begging? It made me want to kill them.
Thud!
The moment the urge to kill the fleeing people rose, I slammed my own head.
This wasn't normal. It wasn't intermittent explosive disorder—there was no way it was normal for excessive rage to surge in a situation I could fully understand.
And if it went beyond anger to the point of wanting to kill civilians, even more so!
"Get out before I kill you!!"
"Hyaaagh!"
"Run!"
Clutching my throbbing head, I hurried the people out. Concept or no concept—I no longer had the room to care.
It felt as if something had taken root in my brain and was endlessly whispering to me, or injecting thoughts into me. Boiling murderous intent kept trying to send my hands out on their own.
If I let my focus slip even a little, I felt like I would butcher them all.
Was it the Madness Gauge? Was that what was doing this? No way.
"Ugh…"
Kill them. Kill them. Please, just kill them. It's irritating, isn't it? This whole situation is shit, isn't it? So let's explode. Let's kill every last one of them.
"Fuck—this piece-of-shit game!"
Anger with no clear target filled my throat to bursting. It wasn't rage with a definite trigger.
That kind of emotion usually burned along a set path, like a flame on a fuse—but this one was spreading in every direction like a wildfire, heating everything in front of me however it pleased.
The surging rage made my eyes feel dry and my whole body restless. Inside my head, reason and emotion and everything else were split into camps, screaming at each other.
Kill them. Are you insane? Let's kill them. Fuck off. Why aren't you killing them? Does it make sense to kill people just because you're angry? But the anger won't go away. It's stifling. That damn Madness Gauge.
My vision was red. It had been red. Even that was irritating, making it even harder to think. I just wanted to let my body ride the current of the emotion.
But where was this feeling even coming from? Ah—that goddamn Madness Gauge?
But did it make any sense for a game to mess with a player's emotions however it liked?
Irritating—no, I'm angry. Why am I stuck in this damn game, going through all this—
No. Don't get swept away. Recite the modern code of ethics, now. Killing people because you're angry makes you a beast, not a human being—repeat it.
No, but that fucking game bastard started it first—
"Demon Knight?"
Through a high-pitched ringing in my ears, a voice calling me barely got through. As if entranced, I lifted my head, and…
"Are you all right?"
I discovered a mass of pure unpleasantness.
Ah. I can't hold on any longer.