Level Up Machine 061: Demon God's Armor (6)
“Ah, no. This... this can't be.”
A murmur filled with confusion spilled from Tiriya's lips. She stared at the three corpses laid out against the wall with eyes full of disbelief. Her body began to tremble.
“No way... this isn't possible.”
As if struggling to accept the reality before her, she reached out toward the corpses. Crack. The body she touched crumpled to the floor. The corpse, which appeared to be that of a young boy, was missing one arm, severed as if by a sharp blade.
“Ahh... ah...”
Tiriya's face drained of color. She recalled the threatening video she had received from the Elnot Kingdom. In the footage captured by the recording crystal orb, her younger brother's arm had been gruesomely amputated.
With a frantic expression, she lifted her head to gaze at the remaining two corpses. Though decay had advanced considerably, making identification difficult, she instinctively knew. Those two bodies were her beloved father and mother.
“Ah... aaaaaah!”
Tiriya collapsed to the spot, pulling the young boy's corpse into her arms with both hands as she began to wail. It was a raw, beastly cry of anguish.
“Why? Why on earth?!”
She sobbed uncontrollably, unable to accept the reality unfolding before her eyes. Her mother, father, and younger brother had been vital hostages for the kingdom. Killing them would mean forfeiting all leverage over Tiriya from the kingdom's perspective. Naturally, she had assumed her family was still alive.
Not just her—all the other guild members had been certain of the hostages' survival.
But that hope was shattered cruelly. Her family, held as hostages, lay there as cold, lifeless corpses.
Yeong-sik gazed down at Tiriya's back as she wailed, his eyes deeply shadowed.
'Why?'
The short question surfaced in his mind. From the Elnot Kingdom's standpoint, there was no reason to kill Tiriya's family. They still desired an army of summoners and needed the powerful elite Salvatore Guild to achieve that. Even if Salvatore had fallen, the forces supporting Tiriya were far from insignificant.
Setting aside supporters, the remaining Salvatore members alone possessed firepower that most guilds couldn't match. As proof, just ten of them had wiped out the remnants of Light Shield Guild.
'Looking at the state of the bodies... they seem to have died from weakened constitutions.'
Yeong-sik's gaze turned cold as he stared at the corpse Tiriya clutched. It wasn't unusual for prisoners to die from frailty. In this era's civilization, survivors among the incarcerated were rarer still.
The issue was that these frail deceased were existences the kingdom could not afford to lose.
Dying from exhaustion rather than beatings or accidents meant even basic care for secured hostages had been neglected. That was abnormal. It was as if they'd abandoned the plan to seize Salvatore Guild altogether.
'Or perhaps... they have a new plan.'
Yeong-sik thought as he looked down at the wailing Tiriya. If his hypothesis was correct, it was an utterly ruthless affair.
They had used her as they pleased, stripped her of everything, and discarded her like a used rag once a new scheme emerged. Her profound despair was unworthy of consideration. She was simply discarded once her utility waned.
A nauseating revulsion churned in Yeong-sik's gut. His head grew hot.
“Hic... huwaaaang!”
Tiriya's cries continued. Yeong-sik offered no words or actions of comfort, merely watching her silently. Comforting her here was impossible. Her situation was too devastating for solace.
“Why... why did this happen?”
Tiriya, still clutching the boy's corpse and wailing, finally spoke. Her voice was faint, squeezed out with effort.
“If... if I'd chosen a little faster, would this have been avoided?”
Her tone carried a pleading note as she asked Yeong-sik. Comforting her here would have been simple: tell her she did nothing wrong, that it was all the Elnot royals' vile doing. That would offer her a sliver of solace.
But it would mean nothing.
“Yes. It wouldn't have happened.”
Yeong-sik answered her question in a flat voice. Tiriya's body jerked.
“Was it... all my fault?”
Her expression desperate, like grasping at a fraying lifeline, she looked back at him.
Yeong-sik spoke in a deeply sunken voice.
“Yes.”
He shattered her desperate hope with firm resolve. Tiriya's face sank into even deeper despair. Clear anger flickered in her eyes—not toward the Elnot royals who had plunged her into this agony, but toward Yeong-sik standing right before her.
“All my fault? How... how can you say that so casually? That I should have chosen faster? As if it were that easy? I...”
Tiriya rose and strode toward Yeong-sik. She reached out with trembling hands and seized his collar.
“I agonized over it too. I stayed up nights thinking. But... but...”
Tears welled in Tiriya's eyes as she gripped his collar. Transparent droplets traced down her cheeks. She could say no more and bowed her head.
“I know full well that abandoning one side isn't easy. Even if I were in your shoes, I couldn't have chosen lightly.”
His deeply resonant voice continued.
“But you still had to choose, Tiriya. You couldn't hesitate. The position you're in now demands it.”
Yeong-sik spoke to her tear-streaked face with a composed expression. His unnervingly calm tone drew a hollow laugh from her unbidden.
“Ha... haha...”
The strength drained from her hands clutching his collar.
“So... what should I do now?”
She spoke in a voice hollow with emptiness. The guild she cherished had fallen, and the family she'd fought to save was all dead.
Her chest felt utterly vacant.
“There's nothing left to choose. It's all over...”
“No.”
Yeong-sik cut her off.
“It's not over yet.”
“?Then?”
“The Elnot royals took everything from you.”
Tiriya's body flinched at the words Elnot royals. Yeong-sik continued, gazing at her.
“After all that, do you plan to just sit idly by?”
Tiriya clamped her lips shut at his words. Of course she wanted revenge. She didn't want to stay still. But vengeance against a king was no simple matter.
Salvatore Guild had already crossed an irreversible line. They'd assaulted the emptied royal castle, sealed every door, and looted national treasures from the treasury. It went beyond mere theft—it was outright treason, madness itself.
But killing the king was an entirely different beast. It would drag even the surviving Salvatore members into total ruin.
“But...”
“As I said before, the choice is yours. Whatever you decide, I'll follow.”
Yeong-sik spoke calmly. His words soothed the storm raging in her heart.
Tiriya closed her eyes. She recalled the countless disasters that had befallen her and the guild since her family's kidnapping. Faces of those lost due to her hesitation flashed through her mind.
It was too late. Revenge wouldn't change anything.
Killing the king wouldn't bring them back. The tattered Salvatore Guild wouldn't return to its former glory.
Helping the survivors live in peace would be the wiser path.
But.
“I...”
Tiriya's lips parted. A cold glint emanated from her eyes—an intensity hard to reconcile with her usual gentle demeanor.
“I can't just stay still.”
She spoke with firm resolve, shaking off her hesitation. A faint smile touched Yeong-sik's lips, like a father watching his child grow.
Tiriya stepped closer to him.
“Yeong-sik... you're far more ruthless than you appear.”
She looked up at him with a fragile smile, on the verge of crumbling. Her tear-streaked face entered his view. In that moment, Yeong-sik found her beautiful unbidden.
“Thank you, Yeong-sik.”
She said, gazing up at him. His brutal words had anchored her heart, which craved something—anything—to lean on.
Yeong-sik reached out and stroked her hair.
“Ah...”
A soft gasp escaped Tiriya at his touch. The warmth from his hand spread through her body, defying the fact that his body was machinery, not flesh and blood. It evoked memories of her father often stroking her hair, her mother embracing her with a kind smile, her little brother tugging at her hem with childish affection.
Tiriya's face twisted as she leaned her head against Yeong-sik's chest. Fresh tears welled in her eyes.
“Hic... huu...”
A sob burst from her—not the beastly howl from before, but the whimper of a child.
“Hweeeeee...”
Tiriya buried her face in his chest and broke down crying. Yeong-sik gently stroked her hair as he spoke.
“It's okay. Nothing like this will happen again.”
His calm voice pierced her ear.
“I'll make sure of it.”
Yeong-sik's eyes gleamed sharply as he said it.