Chapter 368: Bread and Dagger (66)
Chapter 368: Bread and Dagger (66)
Fire arrows, fireballs, and throwing knives flew through the air, piercing the hearts and heads of his comrades. With every strike, a scream inevitably erupted as another life was extinguished.
“Aaaagh!”
“Gah!”
Hans couldn't even begin to process what was happening.
The only thing filling his mind was the desperate urge to survive.
He crawled on all fours, stealing a glance toward the direction the fire arrows had come from.
There, he saw figures approaching with a leisurely gait.
Tall statures, pointed ears, and slender limbs.
They were elves.
Had the elves who left actually returned?
But the elves Hans had encountered before were never this strong. If they had possessed this kind of power from the start, he would have avoided an engagement altogether.
Hans’s trembling eyes caught a particularly jarring shadow.
Standing among the tall elves was a squat, middle-aged man.
His face was hideously distorted by burn scars. Even his hair seemed to have been scorched away, leaving nothing to hide that grotesque countenance.
And yet, those eyes.
Those blue eyes were sunken so deep that, for a moment, Hans felt a wave of pure confusion.
But he didn't have the luxury of time.
He crawled desperately, throwing himself into the charred ruins of a collapsed hut. He closed his eyes and waited, pretending to be dead.
He prayed that those monsters would just pass him by.
The residual heat from the ashes stung his skin. To make matters worse, a clueless crow was hopping around near him—something he hadn't noticed at first.
A groan threatened to escape his lips, but Hans endured with everything he had.
The nightmare that had haunted him his entire life was playing out again.
The day his village burned.
On that day, too, he had barely survived by hiding in a barn turned to ash.
Through his closed eyelids, he heard the elves talking.
At first, their voices carried a tone of profound sorrow.
“How can this be… we’re too late. We heard a human camp was discovered nearby and came to provide support just in case, but…”
“At least we can still have our revenge. That is a mercy.”
A languid agreement followed the voice of the middle-aged man.
Cold sweat began to bead on Hans’s forehead. Not knowing the full situation only amplified his anxiety.
Eventually, unable to bear the uncertainty, Hans cracked his eyes open.
And then he saw them.
The hideously scarred middle-aged man and the tall elf standing beside him like an attendant.
The elf’s eyes were wrapped in red cloth. He looked blind, yet his movements were remarkably natural.
It was as if he had another set of eyes somewhere else.
The middle-aged man let out a lamentation.
“Revenge, oh… revenge! Could there be a more tragic fate? Yet, if this too is the Will of God, it is the duty of a servant to follow… However, it bothers me slightly that I don't see the bodies of our brothers and sisters. Could you check with your ‘Blessing’?”
“Of course, Lord Leoric.”
The tall elf obediently followed the command of the man called ‘Leoric.’
He opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue. Then, something began to writhe and bulge, traveling up his throat.
It didn't take long for a hideous eyeball to emerge.
The eyeball rolled onto his tongue, blinking as it scanned the surroundings. As soon as the middle-aged man placed a hand on the elf’s shoulder, the lump of flesh began to flicker with a blue light.
Leoric soon let out an exclamation of surprise.
“Ian Percus? Hahaha! To think he was hiding in the elf village… He even took up his sword to save our brothers and sisters.”
Slurp. Only then did the tall elf retract his tongue.
Naturally, the grotesque eyeball vanished back down his throat. The tall elf turned to Leoric.
“What should we do?”
“He is a magnificent man. He saved the lives of our brothers and sisters, but…”
The middle-aged man sighed deeply, his expression pained.
He covered his face with both hands, as if trying to show just how troubled he was.
“He has learned too much. Just like this human brother here, who is pretending to be dead while eavesdropping on our conversation.”
For a moment, Hans felt a terror so sharp it nearly stopped his heart.
Exerting superhuman patience, he managed to remain perfectly still. He desperately hoped it was just a bluff.
But Leoric did not grant Hans even a moment of peace.
“Stop the futile acting, brother. Haven't you lived long enough? Staining your hands with the blood of our elven brothers and sisters…”
“You lot started it!”
The words were spat out through gritted teeth.
Hans’s eyes snapped open. It was the kind of resolve that only comes from total desperation.
His mind had long been a mess of overwhelming fear, but a surge of indignation rose within him.
This was the nightmare he had suffered through his whole life.
Was he going to back down and regret it yet again?
He didn't want to. If the outcome was going to be the same anyway, he wanted to resist until the very end.
He remembered who had given him this chance.
Thinking of the face of the young knight with the hand axe, Hans stumbled to his feet.
“You burned our village first! I still remember those fire arrows… You bastards were the ones who attacked us!”
“There was no other way.”
Leoric let out a faint sigh and took a step forward.
The elves attending him were startled and tried to stop him, but his resolve was firm.
When Leoric raised a hand to restrain them, the elves became unnervingly quiet.
It was a terrifying display of control.
Hans couldn't stop the cold sweat pouring down his spine.
“Once, I dreamed of coexistence between humans and elves. After becoming a defeated soldier and wandering lost, I found an elf girl who showed me that possibility. She… she gave me bread.”
As he spoke, Leoric lightly wiped a tear from his eye.
His hand fumbled inside his robe. Before long, he pulled out a piece of bread.
Leoric offered the bread as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Would you like some?”
“Shut up.”
“Hmm,” Leoric hummed, sounding disappointed.
His hand reached back into his robe. Even so, the man did not stop his steady, rhythmic approach.
“I have my own grievances. After all, haven't humans taken everything from the elves until now? Their home, their food, even their lives…”
“You elves are exactly the same!”
“Yes, exactly! That is the core of it!”
Leoric clapped his hands together and cried out. To an outsider, he looked like he was playing a game.
“I… I finally realized it. The day I saw the elf village burning at the hands of humanity, and the day the elf girl who saved me starved to death.”
The middle-aged man came to a halt.
He quietly made the Sign of the Cross and clasped his hands together. It was the posture often taken by followers of the Heavenly God Religion.
“Immanuel, praise the Lord! How arrogant was this foolish servant?!”
At his passionate sermon, the elves following him immediately dropped to their knees.
They, too, made the Sign of the Cross and clasped their hands.
Hans was struck speechless by the bizarre sight.
“That everyone can live together?! That disgusting arrogance, believing that coexistence is the best path! That filth-ridden conviction was deceiving us! Look at this burning village!”
Leoric’s voice, now heated, was tinged with a faint madness.
His blue eyes burned fiercely.
“Elves and humans are the same! This world, where we hurt each other, rob each other, and struggle not to be left behind! How can this be the world the Lord watches over? This is Hell! We were actually trapped in Hell all along!”
“S-so that’s why you attacked our village?!”
“Yes, exactly! Because that is the Will of God!”
Step, step.
As Leoric continued his approach, his face was filled with a powerful conviction. Hans instinctively backed away, feeling an eerie chill.
As he did, his foot caught on something.
It was a charred wooden stake. Long and rod-like, its end had been sharpened to a point.
This is it.
Hans suppressed the rising surge of hope.
Then, the moment Leoric came within reach.
He quickly grabbed the stake and lunged forward.
It was a distance from which the man couldn't possibly dodge. Since the opponent was wearing nothing but tattered priest's robes, the stake was sure to pierce his chest.
Yes, that’s how it should have been.
But when a dull resistance traveled up his arm, Hans found himself staring blankly at Leoric. The man hadn't even tried to react. He just stood there, wearing a sorrowful smile.
With a heavy boom of displaced air, Leoric’s hand struck Hans’s shoulder.
A sickening crunch echoed.
It happened in an instant. Hans’s arm was torn clean off from the shoulder, and blood began to gush from the stump.
This wasn't human strength.
Hans screamed in agonizing pain.
“Agh, aaaaaaaagh!”
“Immanuel, praise the Lord! Human brother, you are now attaining salvation…”
Then, with a thud, a kick slammed into Hans’s abdomen.
His insides felt like they were being turned inside out. Hans tumbled across the ground, vomiting a mouthful of blood. After just two blows, his vision was already fading.
He was in a near-death state.
In fact, Leoric was holding back significantly. If he had intended to, Hans would have been dead long ago.
Yet, Leoric did not kill him.
He wanted him to die slowly.
Hans felt a freezing terror alongside his burning rage.
His hair stood on end.
This man is insane.
He truly believed that this was for Hans’s own good.
Leoric’s voice, trembling with emotion, continued.
“Resent me, hate me… that sin is mine to bear. If someone must go to Hell, it should be me! So, brother, finish your atonement and depart quickly for Heaven!”
Leoric’s hand, which had been fumbling inside his robe, emerged once more.
What he held was not bread.
It was a dagger—a weapon clearly meant for ending a life.
Hans felt his eyelids growing heavy.
There was no hope. He couldn't win.
But wanting to land at least one verbal blow, Hans squeezed his mangled lungs and let out a laugh.
“Heh… hehehe… L-Leoric, was it?”
Leoric’s hand, gripping the dagger, paused.
His eyes turned somber, as if he were willing to listen to a final request.
Hans didn't miss the chance.
“You… you’re going to fail… Because there’s someone much more suited to be a savior than the likes of you…”
A man who could have turned his back on humanity, yet took up his sword for the elves.
A knight who didn't take the lives of even those who tried to kill him.
He was a man Hans had hated so much, but now, no one felt more reliable.
Blood vessels burst in Hans’s screaming eyes.
“I-Ian… hehe, Sir Ian will bring you down. Just wait and see how terrifying the blade forged by our humanity truly is…”
“…I shall take that into account.”
That was their final conversation.
With a thud, the dagger sank into his throat, and blood sprayed out. Hans made a gurgling sound as bloody foam filled his mouth, and then his convulsions stopped.
Death.
At that familiar result, Leoric let out a pained sigh and turned his head.
“I have heard your advice, brother. Ian Percus… indeed, he is there.”
Muttering to himself, his gaze suddenly turned toward a mound of snow that was being formed.
A greatsword was thrust into it. Someone must have been in the middle of making a grave.
A faint arc traced itself on Leoric’s lips.
“If he is such a great hero, then he must overcome a trial worthy of him…”
A pure white light gathered in the middle-aged man’s hand.
That light began to envelop Hans’s severed arm. Not only that, it even began to heal the wound on the back of his neck.
It was a grotesque level of healing power.
Even the legendary Saintess couldn't grant such regenerative abilities. But despite this miraculous sight, the elves and Leoric seemed entirely unmoved.
Leoric whispered into the ear of the soldier whose life had already ended.
“You shall become the hero who denounces Ian Percus’s betrayal… This setting should work well. You were thought dead and buried in a grave, but even then, you held onto a faint consciousness. And with your last ounce of strength, you wrote this with your own blood.”
The elves were gathering the bodies of the soldiers.
To carry out Leoric’s plan.
“…‘Ian Percus has betrayed humanity.’ How does that sound?”
After that, several more mounds were made in the elf village.
Later, a group that had set out from Yurdina Castle arrived, and eventually, a brown-haired woman in a maid outfit appeared.
She quietly surveyed the surroundings before reaching out toward the collapsed ruins.
A single crow flew down and landed on her hand.
As the crow let out a caw, a current of blue mana began to flow through the woman’s hand.
Before long, the woman let out a meaningful groan.
“…I’ll have to report this to Lord Ian.”
The next day, Ian spoke to the elves.
“I need to go to that place you called the ‘Headquarters.’”
It was a bombshell declaration.