Chapter 522: City of Lamentation (3)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 522: City of Lamentation (3)
Everyone has experienced hunger at least once.
For a diet, because of a busy schedule, or simply from a bad mood.
Skip just one meal, and you feel empty. Go a whole day, and your stomach roars like thunder.
A desperate urge to shove anything you can find into your mouth.
But hunger for reasons like those can be stopped at any time.
If you just put your mind to it, you can fill your belly with any food you desire and savor the feeling of abundance.
But have you ever considered this?
What if you couldn't satisfy the gnawing hunger that sets in after just one day, no matter how much you wanted to?
What if you had no idea when that emptiness would end?
And what if, on top of it all, your parents, your siblings, your lover, and your friends were dying because of it?
Would you just stand by and watch?
Or would you risk your life, even if it meant dirtying your own hands, to save them?
That was why.
“Hahaha! You’re incredible, boss!”
“With this much, we won’t have to worry about starving for a while!”
“How long has it been since we’ve had food… Gulp…!”
That was why he had turned into a bandit.
He knew it was an unforgivable act.
He knew that their lives were just as precious as the lives of his own family, friends, and lover.
But that was human nature.
To sacrifice others for the sake of oneself and those close to them without a second thought.
“Um, boss.”
“What is it?”
“Are you sure this is okay? We went up against the Orthodox Church.”
“I heard they relentlessly track down and capture anyone who messes with their Volunteer Groups…”
“…”
That’s why it didn’t matter.
Whether their target was the Vatican Orthodox Church or the rulers of this country.
What if they came seeking revenge?
“It would be a less miserable death than starving.”
“…”
If you’re going to die one way or another, you might as well choose the less miserable path.
Wouldn’t dying at the hands of the Orthodox Church be less pathetic than losing your whole family to mere starvation?
“Distribute some of the food to feed your families. Store the rest in the warehouse and guard it carefully.”
“Yes, boss!”
His men, their faces bright with the thought of a full meal for the first time in ages, hurried out.
“Hoo.”
Just as he finally found himself alone and leaned back in a worn-out chair…
Clack!
The door, which had just been closed, swung open again.
The man who entered was cloaked in a jet-black robe.
His skin was so white it looked pale, his lips a stark crimson.
A handsome man who, the longer you looked, gave off an unreal feeling.
His name was Stan.
He was the one.
The one who had approached the man as he fretted over food despite having become a bandit, offering information on the Orthodox Church’s Volunteer Group in exchange for a deal.
“I heard the news. You only took twenty percent of the Volunteer Group’s supplies before returning.”
“That’s right.”
At the man’s indifferent attitude, the smile on Stan’s lips twisted slightly.
“Why did you make such a choice?”
Because he had broken their promise.
They had clearly agreed to take all the supplies and split them in exchange for the information.
But the man had his reasons.
“If we had gotten any greedier, a fight would have surely broken out, and more than half of us would have died there.”
He hadn’t forgotten his purpose.
He had become a bandit solely because he didn’t want his family and comrades to starve.
What meaning would there be in sacrificing his comrades to obtain that food?
Finding the man frustrating, Stan asked again, his tone heavier.
“Is that not why I provided you with weapons?”
The weapons they currently carried had all been provided by Stan.
They looked like rusted antiques, but they were powerful enough to punch holes right through the tough bodies of Hunters.
Stan had claimed that with these weapons, they could easily defeat the Volunteer Group’s holy knights, but the man had seen otherwise.
“Without them, we would have been annihilated.”
“…”
Stan shook his head at the firm reply.
It had been a miscalculation.
He had chosen this man thinking his strong sense of camaraderie would make him fight bravely against the Volunteer Group, but that very camaraderie had become his undoing.
“I made a mistake. I shouldn’t have made a deal with someone as soft as you.”
“Sorry I couldn’t live up to your expectations.”
The man paid no mind to the jab at his pride.
His comrades were all alive, and they had secured a decent amount of food.
A little mockery in the midst of that was nothing.
“In any case, the deal is done. I’ll give you half the food as promised, so take it and go.”
He stood up, intending to hand over the promised payment and end the transaction quickly.
“I’m afraid that won’t do.”
Stan’s reply, laced with ill intent, made the man’s brow furrow.
“…What do you mean by that?”
As the man asked, Stan answered.
“Since you broke the promise first, doesn’t that mean I can break it too?”
“And so?”
“Hand over all the food you took this time. I’ll forgive you if you do.”
“Ha.”
The man let out a hollow laugh at the absurd proposal, delivered as if it were an act of mercy.
Soon, a murderous gaze was fixed on Stan.
“Have you forgotten that the weapons you gave us are still in our hands?”
At that, Stan laughed.
“Hehehe… Did you really think I would give you weapons without a little safety feature?”
“…!”
A sinister thought flashed through his mind.
He immediately shoved Stan aside and rushed outside.
“Everyone…!”
He was about to shout for them to get the weapons away from their bodies.
Snap!
As Stan flicked his thumb and index finger, dozens of lights flashed before his eyes.
BOOM!
BOOM!
The weapons strapped to their backs, chests, and sides all began to explode in unison.
Splat!
Thud!
Body parts and chunks of flesh torn off by the explosions scattered, spraying a red rain.
“Gaaah!”
“My, my arm, my aaarm!”
“Cough…!”
The lives of his comrades were crumbling away in an instant.
“Aaaah, my husband!”
“D-Daddy!”
“Big brother, wake up! Big brother, nooo!”
“Waaaaah-!”
Families wailed, clinging to their dying loved ones.
Fierce chaos and regret flooded the man’s mind.
Right.
I was the one who broke the promise.
So if I had just handed over all the food we took as payment…
Would this not have happened?
‘…No, that’s not it.’
The man clenched his fists.
As blood welled from where his nails dug into his skin and dripped to the ground, his senses returned.
Nothing would have changed.
Even if he had taken all of the Volunteer Group’s supplies as planned.
‘He planned this from the very beginning.’
He realized it too late.
From the moment they accepted the deal and hung those weapons around their necks, they were already dead.
In the end, the deaths of his comrades were because of that demon and his own foolishness in being deceived by him.
“Y-You…!”
Surrendering his body to his killing intent, the man charged toward Stan, who was laughing despicably behind him.
I’ll kill him.
In the most painful way possible, using every vicious method I know.
That was his only thought as he reached out to grab the fiend’s throat.
Shhhh…
Before his hand could even touch him, Stan’s body faded like a mirage.
Then, he felt his presence again, this time from behind.
“Hoh… so the old skills haven’t rusted away completely.”
Hah, hah.
Stan’s smile deepened as he looked at the man—no, the beast—exhaling breaths thick with murderous intent.
His lips parted.
“It seems the skills that earned you the position of the president’s head of security on merit alone haven’t faded.”
That’s right.
Though he was now nothing more than a common bandit, the man had once had a brilliant past.
His name was Andrei.
A man who had risen through the ranks to become the head of the presidential security detail on his outstanding skill alone.
He had ended up this way due to injuries sustained while ensuring the safe escape of the president and other high-ranking officials from the capital during the Great Cataclysm, but his fangs hadn’t all been pulled.
“Graaaah-!”
Andrei let out a fierce roar and charged again.
But as if mocking him, Stan continuously slipped from his grasp like a mirage.
Like a man who existed but had no physical form.
“Hehe, it’s useless. You can’t even use mana properly in that body of yours, can you?”
“Grrrk…!”
He twisted the knife in the most painful spot.
Just as Stan said, Andrei had lost his mana.
His circuits, overheated from excessive use of power, had failed to withstand the heat and ultimately melted.
The ability to vanish like a mirage was surely a trait-based power.
The most common way to grasp such an entity was to imbue one’s hands or weapon with mana.
But for Andrei, who had lost his mana circuits, that was impossible.
Like a bull enraged by a red cape, he charged wildly until he exhausted himself and staggered.
Stan didn’t miss the opening. He materialized and succeeded in grabbing Andrei by the neck.
CRACK!
“Keoheok…!”
The tables turned with a single attack.
Caught in his grip, Andrei realized it.
Stan’s strength was no less than his own.
And the fact that Stan hadn’t fought him head-on was merely to mock and toy with him.
A dangerous smile on his lips, he slowly tightened his grip and offered a farewell.
“Go on ahead and wait. I’ll be sending your comrades and families to join you, one by one.”
“You… you son of a bitch… Gkh…!”
Crrrack…!
Just as his neck, trembling in anguish, was about to snap with a grotesque sound…
CRACKLE!
An ominous noise shot down from above Stan’s head.
Letting go of Andrei’s neck, Stan hastily threw himself back.
It was by a hair’s breadth.
KRA-KOOM!
With a deafening roar, a long bolt of lightning struck the spot where he had been standing.
An unnatural product, created not by nature, but by a human.
Seeing this, a chill ran down Stan’s spine.
He had almost died.
Loosening the button of his dress shirt, which was choking him with a suffocating fear, he looked up at the sky.
A man, with the clear blue sky at his back, was slowly descending.
Kim Do-jin.
He immediately understood the situation.
“Looks to me like a deal gone south and you all started fighting. Am I right?”
He grinned, looking back and forth between the two.
He couldn’t hide his smile at what was, for him, a perfectly beautiful situation.