Chapter 662: The Moths Drawn to the Flame - 2
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 662: The Moths Drawn to the Flame - 2
*
At least the delegation from the Sanctum was exceedingly polite and moderate.
The Mage Federation was the land of mages. The domains were governed by the rules of arcane magic, and this special environment gave birth to unique local products.
In particular, the Celsius domain, which shared the same roots as the Crystal Towers and could manipulate heat at will, possessed exceptionally advanced magic tool crafting techniques.
Consequently, many merchants visited the Celsius domain to import magic tools, and just as many bandits came to prey on them. Mercenaries, in turn, arrived seeking the jobs created by the clashes between the two.
Mercenaries sometimes became merchants, and other times bandits, just to get by.
Since they couldn't fight within the domains ruled by the prestigious magic families, they mostly wandered through the unregulated zones, slipping in whenever they earned enough money. In any case, they were one of the factions that made up the Mage Federation.
Though no match for the great magic families, the mercenary bands, with their own measure of military strength, had maintained a certain balance.
Recently, however, a significant shift had occurred in the mercenaries’ sphere of influence.
“Happiness! Give me happiness!”
The tent shook with a shrill scream. A moment later, mercenaries burst out from inside, yelling.
“Dammit, she’s at it again today!”
“Isn't she fucking crazy?! She just had it all a minute ago!”
“Get the ‘Apothecary’!”
With a great clamor, the mercenaries scrambled out, grabbing only their valuables. They all clutched their heads and rolled on the ground.
A moment later.
Blue lines of light crisscrossed the tent. Simultaneously, a storm of slashes erupted, tearing the tent to shreds. The tables and furniture inside, sliced along with the canvas, clattered to the ground.
A mercenary who had barely escaped with his life was about to let out a sigh of relief.
“Cough.”
The slashes had spared nothing—not the objects, not the tent, and certainly not the people.
One unlucky man collapsed, his chest split open, spewing blood. Another, more fortunate, had his arm split vertically, dangling like a piece of taffy.
And from within the wreckage, a woman with her clothes in disarray stood spinning, a thick blade in her hand.
She was a ridiculous sight, but the results were anything but. The violent slashes destroyed everything they touched. A surviving mercenary tightened the strap of his helmet and shouted.
“That crazy bitch…! Why is a junkie like her so damn strong?!”
“Because she has reached the Axiom through drugs.”
A soft, calm voice—and for that reason, utterly chilling—was heard. The mercenary flinched and stumbled backward. Where the voice had come from stood a young man dressed in pitch-black, his skin paler than ice.
“Apothecary…!”
At the mercenary’s word, the Apothecary fiddled with a small vial and spoke.
“You tried to have some fun with her while she was passed out on her medicine. A faithful devotion to your desires, I like to see it. But you should have heeded my warning. I told you she has reached the Axiom.”
“Lies…! How can a junkie be a master! What kind of technique is in that swordplay?!”
“The technique isn't in her swordplay. It’s in her body.”
For a Qi practitioner to reach the Axiom, they needed long experience, deep training, and a clear Spiritual World for their power. Only after achieving harmony with heaven and earth and mastering oneself could one touch the world’s Axiom and bend reality.
Drugs? Elixirs? Or perhaps an Anathema like Gluttony? Relying on such demonic arts might increase one’s power, but the external forces would inevitably muddle the spirit, making it difficult to establish a clear Spiritual World.
But humans always find a way.
Among the demonic arts, the most common was the Poison Qi Art.
Get a person hooked on narcotics, use their addiction as leverage to force them through torturous training, and have them attain strength dependent on the drug. Then, use that drug as a trigger to awaken their power.
In the process, someone with exceptional talent and a high tolerance for the drugs might even reach the Axiom.
Dokjine was one such case.
It was a relatively low-level Axiom, one that conditionally enhanced her physical abilities only when the drug was in her system. But an Axiom was an Axiom.
“I’m from the Kingdom, so I used to hold some vague illusions about masters, but seeing her shattered what little was left. I suppose reaching the Axiom isn't all that great if it can be drowned in drugs.”
The Apothecary shook his head as he looked at Dokjine in the distance. Just then, a slash flew at him. The Apothecary bent his body smoothly—no, more like an invertebrate—and dodged the attack.
“Aaaargh!”
The mercenary, however, was not so flexible. The stray slash sliced off his ear. The Apothecary glanced at the screaming man.
“I’m actually more curious about you lot. I know you mercenaries are impulsive, but to try and touch a woman like that. Could you not smell the stench of death?”
The mercenary, clutching his bleeding ear, gasped and shouted.
“Dammit, it’s because you’re always playing with her! We just wanted to play with your woman a bit, too. It’s not like she’ll wear out!”
“My woman?”
The mercenary had said the wrong thing, but the Apothecary latched onto a different part of it. He grabbed the mercenary by the throat. Despite his gaunt frame and bookish appearance, he displayed monstrous strength, lifting the burly mercenary off the ground with ease.
“Listen carefully. That is not my creation. She is far too healthy. I like women who are frail, who seem as if they could stop breathing at any moment. I like a woman who whispers her love to me in her final moment, gasping as she meets her end. I like a woman so pale and slender she looks as if she would break at the slightest touch.”
Fear filled the mercenary’s eyes. But the Apothecary, lost in his own reverie, held him fast and lamented.
“The problem is, such women die too quickly. Even if death is their completion, the moment is too brief. I have fallen in love with more than twenty-seven women so far, but every single one of them has left my side.”
“Gack… You, crazy…”
“Perhaps vampire blood could have been the key to overcoming that… but once immortality is promised, they are no longer frail beings. I realized that dilemma far too late. By then, I had already been tricked by the Military State and thrown into Tantalus…”
The man once known as the Apothecary, the Kingdom’s greatest poison master and a serial killer. A man whose methods were so cruel and horrific that even the Military State deemed him unusable and locked him away in Tantalus.
Kuram the Apothecary.
Finishing his lament, he smiled serenely.
“Still, it wasn’t all bad. It was a chance to understand my own heart. As sad as farewells may be, I will carry all that sorrow and continue my search for love…”
As he muttered, a shower of blood and guts rained down in front of him. The Apothecary tilted his head. The mercenary’s lower body had vanished, and blood was dripping from the stump.
The woman’s slash had torn the mercenary apart. The man trembled, blood pouring from his lips. Kuram the Apothecary watched him quietly for a moment before speaking.
“Oh my. I’m starting to like you.”
Of course, that moment, too, was brief. The mercenary breathed his last. The Apothecary gazed at him lovingly, then, as if bored, tossed him aside.
What the Apothecary liked was a human on the verge of death, not a dead one.
After disposing of the mercenary, Dokjine staggered toward the Apothecary. Two steps forward, one step back, three steps left and right, she finally reached him and clung to him in a semblance of an embrace.
“Kuram. My… my happiness ran out. Quick, give me hap… happiness… Something that feels good…”
“Sigh. If you need it, you shall have it. Listen while you drink.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, the Apothecary plunged a syringe into Dokjine’s vein. A look of ecstasy washed over her face, and a feverish moan, as if reaching a climax, escaped her lips. While her body twitched uncontrollably, expressing its joy, the Apothecary whispered in her ear.
“It’s a letter from Lankart.”
As the drug was administered, Dokjine’s sanity gradually returned. Her eyes, now clearer and more focused than before, showed a spark of curiosity.
“Heeh… It’s been a while. This is the first time since we left Tantalus, isn’t it? What’s up?”
“He says there’s a Divine at the top of the tower. The letter says we can have it if we want it.”
“A Divine?”
“Ah, you don’t know anything, do you? To put it simply, yes. An Arcane, like the Abyss.”
“Heeeh…”
Curiosity, interest, and then anger and hatred.
Her sanity restored, Dokjine’s eyes glittered. She pressed the empty syringe against her body again and again. After rubbing herself against it until she was sure not a single drop was left, she licked her lips and asked.
“If we have that, can we kill the Military State?”
“I cannot say for sure, as I do not know. But without it, you can achieve nothing with your power alone.”
Two criminals, once imprisoned in Tantalus. The Apothecary and Dokjine.
Their abilities were unconventional, and they were just a little too valuable to be discarded for their crimes. The Military State had stored them in Tantalus, thinking a situation might arise where they could be of use, but that was a miscalculation.
Humans have emotions. The frustration and rage of the imprisoned had fermented in that deep underground.
“I wonder how beautiful the Military State will be on the verge of death.”
Most of the criminals in Tantalus had died fighting amongst themselves. The few who survived had rebelled against Lankart and been torn to pieces.
Of all the prisoners of Tantalus, only these two remained. Following Lankart’s orders, they had come to the Mage Federation, become mercenaries, and nurtured their hatred for the Military State.
To have survived meant they were strong. The malice, condensed like solitude in the depths of the Abyss, was now directed at the Military State…
“Hmmmm~.”
And then, one of the fallen mercenaries slowly raised his head.
What had been a burly, brutish man was now a woman with a playful expression. Dressed in clothes far too large for her, she fumbled to adjust them and muttered to herself.
“The Military State won’t be in any real danger because of two petty criminals like them~. Still, it’s not good to procrastinate on your homework, is it? I’m such a workaholic, you know~.”
But with the two of them together, even Hilde would have a hard time. Separately, they were riddled with flaws and conditional limitations, but together, they perfectly compensated for each other’s weaknesses.
After a moment of thought, Hilde shrugged as if she had no choice.
“I guess I’ll have to aim for the moment they’re climbing Babel~. Well, this gives me a reason to climb the gateway to success, too.”
Her decision made, Hilde hummed a tune as she walked out of the blood-soaked tent. She strode through the pile of corpses as if nothing had happened.
“Work’s done, so it’s time to go get some healing from Father~.”
The relic of Saint Rene, the keepsake of the Divine.
Lured by the tempting bait, hundreds had gathered.