Chapter 12
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 12
Chapter Title: Horne and Roman
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Horne and Roman
BOOM!
As a blue flame erupted with a deafening roar, I pulled the fingernail from my forearm. The spot where the tiny nail had been was already marked by a large scar, so it left no new trace.
‘Horne.’
I muttered the child’s name, the one scrawled crookedly on a corner of the smallest house in the village, and flicked the nail to the ground.
My head was filled with the voices of her and the child. I was dizzy. My heart sank as if weighted down by a heavy lead. I wanted to collapse right there and sob my heart out.
This weakness was useless.
‘…The demon.’
I forcefully wrenched my thoughts in a different direction.
I poured my anger like fuel into the tangled knot of emotions I couldn't release, then stoked it like a bellows. I scraped at the scabbed-over memories, feeding the flames with the raw feelings that burst forth.
I had to heat this exhausted body until it moved.
“Guh…”
A choked gasp made me turn my head. A mercenary, more than half-eaten, was staring up at the sky. He was so torn apart that bone was visible in places, marked with human teeth imprints.
It was a wonder he was still alive, though it seemed that miracle wouldn't last much longer.
His leather armor, likely expensive, was handsomely oiled. But it must have looked appetizing to the zombies, too, as it had been completely shredded.
Every time a raindrop landed on the exposed bone of the man’s neck, he flinched.
The fact that he was even breathing was a miracle, yet his eyes were filled with a fervent desire to live.
Even in such horrific pain, the man wanted to live.
“What’s your name?”
“Gurgle… Ro…man…”
“Right. Roman.”
Blood bubbled on the bone of his neck before bursting and trickling down.
I gave a small nod and took the sword from his hand. Whether he was from a well-off family or just skilled, his sword looked quite serviceable.
The man looked up at me with terror in his eyes, but then his body went limp. Regret clouded the eyes that had been filled only with desire.
Whether this was a legendary blade or a priceless treasure, it was of no use where he was going. He couldn't take it with him.
“May there be nothing on the other side.”
May you not be dragged back to this hell… I swallowed the rest of the thought.
Meeting his gaze—filled with despair, desire, and regret—I swung the sword and took his head. It rolled away, mingling with the bodies of the zombies.
It became difficult to tell the man from the dead.
Whether zombie or man, they all wore faces of anguish.
In the end, since both were devoid of life, they were the same.
KABOOM!
Another blue flame erupted.
[The secret to a thousand victories as a gladiator?]
[Simple. Rage.]
[Be enraged. Then rage will whip your body to move until the very moment you stop breathing.]
‘…Horne and Roman.’
Muttering the names over and over, I readjusted my grip on the sword.
My rage was now stoked hot enough to make the lukewarm rain feel cold against my skin.
***
‘To think they’ve infiltrated this deep.’
Knight Ben grimaced as he pulled the dagger from his left shoulder.
‘If those guys hear about this, they’ll die laughing.’
They’d surely tease him relentlessly, guffawing about how the great womanizer finally got himself stabbed by one. He wouldn’t be able to show his face in the castle for a while.
‘But that’s not the real problem.’
Ben took a potion from his pouch and poured it on the wound. A horrific stinging sensation made him grimace.
It was a high-grade potion said to reattach severed limbs, but now, it had no effect.
Instead, black smoke rose with a rotten stench. The flesh around the wound began to decay.
‘A curse?’
They came well-prepared, Ben muttered, tossing the potion bottle aside. A mere handmaiden wouldn’t be carrying a cursed dagger. This was clearly a meticulously planned attack.
He had been so careful. Where had the information leaked? The thought that there might be a spy in House Pener even crossed his mind.
“So you’re the noble knight. I quite like the state you’re in.”
The man before him sneered, pulling back a black hood.
His face was melted in places as if from a plague, and oozing fluid made him unpleasant to look at. He was so gaunt that his eyes were sunken deep enough to reveal their shape, and his cheeks were so hollow his teeth were visible.
Ben focused on the man’s left arm. A grotesque, enormous thing was attached where his arm should have been, completely out of place on his withered frame.
At a glance, it looked like the arm of a massive beast, but instead of fur, it was covered in countless, unblinking yellow eyes.
‘A demon whose corruption has only reached one arm…’
Ben had faced demons before, so he knew what level of demon he could handle.
He could manage one with both arms corrupted, but anything beyond that was dangerous.
And his opponent’s corruption was limited to just the left arm. He was more than a match for it. The problem was, his current condition was terrible.
He had never fought a demon in such an abysmal state.
‘So this is why they say beauty is a poison.’
He smiled bitterly, recalling the words his father used to say like a mantra. His father’s nagging had always been right, and he always realized it far too late.
His consciousness flickered, and his body swayed. Ben glanced sideways at the young lady sleeping soundly behind him. She was, annoyingly, perfectly fine.
“Well, the outside should be about cleaned up. Shall we have a taste of some noble knight meat now?”
The man stretched out his left arm. The hideous thing swelled in size, then expanded with enough force to shatter the wall.
Debris from the impact pattered against Ben’s face.
“I’d prefer it rare, if you don’t mind. Makes it easier to slice.”
Ben quipped back as he tightened his grip on his sword. If he’d known he’d be facing something this large, he would have brought a shield. With a pang of regret, Ben summoned his aura.
The curse seemed to affect his aura as well; its speed and volume were pathetic.
But it was better than nothing. In a world where most people were reduced to mere food before a demon, having any aura at all was a blessing.
As always, Ben didn’t complain.
He simply did his best with what he was given.
Ben’s eyes widened as he focused on his opponent’s arm. Hundreds, thousands of yellow eyes stared back at him, unblinking.
“Hm, my apologies. I’m going to mash it up and eat it as a pie. Knight pie. Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”
The man sneered, one corner of his mouth lifting.
Watching him, Ben felt an irresistible urge to talk back. The situation was dire, but his personality wouldn’t let him just stand there and take it.
“…You really are ugly, by the way. Were you always this ugly? Or did you end up like that after taking in a demon? Right, no human could possibly look like that. My condolences.”
“You insolent bastard who can’t grasp his situation!!”
The reaction was immediate. The man’s already grotesque face contorted completely, until it resembled nothing more than a demon’s testicle.
Ben held his breath, focusing on the left arm. The moment the hideous muscles on the arm tensed, he moved.
The arm came at him, destroying everything in its path. Ben, however, advanced, his eyes on a pillar in the middle of the room.
When the arm was close enough for him to smell its foul stench, it slammed into the pillar, pausing for a fraction of a second.
‘My chance.’
Exhaling the breath he’d been holding, Ben leaped. The aura he’d forced out empowered his feet, and his surroundings seemed to slow. In a single step, he was in front of his foe.
He saw the shock on the man’s face. Pus burst from under his widened eyes. Ben was now certain that if a demon had testicles, this is exactly what they would look like.
Ben sensed victory. On the line between life and death, a single mistake decided the outcome.
Twisting his wrist, he thrust his sword. It was a motion he had repeated thousands, tens of thousands… no, countless times.
The movement flowed as naturally as breathing. He unleashed his aura, and a cool blue flame erupted from his blade.
However, his condition was worse than he’d realized.
Just before the blade could pierce his opponent’s shocked face, the forced aura fluctuated as if in protest, and for a moment, his mind went blank. It was a clear, small mistake, and he was on the line between life and death.
Pop!
The tip of his sword wavered. It blew off the left side of his opponent’s face, but it wasn’t enough to kill a demon. He should have aimed for the center…
CRASH!
A horrific impact sent Ben flying backward into a wall. Thud! The wall cracked like a spiderweb, and stone fragments rained down.
Sprawled on the floor, Ben coughed up a mouthful of dark red blood. The chest plate of his armor was hideously dented, making it hard to breathe.
“Shit! You scared me! I almost died, you noble bastard! Phew…!”
The man dramatically swept his right hand over his chest. Half his face was gone, yet he was fine.
Ben’s entire body screamed in pain. He had managed to protect his right arm with a sliver of aura, so it wasn’t broken, but it trembled from the aftershock.
His opponent’s left arm twitched again. The yellow eyes fixed on Ben, and the grotesque muscles tensed.
‘…I should’ve listened to my father and just become a farmer.’
The hazy image of his peasant father, who had even resorted to hitting him to stop him, came to mind. His parents’ words were never wrong, and the realization always came too late. He smiled bitterly. This time, it was far, far too late.
The animosity was so thick he could feel it on his skin. Ben sighed and forced his aching body to rise.
The books he read as a child were the problem.
Books filled only with beautiful colors, nothing like the reality of a knight’s life. They had changed his entire world.
To face a demon with nothing but a skewer to protect the woman known as the Flower of the East. In a way, it was the epitome of a knight’s romance, but the outcome would surely not be a pretty sight for a child.
The man’s face rippled, and the gaping hole began to fill with something grotesque. The corruption was advancing. It left a bad taste in Ben’s mouth to think he’d only helped the demon.
If only his condition had been a little better, if only his aura had been a little purer, if only he’d held a plow instead of a sword…
All the what-ifs flashed through his mind, but Ben didn’t complain.
As always, he would do his best with what he had.
“You’ve gotten handsome. Grotesque, but definitely an improvement.”
Ben swallowed the blood rising in his throat and smiled brightly.
“…You little bug. Your mouth is still running, I see.”
Regardless, with a beautiful woman behind him, the duty of a knight was clear.
Ben tried to recall the ending of the book he read as a child as he readjusted his grip on his sword.
‘…Was it a beautiful color?’
His arm trembled, but his sword did not waver.
***
‘Damn it. They said he was a half-baked knight.’
Kutan narrowed his eyes and swung his left arm. No, he *asked* it to swing. A low chuckle echoed in his mind, and the arm shot forward.
The knight’s armor was shattered and ruined, and he was trembling on his feet, looking like he would collapse at any moment, but he refused to fall. He would stumble, but somehow, he would dodge.
The curse was definitely working, and the blood streaming from his shoulder had soaked the front of his tunic, yet the man wouldn't go down. The floor was slick with a mixture of black fluid and the knight’s blood.
A sharp pain shot through Kutan’s left arm. The blood he had drunk was nearly gone. He hadn’t expected the fight to last this long. The man was a knight, but he was still human, wasn’t he?
‘The last one went down without all this trouble.’
Kutan was a meticulous person, the kind who identified every ingredient in his food before eating.
So he had prepared thoroughly for this, too. His biggest mistake was not knowing that there were different classes of knights.
‘This is why I didn’t want to deal with a knight in a small town.’
Kutan shook his head. He was at his limit, but he was still in better shape than the knight.
The knight hadn’t fallen, but it was clear he was on his last legs, able to do nothing more than lean on his sword and glare. Kutan hated that smug face of his.
‘How dare he call me ugly.’
Kutan ground his teeth. The knight had struck his deepest insecurity.
Did Kutan want to make a pact with a demon as a child and end up with this grotesque appearance? Of course not. Who in their right mind would?
All children dream of becoming heroes, but not everyone can be one. Someone has to play the villain. And that role was usually forced upon those at the very bottom, in the dregs of society.
At his first gathering of demon contractors, Kutan had to fight back tears listening to the others’ stories. They were all people who had been pushed to the brink, forced to promise their souls to eternal torment.
Just to survive.
To be treated like human beings.
They had chosen to become monsters.
Ironically, the more grotesque his appearance became, the more cautiously people treated him. The closer he became to a demon, the more he was treated like a human.
‘And he dares call me ugly?’
As a kid, while not handsome, Kutan had at least been told he looked manly, like he’d be a good farmer.
But the pact he’d made was beyond his means, and his once-sturdy body had withered to a twig, his face constantly oozing pus.
And now this arrogant knight, this welp who was surely born a noble and lived a smooth, wealthy life, dared to spew such words! Gritting his teeth, he made a request to his left arm. Please, crush that smug bastard. Mash him until you can’t tell if it’s the noble meat of a knight or a pig raised on filth.
‘And then I’ll make a pie with it.’
It had been a long time since he’d felt an appetite. Saliva pooled in his parched mouth. He wondered if he’d be able to tell the difference between knight pie and pig pie.
Zap.
A sudden wave of dizziness hit him.
It was the sign that he had used up all the blood he’d consumed.
Now, the demon was starting to feed on Kutan’s own blood.
‘One more hit will finish it.’
Kutan gritted his teeth and held on.
As the veins on his right hand faded, his left arm swelled. BOOM! The arm burst through the roof, then came crashing down with incredible speed. The sound of displaced air cracking echoed as a black shadow fell over the knight.
Later, he would whisper to the pie.
Your meat was less tasty than a pig raised on shit.
Just before the left arm could crush the arrogant knight, it abruptly changed direction.
“What are you doing! Just make the pie… Argh! What the hell!!”
He yelled, thinking the demon might be toying with him to drink more of his blood. Just then, a chill ran down his right side.
A huge, unknown figure was charging at him. Looking closer, he saw it was a large man. A man painted in black and red, whose eyes met his.
Blazing hatred. An abyss of enmity. The emotions were so vivid, conveyed in a single glance, that Kutan was terrified.
Just before the man’s sword could strike, the left arm smashed into his side. BOOM! A deafening roar erupted as his opponent was sent flying through a wall.
‘…What the. He’s just a weakling.’
Contrary to the ferocious presence that had made Kutan tremble, the man went down in a single blow.
His left arm didn’t even have a scratch on it.
Kutan realized then that the man couldn’t use aura. No matter how strong someone was, without aura, a blow was nothing more than a light tap to a demon. He felt foolish for having been so tense.
‘Damn it! Wasted precious blood for nothing.’
The left arm once again demanded blood. A surge of irritation washed over him. He’d been feeling unsteady on his feet lately, his health already poor, and now some weirdo had made him waste precious blood.
Take it. Just hurry up and make the pie. The thousands of eyes on his left arm seemed to narrow into smiles. Simultaneously, a wave of dizziness far worse than before slammed into Kutan.
This time, he could barely remain standing.
If he let it drink his blood a few more times, he would be in real danger.
‘I’ll end this quickly, hand over the girl, and then… contact the imperial family.’
There had been a minor miscalculation, but the situation was still manageable. Just crush this arrogant knight, take a scoop for pie ingredients, and…
Just then, he felt the chill again.
‘You’re insane!’
The left arm, which had been about to crush the knight, once again changed its course.
“This is for Horne and Roman!!”
The man, now far redder than before, was swinging his sword.
His armor was completely crumpled, and his left arm was bent at an unnatural angle. And yet, with his one good right arm, he swung the massive sword.
The indescribable emotion in the eyes glaring at him sent a shiver down Kutan’s spine.
The man collided with the left arm again.
BOOM! With a deafening roar, he was sent flying back even faster than he had come.
This time, however, he drove his sword into the ground to stop his momentum.
KRRRRK! A long gash was torn in the earth.
Though he coughed up a mouthful of blood, the man’s deep eyes remained fixed on him.
‘What… what the hell is that guy.’
He trembled with an instinctual fear. He was sure the man was a weakling who couldn’t use aura, yet he was more terrifying than the knight.
“Ptui.”
The man spat out a glob of red saliva and slowly rose to his feet. There was not a hint of hesitation.
“W-wait! Hold on!”
Losing any more blood would be dangerous. Kutan’s target was the arrogant knight, not this guy.
This man had to be in agony.
His left arm was clearly broken, and his entire body was a bloody mess.
He was even coughing up blood.
He had to be forcing himself to move.
There had to be room for compromise.
All humans fear death, after all.
“My target isn’t you. It’s that woman and turning that arrogant bastard into pie filling. I’m not interested in you, so if you run, I won’t chase…”
Kutan couldn’t finish his sentence.
Because in the middle of it, the man started running again.
“This is for Horne and Roman!!!”
The man roared, spitting blood with the force of his shout.
His voice was so thunderous it made Kutan’s head ring.
Zap.
Grind.
The left arm greedily sucked his blood again, and a wave of dizziness far worse than before felt like a hammer blow to his head. His vision began to blur. His legs trembled, threatening to give out, and a cold sweat drenched his back.
‘Who the hell are Horne and Roman!!’
Kutan screamed internally, gritting his teeth to stay conscious.
He swore he had never heard those names before.
BOOM!!
This time, the sound was even louder. The man’s body bent as it bounced off the ground, flying a great distance. Dark red stains marked the spots where he had landed.
‘Damn it. I’m going to die at this rate. All because of some crazy bastard…’
Kutan forced his wavering eyes to focus and quickly looked back at the knight. He was still in the same spot, kneeling and glaring at him. His gaze was fierce, but it was clear he couldn’t move.
As he reached his limit, his overheated mind grew cold.
‘…Right, I can still salvage this. I got bitten by a mad dog, but it’s a manageable wound. First, I hand over the woman… then I’ll demand a city as compensation. I can recover.’
Right, what was the point of killing the knight? The man hadn't been wrong. Even Kutan found his own appearance grotesque.
What mattered was his own survival. Just take the woman and leave. It’s still salvageable…
“…This… is for Ho…rne and Ro…man.”
Just then, the man’s low voice echoed through the room. Now completely crimson, the man creaked back to his feet.
At the sight, Kutan began to tremble.
It was a tremor born not of fear, but of sheer, utter revulsion.
‘So who the hell are these Horne and Roman guys!!’
Kutan was genuinely hearing the names for the first time, and he felt so wronged he could have cried.
He wanted to ask if the man had the wrong person, but he didn’t have the energy. It was utterly, infuriatingly unfair.