Regression #2
“The main force is still on standby?”
Psyche.
She received reports on the subjugation force’s position and status several times a day. Now the old, seasoned servant Eliesel brought her the latest news.
“Yes, my lady. They’re still holding formation right in front of the bandits’ cave. They’ve been sitting there for hours now. There must be a reason—”
Psyche wondered why the subjugation force had stopped advancing. Thoughts bubbled up and burst one after another as she turned it over in her mind.
Speed is everything in a surprise assault like this. By now the Crescent Moon Sisterhood should already know that forty troops have marched out. So why the wait—
Had they all simply lost their nerve?
No. That couldn’t be it. Her husband Hyde had boasted that he would dramatically improve Dihon’s condition within a week and then ridden out with them.
Come to think of it, Hyde has kept every single promise he’s ever made. There has to be a reason for this delay too. It would be my husband’s idea. Hyde, what are you thinking…
A flash—
Like a sudden bolt of light, the realization struck her. Psyche’s eyes went wide.
“Eliesel, earlier you said Hyde, Oscar, Loras and the other knights weren’t visible with the main force, didn’t you?”
“Yes, that’s right. Paulo was missing as well, which I found strange. I assumed they were holding a strategy meeting inside a tent.”
Psyche understood exactly why they were nowhere to be seen. And the understanding filled her with dread.
A real surprise attack…! They’re using the main force as bait and striking with only a handful of people…!
She could not sit still any longer. She turned to the old servant with urgent urgency.
“Grandfather! Prepare the fastest horse in Agarpe for me! Quickly! If I’m even a moment too late, everything may become irreversible! Please!”
“At once, my lady. Though… ‘Grandfather.’ When you were so ill I thought I would never hear that word again, and it made me terribly sad—”
Eliesel immediately brought out the swiftest, sturdiest white horse. In that short time Psyche had already donned her armor, strapped a finely made sword to her waist, and kicked the horse’s flanks.
“Hyaah!”
The horse screamed and shot forward like a bolt of lightning, racing out of the Agarpe domain. People who caught sight of her streaming red hair could only gasp in admiration.
Psyche berated herself the entire way.
This feels wrong. I should have gone with them from the start!
Behind the swirl mask, the woman was so furious she had forgotten even her own name. She smashed everything that entered her sight or came within reach of her hands. It made her feel a little better—if only for a moment.
She no longer knew what the rage was directed at. She only knew that this fire-like fury would not stop until it had burned her body to ash.
Scorching air. Screams crushed beneath her fists. Carried along by all of it, the woman finally heard a voice calling her name.
“Las, calm yourself. And listen to my voice!”
Las—
That was not her name. Yet it was a name she had heard somewhere before, and the man’s voice itself felt familiar and strangely longed-for, as though she had known him for a very long time.
Of course, that thought was immediately swallowed by the endless rage surging up from deep in her chest.
My name isn’t Las. So I don’t have to listen to that voice.
She was angry. First she would beat the woman and the child in front of her to death—
Just as the thought formed, the voice spoke again.
“You ignorant bitch. Do you think you don’t need to listen simply because your name isn’t Las? Your name is Las. Las of Wrath. I will call you that, and from this day forward the world will call you that as well.”
“…….”
Las.
A name was finally attached to the endless, reasonless fury. Only then could Las open her eyes behind the swirl mask.
Through crimson vision she saw a naked man lying in a wretched state, and a young boy dragging him by the arm.
“Sir Loras! Hurry and run!”
A woman had pulled the boy into her arms.
“Child… i-it’s dangerous. We… we have to run…”
The reek of blood filled every direction. The cult’s stronghold was catching fire once more. In the midst of that bizarre scene, Las noticed someone even more eye-catching than the naked man.
He wore a robe stained red with blood just like hers. He stood about six feet tall and wore a black iron mask over his face. But it was neither the mask nor his height that drew her attention.
Throb, throb—
His lower half stood upright like a spear, so large and thick it could not possibly be hidden. It seemed to stab straight into Las’s eyes.
What the hell is that? Is this guy insane?
Even with her rage still boiling, Las could tell the man was no ordinary being. The size was more obscene than the naked knight gasping on the ground.
Then the man spoke.
“One thing I should mention: I have a habit of getting hard whenever I put on a mask. I did not get hard because of you, so do not misunderstand, Las.”
“Who the fuck cares?! What the hell are you showing me?! I’ll kill every last one of you!”
Whoosh—
The flame in her heart flared up again. Las simply wanted to burn everything to the ground. No one but herself could ever understand this feeling.
Just then the iron-masked man raised a single finger.
“Las, I know your heart. You want to hide behind a mask and watch the world burn. You want everything to go up in flames. That alone would be enough for you.”
“What the fuck do you know?! Die, you son of a bitch!”
Las charged and drove her fist hard into his stomach.
THUD—!
A heavy sound rang out and the man’s body folded like a right angle. Yet Las could only stare in shock.
He didn’t even scream from that punch? I held back a little, but that shouldn’t be possible.
She took a startled step back. The man lifted his head. Blood streamed from beneath the iron mask, yet he did not let out a single groan of pain.
He raised his finger once more.
“Las, you worthless bitch, listen to me. It would be best if you withdrew for today. And it would be best if you let the people gathered here live.”
“Let them live? No. They’ve seen my face, so they all have to die. You included!”
Crack—
Las flexed her fingers and loosened her fist. One clean hit to each face and the job would be tidy. The masked man only shook his head.
“All humans are born in sin. Therefore from the moment of birth until the moment of death they suffer the price of that sin. Sometimes living itself becomes a greater torment than dying. Make them live forever in shame.”
“You think I’m going to listen to that sophistry?”
“They have a role to play. Las, you desire flame. A flame that will burn the entire world. I will show you the seed of that flame right here.”
He drew a feathered quill from the folds of his robe—an ordinary yet rather elegant quill one might see anywhere.
“I have a pen, but no paper. Ah, here it is.”
Riiip—!
He tore away the tattered clothes of the woman who could only babble “Auuu—” like an idiot. When her well-trained body was fully revealed, the shadow cast by his lower half grew even larger.
It got even bigger? Is that even possible?
While Las was busy being impressed in several different ways, the man pressed the tip of the quill against the woman’s skin and began writing across her body in blood.
“Ugh… s-stop it…”
“Stay still, Galatea. In this moment you become a sacrifice. If you refuse, you will die like a dog. Of course, from now on you will have to live a life worse than death!”
An unprotected innocent. A villain carving letters into her flesh. The instant Las saw it, an even greater flame rose inside her—something larger than rage. She had never felt anything like it in her life.
What was being written on the woman’s body was a story. A story she had never seen before and would never see again, filled with words she had never encountered.
Rust’s cock is one meter long? What the hell is a meter? What kind of unit is that?! And what’s a kilogram supposed to be?!
Scratch, scratch—
The man never paused for even a second, packing the woman’s body with dense red writing. The way he poured out thousands of characters a minute looked as though he had received a revelation from God—or from the opposite.
Did a demon give him a revelation or something?
Las was impressed. After skimming a few of the lines she laughed heartily behind her mask.
“I’ve never heard a story like this! Writing on a woman’s body with her own blood—I’ve never even heard of that idea! Hey, what’s the title? What’s the title of this story?”
“The title is…”
Behind the mask the man fell silent for the first time. A short yet long silence. After about five seconds he spoke.
“The title is Gwichukdo.”
“Gwichukdo! Yeah, this is definitely worthy of becoming a flame. A flame that can burn the world. This flame is going to set everything ablaze! Hahahaha—!”
Las had no doubt that the writing covering the woman’s body—no, the man who had written it—was the flame that would burn the world. It felt as though she had finally found the treasure she had been searching for her entire life.
Yet her anger was still not fully quenched.
“But I’m still going to kill this naked bastard. He’d die even if I left him alone, but his face is so greasy it pisses me off. I like killing knights who used to be full of themselves.”
Whoosh—
Las lifted her foot. At that exact moment the naked man who had been lying still—Loras—rose to his feet. He pressed his fingers against the boy Paulo’s throat and screamed.
“D-don’t any of you fucking move! If anyone so much as twitches a finger this little shit dies! You goddamn bastards! I can kill a brat like this with just one finger!”
“S-Sir Loras…!”
The boy Paulo felt a betrayal and shock he had never known in his life. The knight he had admired—the knight among knights—was using him as a hostage to beg for his own life.
“Haha! Yes! Yes! All of you stay right there! Hahaha! No one can kill this Sir Loras! I’ll go straight back to the barony and—the barony’s—”
“Loras, Knight of the Smile.”
The iron-masked man spoke. His voice behind the mask was utterly calm and ice-cold—so much so that even the enraged Loras instinctively listened.
“At the very least, leave this world with a smile.”
From that moment on Loras could no longer hold back the laughter tickling his stomach. It felt as though ants were crawling under his skin, as though someone were teasing his brain with a feather. Too much of anything becomes poison. The laughter beyond that point brought Loras only agony; blood sprayed from his eyes and mouth.
“Cough!”
Las did not miss the opening. She seized the right arm Loras had locked around the boy’s neck and twisted. The arm snapped like a dry barley stalk and bent at a grotesque angle.
“Gyaaaaaah!”
Splat—!
Blood erupted from the shattered right arm where bone had torn through flesh. It splashed across the iron-masked man and formed a strange cross shape. Beneath the dripping red cross the masked man spoke.
“Loras, it seems your arm was always destined to break.”
“Y-you—right n—”
Crunch—
Loras’s head burst under Las’s foot.
That should have been the end.
But—
“Sir Loras! Wh-who are you people? What terrible things are you doing?! Hyde! Where is my husband Hyde?!”