11. Bellek
11. Bellek
Dawn broke.
The sun was rising.
I had agonized all through the night. Should I intervene in the affairs unfolding in this waypoint city of Akan, or not.
I could just ignore it all and head straight for the County of Rubelt, which was considered the true start of the 'southern region'.
But that didn't sit well with me either.
There was a risk that I'd get caught by Bellek's informants, who were supposedly scattered all over the city, and have my journey disrupted.
It was irritating.
The very fact that this situation was irritating me for no good reason was irritating.
Gelmour.
Maybe it was because I'd ended up facing him directly for no good reason.
"It looks like there are too many bad guys! Sir Yuma."
Cloné, having recovered her stamina with the tonic of sleep, said that after she'd grasped the situation.
And those words became the driving force that moved Yuma.
A situation where there were clearly bad guys.
And stopping them didn't seem impossible.
Yuma walked toward Meidel, the owner of the Uolo Inn, who was bound and tied to a chair in front of the door.
"Hiiiiik!"
Meidel was terrified the moment she saw Yuma.
"Is there a city guard?"
"Th-there is!"
"How many of those bastards have become Bellek's limbs?"
"About half! Half!"
'So half still follow Mayor Gelmour.'
Yuma's mind spun rapidly.
"Guide me. To the guard post."
If I wanted to stop being irritated, I just had to clean this up with my own hands.
***
The sun had risen, but it was a dim building where that sunlight couldn't reach.
Gelmour, the mayor of Akan, had arrived here at Bellek's summons.
Gelmour's blue hair was terribly disheveled.
"...Hyung-nim."
Because his younger brother's face was sprawled on the floor, beaten to a pulp.
"P-pilhelm. I need Pilhelm.... Bellek! Sir Bellek!!"
Demoor, Mayor Gelmour's younger brother, crawled on the cold floor and pleaded.
Gelmour ground his teeth furiously, glaring at Bellek in front of him.
Bellek crossed his legs and arrogantly lifted his chin.
"Mayor Gelmour, how was it? The street of pleasure I created. You must have seen it clearly with your own eyes on your way here!"
Gelmour's brow furrowed deeply.
It was exactly as the drug lord, Underground King Bellek, had said. The waypoint city of Akan had become utterly saturated with the narcotics that the man before him had spread.
"Thanks to your considerable business acumen, the drug trade boomed with ease. All I had to do was distribute the drugs right along the commercial routes you established."
Bellek had called him all the way here.
And the debauchery of Akan's night streets that he'd witnessed on his way here had far surpassed Gelmour's imagination.
People writhing, their whole bodies twisted, searching for drugs.
What one of them, crawling on the floor, had said after lifting his head and facing him was completely seared into his mind.
-Gelmour...? Fuck, it's the drugs. I'm even seeing our mayor, who couldn't possibly be here. Fuck! Mr. Mayor! You're fucked! Heeheeheehee! Everything has become Bellek's! The bastards running this city. Every single one of those bastards is pickled in Bellek's drugs, you know? Heeheeheeh!
"In truth, even facing you right now is an unnecessary act for me. Now, the city's security forces, the merchants who form the city's backbone. More than half are all my customers, my friends, and my subordinates!"
Bellek bared his yellow teeth and looked down at Gelmour.
"I don't want much from you. Mayor Gelmour."
Bellek finally brought up a topic closer to the main point.
"You can just keep doing everything you've done so far."
Gelmour's eyes were directed at his younger brother crawling on the floor, but both of his ears were solely focused on Bellek's mouth.
"However, the only thing that changes is that there will be one more person above you giving you orders. That person is me, Bellek. If you do that, your younger brother won't die and will cling to life. I'll keep supplying him with drugs so he doesn't go mad."
Only then did Gelmour look directly into Bellek's snake-like gaze, which he had been avoiding.
"Are you telling me to become your puppet?"
Bellek twisted his mouth into a grin.
"To put it a bit harshly, you could say that."
Sreung─
The sound of a sword being drawn rang out from Gelmour's direction.
"Hearing you go on and on, I can no longer bear to listen to your incessant nonsense."
Of course, it wasn't Gelmour who drew the sword. Nor were those Gelmour's words.
"The mayor is not a noble, but he is a quasi-noble personally appointed by His Imperial Majesty and the leader of this city. He is not some lowly existence that a wretch like you can command."
A murderous intent flowed from the eyes of the knight Haros, who stood beside Gelmour.
A distinct Aura flowed along the sword. Haros was a high-level Sword Expert.
The Aura blazed vividly like a blue flame.
But strangely, Bellek wasn't frightened at all.
"Heh heh, Sir Knight. Did you think I would instigate something like this without investigating the knight who always sticks by Mayor Gelmour's side?"
Bellek did not avoid Haros' murderous gaze.
"Knight Haros Geller. The third son of the fallen Viscount Geller family. I have no need to fear a mere knight from a ruined family with nothing left."
Haros Geller was enraged.
He was literally furious to the top of his head.
"You rootless mongrel!"
The blue Sword Aura imbued in his sword blazed even more fiercely.
Bellek looked at the giant man standing behind him. And then he bowed deeply.
"I entreat you."
It was a situation that could only be baffling.
Bellek, who had been rude and condescending to Mayor Gelmour and his knight alike, was showing such courtesy to someone who had been standing silently behind him, who appeared to be his subordinate.
A voice carrying the weight of considerable years flowed from the man.
"...Just keep your promise."
"Of course. Elder."
Jeobeok─
The unidentified man stepped forward.
Seeing the man's face and his upper body, forged of nothing but lean muscle, the knight Haros's face went blank.
Because the presence emanating from the man's entire body was clearly extraordinary at a single glance.
A height that looked close to 2 meters.
White hair hanging down like a lion's mane.
And a deep sword scar etched across his left eye.
Haros stared at the old man with a stiffened face.
"...Why is someone like you standing behind a man like that?"
A low voice came from the old man's mouth.
"To witness the Essence of the Sword."
Haros looked intently into the old man's eyes.
Because no matter how he looked at it, it sounded like madness.
The Essence of the Sword?
There was no way he could attain enlightenment about something like that by standing next to that pig-like bastard.
"You're just a senile old man!!"
That desperate cry echoed through the building.
Haros stomped the ground hard and surged forward.
Pi──it!
Their swords thrust out simultaneously. Their positions swapped.
Sseo────────reok
After that chilling sound of flesh being torn, it was Haros who had fallen.
What was rising from the sword in the old man's right hand was a crimson Sword Aura.
The Aura Blade, clear proof that he had reached the realm of Sword Master.
The old man, who had crushed Haros with an overwhelming difference in skill, sheathed his sword with an expressionless face.
Mayor Gelmour couldn't believe this situation.
The cold corpse of the knight Haros was reflected in his pupils.
"As long as the former Second Seat, Lord Sword God Kronos, stands behind me, there is no one here who can obstruct me. Mayor Gelmour."
"The former Imperial Second Seat...?"
At Bellek's words, Gelmour stared with a dumbfounded face at the old man, the former Imperial Second Seat, Sword God Kronos.
Why was such a monster acting as Bellek's limb?
***
"Kuaaagh!"
Yuma flung Meidel, the owner of the Uolo Inn, to the ground.
The place Yuma arrived at with Cloné was the Akan guard post.
Yuma's purpose for coming here was simple.
It was to obtain guides and meat shields to lead him to Bellek.
Deureureuk─
Yuma opened the guard post door.
Since a man and a young girl had flung open the security force's door first thing in the morning, all eyes were drawn to them.
"What, who the hell are you?"
And even before Yuma opened the door, the atmosphere in the guard post was already hostile. Out of a total of about seventy guard members, half were already under Bellek's control.
Everyone knew that today was the day of the grand scheme to tighten the noose around Mayor Gelmour. So the side still supporting Gelmour and the side supporting Bellek were keeping each other in check amidst a frigid atmosphere.
Yuma took out the golden plaque from his chest.
"Agent of the 1st Imperial Princess Brigitte."
And he tossed it onto the table.
"I am the Sword of the Princess, Yuma. Akan guard force. I incidentally acquired information that half of you have gone under a bastard named Bellek."
"Ha! Agent of the Princess? Sword of the Princess? Bringing some shabby gold-plated badge and claiming...!"
Swae-aek!
One menacing-looking guard thrust his sword. Yuma countered the attack with his dagger, a languid look on his face.
Kaaang!
"Huh?"
A violet scythe appeared in the man's field of vision.
Sseogeogeok!
And that was the last thing he saw. The guard's body, his neck brutally severed, crashed to the floor.
Not a single person had seen Yuma extend his attack, so they all stood frozen as if turned to ice.
"I command you as the agent of the 1st Imperial Princess."
Yuma opened his mouth again.
"If you are a guard who recognizes yourself as a member of the Akan guard force, and not a dog of that bastard Bellek, kill the dogs of Bellek beside you right now."
A gloomy atmosphere filled the guard post.
"Prove your loyalty to the Empire."
And those words struck a chord in one guard's heart.
Sreung!
The guard who drew his sword shouted, veins bulging on his neck.
"Kill Bellek's dogs!"
Sreung! Sreung!
The sounds of swords being drawn followed in succession.
The Akan guards thrust their swords toward Bellek's dogs.