Chapter 96
Chapter 96
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 96
Chapter Title: Ban Who Cuts the Night (4)
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It could even change the form of its body at will. That was why Ban's strikes had no choice but to grow even rougher. Not a single chunk larger than Ban's head was left in sight, so there was no need to explain just how wretched a state Kshatu's corpse had been reduced to.
Kshatu's severed mouth slowly opened.
"Why... did I lose, Kshatu."
"......"
"Kshatu learned. To load weight onto a single sword. Kshatu knew how to swing it too. Same stance. So why."
"If a single stance completed a sword, the world would have shattered to pieces long ago, leaving no trace to be found."
He had no idea where to look. Should he gaze at the severed eyes? The mouth? Or perhaps that spot between the brows? Ban chose instead not to direct his gaze at it at all. One couldn't live life constantly looking back at every footprint left behind. Kshatu's corpse was one such footprint now.
"Kshatu... weak...?"
It was a question foreign to Kshatu. Whenever he realized his own weakness, he always evolved one step further. He shed the skin tainted by weakness and donned stiff, new garb. Today should surely have been one such day.
What had created this difference?
"Stolen strength has its limits."
It might seem an ambiguous statement coming from Ban, who stole memories. But Ban spoke it with a clear conscience. He was faithful to the memories of every sword he had ever wielded. He didn't settle for roughly mimicking a stance or two.
He retraced their lives, immersed himself in them, and ultimately surpassed them.
That was why his blade never wavered in any moment. It wasn't some cheap swordsmanship pieced together like patchwork from memories. The fragments of countless swords interlocked with exquisite precision in Ban's world, forming a single blade more perfect and radiant than any other.
"Your blade shattered before it could even touch mine."
"Human... name... what..."
"Ban."
And that was the end of it. Ban cut the conversation short. He had no desire to chat with the night folk. Kshatu muttered something from behind, but he ignored it.
'...Kizl and Anya seem to be handling theirs without issue.'
The problem was Hwan. In that brief span, his flesh was already torn in places, drenched in blood. It was a tricky foe. An opponent's fighting style that absorbed moisture in an instant left a spear master with no clue how to counter it.
"Need a hand, Hwan?"
"I'm... fine!"
Hwan answered as he arduously deflected the bandages. It was an adversary he had never even imagined in his lifetime. A mere graze from the bandages dried the flesh. The ground, long since parched, seemed desperate to quench its thirst with his blood, ceaselessly trying to snag his feet.
'Had I been a frog in a well, pontificating about the world?'
Ban had already finished off his own opponent. He wasn't sure just how strong the man had been, but at least he couldn't have been weaker than this bandage monster.
'Guardian my ass.'
Hwan had no choice but to admit he was nothing but a bald fool driven by vainglory. Who could he protect with this power? He was struggling against a single night noble.
That was all the more reason he couldn't accept Ban's help. He had to prove he possessed the strength of one man on his own. Even if his skin cracked, rotted, and peeled away.
But Nakmun, facing off against Hwan, thought differently.
'...Kshatu lost.'
He quietly assessed the situation. Were there winning odds if the fight dragged on? Hardly. Roksana was far from dominant, and even Mesha, whom he trusted, held no clear advantage. If the swordsman who felled Kshatu joined in...
Nakmun's eyes met Roksana's. No words were needed; they read each other's minds.
'To think the investigation team is this strong...'
He had anticipated the Nahar Clan's prowess. But he hadn't accounted for their retainers possessing such skill. Nakmun glanced at Ban. At a glance, he seemed full of openings, his body relaxed and loose—but that very fact made it impossible to ignore him. It was proof this level of combat wasn't enough to draw out his true strength.
Nakmun subtly drove one of his bandages into the ground. He extended it toward the half-dead corpses behind their battlefield, sucking away what little life remained in them...
"Roksana, now!"
"Graaah!"
From Nakmun's body erupted the moisture he had absorbed, a ferocious steam storm engulfing the battlefield. Hwan's eyes flashed amid the agony of his flesh cooking. He may not have lived as a guardian, but he had spent his life in optimism that he would one day become one.
And the guardian he had envisioned did not cower pathetically before mere steam.
"Raaah!"
He gripped his spear. Twisted and thrust it like a hurl. Nakmun flailed his bandages in panic. Normally, foes retreated after such a steam burst. Not only was visibility obscured within, but the heat itself was threatening.
Thus, he had no guard against Hwan's thrusting spear. His plan had been to use the steam as a smokescreen for escape.
He hastily raised a bandage, but having just expelled all his strength into the steam, it lacked power compared to before. Hwan's spear tore through the bandage, punching a hole in Nakmun's body. One hole became two, three, ten in an instant. Nakmun couldn't even scream. The spear was already lodged in his throat.
"...Go...d."
"It's over."
He infused rotational force. The spear spun fiercely in a helix, wrapping and shredding Nakmun's bandages as it went. The long-parched corpses fell limply, followed by Roksana's scream from where she hadn't fled in time.
"Nakmun!"
And that was her final cry as well. Anya didn't miss Roksana's gaze turning. Anya's White Flame snaked forth like a gaping-mouthed serpent—no, a dragon—devouring Roksana. Before she could deploy her spore shield, Roksana burned like dry straw and collapsed.
As for Mesha...
"...Damn, he got away."
Kizl grimaced. In the moment the steam blocked their vision, Mesha had slipped away like a ghost. Or perhaps he really was one. The sight of only his robe fluttering away looked ghostly to anyone.
"Hwan."
"Heh... heh heh... Brother. I won."
Even as his flesh cooked in spots, Hwan grinned like a child. Ban roughly ruffled Hwan's half-charred hair.
"Don't push yourself. You idiot."
"...Never thought I'd hear that from you."
Anya, watching from the side, shook her head. Ban looked at Roksana and Nakmun's corpses. Even in death, their hands reached toward each other. Had they shared some strange bond? Could seeds of the night or night nobles feel such things?
Ban turned to Kshatu's remains. The fragmented Kshatu no longer even twitched. Contrary to what he had expected—something utterly horrific and brimming with malice alone—it felt surprisingly... pure, if he had to describe it.
That stance pursuing nothing but strength resembled a swordsman's, in a way.
'...Is the essence of a swordsman found in the night, or is it just this one?'
Ban smiled bitterly at the thought.
But any sense of kinship didn't last. At one end of the dam where they waited lay mummified corpses scattered about. Amid the guide's anguished cries, Ban could only bite his lip once more.
The night was ultimately a being they could not coexist with.
...And if swordsmen resembled them, then swordsmen too were parasites rooted in human society.
"Why, why, why does this only happen to us? Huh? Tell me! I said tell me!"
The man sobbed, clutching his dead comrade's body. His eyes were swollen from prolonged weeping, yet his tears showed no sign of drying. Though time was short, Ban and his group didn't rush him. None among them were so heartless as to deny a man who had lost everything even this moment to grieve.
Thanks to that, after a long bout of wailing, the man managed a relatively composed demeanor. He lifted his hollow eyes to them and murmured quietly.
"...You said you needed the Revolutionary Corps' base."
"We can give you more time to mourn if you need it."
"I'm fine."
"What about recovering the bodies?"
"...If possible, could you burn them with White Flame?"
The man turned a poignant gaze to his neighbors.
"They lived their lives in darkness. At the very least, in death, let them vanish in bright light."
"...Understood."
Anya stomped her foot. Centered on it, White Flame bloomed like a flower, slowly enveloping their corpses. Facing the roaring white fire, the man murmured.
"I'm sorry for surviving alone. I never imagined it would end like this. Truly. ...I was never one for words, yet here I am, the only one left talking. Save your words if you have any; even in the afterlife, I won't hear them."
"......You live in the night realm yet believe in the afterlife? In gods?"
Kizl asked quietly. It was quite unexpected for a night dweller to believe in gods. According to scripture, those who entrusted their bodies to the night could never tread paradise's soil. The man chuckled wryly.
"The god I believe in isn't yours. I believe in a god who says there's a place for us too. A god who says 'well done.' Not some pawnbroker who just weighs us out, too busy gauging the value of our lives."
"Ha, the priests would faint hearing that."
"Fortunately or not, there are no priests in the night."
The man muttered self-deprecatingly. In a land without priests, there were no sermons to hear, and without sermons, no salvation. Perhaps they all died because there were no priests. Abandoned by god. ...And if priests were here, they would say it again: for the sin of being abandoned by god, you shall return to hell.
The man spoke, his voice thick with hatred and despair for the world.
"...If I report the Revolutionary Corps to you fine sirs, will the world get better? Or worse?"
"Who knows. From the kingdom's perspective, I can only say it will become more peaceful."
At Kizl's words, the man let out a hollow laugh.
"Funny thing. In my experience living in this world, those who most often speak of peace are the ones holding weapons."
"Planning to debate me? I can spare time for silent prayer, but not for that."
"...The Revolutionary Corps is in Pendel."
"Pendel? You don't mean..."
"Yes."
The man nodded.
"The Pendel where the kingdom's worst prison, Pendel Prison, once stood."
§
'Kshatu.'
Kshatu spoke. Or thought he did. But what had been his mouth had long lost function, hardened over. He realized he had shrunk to a size unworthy even of a beast. Like a maggot, he writhed, forming a new small mouth and arduously devouring his own corpse fragments.
He was slow. At eating, at crawling. But his body grew visibly fast. After some time, Kshatu gained eyes. He looked around and heard a sobbing sound from beneath charred bandage scraps.
"...Forgive... I won't forgive... never forgive. Absolutely, never...!"
A small mushroom sat there. One inflating its body in multiple tendrils—a mushroom, no, Roksana. Kshatu slowly approached it. And then—the mushroom's eyes turned, fixing on Kshatu's colorless form.
"You, you, Kshatu, you're alive?"
"...Kshatu."
"Good. Come here, help me. I need to spread spores, but I don't have the strength. Please, yeah? Like this, I'm so furious I can't even die. Unless I avenge Nakmun and myself... Huh? Wait. Kshatu. What's wrong? You don't mean..."
"Kshatu."
"No, no. Kshatu. Please, please..."
Kshatu's mouth opened. Sharp teeth bit into the mushroom. Roksana's scream echoed faintly only within Kshatu's throat. The withered bandages around her—by chance or not—clogged Kshatu's throat, but he swallowed her bandages and all.
Power flowed in. Enough to somewhat restore his clouded mind and stunted body. Kshatu slowly pushed off the ground and rose. He realized he now bore the form of a human, with hands and feet.
"Kshatu..."
Amid fragmented memories, an image surfaced: a man gripping a sword. He didn't know the name. The face was hazy. But what stuck clearly was how beautiful... how searing the trajectory his sword traced, filling his mind with nothing else.
"...Kshatu, no sword."
Kshatu muttered glumly. And then—his eyes caught a cluster of blades. Remnants of the blade-skin he had once worn like armor. Kshatu slowly picked one up. His immature flesh sliced open, black blood flowing, but Kshatu smiled instead.
"Have. Sword."
Kshatu swung it through the air, then tilted his head. It seemed no different, yet the trajectory lacked the beauty he remembered. Kshatu swung more, relentlessly. Blood streamed from his hand, but he ignored it.
Yet his sword remained shabby and crude. Kshatu slumped dejectedly. And pondered. How could he swing like that one?
'...Ask. Method.'
To him. Where was he? No idea. Kshatu resolutely stood. He had a goal now.
Find Daddy.