Chapter 2
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 2
Chapter Title: Cleaning Up the Mess
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A creaking sound from the hallway made Demian jolt upright.
It was strange for anyone to be walking the halls at this hour, but what was more suspicious was how cautious their footsteps were.
‘Did Parker send them?’
Right, he wasn't the type to let things go.
But I came all the way out to this remote area to avoid him...
‘Did he not learn his lesson after that beating?’
No, maybe that beating was exactly why he'd become so determined.
But I have no regrets.
If I hadn't beaten him up, I would have regretted it for a long time.
*Shhh.*
Demian crept closer to the door.
Soon, he sensed a presence on the other side.
It felt like someone was pressing their ear against the door.
“…”
As Demian held his breath, the lock clicked and the door swung open.
‘…Are they all in on it?’
But I didn't want to blame the innkeeper. He'd probably made a choice he couldn't avoid.
If he'd gone against them to protect a guest, there was no telling what trouble he'd face later.
*Click.*
*Fwoosh!*
The moment the door opened, Demian shot forward, launching himself through the gap.
“Ugh!”
“W-what the hell!”
Seeing Demian charge through the opening before the door was even fully open, the men cried out in shock, as if they'd seen a ghost.
They were definitely amateurs.
*Stab!*
Just in case, Demian had prepared a knife, and he plunged it into the right thigh of the man in front.
*Shove!*
“Aaargh!”
Demian frowned as the knife only went in halfway.
Even though it was a sharp blade, he didn't have the strength to back it up properly.
*Grind!*
“Gyaaaaaaaargh!”
But it didn't matter.
He dragged the half-embedded knife downward, then swung it at the side of the man next to him.
*Slash!*
“Kuh!”
It was a shallow cut.
The man had instinctively pulled back.
“You little son of a bitch!”
The man with the wounded side hastily drew a knife from his belt and swung it at Demian.
Their orders had been to beat him just short of death and bring him in.
But getting cut had made him lose his mind.
“I'll kill you!”
*Swoosh!*
The moment the man thrust his knife at Demian…
*Whoosh.*
“…Huh?”
He hadn't even completed the thrust, but the kid in front of him had already moved, as if he knew exactly where the knife was going.
His target suddenly shifted, and the thug with the knife looked bewildered. But…
*Stab!*
“Aaargh!”
A sharp pain shot through his left leg, and he collapsed to the floor, screaming.
Demian's dagger had already sliced open his thigh.
“*Pant… pant… pant…*”
Why was I so out of breath after doing so little?
Demian tried to calm his heaving chest and catch his breath.
Then he grabbed the collar of the man on the floor and spoke.
“Did Parker send you?”
“U-uhh… save… Gyaaaaaaaargh!”
*Stab!*
“I said, did Parker send you!”
Demian shouted as he dug his knife back into the man's wound. But just then…
“Quite the fearsome little one, aren't you?”
“?”
Demian turned his head toward the voice that came from the side.
He was a little taller than an average adult, but had a rather lean build.
Dressed in something like a black leather jacket, he had an impressive face marked by a vertical scar running through his left eye.
As Demian watched him approach, chewing something like gum, his expression turned cold.
“…Mukhman?”
“Hm? Did I introduce myself?”
The man looked puzzled by Demian's murmur.
He'd never expected this little kid to know his name.
But his appearance felt like one of the tangled puzzle pieces in Demian's mind clicking into place.
A goddamn awful puzzle, at that.
“Heheheheheh, khahahahaha!”
At that, Demian's shoulders shook as he burst out laughing.
Mukhman frowned slightly at the unending laughter.
“What's this, you suddenly gone crazy?”
“Fuck… was this all a setup?”
The thug he'd met after entering the back alley was Mukhman himself.
Right, thinking back, there were more than a few strange things.
No matter how he'd fled into the back alleys, the timing of him getting dragged away by these guys just didn't make sense.
‘He… sold me out?’
As if stealing my parents' insurance money wasn't enough, he sold me out.
That bastard, Parker.
*Slice, stab!*
“!”
A heartless strike, devoid of any emotion.
After slitting the throats of the two fallen thugs, Demian slowly got to his feet.
Right, I should fix what's been twisted first.
He knew what he had to do first.
* * *
Demian had one special ability that set him apart from others.
He had exceptionally good eyes.
You might ask if that's really a special ability, but after being beaten thousands of times and escaping death hundreds of times, he'd reached a point where he could see people's movements.
The moment an opponent tried to strike, he could clearly see where they were aiming just from their gaze, the direction of their step, the twist of their waist, and the movement of their shoulder.
At first, he had to concentrate hard just to see it, but after about ten years, his body began to react on its own without him even having to think about it.
*Whoosh!*
“Grr! You little rat!”
How many times had it been now?
That his blade had swung through empty air.
He was quite confident in his knife fighting, but somehow, he couldn't even graze the kid's clothes.
*Swoosh!*
Mukhman's blade cut through the air once again.
In contrast to Mukhman's distorted expression, Demian's gaze was cold and calm as he watched him.
‘Was Mukhman always this weak…?’
I don't even need to predict his movements; they're just too obvious.
*Whoosh!*
Tilting his head slightly to the side to dodge the blade, Demian quickly reversed his grip on his dagger and raised it upward.
*Slice!*
“Kuh!”
As Demian's dagger sliced Mukhman's right wrist, the man grunted in pain and dropped his weapon.
‘*Tsk.*’
This alone showed how pathetic back-alley thugs were compared to warriors who fought on the battlefield.
Dropping your weapon in the middle of a fight was the same as throwing your life away.
*Clang! Thwack!*
The moment Mukhman's weapon hit the floor, Demian swept his foot across the ground, kicking it far away.
It happened so fast that Mukhman had no time to pick it up again.
“Y-you son of a…”
Flustered, Mukhman started to curse at Demian, but…
*Stab, stab!*
In an instant, Demian's blade slid gently into both of Mukhman's sides and out again.
*Thud.*
Mukhman trembled and fell to his knees.
His face was a mask of shock, confusion, and now, fear.
It didn't make any sense.
‘B-but they said he was thirteen…’
No, he didn't even need that information; one look was enough to see how young the kid was.
He seemed a bit tall for his age, but he was still just a greenhorn with baby fat on his cheeks. And yet…
‘What's with that look in his eyes…’
And how could he explain these movements?
As if he knew in advance where the attack was coming from, the kid's movements precisely dodged his every blow.
And he did it all without a single change in his expression.
“Curious?”
“…What?”
Mukhman flinched at Demian's sudden question and looked up at him.
That blade-like gaze didn't match his youthful face.
But Demian had seen plenty of guys like Mukhman.
‘Then again, most of them were like that.’
At some point, everyone he fought ended up with that same look of incomprehension.
As if they were watching a magic trick.
“It's nothing special. I can just see it—where you're going to attack. I can predict everything just by watching your eyes, the way you raise your arm.”
“How is that possible? That's ridiculous…”
*Shnk.*
“Ugh!”
Mukhman, who had been speaking through a grimace, flinched and shut his mouth when Demian pressed the blade to his throat.
Demian said.
“Believe it or not, I don't care. It's the truth.”
“…Are you sure you should be telling me this? Let me make it clear, this isn't the end.”
“Hehehe. So, what are you going to do about it? If I just kill you right here, how will anyone else find out?”
“Kuh!”
“You're a smart guy, so you should know. What you need to do from now on.”
Demian's eyes flashed sharply.
“Did Parker send you?”
“E-even if I'm just a back-alley thug…”
*Slide.*
Demian pointed the knife toward the man's knee.
“Stab you here, and you'll be a cripple. You'll be limping for the rest of your life, so answer carefully.”
At Demian's voice, as cold as the blade itself, Mukhman yelped in terror.
“Y-yes. It was Parker… kuh… he hired me. Ugggh…”
And as expected, the man immediately started confessing the truth.
He could have been lying, but judging by his current state, it didn't seem likely.
If even a single lie had slipped out, Demian was fully prepared to cripple him.
‘He must have sensed that.’
Demian looked down at Mukhman dispassionately.
“Good, that's all I needed.”
“What?”
Before the man could say another word, Demian's blade was already in motion.
*Slice!*
“!”
A thin red line appeared across the man's throat…
“*Gurgle.*”
He clutched at the wound and collapsed to the floor, dead.
*Drip, drip.*
Watching the blood pool on the floor, Demian turned away.
“Right, even if I have to leave, I need to clean up my mess first.”
He'd learned a few things in his thirty years of life.
One was to avoid making ‘enemies’ if at all possible.
It was important to get along with people. But if you happened to make an ‘enemy’ anyway…
‘You have to crush them completely.’
So they can never challenge you again.
Having made his decision, Demian left the inn and began to melt into the darkness.
* * *
“Should be about done by now.”
The man glanced at the watch on his wrist, then turned his gaze to the man sitting across from him.
He'd been beaten so badly that his face was too swollen to recognize.
His left cheek, in particular, was so severely swollen it seemed almost as large as his entire face.
“Thad basthard… ish comin' here…”
“Ah, don't talk if it's hard for you. They'll finish the job and drag him here soon enough.”
Montaol, the leader of the group hired by Parker to attack Demian, let out a smirk as he watched Parker struggle to even speak.
“By the way, you must be pretty pissed. Calling me to catch a little kid like that.”
“Becaushe of thad kid, I…!”
His swollen and broken wounds made his pronunciation garbled, but Parker's eyes blazed with fury as he shifted in his seat.
But even that small movement seemed to cause him pain, and he let out a low groan.
‘Damn that bastard…!’
He'd been beaten so severely that it was nearly impossible for him to move.
He felt like tearing the kid to shreds if he were right in front of him, but he had called Montaol in the hopes of getting a chance to change the insurance contract.
When it came to troublesome jobs, there was no one better than these guys. The only downside was the cost.
*Tick, tock, tick, tock.*
Time ticked by in silence.
As the sound of the clock's hands was the only thing to be heard, Montaol's expression twisted with frustration.
“What's taking them so long to grab one little brat?”
They should have been back long ago.
The fact that they hadn't returned meant something had happened.
*Scrape.*
Facing this unexpected variable, Montaol stood up.
Parker looked at Montaol with a slightly annoyed expression.
Just as the man said, it was just a matter of catching one brat. So why was it going so wrong?
“Hey, Montaol… whad's with the delay?”
“It'll be sorted out soon, so just wait a little longer. And don't even think about docking my pay just because they're a bit late.”
Parker was a thorough businessman.
Knowing what the man was about to say, Montaol cut him off preemptively and turned away. But just then…
*Knock, knock.*
“…They're here.”