Chapter 1
Chapter 1
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: Buried Alive
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His consciousness was hazy.
"Damn it, it hurts like hell. Siegfried, you sneaky bastard. I should have seen your true colors when you said it was all over."
Even so, me?
I'm at least twenty years older than that guy.
What an insolent prick.
Recalling the memory of his head being severed, a surge of feverish anger rose even amid the foggy haze of his mind.
"...Tch."
But that lasted only a moment. Lucas clicked his tongue briefly and quelled his rage.
Regrettable, but what could he do?
The defeated have no say.
Whether through dirty tricks or a gang-up.
Siegfried had won, and he had lost.
That was the Path of Domination.
No one knew what awaited at its end, nor was there any guarantee of reaching it.
And yet.
One pressed on.
He had walked that path in silence, only to stumble over an obstacle named Siegfried, unable to overcome it.
That was all.
...Stab! Slash! Stab! Slash!
"Well, is this what death feels like? Quite the peculiar sensation."
Shaking off the regret, he contemplated death—the first of his life—within his hazy consciousness.
...Stab! Slash! Stab! Slash!
"Not much to it, surprisingly. Feels like I've been drugged with sleeping pills or something."
Stab! Slash! Stab! Slash!
A Hegemon must remain cool-headed in any situation, observing it clearly.
Lucas calmly tried to observe the movement of his soul after death...
Stab! Slash! Stab! Slash!
Observe...
Stab! Slash! Stab! Slash!
Observ...
Stab! Slash! Stab! Slash!
"No."
He was trying to meet his end with the dignity befitting a Hegemon, yet some audacious fool kept interrupting with all this noise.
Pushing aside his contemplation of death, Lucas forcibly dragged his consciousness back to the surface.
Even if he was going, he at least wanted to see the face of whoever was committing this rude(?) act.
With his sharpened mind as the center, touch, hearing, smell, taste, and sight slowly awakened.
Through his reviving senses, various pieces of information began flooding in.
Stab! Slash!
Cold.
Damp and uneven.
An unpleasant tactile sensation pressed against his body.
The dawn-specific smell rising from whatever touched him stimulated his nose.
A hard, gritty taste invading his mouth tormented his palate.
Black and brown clumps partially obscured his returning vision, blocking his grasp of the situation.
And finally.
"...Huh? Bro, what do we do?"
"Ugh, it's cold. Why? What's up?"
"Nah, um. Nothing big."
A rough voice, light and utterly lacking any weight, tickled his ears.
"This punk's eyes are open."
"...What?"
A man with a fierce face struck the back of the head of another man who was scratching his cheek awkwardly while holding a shovel.
"Hey, you idiot! You should've said that first!"
"W-What do we do, bro?"
"What do you mean what? You moron! Do you know how much this job's worth?! Bury him quick before the drugs wear off and it gets messy!"
Stab! Slash! Stab! Slash!
...The brown clumps covering his nose and mouth doubled in volume.
Having grasped all the information around him, Lucas's mind froze for an instant.
"...Huh?"
No way.
Hold on.
Is this the situation I think it is?
As if to prove to the denial-stricken Lucas that this was no dream, the two burly men dumped a shovelful of dirt onto his face.
Splat!
"...Yeah, it is."
Confirming that his absurd judgment was correct, Lucas felt a rare emotion for the first time in ages: bewilderment.
Yes.
He was being buried.
While still alive, in real time.
By the hands of common street thugs, the kind you see in any back alley market—nothing special.
No finely crafted coffin, no funeral rites.
Just shoved alive into a shallow hole in the ground.
"...Hah. Is this... right?"
It was so ridiculous he couldn't even pray.
No matter how much resentment piled up against him.
Even so, me?
The Hegemon who had swallowed the entire Northern Continent.
Isn't dumping me alive into a mountain grave dug with a shovel a bit much?
Flustered, enraged, humiliated, despised.
A whirlwind of negative emotions swirled over Lucas's face.
Splash! Splat!
A mound of dirt thick with manure flavor poured down once more.
"...Stop dumping it already, you damned bastards!"
Stab! Slash!
Regardless of what Lucas thought, the two thugs kept shoveling dirt onto his body diligently.
Determined to finish before the drugged Lucas woke up.
Whatever they'd done to his body, his limbs wouldn't respond even as it was being buried in real time.
"...Stay calm."
Flail, flail!
Was it his instinct for survival kicking in?
He barely shook his head to shake out the dirt clogging his nostrils.
The man shoveling with his underling noticed and approached, squatting down to say,
"Aigoo, kiddo. I get you wanna live, but stop making us uncles work so hard and go peacefully, yeah? We're not even hitting you right now. We'll just cover you nice and easy with dirt, so stay still, okay? If you keep this up, we'll have to beat you."
Heh heh heh.
With only his head exposed and the rest buried, the man seemed convinced escape was impossible, his voice dripping with mockery.
Instead of raging at the mockery, Lucas focused his sharpened vision on the men's attire.
Worn and filthy.
The typical look of run-of-the-mill back-alley punks from the markets.
If they knew who he was, they wouldn't dare act this leisurely, even with his battered body.
So.
"Time to use my head."
This was his chance, while they remained ignorant of his identity.
"Hey."
For some reason, the voice emerging from his throat sounded a bit boyish.
But on the verge of being buried, Lucas had no time to worry about such minor oddities.
"Huh? Oh dear. Tongue's loosened up, huh? Talking now too. Hey, bury him quick. Drugs must be wearing off."
"Pull me out, and I'll give you all the magic scrolls I have hidden."
...Halt!
At the words "magic scrolls," the underling's hand froze mid-scoop of dirt.
Scrolls.
Items made by the Southern Continent's Magic Tower, enchanting paper with magic so even commoners could cast a spell once.
Their price varied wildly by spell, but one thing was certain.
For back-alley lifers like them, even the cheapest scroll was unattainable no matter how hard they tried.
And this guy said a "bundle" of them.
"Not just one?"
Played right, it could be enough to turn their lives around.
"B-Bro?"
"What're you freaking out for, you dumbass! The kid's desperate to live, so he's spouting bullshit to save his skin!"
The squatting man scolded his underling, then looked down at Lucas's exposed face and sneered.
"Aww, kid. That's the best excuse you could come up with?"
Slap, slap!
He lightly smacked Lucas's cheeks and clicked his tongue.
"And listen, punk. If you really had magic scrolls, why would we bother digging you out now? We could just let you die here, find 'em, and take 'em. Then kill you after."
Straight facts.
"You wouldn't understand. Typical bottom-feeders."
"...What?"
"Do you think my scrolls would stay intact after I die?"
Lucas glared at the thug, his eyes unwavering.
"You don't seriously believe someone like me wouldn't have safeguards on my possessions? The moment my life force ends, the imprinted scrolls lose their function. They'd be nothing but scrap paper."
"...Who the hell are you? Don't get cocky."
The man still sneered, but Lucas caught it.
The slight delay in his response. The unconcealed greed in his eyes.
"What's there to fear? Just pull me out and check. If I'm lying, bury me again. Easy."
Lucas curled his lip provocatively.
"I'm not even twitching a finger. You wouldn't be idiots scared of this and miss a lifetime opportunity, right?"
"......"
Conflict etched clearly around the man's eyes.
"Please take the bait."
Despite his calm expression, Lucas swallowed dryly inside.
Honestly, he figured the odds were less than fifty-fifty.
No matter how drugged, he was a giant over two meters tall.
A bit—no, definitely—too much for ordinary street thugs to handle.
His strategist, Stion Ballanty, would've sweet-talked them into digging him out themselves with that silver tongue.
What could he do?
He was the type who found breaking heads easier than using his own.
"Should've listened to Stion and practiced those flowery speeches."
Late regrets flooded in, but regrets are always too late.
First, would his clumsy scheme work on the thug?
They'd seen his size while burying him, so they'd deliberate long...
"Kid. If you're bullshitting even a little to cling to life, I swear you won't die easy. Got it? Hey, dig him out."
"...He did?"
For some reason, the thug chose to dig without much hesitation.
"Got some skill after all? Doesn't look it..."
The decision came so easily that Lucas instinctively glanced at their lower bodies.
The foundation of all martial arts lay in the legs.
If they could decide confidently after seeing his build, they must have a hidden ace...
Stab! Stab! Slip!
"Ow!"
The underling, blinded by greed for the scrolls, slipped on the soft ground while shoveling too aggressively and fell.
"...No, of course not."
His eyes hadn't deceived him.
They were just ordinary neighborhood thugs, nothing more.
Then why?
What gave them such confidence?
"Is their greed for scrolls that intense?"
The puzzle unsolved in Lucas's mind finally clicked as his body emerged.
Along with an even bigger new question.
Stab!
As the underling brushed off the last dirt from Lucas's body, the thug threatened him.
"Kid, we pulled you out like you said. Now, let's see that confident scroll bundle of yours."
"...Kid?"
How dare these specks call him a kid.
Though the Blood Demon True Qi no longer flowed proudly through his body, neighborhood thugs were no match even for a single finger.
He'd make them pay for their excessive greed.
Slowly raising his somewhat recovered body, Lucas looked up at the thugs.
"...Huh?"
Wait.
Something's off.
Why was he looking up at the thugs?
"What, this little shit's ears full of dirt up to his brain? Where's the scrolls? Bro's asking!"
The underling, shovel over his shoulder, glared at Lucas.
Seeing Lucas frozen, he thought his threat worked.
But Lucas ignored the kittenish(?) intimidation.
What he stared at was.
His own reflection in the underling's large, round eyes.
"...What is this?"
Where was his massive frame? Why did a cute child's body stare back?
"This punk really...!"
Annoyed that Lucas ignored his threat, the underling flushed red and swung a fist at him.
The scrolls wouldn't lose power as long as he lived, so a little roughness was fine.
Whoosh!
He expected blood from Lucas's nose.
Swish!
But his fist cut empty air futilely.
Crack!
Followed by a dull, alien sensation from his elbow.
Lucas dodged and drove his knee up; the underling's elbow shattered, dangling limply.
"...A, Aaaaagh!"
Unforeseen agony hit, and the underling rolled on the ground screaming like a madman.
"Shut up, punk. I'm thinking, don't disturb me."
Whack! Thud!
Lucas grabbed the shovel and smashed the underling's head; he collapsed like a puppet with cut strings.
Though half his soul fled at realizing this wasn't his body,
His lofty achievements weren't so flimsy as to lose to street thugs, even in a boy's—or infant's—body.
That aside.
"What the hell is this pathetic body? And where am I?"
The surrounding trees had broad leaves.
Such broadleaf trees couldn't grow in the cold Northern Continent.
Moreover, no such hills existed on the Kairon Plains where he'd met his end.
In other words, this wasn't the Alexandr Empire.
"Hmm..."
As Lucas planted the shovel and pondered, chin in hand.
"You insolent brat dare!"
Furious at his underling's pathetic fall, the thug charged at Lucas.
"Oh."
Come to think of it.
A convenient thug to explain his situation stood right there.
Grin!
Lucas's lips curled wide.
Why strain his unresponsive brain?
Just do what he always did best.
Knock.
And it shall open!