One Last Handshake
Let’s just shake hands once.
Marken, finally coming to his senses, howled like a wounded animal.
“K-kill him!”
The bodyguards who had only been watching until then dropped into stances, ready to charge me.
Or rather, that was how it looked.
“Wh-what…?”
Instead they spun around and scattered in every direction, backs turned, fleeing for their lives.
An eminently rational decision. They must have realized they stood no chance against me alone.
“Where do you think you’re going?! After all the money I paid you!”
Marken screamed in desperation, fists trembling. I let out a short snort of laughter.
“What good is a few coins when death is staring you in the face?”
“Y-you…!”
“And the same goes for you, of course.”
When my gaze settled on him, he sucked in a sharp, empty breath.
But I had no intention of letting the runners escape, so I turned my head away for the moment.
“Hm.”
They had already put a fair distance between us. If I wasted time, I might lose one of them.
I sank low and pressed the tip of one foot hard into the ground.
Whoosh—
I gathered wind beneath my sole and compressed it into a platform. The air strained to explode outward; I crushed it down until my thigh muscles felt ready to burst.
Preparations complete, I slammed my foot against the wind platform and detonated it at the same instant.
A compressed burst of wind that launches the body through the air like a living projectile.
KWA-AANG!
The ground cratered as my body shot across the empty air. Trees seemed to stretch and blur past me; a violent gale wrapped my entire frame.
Before I knew it I was on the first enemy. He was still running straight ahead, completely unaware I had arrived. I raised my sword.
Seogeok!
His head flew like a leaf caught in a sudden gale.
I spun toward the next man before the severed head even hit the dirt and kicked off the earth again.
KWA-AANG!
My body rocketed forward on the wind. A few more trees flashed by, another target appeared, and I took his head the same way.
My blade moved like a storm cutting through the forest; their necks snapped like dry twigs. Not one of them managed to react before I finished every last fugitive.
“What a pain, running all over the place. You should’ve just come at me.”
I burned the blood from my blade with a flicker of flame and raced back to where I had left Marken.
I had vanished like the wind and returned like the wind.
“Hm?”
Perhaps the gale had been a little too strong—the pig who had been sitting there was gone.
Too heavy to have been blown away…
I scanned the area roughly, found nothing nearby, and turned to the children huddled together.
“Anyone see the bad pig?”
They flinched, then all pointed in the same direction.
I walked that way at a leisurely pace.
He couldn’t have gotten far. The man was heavier than most because he could never bring himself to let go of anything.
“Come out, come out, wherever you are. I can see your hair.”
I meant it literally. A tuft of hair and a roll of belly fat were poking out from behind a tree. I pretended to stroll past, then casually turned my head.
My eyes met his terrified ones. I bared my fangs like a wolf that had just found its prey.
“Found you.”
“H-hiiik…!!”
He jumped so hard he collapsed onto the ground.
“P-please spare me! I’ll give you as much money as you want!”
Come to think of it, he had said something similar right before I killed him in my previous life.
—W-what do you even want from me, you monster?! If it’s money, I’ll give you whatever you ask! Or do you need this holy relic?
True to his merchant nature, Marken reduced everything to coin.
He had died by my hand then as well, but in this life none of that had happened yet.
I crouched down so our eyes were level.
“Do you really believe money solves everything?”
“You Inquisitors might not understand, but that’s how the world works! In the face of enough gold, loyalty and even the value of a life become cheap!”
“Hm.”
“I-I’ll put more money in your hands than you could ever dream of right now! Just take my hand!”
Marken stretched out a violently trembling hand.
I pretended to consider it, then reached toward his. His face lit up as if he had known all along I would fold.
“S-smart choi— Gyaaah!!”
I bent his index finger the wrong way until it snapped.
He howled and tried to yank free, but I held on tight.
“If you had built your fortune honestly, you never would have met me.”
“Ghh… ghk…”
“But you crossed the line that separates humans from monsters.”
“Gyaaaaah!”
This time I folded his middle finger back until it met the back of his hand.
“Can you buy your life from me right now?”
“…….”
“No amount of gold you dump in front of my face will change the answer. Still think life is cheap next to a mountain of coin?”
“…….”
“Not answering, I see.”
I snapped his ring finger next and accepted his scream as a reply.
“Besides, I make money better than you think. This world is full of bastards just like you.”
“…S-so in the end you’re the same as me.”
“Wow. You really only know how to say things that get you hit harder.”
I folded his pinky and shut him up.
“How are we the same? You sell innocent lives for profit. I confiscate the money of scum like you.”
“By taking lives… just like me…”
“This bastard’s getting bold now that he’s almost out of fingers.”
I neatly snapped the last remaining thumb and finally let go of his hand.
“I need money so I don’t end up at the mercy of people like you. Even without the gold, I still would have killed you.”
In my previous life I had simply finished him off, taken enough for travel expenses, and left. This time I wasn’t alone; I couldn’t allow a situation where lack of funds put others in danger.
“With that in mind—where did you hide the money?”
“…….”
“Remember that the other hand is still intact.”
“…Under the floor of my office.”
“I see.”
I nodded.
“Then the fake bishopric was also your doing, I take it?”
“…….”
“You’ve still got five fingers left. Take your time.”
“It was.”
“Good. See how easy answering is?”
I held out my hand to him.
“Then let’s shake hands one last time.”
Marken swallowed hard and reached out as if grasping the final frayed strand of a rope.
I clasped his hand and spoke softly.
“Don’t go too well.”
Then I poured flame straight into him.
“U-uaagh!!”
The fire raced up his sleeve and spread. I watched until it had engulfed his entire body before releasing his hand and rising to my feet.
“…….”
A piercing scream tore through the forest, yet somehow it brought me a strange sense of peace. I closed my eyes.
Even though it was the same human voice, how pleasant it could sound depending on the things that mouth had said.
I already knew this, of course, but I felt it anew all the same.
While I breathed in the oddly foreign scent of the woods, the heat and the screaming gradually died away.
I opened my eyes quietly.
“Roast pig… The animals will enjoy the feast.”
See? I was a man who could even show consideration for the beasts of the forest.
I turned and walked back to where the children waited.
They were trembling violently, hands clamped over their ears. Everything they had witnessed today must have been a terrible shock.
“You have two choices.”
The children slowly lifted their heads to look up at me.
“First, go to the diocesan office and leave your futures in their hands. Second, enter an orphanage I know. Which one will give you a better life… even I can’t say.”
Bringing every one of them to the manor was impossible; the numbers were too great. Father would have accepted them gladly, but I couldn’t turn the estate into an orphanage.
At most I could take in Lark and Lami.
“Umm…”
They exchanged glances, hesitating, until one child spoke first.
“I-I’ll take the second one!”
“I see. And the rest of you?”
“M-me too…!”
“I want the second one as well!”
I nodded.
“Then that’s what we’ll do. Honestly, it puts my mind more at ease this way too.”
Bella’s orphanage was already expanding its facilities, and I was supporting it, so they would lack for nothing.
“In return, grow up properly. If any of you turn into bad kids, I’ll come do an Inquisition on you with this.”
I gave my sword a little lift. The children huddled closer together and gave tiny, rapid nods.
Having just witnessed the precedent, these children would have no choice but to grow up decently.
And just like that, I had saved a few more lives.
“Still… why do so many pests keep getting in the way…?”
I heaved a deep sigh, wreathed my blade in flame, and strode past the children.
What I found waiting was a sinister-looking one-eyed man.
KAAANG!
Twin axes crashed violently against my sword.
A blue light shimmered along the blades. The man knew how to handle mana properly.
Which meant he was at least as skilled as I was after reaching the stage of Joy.
Thud!
I shoved hard with my sword; he used the rebound to leap backward and spoke.
“I came because I heard a noise, never expecting to find this mess. No wonder no one showed up no matter how long I waited.”
He glared at me.
“Who the hell are you? Have you been tailing us?”
“Hm. Didn’t Lord Lopes tell you? He put me in charge of this job.”
“…What?”
His remaining eye went wide.
Lust of the Seven Deadly Sins—Lopes. A beast lower than animals who gathered every illegal thing imaginable, humans included, and put them up for auction.
At this point in time, very few people even knew the name Lopes. The Holy Empire merely suspected some shadowy figure operating underground and had slapped the infamous title of Lust of the Seven Deadly Sins on him.
That was why the man was so shaken.
“…Don’t spout nonsense. He would never do that.”
“Never heard the saying about getting your foot chopped by the very axe you trusted? That’s exactly your situation right now.”
He thought for a moment, then countered.
“If you truly came on his orders, you wouldn’t destroy the supply source like this.”
I gave a soft murmur of admiration.
“Ooh, impressive deduction. Are you an Inquisitor by any chance?”
“…….”
“Of course not. I’m the Inquisitor, after all.”
I had never seriously intended to deceive him. I only wanted to get under his skin.
“You son of a bitch…”
And the plan worked beautifully.
He exhaled a long breath to settle his emotions, then said,
“If you’re done here, leave. There’s nothing to gain from tangling with a madman.”
Now that was a fresh reaction. He almost sounded as if he were doing me a favor by letting me go.
“Why dress up ‘I’m scared’ in so many words? Afraid I’ll kill you?”
My taunt made him grind his teeth.
“You’re awfully relaxed. You’ve got kids to protect, and you just finished a fight.”
“Wow, living clean gets me consideration even from a one-eyed freak. I’m grateful, but I’ll pass.”
Veins stood out on his forehead as blue mana coiled around his twin axes.
“So you’re determined to do this.”
“Took you long enough to figure that out. Is your brain also missing half?”
He charged first like a wild boar.
The blue-wreathed axes came crashing down; I laid my blade flat and blocked.
KWA-AANG!
Monstrous strength transmitted through the steel.
I had already met this man in my previous life before dealing with Marken, so it wasn’t surprising. Back then I had only reached Joy and barely scraped out a victory with my life on the line.
But the situation is very different now.
I deliberately refused to deflect and poured strength into my sword. The man who had put his full weight into the attack was the one forced backward.
“What the—!”
He couldn’t withstand the rebound and was thrown off, landing off-balance.
I seized the opening and used Gust to close the distance in a flash.
A compressed burst of wind that launches the body through the air like a living projectile.
KAAANG!
Unlike the previous fodder, he reacted in time and crossed his axes to block—but he couldn’t fully absorb the force.
Bang! Bang!
I hammered him with a relentless flurry. Having lost the initiative, he could only scramble to defend.
Even so, he couldn’t prevent shallow cuts from opening all over his body.
Whoosh!
At last he managed to plant his feet and swept one axe down in a wide arc.
I twisted lightly out of the way and swung for him.
Shiiik!
But the second axe was already carving toward my neck.
I had no choice but to abandon the attack and catch the blade on the flat of my sword.
In that heartbeat he opened the distance and reset his stance.
“I see…”
I remarked,
“Even with only one eye, you’ve still got two axes.”
“Shut that damn mouth!!”
He roared on pure reflex.
After a stretch of ragged breathing he finally calmed himself. He had judged that losing his temper would gain him nothing—proof of long experience.
Which means that last exchange also taught him how low his odds of beating me really are.
And he had no reason to stake his life here. To people like him, humans were just merchandise that could be restocked from somewhere else.
I watched carefully to see what he would do next.
Ssshk—
He gripped one axe in a throwing stance. His body still faced me.
Did he really think I would fall for something that crude?
Of course not.
I lowered my stance a fraction, ready for the next move.
Holding the mana-charged axe, he muttered,
“I told you. You have something you need to protect.”
“…….”
“From the moment that became true, you already lost the initiative.”
He twisted his upper body sharply to the right and hurled the axe over his shoulder with all his strength.
Then he spun and fled.
Wheeeeeee!
The axe streaked toward the children while the man put rapid distance between us.
He was forcing a choice on me: protect the kids and let him escape, or sacrifice the kids and catch him.
A clever gambit that exploited the difference in how much we valued those lives—but my choice had already been made.
Taaat!
I slammed my foot down and launched myself after him.
“……?”
Sensing something, he glanced back. I was already right on his heels.
“Y-you insane bastard?!!”
He clearly hadn’t expected me to make that call.
I flicked a glance at the flying axe.
It was still racing forward; the children could only blink, unable to track its path.
Left alone, that mana-laden axe would have pulverized them.
But—
KAAAAANG!
The axe that had been about to paint a massacre instead rebounded off empty air.
A translucent barrier was already shimmering around the children.
“M-magic?”
I grinned and closed the last gap, bringing my sword down.
He snapped out of his shock and swung the remaining axe, but one side of his guard was completely open.
Seogeok!
His arm went flying.
He let out a short groan, then swept the axe again to shove me away and leapt back a long distance.
I looked at the man whose shoulder was now pouring blood and said,
“Now you’ve got one eye, one arm, and one axe.”
“…….”
He had nothing to say. It was simply the truth.