Laugh Again
Laugh again.
“Oh my, welcome! Haha, barging in like this…”
A tall man approached with a wary gaze. The more vicious-looking ones were watching me too. Their attitude was not that of people greeting the eldest son of House Luminara, but of men dealing with a noisy customer.
Hmm. They can’t recognize me right away because of the straw hat?
I’d only worn it so I could look around at my leisure until I reached the Pleasure Village. But now that things had turned out this way, watching how they handled it wouldn’t be so bad. The operator of the Pleasure Village would be here, though I still didn’t know who that was.
“Shall I show you around? We’ve got plenty of girls dripping with charm.”
When the man smiled again, the others finally looked away. Gambling tables were in full swing at several spots, while some patrons drank and fondled the women. From their clothes, most of the customers were locals from around here; the prostitutes and staff seemed to have come from elsewhere.
They were sucking the residents dry of money, selling pleasure, and even siphoning information out of the territory. The moment that thought settled in, my head went hot.
“You fucking bastards…”
“Pardon?”
“Forget it. I’ll move around on my own.”
“Ah—yes. Understood.”
The man carefully continued.
“About that sword of yours… would you mind leaving it with us?”
“Why.”
“Well, walking around with a blade like that might make the other guests uncomfortable. Accidents could happen.”
A normal request. I was not a normal person.
“That’s your problem to handle.”
“Pardon?”
“You can’t even manage a single customer and you run a place like this? All flash on the outside, nothing underneath.”
“……”
“Tch. My fault for coming to this backwater dump. Wasting my time and my manners both.”
I spat carelessly onto the floor.
“They say you walk into a gambling den and leave with nothing. Looks like the old folks were right after all.”
At that, one of the vicious-looking men rose from his seat. Guests and staff alike were quietly staring at me. I stood still and watched how they moved.
“Haha! Now that I hear it, you’ve got a point!”
The guide nodded.
“True enough—if we couldn’t stop a guest from causing a scene, we couldn’t run a place like this. But don’t you worry. We’ve got some very skilled people here.”
“That so?”
“Yes. So go on and enjoy yourself.”
“Hah. Glad there’s someone who can talk sense. Then I’m off.”
I cut straight across the first floor toward the stairs leading up to the second.
“Just a moment.”
When the guide called after me, I turned with open irritation.
“What now?”
“Where are you headed?”
“The second floor, you son of a bitch! The women are up there, aren’t they?”
“That’s correct, but… guests can’t go up to the second floor alone.”
“What about the third?”
“The third floor is completely off-limits.”
“I see.”
The guide glanced at one of the men.
“Show him up to the second floor.”
“Yes, sir.”
The vicious-looking man who’d been staring me down since earlier stood. He was a hulking brute, a full head taller than me. I gave a short nod and started toward the entrance again.
“Actually, never mind. I don’t need a guide anymore.”
The muscle-pig chuckled under his breath and fell in behind me.
“What’s the matter? Stay and have some fun.”
I kept walking without answering.
“Getting cold feet? Don’t worry. As long as you behave, we’ll treat you just as kindly.”
I reached the door and stopped dead. Behind me, the muscle-pig closed in. I let out a short laugh and muttered,
“Insect bastards.”
In the same breath I drew my sword, spun, and swung.
A red line opened across the muscle-pig’s neck. With a wet burst, his head went flying into the air. The headless body toppled backward.
“……”
As the head rolled through a spray of blood, silence held for a beat. Then, all at once, screams and the crash of overturned furniture exploded through the room. Staff with weapons in hand and terrified customers were staring at me.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
I didn’t answer. Instead I pushed the straw hat back so my whole face was visible.
“W-wait—”
“Th-that man is…”
I fixed the residents with a hard look.
“All of you locals, get out. Unless you want to die. I’ll question you later—wait at home.”
The panicked residents poured out the door behind me like roaches. Even after most of them were gone, roughly twenty men remained inside the shop.
The guide asked,
“Don’t tell me you’re the eldest son of House Luminara?”
“Took you long enough.”
“Showing up here alone… you’ve lost your mind.”
“My mind’s always gone.”
I pointed at them.
“But you’re not right in the head either. Who said you could just set up shop in someone else’s territory? Looking to ascend to the Goddess’s side?”
They burst out laughing as if the question were absurd.
“What’s so funny. Happy I walked in on my own two feet? Let’s laugh together, then.”
“Well… yeah.”
“Mm. Honestly, I’m happy too. In this life I get to kill you with my own hands.”
I poured holy power into the blade. The clean, invigorating energy surged violently, then sharpened into cutting winds that coiled around the steel.
The first stage of the emotional sword path. Sharp, cutting winds coil around the blade, ready to tear through anything in their path.
The moment they saw it, their faces went rigid.
“Heh. Still funny?”
I sneered at the men frozen like statues.
“Laugh again, you bastards.”
Silence settled over the shop. Looking at them now, these were men who didn’t smile much to begin with.
The guide spoke.
“Don’t worry about the aftermath—just kill him. The ones watching him have gone silent. He’s not the type you can take alive.”
So the news of my escape had already reached them.
Looks like this guide is their leader.
I’d roughly known from the moment I walked in. The calluses on his hands and the faint killing intent clinging to him weren’t things he could hide from me.
“Come on, then. Just know the first one who rushes me loses his head like that muscle-pig. So—who’s first?”
“……”
They swallowed dryly and flicked nervous glances at one another.
The guide asked,
“How did you find this place? Did the ones watching you talk?”
“That’s right.”
“Bullshit. Those men don’t know the location.”
I nodded.
“Then someone else must have told me.”
“…The residents wouldn’t have reported it to the lord.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Because they know what happens if they get caught.”
“Hmm. I see. Understood.”
In that instant I kicked off the floor and swung at one of the men standing there like an idiot. My wind-wrapped blade took his head clean off in a single stroke. I flicked the blood from the steel and glared at the rest.
“Just all of you come at once.”
The words had barely left my mouth when the headless body hit the floor with a heavy thud. The men frowned and charged as one.
I parted my lips slightly at the swarm of locusts pouring toward me.
“Whoa… bugs.”
One locust right in front of me brought an axe down. I knocked it aside with my sword, recovered the blade, and carved him open from shoulder to hip. Crimson fluid sprayed upward and fell—and another pair of locust eyes was already there.
A lot of them. Too many.
I stabbed, slashed, and blasted the locusts away with the gale-wrapped sword. Every so often a swarm of ordinary locusts would descend on our territory and strip the fields bare. When that happened the territory’s finances took a sharp hit, and back then we hadn’t had the strength to stop them.
Slash! Slash!
But these oversized locusts I could handle with my sword alone. Every time I laid down a cut, the locusts died without so much as a proper reaction.
“Damn it!”
Only then did a few of them grasp the situation and try to run. If I let them escape they would only hatch more eggs and come back to devour the territory, so I hunted those ones down first and killed them.
This year’s going to be a bumper crop.
Watching the locusts topple, I found myself smiling without meaning to. A good harvest meant the residents would share snacks with me, and even the scarecrows could wear fine straw hats.
But the locusts’ resistance was fiercer than expected.
Whoosh!
A scythe carved toward my neck. The force behind it was nothing like the ordinary locusts, so instead of deflecting I blocked with the sword.
Swish!
At the same time a second scythe came flying in, forcing me to leap back. A long-limbed locust with a scythe in each hand. I settled into a stance and faced him.
“Come on. King Locust.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Looking closer, it was the guide. I nodded and corrected myself.
“Come on. Mantis pretending to be a locust.”
“…I heard you were crazy, but this is beyond imagination.”
He only sighed; he didn’t charge right away. By now the floor was littered with blood and corpses. The only ones still standing were me and the guide.
“How many residents did you kill?”
“Do I have a reason to answer that?”
“I’m a guest with a sword. You’re the guide. Is that answer enough?”
The guide’s eyes narrowed, then he spoke.
“Four or five. I don’t remember.”
“What did you do with the bodies?”
“Burned them.”
“Did they have families?”
“A whole family. One of them tried to sneak off to the manor at dawn, so I killed them all as an example.”
The residents had seen that, so of course no one could report what was happening here. Even if someone came on patrol, everyone would have kept their mouths shut about the Pleasure Village. Father had probably only heard vague rumors that places like this existed scattered across the territory.
That answered my questions. It did nothing for the knot in my chest.
“Any thought of repenting?”
“If I repent, will you spare me?”
“No. I mean repent and then die.”
“What’s the difference.”
“My mood is the difference. And who knows—maybe a sincere apology would change some other people’s hearts as well.”
The guide nodded.
“I’ll repent.”
“Good choice.”
I held my sword at an angle and walked toward him. He recoiled in alarm.
“Why are you coming closer?”
“To repent you have to go to the afterlife first, don’t you? The people you killed are already there.”
“……”
“They’ll be waiting for you. You’ll apologize to them, then head down to hell while they go up to heaven. You never know. Maybe their hearts—and the Goddess’s—will change, and you might get to go to heaven too. Or not.”
I wrapped sharp winds around the blade again.
“Man, I’m curious how it’ll turn out. Be sure to write me a letter from the afterlife.”
“…You son of a bitch!”
He charged. I snatched up a nearby chair and flung it.
Slash!
The instant he cut the chair down, I was already in front of him, swinging the sword of Joy. Panicked, he tried to block with his scythes, but my blade had already slipped past. I aimed with precision and sent both his wrists flying into the air.
“Aaaagh! My hands!”
He collapsed, both arms ending in bloody stumps dangling at his sides. It wasn’t that he was weak. Within this territory, almost no one could have matched him. I was simply stronger—because I had seen Aren’s sparrow swordsmanship and gained the sword of Joy.
“W-wait!”
He looked up at me with eyes full of pain.
“I’ll tell you the locations of the other shops in the territory!”
“No need. Once this core is gone the rest will fall apart on their own. I’ll wipe out whatever’s left at my leisure.”
“Then at least why we set these places up—”
“That too. I already know. And more than anything…”
I stopped right in front of him and raised the sword.
“I don’t want to look at your face any longer.”
The blade carved down in a savage arc. His eyes flew open—and then his head vanished in a spray of blood. A moment later came only the soft sound of something hitting the floor.
“……”
Blood had reached my boots. Locust bodies lay scattered every which way. Standing in the middle of it all, I drove my sword into the floorboards, closed my eyes, and clasped my hands.
Goddess Ella, it seemed you were short-handed, so I sent up a few men. Holy power will be thanks enough.
Warm holy power began to well up inside me little by little. Even the Goddess must have been moved by my sincerity. When the incoming flow tapered off, I ended the prayer, then rummaged through the guide’s coat and pulled out a pouch heavy with gold coins.
This is mine.
A kind of hazard pay. I set the blood-soaked straw hat on a table.
Since I’ve got the money, I should buy a new one.
After that I sorted my thoughts.
The guide was probably their leader, not the operator. No real operator would walk around showing his face like that.
Of course, they might simply have been careless. But the Baron Scarlen I knew would never have put someone like this in charge.
Well, I’ll find out once I go up.
I headed for the stairs. The third floor had been off-limits, so something more was definitely waiting—wealth from running the Pleasure Village, or the real operator himself.
I’m on my way to meet you now…
Sword in hand, I climbed the stairs.