Chaos - 7
…Drip. Drip!
Dew beaded on a stalactite and fell onto Bern’s cheek.
The chill of the droplet seeped in and dragged the deeply submerged consciousness of the man back to the surface.
“Cough! Cough!”
The moment awareness returned, Bern vomited a great quantity of blood onto the floor.
He had unleashed a divine technique that even sliced through space itself by drawing on forbidden power; of course his flesh had been wrecked.
Bern spat out the blood still pooled in his mouth and gasped for air.
Tears welled at the corners of his eyes from the sheer agony.
Muscles twisted, bones creaked, and every breath came as a grinding torment; he groaned and barely held on.
Time passed. The throbbing remained, yet the pain had lessened enough that Bern’s breathing finally steadied.
Unlike the moments when he could not move a finger, he could now flex his fingers and even his arms.
Bern worked through a light stretch, loosening muscles that had locked solid.
[Has your body recovered somewhat?]
“Yeah. Not peak condition, though.”
[Do not say such things. It would not have been strange if your body had simply burst apart.]
A sword art that cut space.
Bern had manifested a technique that only a Grand Sword Master should be capable of.
Under normal circumstances it would have been utterly impossible, yet he had resorted to a shortcut—using Blood Magic to temporarily surpass the limits of his flesh.
The price was the extreme agony that now wracked him.
“Yeah, definitely not something I can pull off twice.”
[Until your body can fully accept the power, Blood Magic is sealed! I will hear no objections, so do not look so regretful.]
“Got it. Not like I wasn’t already regretting it hard myself…”
Bern’s blood surged backward and trickled steadily from his mouth.
The backlash was no easy force to endure; he resolved not to use it again for a long while.
Unless his life itself hung in the balance, he doubted he would ever see that power again.
“More importantly, I need to get out of here fast. Rin and Rene must be worried sick.”
[W-wait just a moment!]
“Hm?”
[There is something that must be done before we leave!]
“What? Do I have to fight someone else?”
[We must collect the spoils! After all that grueling combat, to leave empty-handed would be unthinkable!]
“Ah.”
Bern turned and approached the black hound he had slain.
Gazing at Chaos’s corpse—now reduced to something resembling ground meat—he stroked his chin.
“But I have no idea what parts are even worth taking.”
[First, be certain to take the fangs and claws. The claws can be thoroughly decocted for medicine, and the fangs can be hammered into weapon materials.]
“The fangs reek of rotting meat, though?”
[And you would abandon them for that? After all this hardship?]
“Ugh…! Fine. Tell me the next useful parts.”
[I cannot be certain, but it is safer to assume every organ is poisonous. Beyond that…]
Following Frach’s instructions, Bern dismantled Chaos’s body.
He peeled the hide cleanly free, excised the entrails with deft precision, and more.
Forgetting the fierce muscle pain, he carried out the butchering with practiced skill.
The hunter’s experience that still lingered within Bern’s body made the work flow smoothly.
“Looks like we’re about done.”
[A pity that the corpse’s condition was so poor—there is little worth salvaging.]
“Can’t be helped. You yourself hammered it home that this was an opponent I couldn’t beat without going all-out.”
[When you put it that way, I have nothing to say, do I?]
Bern wiped the sweat from his brow and tossed the harvested parts into his storage subspace.
Butchering and storage finished, he was just about to leave when a critical realization struck him late.
“…Where’s the exit?”
[N-now that you mention it, I have no idea which way leads out either.]
“You must have seen which way Chaos brought me in, right?”
[Regrettably, Chaos swallowed you whole and brought you here like that. This body, like you, remained in darkness the entire time, so I know neither exit nor entrance.]
“Hearing that… something feels off.”
[What does?]
“I mean, if Chaos had just chewed me up while I was already swallowed, I’d be dead, right? So why bring me here alive? I can’t figure that out.”
[Now that you say it, it is rather strange…]
Bern had been puzzling over why Chaos had not simply killed him.
He closed his eyes for a moment, then voiced the hypothesis that suddenly surfaced.
“We didn’t comb every corner of the mine, but we never once saw Chaos personally bite a dwarf to death, did we?”
[Ah, yes. All of them died from the black substance’s transformations.]
“This is just my guess, but… maybe Chaos actually wanted to create its own kind?”
[Its own kind?]
“The monsters the black substance made all looked similar to Chaos, right? Considering that, increasing numbers through reproduction would be impossible. So maybe it was trying to form a pack using the black substance.”
[In other words, the reason Chaos did not kill you was also an attempt to turn you into kin through the black substance?]
“Something like that.”
Bern nodded repeatedly, deciding the theory had plenty of credibility.
It had come from his own head, yet he considered it a truly brilliant deduction.
His pride in it lasted only a moment before Frach’s rebuttal followed.
[That is a rather strange tale. If my memory is not mistaken, the First Demon King planned to conquer the world by creating even stronger hybrids through crossbreeding the Four Evil Beasts with other species.]
“So you’re saying the Four Evil Beasts actually have genitals?”
[To the best of my recollection, yes. The plan never truly got underway because the Four Evil Beasts all escaped, so I never had the chance to confirm it myself.]
Hearing Frach’s words, Bern’s face darkened rapidly.
Cold sweat even began to bead on his skin.
[Your complexion is poor. Why?]
“You didn’t see it during the butchering just now…?”
[Did not see what? What are you talking about?]
“Chaos’s genitals! Between its legs it was completely smooth—nothing hanging there, not even a slit! So I figured it was asexual…!”
The Four Evil Beasts possessed genders as well.
Frach’s single remark led Bern to form a new hypothesis: the black dog he had killed was not Chaos.
The opponent he had pushed himself past his limits to defeat had been a fake, and the true body existed separately.
Few things could be more tormenting—or more terrifying—than that fact.
[Do not fret so much. My memory may simply be wrong, or Chaos alone among them may have lacked a gender.]
“Y-yeah, that must be it, right?”
Relieved that he would not have to prepare for another fight, Bern let out a long sigh.
Consecutive battles in his already poor condition.
He was certain that no amount of effort would let him win, so he desperately hoped in his heart that his hypothesis was wrong.
[Besides, if it possessed genitals, there would be no reason to increase its kind in such a manner, would there?]
“Well, true. It could just find one dog to serve as a breeding partner or sire and then multiply the numbers that way.”
[Mmm… Even if Chaos did have genitals, I doubt such a thing would have happened.]
“Why?”
[Because I have heard that every last one of the Four Evil Beasts possesses immense pride. Unless the other party is their equal, they will never regard them as a mate.]
“….”
[And there is one more important condition. True to the name Four Evil Beasts, they loathe good people to an extreme degree. They despise those of kind and upright character, yet rumor has it they wag their tails and follow the truly wicked with delight. The First Demon King was strong in martial might, yet his heart was a touch soft. Soft enough that one might even consider you more wicked than the First Demon King.]
“Th-that’s enough…”
[Fufu! Had my Contractor been the First Demon King, the Four Evil Beasts might well have followed obediently. Your power is still immature, yet one day you too shall become a powerhouse to rival him!]
Frach laughed brightly and continued her praise that was not quite praise of Bern.
Listening to it, Bern’s expression grew steadily more rigid.
And no wonder—every word Frach had just uttered reeked of flag-setting.
It was dense enough to rival the classic “Did we get them?” line.
And the suffering that followed would, of course, be Bern’s to bear.
[The digression has grown long, but in any case you need not worry—]
“Wang!”
[Hm?]
A puppy’s cry cut Frach’s words short midway.
It came from somewhere rather distant from where they stood.
Bern flinched hard and whipped his head toward the sound.
A small, adorable Pomeranian.
Fluffy fur and a tail wagging gently side to side, it was bounding toward them.
“Wang! Wang! Hah-hah…!”
Tiny paws scrabbling furiously against the ground, the puppy raced straight for Bern.
To any ordinary person it would have been a sight cute enough to make the heart flutter.
Bern’s heart was also pounding madly.
Only the reason his pulse hammered was entirely different from that of ordinary people.
“…Fuck?”
[Th-this is a puppy of suspiciously high caliber.]
To Bern and Frach, the little Pomeranian looked entirely different.
It was radiating a black aura so savage it seemed ready to devour everything in the world.
Instinct blared a red alert of danger, and Bern began to back away.
Yet the puppy closed the distance in an instant and leapt at him.
“Kyiing! Kyiing!”
The black-furred Pomeranian clamped its jaws firmly onto Bern’s pant leg and hung on for dear life.
Seeing this, Bern desperately clutched his trousers and held the line.
“Th-this little bastard is Chaos!!”
It was Chaos itself.