Chapter 54
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 54
Chapter Title: Hella
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The monster didn't confront Luon as he charged in a red arc. It leaped over the bear's carcass and landed softly on a thick branch. Its mouth, dripping with the bear's flesh, opened.
“Who-are-you?”
At the monster's question, Luon's thick eyebrows drew together. He spoke.
“So it can talk.”
When it had said ‘daddy,’ he thought he’d misheard, but it seemed that wasn't the case.
*How?*
The question wasn't about the mechanics of sound vibrations from the vocal cords passing through the lips, but about the clear meaning contained within the sound.
A creature born only a week ago, mastering speech and understanding its meaning on its own? In Luon's experience, at least, that was impossible.
Just then, a crunching sound came from the monster's mouth.
“You-smell-like-daddy.”
Its protruding eyes rolled wildly as its maw gaped open.
“Look-delicious.”
In that instant, the branch the monster was standing on snapped with a crack. Closing the distance in a flash, it swung a foreleg bristling with hook-like claws.
Even against the monster's attack, so fast the trajectory of its arm was a blur, Luon stood his ground, unmoving.
Instead, he swung Ruin, held in his right hand, upward and severed the monster's hand. As crimson blood gushed from the stump where its wrist had been severed, Luon's fist crashed squarely into the hideous monster's face.
*Thwack—!*
Flung backward faster than it had charged, the monster tumbled uncontrollably across the ground.
It finally came to a stop after slamming into a massive tree, and an eerie sound escaped from its crushed head.
“It-hurts-s-s—”
Frowning at the sight, Luon let out a faint sigh and walked toward the monster.
As he raised his sword to finish it off, he narrowed his eyes at the strange sense of wrongness emanating from the fallen creature.
*What is this?*
As if to prove his senses right, the monster's trembling body began to twist. Beneath its skin, a gruesome grinding sound came from its bones and flesh as they writhed and squirmed as if alive.
Just as Luon was about to strike his sword down at the sudden change, a languid voice slipped into his ear.
“To think you’d ruin a curse I put so much effort into. Who are you?”
The voice came from the monster’s mangled torso. Where its upper body had been moments before, two large eyes and a mouth had now appeared.
Luon’s face twisted at the nauseating sight.
“And who are you?”
The large mouth, reformed from the monster's bones and flesh, quivered.
“I am the one you could call this child's true mother.”
His suspicion confirmed by the reply, Luon spoke calmly.
“So you’re Hella?”
“You know of me?”
The large eyes rolled, scanning Luon from head to toe.
“None of the ones hunting me matched your description. Ah, I see, the child's parents must have told you. Was his name Felix… no, Philip? I remember because his face, so full of anticipation, looked utterly foolish…”
Luon looked down at the hazy, unfocused eyes and spoke.
“Did you really have to borrow the corpse of a disgusting monster to make an appearance just to say that? You've got a strong stomach. Why don't you show yourself in person? I'll smash your face in.”
At his words, the large mouth began to cackle. Bits of bone and flesh flew grotesquely from within it.
“Quite the sharp tongue. Most people are usually too busy retching when I appear in this form.”
When Luon didn't respond, the monster's mouth continued.
“This child you killed was a rather important being, meant to chew up and swallow its parents and the villagers, offering their bodies and souls to me. To meet such an untimely end at the hands of a warrior like you… Is this what a farmer feels like when his fields burn down right before the harvest?”
*So what?*
Letting out a sigh of irritation, Luon raised his right hand. As if reflecting his mood, Ruin's blade glowed with a reddish tint.
Luon immediately swung the sword. The two large eyes were swept up in its path and sliced away in an instant.
Having cut down the unsettling gaze, he said, “I'm not interested in your whining.”
The monster's mouth snickered.
“Such an impatient warrior. Since you've destroyed what is mine, you too must pay a price. And it would be a mistake to think that price is merely your life. Because a witch is someone who will rip open her opponent's belly and tear out their guts over a petty argument. You can look forward to it.”
Finding her gloomy pronouncements pathetic, Luon shrugged and retorted, “Right. You can add the Grungrad cemetery incident to the tab and come collect.”
“…What? How do you know about that…”
*So I was right.*
Having no intention of satisfying her curiosity, Luon brought his sword down before she could finish.
The blade, which split the nauseating mouth, began to emit a red glow, and the monster started to convulse.
The link between the corpse and the witch must have been severed, as a gush of crimson blood erupted, and the monster's body literally burst apart.
A deep furrow formed on Luon's brow as he looked down at the chunks of meat now submerged in a pool of blood.
It wasn't because of the negligible experience points.
Nor was it guilt over having sliced up a week-old monster conceived by a witch's curse.
*What a goddamn world.*
Luon spat on the ground and turned away without hesitation. The forest remained dark and gloomy.
***
Fortunately, Philip hadn't made any drastic choices like taking his own life while Luon was away.
Leaning against a pile of straw, he was staring blankly up at the sky. He slowly turned his head toward the sound of Luon's approaching footsteps.
“…Did you kill it?”
The return to formal speech suggested he had regained some of his senses.
With a slight nod, Luon plopped down across from Philip.
Philip, his face gaunt, stared at the bloodstains scattered across Luon’s body and asked, “Was what I saw… real?”
After a moment's thought, Luon nodded again without a word.
The two men stared at each other's faces in silence for a while.
After some time had passed, Philip, forcing his trembling lips still, finally spoke.
“That child… it wouldn't have wanted to be born like that.”
As if speaking itself constricted his heart, Philip clutched his left chest and struggled to continue. His eyes began to redden.
“Maybe… maybe, sir. Maybe that child was never… meant to be with my wife and me in the first place. Even if I hadn't been greedy… it would have come…”
The rest of his words were lost in a hoarse, choked sob, but Luon heard them clearly.
*A precious connection.* That’s what Philip had said.
“…I wouldn't know.”
Luon replied in a low voice, looking at the man's face, which seemed to have lost everything.
*A son? A daughter?* The child they had awaited with happy anticipation was a hideously deformed monster, and the wife who bore it had died in terrible agony.
And all of it had stemmed from his own greed.
Luon didn't know any magical words that could ease the despair and guilt Philip must be feeling. In fact, such words might not even exist.
So, instead of offering clumsy comfort, he said what he could.
“I'll kill Hella for you.”
Philip's eyes widened as he belatedly understood Luon's calm words.
“What?”
Luon said, “So there's no need for you to live with the burden of vengeance.”
Staring blankly, his mouth agape, Philip asked, “Is it… is it alright for someone like me to live?”
Tears were now streaming down his face.
“That's your choice.”
Luon answered dryly, then added, “But it probably wouldn't hurt to stay alive until you hear the news of Hella's death.”
With that, he rose to his feet. As he was about to walk away, Philip's tear-choked voice came from behind.
“May I… may I ask your name?”
“Luon.”
With that short reply, he walked straight back toward the house.
Kyle, who happened to be outside relieving himself, spotted Luon approaching at a leisurely pace in the distance. He tilted his head and asked, “Where on earth have you been at this hour… huh? Is that blood?”
“It's nothing.”
“What do you mean, nothing? Was there a demon's minion in this village?”
“No.”
Luon let out a small laugh at the sight of Kyle thumping his chest in frustration at the curt reply.
“I promised I'd kill a witch. That's all.”
“A witch? Why a witch when we're on our way to kill Belducias?”
Luon spoke as he entered the house.
“Even if not right away, she'll come to me on her own two feet eventually.”
***
Inside a sharp spire hidden within ominously swirling dark clouds, a woman sitting cross-legged in the center of a massive ritual circle drawn with the bodies and blood of dozens of crows snapped her eyes open.
“Ugh—!”
As soon as she opened her eyes, she coughed up a mouthful of blood. Another woman saw this and exclaimed in shock, “Hella! What happened?”
The woman, Hella, gasped for breath for a moment, then looked down at the floor, now a mess with her own blood, and ground her teeth.
“Damn it…”
The other woman approached Hella, who was wiping the blood from her mouth with the back of her hand, and asked with narrowed eyes, “You were hit so fast you didn't even have time to sever the connection? Who was it? A paladin? A high priest? Which church are they from?”
Annoyed by the frantic questioning, Hella glared and snarled, “Shut up, Nadia. You're getting on my nerves.”
She tore at her blood-soaked shirt in irritation and shot to her feet.
Hella strode over to a table cluttered with all sorts of ominous objects.
Finding a sharp, discarded dagger on it, she grabbed it and sliced her own palm without hesitation. Then she shouted impatiently, “The crystal ball!”
When the woman called Nadia handed her the crystal ball, Hella immediately let her blood drip onto it.
Amazingly, the blood didn't run down the surface of the ball but seeped inside, spreading through the interior like watercolor paint.
Watching this, Nadia asked, “What in the world is going on?”
“I found the one who killed the Mother Ghoul in Grungrad.”
“What?”
Meanwhile, Hella watched as a figure began to take shape within the crystal ball, a savage smile spreading across her face.
“That's him.”
Broad shoulders, a solid build, a rugged face, a sword at his hip, and a bow on his back.
Nadia stared at the fully formed image of Luon and muttered, “…He doesn't look like a paladin or a priest. Could he be a mercenary?”
Hella licked her palm and took up the thought.
“Median… I wondered how that stupid bitch who can't even keep her husband in line managed to solve things… Looks like she hired him.”
A glint of greed flickered in her dark eyes as she gazed down at the crystal ball.
“I knew the moment it happened. The immense power seething inside his body… That power would far surpass hundreds of mediocre sacrifices. No, it might be even more than that.”
Nadia asked, “So what are you going to do? Are you going to go find him and kill him yourself?”
At her words, Hella slowly shook her head.
“Not now. I still have too much to deal with… For now, let's focus on the north. We can't let Belducias have all the fun.”
The witch who served ‘the Crouching Rotten One’ smiled thinly.