Chapter 599: Mirror-of-the-Sky Blood (3)

The houses were chill—no ember-warmth at all.

At least a full day had passed without a fire; the cold had pooled that long.

But a faint sting at the tip of my nose—a subtle, fishy tang. For a bloodhound among bloodhounds like me, that was the smell of blood.

Sure enough: blood spattered over a Zang-style wool rug. Not much, but among it a thin, watery trace—brain matter?

If so, the killer didn’t use a blade but a mace or club—or someone who uses fist-and-palm arts.

Other houses were the same: a bar smashed so the door hung and clacked, or the hinges were broken clean and the panel lay fallen.

At the southern edge stood a big warehouse-like building; we stepped in. Salt kettles. Heaped salt to one side. A worksite for harvesting salt from the lake, it seemed.

I shut my eyes and tuned my hearing.

With human-beyond hearing, eyes closed, all sorts of sounds came in:

whooo—the wind whipping; clang—likely a little bell hung somewhere; eek—wham—the door, harried by the gusts, banging hard.

Mm, and this? Ah.

In the middle of that: pat, whoosh, shff, tak, swish, shff, shff. Hhup, hup—signs of bodies moving, breath pumping fast.

I snapped my eyes open and spoke.

“Iri? Could you maybe keep still?”

Couldn’t we scout like normal?

Why is Gunyeong—no, this one—snapping her body back-back-back in a neat sequence, pointing an ice blade into the air and making a commotion?

“No. I can’t. It’s dangerous.”

“I don’t think someone’s about to jump us out of nowhere. No—well—even on enemy ground, same difference, right? Why are you wasting strength whirling around?”

“We don’t know where the enemy will appear.”

“Can’t you keep an ordinary watch? You’re making it frantic—and I’m watching the front.”

“Then I’ll take the rear.”

And so she turned her back to my back and actually walked backward behind me.

Within the range of my Awakened Core sense, even on a day this cold, Seol Iri’s slim torso was plain through a single outer coat.

Head whipping left-right—doesn’t your neck hurt? Can’t you just sweep the surroundings like a normal person? Eyes are round; you can roll your eyes. Why overwork your neck muscles?

Unless Gunyeong’s eyeballs are square or star-shaped. Mmm. Overdoing it.

Turn your head around like that and you only scatter your focus and miss what you should see.

Mm. Even her vigilance is the weakest.

Gunyeong, just how much more pathetic will satisfy you—your littleness truly terrifies me.

More to the point, Gunyeong isn’t looking at her feet at all—she’s going to trip—

Before the thought even ended—creeeeak.

In warehouses they lay wooden floors to keep out damp; a wide span bowed down, and Seol Iri’s heel plunged through.

“Eee—!”

With a pitiful screech, her rear dropped through. But she’s a Pinnacle-level fighter of sorts—she wouldn’t go down that easily—so she threw the other leg wide to catch her balance—

“Kya.”

Then, with a line of dialogue suspiciously contrived, she toppled straight toward me.

Spine straight as a rod, with the unshakable belief that I would of course catch her—an absolute, textbook, man’s-trust leap.

Catch you? Not a chance.

I stepped a long pace aside.

Her body whooshed past me.

Our eyes met as she went over backward; her already-wide eyes went so wide they looked about to pop.

Flustered, her rump dropped again; thonk—she landed on her tailbone and flopped flat on the floor.

“Iri? Are you sleepy? How can you just lie down in the road like that?”

“I’m not sleepy, and I’m not lying down.”

For once, Iri answered at length, propping up her torso and stretching both arms toward me, looking up.

Her face is naturally faint in expression, that cool blankness—mm—lately she’s been putting on the cute, this one.

As for me: the cuter the kid, the more I keep teasing until they cry—your standard no-good uncle everyone’s met at least once.

“What’s this? What do you mean by that?”

“Hurry.”

“What does it mean?”

“My hands hurt.”

“You’re not a baby. Here.”

I bent and reached my long, slender hand toward hers.

Her warm fingers twined tight—just as if she’d been waiting.

And then—nothing.

“Iri, not giving me any strength? Shall fragile little me hoist you?”

“Yes. Yes.”

“Mm. Then you keep doing that.”

“I don’t want to. Hurry.”

So I gave a pull and had her halfway up—then stopped when her bottom rose about the height of a clenched fist.

With the core muscles of the strongest human alive, even this awkward position, this awkward posture, holding one Seol Iri dangling didn’t even register.

A small furrow formed beside Iri’s brow.

She tried to add her own effort to rise; I matched her by lowering my waist, maintaining exactly the same spot.

Soon she was stuck with arms stretched straight back and only her butt barely off the floor.

I had my waist bent more than a right angle, body lowered, somehow keeping balance as if by magic.

Then the tips of our noses—strictly, the tip of her nose and the unusually pointy tip of my face mask—tapped.

Her pupils went into a noisy quake; I grinned and straightened my torso.

Iri, limp, slid right into my arms.

“Iri? Not letting go? Trying to wring my fingers was a nice attempt—but you’re the only one it hurts. These aren’t ordinary hands.”

“Ah.”

For once, Iri startled properly.

And I—hm? Finger-wring?

I clenched, Vajra-indestructible, with a squeeze. Not just strength—woman Xiang Yu laying down boulders.

Hhhk—the last breath leaking.

Iri’s waist arched like a bow.

When pain is that sharp, you can’t even scream.

Even I—hearing a genuine “hhhk”—winced.

I forgot that Gunyeong’s very bones are pitiable.

“That’s too much, it hurts...”

Tears welled in Iri’s eyes.

In the end, I made her cry.

Of course it hurts like hell.

Wedge a hard rod between someone’s fingers and give it one good squeeze.

It’s one of the efficient torture methods to begin with.

“Sorry. I may have overdid the pressure. Does it hurt a lot?”

“Really.”

“So don’t waste strength jittering around in the name of keeping watch—just go normally. If you get too tense, you won’t see what’s there. And this body is a true expert—most traces of life reach me if someone so much as breathes.”

“Yes.”

“So, the folks hiding over there—would you come out now? We’re not here to harm you. We just want to hear what happened to the village and help if we can.”

At that, the faintly pained look on Iri’s face—she’d been kneading her hand—hardened cold and sharp.

“No. Iri, don’t do that. If you need help, we’ll give it—would you come out slowly?”

I had clearly heard those thread-fine breaths.

So, to ease their wariness, I even put on a rather silly display.

Of course, tormenting Iri is always a thrill and a joy, but even I know time and place.

But then—hht, mmf—throats clamped, and the presence dropped so suddenly even I couldn’t catch it.

I let out a long sigh.

“You in the salt kettle—mm, it’ll be troublesome if you come out like that. If you keep hiding, I’ll take it that you’re the villains who did this to the village and smash the kettle to pieces with you inside.”

Still no answer.

I delivered a final notice.

“Okay. I’ll only count to three. One. Two. Mmm. Two and a half. Two and a half and a half. Two and a half and a half and a half, and a half of—mm, Iri? How many halves am I at now?”

Regardless, Iri had her splendid ice sword out already, face gone cold, aiming at the salt kettle.

Mm. Gunyeong. Not that kettle—the one toppled two down from it.

Damn it—weakest indeed. Every move is this kind of littleness. What in the world.

Perhaps, very soon, I should lay out Iri’s littleness to her in detail.

Knowing your true self and surpassing it is the path to super-transcendence; if she learns she’s little, maybe her realm will rise.

“Anyway, half of half of—two and a half and then roughly the next half. And then two-and-a-half half half half. And—”

I kept my voice gentle, a little simple.

Then, suddenly, one word gone glacial.

“Three.”

Even Iri at my side felt her heart drop for a beat at the temperature swing.

Spoken with killing intent by the mistress of a baleful star—

a shard of an unclean star that the living fear by instinct.

“W-wait!”

Clatter-thunk—something beat on the salt kettle. Already toppled, it rattled and thumped dully under that menace.

Only then did Iri, sidling, adjust her aim properly—and, at the young voice that followed, quietly lower her blade.

Mm. Children.

No wonder the breathing was shallow and quick.

I thought they were injured.

A girl about to my chest, and a little boy whose crown reached my sternum.

I took a step; even so, the boy—being a boy—blocked the girl with his small body and lifted a square, Chinese-style kitchen cleaver.

The courage is admirable, though his hands were trembling-trembling-trembling.

Ah, I know that. An ultra-vibration edge, right? A mere touch, and bone and flesh separate?

I put on a smile, stripped off my fur cap, and pulled down my face mask.

The kids’ eyes went saucer-round in an instant.

Hostility and fear melted at once—mm. Pretty faces are useful at times like this.

Of course, every time I see a mirror there’s a little thrill—but that’s a side matter.

Kids assume pretty means kind.

Iri is beautiful too, but her lack of expression will just scare children.

“Dear me. Kids—aren’t you cold? Your lips are blue. You were in there without even a cap? Oh, that must be freezing. Come here.”

I shrugged off my outer coat and held it forward, coaxing softly.

At that, the children clearly felt relief; their shoulders slumped.

“We have blankets.”

The boy answered, then heaved a thick feather-and-fur coverlet out of the fallen salt kettle and draped it over the girl.

Judging from the houses, they’d lasted more than a day; I wondered how they’d survived this winter cold—there was the trick.

“Kid, you taking care of your girl? That’s a real man. Nice.”

“...She’s my little sister.”

“Ah. Mm. Right. A big brother taking care of his sister.”

Isn’t the younger sister a bit tall?

Did she steal all her brother’s meals?

From the look of him, maybe he gave her all of his.

Or perhaps the parents fed only the daughter, saying a son was useless.

Now that I looked, both pairs of lips were an identical shade of blue—mm, not resemblance—cold.

“Alright. Iri, let’s get a fire going. Do you have dried dung—ah, you wouldn’t. Kids, where do you store—”

My words were chopped clean in two by the boy’s panicked shout.

“No! If we light a fire, those bastards... th-those bastards might come—no, they will come!”

Those bastards.

In my mind flashed the scene of those swarming birds.

As I thought—some bastards made this mess.

At the very center of my pupils—the pitch-black abyss—a thread of baleful color stirred.