Chapter Season 2 720

Translator: Alpha0210

Had he lost it?

No. However carelessly Residue approached most things in life, he wasn't the sort to lose something that important. Of course, there was some chance it had simply dissipated on its own during the journey to 'The Outside'...... But if that were the case, the Black Thorn Demon King would have had no reason to speak so meaningfully about it.

"So I used it."

He muttered the fairly likely possibility aloud.

The Ruler who had been a single existence in the beginning. Its role was god's sharpest weapon...... The weapon had later split into four, and the four Rulers everyone knew were born. To some it might be a great twist, a wondrous legend, but to Residue it was a dull truth. Because it gave him the feeling that the reason there had to be four Rulers had been decided well in advance.

Separately from that, Residue also thought this truth held a clue.

A god's weapon could hardly be his final goal, but he figured he could at least grow stronger than he was now.

On 'The Island', protecting Lukas with only Pale at his side must have been a grueling task. It wouldn't be strange if he had used 'Thorn' and 'Fang' half as a gamble. If the Sun God's External Power had naturally mixed in during the process... that would also explain why the Sun God's Remnant no longer existed within him.

But there was something decisively lacking when it came to applying this conjecture to reality.

No meaningful change had occurred in his body.

He didn't seem weaker, and he didn't seem stronger. He looked himself over once more for anything unusual, but nothing rang a bell. He had checked his body from the moment he'd come to, and even then he'd felt nothing out of the ordinary. If anything, condition-wise, he had been scraping rock bottom the whole time......

...Residue got too sick of thinking about it and let out a sigh.

In any case, it had been an exhausting day in every respect. Strangely, today had felt obscenely long.

He'd gone out to survey the continent before dawn and returned before sunrise. He'd squabbled with the young Kasajin, talked with Schweizer, and after heading to the temple, suddenly ran into Agolet.

What he'd heard from that guy alone had left his head numb, and then, after eating and taking a quiet stroll through the night market, he'd been dragged off by the Black Thorn Demon King. At least that conversation hadn't run long, but either way, it felt like it had burned through a considerable amount of his mental energy.

Between yesterday and today he'd met the Blue Knight, the White Knight, and the Black Thorn Demon King, so wasn't it about time for the Lightning God to show up?

The thought crossed Residue's mind for no particular reason, making him head back to the inn a little faster.

And then.

"Reshidoo."

He ran smack into the Blue Knight, babbling something bizarre.

Her pronunciation was mangled because she'd spoken with her cheeks stuffed to bursting with food. Both her hands were full of food, too. Residue looked at that spectacle, which didn't even merit a laugh, and kept silent.

Meanwhile, the Blue Knight worked her jaw diligently, swallowed everything down, and spoke again.

"How are you?"

"Not particularly well, as it happens."

"So I see. Judging by that face, like you just bit into a bug. Did something happen?"

Pale asked with the expression of someone genuinely inquiring after a friend's wellbeing. Eyes full of concern, head tilted to one side and all.

...To borrow Agolet's words, that attitude probably wasn't an act either. A hollow laugh escaped him for reasons he couldn't name.

And Residue briefly wondered whether he should mention meeting Agolet and the Black Thorn Demon King. The conclusion came quickly. There was no particular need to bring it up.

Now that he knew the Blue Knight's intentions, he couldn't simply regard this woman as an ally. Not that he ever had.

"And you? Any results from poking around?"

"There were. It seems Agolet and the Black Thorn Demon King are in this town. Aren't you on your way back from meeting them?"

Oho. So it wasn't something worth hiding in the first place.

More to the point, had she been testing him while knowing everything all along?

Pale was still eating the food in her hands with a perfectly serene face. She wasn't the type to toss out a probe while feigning ignorance, either, so the Blue Knight had just made a statement of considerable confidence.

Denial, then, would only drag the conversation out, so Residue nodded.

"Right. I met them both."

"What did you talk about?"

"Nothing much came of the talk with the Black Thorn Demon King. From Agolet, I heard something rather interesting."

Residue decided he might as well be a bit more honest himself.

"He says you're using me."

"Mmm."

Pale made a strange sound.

She didn't seem particularly surprised or puzzled; it sounded more like the muffled groan that leaks out while chewing food.

Pale chewed and swallowed everything, then looked his way.

Her matter-of-fact attitude gave off the sense that she wanted more of an explanation.

Residue first glanced around. Tonight's night market was gradually winding down, but there were still plenty of people about. It wasn't a conversation meant for other ears, so he had no choice but to move.

"Follow me."

"Yep."

Pale followed without a word of complaint.

Residue still found her friendly attitude toward him unfamiliar, but now that he knew the truth, it no longer felt as purely uncomfortable as before.

Ridiculous, wasn't it.

Learning she had some scheme actually made things easier to accept.

If so, then perhaps Residue too had decided from the very start that the Blue Knight must hate him, and had been forcing pieces together to find the reason why.

Call him a man twisted from the roots up in his own right. He was in no position to badmouth Agolet or the Black Thorn Demon King.

"This should do."

It was a gloomier spot than last time.

Perhaps because of the atmosphere, it felt damper, too. A desert and dampness, of all things, was hardly a fitting pairing either.

Going any farther to find somewhere better was a hassle, so he simply started talking.

"Agolet told me. Apparently, if we kill the Lukas here, the Fifth Destruction will disappear."

"I see."

"Blue Knight."

Residue hesitated before continuing.

He didn't know whether he could reveal his true feelings to this woman.

He would probably never be able to understand her. In truth, without Lukas as their common denominator, a conversation like this would never have happened at all.

There were their inborn stations as Ruler and one of the Four Knights, but beyond that, he continually felt that something about Pale was decisively out of joint with him. As if their dispositions simply didn't mesh.

Still, he had to try. It wasn't as if that guy had been able to understand this woman from the start, either.

"It seems I will have to kill Lukas."

"......"

"I've agonized over it all this while, but that is my conclusion."

Pale said nothing.

The street's humidity suddenly seemed to cling to his skin. Even the brief gust of wind that passed felt unpleasant.

Still, Residue didn't stop.

"I thought it over from every angle. Lukas's will, a simple weighing of values, and what I myself want to do. Not all of them aligned, but taken together, this was the conclusion."

"So what you're saying, Residue, is that you're going to break the promise you made on The Island?"

I have no memory of that time...... Even if he said something like that, she would never accept it.

To her, and to himself, it would be nothing but a coward's excuse.

"Thoughts are bound to change. On The Island, I likely failed to grasp the situation accurately."

"......"

"If Lukas is the one who led us here, then his will deserves respect. You should drop your selfish notions as well, and..."

The next instant, a blue sword came hurtling at him like a bolt.

In truth, he'd been expecting this turn of events to some degree, so dodging the attack itself wasn't difficult. The tiresome chains that then tried to bind his body, he likewise slipped beyond their reach. Would he have to fight here? As Residue was thinking that, oddly enough, no pursuit followed.

Pale still stood in place, watching him.

"Residue, your goal is to kill the Fifth Destruction. Isn't it?"

"Didn't I just say so?"

"What the heck."

At that, Pale sheathed her sword again and broke into a beaming smile.

"Then our interests really are aligned after all."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"......"

"Don't tell me......"

Residue looked at Pale's unsettling smile and asked.

"You don't care if Lukas dies?"

Pale smiled sweetly, then opened her mouth.

*

The conversation ran fairly long.

But if asked whether he'd actually gained anything from it, not particularly. Residue's decision remained unchanged from the start. If anything had changed, it was that Pale's existence had inserted itself rather more actively into that conclusion.

Residue was heading back to the inn in low spirits, in more ways than one.

The night market had completely closed, and he walked through streets devoid of people.

"......"

Even with the inn right before his eyes, Residue could not quite understand why he had returned here.

The place a person returns to after the day's work is home, but could he really call this inn home?

It was a place without even the value of a temporary lodging.

Creak...

Residue opened the door and was about to head up to his room to rest when he abruptly stopped.

At the first-floor tables, where he'd assumed no one would be, in a spot without a single light burning, he sensed a human presence.

Dark as it was, Residue could tell who they were.

"...You."

They seemed to recognize Residue as well, forcing the word out as if squeezing it from their throats.

Residue realized they were utterly exhausted, and badly wounded besides.

"What are you doing here?"

At that moment, one man rose in a single stride and approached Residue. He was covered in wounds, but his whole body radiated the aura of a bleeding beast.

A face gone rigid, and tightly clenched fists.

Residue didn't know what this man was thinking, but he knew, at the very least, what he was about to do.

As expected, Kasajin closed in and seized Residue by the collar.

"You son of a bitch. How are you alive? And with what face did you crawl all the way here?"

"I have always been alive, and as for what kind of face I'm wearing right now, I honestly couldn't say myself."

At that, Kasajin swung his fist and smashed it into Residue's face. It happened so fast that even the others beside him couldn't stop it.

"...Do you think anyone here is going to calm me down? You can't seem to tell when to joke and when not to, and right now my patience has no slack left in it. If you want to live even a little longer, answer me straight."

"I did answer you straight."

The moment that flat voice reached him, Kasajin flinched. He had put enough force into that punch to cave in the bones of a face, even if it wouldn't kill.

And the face Residue finally revealed bore not a single mark.

"What did you......"

When no reply came, Kasajin ground his teeth and drove a kick into Residue's gut. Crash! The body that went flying with savage force smashed through several tables before slamming into the wall.

This time, however, Kasajin didn't let his guard down; muscles taut, he said,

"Lucid, back me up. This one's a Demigod too."

"......"

Lucid emerged from the darkness.

That his face looked unusually pallid surely wasn't only because of the moonlight slanting in through the window. With a haggard expression he slowly drew his sword and looked toward where Residue had fallen. Kasajin, no longer taking his opponent lightly either, began carefully adjusting the distance between them.

Clatter...

In the meantime, Residue rose from the wreckage of the tables and regarded the two men glaring at him.

They didn't seem to be in any state for conversation. He would have to calm them down first; they were no pushovers, but simply subduing them posed no real difficulty.

Boom!

"......!?"

Kasajin realized his vision had flipped in an instant. His sight went black, his body floated up, and then a violent pain erupted from his back.

"Gurk......"

Coughing out his breath, only on the verge of losing consciousness did he grasp what had happened.

His opponent had closed the distance in a flash, snatched him by the face, and driven him straight into the floor. Lucid, beside him, had suffered much the same fate.

"You two can start by cooling your heads."

Residue paid no particular mind to the fact that the shop floor had been utterly demolished.

His gaze turned to the woman who, among those gathered here, was probably the only one he could actually talk to.

"What happened?"

"......"

Sluggish movements, and vacant eyes staring off into the distance. This woman didn't look to be in her right mind either.

Two of her companions had just been slammed into the floor right before her eyes, and she hadn't so much as twitched. As if her very soul had left her.

Residue deliberately brought his face right up before those eyes, then gave her cheek a sharp slap.

Only then did a faint light return to them.

"Iris PeaceFinder. I asked what happened."

Iris looked up at Residue, then let her head drop again.

A low voice leaked out from between the strands of her hair.

"...ead."

"What?"

Before he could even ask who, Iris said,

"Schweizer is dead."

*****

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