Chapter 189

Translator: Willia

The devil lived in the heart, and hell existed in everyday life. There was nothing especially grand about it. One day, all of a sudden, a thought would simply strike: I’m in hell right now.

Those who realized this had to make a choice. Either become devils themselves, or climb their way out of hell.

It was a bright spring day. Insects chirped in the grass, bees and butterflies flitted from flower to flower, pollen brought on sneezes, and a woman’s corpse lay sprawled in the meadow.

The unusual thing was that she still had her lower garments on, while only her upper body had been stripped bare, and her belly had been slit open. At least she had not been violated, but what had happened was even more horrific.

The entrails inside her abdomen had been thoroughly rummaged through. Ricardt looked down at the sight calmly.

Roy was accustomed to his share of gruesome sights, yet even he frowned and could barely bring himself to look at it from the corner of his eye. Still, he did not refuse to look.

“Why would anyone do something like this?”

“They were looking for something.”

“What?”

“You see this a lot on battlefields. When people flee, they swallow things like gold valuables. So soldiers kill civilians and make a point of cutting their bellies open afterward.”

“......Gold valuables......”

“But there’s no telling exactly what they were looking for here. She doesn’t seem like a refugee.”

“Esck isn’t a very nice place.”

“You think so?”

“Isn’t it?”

“It’s the same everywhere. Some places are just more blatant about it. Others are well-off enough that people don’t need to go this far. That’s the only difference.”

“......Master, you’re surprisingly pessimistic.”

“You’re only realizing that now? And when did you learn a word like pessimistic?”

“I’ve been studying hard. Bori’s teaching me.”

“Only study when you need to. Otherwise, you’re just learning dead knowledge. Useless.”

“Yes......”

Roy had reached the point where he knew to take some of what Ricardt said with a grain of salt. He had also learned how to answer him halfheartedly.

“Master, have you seen every kind of death there is?”

“I think I’ve seen just about all of them. There’s only one I haven’t. I’ve only ever heard about it like some kind of legend.”

“What kind?”

“Someone who grew old and died peacefully, slipping away as if falling asleep while friends and family watched over them. I’ve never seen a death like that.”

“......That isn’t easy, is it?”

“Nope.”

Ricardt said this while looking down at the horribly mutilated corpse. It seemed as far removed from dying peacefully of old age as hell was from heaven.

They did not mourn her, but for a moment, a silence much like mourning settled over them. The spring flowers nearby, normally so cheerful, now seemed to be offering their condolences.

“By the way, how long is that one planning to stay over there?”

Ricardt spoke while looking toward a boulder a short distance away. Even Roy could sense someone’s presence at this range, so he understood what Ricardt meant.

“Should I call them over?”

“No. No need. They’re the one who wants something from us. Right now, they’re hesitating. Like an inexperienced child.”

It was as though Ricardt could see straight into the mind of the person hiding there without even looking at them. Their conversation carried all the way to the boulder, and after a moment, someone emerged.

It was a girl with roughly chopped, nearly white blond hair cut short around her jaw. She looked about Roy’s age, with large eyes and a high, straight nose sharp as a blade.

She looked older than ten, but she wore shabby boys’ clothes and was barefoot. There was little about her that suggested she had ever received a parent’s loving care.

With the gruesome corpse still before them, Ricardt and Roy turned toward the girl. Both regarded her with detached eyes, as if the sight stirred nothing in them.

“She’s like a wildflower.”

Roy said it aloud. Ricardt did not particularly think so, and saw no reason to agree. He was rather more hard-edged and unsentimental.

“If you’ve got something to say, say it. Otherwise, get lost.”

Ricardt spoke this harshly because here in Esck, adults and children alike seemed to be cut from the same cloth.

Aside from exchanging a few words in the first village they had visited and speaking briefly with Raphael, they had not managed to talk with any of the locals. Everyone avoided them.

The girl stared intently at Ricardt and Roy, almost as though glaring at them. But she could not entirely hide the tremor in those enormous eyes. It seemed she had gathered quite a bit of courage before stepping out in front of them.

“You’re the Empire’s Swordsman?”

The girl asked. Her voice was unexpectedly clear and crystalline, like a drop of water falling into a still pond.

“I’ve been called many things. I suppose that’s what they’re calling me now.”

Red Cloak, Beringen’s Genius Swordsman, Hero of Siegfringer, Tiger of Kaitz, God of Judgment, El Cid, Heart of the Storm, and plenty more besides.

Apparently, now he was the Empire’s Swordsman. Ricardt did not care what other people chose to call him.

In any case, the fact that the girl knew who Ricardt was meant the rumors had already spread among the locals. His reputation as a terrifying swordsman made people uncomfortable, but it also kept them from daring to interfere with him.

Besides, this was a region with very few outsiders and a deep suspicion of them, so Ricardt and Roy could hardly go anywhere without standing out. It felt as though they were being ostracized by an entire region.

“I heard you’re looking for Benzinen.”

“That’s right.”

“I can guide you there.”

“Why?”

“Because I have a favor to ask you.”

“In exchange for showing us the way?”

“Yeah.”

“And what’s the favor? I want to hear it first. If you won’t tell me, we’ll find our own way there.”

In other words, he was saying they did not particularly need her help. In truth, that was not the case at all. Ricardt and Roy had reached a point where they desperately needed assistance.

They needed to ask locals for information and use that to find their way, but if no one would even speak to them, they had no means of doing so.

Still, Ricardt’s so-called negotiation tactic of playing hard to get worked on the girl. Whether she was simply naive or understood what he was doing and went along with it anyway was unclear.

“Kill ‘Papa’ for me. That’s all I want.”

“......Who is he?”

This time, Roy asked.

“Papa is Papa. He isn’t human. That’s all I’ll tell you for now. Otherwise, you two will run away.”

“You’re saying he’s a Vampire?”

“......”

Ricardt asked again. The girl merely remained silent, neither confirming nor denying it. But it seemed he was right. Ricardt wondered whether Vampires really lived in a place like this.

They simply lived quietly enough not to reveal themselves, but Vampires could in fact be found throughout the Empire. Apparently, there was one in Esck as well.

“......That’s right.”

Ricardt had thought she would refuse to answer, but after a short pause, the girl nodded.

“I’m not afraid just because he’s a Vampire. They’re just like humans in that they too stand at a crossroads. I’ve seen admirable Vampires, and I’ve seen Vampires who sank into miserable depravity. Which kind is this Papa?”

The girl seemed a little surprised that Ricardt knew so much about Vampires. Roy was too. This was the first he had ever heard of it.

“Papa...... likes young boys. It’s not that he dislikes girls. But even though he loves us, he torments us too. He once said that when a child who trusts him absolutely takes their final breath and the life fades from their eyes, that’s when they become joined in perfect love. Together forever. Living forever.”

Ricardt had no idea what kind of bullshit that was supposed to mean. But he could tell one thing for certain. Papa was one thoroughly twisted pervert.

Some Vampires advanced to higher states of being through ascetic discipline. Others were hollow shells who could no longer be satisfied by ordinary pleasures. By every indication, Papa belonged firmly to the latter group.

The girl pulled something from inside her clothes and showed it to them. It was a tiny vial hanging like a pendant from a necklace.

“It’s a Vampire Elixir. The one they say revived Dragonslayer Ilya. Papa’s Thralls are looking for it right now.”

Ricardt’s eyes widened for a moment. What the hell is she talking about? I’m the one who drank Ilya’s oil.

Besides, the oil Ricardt had consumed was a yellowish, golden liquid, while the liquid hanging from the girl’s neck was transparent. Is that one fake? Was the one I drank fake? No. That can’t be right.

Whatever the truth, for now they needed the girl’s help if they wanted to find the quartz mine, and especially the ruined village of Benzinen. Reaching it was their first objective.

The mysterious stranger they had met in the middle of the night had said that if they made it there, he would give them information about Dunkel. Though Ricardt did wonder whether they really needed to go this far if it meant making an enemy of a Vampire.

“Fine. I’ll kill Papa. But first, take us to Benzinen. You don’t look particularly safe yourself, so think of it as payment for us protecting you.”

Ricardt laid out the terms unilaterally. From the girl’s perspective, they were unfavorable. Once Ricardt achieved his own objective, he could simply ignore her request.

But as far as Ricardt could see, the girl had no other options, and he had no intention of breaking his promise. That made this the right arrangement.

“......All right.”

“Is Benzinen far from here?”

“You already passed it. It’s a day’s journey from here.”

“Then let’s make good time while the sun’s still up. We should be able to reach it sometime tomorrow morning.”

Ricardt immediately started to leave. But the girl stopped him.

“Wait.”

When Ricardt looked back, the girl was picking flowers from the field. She gathered an armful, then laid them over the corpse’s split-open abdomen. The flowers covered the horribly mangled entrails. She had probably known the woman.

There was no further mourning, because mourning was a luxury. Ricardt started to move again. This time, Roy stopped him.

“Wait a second.”

Roy took off his pack and pulled out a piece of leather he had been using to wrap some of his belongings. Ricardt watched, wondering what he intended to do, only to see Roy kneel on one knee and reach for the girl’s feet.

“Lift your foot.”

The girl did not refuse, nor did she seem embarrassed. She simply let him handle her foot while staring down at him. Roy wrapped it in the leather and tied it in place with cord.

Unless it was wrapped securely and knotted properly, it would be uncomfortable, but Roy had enough experience from childhood to know how to make this sort of makeshift footwear well.

“What’s your name?”

“Bellin.”

“I’m Roy. There. Tell me if it’s uncomfortable. I can adjust it.”

Roy casually slung his pack back over his shoulders and stood. At last, Ricardt could actually start walking.

The short-haired girl followed the two of them. The sensation beneath her feet felt unfamiliar, but not unpleasant.

Ricardt and Roy retraced their path, walking wherever Bellin directed them.

It was a fresh spring day, but there was no mood for enjoying the season, nor was there anything wistful about it.

The white clouds drifting across the blue sky looked like a painting, yet the unease and fear underlying Esck rendered all that beauty meaningless.

The three of them did not speak much, and Bellin followed a short distance behind the other two.

By the time the sun had passed its zenith and begun its slow descent, Ricardt reached a gently sloping mountain path. Sparse shrubs and dry grass dotted the terrain, but most of it was bare earth and stone.

Ricardt surveyed the terrain, then pointed toward one spot.

“Let’s go that way.”

“That isn’t a path.”

“I know.”

Bellin, their local guide, told him so, but Ricardt insisted. Roy had an idea why.

“Master always has a reason when he says to go somewhere. I think he’s probably preparing for an ambush. There’s no way we haven’t been spotted on the way here.”

Ricardt headed up steep ground where there was no path at all, and one wrong step could send them sliding down and leave them badly injured. Roy followed without complaint, but Bellin was clearly having trouble in shoes that were little more than leather footwraps.

Roy shifted his pack around to the front of his body.

“Get on my back.”

Bellin stared silently at the boy’s back for a moment, then climbed on without saying anything.

Roy was large and strong for his age, and even with Bellin on his back, he trudged onward without complaint. Yet she was almost absurdly light. Bellin did not look particularly thin, but that was how she felt to Roy.

“You’re really light. Like a feather.”

“Sorry. I’ll get heavier from now on.”

“Okay.”

After they had spent quite some time traversing the dangerous ground, the terrain finally became somewhat gentler. But when Ricardt rounded the ridge ahead of them, he came face-to-face with a group of strangers.

They had apparently not expected Ricardt’s party to come from this direction, and they too seemed flustered by the sudden encounter.

The setting sun hung over the peak, staining the sky red.

“You know who I am, right? What was it again? The Empire’s Swordsman?”

Ricardt asked without preamble. The enemies answered by reaching inside their clothes for weapons.

As swift as its name, Thunderflash flashed from its sheath, and in an instant, the nearest man’s head went flying. The others had only just begun to take their stances. He was simply too fast.

Fresh blood sprayed everywhere, and the startled men began to flounder. In that brief opening, Ricardt’s blade danced like the knife of a skilled cook cleaning fish, and heads and limbs tumbled to the ground one after another.

Around then, Roy finally came around the ridge behind him, and his eyes flew wide. Ricardt had vanished from sight for only a moment, yet by the time Roy saw him again, the entire place had become a sea of blood.

At this point, they might well have fled, but one man aimed a crossbow at Ricardt. Another quickly hurled a concealed weapon.

Ricardt snatched up a headless corpse as it toppled and used it as a shield.

Thud-thud-thud!

He shoved the corpse forward and sprang toward the men using ranged weapons.

For an instant, the sight of Ricardt holding his sword in one hand, legs tucked beneath him as he crossed the distance in a single bound, entered the enemies’ eyes as though time itself had stopped.

The sunset gathered at the tip of his blade. He swung as though scattering that light, and red lines like afterimages slashed across the enemies’ weapons and bodies. Everything was sliced apart.

“Hiiiiiik!”

Only then did someone suck in a sharp breath. It had taken three or four seconds at most. That was all the time it took for a bloody gale to sweep through.

But then a firework suddenly shot into the air nearby and burst overhead.

Fweeeeeeeew- Baaang-!

White smoke billowed and spread. Ricardt held the edge of his cloak in one hand and his sword in the other as he raised his head to watch the firework burst above him.

“You’re finished now......!”

Perhaps emboldened after summoning his allies, one man started to shout something at Ricardt, but died before he could finish. After killing him, Ricardt swiftly climbed along the ridge.

Sure enough, when he reached the top, dozens of enemies were rushing toward him from the far side. They came face-to-face with Ricardt standing atop the ridge.

Whether by coincidence or not, from their angle Ricardt stood with the sunset spilling around him, the sun poised behind his head like a halo. The sun was the color of blood.

An ordinary skilled fighter would have fled from so many enemies, or at the very least been daunted. Ricardt did neither.

A golden flame simply blossomed at the tip of his sword and quietly spread until it wrapped around the entire blade. And when the power he had named Inner Fire coursed through his body for the first time in a while, golden flames appeared in his eyes as well.

When people realized that reality itself was hell, some chose to become devils, while others sought to escape it.

In his previous life, Ricardt had been one of the former. And once, he had stood at their very pinnacle. Half-baked devils recognized their king at a glance. They also realized almost immediately that something had gone terribly wrong.

Ricardt had no way of knowing whether these enemies were a Vampire’s Thralls or Esca. But did I really need to know that?

He had been called by many names, but at that moment, only one thing was clear. He was the God of Judgment. And his enemies had ended up beholding the God of Judgment with their own eyes.

In truth, they were nowhere near capable enough to challenge him. They did not even dare attack. They simply turned around and fled down the mountain like mad. No more blood was spilled.

Roy and Bellin came up belatedly to help Ricardt. But all the boy and girl saw were enemies fleeing in a panic. Bellin, who had barely spoken the entire way, asked,

“What happened?”

Ricardt, back to his usual self, answered as though it were nothing.

“Who knows? Maybe it’s almost their bedtime.”

“?”

“We should start looking for a place to camp too.”

Ricardt started walking again. The sun, spilling its sunset glow across the land, remained silent about what it had witnessed.

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