Chapter 192

Translator: Willia

Rain fell from an ash-gray sky. A man trudged along pulling a cart, with nothing but a shabby coif on his head to keep off the rain.

It did not seem to be a road people normally used. The only sign of passage through the grass was a pair of parallel wheel tracks stretching into the distance. But with the rain turning the ground to mud, it was difficult to make any progress.

The man hauled the cart forward one step at a time with all his strength, until he realized that no matter how hard he pulled, it would not move. One of the wheels had sunk deep into the mire.

“Fuck......”

He muttered the curse to himself, let go of the handles for a moment, and walked around to lift the cloth covering the cart. Beneath it lay a heap of strange chunks of flesh.

Most had been smashed so thoroughly that it was difficult to tell what they had once been, but a few were still recognizable.

Fingers with their nails missing, tangled clumps of hair, teeth. Raindrops pattered down over them.

The man scooped them up with a shovel and scattered them broadly across the ground. Apparently, he meant to lighten the load enough to get the wheel free.

He had shoveled out one load, then two, then three, when someone suddenly spoke.

“Want some help?”

The man flinched and spun around. Four or five people stood there in cloaks with their hoods pulled low, though where they could possibly have been hiding in the middle of this broad field was anyone’s guess. They looked like reapers.

“Mind your own business. Nothing good will come of taking an interest.”

“Why? Is a vampire going to take revenge or something?”

“......What?”

“Einmetz, right? We already know everything.”

When the hooded man, whose hood revealed little more than the area around his mouth, called him by name, the butcher Einmetz’s face tightened with tension.

“......S-so what if you know? If you know, that’s even more reason to stay out of it.”

“You think so? Strange. The rumors should have spread by now, but it seems you still haven’t heard. I’m with the Council of Six. I came to put down things that aren’t human and humans who are hardly human themselves. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“......”

Einmetz honestly did not understand, but he instinctively realized that the situation was serious and that his life might be in danger.

He stood there for a moment in the steady drizzle, then suddenly hurled the shovel in his hand and bolted.

He had barely run any distance when someone who had been hiding ahead of him suddenly sprang out.

The figure moved like a beast pouncing on prey. Startled, Einmetz threw up his hands, but in the next instant his body suddenly tipped sideways beyond his control and crashed to the ground.

Thud!

His leg burned. When he looked down, everything below his left knee was gone. Only then did his eyes stretch wide as the pain struck him. Yet the shock of seeing his leg gone was even greater than the pain.

“Eeeeek!”

A boy holding an axe gazed down at him in silence. It was Roy. Like master, like disciple. When it came to someone he had no intention of sparing, his eyes were utterly indifferent and cold.

Ricardt approached slowly with the others. Watching Einmetz struggle to get up somehow on his one remaining leg and flee, he said,

“Tell me where you get the corpses and who supplies them, and I’ll let you live.”

But Ricardt’s words did not seem to register with Einmetz. Understandably so. His leg had just been cut off.

Perhaps deciding there was no hope for him, he tried to slip a trembling hand inside his clothes. He meant to swallow a deadly poison. But before his hand even made it inside, something flashed before his eyes, and his fingers were sliced off one after another.

It was terror itself, having his body cut apart without even knowing what was striking him. First his leg, then his fingers. The fear was so immense that it surpassed the pain.

“Uuugh......”

“Just talk. That’s the best way to get out of this with your body intact. Otherwise, even if you eventually tell us everything and survive, you’ll still end up crippled, won’t you?”

He was already crippled, so it was hard to know what Ricardt meant, but apparently there were even worse ways to be crippled.

Sword in hand, Ricardt stood with Roy and the other Benzinen people, gazing down at Einmetz. The man looked half out of his mind, and suddenly he began to chuckle.

“Heh heh, heh heh heh, ehehehehe, ehehehehehe!”

There was something undeniably chilling about watching a man laugh like a lunatic in the rain after having his leg and fingers cut off.

Whether he had given up on living or had already gone mad at the thought of the torture to come, the wretched butcher laughed for some time before suddenly staring straight at Ricardt and speaking.

But his voice had changed. It was deep and heavy, like a devil’s. It seemed Papa was speaking through Einmetz’s body.

“What a foolish thing you have done, O king.”

It was an extremely grotesque phenomenon, but Ricardt merely looked down at him without much surprise. Roy and the others felt such a chill that even the rain-soaked hairs on their bodies seemed to stand on end.

Papa continued.

“You know nothing of love. You cannot understand the bond that forms when two beings unite completely in utter vulnerability. Even as they died, the boys loved me, and I loved them as well. By your paltry human standards......”

Whish! Slash!

For an instant, rainwater seemed to burst through the air, and half of Einmetz’s head, rather than his neck, was sliced away. Everything above the lower jaw was completely severed, exposing his lower teeth and his dangling tongue. A moment later, all strength left his body and he collapsed.

Rainwater streamed down Ricardt’s blade. As a vampire, Papa was far removed from humanity not only in the physical mutations of his body, but in his mind as well.

No matter how depraved a human might become, it seemed impossible to match a mind that had lived so long and spent so long twisting out of shape.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve been genuinely angry......”

When carrying out a commission, it was best to keep emotion out of it, but for the first time in a very long while, genuine hostility flared inside Ricardt.

The rain, which had begun as a steady patter, grew heavier and heavier until it was pouring. But even that downpour could not wash away the sins clinging to the unidentifiable chunks of flesh in the cart.

Shhhhhhh......

Ricardt and the people of Benzinen traveled throughout Esck, killing Papa’s lackeys wherever they found them. Even with torture, extracting information proved difficult.

But whether they obtained information or not, they had already decided to eliminate every last one of them, so they showed no mercy. The people of Esck merely watched the struggle between Ricardt and Papa in silence.

It was less a battle over any practical gain than a symbolic one. Ricardt and Benzinen had stepped forward to deal with an old source of trouble that no one else had ever dared touch.

Papa was like a parasite. He neither ruled the people nor extended any overt influence over them, yet for many long years he had steadily abducted boys.

That alone showed how wretched human beings could be. Even when such things happened, people simply adapted and went on living.

It was as though Ricardt had stepped forward to point at a problem no one had ever called out and say that it was wrong.

Just as stagnant water rotted, Esck’s insularity had allowed all manner of strange things to take root, at least from an outsider’s perspective. Raphael alone was proof enough that the region was hardly normal.

In any case, at this rate, tracking down Papa and Dunkel remained a distant prospect.

“They’re inside. That’s my conclusion.”

Ricardt spoke while gazing over a field covered in dew after the rain. Countless droplets reflected the sunlight, each glittering like the finest jewel. With them covering the entire broad field, it was a magnificent sight.

But that beauty did nothing to stir Ricardt’s heart just then.

“I think so too. If they were staying in any particular location, we would have found them long ago. They must be mixed in among the people.”

Kala now spoke to Ricardt with complete politeness and deference. He had experienced Ricardt’s capabilities up close several times by now. In Kala’s eyes, Ricardt was genuinely worthy of respect, both for his abilities and for his character.

Ricardt sank into thought. If there was some system in which orders were issued from somewhere and reports flowed back up, there had to be some line connecting them. Yet he could not find one anywhere.

Were they communicating by some other method? Was there some secret sign? Ah, right. The elixir.

Hadn’t he heard that drinking that fake Holy Oil of Ilya connected one’s soul to Papa? Perhaps that was how they communicated. Then what now? There was only one answer.

“Let’s use bait.”

“......”

Kala immediately understood what he meant. Since Papa liked pretty boys, they would deliberately allow one to be taken and then follow the abductor.

“But who’s going to do it?”

“I will.”

Roy volunteered while gazing across the dew-covered field, admiring the beauty of nature.

Ricardt shook his head without even considering it.

“You’re not a pretty boy.”

“I’m not......?”

Roy was handsome. But he lacked the delicate, slender quality associated with pretty boys, and his build was on the sturdier side, so calling him one would have been a stretch.

“I’ll do it.”

Bellin, who was standing beside Roy, volunteered. Ricardt, Kala, and Roy all stared silently at the girl as though wondering what she was talking about. Then, one after another, they understood.

Bellin wore her hair in a short bob, so with the right clothes and styling, she might pass for a pretty boy.

Yet Kala, Bellin’s father, agreed immediately without even trying to stop her.

“All right. You do it.”

“W-wait, no, hold on, this is a little......”

Roy was the only one flustered. Bellin herself was calm. It was not so much that she had steeled her resolve. She was simply calm.

“To give your life for the clan is the greatest honor. I’m fine. Someday, we’ll meet again somewhere as beautiful as this dew-covered field.”

Bellin said this to Roy. No matter how many times he saw it, Ricardt still felt he could not understand the way people from Esck thought.

They were simply strange. Every last one of them seemed to have something warped about them. What was that supposed to mean, meeting again after they died?

Roy clearly thought this was wrong, but he was so dumbfounded that he could not find the words to continue.

Whatever the case, by Bellin’s own choice and the decision of the adults, it was settled that she would serve as the bait.

There was only one thing Ricardt could promise.

“Bellin won’t die, Roy. I’ll make sure of that.”

Once they had settled on using bait, they put the plan into action immediately. There was no guarantee Papa would bite after only a day or two, but they dressed Bellin to look like a pretty boy and placed her near a village where they suspected one of Papa’s lackeys might be lurking.

Papa was so suspicious and secretive that it was questionable whether the plan would work, but Ricardt and the Benzinen people had killed so many of his thralls that they also hoped the inhuman pervert would eventually be unable to restrain his lust.

And if they wanted the bait to work without arousing suspicion, they could not station guards nearby.

Only Ricardt watched from a great distance. He focused with the intensity of deep meditation, erasing everything else in the world from his awareness and tracking only Bellin’s presence.

Eyes closed and utterly still, he stared at a single tiny point of light in the deepest abyss of his mind. The distance between Ricardt and Bellin was several hundred meters.

The others waited even farther away, watching only for the moment Ricardt reacted. Roy was the most beside himself with worry.

To keep his promise to Roy, Ricardt maintained that state of concentration day and night, even skipping meals.

Then, one night, the tiny light suddenly went out. Ricardt’s eyes snapped open, and he shot toward the place where it had been like a hawk plunging into a dive. At once, his other senses picked up Bellin’s location.

It was no metaphor. He truly ran like the wind. Yet his feet made almost no sound against the grass. There was only the faintest rustle, like a hand brushing across silk.

His hand was already on the hilt at his waist.

He could sense Bellin’s presence receding rapidly, along with another presence carrying the girl away. As the distance between them closed at tremendous speed, the kidnapper suddenly stopped dead.

The man was now within sight, and the gap between them narrowed even faster. Ricardt was certain it was Dunkel. He drew his sword, ready to cut through the lukewarm remnants of their old affection.

Whish! Slash!

Woooooosh!

Ricardt’s sword flashed through the air like a streak of light. A violent rush of wind sounded as he swept past the kidnapper. Forced to evade quickly, the kidnapper had to let go of Bellin, and she dropped unconscious onto the grass. She was not dead.

“Roy! Kala!”

Ricardt shouted loudly into the night. They were already running toward him, but Ricardt had moved so fast that they had lost track of his position. His shout gave them their bearings again, and they rushed over.

To secure Bellin’s safety first, Ricardt scooped the girl up with one arm while keeping the tip of his sword trained on the kidnapper. The man wore a mask, but there was no doubt about it. It was Dunkel.

“I never thought I’d see you again like this, Dunkel.”

Dunkel ripped off his mask and tossed it aside. Beneath his disheveled hair were eyes that looked dead.

“What the hell are you trying to do, Ricky? Do you want to become a demon king who protects the world, or just some murderous hero?”

Dunkel spoke irritably. It was irritation at all the interference Ricardt had caused, as though he could not understand why Ricardt kept meddling in something that had nothing to do with him.

“You’re the one talking nonsense. You’ve reduced yourself to serving as the thrall of some small-time vampire. I’m disappointed.”

“Papa isn’t just a vampire. He’s a devil. A real devil. A being who gained power and became a devil. And I’m the one who made a contract with that devil and gave him power. You and Kala both have it wrong. I killed Sally simply because she knew far too much. It had nothing to do with any sense of betrayal.”

“......Don’t tell me you’re doing all of this for that damn revenge of yours.”

“What else would I be doing it for?! Why do you think I spent all that time crawling like a dog under Hellauman?! Every last one of you is so half-hearted! The fools who got drunk on their precious camaraderie and forgot to avenge the village! And you, who spared me at the Holy Fortress when, if you were going to kill any of us, you should’ve killed us all! You’re all equally softhearted!”

By then Kala, Roy, and the people of Benzinen had arrived, and they heard every word of Dunkel’s outburst. Roy hurriedly took Bellin from Ricardt first.

Dunkel breathed hard, as if years of pent-up resentment had finally burst free.

“They took everything from me. Is it really so wrong for me to kill them all? Answer me, Ricky.”

“Then kill them all with your own hands. What the hell is all this supposed to be? You weak bastard.”

“If I were as strong as you, I would have. In the end, you don’t understand humans. You’ve never known what it is to be weak.”

Dunkel’s mental state was clearly in terrible shape. Yet Ricardt could not simply dismiss everything he said.

And yet, in the end, it was Ricardt, an outsider, who was saving the people of Esck from Papa and Dunkel’s clutches. Whether that truly accorded with justice was another question.

It was true that the people of Esck, driven by their base greed, had joined forces to massacre the village of Benzinen and destroy it. If so, who was there to pass judgment on them? It was an exceedingly difficult question.

“Take me to where Papa is. That is the last human thing left to you, Dunkel.”

Ricardt spoke. Unfortunately, Dunkel had cast aside even that last shred of humanity. He seemed like the most extreme possible example of how vengeance could destroy a person.

The night was cold. The moonlight falling across the blades was cold as well. Even what had once been lukewarm felt cold now. Summer could not be far away.

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