“Bwahahahaha!”
Using the summoned monster to absorb the surging flames without restraint, Irnatol laughed like a madman.
While Irnatol’s excited face flushed red, Ernolf’s face drained of color and turned pale.
Had he been too eager? Had he failed to remain calm? Every sort of regret pounded at his chest.
Then something strange happened.
“Huh?”
“Hm?”
Irnatol and Ernolf voiced their confusion at the same time and looked at each other.
Though Inferno’s heat had not yet fully dissipated, the monster that had stood between them was gone.
“Gasp!”
“Wh-what is this?”
Irnatol screamed as he looked down at his chest, while Ernolf cried out in disbelief.
The Beast King’s Heart, which had been dark red, had turned black and no longer responded.
‘Could it be....? Has the Beast King’s Heart run out of power?’
The moment he realized it, Ernolf moved on instinct.
“Fire Arrow!”
Even with a Lowest-Grade Mana Heart, Ernolf’s accumulated experience was never something to be underestimated.
Irnatol could not keep up with the casting speed of a high-ranking mage who ranked among the five foremost on the continent.
The Fire Arrow Ernolf cast by wringing out every last bit of his strength flew toward Irnatol.
“Sh-shield!”
Irnatol hurriedly raised a barrier, but the Fire Arrow was faster. The tightly condensed flame easily pierced the barrier before it could be fully formed.
“Nooooo!”
The flame seared through Irnatol’s fat, burrowed deep inside, and pierced his heart.
“Healing!”
At the brink of death, Irnatol made one last desperate struggle.
Seeing him try to heal his heart, Ernolf grew frantic.
“That won’t do!”
They said that if you had no teeth, you chewed with your gums. Ernolf picked up a stone and struck Irnatol on the head.
“Go straight to hell!”
With a cry of raw fury, Ernolf poured into the hand gripping the stone all the pain and resentment of having been forced to kill the mutated slaves.
WHACK!
Irnatol, struck in the forehead by the stone, rolled his eyes white and staggered.
Ernolf raised the stone he had brought down once more. Then he struck the crown of the staggering Irnatol’s head.
THUMP....
With a dull noise, Irnatol collapsed, and then the sound of a baby crying rang through the underground chamber.
“Huff, huff, huff....”
Ernolf pushed aside Irnatol’s heavy arm and pulled out the baby, cradling him in his arms. As he staggered while holding the child, the Beast King’s Heart fell from Irnatol’s chest with a CLINK.
He could not tell whether it had fallen out because its user had died or because it had exhausted its power.
Ernolf recalled the crude Shield Irnatol had raised after the Beast King’s Heart ran out of power.
“So it was a pearl around a pig’s neck.”
Shield was the most basic of basic spells, a technique even an apprentice mage could manifest. Only its strength varied according to one’s proficiency and the capacity of one’s Mana Heart.
Astonishingly, the Shield Irnatol had cast was at the level of an apprentice mage.
It seemed that the only reason this man had been able to employ Cross-Species Biological Fusion was the Beast King’s Heart.
‘If I hadn’t fought this man, the Beast King’s Heart wouldn’t have run out of power, would it? Then....’
The lord’s son would have gained a monster’s body.
‘And perhaps he would have grown up to become Tyrant King Kazar.’
It had not been his intention, but it seemed he had prevented the rise of another Kazar who might have become a tyrant.
“Ugh....”
He had exhausted all his strength and could barely stand properly. With the baby in his arms as well, he felt as though he might collapse. He wanted to return the child to his parents as quickly as possible, leave this place, and rest.
Ernolf bent down and picked up the Beast King’s Heart from the floor. At once, dozens of fine, vein-like strands sprouted from the metal encasing the gem.
“What?”
Startled, Ernolf tried to let go, but it was no use. The thin threads that had sprouted from the metal pierced his palm and fused with his nerves.
“Urgh!”
In terrible pain, Ernolf’s knees buckled and he collapsed to the ground.
‘N-no. If I pass out now....’
He had not yet dealt with the enemies aboveground. Losing consciousness already would be inviting death.
‘This damn weak body....’
Struggling desperately to cling to his fading consciousness, Ernolf finally collapsed again.
He wanted to stop ending up sprawled on the ground after every battle, but there was nothing he could do when his stamina could not support him.
Just before losing consciousness, Ernolf saw a pair of worn boots.
‘Kazar?’
For some reason, they seemed to belong to that child. Thanks to that, Ernolf could relax and pass out.
***
The moment he arrived at the temple, Kazar instinctively went looking for Ernolf. Upon reaching the underground chamber, he looked around.
The wall where a door should have been had been destroyed, and thorn-covered stone pillars rose from the ground.
“He’s made a fucking mess of this place.”
It was not only the building that was a mess. The priests at the entrance had suffocated to death, while the priests here had been crushed to death by the pillars, impaled by thorns, burned to death by flashes of light, or killed when their hearts burst and their heads were smashed apart.
Kazar had not believed that his brother would stay quiet, but even he had not expected his brother to cause this much destruction.
Blood was thicker than water, as they said. Seeing what his brother had done, Kazar could not deny that they were brothers.
“What a temper he’s got.”
Clicking his tongue as though he found it pathetic, Kazar went to where Ernolf had collapsed.
“Hey, Tiri.”
Kazar crouched down and patted Ernolf’s cheek.
“Brother! You’re not dead, are you?”
“Mmm....”
Ernolf, who had only been unconscious for a short while, groaned with a frown.
Kazar rose, slinging the limp Ernolf over his back. Ernolf then continued mumbling things Kazar could not understand.
“Mmm....”
“What are you saying? Speak so I can understand.”
“The lord’s son....”
“What?”
“....Take him.”
Kazar had no idea what Ernolf thought he had done right to order him around as well. Irritation rose to the top of his head, but Kazar picked up the child who was crying at the top of his lungs on the floor.
“Is this the Kazar?”
“Yeah....”
The child’s body was like a shriveled old tree, while his head had grown abnormally large, making him look exactly like a mushroom person. He looked like a monster from every angle, but the crest of the lord’s family had been carefully embroidered on his clothes, allowing Kazar to recognize him as the lord’s son.
As he looked at the wretched-looking child, Kazar recalled the time when he had conquered Talisa.
Back then, the Complete Forms who had occupied the city had killed the lord’s family and hung their bodies from the city gate. Yet the lord’s son had not been among those corpses. He had already died long ago and been buried in the ground.
When Kazar and Ernolf emerged from the underground chamber to the surface, the lord’s soldiers pointed their spears at them threateningly.
“Drop your weapons and surrender!”
Without so much as twitching an eyebrow, Kazar took another step forward. The soldiers thrust out their spears and shouted for him to stop.
“Kazar!”
Seeing her son being held carelessly like a sack by Kazar, the lord’s wife let out a cry as if she were about to faint.
Kazar was in a very foul mood. For a moment, he had mistaken it for his mother calling his name.
“My Lord, those bastards did this to our son....!”
“I will certainly save him, so calm yourself.”
After reassuring his wife, the lord turned toward Kazar. His eyes were full of anxiety that Kazar might harm his son.
“Killing the priests and destroying the temple is a matter between you and the Order. It is not my place to intervene. If you return my son, I will let you leave unharmed.”
“Even in that state, he’s still treated as a precious son.”
“He is so precious to us that we could put him in our eyes and feel no pain. So please, do not harm him.”
“What do you want? I will give you anything, so please, please return my son safely.”
Fearing that Kazar might hurt their son, the lord and his wife cried out anxiously.
‘This thing is a child too....’
As he looked at the lord’s son, Kazar recalled the son he had locked in an underground prison before returning to the past.
That bastard had been born with all four limbs intact, yet he was a fool who could not use Aura. Kazar had even swallowed his pride and entrusted him to someone else, wondering whether he had failed to awaken because his affinity was incompatible with Kazar’s.
‘Even after going that far, he still couldn’t awaken.’
Perhaps he took after his mother, but his son had been weak and useless. Yet the lord’s son was even more worthless trash than that bastard.
Seeing the couple worry themselves sick, afraid a breath of wind might blow him away or a touch might shatter him, made Kazar’s guts twist.
It was as if they were condemning him for not treating his own son as they did.
‘What in the world is a child that they’re trembling this hard? You feed them, clothe them, and teach them, only for them to stab their parents in the back.’
Remembering the son who had joined the rebels and been captured, Kazar ground his teeth fiercely.
Then Ernolf suddenly stretched his hand out over the baby’s head. When his hand began to emit a white glow, the people cried out in alarm.
“A-a mage!”
“What are you doing?!”
While the people made a fuss, the lord and his wife could do nothing for fear that the child might be hurt, and they watched Ernolf with trembling eyes.
“Healing....”
When Ernolf’s magic activated, the child’s scratches slowly healed, and a little of the strength he had lost from crying with hunger returned. Before long, the child stopped crying and grew quiet.
Seeing Ernolf use up every bit of mana he had barely gathered to heal the child, Kazar became truly angry.
“Hey!”
Kazar turned as if he were about to throw the man on his back away, but Ernolf spoke first.
“It’s because of you.”
“What did you say?”
“You were really upset, so your big brother used a little of his strength.”
“When was I....”
Kazar remembered that he had agonized over his son right up until time rewound and he opened his eyes in the mine.
‘I was upset?’
After hearing his brother’s words and thinking back, it seemed that the emotion he had felt upon learning of his son’s betrayal had not been anger, but despair.
“I set fire to the farm, killed the slaves, and killed the priests. My younger brother had absolutely nothing to do with it, so if you mean to hold someone accountable, hold only me accountable.”
Ernolf addressed the lord and his wife. Kazar scoffed at those words.
“I’m the one who wiped out the guards who were here.”
“....”
“Didn’t you hear me? I killed every last one of them.”
Ernolf was briefly left speechless by Kazar, who was smiling smugly as though he had done something praiseworthy.
“Why did you kill them?”
The lord asked cautiously. He spoke as gently as possible so as not to provoke the two of them.
“The priests of Blue Vine Temple committed a taboo they should never have laid their hands on. I eradicated the terrible result they had created and passed judgment on them so they could sin no more.”
“A taboo? What sin could they possibly have committed to deserve such a horrific act? Will you kill my son too? Will you kill my son as you killed the farm serfs and the priests?”
The lord’s wife demanded in a harsh voice. Ernolf answered calmly.
“They performed Living-Tissue Transplantation, transplanting monster bodies into human bodies.”
Ernolf’s gaze fixed on the lord’s wife, as though he knew that she had received a transplant of monster flesh.
The lord’s wife flinched and trembled, clutching her husband’s arm. The lord looked at Ernolf with a tense expression.
“The priests here saved many residents, including my wife, who were seriously wounded and disabled after attacks by Barbarians and monsters. Taboo or not, it was help we desperately needed.”
“My Lord, do you know why cross-species living-tissue transplantation is forbidden?”
The lord shook his head to say that he did not.
“Because it puts all of you in even greater danger.”
“What do you mean?”
“Those who receive a transplant of monster tissue will, over time, have their minds and bodies eroded by that tissue. In the end, they will become monsters.”
“W-what?”
Everyone who heard Ernolf’s words, including the lord and his wife, trembled in shock.
“But that is not the worst of it. A result more dreadful than humans turning into monsters awaits.”
The lord could not help but ask what that was. After letting out a long sigh, Ernolf answered his question.
“Diseases that exist only in monsters will spread to human bodies and evolve into dreadful diseases unlike anything you have ever experienced. Do not feel relieved just because nothing has happened yet. It will certainly come.”
Because everyone had to be told, Ernolf spoke in a firm, clear voice.
“Dozens, hundreds of boils will cover your entire body. Your flesh and entrails will rot and melt away into blood and pus.”
“Gasp!”
Screams erupted from all around. Ernolf did not stop his warning.
“If even one resident shows symptoms like these, isolate them immediately. Do not touch corpses with your bare hands. Protect your entire body with oiled leather, collect the bodies, and burn them. Every object the sick person touched, as well as the home they lived in, must be burned and purified. As I have said, there is no treatment because it is a new disease. Isolating the sick and burning everything that came into contact with them are the only ways to save this city and its people.”
Many of the lord’s guards, including the lord’s wife, had received transplants of monster bodies.
Hearing Ernolf’s words, the people grew furious and demanded to know whether he was cursing them.
“My Lord, this is why I killed the slaves at the farm and the priests in the temple. You need not believe me. But please remember the warning I have given you.”
“Enough. Believe it or not, your lives are yours to save.”
Kazar hitched Ernolf higher on his back and lifted the lord’s son a little with the hand holding him.
“I will leave this child at the point where the field beyond the city gate ends. Until we safely leave the field and enter the forest, no one but the lord and his wife is to follow us! Disobey, and I will kill every one of you—including the child!”
After speaking, Kazar deliberately drew up his Aura and wrapped it around himself. The lord tensed when he realized that it was an Aura Shield.
“You all understand, right? Then, Ventus!”
At Kazar’s call, the horse he had stolen from the Kasion Mercenary Company came running over with a sharp snort.
After telling Ernolf to hold on tight, Kazar lightly mounted the horse.
“Hyah!”
As the horse burst through the city gate, the lord and his wife also mounted their horses and desperately chased after him.
“No one follow us! It is an order! Everyone stay where you are!”
The lord’s wife rode frantically, while the lord followed behind, shouting in case the guards acted rashly and provoked Kazar.
After leaving the city gate and riding for some time, Kazar slowed down when he reached the point where the field met the forest.
The lord and his wife, who had followed behind, were sweating and gasping for breath. Their faces were full of desperation.
“Let the child go, Kazar.”
“You want me to throw him down?”
“Yes. Let him go, and I’ll take care of the rest.”
When Kazar released the child from his hand, Ernolf wrapped him in Wind-Attribute Magic and returned him to the lord’s wife.
After seeing the lord’s wife hold the child close with tears in her eyes, Kazar picked up speed again and entered the forest.
Once he had confirmed that no one was pursuing them and slowed down, Ernolf quietly spoke against Kazar’s back.
“Let’s go find our parents, Kazar.”
Kazar doubted his ears and turned to look at Ernolf.
“What’s gotten into you all of a sudden....”
“You want to, don’t you?”
“When did I....”
“The whole time we’ve been here.”
Ernolf had understood Kazar’s feelings from the moment he suddenly began sulking.
Kazar said nothing and turned his gaze forward.
At times like this, Resonance was truly inconvenient. Even the feelings he had kept hidden were exposed.