I left the Richgold mansion and drove the carriage.
Then I returned to those bastards’ hideout.
Drip. Drip.
One or two raindrops began to fall before a violent downpour came crashing down, as though trying to wash away the stench of blood.
“What fantastic weather.”
When I dismounted, mud squelched beneath my feet.
RATTLE.
The bastard who should have still been unconscious was nowhere to be seen.
All that remained was the severed knot.
“Where’d this bastard go?”
SHING.
I quietly placed a hand on my sword hilt.
There were no signs that he had escaped.
“There!”
CLANG—!
The blade I thrust upward collided with his dagger.
The bastard was clinging to the ceiling of the carriage.
“Die!”
He deflected my blade with his dagger and dropped toward me.
“Not so fast!”
I immediately let go of my sword and grabbed his arm as he fell.
“Huh?!”
Twisting my waist, I used the force of his fall to throw him straight outside.
CRASH—!
“Ugh!”
The bastard groaned after landing in the mud.
“Get up, bastard. I’ve got something to ask you.”
I grabbed him by the collar and hauled him upright.
“Let go of me!”
WHOOSH—!
His dagger sliced through the air.
“You bastard!”
THUD—!
My fist sent him flying backward.
The dagger fell limply from his hand.
The bridge of his nose, already crusted with dried blood, was crushed, and fresh blood poured from his nostrils.
“Fuck……you son of a bitch…….”
He staggered back to his feet.
“What? Think you can’t handle me without an ambush?”
I rested my sword upon my shoulder and stared at him.
“Ghk! Who the hell are you, bastard?! Who the hell are you to come wreck someone else’s business?!”
He screamed at the top of his lungs as though he were genuinely being wronged.
“You want to know who I am?”
I tore off the disguise I had put back on after leaving Richgold’s secret vault.
The special mask that had clung tightly to my face like human skin fell to the ground.
“Y-you!”
His pupils shook violently.
“P-Pietro Fenrir?!”
“No.”
I pointed my sword toward him.
“Today, I’m the son of the woman you bastards tried to kill.”
Choki.
The assassin who had tried to kill my mother had been one of this man’s subordinates.
By the time I discovered that fact and tracked this bastard down in my previous life, he was already dead.
This time, I won’t let him get away.
“Kahahaha!”
The bastard burst into mad laughter.
“Yeah. I knew something was strange.”
He looked around.
The area was littered with the corpses of dead bandits and the swords they had used.
“Some mere mercenary using that bizarre power, charging into enemy territory alone just to save a client……”
He picked up one of the swords lying on the ground.
“So you came here because you wanted to know who tried to kill your mommy?”
“Yeah.”
“Ha! How admirable. What a filial son. Such a good little boy.”
Still laughing madly, he reached behind himself and pulled something out.
“Ugh, what are you doing? That’s disgusting.”
What he had taken out was a long cylindrical container.
When he opened it, there was a syringe inside.
“You know, I hated doing this more than death itself, but now that I’m really about to die, I guess I’ll do anything.”
GULP.
He plunged the needle into his neck.
“What the?!”
“Ghhh!”
As the drug entered his body, his face gradually turned crimson.
His entire body became red as though burning, his veins bulged, and his muscles swelled.
“AAAAAAARGH!”
His scream was loud enough to shake the mountain.
His body twisted.
Grotesque noises came from it.
He was no longer human.
“What the hell……did you bastards do?!”
Fangs jutting out like those of a beast.
A body swollen to the size of a bear.
Red rashes covering him from head to toe.
He had practically become a Demonic Beast.
“This? It’s nothing special. Just a little shortcut to becoming stronger.”
His voice sounded like a nail scraping across a steel plate.
“Human experimentation?”
“That’s right! But even this is nothing special. You think they’d give the finished product to a low-ranking bastard like me? Trash like this is all someone like me gets.”
Demonic Beast Transformation.
A condition that appeared when someone was bitten by a contagious Demonic Beast, or when someone unskilled in black magic accepted a demon’s power.
It generally caused explosive physical growth and an equally drastic decline in reason.
Yet despite his entire body twisting and swelling, this bastard still had not lost his mind.
“You chose Demonic Beast Transformation just to become stronger? Did it never occur to you that you might die?”
“I told you. I hated doing it more than dying.”
He raised a sword in his swollen hand.
Even though it was a longsword, it looked like a dagger in his grip.
He pointed the blade toward me.
“But you know, if I’m going to die by your sword anyway, shouldn’t I at least struggle a little?”
CRASH—!
His enormous body kicked off the ground and launched into the air.
“Crazy bastard!”
THUD—!
The heavy impact felt like a boulder crashing down.
“Where do you think you’re running?!”
His enormous hand grazed my hair.
“Who’s running?!”
CRACKLE.
I drew up my mana.
My senses expanded in an instant.
It felt as though time itself were gradually slowing.
I stepped inside his reach.
“Hah!”
I thrust my sword toward his chest.
CLANG—!
“What?”
“Kahahaha! You thought you could pierce my strengthened skin with that pathetic amount of force?!”
THUD—!
“Ghk.”
It hurt even though I blocked it.
I was pushed quite a distance backward.
The bastard cockily beckoned at me with one fist.
“You’re nothing special. Without that magic from earlier, I guess your actual skill is mediocre?!”
Ha! This bastard.
[Shall I help?]
“No. Stay there.”
I ignored Fafnir as she tried to emerge from my shadow and raised my sword.
“What are you muttering about?”
“Ah, nothing important. Anyway, you want to see what I can really do?”
“The rumors made you sound like some terrifying monster, but this is it? You’re just an empty husk.”
CRACKLE.
The moment I released all the mana I had been suppressing, blue lightning-like energy erupted from my entire body.
“Then watch carefully.”
The sharp tip of my sword aimed at his heart.
“And see how easily that ugly power you gained falls apart.”
CRASH—!
Lightning flashed across the ground.
CLANG—!
The skin of the bastard undergoing Demonic Beast Transformation was as hard as steel.
CLANG—! CLANG—! CLANG—!
“That doesn’t even tickle!”
WHOOSH—!
His massive fist tore through the air.
“You’re too damn slow. You really think you can catch me like that?”
“Arrogant bastard! If I catch you just once, you’re dead!”
“Yeah. Let’s see whether you catch me first or die first.”
CRACKLE.
“Let’s find out.”
CRASH—!
His skin could neither be cut nor pierced by ordinary sword strikes.
“But what if I keep hitting the same spot?”
CLANG—! CLANG—! CLANG—!
The sound of steel striking steel continued without end.
“You bastard! Y-you bastard!”
WHOOSH—! WHOOSH—!
He swung his enormous arms nonstop, but they only cut through empty air.
“You insect! All you do is scurry around and run away! Pathetic!”
“Look at yourself. Who do you think looks more pathetic?”
Apparently unable to handle his enlarged body, the bastard was already breathing heavily.
His hunched back heaved up and down beneath his swollen muscles.
“I’m starting to get a feel for it. One more stab to your chest and I think I’ll break through.”
After all those repeated thrusts, a hairline fracture had formed over the left side of his chest, so faint it was almost invisible.
“Ha! What an idiot! What kind of moron tells his opponent exactly where he’s aiming?!”
“It’s fine. You’re too damn slow to catch me anyway.”
CLICK.
I took my stance once more.
CRASH—!
I charged toward his chest.
I ducked beneath the hand slowly reaching for me and thrust my sword.
CLAMP—!
“Got you!”
“Ghk!”
“I was just starting to get used to those fly-like movements of yours.”
His thick hand closed around my upper body.
“AAAAH!”
He lifted me high into the air.
“That arrogant mouth of yours has finally brought about your own death!”
“Idiot.”
Confusion entered his eyes.
Reflected in those pupils was my grinning face.
“You left your chest wide open.”
“What?”
HUM.
A thread of mana extended outward.
Fortunately, the hideout was littered everywhere with the swords of dead bandits.
SQUELCH—!
“Ghk!”
A sword buried itself in his chest.
The grip holding me weakened.
THUD—!
I kicked off his hand and sprang into the air.
“Y-you coward!”
“Those are bold words coming from a drugged-up bastard.”
SQUELCH—!
Another sword flew in.
SQUELCH—!
Three swords were now embedded in his chest.
“I’m still short on training, you see. I can only control one sword at a time.”
SQUELCH—!
“But against a bastard like you, that seems to be enough.”
SQUELCH—!
“Y-you fucking lunatic!”
The swords of the bandits who had served beneath him—
every single one of them flew toward his chest one after another and buried themselves inside.
“Guuuh…….”
CLANG—!
I picked up the final remaining sword.
SWISH—!
His head fell to the ground.
THUD—!
His enormous body collapsed.
“Fafnir. Eat.”
[Very well.]
Snake-like violet hands emerged from the shadow beneath my feet.
A foul-smelling soul, as though covered in mold, was dragged out by those hands.
[N-no!]
The bastard struggled desperately against the hands pulling him away.
[Please, save me! I do not want to be dragged away like this!]
His soul reached toward me.
I stepped toward him.
“Did you ever spare even one of the people you killed when they begged you for mercy?”
[Huh?!]
“Guess not.”
I rose from my crouch.
The evil man’s soul being dragged away lay beneath my feet.
“Go to the hell made for you.”
[No!]
His screaming soul was sucked into the shadows.
[Oh? Quite a delicacy.]
Smack. Smack.
The shadow beneath my feet stretched, and Fafnir emerged while savoring the taste.
“Really?”
[Indeed. He was already quite wicked, and after undergoing Demonic Beast Transformation as well, it is like drinking a well-aged wine.]
“So he’s complete trash.”
I walked into their hideout.
[What are you searching for?]
“Evidence that these bastards were colluding with the Duchess.”
[Would they really leave something like that behind? They cannot have been so foolish as to not know that discovery would mean death for all of them.]
“Exactly. That’s why there’ll definitely be something.”
I pushed aside the desk he had used.
“Bastards like these always live prepared to stab the people above them in the back.”
THUNK. THUNK.
Only one section beneath the desk produced a strangely hollow sound.
When I lifted the carpet with my palm, a small compartment appeared.
[Oh.]
“See?”
Inside were all kinds of ledgers, prototype drugs, and letters.
“The shadier a bastard is, the more prepared he is to stab someone in the back.”
The ledger openly bore the name Lilian de Kareid—
Father’s lawful wife and the lady of the Fenrir Duchy.
“Got you.”
It was time to cut out the diseased flesh eating away at the territory.
***
“What is this?”
The Head of House’s office in Fenrir Castle.
I was meeting Father alone.
“It is exactly what is written there.”
Father looked up at me from the evidence I had handed him.
“Why are you giving this to me?”
“Nothing special. I merely hope justice will be restored.”
“Not because you wish to take revenge upon the one who tried to kill your mother?”
“You knew?”
That had definitely not been included among the evidence I found.
“Yes. I knew. To be precise, I suspected it.”
GRIND.
My teeth clenched.
“Then why did you leave her alone?”
“As I said, it was merely suspicion. I attempted to find evidence but failed. Furthermore,”
Father leaned toward me.
“I judged it to be the lesser evil. If our defenses are breached, Demonic Beasts could spread not only among the people of our territory, but to the Imperial Family at the center and throughout the entire Empire.”
Lilian de Kareid.
House Kareid was a marquis house and also the family that provided our territory with the greatest amount of support.
A woman born a commoner,
versus financial support on a scale capable of sustaining the territory and ties to a family powerful enough to provide it.
Clearly, the latter was more important.
Objectively, I understood that.
And yet……
Why can’t I stop my whole body from trembling?
“However, I will no longer stand by.”
At that moment, Father’s voice reached my ears.
“Pardon?”
“According to the evidence you brought me, she has gone far beyond the line. Far enough that I can no longer overlook it.”
“You mean…….”
“Yes. As you said, justice will be restored.”
Firm resolve filled Father’s voice.
“However, once this matter is exposed, our relationship with House Kareid will also sour. If only to keep weapons and armor in the hands of our soldiers, we will need another alternative.”
“I have an idea for that.”
Father.
Have you ever heard of a public-private partnership?