WHOOOOSH!
Just before the right fist, as massive as my head, could smash my skull apart, I instinctively ducked.
BOOOOOOM!
An explosion thundered behind me.
The earthen wall at my back burst apart.
It quite literally exploded with spectacular force.
Dirt poured down like rain, pattering against my shoulders and hair.
“Mana Stone, hand, it over──!”
Cain roared like a beast and clenched his left fist. Blue light was leaking through the gaps between his fingers.
‘Mana?’
Unless I had imagined it, there had not been any Mana around the fist he swung earlier.
‘That first one was a warning, and now he actually intends to kill me?’
The instant I came face-to-face with that killing intent, the tedious thought that I should explain who I was and why I had come vanished without a trace.
“You started this.”
Without the slightest hesitation, I lowered my body as much as possible and charged straight into Cain’s reach.
BOOOOM!
Another tremendous impact thundered behind me.
The force was powerful enough to make my flesh and every hair on my body tremble, but the larger the attack and the wider the motion, the longer it took to follow up with another strike.
Besides, Cain and I were inside a cramped pit. Someone with an absurdly enormous build like his could not move freely in here.
As long as I evaded his attacks, this was a battlefield that favored me.
【Mana Manifestation】
I focused on my heart and both hands.
The red gloves wrapped around my hands undulated and transformed into spikes. It was the bare minimum shape necessary to pierce through those armor-like muscles.
Just then, Cain raised his right hand over his head as though he were about to swat a bug on the floor. Smiling, I charged toward him.
SHNK!
I drove the spike into his armpit.
At that instant, the movement of Cain’s right arm, which had been descending to crush me, visibly slowed.
“Something feel strange?”
“UAAAAARGH!”
WHOOOSH!
Cain swung his Mana-wreathed opposite hand, trying to crush me while I dangled from his armpit.
But I sprang away from the attack with the flourish of someone stylishly leaping out of bed and latched onto his back.
Then.
SHNK!
This time, I drove the spike between his ear and neck. Cain’s arms were not the only things that slowed. Every movement he made began to turn sluggish.
SCHLK!
I pulled the spike free and landed lightly on the ground. Cain’s furious voice boomed throughout the pit.
“What did you do!”
“What do you think? I stabbed your nervous system.”
The armpit and the cervical area between the ear and neck.
Those were places where bundles of nerves converged.
Of course, stabbing those areas with a blade would not instantly bring every movement to a halt.
SQUELCH-
A viscous liquid was trickling down both spikes.
【Poison Drench】
A Skill activated by consuming a potion from the Inventory.
The potion I had used this time was 【Lv 70. Paralytic Poison】.
Its main ingredient was the saliva of a Deep-Sea Blue-Ringed Octopus.
I had coated the spikes in it, so Cain’s entire nervous system had no choice but to seize up.
‘I was saving this to kill some high-level Red Player, and now I’m wasting it here…….’
Still, it was better than getting beaten to death.
I tapped Cain’s ridiculously thick arm with the back of my hand.
“So why the hell did you attack me? Don’t you know how to talk?”
“Are you a pursuer?”
Cain stood frozen in place, moving only his eyes as he stared at me.
“I’ve got nothing to do with those Scrap Merchants.”
“Prove. It!”
“How am I supposed to prove something I’m not?”
“Mana, Stone. Hand it over!”
“I’ll give it to you. I said I’ll give it to you, so calm down, will you?”
Cain’s breathing was ragged, and his eyes were so bloodshot that they looked ready to burst.
His gaze was unfocused as well.
No.
It was becoming unfocused.
‘……Wait.’
Was he all right?
I had assumed he was simply worked up, but the longer I looked, the more physically unstable he seemed.
In particular, the bulging purple veins covering his entire body were writhing more violently than before. They looked like parasites thrashing in their death throes.
“What’s wrong with you?”
I removed the rubber headband from my forehead and brought the Luminous Stone attached to its center closer to his face.
THUUUD-
Cain toppled forward.
“Hey. Hey. Cain? Hey!”
[He has lost consciousness.]
“Why all of a sudden?”
[That is hardly a line the poisoner should be saying.]
“That’s not what I mean, idiot.”
The symptoms I had just observed were not caused by the octopus venom. I crouched beside him and examined his body.
His complexion was pale, and his breathing was shallow.
Had he suffocated from being buried in all that dirt?
No. If that were the case, he should have died long ago.
Humans could not breathe beneath a pile of earth.
‘……Purple veins?’
The swollen blood vessels all over his body were writhing violently like parasites.
‘This isn’t something caused by oxygen deprivation.’
Then was it because of the Paralytic Poison I had injected?
That was not it either.
The octopus venom I had used merely blocked the nervous system and induced paralysis. It did not contaminate the blood vessels like that.
There had to be another reason.
I continued examining him…… What was that?
For some reason, blue powder was smeared around his mouth. It glittered even in the darkness.
I had seen a similar color before.
‘Mana Stones.’
I looked at the Mana Stone in my hand, then at Cain’s left hand, which had been wreathed in Mana earlier.
There were three Mana Stones clenched inside it.
Their color was fainter than the one in my hand.
‘He used them.’
When?
It must have been when he tried to hit me.
So he did not know how to manipulate Mana. He had simply used the Mana Stones directly.
I understood that much immediately.
‘But why…….’
Why was powder of the same color smeared around his mouth?
“Grid. Is what I’m thinking-”
[Confirm it yourself.]
“……Fine.”
I fastened the Luminous Stone back onto my forehead and stepped into the hole Cain had emerged from.
At that moment, my ominous suspicion became reality.
* * *
A thick fog blanketed everything around him.
Its faint veil slowly receded, and the faces of his parents suddenly appeared before him. Even though the fog was gone now, their faces remained blurred as though still obscured by mist.
Strangely, however, their voices were perfectly clear. Even the expressions on those indistinct faces remained engraved in his memory.
They were definitely crying.
They were murmuring in weak, desperate voices. Their tears fell one after another onto Cain’s face when he was still a child.
Cain burst into tears with them.
He did not yet understand the emotion called sadness, nor did he know why he was supposed to feel sad, but he cried anyway. It simply felt as though that was what he was supposed to do.
After that, Cain found himself inside an iron cage more revolting than a pigsty. When he turned his head, he saw scrawny children around him.
The children were crying until their throats went hoarse.
Some stomped their feet and made a tremendous racket.
Cain did not understand the situation.
All he knew was that everyone around him was crying and everyone around him was angry, so Cain began to cry as well, and Cain became angry too.
And so, while sobbing, he beat the other children.
If there had to be a reason, it was because hitting them hurt his hands and feet less than hitting the walls or floor.
Still, no one stopped him.
If anything, Cain was given a reward.
Though rather than being given one, it would be more accurate to say that he claimed it for himself.
Every time he beat the children, he was able to eat more of the bread and meat that had been distributed for everyone to share.
And so Cain beat the children every day and ate all the food himself.
The starving children cried or grew angry and demanded that he give them some, but Cain could not understand why he should.
In his mind, the communal rations given out each day already belonged to him. There was no reason to share them.
So to Cain, the little children nearby who tried to take his food looked very, very wicked indeed.
To protect his meals and punish the villains, Cain wildly swung his fists and feet. Every time he did, the children obediently backed away.
Cain had been exceptionally large for his age, with enormous fists.
And so Cain ate while the children starved, Cain ate and ate while the children went hungrier and hungrier, and that routine repeated itself day after day.
Then one day.
-Give us the food!
-Stop eating everything yourself, you fat pig!
There came a day when the children joined forces and attacked Cain together. As always, Cain punished them, but this time, they did not retreat so easily.
Their noses gushed blood, one child’s eye burst, their hair was torn out, and their bones broke, yet they refused to back down.
Despite their determination, there was no miraculous reversal.
Small, starving, powerless children were no match for Cain, who was enormous, ate plenty, and slept soundly.
The children’s challenge failed without so much as a single unexpected turn.
Starting the next day, no one asked Cain to share his food anymore.
They merely lay limp against the floor like dead mice, gasping for breath.
Cain hated the sound of their gasping.
He kicked them.
He punched them.
After punishing them a few times like that, no one gasped anymore.
Now the world inside the iron cage belonged to Cain.
It became a world for him alone.
-Hello.
A young man spoke.
He was a good person who came every day to give Cain food. Standing outside the iron bars, he waved to Cain.
-Hel……lo?
Cain waved back.
The young man bent down until his eyes were level with Cain’s.
-So you still haven’t awakened to Mana.
-Mana?
-Even so, at this level…….
He looked at the blood-soaked children inside the cage.
-He’s first-rate.
A grotesque smile spread across his face.
The steel teeth lining both his upper and lower jaws gleamed.
This was Cain’s first meeting with the Scrap Lord.
Despite his frightening face, the man was kind.
Whenever Cain punished someone, he gave Cain good food, and whenever Cain punished many people, he gave him even better food.
He even gave Cain weapons so that he could punish people more easily. A wondrous Shield that could block anything and reflect anything, and a wondrous sword that could slice anything apart like a sheet of paper.
With the help of those two wondrous gifts, Cain punished a great many people.
Eventually, he even gained friends.
Unlike the bad people inside the cage, they did not covet Cain’s food. Of course, they did not share their own food either, but simply respecting each other’s territory was enough to make them good friends.
Then one day.
His master’s mood soured.
The reason did not matter. What mattered was that Cain was thrown outside the Scrap-Metal Tower without so much as a scrap of clothing on his body.
Three days.
Cain lay sprawled like garbage without drinking so much as a sip of water. Residents passing by recognized him and threw stones at him or spat on him. Some hurled filth at him. Others threw blades.
Cain did not fight back.
He could not.
His entire body was bound, and he did not even have the strength to fight.
He simply curled into himself and slowly died.
Then it happened.
From among the adults throwing stones, a small group of children approached.
Cain expected another stone, or something similar, to come flying at him.
But what the children held was neither stones nor garbage.
“Mister, are you hungry?”
“…….”
“Eat this, at least. Being hungry makes you miserable.”
The children held a piece of moldy, hardened bread up to the bound Cain’s mouth.
Cain stared blankly at the bread.
He could not understand it.
He was the beast that had hunted them.
Yet his prey had approached him and was now trying to save the dying predator.
‘Why……?’
Was there any reason to share?
You must be hungry too?
He could not understand.
Right, was the bread poisoned?
It was not.
It smelled strongly of garbage and was as hard as stone, but it was still perfectly edible. Cain was stupid, but even he knew that the residents of Mekal Town were starving.
To them, food was worth more than treasure.
And yet they were offering it to him without hesitation.
As though entranced, Cain opened his mouth and accepted the bread.
Crunch, crunch. His throat tightened.
The moldy bread from the garbage dump felt far warmer than the finest meat the Scrap Lord had ever given him.
This was the first salvation ever bestowed upon his life, and the great event that changed that life completely.
It was also a luxury he could never enjoy again.
Cain did not wait for a second salvation.
Nor did he believe in one.
All that awaited him was despair and malice.
The air was cold, and his body was heavy.
The sweet dream had ended.
At last, Cain returned to reality. He swallowed and pushed himself upright.
“Are you awake?”
A dark-red-haired man stood before him.
Strangely enough, his body felt a little better.