Chapter 40

Chapter 40: Chapter 40

It was almost embarrassing to call the place a village.

It was an exceedingly small settlement in such a remote location that it likely did not even appear in the tax ledgers maintained by the local lord.

A single log-built temple and three or four houses scattered some distance apart were all there was.

Although the temple dedicated to the god had not been built with expensive materials, the devotion of those who constructed it was evident. It was straight, sturdy, and solidly built.

But someone had smashed its doors and windows.

Light streamed through the broken openings like the gaze of a god.

Following that light revealed an interior awash in blood, with corpses strewn everywhere.

The deaths seemed recent. Steam still rose from the bodies in the cold air.

"W-when the promised day c-comes, the God of Judgment will p-punish you..."

A priest lying on the floor, bleeding from his entire body, spoke as he dragged himself away from someone.

Escape was clearly impossible, so the man who had reduced him to this state merely stood still and looked down at him.

The sword at the man’s waist remained sheathed, but he held something resembling a sickle in one hand. Thick blood dripped from its blade.

People often had faces reminiscent of animals. The sickle-wielding man had a large, protruding lower face that unmistakably resembled a dog’s—an especially vicious fighting dog.

Yet his gaze was surprisingly calm.

Numerous small scars marked his face, the largest of them cutting across his right eye.

The man spoke.

"When?"

"What?"

"When exactly is he going to punish me?"

"Wh-what are you talking about?"

"You really don’t understand, do you? When I was a child, I prayed every day for divine punishment. I prayed for God to kill my fucking parents. Or, failing that, to kill me. But no matter how much I prayed, he ignored me. So I killed them myself. And that was when I realized something."

"..."

"There is no god. Nothing even resembling one."

The man blasphemed against God so casually and effortlessly that the priest’s eyes widened. The words seemed to shock him even more than his own horrifying situation.

A demon...

"No divine punishment will fall upon me for killing you. But if divine mercy exists, then you were fortunate to encounter me. If the others had found you, you’d be begging them to kill you instead of praying to God by now."

The man approached the priest.

Blood covered the floor, producing a wet splash with every step.

As he drew near, the priest closed his eyes and prayed.

"O God, grant salvation to this pitiable soul..."

"There’s no divine punishment and no salvation. But of the two, ’salvation’ is the more disgusting lie."

Whoosh! Thud!

The man buried his sickle in the crown of the priest’s head.

The priest thrashed like a fish.

Just then, someone called to the man from outside the temple. It was a lively female voice.

"Steiny! Steiny! What’s taking you so long?"

The man she called Steiny was none other than Mad Dog Steiner. The Five must have been extremely close if they called one another by pet names.

Steiner looked down at the priest he had killed. The sight of the man dead with a sickle embedded in the top of his head was reasonably satisfying.

But that pointless appreciation lasted only a moment.

He turned and left the temple. Outside, three people had already finished their work and were waiting for him.

The woman who had called Steiner was fluttering about in a dance, apparently delighted by something. She wore several crudely stitched sheets of hide draped over her body.

They were human skins, and each of the connected pieces differed subtly in color and texture.

Yet the woman’s own skin was dark and mottled like that of a toad. It was the result of practicing a mana drive that had strayed far beyond acceptable limits.

She was Erze, the Skin Collector.

"Steiny, what took you so long? Tra-la-la. Look at this."

She approached Steiner and proudly raised an arm, stroking it with her other hand.

"Isn’t it incredibly soft? My skin is becoming more beautiful by the day. Tee-hee."

"Sure... But where’s Tony?"

Tony was Reto’s pet name—Reto, the necromancer of the Ernberg Five who was known as the Experimenter.

"That gloomy bastard said he’d collected everything he needed and left ahead of us."

The speaker was a man dressed entirely in black from head to toe. His name was Ghost, also known as the Ghostblade.

Yet to anyone looking at them, he was clearly the gloomiest one there.

"I told everyone to go to the rendezvous point after finishing. Didn’t anyone tell him?"

"Wasn’t that your responsibility?"

Ghost asked as he looked at Erze.

"Why would I ever talk to him? I thought Harty had told him."

The man called Harty possessed the inhuman height and build of a legendary giant. The rectangular shield resting beside him was as large as an ordinary person.

He was Harnett, known as the Iron Bulwark.

He stood with his arms folded and his back against a wall, the top of his head nearly touching the roof.

"Why are you suddenly blaming me? And I did tell him."

The three members other than Steiner began shifting responsibility onto one another. For people of such notoriety, they appeared surprisingly disorganized.

At the same time, however, their behavior showed just how close they were.

All of them had attended the same academy. Although they constantly bickered, they were like brothers and sisters—perhaps even more closely bonded than a real family.

There was just one serious problem.

None of them had properly grown into adults. They had grown up twisted beyond repair.

"Harty says he told him."

"Ha..."

"Eri, you go and get him."

"What? Me? Why?"

"That loser listens to you more than any of us."

"Hmmph, I suppose that’s true. Being beautiful is so exhausting."

Erze spun in place as though displaying her beauty.

But she was the exact opposite of beautiful.

She was grotesque, horrifying, and completely insane.

"Then the three of us will go on ahead. We’re counting on you, Eri."

"Fine..."

"By the way, Steiny, did you hear about that?"

Just as they were about to leave, Ghost asked a question.

"What?"

Steiner sighed, then turned to Erze, who was standing closest to him.

"I heard heroes recently appeared in Siegfringer. Supposedly, they wiped out the Thieves’ Guild and the bandits and rescued people without asking for anything in return. I also heard Hasphil is dead. So is Aunt Lily."

Steiner appeared to think about that for a moment before casually remarking,

"They must be some truly depraved perverts."

Rescuing other people without receiving anything in return?

According to Steiner’s understanding of the world, such people were incomprehensible deviants.

Extremely depraved ones at that.

***

"Huh? Those are Sir’s footprints."

This time, Boribori noticed them before the sharp-eyed Rickart did.

The tracks led north.

Rickart and Boribori followed them, the ground squelching beneath their feet with every step.

After walking for some time, the two boys encountered an unbelievable sight.

"Whoa..."

Even across both of his lives, Rickart had never seen terrain like this.

The moss-covered ground merely looked uneven, but whenever he stepped on it, it undulated as though water lay directly beneath the surface.

The ground could suddenly collapse, swallowing a person in an instant and killing them.

To make matters worse, snow covered everything, making it impossible to tell where it was safe to step.

It was an extraordinary yet extremely dangerous marshland.

Rickart had no idea how they were supposed to find Reto’s laboratory in this endless wilderness.

Fortunately, it had not snowed recently, allowing them to follow the tracks. Judging by their size, they undoubtedly belonged to the Nameless Man.

Then they found rotting corpses that were still moving.

And there were many of them.

Several of the bodies scattered throughout the area continued to move, even though they had clearly died long ago.

Their milky-white eyes rolled wildly. Some crawled slowly despite having lost everything below the waist.

"A-a necromancer..."

Boribori muttered.

The sight was so appalling that even Rickart’s mind went blank for a moment.

Could magic truly be this horrifying?

After barely regaining his composure, he carefully surveyed the scene. The corpses looked as though they had been attacked by some enormous beast.

They had been crushed and trampled, and many bore wounds from an axe.

"It was Sir. He must have fought here."

The moment Rickart spoke, Boribori rushed across the grisly scene without looking back, following the footprints.

Rickart hurried after him.

At some point, a pale mist began gathering despite it being the middle of the day.

It was not so dense that they could not see, so they managed to continue following the tracks. Eventually, the footprints ended before a sinister-looking hut standing upon one of the few patches of solid ground in the marsh.

Rickart slipped the sword from his shoulder and held it in one hand, ready to draw at any moment as he approached the hut.

He carefully opened the improperly fastened door—and found another horrifying, revolting scene.

All manner of anatomical specimens had been preserved in jars of liquid. Many of the jars were shattered and scattered across the floor, and the spilled preservative filled the room with a strange, pungent odor.

A severed head had been placed atop what appeared to be the necromancer’s desk.

It belonged to Reto the Experimenter.

The Nameless Man had already killed him.

Reto must have looked grotesque even while alive, but death made him even more disturbing. Perhaps because of the undead they had just encountered, Rickart felt as though the severed head might suddenly open its eyes.

"He left it for us," Boribori said.

"Huh?"

"Otherwise, Sir wouldn’t have gone out of his way to cut off the head and place it here."

"That might be true..."

The Nameless Man was certainly not someone who would do such a thing merely for the sake of it, especially during a battle.

He must have had another purpose.

Boribori was probably right.

For the two boys, however, finding the Nameless Man was more important than taking the head.

Besides, they were carrying out an assassination commission rather than pursuing a wanted criminal. They only needed to prove that Reto was dead, so there was no need to take his entire head.

An ear, some distinctive body part, or even a personal possession would suffice.

"My, what adorable little boys."

A lively female voice suddenly came from behind them.

Rickart and Boribori spun around reflexively.

A woman resembling a toad stood there.

No—she did not merely resemble one. She looked as though an actual toad had transformed into a human.

And she was draped in human skin.

Rickart recognized her immediately by instinct.

"Erze?"

"Oh? You know my name? Well, I suppose beauty like mine is bound to be famous."

With movements that were absurdly graceful, Erze displayed her hideous appearance.

"Where are the others?"

"There are five of you, aren’t there?"

"Darling, do you think we always travel together? They’re probably in Lindvale."

Lindvale was the place where the Five had first slaughtered an entire village.

Whether it was coincidence, bitter irony, or sheer cruelty, Lindvale was also where the Nameless Man had once lived.

More astonishingly, Erze had casually revealed their secret rendezvous point.

Perhaps she felt absolutely no threat from the two boys before her.

Or perhaps she had never intended to let them leave alive.

"You two are a little old, but your skin is still rather lovely. Hmm, I’ve decided. I’ll add it to my own. Aren’t you grateful?"

No one had ever called Rickart or Boribori old before. Everyone usually thought of them as children, but Erze evidently had different standards.

The toadlike woman gave a throaty laugh and drew a sharp knife.

It was not an ordinary dagger. It resembled a tool intended for skinning.

But as she approached the two boys, she spotted something beyond them.

The head sitting atop the desk.

Erze stared blankly for a moment.

Then her body began to tremble.

"T-Tony?"

They usually ignored, mocked, and bickered with one another, but that had merely been their twisted form of play.

To Erze, the Ernberg Five were family.

At first, she could not accept what she was seeing. Then fury blazed in her eyes, and her face twisted into a terrifying expression.

She was already so hideous that the sight was enough to haunt one’s dreams.

"What did you do to Tony—?!"

Erze’s shriek ended abruptly.

Rickart and Boribori had instantly drawn their swords and thrust them at her.

Clang! Crash!

Astonishingly, their blades merely damaged the outer layer of human skin she wore. They failed to penetrate her actual flesh.

Rickart’s meteoric-iron sword was too exceptional to break, but Boribori’s mana-infused blade snapped in half—even though it could normally cut through virtually anything.

It felt as though they had struck a boulder with their swords.

The violent vibration traveled through Rickart’s hand and seemed to rattle his very bones. Grimacing, he hurriedly retreated.

Meanwhile, Erze lunged at him with murderous fury.

"Ricky!"

Boribori cried out while clutching his injured wrist.

At that moment, Rickart briefly wondered whether Erze was playing with him.

Her attack was far too clumsy.

Had grief over losing her companion overwhelmed her emotions?

Was her skin simply hard while her martial skill remained poor?

Or was it a trap?

Countless possibilities passed through his mind in that brief instant.

But Rickart had survived more battles than words could describe. Even in that sliver of time, he found his answer.

He released his sword.

His hands moved in a blur, and an instant later, he twisted Erze’s arm at the joint.

Crunch!

"Aaaaaagh!"

Boribori leaped onto Erze’s back. He wrapped both legs around her waist and clung to her like a turtle shell. Then he thrust both hands into her mouth, seized her upper and lower jaws, and pulled them apart.

Mana coursed through his blood vessels and spread into his muscles, releasing monstrous strength.

"Nnngh!"

Crunch.

"Aaaaaaaagh!"

Erze’s jaw dislocated, leaving her mouth gaping like a snake’s. She thrashed violently, but Boribori refused to let go.

Finally, he tore away her lower jaw completely.

The motion made him lose his balance and sent him flying.

Crash!

Boribori landed some distance away, then immediately sprang back to his feet.

"Guuuhhh..."

Erze could only produce sounds like an undead creature. Without her lower jaw to support it, her tongue hung limply downward.

She staggered away, attempting to flee.

"Where do you think you’re going?"

Rickart chased her barehanded.

Erze fled in terror, but Rickart was far faster.

He caught up almost instantly, seized one of her legs, and brought her crashing to the floor. Then he twisted her ankle around.

"Aaaaaaaaah!"

Erze writhed in agony on the ground. She tried to grab Rickart, but he had already withdrawn beyond her reach.

He pulled a dagger from inside his clothes.

"Are your eyeballs hard too?"

"Uuughhh..."

"For your sake, I hope they are."

Without waiting for an answer, he drove the dagger forcefully into her eye.

The blade pierced the eyeball and entered the soft brain beyond it. Erze’s body convulsed violently before going limp.

Against an ordinary opponent, her sword-proof skin would have been an overwhelming advantage.

But these two boys were anything but ordinary.

"Huff... huff... huff..."

Boribori approached and looked down at Erze’s lifeless body.

Rickart turned toward the panting boy.

"Are you all right?"

"Yeah. What about you, Ricky?"

"I’m fine too."

"Then let’s go."

"Okay."

After collecting evidence that Reto and Erze were dead, the two boys immediately departed for Lindvale.

Even though the deaths of Reto and Erze meant that they had completed their commission, Rickart and Boribori’s journey was not yet over.

Nor did they intend to end it there.

Rickart had only one concern.

It was not the possibility that the Nameless Man might die. Rickart tended to accept death with detachment.

What troubled him was this:

If the Nameless Man died after punishing himself to the very end, what meaning would any of it have—regardless of whether he achieved his revenge?

The Ricky of Rickart’s previous life and the Nameless Man had lived under different circumstances, but there were undeniable similarities between them.

Rickart feared that the Nameless Man was following the same path Ricky once had.

Because there was no salvation waiting at the end of that path.

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