Chapter 60
─Tat-tat-tat!
I equipped the double-headed axe and ran like hell. I charged straight at the spot where the bandits had stopped, smashing them before they had a chance to shout.
“First, let’s gather in one place and── what the fuck, gehk!!”
“W-what the hell is happening, blegkh!!”
I smashed their faces in with the flat of the axe, killing them instantly. I drove an elbow into one man’s solar plexus and threw an uppercut into another’s with my bare fist. Even when I held back, the bandits’ bodies broke apart like rabbits being cuddled by a bear. It felt like hitting Styrofoam.
─Wham! Crack! Crunch!
“Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!”
“Haaaaaaah!!!”
Caught off guard while relaxing at home, the bandits completely lost control.
They couldn’t see a thing, but they kept hearing things break as their comrades fell silent one by one. Faced with terror, human altruism and friendship crumbled with ease.
“G-gather up!! Get over here and fight together!!”
“Fuck!!”
At the shout of one man with a sense of command, several of them gathered with their backs to the wall. I figured that out from the movement of their legs and picked up a nearby rock.
I tossed the heavy chunk of rock a few times, catching it, then hurled it with all my strength.
My target was the solar plexus of a bandit hidden by the fog.
─Bwaack!
“Gehk!!”
I’d heard that a major leaguer’s fastball had lethal force. That made sense, since it could fly all the way from one end of a baseball stadium to the other.
If a human could throw that hard, imagine the fastball I could throw with the double boost of mana and Beast Regression. The heavy, lethal rock slammed into a bandit’s leather armor and killed him instantly.
“Eeeeeek!!”
“What is it?! What the hell is it?!”
─Whoosh! Whoosh!
One of the terrified men began swinging his sword wildly.
From their perspective, they’d heard something slice through the air, and then the comrade beside them had collapsed. In the dense fog, where they couldn’t even see their own bodies properly, it was a source of overwhelming terror.
I picked up another rock and followed the horror-movie golden rule, lowering my voice Vector-style.
“UkuooooRrrrrroooooo…!! (Sex…!!)”
“Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!”
My translation ability let me speak the languages of monsters, too. I said a few words in troll, and the bandits freaked out.
“IiiiiiiiaaSyAzuDooooo!!! (Everybody, prepare to dive!!!)”
“Where are you?! Where the hell are youuuu?! Gyaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!”
“Aaaaaaaah!! Pleeeeeeeeease!!!!!!!!!”
Intonation is crucial in the languages of beasts and monsters. Anyone can tell the difference between ‘a human imitating a sound’ and ‘a sound made by a monster.’
Naturally, the monster language produced by my translation ability became ‘100% authentic monster sounds.’
The impression might have been a little different because of the structure of a human’s vocal cords──but in fog so thick they couldn’t see an inch ahead, would they have the presence of mind to notice?
“POhhuhH!! NiiiiiiiaAAnnn!! (Yes, Captain!!)”
“Ruuuuuun!! Get the hell out of hereeeee!!!!”
“There’s nowhere to hide!! Nowhere to hideeeeeee!!!!”
“EffsssU SsssaA!! (I can’t hear you~!)”
“You sons of bitches!! Don’t you have any pride?!”
“Pride, my ass! I’m not dying here!!”
“Uuu Wuuawu!!! (Woo~ wow!!!)”
─Scurry-scurry!!
The bandits fled, abandoning their weapons. They lived up to their name by making a speedy escape, but──
‘──「Too slow」.’
They were slower than me, even with Tirsi’s magic boosting my speed.
─Tat-tat-tat!!
I chased down every one of them and took them out. Even the ones who escaped my sight made enough noise as they ran that I could figure out almost all their locations.
My enhanced senses came in handy at times like this, too. If not for the walls, I could’ve covered even myself in fog and still pinpointed every enemy.
─Whoosh!
─Boom—!!
“Guhhh…!!”
I finished off even the one hiding in the corner with a blow to the torso. The bandit stared at me in disbelief. I offered a blessing for his journey to the afterlife in a friendly voice.
“Tthxee, Tthx. (Moron.)”
“Grrrrk…”
Realizing that the monster in the fog was me, the bandit foamed at the mouth and died.
─Thump.
If that was the last of them, I couldn’t hear a single breath nearby. I’d finished checking they were dead, so I’d slaughtered every last one of the bandits on this side.
The axe was fucking useless. Anyway, I’d come back later with the guards, clear away the bodies, strip the bandits’ gear, and sell it all.
“Heh heh.”
Look at these adorable little bastards, bandits with such well-stocked gear. They look like a bunch of goddamn highwaymen, but every one of them is a walking pile of money.
Unlike goblins, these guys had valuable drops like equipment and stolen goods.
If I stripped them of all their gear and then collected the Transport Guild’s reward, I’d be rolling in money.
Since it was blood money, I’d save the proceeds from selling these bastards’ gear separately and use my saved wages and the Transport Guild’s reward to buy a pocket watch with Fran.
─Thud-thud-thud-thud.
My heart pounded wildly with the fear and excitement of my first kill. I raised my blood-free hand and made the sign of the cross, but it didn’t do much.
So I pretended to grope Fran’s chest, imagining it in my mind.
─Squeeze, squeeze.
Remembering the soft, squishy feel of Fran brought my heartbeat back to normal. That worked like a fucking charm. This really was more my style.
“Lord, we look upon you as one would a peacock.”
Having calmed my heart, I crossed the river of fog and recited a passage from the Bible.
Reciting a poem that praised the gods filled my heart. The memories of Earth still inside me protected me from psychological shock. Koreans are a people of dance, song, and poetry.
“A look that borders on anticipation, adoration, and something akin to neverending terror.”
In the cave, where the scent of blood swirled through the air, I remembered my own origin.
Until recently, my goal had been to return home.
That was why I’d wanted to avoid killing whenever possible. I couldn’t imagine facing my family with hands stained by other people’s blood.
“The soldiers blow their trumpets. Like star shooting by ear. The soldiers stomp their feet, like thunder in the air.”
What if I returned home only to find that I could no longer adapt to the peaceful everyday life on Earth?
What if this damn otherworld became the standard for my life, so that when I returned to Earth, I felt as if it were the otherworld instead?
That had frightened me deeply.
Until recently, that is.
─Why don’t we drop the formalities?
─Nord… I like you…
I had already started a family here, too.
Francesca. My beloved woman.
I could no longer imagine leaving her behind and going to Earth.
This uncivilized otherworld had somehow become my new home!!
──The German physicist Albert Einstein once said,
that nothing could change his world.
I accepted his words.
Because I, Kang Buk-ho, was Nord the Nord, Nuru the druid, and Nuru who would live as the husband of a certain lovely half-hammer!
“A petal falling, never to bloom again, a petal in flames, full of beauty──”
As if to calm my heightened emotions, I finished reciting.
“──Even without a form, we will never stop walking.”
For the first time, I came upon a room with a door in this cave. It seemed I’d already reached the end of the cave. Had Tirsi not gone in yet? It didn’t matter.
A crude door had been built into a wall reinforced with wooden boards. Keeping the fog up, I brought my fist down on the door’s lock.
“Vector-Lockpicking.”
KWAANG!
─Crack!
The door, with its pathetic excuse for security, was smashed to pieces by my Vector-Bear punch. I kicked it open and went inside. The bandits were huddled together, trembling.
I waved my hand and disturbed the fog. I didn’t dispel it; I pushed it toward the walls, leaving it banked around us like a ring. There was something I wanted to ask these bastards.
The room was larger than I’d expected, and there were several doors. It seemed they’d turned a large cavern connected to other areas into a room.
“I-it’s not a monster!!”
“A person! It’s a person!!”
When I cleared away the fog, the bandits realized their attacker was human and nearly died of fright.
“Y-you are…?”
Among the bandits was a rather nimble-looking handsome man. This son of a bitch was a bandit, yet he was as handsome as me.
Still, his face was full of greed. Proof that he was a murderous robber.
“W-why?!”
The handsome man who’d been staring at me stupidly shrieked in protest.
Even as he shouted, the others only watched him meekly. It seemed that bastard was the leader of the bandits.
“Why have you come to bury us?! We haven’t even touched the ‘merchandise’! We were sold to you and came all the way here from Haisvent!!”
“Merchandise?”
I muttered. From what he’d said, they’d apparently been sold to someone and made to commit robberies.
‘But why the hell are you asking me about that, you bastard?’
Could they have mistaken me for an assassin sent by some organization?
Why, exactly? Was Arthur Wayne’s costume so charismatic that they’d gotten the wrong idea? After thinking it over, I decided to play along.
“……Where’s the merchandise?”
While I was asking where the merchandise was, I could ask where the hostages were, too. That was why I’d cleared away the fog.
“I-it’s not here! It’s somewhere else!”
At my question, the leader’s expression brightened like a Go player who’d spotted a way out. Since I’d shown interest in the merchandise, he thought he might be able to save himself.
“Two girls under ten! One boy! A-and one man with an arm cut off, whom we were lucky enough to find! That should be enough to meet your standards!!”
“……What?”
I asked coldly, unable to believe what he’d said.
No, it wasn’t that I couldn’t understand him. It was so horrific that I didn’t want to understand.
At the sound of my voice, the leader trembled, dropped his weapon, and fell to his knees.
─Clang!
“Y-you don’t have to pay for the merchandise! Please, spare our lives! I’m begging you!!”
It was a pathetic plea for his life. But I didn’t care whether that bastard fell to his knees or used the momentum to smash his head against the ceiling and kill himself.
‘Two girls under ten. One boy. One man with an arm cut off, whom they were lucky enough to find.’
I calmly turned over what he’d said in my mind.
‘……They kidnapped innocent preschoolers and a one-armed man?’
On top of that, that bastard had called them ‘merchandise.’ They were living, breathing people.
‘Are they talking about illegal slavery?’
Slavery was legal in Britannia.
That was why slaves had their right to life and human rights protected to some extent under national law. It was also why some of the poor sold themselves into serfdom.
Illegal slavery was one of the heinous crimes of the underworld: kidnapping civilians, breaking them in, and selling them to customers who wanted to ‘treat their slaves harshly,’ all in defiance of the law.
In other words, these bastards had committed those crimes in addition to robbery.
‘Murder, robbery, rape, kidnapping, and human trafficking?’
I shuddered as I thought back over the bandits’ misdeeds.
True scum…!
These bastards really were the sort of scum with nothing left to lose.
They’d committed every imaginable atrocity and still begged me to spare their own lives!! My hands trembled at such inconceivable depravity.
──Let’s kill them.
This wasn’t murder; it was a good deed. The great sages of old said people couldn’t be fixed. Even if these bastards were spared, they were scum who couldn’t live any way but by committing crimes.
Creeeak…
That was when a half-dead bandit opened another door and crawled inside.
“B-boss……”
Frost had formed over half his body. I’d never seen frost form on a person before, but there was no way a bandit in that state could survive.
Even a high-grade potion or healing magic wouldn’t help if half his body had become necrotic.
“T-the merchandise was taken. A mage… attacked us……”
The man stammered as he spoke, his lips purple. He must have taken a direct hit from ice magic. For a mana-deficient bandit with little vitality, it was a fatal wound.
“All the others… they were… ngh.”
Those were his last words. As befitted idiots like them, the bandit couldn’t even finish speaking before his head drooped.
─Thump.
It was a miserable end, but no one cared about his death. I didn’t, either. I didn’t think trash like this deserved to die peacefully, surrounded by their beloved families.
I glanced at the bandit who’d turned into frozen meat and spoke.
“Looks like the merchandise is missing.”
The voice that came out of my mouth was so ice-cold even I couldn’t believe it.
“Th-that──.”
The bandit leader trembled.
“All of it… this was all your own men’s doing!!”
The bandit stood up, his expression growing increasingly vicious as if he’d realized his fate, and screamed at me. He’d realized I had no intention of sparing them.
“You planned this from the start!! You made us gather the merchandise, then you were going to kill us and silence us!”
“Who knows? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I swept my cloak behind me and ignored his argument.
Of course, it was true that my companion had rescued the kidnapped people.
‘Tirsi must’ve done a good job.’
Since we’d anticipated that the hostages might be used to threaten us, we’d split into two groups and divided up our roles beforehand.
I’d cause a commotion inside with cloud-summoning magic, and Tirsi would use that opportunity to rescue the hostages.
Everything had gone according to plan.