Chapter 15 - Episode 2. Witch of Massacre (5)
Chapter 15: Episode 2. Witch of Massacre (5)
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Kanghun and the men wielding swords began to surround Mino.
"Stay still. We'll make you feel good soon enough."
Mino lowered her head with her eyes tightly shut.
At first glance, she looked like someone who had given up on everything. But the assassins of the Black Forest Hall knew what happened to the enemies before her whenever she wore that expression.
Mino moved her hand almost at the same moment three men rushed at her.
It was so fast that no one could see her make a move.
The three men besides Kanghun trembled as if struck by lightning, then collapsed where they stood. Each had a dagger buried in their chest.
"Sorry. I threw them a little too hard. I'm pretty pissed off right now."
Mino smiled, but her voice turned chilling.
"The monster lure failed... my partner won't listen... and some random bastard has the spirit weapon. Nothing is going my way, is it?"
Her smile was innocent, but Kanghun felt his heart tremble.
"Why don't you give that sword back to its owner already?"
"...And if I refuse?"
"You don't seem to know this, but people always come to a bad end when they get their hands on something beyond their station."
"I'm far more suited to this sword than that guy."
"You think so? Then I guess there's no helping it."
Mino flung off her black robe, revealing black night clothes beneath. Seven daggers slowly rose from within her collar.
"From now on, very bad things are going to happen to you."
Kanghun stared at her for a moment, then spoke in a hollow voice.
"So you really are the Witch of Massacre."
"What, you knew?"
"...How could I not? It would have been stranger not to notice when you were luring monsters over so easily from the start."
Kanghun's voice sounded like he was grinding his teeth.
Mino pressed a hand to her forehead and muttered softly.
"Haah, this is driving me crazy. What am I going to hear from our Hall Master this time...? Well, it won't matter if I kill them all."
A tremendous spiritual pressure burst from Mino, who was supposedly a Non-Adapter. It was the kind only high-level Adapters could release.
Kanghun groaned.
"I heard the assassins of the Black Forest Hall could control their spiritual pressure at will. So it was true."
"A scrub like you knows quite a lot."
"...Who the hell commissioned the Black Forest Hall?"
"What does it matter who placed the commission? There are more than enough people in Chaos who want you dead after you kept hunting down and killing Non-Adapters who didn't know any better."
"What? The Black Forest Hall wouldn't move just because of people like..."
Kanghun trailed off, then abruptly looked as if he had realized something.
"Did you take this commission personally?"
"...Am I obligated to answer that?"
"If that's the case, you can never face us, Witch of Massacre."
"What?"
Mino sensed the atmosphere around them subtly changing. The air in the grass nearby had felt suspicious for some time now.
She had sensed a considerable number of spiritual pressures around them. But the village was not far away, and those pressures had been scattered about, so she had thought nothing of it.
Now, the groups of Adapters were gradually gathering at a single point.
"A witch from the Black Forest Hall appeared, along with a human who killed a Two-Horned Beast in one strike. Did you think I wouldn't call anyone?"
"Don't tell me..."
The image of Kanghun sending out a Messenger Hawk while on watch flashed through her mind. Kanghun chuckled.
"Well, I wouldn't have called this many if I'd known getting the spirit weapon would be so easy."
Night had fallen. Black silhouettes appeared one by one above the thick broadleaf forest. There were dozens of them. All were at least first-stage Adapters. There were even a few second-stage Adapters among them.
One of those emerging from the darkness was someone Mino could not guarantee victory against even in a one-on-one fight.
He had covered his head with a black hood and wore a cloak woven from black fox fur.
"Don't tell me even you came, Black Fox."
"Witch of Massacre."
"You must have a lot of free time lately."
"You should consider it an honor. Half of Red Fox Clan has gathered to hunt you."
Black Fox Klant.
Nearly everyone in this area recognized his name. He was a powerful Third Adapter and the clan master of Red Fox Clan.
"...What a fucking honor."
She said that, but the situation was terrible.
The standoff bristled with killing intent. The battle would begin the moment anyone moved first. Having roughly assessed the number of enemies, Mino asked without turning around.
"Hey, Abyss powerhouse. Are you there?"
A voice came from behind her.
"I am."
"I should have said this sooner. I'm sorry."
"..."
"I wanted to create a scene where the Abyss powerhouse wiped out Red Fox Clan and their gang."
"I know."
"...You do?"
At Mino's surprised voice, Jaehwan recited in a mechanical tone.
"Everything came back to me at just the right time! Hehe, I am the 「Abyss powerhouse」, here to punish you bastards!"
"...What, did you actually memorize that?"
"If you had written the lines to sound cooler, I might have been willing to say them."
Mino smiled.
"No wonder you weren't very cooperative. Of course, it was my fault for forcing you into it."
She smiled playfully, but her voice was serious.
"I really am sorry."
Those words carried many emotions.
Jaehwan silently looked up at Mino's back.
He knew as well. This woman had not held much malice toward him. If anything, she had been trying to help him survive.
Mino bit her lip and added, "Run away now."
"Why?"
"Because I can't protect you."
As she spoke, Mino threw something behind her. Jaehwan caught the object flying toward him and asked, "What is this?"
"A Return Stone. Use it and you can escape to the nearest fortress. There's only one, so you should use it at least."
"What about you?"
Mino gave no answer.
Jaehwan quietly looked down at the object called a Return Stone. Its appearance felt strangely familiar. Its overall shape resembled a certain stone he hated more than anything.
But this stone was not one that took people to the past.
It was a stone that saved someone's present.
It was a stone used by people trying, somehow, to survive today and move toward tomorrow.
Yoonhwan.
For the first time in a while, Jaehwan thought of his friend's name.
The name of the friend he had failed to save on the ninety-eighth floor of the Tower.
Yoonhwan had been holding a stone then, too.
Yoonhwan had acted as though it were the 「Stone of Regression」, but Jaehwan had known even then.
That stone could not take anyone anywhere.
What if he could have placed this stone in Yoonhwan's hand back then?
What if...
Without thinking, Jaehwan gripped the Return Stone tightly.
As if the stone were some precious answer he had found. The stone curled into his grasp as though it were alive. Jaehwan opened his mouth.
"Let me ask you one thing."
"...What? Now?"
"If there were a way to return to the past, would you go back?"
Mino looked at him as if he were absurd.
"...Do you really have to ask something like that in a situation like this?"
She laughed as though wondering what kind of person he was, then answered without hesitation.
As though such a question did not deserve even a moment of thought.
"Of course not. I'd never go back."
"Why?"
"I worked really hard to get here."
She added no explanation, yet in that moment Jaehwan could feel the entirety of the life she had lived.
"Even if I die, I'll die today. I'll never go back to the past."
Why was it that those words, that she would die today, made his heart race?
Did she know? That the answer she had casually given would change all of her fate?
Jaehwan placed a hand on Mino's shoulder, then strode forward.
Mino blankly watched his back.
He took the terrifying step forward with ease, as though he could not feel that overwhelming killing intent at all.
"You won't die today."
* * *
‘...What had that man just said?’
Mino came to her senses a moment later.
She could not believe it.
Was he not suffering from amnesia, but had simply gone mad?
And how could he say something that embarrassing so easily...? Was that his concept this time?
"Wait, you don't even have a sword!"
"I have another one."
A sword slowly emerged from Jaehwan's Dimensional Bag.
It was the True Dragon Sword he had obtained on the eighty-eighth floor of the Tower of Nightmares.
Mino shouted, "A sword like that won't be enough to...!"
Before she could finish, the battle began.
The Adapters hidden throughout the brush rushed in with terrifying speed.
Weapons of every kind slashed and struck toward him. Some of them possessed troublesome skills.
Mino recognized that skill at a glance.
Fire King Fourteen Forms.
It was one of the signature offensive skills of the Fire King Hall, one of Chaos's ten great factions. A mid-level swordsmanship skill which, when cultivated to the extreme, allowed brilliant flames to rise from the sword and sweep away everything nearby at once. That was Fire King Fourteen Forms.
Mino's complexion darkened sharply.
"So it was true that the Fire King Hall was selling skills to lower clans..."
The forest was becoming a sea of fire. The flames of the Fire King burned and devoured everything. Mad foxes ran rampant within the blaze.
At the center of the heat, Jaehwan quietly took his stance before his enemies.
Mino knew what Jaehwan was about to do.
She knew too well, which was why she had to stop him.
No matter how powerful a spirit weapon was, it could not contend with Fire King Fourteen Forms without a skill of equal rank.
Then, in the next moment, Mino doubted her eyes.
No, she had to doubt all five of her senses.
The laws of time were breaking apart right before her.
For a brief moment, Mino could see it. Every blade approaching Jaehwan slowing down. Then Jaehwan's movements as he glided through that forest of blades as though swimming through it.
...Was she dreaming?
Not a single attack reached Jaehwan's body, which looked as though it would be sent flying by one hit. Jaehwan seemed like someone who did not exist there at all.
「Doubt」
At the center of those blades, there was a path Jaehwan could see. A perfectly straight and orderly path of the sword, visible only to one who doubted this world.
Jaehwan's sword moved along that path.
It was a Stab.
Footnotes:
Chapter discussion