Chapter 78: New and Old

A group of figures, likely bandits, galloped their horses toward our slightly sunken campsite. It seemed they were running toward us, guided by the light of our bonfire roaring beside a massive boulder. Father Dordon, knowing it was too late to hide, crushed the swirling firewood under his feet.

I turned to hide the horses we had been resting nearby, but an arrow fired by the bandits from far away landed near the ground, startling the horses into fleeing. They slipped away before I could grab the reins. Regretting the loss of our only means of escape, I huddled against the shadow of the rock, pressing my body close to Father Dordon.

“There are more than I thought.”

“Why are bandits here…”

“They are an emerging group of bandits based around here. Think of them as magical beasts that look like humans. It’s best not to think you can reason with them.”

Just as the priest finished speaking over his shoulder, he began to hold his breath, waiting for the bandits to close the distance. Following his lead, I stayed silent. On the other side of the rock, across the grassland, the bandits pulled their horses to a stop.

They looked wretched, wearing beast furs over tattered clothes. However, glimpses of sturdy muscle could be seen beneath their rags; the mismatch created a strange sense of intimidation. They were truly rough around the edges.

As I watched them from the shadows, they spread out into a fan formation while still on horseback and called out to us.

“Hey! If you don’t want to die, leave all your valuables behind!”

There were fifteen of them. Because they had been so far away, my failure to accurately judge their numbers had led to an underestimate.

They knew exactly where we were. It seemed they had tracked our position from the moment the horses we used to escape Sateru were spotted. They were spreading their formation, slowly tightening the circle around us.

Their weapons varied—longswords, warhammers, crossbows, and bows. On our side, there was me and an old priest who couldn’t use his left hand properly. The difference in numbers was obvious, and the discrepancy in weaponry was severe.

Facing longswords with wide reach and crossbows with long range using only a 30-centimeter dagger would be difficult. Moreover, they were on horseback. Even if I dodged their attacks and closed the distance, the mobility of the horses would allow them to reset the range. We were forced into an inescapably disadvantageous battle. We had no horses of our own. Since we were in the grasslands beyond the forest, there were no convenient places to hide. We were in an overwhelmingly bad situation.

—But the fate of certain death belonged to the bandits. Father Dordon was a combatant of such caliber that the average grunt was no match for him. He possessed something that couldn’t be explained by appearance or stats alone.

And I was an abnormal being, carrying a Heretic’s bomb in my left hand. I had defeated magical beasts—which usually required several trained soldiers to subdue—with my bare hands, and I had even repelled packs of them alone. With the feeling that a human attack was at least better than that, I honestly felt like this was a battle we might not lose.

Even if we died, the Heretic executive who would emerge from this left hand in response to the stimulation would wipe out the bandits. In other words, there was no benefit for the bandits. If they didn’t want to die, they had no choice but to turn back right now.

I exchanged a fleeting glance with Father Dordon beside me. We were thinking the same thing. Or rather, Father Dordon likely understood the situation better than I did.

This battle had no merits for either side. The bandits had zero chance of survival, and even if we won, we gained nothing. We might get some horses or weapons, but it wasn’t worth the risk of combat. There was no choice but to have Dordon use his “priestly powers” to talk them down.

I bobbed my chin toward Father Dordon, signaling him to try to persuade them. He didn’t even twitch an eyebrow as he tilted his head.

(Why should I? They are nothing but scum of the earth.)

(Don’t you be the one to say that… Avoiding a fight is better, isn’t it? Please talk them down with the oratorical skills you cultivated in your priesthood.)

(I’ll state this clearly: it is absolutely futile. Well, I suppose I shall try…)

As if saying “I might as well see how the other side reacts,” Father Dordon cleared his throat loudly and raised his voice while rummaging through his pouch.

“—You lot, stop this! You will regret laying a hand on us!”

As he spoke, Father Dordon pulled a mysterious black stone from his pouch. Along with it, he placed something tubular with a string attached at his feet. Holding his dagger close, he began busily rubbing the black stone.

I had a bad feeling. Because of the tension, I couldn’t recall the names of the black stone and the tubular object. But that was it. Father Dordon was about to do that.

“A gentle piece of advice from an old man who has lived long! Turn back now! Life is long, you can start over even now!”

“—Pfft! Hahahahaha! That’s a real preach-y, priest-like way of talking, isn’t it!? Could it be you’re a priest!?”

Contrary to my growing impatience, the bandits were highly amused by Father Dordon’s words. Vulgar laughter echoed across the grassland. They didn’t know what their negotiating partner was doing behind the rock.

Each time he rubbed the black stone, sparks flew with unnatural intensity. As the sound of something sharp grating against another rang out, the string, showered in sparks, caught fire. Ah, right. I finally remembered. That black stone and the tubed string—flint and a bomb. Since when did this man have something like this—

A bead of sweat trailed down by my temple. It fell from the tip of my chin. My eyes met Father Dordon’s. Perhaps anticipating the shock of the assault on the bandits, he wore a full grin while making sticky lip-smacking sounds. His eyes were gleaming, relishing the joy of “life.”

However, his tone remained that of a victim begging for mercy. He was practically screaming for help. He seemed to have forgotten our deal to persuade the bandits.

“Please, don’t kill me! I don’t want to die yet! Help meeeee!”

—Bad taste. Witnessing the divergence between his plea for forgiveness and his action overflowing with murderous intent, I felt the eeriness of this man intensely.

“Seems you don’t realize who’s cornered! Hey, you lot, do it!!”

“Yeah!”

A small sound remained imprinted in my eardrum. It was the sound of an oil-soaked fuse burning. Watching the shortening fuse from up close, Father Dordon shouted as if moved to ecstasy.

“A, Aaaaah! It’s coming! It’s coming, it’s coming! Don’t come heeeere!!”

To the bandits, it was a scream of despair. But to someone standing next to him, it sounded only like a cry of pleasure following a climax. His mouth was curled into a wide arc.

Just before the fuse reached the ignition point, Father Dordon leaned out from the rock and threw the bomb. The fist-sized object described a parabola. For an instant, the bandits stopped moving. They were stunned. There are moments when everyone can do nothing but stand still and watch. For the bandits, unfortunately, that moment was now.

“Eh—”

The bandit leader let out a vacant cry.

The next instant—a roar. I was hit by a shock that rattled my brain directly through my eardrums. A wall of pressure slapped my face a moment later. The vibration of the ground. The sound of an earthquake echoing throughout the land.

I am a reasonably heavy person. Around 60 kilograms. I was swept off my feet easily. I was knocked on my rear. The energy capable of killing a person easily had exploded.

Black smoke rose, and a rain of blood and flesh fell everywhere. The leader’s form had vanished completely. What remained in his place was only a two-meter radius crater and radial explosion marks. Because they had been subjected to a sudden loud noise, the horses the bandits were riding reared and went wild. To horses, which have better hearing than humans, it must have been a shock that turned their world upside down.

The remaining bandits couldn’t control their horses and were thrown off one after another. The bandits, unable to comprehend the death of their leader, were cut down and killed by the giant priest who had suddenly appeared in front of them. Even I, who knew he had a bomb, was left shaken immediately after the explosion; the confusion that assaulted them must have been significant.

Even if they had recovered from the shock of the explosion, the group, now leaderless, would lose all control. Father Dordon seized that opening, killing seven enemies in the thirty seconds immediately following the blast.

“Oh well. They would have been fine if they had just listened to me…”

Father Dordon pressed his dagger against the neck of a bandit who had lost his nerve. The eighth spray of blood danced. Wiping the blood-fat off his dagger with weeds, the priest turned to the remaining seven. That he had prioritized targeting those with ranged weapons first was a testament to Father Dordon’s calm and collected nature.

I, who had been lagging, had also killed three bandits on the confusion, but an abnormal situation was happening to me as well.

(N-no… I’m incredibly hungry. Meat. I want to eat human meat. This sensation again…)

I licked the blood-fat stuck to my dagger. My thirst was quenched slightly, but something was definitively missing. If I had to compare it… perhaps it was a girl’s meat. I wanted to eat the body of someone… the source of this appetite.

(What am I thinking… damn, my head hurts. But more than eating… there is a girl I want to see. …I should have had someone… more important…)

The princess-like girl related to my appetite was important, too.

But there had to be someone more deeply connected, someone whose existence was rooted in the depths of my heart.

The one I want to see is—

Not a Gothic girl standing in a blizzard.

It is the girl who tempted me in a sea of blood.

While slashing enemy bodies, sending meat flying, and filling the air with the smell of iron—a manic memory I couldn’t erase even after my mind was destroyed flashed back.

The trigger was the sea of blood and its scent filling the grassland.

—A sea of blood and a mountain of viscera. In the deep crimson, white skin floats phantasmagorically. A slender body so thin the ribs are visible. Soft skin holding me. Limbs made hot by the mixture of blood and body temperature. Large, swelling breasts.

“I like you—I like you, Oakley.”

A gentle voice whispering in my ear. A voice filled with determination that she cannot lose because of love. Our eyes meet. Beautiful, jade-colored eyes drawn with swirling spirals. A tongue entwined like a snake, pouring sweetness into me. Delicate hair that smells like a mix of blood and sweetness. Shears.

“So, just give up already… and let yourself be dyed in my colors so we can live together…?”

I hate her, and I love her. It felt like we understood each other, but we didn’t, yet at the root, we cared for each other. A relationship far too complex and bizarre for me and that girl to be expressed by the word “love.” A relationship where we could still love each other even after our intense, love-hate emotions were churned together.

The sea of our mixed blood and the proof of our flesh. Memories that I could never forget were recalled, and my soul trembled. Fragments of an irreplaceable memory I recalled, invited by the smell of blood, allowed me to recover part of my past.

“…Yo, an, ne. …Yoanne… Yoanne Sagamix…”

—Yoanne Sagamix. The woman who shared blood and flesh with me, a heroine of the 6th rank of the Arros Temple Sect executive hierarchy. …I remembered her.

Other than that… I still don’t know. It’s eerily veiled. But I should be able to remember eventually. Whose voice it was that tried to send me to the Holy Capital Sasfect, and who the other girl was.

“What’s the matter, Oakley-kun?”

“Eh? …Oh, ooh!? You startled me. I was spaced out from the aftermath of the explosion.”

Returned to reality, I was surprised by the dying bandit moaning at my feet and hid behind Father Dordon. The other bandits were dead. The large party was gone, with everyone lying on the ground, creating a sea of blood.

It seemed only one person remained. Father Dordon and I looked down at the last one.

“I told you, didn’t I? You would regret it.”

“Sh-shut up… you shitty priest, I’ll kill you…!!”

The last bandit glared not at me, but at Father Dordon. With a countenance like a shura, he clung to the priest’s feet, shedding tears of resentment.

“You Kenneth Orthodox bastards didn’t save us! The only one who saved me… was Aniki…!”

“Ho, and then?”

“Damn… if the Orthodox are going to run this country… I’d much rather have the Arros Temple Sect… conquer it…! If that happens, Aniki, too… would surely… be… happy…!”

“Too long. Die quickly. Your leader was an interesting child, but unfortunately, I have no interest in you.”

“…………”

The priest kicked away the hand of the bandit who had clung to him with his last bit of strength. After silently stabbing the dagger into the bandit’s cervical spine, he turned on his heel and began wiping the blood off his sword.

“Magical beasts will come for the smell of blood. Let’s collect the bandits’ horses and head for the Holy Capital Sasfect as quickly as possible.”

“…Yeah.”

I recalled what I had spoken about with Father Dordon before fighting the bandits.

The Kenneth Orthodox is apparently in the “decent” category. Perhaps that is because they are able to save and protect the majority of people. It’s just that they lose a few people, like these bandits.

Perhaps the founder of the Heretics, Arros, was someone who had slipped through the cracks of the Kenneth Orthodox’s saving hand. That is what I thought.