Chapter 192 - Say You Want to Live - 8

'Ghk.'

For an instant, Wolfen's consciousness reeled. Blood sprayed and his skull rattled. A stinging impact rang through his head, then swept over his entire body as if that were not enough.

Through sheer willpower, he somehow held on and recovered his stance. The distance he had struggled to close had opened again, but this was no time to worry about that.

His entire body tingled, as though he were facing a tiger. Wolfen had felt something like this before. In none other than the bottomless pit.

The strength of someone he could not stand against. The sense that nothing he did would work, that they belonged to different orders of humanity altogether.

A gulf in power that rendered even the will to resist meaningless.

He felt it now from the young general before him.

'Should I have... run?!'

But it was already too late. Just as when he faced the magician, once he entered his opponent's sight, resistance was his only proper choice.

Gathering his wits, Wolfen raised his arm to grip his short sword again.

Something flashed through his vision. An instant later, his left arm was severed.

Blood sprayed from beneath his cloak, and the part of his left arm below the elbow went flying in an unnatural direction. Wolfen witnessed a piece of his own body abandon him.

BANG.

The gunshot followed. The pain came much later still.

"Ah, tsk. Finally hitting the mark."

At the other end of that trajectory stood the Musketeer, her gun trained on him. Blue flames rippled from the weapon in her hand.

"Now, the rules are simple. I ask, you answer. Every time you don't answer, you lose a limb. How's that? Easy enough for that worm-brain of yours to understand?"

It wasn't gunpowder. Mere gunpowder could never produce such power.

This was bullet-repelling energy taken to its ultimate extreme: packing a bullet with highly compressed energy, then releasing it in a single explosion to propel the round.

Gunpowder was too weak? Fire it with energy arts.

The barrel couldn't withstand the impact? Reinforce it with energy arts.

Too much recoil? Cancel it with energy arts.

Technology, principles, tools.

Forged with energy arts surpassing everything humanity had created, this ultimate weapon overcame even bullet-repelling energy.

It was a gun in name alone. In truth, it was no different from a spear. An infinitely long spear launched with the twitch of a finger.

Still, there was hope.

'... That was the bullet she just made. Which means her gun is empty. Which means...'

One final move remained if he wanted to survive. Even if he couldn't kill her, he had to at least wound her to escape safely.

In that case.

Wolfen thrust out his left arm. Catching the flying limb with his energy, he charged, scattering its blood. He presented the gruesome cross section, bone and muscle exposed.

"Ugh. My stomach's bad enough already..."

As she grimaced as though about to retch, Wolfen lowered his stance and lunged beneath her with all his strength.

With his still-functional right arm, he thrust out his half-shattered short sword. At the same time, he discreetly drew the dagger he had kept hidden for stronger opponents. Black smoke billowed from his entire body, and a blackened blade suddenly sprang from the darkness.

The shadow sword, meant to kill an unwary opponent at point-blank range. Another blade concealed beneath the short sword's shadow, an art honed solely for murder...

Was crushed between the Musketeer's elbow and knee.

His right arm broke into pieces between her elbow and knee. His hand lost its grip not from weakness, but because it was physically incapable of holding anything anymore. The short sword and dagger slipped between his shattered fingers.

Pain engulfed him. The Musketeer, meanwhile, remained indifferent despite having ruined a man's arm.

"That's two limbs. Just your legs left now."

With that murmur, the Musketeer struck Wolfen's back with the grip of her pistol. It was only a light tap, yet he hit the ground with an impact that felt as though his whole body were being torn apart. The pain was like the earth itself had surged up and slammed into him.

A military boot casually rolled him over. As he lay with both arms in tatters, towering buildings and the Musketeer's face came into view. She looked down at him as though he were a bug.

"Feel like answering now?"

That arrogance, looking down upon everything in the world, was something only the overwhelmingly powerful could display.

Wolfen's resistance had ended in vain. Sensing that it was all over, he coughed up blood and asked,

"... Ghk. Why would... someone like you come... over a mere backstreet affair...?"

No matter how he considered it, she was far too important to send out over the deaths of a few lower-class people. Someone this powerful was surely a national military asset. Even deploying her should have required caution.

At Wolfen's question, the Musketeer scratched her head with her gun.

"Funny. I thought I said I'd be asking the questions."

Muttering that promises had to be kept, the Musketeer steadily pressed her boot down on Wolfen's knee. Watching his mouth contort, she drawled,

"I'll answer you just this once, so make sure you answer my next question properly... You know Hamelin, right?"

Of course he did. Wolfen nodded.

The Military State's taboo. The incident in which secondary-school students on the verge of graduation had died en masse.

Wolfen had intended to use it as bait to draw in the Military State and have it clean out the backstreets.

They were only backstreets. An out-of-the-way place no one cared about, where those abandoned by the world gathered. Here, he could reign like a king... or so he had thought.

The Musketeer's next words made him realize he had been mistaken about something all along.

"Hamelin. A garden of learning built atop a low hill. That's my old school. Well? Feeling a little more awake now?"

"... Impossible. You're... Hamelin's last graduate..."

"Shut up. My question next. Lankart was the one who told you about Hamelin. That son of a bitch, right?"

Of course. Wolfen nodded.

He was indeed the one who had told him about Hamelin.

Colonel Lankart, another of Hamelin's last graduates.

A young madman who had been the last to fall into Tantalus, yet had brought the prisoners under his sway by every conceivable means.

Sometimes through strength, sometimes through knowledge, sometimes through desire. The sorcerer had breathed new life into the bleak, sinking darkness of Tantalus, and ultimately even led them in an escape.

Just before the breakout, he had approached Wolfen as well. After staring at him for a long time, as if considering what use he might be, he spoke.

["Wolfen. I need capable subordinates. Lots of them. A timid, sneaky fellow like you... Hmm. You might just barely qualify as our party's spy!"]

["Whaaat? You're going back to the Military State? You'll pass up the chance to become something greater and crawl back into that tiny rat hole?"]

["Hah. I never knew you were such a small-minded man without a shred of romance. I'm offering you a fragment of the power to change this world, and you want to settle for being a backstreet boss? Honestly. Even a horse galloping across the plains takes in land it hadn't seen yesterday. But you want to hole up in a rat's nest and stare at the same scenery forever? Ugh."]

["Oh, don't worry. I don't kill everyone who disappoints me. Why bother? Having someone stir up the Military State's backstreets works for me anyway."]

["Before you go, shall I tell you one of the Military State's secrets? Spread this around and they'll go absolutely mad. What happens will depend on how you use it."]

The red-haired mage spoke, reminiscing about the past. Apparently even a monster like him had memories to cherish; his eyes gazed into the distance...

["Ever heard of Hamelin? Something very interesting happened there..."]

"And second."

The Musketeer's voice dragged Wolfen out of his recollections.

"Why did you spread word of that incident to Black Cat? Was that Lankart's order too, or did you act on your own?"

This time he didn't understand what she meant. Wolfen voiced his confusion.

"Black... Cat? You mean the Family's territory?"

"Yes."

"I don't... know what you mean."

"Hah? Trying to deny it?"

CRUNCH.

A weight like a boulder bore down on Wolfen's knee. As pain crushed through his joint, the Musketeer's voice bored into his ears.

"Black Cat is a gossip rag that runs exposés. It occasionally uncovers military corruption, so naturally Intelligence keeps an eye on it. But putting that name right out in the open... What the hell? That's practically calling me over, isn't it?"

"That... name...?"

The Musketeer frowned and pressed him, as if telling him to stop playing dumb.

"Huey, the top student in his entire secondary school. I don't know what possessed Lankart to tell you even that. But if he gave you that bastard's name... you were being played from the start. He might as well have asked me to kill you."

Wolfen agreed about having been played, but everything else the Musketeer said was new to him. Bewildered, he answered,

"I've never heard that name before."

"What?"

"All I know is that their deaths were suicides. That they cursed the Military State before dying. And that Lankart... placed second. Nothing more. He said... the rest depended on how I used it... so I made up the details."

"That fucker was third! Apart from that, it's more or less true."

Wolfen wasn't lying, and his words carried that sincerity.

Confronted with something she hadn't expected, the Musketeer fell into thought. She vigorously scratched her head with her gun, rummaged in her pocket as though searching for something, then heaved a deep sigh and clicked her tongue.

"True, that's not Lankart's style. And you lot have no reason to do it. Then what is this? Who the hell did it?"

The Musketeer sank deep into thought, paying no attention to Wolfen beneath her foot. As though he were a stone by the roadside.

Yet being treated like a stone left Wolfen feeling helpless rather than indignant.

'... Powerless.'

This was precisely what Wolfen had learned in the bottomless pit.

In a world where everyone's standing was fixed, all resistance was powerless.

Whether talent, mystery, or time, there were walls that determined human strength, and those walls could never be crossed. No amount of struggling would bring him within reach. Those who stood in realms he could never overcome didn't even glance down below.

Perhaps someone could do it. Surpass that wall and stand shoulder to shoulder with the supreme powers.

But those blessed enough were already chosen.

The rest would merely crash against the wall and disappear.

For a man who had once reigned as the Shadow in the days of the Kingdom, the realities of Tantalus were almost impossible to accept. Like a believer discovering that his god did not exist, Wolfen had sunk into despair and despondency.

For him, the bottomless pit was true to its name: a hell into which he sank without end.

Then one day, when a chance to escape the bottomless pit presented itself, Wolfen abandoned higher aspirations and sought to rule over the weak.

Yet in the end, he had caught the eye of someone stronger and was about to die.

'Fighting the magician gave me the wrong idea. I should never, ever have confronted her head-on.'

The magician was weak, but he had used all manner of tools to trick and deceive Wolfen. They had crossed blades directly only twice. If only Wolfen had recognized his ability from the beginning and attacked with all his strength...

No, if only he hadn't abandoned his own tactics while fighting him. The outcome might still have been similar, but at least it would have been better...

Something kept nagging at his heart. But however hard he tried to identify it, Wolfen could only grope in vain, as though he had been cast into darkness...

Then, in his field of vision, on the rooftop of a building tapering toward the sky...

I appeared.

Cane in hand and hat on my head, I stood on the rooftop railing. Lost in thought, the Musketeer couldn't see me. From a spot visible only to the fallen man, I tipped my hat and extended my cane in greeting.

Wolfen gave a quiet sigh.

"Ah."

Despite lacking the ability, one had won while the other had lost.

I had escaped successfully, while Wolfen lay defeated beneath a military boot.

If he wanted to survive, he should have lived a little more quietly. He was the one who'd caused all this trouble.

Well, I wasn't going to brag. I had mind reading, so comparing us on equal terms wouldn't be fair.

Still, one thing was certain.

You were the one lying there, but you were stronger than me.