Chapter 253 - Click, Rumble

“Ghk!”

From Maia ordering him to harm himself to Limon drawing a carving knife from inside his clothes, plunging it into his own neck, and collapsing with his eyes wide open, everything happened in the blink of an eye.

Then, silence.

Maia gazed at Limon, sprawled in the flower garden like a rotten old tree, with eyes as dark and gloomy as a swamp.

“Is this all a single weight can accomplish?”

Whether she was satisfied or disappointed was impossible to tell from her low murmur. Then she spoke coldly.

“How long do you intend to stay like that?”

It was then that Limon, lying in the flower bed, snapped his eyes open.

“Didn't you want me to play dead?”

“If you wanted to imitate a corpse properly, you could at least have made the effort to drive that knife another three inches deeper.”

“Then I'd actually be a corpse.”

“Shouldn't a loyal slave put his heart into even a game?”

At Maia's blade-sharp rebuke, Limon chuckled and sprang upright. He glanced at his wrist and shrugged.

“Why didn't you use a few more weights? Another two or three, and this wouldn't have ended as a joke.”

“That was merely a simple experiment.”

“You were checking whether you could kill me?”

“Yes.”

Maia's answer was blunt.

Was the coercive power of these scales real? And if it was, did it have enough power to command suicide? She was neither innocent nor honorable enough to trust Limon's oath without checking such things.

Knowing that, Limon was not flustered. He simply asked, perfectly nonchalant, “Were you satisfied with the results?”

“After I went so far as to command you to harm yourself, you're still chattering away unharmed. Do you think I would be satisfied?”

“Yes.”

“...”

Maia fell silent. Limon gave a wry chuckle, then pointed to the small scratch on his neck and the single drop of blood clinging to the tip of the carving knife in his hand. He spoke with unabashed ease.

“Because you made me bleed with nothing but a few words.”

Monarch-class players. The seven princesses of the Seven Dragons Society. Ancient spirits and avatars. Only formidable foes who were at least absolute beings could put so much as a scratch on him, so drawing even a single drop of his blood was an astonishing achievement. Watching Limon shamelessly sing his own praises, Maia finally sneered.

“It certainly exceeded my expectations.”

Maia readily admitted it.

Throughout history, apart from the seven dragons, only another Sword Master had ever been able to kill a Sword Master. In that sense, injuring Limon with a mere command was no negligible accomplishment, even if it had drawn only one drop of blood.

“Especially considering that I still have six weights left.”

One weight alone had made Limon bleed. What would happen if she used all six to command him to harm himself—and gave him a spear rather than something like a carving knife? Watching Maia finger her wrist as though eager to test it immediately, Limon narrowed his eyes.

“Will you use them?”

“... Not yet.”

“That's unexpected. I thought you would try to kill me right away, mistress.”

“Hmph. Spare me your tricks.”

“Tricks? Mine?”

Limon widened his eyes, as though wondering what she meant when he was the one who had nearly died just now. Maia regarded him with loathing, as if he were the greatest swindler alive.

“Don't play innocent. Do you think I haven't noticed the risk these scales carry?”

Their weights currently stood at 6:4. They had originally been at 7:3, but her command to harm himself had transferred one white weight to the black side. That had revealed the fatal risk of these scale tattoos—and Limon's motive in subtly encouraging her to give another command.

“If I spend my remaining weights and still fail to kill you, won't you have all ten?”

Maia pointed to the black scales tattooed on his wrist. If a weight changed sides each time she used their coercive power, that meant granting coercive power to her opponent. Unless she could kill Limon in one stroke, failure would effectively give him the opportunity to kill her—or force her to endure something worse.

Conversely, using only one or two weights would mean facing less coercive power in return. It was a perfect case of low risk, low return; high risk, high return.

“The number of weights is suspicious as well.”

“Suspicious?”

“Why is the number fixed at ten?”

Whether their purpose was to assess fairness or quantify coercive power, allowing a hundred or a thousand weights to accumulate would make the numbers more objective. Why impose a limit? Pointing that out with a chilly smile, Maia offered her own theory.

“Isn't it because collecting all ten weights grants enough coercive power to command absolutely anything?”

Just as the difference between one and zero could be as great as that between the finite and the infinite, perhaps these scales revealed their true power only when all the weights were gathered. At Maia's confident question, Limon gave a brief murmur of admiration.

“An excellent deduction.”

“Are you admitting it's true?”

“Well, this is my first time actually using this ability, too.”

“I don't want such vague answers. Act like a slave and answer with either yes or no.”

Maia pressed him with a piercing stare, making it clear she would not allow him to evade her with ambiguities. Limon shrugged and answered.

“I don't really know either.”

CLICK, RUMBLE.

“...”

Silence followed. Both Limon, who had answered, and Maia, who had heard him, fell silent as they watched a black weight roll across the scales tattooed on their respective wrists and turn white.

Their reactions afterward, however, could not have been more different.

“... Damn it.”

Limon grimaced as though he had made a mistake.

Maia, on the other hand, twisted her lips into a smile, as though she had stumbled upon an unexpected stroke of luck.

“I see. Now I understand.”

The weights returning to 7:3 alone taught her a great deal. Just as fulfilling a promise faithfully earned weights, breaking one allowed the other party to take them. And Limon, too, did not fully understand the power of these scale tattoos.

Above all, one thing mattered.

“To kill you, I will first need to collect all ten weights.”

Wasn't Limon's mistake in lying to his mistress, behaving unlike a proper slave, itself proof that those ten weights held great significance? At Maia's sneering question, Limon sighed.

“Well, now. One slip of the tongue has cost me quite a lot.”

“Rest easy. Thanks to that, I no longer intend to command you to harm yourself immediately.”

“... How reassuring.”

If she ordered him to harm himself now, he would only bleed a little. How kind of Maia to tell him so gently that she would steadily gather all ten weights and finish him off for certain. After briefly despairing at her consideration, Limon suddenly asked a question.

“By the way, mistress, where did you get those weights?”

Before she had commanded him to harm himself, her five white weights had increased to seven. Limon seemed genuinely curious about why. Maia answered with a mocking question of her own.

“Wouldn't you know the reason better than I?”

“I know you treated the sculptor, but I don't understand how you advanced his treatment so much in one go.”

Limon scratched his cheek as he asked. Maia's answer was simple.

“I merely spent a little money and medicine.”

“Hmm. You must have used some rather precious medicine.”

“Hardly precious. All I gave him was an elixir made with thousand-year snow ginseng, the Water of Life, amrita, golden apples, and the like.”

Limon blinked once, wondering whether he had misheard, then asked to confirm.

“Isn't that the recipe for the Golden Furnace Immortality Pill?”

“Identifying a medicine from its ingredients alone. You certainly live up to your worldwide renown, Sword Duke.”

“Are you sure it's all right to give him that? As far as I know, it isn't something you can casually hand out to outsiders.”

Limon spoke uneasily. The Golden Furnace Immortality Pill he knew was one of the Green Dragon Clan's finest elixirs, taking decades just to manufacture. True to its name, it could rejuvenate even an ordinary person by ten years. A Seven Dragons Society martial artist who took it would advance their psionics by one stage, while a master-level expert could live more than two hundred years longer. It was a priceless treasure.

Yet Maia did not so much as twitch an eyebrow.

“If a pill costing less than a mere fifty billion reais gives me a chance to kill you, it's a bargain. Why would it not be all right?”

“... What an honor.”

Limon roughly calculated the exchange rate between Brazilian reais and Korean won, then abandoned the thought entirely once the sum passed into the trillions. Worrying about money on behalf of a princess of the Seven Dragons Society was absurd to begin with.

“The sculptor must have another twenty years to live now.”

As Limon gave a hollow laugh, thinking of Hermann's unexpected windfall, Maia responded with a cold sneer.

“Do you think it will end at a mere twenty years?”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Do you imagine that a single Golden Furnace Immortality Pill is the only elixir at my disposal?”

“Surely stuffing him with precious medicine indiscriminately won't necessarily be good for him?”

Limon asked uneasily. Even the finest medicine became little better than poison when overused. Taking several elixirs on the level of the Golden Furnace Immortality Pill in a short period was practically an act of someone desperate to die.

“Who do you think I am?”

... That was, if the person prescribing them had been anyone other than Maia.

No matter how potent an elixir was, she could ensure it was absorbed. If it allowed her to kill him, she would not begrudge even hundreds of elixirs. Watching her say that with a sneer, Limon inwardly clicked his tongue.

‘This is why the Green Dragon Clan...’

He had never imagined she would analyze and exploit the scales' power so aggressively. He had not underestimated her, but he had to admit he had underestimated her obsession with revenge.

Still, he was not particularly worried. Even if she used elixirs like water, she could not cure Hermann overnight. If he found the Forest Guild's headquarters in the meantime, he could prevent her from taking every weight. Of course, that would not be done overnight either, but fortunately, Limon had a dependable ally in Li Qingyu...

“Let me make this clear in advance. From now on, I will not permit you to contact Li Qingyu or anyone else in the Black Dragon Clan.”

“... Why not?”

“Because this concerns our Green Dragon Clan.”

Revenge belonged to them alone. Unlike employing a slave who was their property, borrowing another clan's strength for revenge was tantamount to disgrace. Ignoring that fact and contacting another clan to receive or pass along information would be considered betrayal. Having stated that firmly, Maia smiled coldly and added one more remark.

“Rest easy. Even if you fail to find the Forest Guild's base, I will not punish your incompetence and laziness.”

Limon felt distinctly uncomfortable. Disobeying his mistress was something a slave must not do, so contacting the Black Dragon Clan would cost him more weights. Likewise, failing to carry out her instructions would make him an incompetent, lazy slave and cost him weights. In other words, he would lose them either way.

“You really must be desperate to kill me.”

“Our clan's grudge against you is hardly so slight that a single word like ‘desperate’ could describe it.”

She would have her revenge without fail. As Maia fixed him with her dark, piercing gaze, Limon thought:

‘I'm seriously going to fucking die at this rate, aren't I?’

Half of him felt the rather belated regret that gambling with his life might, after all, have been a little reckless. The other half reflected on the importance of insurance.

“Mistress, if I already know where the Forest Guild is, does that spare me being treated as an incompetent slave?”

“What nonsense are you—”

CLICK, RUMBLE.

“...”

Watching Maia freeze at the sight of the scales returning to 5:5, Limon recalled their meeting yesterday, when he had learned about ambrosia. Smiling cheerfully, she had said, [“I'll tell you beforehand, just in case,”] and supplied the Forest Guild's location as a bonus.

A princess whose cunning exceeded even the Green Dragon Clan's ruthlessness. Remembering his sly bride-to-be, who was therefore utterly dependable as an ally, he murmured that the Black Dragon Clan truly did live up to its name.