Chapter 90 - I absolve you of your sins (1)

Zemina was still sniffing as she walked behind Vlad, even now that the funeral was over.

Having lived in the rough and harsh back alleys, Zemina had seen many people die, but today, of all days, her tears would not stop.

It seemed the old man's death was enough to cause a ripple in Zemina's heart.

"Now you only have 1 gold and 10 silver left of your salary."

"... It can't be helped."

The salary of 4 gold coins, the first he had ever received in his life, ended up being spent on buying a grave and a tombstone for the old man.

It was a large sum for the funeral expenses of a mere back-alley dweller, but Vlad still decided to bury the old man in the sunniest spot possible near the monastery.

Because, in the end, he wanted to at least let him escape the back alleys.

"But I asked around everywhere, and nobody knows his name."

"Really?"

Haven had even gone out of his way to send people to ask around, but no one knew the old blacksmith's name.

Like a component that made up the back alleys, he was just a person who had been there since some unknown time, and his presence was simply taken for granted.

"I didn't know it either, so there's nothing we can do."

So, on the tombstone, instead of the old man's name, they had no choice but to engrave the image that Vlad remembered.

The greatest blacksmith of Soara.

Since he was the old man who made a sword that cut ghosts and pierced a dragon, it probably wasn't an entirely incorrect title.

"... But what's up with them?"

"Who? The kids?"

On the way back to Rose's Smiles after finishing the funeral for the old man.

There were gazes staring at Vlad from kids gathered in twos and threes all around the alleyways.

"They've been doing that a lot lately. If they want to beg, they should just do it."

The kids stared at Vlad from a distance, peeking out as if they were about to approach but then holding back.

Vlad was feeling a sense of incongruity and discomfort at the back-alley kids' attitude, which had changed quite a bit from before.

"Do you really not know why they're doing that?"

"Why are they doing it?"

"If you don't know, never mind."

The gazes the kids were sending right now were not unfamiliar to Haven.

Because Vlad, who was currently by his side, had also had that kind of look in his eyes when he was a child.

"This winter is colder than last year."

"Yeah."

Frowning for no reason as he met the kids' eyes one by one, Vlad smacked his lips and spoke.

"A lot of them are going to freeze to death."

Only those who have suffered through it know, and only those who have had nothing know.

The memories of his cold and hungry childhood were enough to group Vlad together with the kids standing far away right now.

"They'd probably be able to endure it if they just had a blanket, right?"

"That's true."

Vlad cleared his throat, scratched his chin, and looked at Haven.

"I think it's already a lost cause to save any money this month anyway."

"It'll cost 1 gold."

Haven already knew what Vlad was about to say.

"You can live for over a month with just 10 silver."

"There was a time when that was true."

The unadorned sword made by the old man was shining, so it had been able to give hope to Vlad.

And right now, if one were to name the brightest existence in the back alleys of Soara, it would undoubtedly be the blond knight.

A person who, despite being born and raised in the filthy back alleys, had grasped the star of knighthood with his own strength.

There is someone who made it even here.

"Tell them to say one prayer for the old man as you hand them out."

"One prayer for a blanket is a pretty profitable trade."

The unadorned sword had been buried in the ground along with the old blacksmith, but the star the old man made was still illuminating the back alleys even now.

Even if its name and form had changed.

* * *

It was weather that made even the exhaled breath freeze cold, but the fishy smell of blood and the stench of rotting meat spreading from all over did not easily subside.

"They say if you know how sausages are made, you can't eat them..."

Gregory seemed quite shocked that meat was being butchered in such an unsanitary place.

Black Bear's wretched slaughterhouse bluntly revealed the standard of living of the back-alley people that much.

"Otar, Age. You guys open the door first."

"Mhm."

As always, Otar hoisted his axe without a word of complaint at Vlad's order.

"Do you have something to say?"

"How about this time? Can I loosen up a bit?"

However, Age just quietly asked back despite Vlad's instructions.

As a free soul of the plains, Age was still not accustomed to the chain of command of the Northerners.

"He's a bastard who sold pregnant women and babies to black magic users. What do you think?"

"Guess I can kill to my heart's content."

As if finally understanding the situation, Age drew the distinctive sword of a barbarian and smirked.

Although he was a guy who rode a mystical horse, Age had thought it would be an uncomfortable cohabitation.

But after actually experiencing it, the young commander was surprisingly someone with a disposition that matched the temperament of the plains.

"They've probably noticed by now."

"We're going in."

At Gregory's words, Vlad quietly nodded.

The two knights had brought along the soldiers Joseph provided as well as their respective employees.

They had moved as stealthily as possible along the route Haven had set, but there was no way Black Bear could have failed to notice the movement of about 40 soldiers.

"Good."

The vanguard was the forces of Knight Vlad.

Because the blond knight was the proposer of this operation and its primary person in charge.

"Now!"

At Vlad's signal, the two men dashed toward Black Bear's base.

Befitting the building of the oldest back-alley boss, the door was large and sturdy.

"Hup!"

Otar mercilessly struck down his axe on the door handle made of bizarre bone decorations.

However, whether there were people supporting it from behind, the door only shook heavily and did not budge.

"Prepare the ladders."

Jager had said that the flow must never be broken.

He had taught him that even if an attack is blocked, one must always have the next move prepared, and through that, one must seize the initiative.

"Wait."

The soldiers moved to attach the ladders to the second-floor windows, but in that moment, Age raised his hand toward Vlad.

Between the tattoos engraved on his raised palm, a small light began to flicker.

"It's about time I showed off a little too."

Your world alone is not everything.

The manifestation of a world appears in various ways, and the barbarians also had their own methods and world.

"Weak bastards hiding behind doors."

With a quiet chant offered to the ancestors, Age's tattoos began to emit light.

The world of the barbarians was a world built up alongside their ancestors.

The spirits of the plains lent their strength to a pitiful descendant who bore the duty simply for survival.

CRACK!

The vast northern plains do not tolerate those who stand in their way.

"Come out! You cowardly bastards hiding behind doors!"

The door began to shatter under the kick of Age, who had drawn out the unstoppable world of the plains.

Along with the ominous sound of splintering wood, the bone decorations hanging on the door helplessly tumbled down.

"That crazy bastard!"

"It's a barbarian! A barbarian is attacking!"

"They're not barbarians; they're the Budaat Tribe!"

He said they were bastards who sold off the weak and young.

If so, it was fine to kill them.

The spirits of the plains residing within his tattoos also agreed with Age's anger.

BANG! BANG!

CRACK!

Through the gap Age had broken, Otar's axe swings rained down.

At the sight of the two men smashing a sturdy door with simple violence, the soldiers of Soara waiting behind them gulped down their saliva.

"I think we can go in now."

At the simple and crude, yet undeniably efficient sight, Gregory smiled without realizing it.

In life, there were times when such a satisfying sight was necessary.

"Then let's go in..."

Gregory looked at Vlad as if the time had come, but the boy who should have been standing there had already rushed forward.

"Move!"

With his left eye shut tightly, Vlad's entire body began to shine.

"...!"

"Whoa!"

A fast and ferocious momentum.

At the sight of him charging like a streak of lightning, Otar and Age quickly moved out of the way.

CRASH!

The door, which had barely been maintaining its shape, was finally blown to smithereens by Vlad's fierce charge.

However, despite the rough impact of breaking down the door, Lamund's body-strengthening art was solidly protecting Vlad.

"They broke in!"

"Stop them! I said stop them!"

Vlad's sword flashed amidst the bone decorations rolling about everywhere.

Although he had ended up handing over the headless man to the voice, his own hands would be more than enough for these guys.

"Sons of bitches!"

From Vlad's fingertips, which had wiped away Anna's black tears, a shining world began to burst forth.

The sorrow and frustration he had felt in the fog-filled village were sucked into the boy's world and became excellent nourishment for it.

Thus, the world Vlad exuded now was one that had firmly taken root to a degree incomparable to before.

"Go in!"

"Everyone, move in!"

Age and Otar quickly followed behind Vlad, and at Gregory's command, Soara's soldiers began to storm into Black Bear's base.

The lobby, which could be considered quite spacious, began to fill with the breaths and curses spat out by the gang members and the soldiers.

"Listen up!"

There were those who stood in his way, but he cut them down.

Thus, having created a zone where no one dared to lunge at him, Vlad pulled out the warrant he carried in his coat and shouted loudly.

"I am Vlad of Soara! I have come here to arrest Black Bear, who has disrupted the order of the city!"

With a flick of Vlad's hand, the scroll rolled downward.

At the very bottom of the scroll was the stamped seal of Joseph, the rightful ruler of Soara.

"Murder! Fraud! Human trafficking! And the crime of deceiving the noble lord of the city!"

He shines because he stands at the very front.

He is more confident than anyone because he is justified.

Because of that, everyone here had no choice but to listen to Vlad's shouting voice.

"Black Bear, come out before me right this instant!"

The only response to Vlad's stern command, which felt like a proclamation, was heavy silence.

Because there was no one who could offer an excuse to a knight who had arrived with a legitimate warrant.

"God damn it."

"... Fuck this."

They knew it would mean the death penalty if caught anyway.

However, unlike One-Armed Jack's underlings, Black Bear's subordinates could not easily approach Vlad.

"From this moment on, anyone who interferes with me. I will slaughter you all."

A small aura was rising from Vlad's closed left eye.

Here stood a knight who now knew how to read a warrant without anyone's help.

* * *

"Aaaagh!"

"Spare me! Please spare me!"

Screams echoed along the staircase.

Black Bear's subordinates were skilled at killing and chopping up things, but when it was their turn to suffer, they merely wailed loudly.

"..."

Vlad quietly stepped up the stairs along the path that Age and Otar opened for him.

With a heavy presence matching his expanded vessel, he was treading upward, stepping through the sticky puddles of blood.

"Open it."

There were men guarding the boss's room at the very end, but at a single nod from Vlad, they only cowered, trembling like leaves.

Vlad's momentum, existing somewhere between a knight's duty and his own personal fury, was too overwhelming for mere gang members to handle.

CREAK!

As the boss's door opened at Vlad's command, the figure of Black Bear sitting inside came into view.

His restlessly trembling pupils and his forehead, damp with sweat despite it being winter, showed just how nervous he was.

"Welcome, Sir Vlad."

However, Vlad's gaze was not directed at Black Bear.

A man who was slowly standing up behind him.

He was wearing a white clerical robe.

"... Who are you?"

Vlad was momentarily flustered by the appearance of an unexpected figure, but he quickly showed courtesy.

If the man in front of him was indeed a priest following God's will as he appeared to be, then even a knight like Vlad could not treat him carelessly.

He had been taught that there were areas where nobles and priests could not interfere with one another.

"I am someone who has come from the church of Soara following the Bishop's orders. I heard there was a lost lamb here."

It was a wrinkled face, but it was full of a healthy glow.

It was the exact opposite of Andreas, the most noble priest he knew.

"I have come here following the orders of Lord Joseph. The man standing beside you, Priest, is a clear sinner and..."

"There are no sinners here anymore, Sir Vlad."

A truly reassuring smile.

With a smile full of benevolence, the priest soon pulled out a piece of paper toward Vlad.

"Because his sins have been absolved in the name of God."

At the priest's words, Black Bear wiped his sweat and let out a sigh of relief, as if everything was finally okay.

"..."

Vlad quietly stared at the paper the priest thrust toward him.

The paper, seemingly freshly stamped, still had wet, vivid ink on it.

At the very top of it was written the word 'Indulgence'.