Chapter 302 - Evil Spirit (6)

THWACK!

The instant I brought the Demon Crusher down on Beck's shiny crown with all my strength—

SPLURT!

His skull and scalp burst together, sending fountains of blood gushing from every opening.

A successful surprise attack. But these bastards had been through everything, and they reacted quickly even with their leader's head smashed open.

The archer darted backward, putting distance between us.

"You crazy bastard!"

The melee fighters rushed forward, moving in perfect coordination to block me on either side.

What were they, cockroaches?

WHOOSH!

Activating [Gigantification], I brought my hammer down on the shield warrior at the front.

Surprisingly, he didn't dodge. He merely raised his shield into the hammer's path and shouted,

"Stab him!"

Right, he'd block while the others gutted me from the sides?

A glance told me his shield was quite a fine piece.

'Adamantium.'

He seemed to be putting his faith in that expensive shield...

But there were plenty of even better items in this world.

'Keep struggling.'

Hammer met shield with an explosive roar.

BOOOOM!

His shield was fine, with only a slight dent.

But...

CRUNCH!

The man holding it sprayed blood from every opening like a drink can punctured with an awl.

After all, I hadn't used [Swing] earlier, so I hadn't gotten to see the double-digit Numbered item's effects.

A 500% damage increase and Magic Power consumption reduced by half when using blunt-weapon skills.

And a 50% armor penetration bonus on downward strikes.

THUD.

He collapsed, his eyes bulging grotesquely from the pressure.

Next.

I shifted my gaze to my third target, and he backed away. A quick glance showed the archer farther back doing the same.

Were they trying to run?

That was almost funny.

I had no intention of letting them go.

'Transcendence.'

I swiftly recited the commands.

'Eye of the Storm.'

The active skill I'd acquired from Stormgush.

THOOM!

I stamped my foot, and a vortex began to rage around me.

It was different from the one Stormgush had used.

That was [Transcendence] at work.

WHOOOOOSH!

[Eye of the Storm] no longer pulled in enemies within a five-meter radius.

Instead, it selected a target within twenty meters.

Just one, dragged right in front of me.

"Agh, aaaaaagh!"

Just like this.

CRUNCH!

That made three.

Still not satisfied, I checked on my last target, the fleeing archer. If he'd gotten too far away, I intended to chase him with [Leap].

But...

SHUNK.

Amelia had already closed in and finished him off.

What a rational woman.

Like it or not, the damage was done. She must have decided killing them all to silence them was the best option.

"Ah, ugh, uh, p-please..."

THWACK!

Amelia struck the back of Jenssia's neck, knocking out the child beside the archer, then approached me.

She spoke tersely.

"That was foolish."

"Because they work for the lord?"

"No. Because now we have to kill this child too, thanks to you."

... Was that how this worked?

But she'd definitely been alive back then.

"There would have been plenty of chances to kill them besides today. Even if you hadn't acted, I intended to kill them myself eventually."

"... You did?"

"I'm partly responsible for this too."

Responsible...

Ah, I didn't know anymore.

My head was a mess.

EEEEEEEEEE.

I'd beaten them all to death, but the ringing remained.

Far from feeling relieved, I felt even more stifled.

"Why did you act so rashly? Didn't you say he was a father you'd never even met?"

That was true.

I even knew that beating all these bastards to death like a madman couldn't make anything up to him.

In fact, nothing could be more hypocritical.

But...

"I just..."

I couldn't find a better way to put it.

"I just... felt like it."

"... I see."

Unexpectedly, Amelia didn't get angry at that.

She simply stared at me in silence.

"..."

I turned my head as if to avoid her gaze.

And saw Jandel Jarku's corpse.

Beyond his battle wounds, there were signs all over his body that they'd treated him like a toy.

I clenched both fists tightly.

Our brief conversation inside the rupture came back to me.

["Bjorn, was it? Have a child soon if you can. It's sad to leave nothing behind in this world."]

["... Is it?"]

["Yes. I didn't know that myself until I had one."]

Jarku had told me that a child of your blood was like another version of yourself.

That it was a truly wondrous thing.

That after having a child, he'd found something he wanted even more than to become a great warrior himself.

["Heh heh. He'll be a magnificent warrior, I'm sure."]

And so I'd fled.

["Stop!"]

["Hm?"]

["Enough. I'll be going now..."]

Those words had driven the realization painfully home.

Even if I lived as Bjorn Jandel, saved countless people, and became someone the city revered as a hero...

'I could never be forgiven.'

Even if none of this was what I'd wanted.

My fists tightened.

No matter what anyone said, the truth wouldn't change.

In the end, I was an evil spirit.

One who had stolen even this barbarian warrior's one precious legacy.

* * *

"You seem to have calmed down a little."

Amelia spoke as I stood endlessly staring at Jandel Jarku's corpse.

She wasn't wrong.

Time heals all wounds, was it?

At some point, the ringing had subsided and I'd stopped trembling.

Now it was time to think about cleaning up the mess I'd made.

I looked at the unconscious Jenssia and spoke.

"... Do we have to kill her?"

"What other choice is there? If this child returns alive, the lord's people will find out what we did."

Ah, fucking hell.

I let out a deep, frustrated sigh, and Amelia asked,

"Is there some reason we shouldn't kill her?"

"She's still... a child."

Even as I answered, I wondered.

Why was I trying to find a way not to kill her?

After all, I knew the future.

This child would live a hellish life, then have her body stolen by an evil spirit as an adult.

So perhaps dying now would be better...

'Fucking hell.'

A curse sprang to mind.

What was I thinking?

That since she'd die someday anyway, killing her now wouldn't change anything? That killing her might even prove Auriel Gabis wrong?

I firmly shook my head.

"... We can't kill her. Let's find another way."

"That's not like you."

"What do you know about me?"

She didn't even know I was an evil spirit.

The sharp words escaped before I could stop them, but inwardly, I did concede her point.

Normally, I might well have made a different choice.

But...

'At least for today.'

I didn't want to do that right now.

Hadn't today been hard enough?

Even if this decision meant surrendering to fate, I couldn't take any more.

And so...

"You're right. I suppose I didn't know you very well. I never realized you were this weak. If you can't do it, I wi—"

"Stop."

I grabbed Amelia's wrist.

"... You'd better let go."

"Didn't I say we should find another way?"

"Another way? There's no surer way than this."

Oh, for crying out loud...

That was why I was asking her to think about another way with me for just a mome—

'Oh, right! That!'

An idea occurred to me, and I hurriedly spoke.

"The pills! Couldn't we erase her memories with that drug the Noark alchemist made? You said they work for the lord, right? They might have some!"

I said it with all the feeling of a philosopher shouting eureka, but Amelia merely snorted.

"At this point in time, that drug has only just been developed. There's no way these people would have something so precious."

"But shouldn't we at least look?"

"... Fine. If you need to see for yourself before giving up."

With that, Amelia shook off my hand.

"And one warning. Never grab my arm without permission again."

Touchy, wasn't she?

Amelia approached the corpses and began looting.

Okay, whether we found those pills or not, I'd bought some time to thin—

'Oh, wait.'

Belatedly, I realized I'd made a mistake.

Amelia didn't seem to have noticed yet, though...

'This is driving me crazy.'

Was it because I'd been so out of it earlier?

It was a mistake I'd never normally make.

'... I'll deal with that if she brings it up later.'

For now, I crouched down too, stripped the bodies of their equipment, and checked their backpacks.

All the while, I kept thinking of alternatives in case we didn't find any memory-erasing pills.

Then...

"... You're lucky. I never imagined they'd have these at this point in time."

We actually found pills in a bag.

* * *

Once we found the pills, everything went smoothly.

Amelia quickly put one in Jenssia's mouth, and we waited for her to regain consciousness.

Some time passed.

"Ugh, aaagh! Wh-what...!"

Jenssia woke with her hands and feet bound and a blindfold over her eyes. We quietly observed her reaction from a short distance away.

Since this was an early version of the drug, we thought it might be defective.

"Mister Beck! Mister Beck! H-help me!"

Seeing her call for the dead Beck confirmed that her memories had been erased.

But how far back did the memory loss go?

Jenssia, utterly distraught and muttering to herself, gave us the information we needed.

"To think she remembers nothing since entering the Crystal Cave. Perhaps because it's an early version, the effect seems excessive compared to the mass-produced one."

Amelia went over to the struggling Jenssia and knocked her out again, then even gave her a sleeping drug to keep her from waking along the way.

That settled this problem, at least.

"The Labyrinth will close soon. We only need to stay with her for a few hours."

We moved elsewhere and passed the time beside the sleeping Jenssia.

After all, we couldn't leave her alone in the Labyrinth.

If we waited until it closed, the lord's people would pick her up.

They'd try to find out what had happened, but she wouldn't remember anything.

"... Um, Amelia. I'm sorry about earlier."

I apologized while we waited, but Amelia ignored me, pretending not to hear.

How long did we spend in that awkward silence?

SHHHHHHH!

Pure white light poured out from every direction as the Labyrinth closed.

But there was no warm sunlight to greet us as usual, no refreshing breeze pleasantly caressing our bodies.

Only the dreary underground city welcomed us.

"We're out."

The Dimensional Plaza west of the lord's castle.

Even here, things differed from Raphdonia.

On the surface, explorers had to pass through a checkpoint and exchange their magic crystals after an expedition. Here, exchanging them was optional.

"Come on, let's get a drink!"

"Huh? Isn't that the kid from Beck's gang? Why's she there alone? Did the others die in there?"

"Iron Fang will be glad to hear that. He's been itching to get back at Beck."

The explorers dispersed to their various destinations, and the plaza soon emptied. Jenssia, lying some distance away, was found by the lord's people and carried off somewhere too.

"We should get moving too."

"Oh, right..."

We left the plaza and headed to a particular destination.

[Melta Trading Company]

Noark's only trading company, and the underground plunderers' favorite place to sell off equipment.

Unlike the fairly short line at the magic crystal exchange, the trading company's branch was swarming with people. Magic crystals themselves served as money here, so there was no need to exchange them.

Besides, I'd heard that even the exchange traded them for food or requested goods, not money.

"Hmm, Iron Mask and Emily. Our most talked-about visitors lately, aren't you?"

When our turn came, we took out all the equipment we'd stored.

Well, we left out Beck's group's gear.

Displaying that would obviously reveal we'd killed them.

"... You acquired all this on this expedition?"

As we emptied our backpacks in earnest, the employee's eyes grew increasingly glazed.

Noark might be crawling with plunderers, but apparently few came back with this much loot.

"This will take a little time. Would you please wait?"

The employee called over several more company appraisers, and they began tallying everything together.

About ten minutes later, we had their valuation.

Twenty-one rank-four magic crystals.

One rank-five magic crystal.

Seven rank-seven magic crystals.

Whew, put that way, it was hard to get a feel for the amount.

"How much is that at a Raphdonia exchange?"

"Ah, since this is your first visit to Noark, you may not be familiar with it. At last month's exchange rate, the total is 21,570,000 Stones."

Amelia had warned me, but these bastards really were thieves.

Sure, it was lower-floor equipment, and we hadn't put up things like subspace storage or Expanded Backpacks, but still.

"These would sell for well over seventy million Stones on the surface."

"Yes, on the surface, they would."

Listen to that smug tone.

"Forget it. Emily, let's pack up and leave."

"You mean you won't be selling?"

"Right. I'm not handing them over for such an absurd price."

"As you wish."

We packed the equipment back up and left.

The employee didn't even try to stop us or express disappointment.

He figured we'd have no choice but to sell to them in the end anyway.

"Let's head back to our lodgings for now."

We left the trading company branch and returned to our inn. After taking turns washing up, we sat facing each other and talked.

"Now that we've shown the trading company our plundered equipment, the lord should take an interest even without Beck."

That was why we'd visited with equipment we had no intention of selling.

The lord was effectively the owner of the trading company, after all.

Word of all the evidence of plundering we'd shown them, from bloodstained gear to identity tags, would reach his ears.

"Then we just wait until then."

"Yes, for now."

After discussing a few other things, I changed into casual clothes and lay down on the bed.

"If we're done talking, I'm going to sleep. I'm tired."

Of course, sleep didn't come easily.

I was still tossing and turning when Amelia suddenly spoke.

"Are you asleep?"

"No. Why?"

"Something occurred to me."

Something, huh...

I had a feeling I knew what it was.

Looking back, she must have remembered that little "mistake" from earlier.

"Go ahead."

"How did you learn about Amern's Blessing?"

Oh, so that was the drug's name.

It was news to me, but I answered naturally without letting it show.

"Oh, that? Didn't you give me some at the inn last time and tell me to take it?"

"But I never said it was made by a Noark alchemist."

"I was curious what it was, so I grabbed another Noark explorer and asked before killing him!"

"Hmm, I see. So that's how it was..."

What was with that tone?

She was making me nerv—

"Barbarian, first of all, those pills are called Lete's Blessing. Not Amern's Blessing."

Huh?

"Just as I suspected."

A shadow fell over my bed.

I cautiously shifted my gaze and saw Amelia standing there, looking down at me.

"You never lost your memories back then."

Checkmate.

From the looks of it, she'd noticed the moment I'd slipped up, then feigned ignorance until I let my guard down...

How could someone be this cunning?

With a sigh, I admitted it coolly.

"Yes. For some reason, I was the only one unaffected."

What could I do if the drug was defective?

And what was she going to do about it?

Back then, I'd hidden it because I feared she'd come to assassinate me if she knew I remembered. But there was no need for that now, was there?

Noark's existence had already been exposed to the whole city.

'Right. What do I have to hide at this point?'

Thinking about it, this was nothing to fret over.

So I sat bolt upright and looked boldly at Amelia, as if daring her to say whatever she had to say.

But what was this?

"..."

There was something strange about her eyes.

Something chilling, perhaps?

"... Why are you looking at me like that?"

Amelia answered coldly.

"Bjorn Jandel. Only evil spirits don't lose their memories to that drug."

Ah, uh, um...

'Fucking hell.'

That was another thing I hadn't known.