Chapter 611 – Brothers and Hell

000

“Haha, don’t make such a hateful face. Is this the face you would make toward the older brother you met after two years?”

His brother, facing him, laughed and just shrugged his shoulders, as if the negative emotions swirling inside Rachal were revealed in his facial expression.

The relationship between the two isn’t bad, it’s a bit insufficient to describe it.

Compensating for each other’s shortcomings, the two of them have survived on the battlefield.

It was the older brother who started stealing first.

In order to live with the younger brother who was weak, it was necessary for two people – no, more than three people to do their part.

“Why did you show up after two years?”

However, it seems that the brotherly love for him seems to have faded from the current Rakshals, and with sharp eyes, he put his hand on the handle of the sword hung on his waist and fired at it.

In response to the younger brother’s sincere hospitality, Raksha’s brother raises the corner of his mouth and raises both of his hands to the side of his face, as if he had no intention of fighting.

“He hit me in the back of the head and stabbed me in the back.”

“Ah. It did.”

Two years ago, it was an incident in which Raksha was washed up on the riverside with a deep piercing wound on his back through his chest.

Just before he lost consciousness, he remembered that it was his brother’s sword that pierced him.

And, of course, the conversation I had with him just before that.

With that wound, he didn’t have to say that he almost died, but the brother who heard the story shrugged his shoulders once more and replied with a smile.

“I was trying to make sure you could enter this Asteris without problems. You really didn’t mean to kill me? Younger brother.”

“What…?”

As if not knowing what he was talking about, when the expression on his face became mysterious, his brother would talk while clicking his tongue and tapping his temple with his index finger.

“I hurt you and knocked you out. And then I secretly threw you in front of the temple. Then, of course, the priest or shaman will heal you. I had no choice but to put someone with an unknown identity like you inside Asteris. If you’re injured, you won’t be able to treat them carelessly even in the temple.”

‘It was unexpected that the one who saved you became Daemu-nyeo,’ he added, adding that when the brother smiled, Raccoon couldn’t stand it and almost grabbed him by the collar.

But- the brother’s eyes were crooked like crescent moons, but the eyes inside them weren’t smiling at all.

Those eyes–as always, they were the eyes of a ‘brother’, showing to themselves or to make them listen to their commands.

If you go against him with these eyes, even if it’s his brother, without hesitation, he will punch you.

Although they had not met for two years, the pain and fear of that time still dominated the body of Rakshasa.

“Is this going to clear up the misunderstanding? I am still your ‘brother’. I’m worried about you. Properly, I was thinking of saving you, so I guess it would be okay to be thanked instead? Because it allowed me to experience the ‘normal life’ you wanted.”

“…”

Despite the words of the brother who spoke so confidently, Rakshah did not give an answer, but he kept eye contact with him.

The meaning contained in it- Okay, tell me why you came. That would be

“Then, let’s get to the point.”

As if he couldn’t help it, he lowered his hand and spoke to his brother, erasing the smile from his face.

“We must not have forgotten our purpose. Why are you, here and now, ‘playing’ such an ordinary thing?”

His blood seemed to freeze—the same cold voice as when he emerged from the shadows, and Rachal felt his breathing stop.

Although he always speaks in a normal tone, he must be feeling that his little brother reflected in his eyes is becoming a different person than before.

“…I know.”

But- but.

Even now, having attained a normal life, he is the one and only brother to the raksal.

It was impossible for him to betray him, Rakshasa thought as he clenched his fists.

“Thank god. Because you have been forgetful since childhood. Hyung, I think you forgot.”

Then, after hearing Raksha’s answer – no, ‘seeing’ the answer, the brother comes to such a Raksha and pats him on the shoulder.

Ever since I was little, the gestures that I used to make when a rake did something to help my brother, now it’s terribly creepy.

I had the illusion that it made me feel the relationship between him and his superior.

“I have to. Plural.”

“…”

Brother whispers so.

Like the incarnation of revenge that appears in mythology, whispering in the dark not to forget his mission.

“To this world that made our hell.”

In response to his voice telling him not to miss Hangul characters and listen to them straight in his ears, Nachal silently nodded his head.

And, at the voice of his brother, what came back to life little by little in his head was himself and his hell.

001

Their brothers first recognized their existence in a place worthy of the word ‘hell’.

Between the kingdom and the Eastern countries, there were many small countries that could never defeat a large country with their national strength, even if their history was as old as that.

Originally, even in a situation where the kingdom and the Eastern countries gradually expanded their power, they had initially formed an alliance or maintained a cooperative relationship so that they would not become their vassals.

However, human beings are, after all, no matter how much they trust each other, if even one of them starts to have a different mind, the cancer of suspicion spreads like a tumor in an instant.

When wars start to break out between countries that were allies that were bordering on each other, the war spreads out of control.

A scenario heading for destruction under the name of a unification war by a total of six small countries has opened its curtains.

Rakshala and her older brother, the twins, were a clan of dark demons born in a place where the six hells were messed up.

Father doesn’t know, mother doesn’t either.

I couldn’t even remember how the two orphans were able to grow up to the point where they could walk.

I just remembered that I had done anything to keep my life alive.

They rummaged through corpses and sometimes even ate the flesh of corpses.

The war devastated the land day by day, and even the people in it were turned into monsters wearing human skin.

This land, where the emotions of wealth fluctuated, was a place that was difficult to endure even for the two people from the dark horse clan.

At least, thanks to such a feeling of wealth, the sword of the two people – the magic sword quickly gained power.

Thanks to this, even at the age of being called a boy, Nachar’s brother was able to unite the orphans of the area and lead an organization that could live on their own.

At first, in an increasingly harsh war, to rescue child soldiers from those who use them as meat shields.

Or, it was a group to protect themselves from the soldiers who tried to take away the few food they had, or even the weapons and armor that were too scarce to use in war.

However, thanks to the existence of Raksha’s brother, they, who were war orphans who were despised and called hungry ghosts, were able to grow to the point where they could even attack soldiers and steal their supplies.

From then on, their organization came to be called the ‘bandits’.

Everywhere you look, it’s an insult, but what they did was also undeniably the thief itself.

And most of all, Raksha’s brother liked the name.

“Yes, we will take it. Anything you want from the motherfuckers who made this hell for us!”

I can still clearly recall the brother’s face shouting while holding the wanted notice against the bandits.

After that, after several years, the Kingdom and the East, which were not intervening due to reluctance to interfere in state affairs, intervened in the conflict zone.

At first, the small countries also resisted in their own way, but in the end, the war gradually began to show a lull as the countries that were messed up inside and outside were absorbed one by one as part of the kingdoms and Eastern countries that intervened in them.

Of course- it would be the brothers of Raksha and their comrades who are getting more and more difficult to maintain the gang of bandits due to the intervention of the Eastern countries.

The thieves, who already had anger, hatred, and doubts for adults, continued to do what they were doing despite the intervention of the East.

I wonder if they’ll be afraid of something like the regular army from now on.

The soldiers of the Eastern countries met for the first time were also able to seize victory and take away a lot in the same way.

But after that, all of that was thoroughly shattered.

Behind the brothers who were dragging bloodstains and moving, numerous pursuers were chasing them with a rustling sound.

Some of them put flesh on the tip of their bloody weapons and stabbed their comrades who were in the same band of bandits with them.

Normally – I wouldn’t have suffered.

Apart from himself, he thought that there was no one among the soldiers of the kingdom army who could catch Raksha’s brothers with the strength of ordinary soldiers.

The thieves centered on the brothers were strong.

He knew all of the topography of the place he had made his hideout, and he had been handing over subjugation operations several times by drawing enemies in and dealing with them one by one in the dark.

In the royal palace, the thieves were so far away that they couldn’t even recognize their brother’s face.

However, the weapons and armor used by the guys from the Eastern countries-

Made of black metal, it broke through its traps as if by magic, and slowly advanced to the center of the hideout.

And finally, all the members except the brother lost their lives, and the brother of Raksha was wounded during the battle and the flesh of his face was cut into chunks.

Just like that, the bandits were annihilated with only the leader and his brother surviving.

Rakshasa and his brother, who somehow managed to escape and treat their wounds in an abandoned cabin in the mountains, didn’t even have to talk about what to do afterwards.

Raksha’s brother sang vengeance, and Rakzal agreed to it.

And he said this.

“The black metal equipment they used… I need to know what they are. If people and equipment lose to them, there is no chance for us.”

So, instead of me who has become this kind of person, you go to the east country and find out its identity.

Called.

Right after that, Raksha nodded.

The sensation of a cold blade piercing his chest – the horrible feeling of his own blood running down his skin.

And in the burning, burning pain felt in the wound.

Rachal has lost his mind.

002

“So… The ore used by the Eastern countries is a special one called ‘adamantite’. …Haha! It’s fun. Mithril or something like that, a rare metal.”

The brothers who received the story they heard from Gaios from Rakshasa nodded and smiled as if they understood.

“Good. Rachal. Then next time, somehow find out where the mine is. Let’s take the adamantite mine… And use it to make a very powerful weapon. The old bandits were wiped out, but now there are new subordinates—”

Nachal’s brother laughed heartily, spinning his body and raising his arms.

“Then, burn that divine tree with that weapon. It will spread in an instant and the entire capital will become ‘hell’!”

At the words of such a brother, a flashback of Nayuta and the other people he met in Asteris was scattered on the ground in a bloody corpse.

“—Now, wait.”

Unknowingly, after uttering such a voice, Rachal’s brother stops his movement, then lowers his arm again and looks at his brother expressionlessly.

“…Revenge… I want to, too. But that much——is it necessary to burn the sacred tree…? The ones we have to avenge are, to the end, the regular soldiers of the Eastern countries…”

Rachal himself may not have properly understood what he was talking about.

Just now, he thought it was necessary to dampen his brother’s vengeance, which was burning so fiercely.

However, the brother of rachal talks to such a rachal.

“Rachal… What are you talking about?”

“…Uh?”

The brother’s voice answered bluntly, as if telling him not to be stupid.

“The revenge I spoke of… I’m not trying to annihilate the bandits from before.”

Having said that, he quickly approached the rakshasa, pulled out the magic sword stuck in his waist, and brought it to his younger brother’s neck.

“Revenge against all of this unreasonable, incomplete and… Absurd world. We must take revenge on the entire world for not passing on the ‘ordinary happiness’ we should have enjoyed in the first place. It is not so?”

His black magic sword was a bit short to be called a long sword, and the blade was not straight, but zigzag like a beast’s teeth.

The old sword, as if the blade was missing here and there, was a demonic sword of struggle that showed the brothers’ personalities themselves.

“…Brother…”

He said one day

Inside of himself, there is a voice that is like another one.

That voice is always full of rage—it seems like it’s trying to erode his own mind.

Although he did not hear the voice in his older brother’s mind, which was slowly becoming more violent, Rachal believed his older brother’s words.

“I think Echidna thinks so too.”

Saying so, Rakshasa could no longer say anything to his brother, who was staring at his black demonic sword.

To Raksha’s reaction, the brother sat away from him as if satisfied, then turned and walked into the darkness.

“Okay then, see you later brother. Next time, know where the mines are.”

003

“…”

After Cleon listened to their conversation, he was silent for a while.

Just in case, I read the book written by Kanon itself, but there were no siblings to Rakshasa in it, and they did not appear.

Was it the same for Fleur, and was Kanon himself embarrassed while watching the video?

As they looked at each other, they couldn’t say anything.

“I wonder if Rachal’s brother was a terrorist—— he’s a dangerous guy.”

As if only Artis was interested, he wrote down the contents of the video in a memo.

“If there was no information about Raksha’s brother in the book- that must also be related to Gaios. The reason why he had to disappear while erasing his own existence at the same time.”

To Cleon’s words, Lyla nodded her head and spoke to Kanon.

“As I remember, in the book written by Kanon, the rakshasa got a weapon powerful enough to cause thunder from somewhere, and ordered his subordinates to slaughter countless people and set fire to sacred trees. Then- that powerful weapon is an adamantite weapon…”

At Cleon’s words, Kanon nodded his head.

“Perhaps, some of the things Raksha’s brother did were attributed to Raksa… If that’s the case, you can think of a reason why he, who was in a relationship with Nayuta, suddenly became strange and slaughtered.”

After Layla and Cleon nodded at Kanon’s persuasive words, Artis operated the video-controlling machine for a while before opening his mouth.

“This… The background is dark, and it looks like a cave somewhere. Didn’t you go into the mine? There might be a hint about Gaios!”

“Good. Then play that part.”

When Cleon responds to Attis’s words and raises her body, Layla looks at Cleon for a moment—at his arm, which is trembling involuntarily.

“Are your arms okay?”

“Ah. It might have been a bit difficult without the control glyph.”

Cleon answered Lila’s concerns as if nothing was wrong, but the more she learned about Rakshasa’s past, the more she heard the sound of her pulse, not her own.

“Don’t overdo it-“

“The video is ready. Then, I’ll play it.”

While Lila was saying something of her own, as the video started, the two of them could only keep their mouths shut and look in that direction at the same time.

Because there-

It was because the figure of the huge dragon, like the one she had dealt with until now, was reflected.

With her mouth wide open, the composition of confrontation with Rakshasa.