Chapter 18 – Chapter 2

Shuu- Kung!

“Awesome!”

Kai Sent, who hit his buttock from a height of 1m with the teleport, screamed in pain that pierced his spine.

“Ouch… Is this…?”

Stroking his ass and looking around, the first thing he saw was a well-groomed dirt road and wide open green plains.

“Sister. Sister! Where are you? Sister!”

Kaicent looked around while singing Dangseolyoung, who was the first to teleport.

However, all the boy could see were a few trees, hills that went up and down irregularly, and a well-maintained dirt road centered on the flattest part.

“Sister…?”

Unable to sense Dang Seol-yeong’s presence, Kai Sent felt the shock of her heart sinking.

I didn’t know why, but I knew.
That she is not here.

“Sister. It’s safe now. You can come out. Sister… Sister. Sister! Noonaaaaa! Noonaaaaa!”

Kaicent howling while calling out Dangseolyoung as if in a shriek.

However, that was not the end of Kaicent’s hardships.

Rumble—

“Mingmingah…? Why is that? Why… Is the shape… Melting…?”

Ming-ming, who had blocked Kang Myung-chul’s blade, began to melt like ice in the hot summer sun.

Originally, Ming-Ming put the nucleus in a safe place, but the impact of Kang Myung-cheol’s magic sword was delivered to the nucleus’s location.

It’s not like a skill, it’s a magic sword’s own ability, but when it is cut with a sword, the impact spreads throughout the object and has the ability to reduce durability.

In fact, Seol-yeong, who was cut by her blade, struggled with not being able to stop the bleeding easily.

The problem was that this was the worst match for Mingming.

“Oh, no… No! No no no no no! Ming-ming! This! Eat this! Wake up! Ming-ming!”

Kai Sent gave all the nutrient blocks he had to Ming-Ming, but Ming-Ming, whose core had been destroyed, did not consume her nutrient blocks as if he felt his end.

Tu-tuk- Tu-tu-tuk-

In the end, MingMing completely collapsed and fell off Kaisent’s neck.

“Ah.”

Under no circumstance did Ming-Ming, who was mimicking his neck, fall off.

And that it happened means that Mingming’s life is now over.

“Ah…Aaaaa…”

Kaicent gathered Ming-ming, whose shape had spread as if it had melted, with both hands.

However, Ming-Ming couldn’t unite again and repeated spreading.

“Uh…Ah…Aaaaa!”

When the first woman he gave his heart to, Dang Seol-yeong, disappeared, and Ming-ming, who had been with her all her life, died, Kai Sent screamed as she felt the pain of breaking her heart.

*                           *

“Huh haam~~”

A camp built by hundreds of mercenaries.

One of the two mercenaries patrolling the area opened his mouth with a yawn.

“Ugh. You worked hard yesterday too. Can’t you just let me rest for a day?”
“Asshole. So, who wants to bet for nothing? And the guy who proposed the bet loses.”

The mercenary yawned and grumbled at his fellow mercenary’s pinch.
Apparently, something happened yesterday.

“Mr. Ha, I thought it would end in one queue as soon as it started. Aren’t you guys salty?”
“Where’s the time to do that? It’s just luck. And you were filthy unlucky yesterday.”
“Heheh~ I’m tired, I’m going to search… Huh?”
“Uh?”

Something came into the eyes of the two mercenaries who were checking their surroundings while chatting like a skilled mercenary.

“Hey. Is that a person?”
“I think you’re right. You’re a bit short. Are you a dwarf?”
“He has a narrow physique for a dwarf. Aren’t they halflings?”
“I don’t know. It might be a heterogeneous species.”

The two people who witnessed someone trudging from afar started to check what kind of race it was.

It is still so far away that only the form is recognizable.

“But isn’t the gait a bit precarious?”
“It seems like that… Uh. I fell down.”

However, I started to worry that I should check it out when I saw a short person walking toward me collapsing.

Still, when I see him stand up and walk, he doesn’t seem to have suffered any injuries.

“Hey. Is that…Ah?”
“A child? Really?”
“What is it? A child alone on the road that takes more than 10 days to the next city?”

The two began to think about whether they should keep it informed or ignore it.

After a considerable amount of time passed, the distance between the two of them allowed them to see the child’s face.

“…”

The child they saw was Kaicent.
Exhausted from screaming, he followed the road with a half-desperate heart.

The two mercenaries, who were able to see Kaicent’s face in this way, unknowingly held their breath.

Dried tear stains.
Eyes of lost hope.
Eyelids half sunken with sadness and despair.
The first type of clothes.
Traces of rough rolling.

Kaisent’s eyes were making the viewer’s heart tremble so much that one wondered if despair could be humanized.

“Stop!”

One of the mercenaries habitually shouted at Kaisent to stop.

“…Where is this… Somewhere…?”
“Uh… This is a camp made by our mercenaries…”
“Little boy, do you have any parents? Who knows?”
“…No… Neither my parents… Nor my older sister…”

The mercenaries scratched their heads as the atmosphere became more gloomy at their questions.

Under normal circumstances, I would have just kicked him out or induced him to take a detour, but it seemed like he would die on the side of the road if he did that.

No matter how rough a mercenary’s life is, it’s bittersweet to leave a boy who looks so pitiful.

‘It’s the first type of clothes I’ve ever seen… Could it be that he is of a different species?’

“Do you know where this is?”
“…Where is this…?”
“This is the territory of the Harlot Kingdom. Do you know the Harlot Kingdom?”
“…I don’t know…”
“It’s like a heterogeneous thing.”
“Yes?”

The two mercenaries confirmed Kaicent’s attire and level of basic knowledge, and were convinced that he was of a ‘different type’.

Normally, even if they were orphans, these two would have behaved as wildly as usual, but Kaicent’s desperation-filled appearance stimulated his normally dormant conscience.

Strangely, it feels like the protective instinct to help this child is stimulated.

“Um…For now, I’ll report back inside.”
“Uh. Come quickly.”
“Little boy, wait a minute.”

Kaicent squatted in place as if it didn’t matter anymore.

The two mercenaries sensed that they were in for a big shock when they buried their faces in their knees with their arms together and did not move.

The mercenary who went inside brought two people.

A blond man with a calm style and a metal armor covered with animal skin and a metal helmet that covered his entire face so that only his eyes could be seen.

“Is this guy Lee Jong?”
“Yes yes.”
“Little boy, listen to his face.”

The man in the metal helmet tapped Kaicent’s thigh with his leg, with a harsh yet suppressed voice.

Kaicent, who managed to resist the desire to keep his face down, raised his face with difficulty.

“Tsk. Your eyes are dark.”

In the world of mercenaries, when a new mercenary kills someone for the first time, receives a major injury for the first time, or sees the death of an important colleague, the look in his eyes is called ‘blind eyes’.

It is because most of those who have such eyes cannot overcome the shock of their hearts, quit their mercenary work, or easily fall into a panic and die.

From what I’ve heard, there are no parents or anyone who knows.

Normally, I would have kicked out such an orphan right away, but for some reason, I felt pity for him.

‘The reason orphans have bad manners is because they have no other way to live. This guy doesn’t seem to have any bad hand habits yet…’

Just in time, a few people died in the last battle, so there was a shortage of workers.

The man, who thought he was a free worker who didn’t even have to pay a daily wage as long as he provided food and a place to sleep, opened his mouth to confirm.

“Is there anything you know how to do?”
“…”

Kaicent was speechless at this question for a moment.

It’s not that I don’t have the skills to do it, it’s that I’m speechless because there are so many things coming up at once.

The first thing that came to my mind was the magic I learned from killing the old man and the martial arts I learned from Dang Xue-Ying.

‘My sister told me not to let others know about my talent…’

Recalling the warning Dang Seol-young had given her, she decided to list only the skills she had learned from her parents besides fighting skills.

Because of the atmosphere, I thought that this person would reap him.

Because of the man who attacked him, everything was destroyed except for the nutrient block he put in his pocket, so if he went on like this, he would wither away and die.

‘I don’t know where you are, but I can’t die like this even for my sister… !’

With the desire to meet Dang Seol-young once again, her eyes slightly revived, and Kai Sent spoke of skills other than martial arts and magic.

“Know how to handle machines…Programming…Biology…Business administration…Public administration…A little bit of medicine…And…”
“Wait a minute.”

The man in the helmet was interrupted by every word that came out of Kaisent’s mouth.

There was an unfamiliar word called programming along the way, but the rest were all subjects that at least aristocratic families could learn.

“You know everything you said?”
“Dad made me learn this and that…”
“…Keep talking.”
“Slaughter… This is the end…

The helmet man had no idea whether Kaicent’s world was strange or Kaicent’s father was strange.

If it’s a noble, it’s the end of learning academic, but it’s a machine and teach you to slaughter?

This is the reason why Kaicent even slaughtered.

– Since you are my children, you will live with high treatment wherever you are. But I don’t want to see a kid of my blood turn into an unlucky aristocrat.-

This is because his father, who could not bear to see his children becoming aristocrats, semi-forcedly taught them how to maintain machines, slaughter, and trim meat.

Even if mechanical maintenance is an essential education for an astronaut, it was hard work to have him slaughter while saying that he needed to know how to eat properly.

‘A face that knows no hardships and fair skin. It must have been the heir to a noble aristocratic family. I don’t know why I learned to slaughter.’

Anyway, if you know these useful things, it’s perfect to teach them a few times and pamper them.

However, if this boy was a heterogeneous species, he had to confirm this.

“Okay. Next question. Do you know about democracy?”
“Yes?”

This time, even Kaicent, who was in despair at the loss of Dang Seol-yeong and Ming-ming, made a puzzled expression.

What kind of random question is this all of a sudden?

However, the eyes on the other side of the helmet were serious, so I could tell it wasn’t a joke.

“I know…”
“So? Did you live in a democratic society then?”
“No…”
“Then what political system did you live in?”

Realizing that he was no joke in the serious eyes of the pitcher, Kai Sent remembered what a political system led by leaders made up of his father and mother.

“It’s an oligarch…”

To call it a dictatorship, fathers and mothers respected each other and operated together, so an oligarchy led by a small number of leaders of two or more was the closest to the correct answer.

“Really?”
“Really…”

He glared at him as if he wouldn’t let it go if he lied, but Kai Sent didn’t change his mind even though he was scared.

“I’m sorry. The aliens who lived in the democratic system complained that our system was uncivilized and uncivilized, and in the worst case they would cause a revolution and be a nuisance.”

After apologizing, he explained why he was wary of democracy.

“Vice-captain. Go get something to eat.”
“Yes. Follow me.”

The blond man who came and followed him entered the camp with a chin gesture to Kaicent and the words to follow him.

Countless tents and mercenaries dressed in rugged and inconsistent costumes paid attention to whether they had heard the commotion.

Kai Sent, who seemed like an animal in a zoo, couldn’t overcome the pressure and had to lower his head.

“The captain wants something to feed this guy. He’s the guy who will work under our mercenary corps from now on.”
“You mean this young guy?”
“You don’t have enough hands to do chores.”

The attendant shoved the Kaicent to the chubby man who was boiling something with several dishes hanging up.

A chubby man who happened to be making soup for dinner poured the soup into a wooden bowl and served him a piece of coarse bread.

“It’s mealtime soon, so eat in the corner over there without being disturbed.”

A desolate tone with no consideration for children.

At least this was something he had paid attention to, but Kaicent felt it was brusque.

After receiving a bowl of soup and a piece of bread, Kaicent went to the corner and took a bite of the soup with a wooden spoon in the bowl.

Fluff-

“It tastes awful…”

After taking a spoonful of the soup, Kaicent muttered quietly.

It was a rough-and-tumble stew, but objectively, the soup was much better than the bitter wild mushrooms and mildly sweet wild fruits roasted in the forest.

However, to Kaicent, the rough food he ate with Dangseolyeong was much more delicious.

“Huh…Huh…Huh…”

Although they had only been together for a few days, Cai Sent shed tears over the soup when she felt the empty seat of Dang Seol-young, who had become precious to her and Ming-ming, who had been with her all her life.

“I will definitely… Take revenge… I will never forgive him…!”

Subsequently, they burned their revenge against an unknown Asian man who attacked them for absurd reasons and broke up with someone dear to them.

It was the first murderous intent for a boy who had lived a life far from violence.