24 – 24. The Sinner of Blackthorn (2)

The memories about ‘vassalization’ are fragmented.

Not much research has been done on the subject, and much remains unknown.

The fact that it can happen to ordinary humans.

Isaac had only learned it at the very end of his past life.

At the final battle.

It was still a vivid memory.

Flames and smoke rose from every direction, and the fortress named ‘Everholt’, that the great master and his disciples had defended, was collapsing.

What became of Silverna, who guarded the ramparts?

What situations are the Grand Master’s other disciples in?

Is the Grand Master alright?

With these kinds of questions swirling, I looked up at the sky, feeling heavy.

Escaping with a cane is impossible with how overwhelming the Transcendents are.

Isaac simply stood there, ready to accept death.

An old, twisted fate arrived.

“[Brother-in-law! Khheee! Long time no seeee!]”

There weren’t many who would call him brother-in-law.

And there was no voice in Helmunth that could sound so frivolous.

‘Alois?’

“[Wow, never thought I’d see you alive, Brother-in-law!]”

The glossy, red hair had lost its luster, and the whites of his eyes were dyed black, hinting at fragments of madness.

Also, the two horns rising from his head signified a loss of humanity.

“[Hahaha! Look at all the familiar faces!]”

‘How did you…?’

“[After I was kicked out of Helmunth, those people picked me up! Haha! So, how have you been, Brother-in-law? That leg I messed up, is it still there?]”

‘……!’

Alois, who had lusted after his own sister, couldn’t hide his vile desires and ended up expelled from Helmunth.

“[Ah, it’s a real relief. Just a real relief. I get to kill you, Brother-in-law. I simply couldn’t forgive you for having your hands on my sister, even for a moment.]”

‘You’ve become one of their, their thralls?’

“[Of course, I have. It’s lucky I’m a child of great Helmunth. Even after being thrown out, I can still run wild like this, thanks to the name of Helmunth.]”

If they were going to enthrall a human, the Transcendents would have wanted a strong one.

Helmunth must have been the perfect vessel.

“[It turns out, becoming a thrall suits me quite well. Ah, Helmunth! Great Helmunth!]”

The greatsword in Alois’s hand writhes. Isaac knew that soon, that greatsword would sever his neck.

‘In the end.’

The one who ruined his life.

And the one to end it all.

It was Alois, I realized, just as…

“Where is my sister’s body?”

Alois asked, licking at a crooked tooth jutting from his mouth.

Isaac was about to sigh, seeing that Alois still hadn’t given up his lust for Rianna.

Then a crimson line was drawn across his throat.

*Thwack!*

Not even realizing he was dead, Alois collapsed to the ground, spewing black blood in gurgling waves.

Beyond him.

The Grand Master stood there, his greatsword held in his grasp.

“A foul stench of blood, indeed.”

The Grand Master chuckled, his wolf ears twitching, offering a wry smile to Isaac.

* * *

“Ugh!”

Meladic’s scream echoed long, as his back slammed against a tree.

The rustling commotion from the woods suggested there were wild animals nearby.

Snow piled up on the branch tumbled down, covering Meladic. But that was precisely what stopped Polu from following up.

“Kuhahaha haha ha!”

Polu burst out laughing, enjoying himself.

He quickly turned his head, seeking his next target.

“Ah, I didn’t like you.”

Polu beckoned with a flick of his hand, pointing at Isaac. But something pushed against him, his body contorting grotesquely as he charged. Sharen intercepted him.

*Clang!*

“Ughhh!”

Crimson light erupted from her whole body. The unique aura of the Helmunt had a tendency to be used like armor.

It was holding back Polu’s advance.

“The Helmunt lost earlier! You already lost, why are you attacking me againnn!”

“Quiet, you!”

The two locked in a desperate struggle of blade against blade.

Sharen bent her knees slightly, digging her toes into the earth.

Veins bulged, and her greatsword trembled, revealing the sheer effort she was putting into the struggle.

“Get out of the way! Get out of the way! Get out of the waaay!”

Snow flurries dance.

Black aura, spreading in all directions, steadily devours Sharen’s deep crimson glow.

Sharen, remembering the time she was swallowed by black liquid, nearly succumbed to panic.

“Push it back!”

Isaac’s shout from behind snapped her back, her eyes sharpening as she gritted her teeth.

In that instant, Sharen’s crimson energy surged forth like a torrent.

Crimson Blaze.

A Helmunt technique.

The aura, as hard as steel, flared like a fierce flame, forcing Polu to stumble and recoil.

Then.

Isaac, having moved past Sharen, gripped his flamberge in both hands and thrust.

*Crack!*

His target was Polu’s chest.

The spot where ‘bone’ was.

“Keeeaaak!”

Unlike before, Polu writhed in agony.

Startled, he twisted away from the blade, then fled in a fluster.

“Ugh! Hrrgh! It hurts! It huuurts! It’s paainfulllll!”

“Hah! Hah! It, it seems to be working, Isaac.”

“……”

Sharen’s breath came in ragged gasps.

The aftereffects of using Crimson Blaze seemed to have significantly diminished her crimson energy.

“Anna, Meladic?”

“They’re okay. You don’t have to worry.”

“Ugh.”

Anna pulled Meladic from the snowdrift.

Meladic, having hit a tree, wore a pained expression, likely from a fracture.

Yet, giving them no time to recover,

“Yooou! I hated yooou!”

Polu pointed accusingly at Isaac.

“You hated me?”

Isaac, gripping the sword in both hands, raised it again, near his chest. He was ready to counterattack at a moment’s notice.

“We’re, we’re the same! You were abandoned by your family too! Tossed aside like trash, that’s got to be it!”

“Ahem!”

Sharen coughed awkwardly.

“Why do you work so hard every single day! I, I feel pathetic! Because of you! Because you, a commoner, don’t slack on your efforts!”

The self-loathing in Polu’s voice was raw, filled with resentment.

Untamed emotion was truly like filth. Isaac had felt that through Alois, and now Polu was making him remember it all over again.

Reason, built upon one’s values in life. Common sense, filled in through education. When those things vanished, Polu’s naked jealousy and desire were revealed.

“I too! I could have done it if I had been with Silverna! I could have done it with Helmund’s support! I know! I know! I actually couldn’t! That’s right! I’m nothing! I don’t even want to hold a sword! It’s just jealousy, right? I know! It’s ugly, right? I know!”

His tongue was pierced. That metaphor was just right.

He spilled out the words he should have kept in. It wasn’t his own will. His tongue spat out what his brain thought, and the moment his thoughts shifted after hearing his own words was laid bare.

“Mother, I’m sorry! Father, I’m sorry! I, I am a sinner! aaah! I’m a sinner!”

“Something’s…”

Sharen’s brow furrowed as she watched Polu beating on his chest.

“He looks pathetic.”

Isaac slowly raised his sword.

“A sinner?”

“Yes, I am a sinner!”

He answered when asked. This was how Isaac used the subjugation tactic he had thought up in reverse.

“Why? Why are you a sinner?”

“Because I’m ignorant! And stupid! And lazy! I’m unworthy! No! I mustn’t answer!”

He hears the questions, and the answers begin to form.

Only after spilling the words does the thought arrive that he shouldn’t be answering.

“Your family’s allied transcendents placed a curse on you.”

“Transcendents? A curse? What are those? I don’t know! Aagh! I told you not to answer!”

“It’s a curse called binding. You really don’t know when it happened?”

“Binding? I don’t know! I told you I don’t know! Ah, was it then?”

“Then?”

“Then! When I… when I pretended to be asleep! Mother came and did something to me! There was a, a person I’d never seen before next to her!”

Polu, as if recalling the moment, tore at his hair and screamed.

“It hurt! It hurt so much! Something was, was being etched onto my chest! That person, they saw I wasn’t asleep! They knew I was awake!”

“But I endured it! I held back! Because! It was, it was what Mother wanted! I wanted her to use me, even like that! Mother! aaah! My mother! Nooo! Don’t tell them! It’s a secret!”

*Thump, thump, thump!*

Even as he tells them not to, Polu kneels, slamming his forehead against the earth. The words keep pouring out.

“Because I’m a sinner! I’m a sinner! I wanted to atone like that! Mother! Father! aaagh! I’m a sinner of the Blackthorn!”

*Screech.*

Isaac slowly approaches him.

Polu shudders, then coughs.

“If you come closer, I’ll kill you! Yeti! The yeti will be here soon-!”

*Thud!*

Snow flurries scatter.

It was the sound of a yeti, Silbern’s spear through its heart, falling to its knees.

“aaagh! Yeti! No! Silbern is a beauty! aaagh! Isaak! I, am I going to die?!”

“…It seems so.”

With a piercing gaze, Isaac stands before him.

Polu straightens up, sword at the ready.

“Yes, kill me! Kill me! I’m a sinner! I couldn’t even fulfill my mother and father’s wishes! I couldn’t even do that! Aagh! I’m a sinner! I must pay for my sins by dying!”

At that moment.

“I’ll ambush you!”

Polu’s blade flashes, a wild swing.

Black energy swirls, desperately fueling Polu’s final strike.

“Huh, g-ghk?!”

It cleaved the air.

Isaac, already hunched low, was plunging the pulse-line back into Polu’s chest.

The pulse-line, forcing its way through bone and torn flesh.

“KaaaRGhhh!”

As Polu tried to flee again, Isaac released the pulse-line, grabbed the bone with both hands.

*FWoooSH!*

As Polu jerked backward, trying to escape, the bone embedded in his heart was ripped out, leaving Polu’s body drained of strength.

“Ghk-hurk! H-hurk!?”

Polu gasped for breath.

Black energies, as if purified, began to scatter and dissipate into the Northern snowfall.

Left alone, Polu stared up in shock.

“H-how… h-how, how?”

His question, how Isaac knew the final blow.

Releasing the bone, Isaac answered with a bitter tone.

“Because you… you tried to wield the Blackthorn blade until the very end.”

No matter what.

He wanted to be acknowledged by his mother and father.

He wanted to be praised by his mother and father as great.

He wanted to be loved by his mother and father.

Being honest with his desires wasn’t just limited to Polu’s mouth.

“If you’d just relied on brute strength, I wouldn’t have even reacted.”

But his wish, pathetic as it was, to use the Blackthorn family’s swordsmanship.

Inversely, it became the blade that pierced Polu’s heart.

“Ha… hahaha… Hahahahaha.”

Tears streamed down his face as Polu gazed up at the white sky.

As if still feeling the aftershocks.

He was pouring out the words buried in his heart.

“The truth is, I never… wanted to swing a sword.”

“……”

“Scared. I’m saying I’m scared. It’s the having to be brave that scares me…”

“……”

“Cooking used to be fun. When I first learned to pack lunch for the chef, ah, I was so thrilled.”

“……”

“I shouldn’t have! I should have been wielding a sword! I shouldn’t have felt joy from something like cooking! I curse it! I curse myself!”

“Forgive me, Mother, Father. I… I shouldn’t have been born in Blackthorn.”

“It’s all my fault. I, I committed a sin.”

Isaac approached Polu.

He knelt on one knee before him.

“Accepting difference. It took me a long time as well.”

“I, am… a sinner…”

“Then, I too am a sinner.”

“You… too?”

Polu’s voice was breaking, fragmented.

At the very brink of letting go of life.

“I want, to live.”

Tears streamed down Polu’s face.

“I’m sorry.”

“I… want to… live…”

“If there is a single solace I can offer you-”

“I… want… to live…”

“I will find the b*stard that did this to you and make him pay.”

At those words.

Polu’s eyes widened.

The one who made him like this.

The Blackthorn family.

The original Polu would have cried out to protect his parents.

He would have answered that he would defend his family by any means necessary.

But.

The true feelings of the now-thrall Polu.

“Thank you.”

A reply was given.

Smiling like that.

Polu, eyes filled with the white sky of the north, went away.

Again, I hear it echo.

[Are you playing games? You can’t even do this? Do you plan to live as a shame to the family?!]

The boy’s failing was.

Having no interest in swords.

[Why are you so weak-hearted? Do you intend to smear the family name? How, in this state, do you expect to greet those people—!]

Also, the boy’s failing was.

Not being able to muster courage when faced with a threat.

[You, cooking? Praised? Have I ever seen such a madman! Bring the switch, immediately!]

Liking to cook, and wanting to show it off.

This too was the boy’s failing.

[Why is it that a child like you… sigh, a child who should have been born in some slum, from my womb—.]

The boy’s greatest failing, perhaps.

Was, without knowing his place, being born here, at Blackthorn.

So in reality.

The boy did not commit any wrong.