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Chapter 43

From what I could remember, three had died—two from accidents that occurred while they were carrying out territory missions and the third under mysterious circumstances. He’d been deemed missing for three years before the case was closed because he couldn’t be found...

That last incident had happened within House Bednicker’s main house.

His name was Rudbick.

The fifth son of House Bednicker. From what I could recall, he’d been full of curiosity.

Why was I thinking about Rudbick right now?

I don’t think he’d kill his own son just because his son stepped into a forbidden area...

However, this belief only applied to the Lord of Blood and Iron. Even if I was correct, what if the Council of Elders were the first to hear about our trespass?

They could kill me and then feign ignorance or even just report it.

Although this thought could be brushed off as just my own delusion, I didn’t believe a monster like that knight could walk around without anyone knowing anything.

There were rumors about House Bednicker’s main house being gloomy and spooky... and I didn’t particularly think that was wrong.

“Hey. Say something.”

I turned my head as I heard Sellen speak.

She looked a little uneasy.

She’s somewhat trustworthy...

But there was no need for me to tell her all this.

At least by my calculations, the best course of action was to escape this place and not tell anyone we had been here.

“Looks like we’ll need to fight Hariba.”

“What?”

“That’s the best option.”

I understood that jumping straight to the conclusion wasn’t the proper way to talk to someone, but I had no choice.

As expected, Sellen looked quite shocked.

“Have you gone mad?”

“Not at all.”

“Then you’ve gone crazy.”

Isn’t that the same thing?

“Didn’t you see him? I kicked him with the might of three blessings, but all it did was make him flinch for a second. It felt like I kicked a steel wall. It might be possible if I had a weapon, but I can’t defeat him with just my fists.”

Since she’d said that, I couldn’t help but reply, “My entire body is a weapon.”

“...”

“Anyway, no one can know that we came here. That’s especially true for you—if things go south, there could be a fight between House Bednicker and House Goodspring. Will you be okay with that?”

As I mentioned our houses, Sellen’s expression darkened.

This was odd as well. She usually acted like she didn’t care at all about her house, but sometimes she seemed to care about them a lot.

“But—”

“I wouldn’t have said that if I was alone. I’m saying this because I think we have a chance with the two of us.”

“How can I trust you?”

She had a point.

I took a moment to think before giving the best excuse I could give her right now.

“It’s my blessing.”

“What?”

“I can’t tell you what my blessing is, but because of it, I can say that we have a chance to win.”

“...”

Sellen seemed to realize something.

“No way... Did you receive the Blessing of the Star?” she asked me.

“...”

“It’s that, right? You received a revelation that we will win.”

What was she talking about?

Blessing of the Star... a blessing from the stars above, or something like that?

“...”

I was surprised by how sure Sellen sounded, but I maintained my calm expression. I concluded that this was the best choice.

A moment of silence passed.

Sellen looked at me and said, “...Fine. I’ll trust you. In that case, it’ll be better for you to make the plan as well.”

“Should I?”

I’d intended to argue that myself, but she’d brought it up first.

Anyway, my plans would be better than the young Silver Moon’s at this point.

I recalled the terrain we’d passed, and I thought about Hariba.

Although I hadn’t personally clashed with him, Sellen’s kick had been pretty powerful.

Since he’d shown no reaction to being kicked, it was safe to say his physical defenses were high. But I didn’t believe that his body would be harder than the scales of the gem beast I’d fought, the Sapphire Snake.

As long as his defense was worse than that, I could easily deal with Hariba myself.

“...”

However, such thoughts could lead to complacency.

Right now, Sellen could use her full power, so there was no need for me to try and fight alone.

And the transformation his body went through is bugging me...

In less than ten seconds, his body had blown up like rubber and changed into something that couldn’t even be called human.

There was a chance that the transformation could still be active.

I’ll need to fight him first to find out.

My general thoughts ended there, and I began to slowly explain my plan...

* * * * *

* * * * *

It wasn’t difficult to find Hariba.

We returned the way we came and found him screaming monstrously.

“Luaaaaan!”

He was going to ruin my hearing.

At this point, Hariba didn’t look like he had ever been human. I didn’t know what to call him. Maybe “an inflated piece of meat”?

It doesn’t seem like a curse. Was he subjected to human experiments or something like that?

Only the wicked alchemists would do something as cruel as this.

Regardless, I waited for Hariba to approach us a little more.

Sellen and I had split up. I planned to act as bait in the beginning. 

The reason was simple.

Hariba’s attention was entirely directed toward me right now.

The signal should be soon... Hoh.

At this point, having moved behind Hariba, Sellen gave me some hand signals.

She had finished her preparations.

Which meant...

Crack.

I habitually loosened my neck as I revealed myself.

Hariba immediately noticed my presence and charged me with a roar.

“Lu...!”

I narrowed my eyes and observed him.

I could feel neither the essence of a curse nor any mana.

The only ability of his that we were sure of was his substantially increased physical strength.

There was nothing more I could learn about him until we clashed head-on.

Crunch.

I clenched my fists. I knew it was stupid, but I wanted to clash with him directly at least once.

I looked at Hariba, who had arrived right in front of my face, and unleashed my attack.

White Sun Form, First Technique.

Scorching Heat.

Boom!

The moment my fist collided with him, I realized something.

He’s... much stronger than I expected?

I was quite surprised as I was flung back like a cannonball.

“Luan!”

I thought Hariba was shouting my name again, but evidently, that wasn’t the case.

The one running toward me while shouting my name was Sellen.

She seemed to have noticed a weak point in Hariba’s defenses because she threw a kick toward his neck.

But there was no point in trying to land a sneak attack after shouting like that.

As expected, Hariba turned his body while swinging his hand.

Smack!

Sellen was hit by the back of his hand and sent flying.

Toward me.

I moved forward to try and catch her just in case she got hurt when she hit the ground, but she landed perfectly by herself.

“Hey,” I said. “You’re bleeding.”

“...I know.”

A stream of blood was flowing from her forehead.

She was pretty pale to begin with, making the red blood look even more striking.

Sellen wiped the blood before turning to worry about me instead.

“Are you okay? You got flung much harder than me.”

“I’m fine.”

“...Looks like you have a tough body. But what were you trying to do? How could you just fight him head-on?”

“If you’re fine, get up; you can nag me later. He’s charging again,” I said as I looked toward Hariba, who was walking while twisting his body in horrific ways.

“Did you find his weakness?”

Sellen hadn’t snuck behind him for no reason. She had moved in a wide arc on purpose to observe Hariba.

“Compared to his big body, his neck is pretty thin. It doesn’t have much muscle compared to the other parts of his body.”

“Really? I couldn’t tell from the front.”

“It’s covered by his chest muscles.”

“Hm. That means it’ll be difficult to defeat him from the front.” I nodded. “Then I’ll act as bait again.”

“...Will you be okay?”

“It’s a moot point. He’s only looking at me.”

“...”

Sellen couldn’t say anything to that, but she did look at me with an uncharacteristically worried expression.

“I won’t be reckless this time, so go.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“...Don’t die.”

I laughed instead of replying.

“Luan...!”

Hariba’s attention was still stuck to me. He continued focusing on me even when Sellen, the target of his love, left his vision.

Between love and hatred, could I say that his hatred was stronger than his love?

“...”

I felt a slight sense of wrongness. Something was off.

While Hariba approached me, I observed our surroundings.

In this dead area where not a single other human was present, the ground was starting to look a dark red.

Let’s try something.

After approaching me, Hariba started to attack me again.

His attacks were just swinging his two fists in random ways, but these simple attacks were supported by his supernatural body and exhibited great destructive power.

Boom!

Hariba chased after me while carving up the ground before him.

He wasn’t slow by any means.

The movements he was showing right now in his attacks, and the reaction he’d had to Sellen’s sneak attack...

I thought he had moved with explosive quickness...

“Luaaan!”

But even though he had been attacking me for a minute at this point, he didn’t show any signs of getting tired.

I dodged Hariba’s attacks and walked into an especially dense grove of trees littered with what looked to be foundational pillars of ruined buildings.

It was a place with many different obstacles.

Sorry, Sellen.

I needed to check something.

Crumble!

While running through the forest, my battle with Hariba continued.

Since he was such an explosive enemy, the sounds of explosions and crashes echoed behind me.

Through this confrontation, I noticed something.

Although it was always very brief, Hariba would sometimes stop moving.

It happened when there were a lot of obstacles around him.

But his movements weren’t slowing because there were many things in his way. It looked more like his body was suddenly paralyzed sometimes.

Of course, those moments of stillness disappeared faster than they appeared... but they were still noticeable to me.

I continued my fierce battle against Hariba as I looked around.

At some point, my hunch turned into confidence...

Somewhere in this forest, someone was controlling Hariba.