Chapter 29 Pursuit(3)

Editor: BaeBae

Juan inspected the fallen knights. It looked as if they’d been given a painless death.

Able to kill armoured knights this quickly, it seems he had underestimated Anya’s skill.

‘Maybe it’s the clothes she’s got on.’

Unlike before, Anya was wearing a comfortable looking black leather suit. Juan could feel a small dose of mana from there.

“The fog suddenly thickened so I was wondering what was going on. Here’s some present for you. Do you like it, dear?”

“Why is this the only way you give out presents?”

“Well, you don’t seem like the type to like sweets.”

Juan didn’t say anything.

“I was watching what you were doing before. You’re letting them live instead of killing them. They’re all the empire’s dogs. You don’t need to keep them alive. I swear the murderous aura from you before wasn’t a lie….Why? Did you suddenly feel pity for them?”

“………..”

“It’s alright, if you don’t want to answer dear. I actually find your silent, withdrawn attitude charming anyways. But I never thought of you to show pity to others. So, I was a little curious what the reason could be, that’s all. You….”

Anya paused and smiled wide as if she was asking ‘are you curious’.

“What.”

“There’s still too many things about the empire that you don’t know.”

Juan found the remark amusing, considering he was someone that had governed the empire in the past. However, he felt her words were true to a certain extent.

As time went on, Juan felt there were too many things about the current empire that he didn’t know. Including the knowledge that he once ignored.

“It’s hard to hate what you don’t know. That is why dear is becoming weak.”

“Weak?”

Juan rashly answered.

“Not physically but emotionally. Whether it’s your emotion or physicality, it gets stronger the more times it goes through hardship. But right now, there’s no challenges for your mind to overcome.”

Anya approached him and reached out with her fingers. Her long slender fingers slid and grasped Juan’s wet hair.

“Looking at how you’ve weakened since I met you at the Gray tower, I can only guess you met someone…. kind? Hmm…..who could this person be…. I believe as you were leaving, the only people you encountered was a group of disordered knights, right? So why would you be interested in a knight? Hmm…”

“………”

“You want to get stronger right? I can tell by your actions. However, you won’t get much stronger like this.”

Anya came close and took Juan’s ears into her face.

“If you want, I can give you a ‘present’ that would help you get stronger.”

Sina Solbein’s life.

He didn’t hear her say this explicitly but felt like she’d whispered the name ever so quietly.

Juan grabbed Anya’s finger.

Before Anya even knew it, Juan twisted her finger in a grotesque angle. The sound of a twig snapping in half, exploded.

Anya pulled and clenched her finger with a painful expression. Juan didn’t stop there and delivered a hard punch to Anya’s stomach with his fist.

“Hughhk……!”

A strike so powerful, for a moment both feet left the ground. Anya huffed as she tumbled to her knees.

While it didn’t critically injure her, Anya was struggling to breathe.

Juan used his foot to lift Anya’s chin and met her eyes.

“This is our eye level.”

Anya was trying to say something as her lips twitched but Juan ignored it.

“Next time you give me a ‘present’, I’ll give you a ‘present’ as well. Your head.”

Anya furiously nodded at Juan’s words. Leaving her stranded to herself, Juan turned his back to leave. Anya quickly opened her mouth.

“Wai……Wait…..”

Struggling to speak from being still out of breath, Juan stopped after seeing her earnest look on her face of wanting to say something. Anya pulled at the grass beside her, in order to get closer to Juan. Wet leaves were stuck everywhere on her. Juan frowned at the unsightly sight.

“I’m sor…..sorry….”

“……..”“I only had good intentions….trying to buy your favor.”

“I don’t know…..you seem to have a talent in making things unpleasant instead.”

“If you tell me….what you want…..dear…..”

“Don’t show your face ever again.”

Juan made a curt reply and left.

*****

How long had passed.

Juan was looking down from the summit.

The slope of the mountain wasn’t too steep.

But rain and fog were making it slippery.

It had been two days since he’d last encountered the Blue rose knights. As tired as he should’ve been, only his legs were mildly sprained surprisingly enough.

This was only because walking allowed his muscles to heal faster than it harmed. As time went on, his endurance funnily improved.

‘No need to worry about the chasing group anymore.. Alright, next problem…’

Juan glimpsed behind him. For about a day, there was a presence following his tail.

Anya. She’d tried distancing herself as far as possible as she gave chase. She appeared extremely exhausted.

Climbing a mountain through torrential rain all through the night was getting close to beyond what a human could do.

As time passed, the distance between them was widening.

‘Should I just kill her….”

Doing so may have been the smart thing to do. But for some reason, Juan didn’t particularly want to kill her. Anya carried a familiar scent.

The same scent he got from people with vast emptiness inside them.

‘Maybe she’ll give up if I just keep on walking.’

A small village came into his view down the mountain. She didn’t have much energy left in her, so Juan thought to chuck her in the village if she’d passed out. Or if she gave up, that was alright too.

Juan headed towards the village.

Arriving near the village, Juan could smell something strange. Although the smell of rain made it unclear, Juan was positive it was the smell of blood. He made his way towards what it seemed like a deserted village.

It was a small village. Around eighteen homes.

Juan slowly entered the village. Several days of rain created a stretch of path filled with water.

Everywhere he stepped, a mix of blood and mud stuck. All around him water was dyed red in blood.

Every door was opened and each house a mess. But not a single corpse could be seen.

The smell of blood was fresh and hadn’t yet all washed away in the rain. Whatever happened here, looked to have happened not too long ago.

Juan observed the faint trace left by the perpetrators. There were a few footprints that were deeper than the rest.

Trace of heavy armoured individuals. It wasn’t hard for Juan to imagine what had happened here.

(Juan’s imagination / What really happened)

Heavily armoured individuals stormed the village and forcefully pulled out the villagers from their homes.

The townsfolk sat in the rain with a confused look on their faces.

A cruel interrogation begins. The armed men make a mess of things inside the houses.

A few snatch valuable possessions for themselves. One could see clearly that they were not bandits.

There were no reasons for bandits to act cumbersomely.

A few villages tried standing up against the violent attitude. Spears are plunged into chests.

The villages are terrified as the horror and slaughter inches closer.

The perpetrators don’t even try to hide their actions.

All that’s left in the village is slaughtered corpses.

Inside a well, Juan finds a black flag.

On the flag lies the emperor’s symbol along with a white crow.

From the bottom of the collapsed well, a foul stench of blood was coming out.

The corpses were already buried beneath soil, sand and rocks. Full of dead bodies and rain, the well was vomiting out blood instead of groundwater.

“Appalling isn’t it?”

Anya asked from behind his back.

Her complexion pale, she was coughing as if she was close to death.

The wet clothes on her made her already petit figure look even more small.‘Not really. This was common back in the day.”

In the past, gods adjourned meetings and made species extinct or gave birth to new ones.

Gods were violent and spontaneous. The strong didn’t need to fear or respect the weak. It was natural that they were simple minded.

Once upon a time, the Honsluin tribe existed.

Out of all the species they were the strongest and ruled the empire having it split into three kingdoms.

But one day, they went up against the gods and in a week, their species were exterminated.

The only one who survived was Vares Valte, who later became Juan’s comrade.

Those who lived through those times, had to experience some of the most grotesque incidents.

Compared to then, Juan felt this was mild.

“It sounds like you also have come from a heartless place. Can’t say I’m surprised… There would be purification incidents everywhere outside the border I imagine?”

“Purification?”

Anya lifted her finger and pointed to the village well. Her broken finger was tied onto a splint.

“If there’s anyone in suspicion or have committed or involved themselves with heresy, the whole village is interrogated. I don’t know what you call it outside the border, call it looting if you want. Or the nobility’s pocket money gathering game, instinctual action, stress relief. I heard the west has got it the worst but time to time, you see this in other regions as well. And this is only done to the poor populace to make sure it doesn’t become a problem.”

“They killed them just to hide traces of their looting?”

Juan observed the evidence around the village. If what Anya said was correct, a whole village was butchered for looting and boredom reasons.

Juan didn’t judge this to be correct.

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

“I think these traces are related to me.”

There was evidence of looting but there was also evidence of interrogation.

It wasn’t just done for show. Juan could clearly feel an orthodoxic interrogation had been performed.

Children, women, young males and adult men, in that order. This work was conducted to extract information from a large group of civilians in a short time.

“Did you say it’s related to you? It must be true if you say so. Could it be the Blue rose knights? No, there’s no way they could have caught up already…….”

“It’s not them. Something else is getting close”

Juan lifted his head and studied the deathly shadow that wandered the village. Something or someone was looking for him. A foul odor ran through his nose.

“It’s a familiar smell.”

The smell of war.

*****

Find the black haired boy.

Catch and kill him.

Once dead, burn him.

Then feed his ashes to beasts.

—————————————–

A knight wearing the White crow’s mask tucked the letter into his inner pocket.

Several days of rain clouds had obstructed the moon. And once again, tonight was a moonless night. But even in the darkness, the knight’s white mask stood out.

Rather than a mask, it was shaped like a crows skull.

From his shoulder a white crow cried. The knight stood up from his spot.

Heavily armoured with a square shield that covered his entire body, the knight picked up a mallet the size of a small child as if it was paper.

The knights looked around and spoke.

“Gentlemen.”

The soldiers flinched hearing the low manly voice.

Physical body to equipment, it was said the emperor’s ‘grace’ touched upon every bit of a paladin. Even his voice boomed with authority and power that made people cower.

This paladin was head of the White crow holy knights, assembled specifically to track down Lars Raude, one of the six apostates. They were famous for being one of the most strict and persistent holy knight orders.

Any wrong behaviours or replies, it was common to see heads mashed until it was below their shoulders.

“Nothing in this village either.”

The paladin stated while he looked down at an elderly corpse who was the last one interrogated.

While all the soldiers thought they had dealt with purification missions before, only now they were realising they had never experienced a ‘proper’ one.

The paladin first blockaded all exits, then started with the weak and the young, interrogating by breaking their fingers and gouging their eyes.

So extreme there were a few soldiers that declined to participate in the interrogation.

They soon found themselves at the bottom of a well, dead.

“These are folks that opted to leave the emperor’s protection. There is no need for sympathy.”

The soldiers went silent.

“Inquisitor Kato’s orders are still in effect. Lets move to the next village.”