DMHS 38

“I understand. May I check your hand for a moment?”

Kian examined the chief’s hand. The parts of the skin that had turned pitch-black were the same. There was no sign of improvement.

Kian stared into the chief’s eyes and spoke.

“Tonight at dawn, no matter what sound you hear outside, do not step out of this temple.”

“What do you mean all of a sudden?”

“Even if your sick men insist they must go outside, ignore them. Close your eyes, cover your ears, and endure. If you do, you and your men will survive.”

“Master?”

“That is all I have to say.”

As Kian got up on his feet…

Flash!

Lightning split the sky outside the window. For an instant, the temple was as bright as day.

The chief gaped blankly at Kian. Kian’s two eyes shone a red as deep as blood.

‘This man is the true demon.’

When the temple turned dark again, Kian whispered softly.

“Remember. I tell you this for your sake.”

The chief nodded with his mouth still open. Soon Kian left his place.

As night grew late, they each lay down. The bandits lay around the relic, and Kian and Lucien spread their bedrolls near the entrance.

Inside the quiet temple, only the sound of the bandits’ snoring echoed.

When dawn came and everyone but the sentry was asleep, Kian quietly opened his eyes.

“……”

He checked Lucien’s bedroll first.

Lucien’s body, affected by the bond, did not grow larger unless he was alone with Kian, even at night. His youthful face was flushed faintly pink as he slept soundly. Kian liked the sight.

Kian rose from his bedroll without a sound. The sentry with his back turned did not notice before Kian changed into black smoke and slipped outside the temple.

Rain was still falling.

Soaked by the rain, Kian walked behind the temple to the clearing and placed his hand on the piled earth.

‘The body is gone.’

He dug out some of the dirt and found an old pendant and glass beads. The pendant contained the picture of a woman with her long hair braided down.

Kian put the pendant and beads inside his inner pocket and moved on.

Next, Kian arrived near the Chronos city walls. This was the slum quarter, which existed in every city.

Unlike the well-preserved buildings elsewhere, the ground here was scattered with broken twigs and scraps of cloth. Kian crossed it and found a mound of earth.

‘I knew it.’

Many had died in the chaos.

Those with wealth and family left alive would have had their bodies properly buried. But the dead of the slums had most likely been gathered and buried roughly in one place.

As he expected, the mound in the slums was taller than a man. Kian knelt and scooped up a handful of earth.

「Come forth and tell of your grievance.」

Kian muttered in a strange language.

Black smoke seeped out of the mound and took on human forms.

Black faces, black bodies.

Bodies full of gaping holes staggered down from the mound. There were more than twenty at a glance.

Kian spoke with a blank face.

「Do you know of the new curse placed upon this land?」

The first one to step down opened its mouth wide. The ones behind were swallowed one after another into its mouth.

In the end, only the first “black being” remained.

「Do, not, disturb, our, rest…」

「Just answer the question. Has there been another curse here?」

「Do, not, know… we, already, belong, to, another, dimension…」

「Then look at this city now. Is there anything different from before?」

Suddenly the black being trembled violently.

「…Thi, this, is…」

Its slow voice turned loud and fast.

「Unforgivable! We will never forgive! Even in death! We have not forgotten! We will kill! Unforgivable! Never forgive! We have not forgotten! We cannot forget! We will never forgive! We will kill even after death! We will tear apart and kill in misery!」

Kian furrowed his brow.

「Speak slowly. Why are you suddenly so agitated?」

「The one who killed us has come here!」

“……!”

The one who killed them was Gimere Harkin. He was said to have died from backlash after the Chronos massacre.

「Was he not already dead?」

「He lives! He crossed the city gates alive! Just yesterday! Unforgivable! Never forgive! Even in death we have not forgotten!」

‘Yesterday?’

Yesterday was the day Kian’s group entered the city.

There had been six who crossed the gate that day. Kian, Lucien, Daisy, Frederick, Aslan, and the unknown traveler.

‘Then is Gimere Harkin among them?’

The dead could not lie.

Kian realized he was much deeper in enemy ground than he had thought.

「What form does he wear now?」

But he never heard the answer.

Thud!

Refined mana flew from afar and pierced straight through the black being’s heart. The being vanished on the spot.

Kian quickly turned toward the direction the mana had come from.

Whoosh.

Someone on a roof left behind a white afterimage and disappeared.

‘A white robe?’

Kian jumped onto the roof as well. He ran toward where the figure had disappeared, and before long he was standing in front of the temple. He stopped at the fork where several paths spread out.

Just then, the door of a building to his left opened and a man in a white robe stepped out. It was the traveler who had come late the previous night.

Kian spoke to the man, who tiptoed out cautiously.

“What business do you have so early in the morning?”

“Hiik.”

Startled, the man collapsed on the ground.

“I wasn’t trying to run away.”

“Then were you out for a morning walk in the rain?”

“Y-yes. Walking in the rain is very refreshing.”

“That works out well. I was walking too. Let’s walk together.”

Kian accompanied the suspicious man toward the training ground. The man glanced around and asked in a small voice.

“But Sir Kian, where exactly are you going?”

‘Did I ever tell him my name?’

Kian searched his memory and the answer was no.

Gulp.

Kian swallowed dryly and looked at the man. The man still had his hood pulled low, supposedly to keep off the rain.

“I am going to the Chronos knights’ training ground. I heard the earth there has turned black.”

“Black earth? That’s a sign of demonization, right?”

“Yes.”

The man kicked at a puddle and grumbled.

“With all the rain since yesterday, all the soil is black. How are you supposed to tell the difference?”

“……”

“Well, never mind. We’ll see when we get there.”

They arrived at the training ground. They took their time checking every part of the wide grounds, but nothing stood out.

Just as the man had said, the wet soil was all soaked with rain. On top of that, the early dawn was dark with falling rain, so it was impossible to clearly distinguish the color.

“See what I mean? We’ll only see black earth once the rain stops.”

Kian pushed back his rain-soaked hair. His black eyes stared at the hooded man.

“Or perhaps the earth was never black to begin with.”

“That can’t be. Seeing as there’s a curse in the city, it makes sense that demonization has begun.”

“If that’s the case, then of course there is no curse. From the very start.”

The man looked bewildered.

“What? But yesterday you said the people were quarantined with a plague. If it isn’t a curse, how did so many people fall sick at the same time? And you even said someone died.”

“To be exact, it wasn’t people. They were dolls. Like you.”

Kian’s hand darted up and tore off the man’s hood.

“……!”

Under the rain, the man’s face was grotesque.

As if there hadn’t been enough time to shape it, the nose had collapsed and the skin was a muddy red. Every time the eyes blinked, the unstable eyelids slipped and fell away, leaving the spinning eyeballs fully exposed.

Kian drove his dagger down into the doll’s crown. It fell to the ground without even a scream.

“Let’s stop playing around. Show yourself. Aslan, or should I call you Gimere?”

A black fissure opened in the middle of the training ground. Aslan stepped out of it.

“When did you realize?”

“Well. I had many doubts, but no certainty. Not until the King of the Crouching Wolves’ hand failed to heal with the relic.”

“But didn’t you say relic healing takes time?”

“That was a lie. Relics take effect immediately on curses.”

Aslan’s gray eyes widened.

“You deceived me.”

“I suspected. And you didn’t seem to expect I would have relics either. Now let’s have a proper talk. Why did you deceive those people?”

Aslan said nothing.

“They weren’t struck by plague. They touched tainted soil and caught a skin disease, that’s all. The others with symptoms, fever, coughing blood, death were dolls you hid among them.”

“……”

“When I dug at the place where they said they buried their comrade, there was no body, only a pendant. You must have used the pendant as a medium to make him into a doll. And to replace him, you needed time. That means this was no accident. You prepared it well in advance.”

“……”

“I will ask once more. Why did you do this?”