“What do you mean?”
“Your hands. There are calluses on both your palms at certain places, very symmetrical. It’s quite rare to see these, unless you wield dual swords.”
“…”
“Besides, the calluses on your little finger are thicker than the calluses between your thumb and forefinger. It means you’re used to holding the sword in reverse.”
What did that mean?
It meant he mostly used short swords rather than long ones.
Since he dual wielded on top of that, he almost definitely used daggers.
Dual wielding daggers –
It was rare to find people like that in the land of the sword.
It was a style mainly used by assassins, rather than knights.
“You have good eyesight. But calling me an assassin based on that alone… is too presumptuous.”
“Do you think so?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you’re right. It’s just a guess.
“I was just joking, but this conversation suddenly got too serious.”
Unlike Callius, who smiled wildly, Peter’s face had gradually turned pale.
“Peter.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t like the Church.”
“Eh? But you’re an inquisitor…”
How could one belonging to the Church dislike it?
“I mean it. Although Carpe is where I was born and raised, I don’t like the Church much. But, ironically, although I hate the Order, I do love the sword.”
“What exactly do you…”
Peter was confused as to what Callius wanted to say.
“Peter.”
“Yes.”
“Right now, Carpe is rotten. The country is not functioning properly. Hungry people are everywhere, and the land is rife with meaningless deaths. I want to use my sword for something meaningful.”
“…”
“I will change the Carpe Kingdom, and the Church of Valtherus. But I’m still weak. There are limits to what one can do with their own power. But it’s different if you can build up a force.”
“Are you going to create a force under your?”
“I’m in the process of doing it, little by little. Not only Flora, there are many children I will be sponsoring in the future. They will grow up and become knights under my command. Everyone will work for Carpe.”
“So what…”
“You’re still stubborn, I see.”
Callius sighed, and gave Peter a deep look.
“I will destroy the empire.”
Gulp.
Peter unconsciously swallowed his saliva.
“The empire, you…”
“I can do it. But to do that, I must first cut off the rotten roots of this kingdom.”
“Why are you telling all this to a simple soldier like me?”
“Don’t you already know?”
Callius wiped his lips with a napkin, and stood up with a faint smile.
“Do think about it, will you? And if you find that you can’t decide, come visit me.”
‘He already knew everything.’
Peter walked along the roadside in a dark mood.
The same way home from work that he’d been walking for several years was feeling strangely alien.
Were these flowers always here?
A new store was opened, and new faces could be seen.
But all of that had nothing to do with himself.
Irrelevant and unimportant.
Eyes that had lost their colour roamed the streets.
“Dad!”
Colour flooded back into the pupils at the call.
It was Flora.
“Dad? What’re you doing here? Let’s go home!”
“… Yeah.”
The little mouth chirping like a lark spoke about her friends, about swords and knights.
Peter quietly listened to his daughter’s story.
When they got home, they prepared a meal together, ate and washed together.
Finally it was late at night, and it was time for the child to go to sleep.
“Good night, Dad~ yawn.”
“Sleep.”
He caressed his sleeping daughter’s head and pulled up the blanket to cover her.
As he closed the door, the corners of his mouth that had been raised in a smile, came down and straigtened.
The eyes lose their colour again.
Rattle.
Peter took out the box that had been placed in the groove dug behind the picture frame that hung on the wall of the living room.
Click.
When he opened the box, two curved daggers could be seen inside.
The handles were quite worn.
The eyes found their light again.
But they weren’t the eyes of a father anymore, instead they were the eyes of a killer[1].
Creeeeeeak.
Step, step.
As he came out to the backyard, he was greeted by a group of masked people dressed entirely in black as if they had been waiting for him.
It was already agreed upon.
If he only turned around, he could go back to his home, and his child.
But Peter kept his mouth shut and did not turn around.
He clenched his teeth so hard his jaws throbbed and creaked.
For some reason, the daggers in his hands were trembling a little.
“Are we going?”
The trembling stopped.
No words were needed.
He only nodded his head in a short, simple movement.
Step.
The sight shifted in an instant.
Buildings and forests were fast passing by.
A villa nestled in the mountains, came into view.
The iron gate was firmly locked, but that was no problem for these night time visitors.
Thud.
They simply jumped over it and entered the mansion.
There was no sound.
The location had already been secured.
And as they entered the target’s room –
Startle.
The target was perched on a bed with the sword resting on his shoulder.
“This villa. I like it quite a bit. So let’s take this outside.”
The target spoke to them with closed eyes.
Seeing Callius’ appearance, the two intruders quickly pulled out their swords and swung.
Two swords that stabbed from both sides.
“Haah.”
However, Callius merely sighed once.
With a single pull his sword sprung free from the scabbard, and the two’s attacks were neutralized.
Claaaaaaang, claaaaang–!
“Kgh!”
“Ugh!”
Despite only their swords being struck, but the attackers trembled as if they had been beaten all over, and collapsed.
Their bodies seemed paralyzed.
“Let’s go, then.”
Swish.
Watching Callius jump out of the window, the hunters began chasing after him.
How far did he run like that?
Callius stopped in an empty area on the side of an unknown mountain, his breath white like steam under the moonlight.
“The moon looks nice tonight. It’s quiet, too.”
He pushed his sheathed sword into the air, somehow making it vanish, and pulled out a new sword from thin air.
It was a sword without a scabbard.
It was a well-balanced broadsword, large and sturdy.
Callius the target, and the hunters who chased him –
There were no words between the two.
At the moment he completely pulled out his sword, the three enemies were already rushing at him.
However, the result was the same this time.
The killers who’d rushed in were torn apart, one limb at a time.
And all of them were decapitated.
Slash!
Callius, throwing off the blood from his sword with a sharp swing, looked around him with cold eyes.
Eyes that held no emotion whatsoever.
As if he was just quietly doing what he had to do.
‘Interesting.’
The enemies, whose job was to kill people, had eyes that resembled his own.
While he was thinking about that, he quickly became the only living being left on the field.
As if there was an invisible barrier protecting him, all the killers died without even touching a a single hair of his.
Same as the first time, he slaughtered the slaughterers without moving even a single step.
Blood was oozing out from the corpses on the ground.
Crack!
The sound of thunder broke the spell of silence covering the sky.
Clouds swept in to cover the moon.
What little light had been there to see by was gone, plunging the world into absolute darkness.
That was the signal.
Ssssssh–
Mist rose from the twin daggers of the last of the killers.
Dense fog that covered both the target and the attacker.
Sttttttep!
Clang! Screeeech! Claaaang–!
Amidst the thick fog, only the sparks of the colliding blades could be seen flashing.
Stab, block, and cut.
A fierce battle of attacks and counterattacks in the dark.
Whiiiiish.
Throw a dagger up into the air, attack with the other, then jump up with a somersaults and kick the dagger down, fast as lightning.
Whiish, claaang!
Although Callius managed to block even that, the enemy immediately snatched the dagger from the air and continued his assault, his movements exquisitely connected to each other like flowing water.
Two daggers gripped in reverse in mid-air came swinging down at once.
Craaaaaaack–claaaaang!!
The fog rolled up, again.
It was on a different level than last time.
Callius took a step back and frowned.
“You cheeky…”
Whooosh–!
The fog suddenly subsided, and the attacker froze in place.
A sense of pressure descended upon the area.
The killer’s legs were shaking, his body as if stuck in tar.
But he still moved, and his movements flowed as naturally as ever.
He pulled out the dagger piercing the ground and struck again.
Claaang! Craack! Whoosh!!
Ssssk.
“Kgh.”
It had still been manageable before Callius drew out the power of his sword, but there was simply no hope after he did.
The strange pressure that spread all over the area restricted movements, and the more scratches piled up on his body, the more it became heavier, like cotton soaked in water.
Even if he fell down groaning again and again, he got up and rushed in again.
But every time he did so, it felt like he was wading into water. The fog created by the twin daggers had long since dissipated.
Claaaaang, keeeeeen!
Thud!
“Ugh!!”
The second time. The third time. He got up again and again.
But the more time passed, the heavier his body became.
Nevertheless, the slaughter continued.
Claaaaaang, claaaaaang!!
Crack, craaaaaaaaaaaaack!
Step, step, step.
The dark clouds covered the moon, and rain came pouring down, accompanied by thunder and lightning.
The raindrops that shot down from the heavens as if the sky had been riddled with holes, made the heavy body feel even heavier.
“Peter. Do you want to live?”
“I have no intention of begging for my life.”
The last killer barely dragged himself up, pushing off his daggers on the wet ground.
His legs trembled, and his arms that raised the daggers again were the same.
Nevertheless, he grinned and rushed at Callius, as if for the last time.
Claaang, thud!
Thud–!
The killer, who got kicked into the ground, fell down again.
Callius, who thought this was the end of his stubbornness, wrinkled his eyebrows at the form rising up again through the curtain of rain.
“Give up.”
“For me, giving up is the same as death. If you want to stop me, kill me!!”
“What will Flora do then?”
Flinch.
The gaze of a father looked out of the eyes of the killer, but only for an instant.
“This is how I’ve lived my whole life. I always killed my target at any cost when I was ordered to. That’s why, I have to live like this for the rest of my life. That is the only courtesy and atonement I can offer to them.”
Callius, who listened to the story quietly, clicked his tongue.
“If they tell you to kill Flora, will you kill Flora with your own hands?”
“…”
“If you can’t even kill your child, what kind of a killer’s lifestyle are you boasting about?”
“I humbly request. Please kill me – or die.”
Booooom!
In the pouring rain, the sound of thunder the only accompaniment of his performance, the killer’s form began to distort and disappear.
“If you die, I can’t save Flora. I will kill her with my own two hands.”
“…”
“If I kill you her and now, that child’s sword will point towards me one day. There are no perfect secrets in the world. One day, that girl’s sword will become the sharpest in the world and block my way. So I’ll have to kill her first before that can happen.”
A sword you can’t control is better off destroyed.
“I’ll ask again. Do you want to live?”
“…”
Puff!!
“Ugh!”
Another kick, and a body fell and and rolled on the ground.
Annoyance slowly began to bloom on Callius’ face.
He never thought it’d be easy, but he didn’t expect it to be this tricky.
“Tell me you want to live! For your daughter! If you want to live, for your daughter’s future, bow your head down!! If you do, I will save you!”
The killer’s eyes trembled for a moment.
But they soon stopped.
He looked up at Callius with hardened eyes.
“There’s no guarantee that my sword will never point at you again. Something that’s happened once… why can’t it happen twice?”
“…”
“Kill her. She’s a smart kid. But she was only born for the sake of camouflage. If she dies here, that’s just how it was written in the stars.”
“I remember the way you proudly told me about your daughter. There were no lies in it.”
“It was all a lie. That’s just how a killer hides himself.”
Callius drew out a new sword.
Even beneath this dark and damp sky, the sword’s graceful blade gleamed.
Judgment Sword – Medea.
“Is that true?”
“It’s true.”
However, giving the killer’s words the lie, the colour of the sword changed.
Seeing the blackened sword, Peter growled as if enraged.
“Kill me!!”
“Shut up.”
“Kill me! Just kill me!!”
“Is it because Flora will die if you don’t?”
The killer’s body trembled.
“Is that how your superiors do things? Killer must die. And everybody they love are hostages to ensure that.”
“…”
“You, just live here from now on.”
“… I can’t do that.”
“Do you think I’m trying to convince you? No, this is an order.”
“But…”
The killer lowered his head.
If he could simply cut off his past, he wouldn’t have done this in the first place.
The sins of his past pressed heavy on his shoulders.
And if he tried, he’d endanger not just himself, but also everybody around him.
So he couldn’t.
“I need to have what my intuition tell me I should. If someone else wants to touch something of mine – I will cut those hands off.”
“Why are you doing this?”
The killer lifted his eyes and looked up at Callius.
“I tried to kill you.”
“Who cares? Half of Carpe will soon try to kill me. Just add those imperial bastards on top of that. I have no shortage of enemies. It won’t change anything if a few get added to the roster.”
Thud!!
“Uhm, why are you hitting me? …”
“How dare a father treat his daughter’s life so lightly? Flora sure is pitiful. I’d rather have her as my foster daughter.”
“…”
“Are you going to live?”
“Can… can I?”
“Don’t pass the responsibility to somebody else. If you want to live, you should. It has to be by your own will.”
Moreover, you –
“You have a clear reason to live.”
Because a child needs a father.
Editor’s Notes:
[1] 살수 (salsu) usually means water sprinkler, but here it’s an old term for killer/hitman.
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