Ch.150Report on the Downfall of Diligence (15)

His hair had been torn out, almost half of it gone, and his scalp was ripped open with blood flowing. Though not life-threatening, it was severe enough that an ordinary person would have likely fainted.

But Hans, true to his status as one of the Seven Heroes who had reached the Demon King, didn’t lose consciousness. He simply howled like a castrated bull and thrashed about wildly.

Kain roughly tore down the curtain covering the carriage window. Though the wound wasn’t fatal, he couldn’t leave the profusely bleeding injury untreated. It was less treatment and more literally just wound stabilization.

Of course, Hans didn’t stay still. Unable to see clearly, he tried to bite Kain’s hand. Kain responded by shoving the curtain he was holding into Hans’s mouth instead.

“Urghk?”

After forcefully stuffing the curtain into his mouth, Kain drove his fist into Hans’s stomach. Hans curled up into a ball. Kain yanked out the curtain and firmly secured it around Hans’s head. Maria’s shout could be heard.

“Hey, what’s happening back there?”

“Don’t worry about it and keep going!”

Hearing Kain’s shout, Maria urged the horses with a “Hiyah, ha!” As if that was sufficient, the carriage raced across the wasteland under the moonlight.

The path was a barren plain mixed with weeds. If this had been a trade route governed by the Empire, patrols would have been making rounds, but this was the territory of Bohemond I, both Elector and King of Taranto. And while Bohemond I might prohibit night travel, he wasn’t the type to order night patrols. Too expensive.

“As you know, this is the Electorate. And there are no patrols here. Since no travelers are out at night, even bandits don’t roam around. So even if you scream for a hundred days and a thousand nights, no one will hear you—you’ll just hurt your throat.”

The carriage door, half-detached from the earlier impact, banged against the body of the carriage with a thudding sound. After a moment’s consideration, Kain kicked the door off completely. If it got caught in the carriage wheels, it could cause a serious accident.

Hans stared at the falling door with disgust.

“You, what kind of person are you? Why are you doing this to me?”

“That’s what I want to ask. Why did you deceive people? What you did to Ismene…”

“Shut up!” Hans’s face was filled with terror. Kain paid no attention.

“No. I can say it twice, three times. Ismene. What did you do to that woman? Why did you have to do it? Why did you try to throw yourself out of the carriage? And where did you learn heretical doctrines?”

There were too many questions to ask, and they weren’t properly organized. Kain steadied his voice that was about to crack. Briefly. One by one. Calm your mind.

“Fine. Let’s go one at a time. The reason you put Jakob forward as your proxy was to move around freely, right?”

“Ptui.”

Kain didn’t get angry. He simply grabbed Hans by the collar and tilted him out of the carriage again. “Thud-thud-thud!” The carriage wheels responded with a roar. Hans screamed. The earlier fear engulfed him. But,

“Aaaaaaah!”

Kain flipped Hans’s body around. Earlier he had positioned the back of Hans’s head toward the carriage wheel; now he positioned his face directly toward it. Hans went berserk and jerked his body away from the threatening, bouncing stones.

“Yes! That’s why! That’s why! So I could freely move around the outer villages!”

Kain pulled Hans’s body back in. With another thud, he crashed into the opposite side of the carriage. “Aaaack!” Startled awake by the impact, Grace screamed at the sight of Hans bleeding profusely.

“S-s-save me! Save me!”

“If you open your mouth once more without my permission, you’ll be the next one I throw out.” Kain glared at Grace. She clamped her mouth shut. Hans sobbed.

“C-crazy bastard, you lunatic.”

“Why did you go around the outer villages? To freely take advantage of women? Or to secretly cultivate priests of the Black Phoenix? Or both?”

“Y-you’re right about both.” Hans hastily nodded. “I couldn’t touch the noble ladies in the city. Even if they threw themselves at me, if I did…”

A sound of teeth grinding came from Grace’s mouth. Kain looked at the nun with emotionless eyes.

“So you’re a heretic too.”

“Yes.” Grace looked at Hans with unfocused eyes, then nodded. “Yes, that’s right. Hans and I are priests of the fire.”

“Since when?”

Hans squirmed, seemingly trying to stop her from speaking. But Grace had already given up on herself.

“For a very long time. Since before joining the Crusade.”

This was somewhat different from what Kain knew. Hadn’t Maria’s father, Inquisitor Heinrich, clearly stated that the Black Phoenix Faith had only ‘recently’ begun its activities?

Moreover, Maria’s mother, Elisabet, also seemed unfamiliar with such ‘paganism.’ Of course, she knew well the difference between the Black Phoenix, which emphasized revenge and anger, and the ‘orthodox’ Life Tree doctrine.

“Are you saying the Black Phoenix Faith existed long before, even before the Demon King?”

“Yes. We’ve existed for a very long time.” Hans reluctantly revealed, meeting Kain’s gaze.

“I was under the impression it was a recently flourishing order.”

At Kain’s question, Hans lowered his head. He was laughing. With his head down, his shoulders shaking with laughter.

“It’s not that we’ve only recently emerged in the world. It’s that you’ve only ‘seen’ us recently.”

It was a subtle statement. And something different from before had crept into Hans’s tone.

Hatred and loathing. The distinctive tone of someone who has harbored resentment for a very long time. His breathing was ragged with anger rising to his chest, and the end of his words rose like flames.

But Kain simply asked coldly:

“It sounds like you knew everything. Like you intended it. Do you mean it was all planned—secretly building up your power and then openly revealing your activities?”

Hans no longer hid his hostility.

“Are you the Emperor’s dog? Or the Pope’s ass-wiper?”

“Just answer the question.”

“My answer depends on which side you’re—ack!”

He couldn’t finish his sentence. Kain had grabbed him again.

“Alright, alright! Let, let me go!”

Kain practically threw Hans toward Grace. The man and woman, who had accidentally bumped heads and shoulders, angrily pushed each other away. Kain’s lips twitched.

“I ask the questions. Speak. Are you admitting that you secretly built up your power, and that now you’re deliberately revealing your activities publicly?”

“…Yes.”

“How could you hide that.” Kain paused. Having intimidated Hans, now was the time to agree with him to make him relax.

“How could we have ‘only now’ discovered it?”

At those words, Hans seemed to become a little smug. From his perspective, it must have sounded like admiration or amazement. Few things are as exciting as when the weak show they’ve managed to outwit the strong, like when the strong mutter before the weak, “How did I not know that?”

“Want to know why? You high and mighty ones. Those who look down on people from high castles don’t even glance at people like us. You’re no different from that two-headed eagle. You don’t understand that there’s ground beneath the ground. You have no interest in those who squirm like insects.”

“So you’ve been hiding like vermin, is what you’re saying.”

“It was you who treated people like insects,” Hans muttered. “Treating us like insects that could be trampled, burned, boiled, and scorched. It was you arrogant ones.”

“And you preyed on your fellow insects. You’re not even an insect. You’re a lying, cheating coward with your scalp torn off, and a weakling who tried to kill himself just from hearing a girl’s name.”

Hans’s eyes reddened.

“I’m, I’m weak?”

Kain looked at Hans askew. Like ‘an arrogant two-headed eagle,’ as he had put it.

“You seem to think you’re quite something. No. You’re nothing. Let’s say, as you claim, that we were ‘arrogant.’ Let’s say you’ve been deceiving ‘us’ for a very long time. But that’s because there was absolutely no reason to pay attention to you. Just as a child hiding that they’ve soiled their pants isn’t a great achievement.”

“You know nothing.”

“Because there was no reason to know.”

“Then kill me. What are you waiting for?”

“The Knight of the Scabbard.”

Hans’s face contorted. Kain looked at the con man with cold eyes.

“The blind apprentice knight. The central figure of the Children’s Crusade. A friend of the girl Ismene, and a warm-hearted boy who knew how to care for the weak. But I’ll hand you over to the boy who ultimately couldn’t make it to the end.”

Hans’s face turned ashen. He clearly knew who that was. Kain knocked on the back of the carriage. It was a signal to slow down.

“I could just drive a stake into this wasteland, tie you to it, and leave. Then that guy who crossed the Empire’s sky on a monster ship would come to collect you. And I would go after the other heroes. Hans. I told you, didn’t I? You’re not someone special. So.”

Kain grabbed Hans by the collar.

“Show me right now how valuable a worm you are to me. Give me one reason why I should protect you from him. Before I throw you away like an insect and go to beat up the other ‘hero’ gentlemen.”

Finally, Hans’s eyes wavered. But Kain had no intention of stopping.

“But what you know is probably very insignificant. Because you’re an idiot. All that power and benefits you so desperately wanted, you gave away to your obedient dog.

Money. Women. Power. You didn’t properly enjoy any of them. Why? Because you’re a fool who rejects the obvious rewards in front of you and thinks only of cheating. What kind of idiot gives up something certain right in front of them and retreats to be cursed?

Ah. It seems you couldn’t even do that as you pleased. You’re a loser who gives away what you should have enjoyed to others, and masturbates in the back room. Why? Because that’s what suits you. Because you have that ‘enjoy being taken from’ preference. And you know it yourself.

Tell me. When the woman beside you offers herself to another man right before your eyes, do you feel anger? Or excitement…?”

“Aaaaaaah!”

Grace lunged forward. But Kain subdued her with a single gesture. Hans trembled and couldn’t even retort. He just twitched his cheeks, shook his body, and glared at Kain with angry eyes. Kain ignored that gaze. He looked at Grace.

“I seem to be right.”

“It was for revenge.”

Hans’s voice had sunk low. Like a flag soaked in rain clinging to a flagpole, it drooped and settled thickly.

“I will take revenge on this world. We will take revenge on this world. That’s what I learned in my homeland, and that’s what I learned from my faith. And you…”

Tears flowed from Hans’s eyes. As he lowered his head, the pooled blood ran down his forehead and poured out, turning into tears of blood.

“You too, won’t die peacefully.”

“Ah. Where on earth did you learn such wickedness?”

“From a vanished homeland.”

At this unexpected answer, Kain looked at Hans. Hans spoke each word separately.

“You people erased our homeland. You trampled us like insects, you burned our village, and killed and buried our grandfathers’ fathers and our grandmothers’ mothers. You arrogant ones.”

“Where was that?”

“The northeast.”

A shock like a loud ringing in his ears. It was only due to years of experience that Kain didn’t show any gap. Hans still loaded each word with hatred.

“What you call the wasteland wasn’t originally a wasteland. It was a place where people lived. People. Abandoned and driven out by the world. But still, it was a place where people lived. Until you crushed our parents’ heads with the hooves of war horses. Until you burned the last remaining Life Tree there.”

“Who did that?”

“Your great Empire.” A strange heat seemed to infuse Hans’s voice. It sounded like the ravings of someone possessed.

“And your great Two-headed Eagle Order.”