Ch.151Report on the Downfall of Diligence (16)

# St. Georgios Monastery. When Kain was saying goodbye to Elisabet.

“…Take pity on all the wastelands of the world. They’re like people starving for affection, never satisfied with just one bowl of love, begging for more—all those lands…”

“I’ll remember.”

“Especially. The northeastern wasteland.”

Kain looked at Elisabet with slightly puzzled eyes. The northeastern wasteland. The birthplace of the Demon King and the land of the Shadow.

It had always been an abandoned, useless place. At least that’s what Kain knew. But Elisabet continued to whisper.

“Many from the Life Tree Order were absorbed into the Empire and the Faith. But there were those who weren’t. People who wanted to keep their beliefs.

They didn’t want to live in the Empire, so they decided to leave for the northeastern wasteland. It was a worthless land, and because of that, it was a free land.”

This was the first time Kain had heard this story. Elisabet sighed and continued.

“But there were certainly radical elements that remained. Those who felt they had been robbed of everything that was rightfully theirs.

People who felt their losses more keenly than what they had left to protect scattered throughout the world and started rebellions. Hidden among the people, or openly.

At first, there were negotiations and compromises. But eventually, both sides began to tire.

I don’t know who crossed the line first. Everyone thought they were justified. ‘Since you won’t listen, we have no choice,’ they said.

It’s ridiculous. That statement itself is practically declaring that you’re being dragged along by the other side. The moment you give up being your own master, all that’s left is clinging.

They tore at each other. The Empire and the Faith branded the Life Tree priests as heretics, and the priests fought back claiming they needed to reclaim their rights,

but they were no match. The Empire and the Faith were too big and strong. And then one day, it happened.”

“What happened?”

“I still don’t know if it’s true or not. But what’s certain is that the imperial army and the Faith massacred everyone in the northeastern wasteland under the pretext that the Life Tree priests had kidnapped children to offer as sacrifices.

But it was wrong. Those people were innocent. The real troublemakers were within the Empire.

And the avengers who remained in the Empire, to hide their own responsibility, loudly proclaimed the ruthlessness of the Empire and the Faith. Then the Faith and the Empire said:

‘Kill them all. God will recognize His own children.’ And at the forefront of that oppression were the inquisitors. Priests burned priests, brothers killed brothers, and sisters burned sisters.”

Confusion and shock flashed across Kain’s face, but he eventually nodded silently.

“You understand…?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a very old story. Even for me, it’s distant—my grandmother’s grandmother’s grandmother’s… But it definitely happened.

The sin and karma of the Empire and the Faith… when light and shadow were divided into two… It might be meaningless. But I hope… it helps…”

* * * * *

When he heard the story from Elisabet, Kain had tried to dismiss it. The content was simply unbelievable.

Even if it were true, it happened during the early days of the Empire. A story from before the time of grandfather’s grandfather, grandmother’s grandmother.

But the man before him. This man named Hans. He spoke of it as if it had happened just recently. As if he had experienced it himself.

“No. People lived there. It was dirtier than the filthiest pigsty in Lombardt, bread was mixed with more than half soil, and when strong winds blew, dust entered our homes.

To prevent sand from entering our ears, nose, and mouth before sleep, we wrapped our heads with cloth like dead people. You wouldn’t know. We weren’t given proper building materials to block the wind.

But it was our land, our home.”

Home.

Countless meanings flashed through Kain’s mind. Like vipers writhing beneath the mud.

All venomous, but none raising their heads, causing confusion. Sizzling. Boiling. Yet not entangling with each other.

He knew that the Seven Heroes hadn’t broken through the Demon King’s barrier because they were braver or more righteous than others. Rather, all seven harbored desires that ordinary people couldn’t approach.

The desire to become someone else. The desire to become a hero. The resignation that things couldn’t get worse than their already miserable lives. But for someone, it was home.

They wouldn’t have returned with joy. More people went mad and dropped out than died, and they had to march through nightmares by placing ignorant boys and girls at the front of the formation. To such a home.

Why?

“Just as you destroyed us. I will destroy you.”

“You’re talking nonsense.”

At Kain’s rebuke, Hans raised his chin as if challenging him to speak.

“You defeated the Demon King. If you wanted the Empire to fall, you would have sided with the Demon King. After crawling into your abandoned homeland to neutralize the Demon King, now you talk about revenge? That’s sophistry.”

At Kain’s words, Hans laughed, shedding tears of blood. Drops of blood fell from his chin onto his knees.

“What’s so funny?”

“I’m relieved. That you know nothing. The rock has already rolled down the slope, so all you can do is helplessly watch the world crumble.

You think I’m excited to see what’s taken from me? Ha, ha. Then you should enjoy it too. No. Learn how to enjoy it.”

“What have you done?”

Hans didn’t answer. Kain grabbed him by the collar. He slapped him fiercely and swung his fist, but Hans just coughed up blood and burst into laughter.

“Stop it!”

Grace moved between the two, trying to intervene. She tried to push them apart, but the carriage jolted again, disrupting her balance. Hans’s eyes flashed.

“Grace.”

“Huh, what?”

Hans bit Grace’s ear. He shook his head like a dog. Grace screamed and writhed. Kain extended his fist, but Hans kept tilting his head while biting his lover’s ear.

“Let go, let go! Ahh, let go, you son of a bitch!”

Grace struggled and thrashed. Hans continued to tilt his head. Like a stubborn dog dragging its prey home, he pushed her body toward the torn carriage door.

“No!”

Kain’s fist landed squarely on Hans’s forehead. Hans screamed in pain. Grace, with her eyes rolled back, howled and bit Hans’s neck like a lion.

Hans twisted his body. The light, small body of the nun floated up.

Kain barely grabbed the rope binding her, but when Hans pushed Grace toward Kain, he lost his grip. She was still biting Hans’s neck.

Kain couldn’t clearly see what happened next.

Whether it was because Hans caused a commotion. Or because Grace kept stretching her neck to bite Hans’s shrinking neck more fiercely, losing her balance.

Or because the horses, unable to withstand the commotion in the back of the carriage, thrashed about.

The carriage shook violently. Grace’s light body was pushed outward.

Blood spurted from Hans’s torn neck. Kain stared blankly at Grace’s face as she was pushed out of the carriage. With terror and shock in her eyes, still holding Hans’s flesh in her mouth, she…

She… under the carriage wheel.

The carriage crushing a human body rises with a thud!

The body slides sideways. The horses scream. The sound of crushing. The sound of grinding. The smell of blood. The lament of beasts. Maria’s scream.

The sound of the wheel axle collapsing. The world flips, narrows, and breaks as it spins, hitting his head again and again.

It spins and narrows to a point. Breaking and crumbling. Spinning round and round.

Being sucked into the darkness that awaits with open arms.

* * * * *

Kain opened his eyes to the sound of crying. It was a wail that seemed to shake flesh and split bone. But he couldn’t muster any strength in his body.

“So noisy.”

Kain complained without realizing it. His vision was blurry, unable to focus properly. Something moved back and forth before his eyes, strangely familiar yet unrecognizable, which was annoying.

“I don’t remember.”

Snap. Flames surge. Kain shouts at the burning pain before his eyes.

“Get up!”

“Maria?”

“Get up, you idiot!”

Maria’s hands firmly gripped Kain’s body and pulled him up. Kain instinctively moved his body as she led.

“Be careful!”

By the time he thought she could have warned him sooner, his body had already hit the ground. At least Maria held him somewhat, saving him from breaking his jaw.

“Cough, cough!”

“Get up, please!”

“Okay. I got it… just stop crying…”

This is serious, Kain thought. Even though Maria had clearly grabbed his body and helped him stand, barely maintaining balance, he felt no sensation in his limbs. Even breathing was difficult. Something was definitely wrong.

“Maria, are you okay…?”

No sooner had the words left his mouth than Maria staggered and lost her balance. Kain, who tried to catch her, tumbled to the ground with her.

“I twisted my ankle. It’s nothing. I’m fine. I’m fine… More importantly, we need to get up.”

The pain that had left returned to Kain. From the tips of his toes to his head, the pain felt like being burned by fire, and Kain gritted his teeth.

He struck his chest. Once. Twice. Until the numbness gave way to clear pain.

He needed to regain his senses. He needed to see what had happened.

The carriage lay on its side, completely wrecked. The horses with broken backs uselessly waved their legs in the air, only to drop them with a thud.

On the other side of the carriage’s path lay something unspeakable, revealed under the silent finger-pointing of the moon.

“Cough.”

And from the opposite side of the carriage. Hans crawls out. The rope must have come loose somehow. With one arm completely crushed and dangling.

“Heh. Heh. Heh.”

Despite his condition. He even laughs. He tried to turn toward them but ended up kneeling.

“You won’t, survive. A nobody like you can’t stop all this…!”

Then he throws his body to the ground. Crushing his already mangled arm against the floor again. Strange incantations mix with his hate-filled shouts.

Maria tried to snap her fingers, but,

“Hnngh.”

She inhales sharply at the sight of what appears in the distance.

A woman who should have been crushed by the carriage was approaching, her body swaying strangely. Upper and lower body separate, separate.

It wasn’t just the woman. A cracking sound came from where the dead horses lay. Four horses, shedding tears of blood, gnashing their teeth, and drooling, were pulling themselves up.

Hans was no longer bleeding. Shadow and smoke rose from his body. Like sand flowing from a punctured pocket, as the shadow flowed, his body gradually crumbled.

“As you sow, so shall you reap, and you shall be happy… He who takes the enemy’s child and smashes it against a rock. Blessed is he who returns to you as you have experienced…”

The shadows flowing from Hans’s body, pouring onto the ground, engulfed the horses and Grace’s severed body.

Like dirty water gathering in a drain, they were pushed toward Hans.

Finally, ‘it’ rose.

It was still Hans. The head was Hans’s head, Grace’s face was embedded in the chest, three horse heads on the left arm, and one on the right.

With the crushed bodies of horses haphazardly stuck together, it looked more like a plump spider than a horse’s body. The only difference from other spiders was that it had eight horse legs instead of spider legs.

“I will have revenge!”

The moon, unable to watch any longer, closed its eyes. A shadow darker than darkness rose.