Ch.232The Gospel by the Cursed (3)

Smiling is tiring work. Kain leaned against the wall of the captain’s cabin and yawned. Yawns being contagious, Laios covered his mouth too.

“So. What’s the plan?”

“First, we rest a bit. We need to reorganize our forces outside anyway.”

Like the crew’s quarters, this room also had a fold-out wall bed.

It was barely deserving of the name “bed”—just a plank large enough for one person to lie on—but still better than the floor.

Laios gave the wall bed to Kain and stretched out on the sofa himself. Though calling it a sofa was generous—it was practically junk with all the lining worn away, leaving only the wooden frame.

“I prefer the sofa to the bed anyway. Fits my body perfectly. Is the bed uncomfortable?”

“No. This is plenty. Seems better than most ships. No creaking wood sounds.”

Except for the occasional muttering, it wasn’t much different from a thin-walled lodging. Laios smiled as he looked up at the ceiling.

“Kain. You asked what my plan was, right?”

“Yeah.”

“To return to Ismene and give back her soul. That’s my plan. It won’t be an easy path, but with your help, it shouldn’t be too difficult. Can you help me?”

“Tell me more. What is it?”

“As you’ve seen from what I do, the way to receive a fragment of the Demon King is to kill the soul of its owner. Like washing mud off a pearl.

William. Roberta. Hans. Leonardo. Günther’s share is contained in their own bodies, so that’s not a big problem.

The problem is Arius’s share, and what should have been Arianne’s share—both are inside me.”

Surprised, Kain sat up.

“You…?”

“Like I said, this is the only way I know.” Laios continued staring at the ceiling of the captain’s cabin.

“I need to take all those troops and go before Ismene. And then die by her hand.

Until now, I’ve been able to maintain my soul because I had the Demon King’s fragment, but this time I’m giving it up. If I hand over what’s inside me too, her soul will become complete again.”

“Wait a moment.”

“No. Just a moment. Let me finish. When she regains her full senses, take her and the hope sword and escape this wasteland.

At least the spirits that follow hope will help you. That’s my request.”

Silence fell. With his eyes closed under the dim light, Laios looked peaceful.

“And. If possible, free the souls of this land. If it’s difficult for you, I’d be grateful if you could find someone who can.

But I think you can do it. I saw what you did on the outskirts of Lombardt. You persuaded the souls to calm down and let go of their hatred. You helped them rest in peace.”

Kain didn’t know how to respond. It seemed irresponsible to say there must be another way.

He also thought that if there were another solution, Laios would have found it already.

“What will happen to you if you give everything to Ismene?”

“Well. First my body will collapse. My soul too. But I don’t think the wasteland will let me go.

Countless vengeful spirits have given me strength, and if I die like that, they’ll see it as betrayal. I’ll probably become a vile being. They’ll try to take out their anger on me. After all, they’ve been deceived by hope once again.

So I’ll probably become like those beasts out there. But something much more degraded. A lowly beast without any sense of self.”

An inexplicable irritation welled up inside Kain. He was angry that someone could talk about their own fate so casually, as if it were happening to someone else.

But he said nothing. He knew the real reason for his anger was that he couldn’t think of any solution himself.

He knew he was trying to direct his anger at someone else because he didn’t want to face his own powerlessness and incompetence.

“Let’s focus on getting there first.”

That was all Kain said before lying down. They had plenty to discuss anyway.

For a while, the two talked about how to approach tomorrow.

Despite dropping out midway, Laios was from a knightly order. He had participated in various training exercises and thus had at least a basic knowledge of strategy and tactics, however rudimentary.

Then again, even if a tactical genius came instead of Laios, it wouldn’t make much difference. This wasn’t a battle between humans, but between monsters and monsters, beasts and beasts, demons and demons.

“It sounds complicated, but it’s simple. We gather all the demons of the wasteland and wipe them out at once. If that’s too difficult, we at least paralyze them temporarily. That would make escape easier.”

Laios concluded. Even their dry conversation came to an end. The spring clock stopped. Complete silence fell. Lying on the bed, Kain thought of Lily.

‘She must be really angry.’

But he hadn’t wanted to bring her. She would have insisted on coming too, and Kain knew he couldn’t break Lily’s stubbornness.

So leaving her behind had been the best option, Kain tried to convince himself.

‘I wonder if Maria is okay.’

Kain had seen Elisabet use her power. It was completely different from Maria’s. But he hadn’t known Maria could use such power either.

‘If you were going to worry so much, you should have just told her and gotten it off your chest.’

A grumble mixed with regret and sadness. But there was nothing he could do about it. She probably didn’t want to worry anyone. Not Lily, and not Kain.

Lost in thought, his ears caught a low humming sound from outside the captain’s cabin. Perhaps one of the “heads” had been a singer.

It was a simple tune that wandering troupes played at every country festival.

Cheerful yet somehow melancholic, with erratic pitches but precise rhythm and beat, suitable for dancing and easy to play—a basic melody.

Even the heads made no comment about the small music. Occasionally sobbing sounds could be heard, but only briefly.

A song of longing for home.

It was about a traveler who had wandered far and wide finally returning home. All they had salvaged was one set of clothes, a pair of shoes, and a large hat.

A song about the lightness of having lived as one wanted and done as one pleased, with only spending the rest of one’s life in one’s hometown remaining.

‘I wonder where their hometown is.’

Kain became curious.

Of course, their hometowns were probably not beautiful. Just thinking about how Laios had been treated in his hometown…

So the place they wanted to go wasn’t the actual hometown they had left. It was a hometown they had never visited, a nostalgia they had never felt.

Listening to the longing for memories they had never experienced, Kain fell asleep. It was a deep sleep without even dreams.

* * * * *

When he opened his eyes, Laios was gone. A cup of water and a piece of bread had been placed on the table. The bread was a bit hard from age and smelled stale, but at least it wasn’t spoiled.

After finishing his modest meal, Kain gathered the Imperial Sword and his staff and went outside the captain’s cabin.

The white fog made it difficult to see ahead. ‘How can the fog be this thick?’ he muttered as he approached the ship’s rail, then stepped back in surprise.

He had momentarily forgotten that the ship was flying high in the sky.

It wasn’t fog, but clouds. If they were that high up, it should be extremely cold with strong winds, but it wasn’t like that at all. It seemed to be because of the dark energy swirling on the deck.

The energy flowed from the bow. Kain walked toward the front of the ship. The deck was empty. He saw Laios’s back, kneeling on one knee.

‘Is he praying? Or gathering his thoughts?’ Kain waited. After a moment, Laios stood up and beckoned to Kain. As he approached, Laios pointed beyond the ship’s rail to the wasteland below.

“…The sea?”

Though it was dark, it looked like a sea. He could see the undulating waves.

Laios shook his head and handed him a telescope. Looking more closely, Kain drew in a surprised breath.

What was undulating wasn’t waves. They were arms. Countless arms with palms stretched upward, countless arms extending from the ground to the sky, arms filling the horizon from one end to the other.

They were swaying back and forth as if trying to snatch the flying ship.

“What on earth is this…?”

“Now you see why we needed a ship?” Laios smiled bitterly.

“Those things down there have abandoned even hope. They don’t seek salvation. They just want to grab and tear apart whatever they can reach. Ismene is in the middle of them. There, in front, can you see?”

Kain scanned the horizon through the telescope but saw nothing special. Just countless hands and arms gesturing like waves and water droplets, and one pointed mountain.

“I don’t see it.”

“It’s right there. Even I can see it.”

Laios pointed to the mountain. Kain examined the mountain up and down. He still couldn’t see anything that could be called a person.

As he was about to ask ‘Where exactly?’, Kain finally realized.

It was the mountain itself. Ismene was the mountain itself.

“You know those people who pretend to be calm on the outside, but behind the scenes worry and fret over every little thing? Ismene was that kind of sensitive person.”

“What happened to her?”

“She chose to harden her heart to avoid getting hurt. At first, it wasn’t that bad, but as time passed, it grew thicker and thicker until she became like that.

No matter how much you call from outside, she won’t come out. There’s only one time she comes out. When she’s too irritated to bear it anymore.”

So they were essentially flying to wake a mountain.

Laios looked down at the sky, too cloudy to be visible, at the sea of those who had given up hope and only stretched their hands upward. Finally, he looked at the sword in his hand.

“Kain. If you want to go back, you can still do so now. It’s not too late.”

“Let’s just go.”

At Kain’s resolute answer, Laios smiled. Black energy gradually rose from around his neck, forming the shape of a pitch-black helmet.

“If it weren’t for times like this, I think we could have been good friends.”

The helmet completely covered his head. Laios turned around. Raising the scabbard into the air, he chanted a spell.

Wind blew from the sky above the clouds. On a ship that blocked even the wind above the clouds, such a wind would be comparable to a considerable storm.

Kain gripped the ship’s rail tightly.

What descended from the sky was a dragon. A dragon like those in myths.

But it wasn’t exactly like the illustrations.

Where there should have been scales, there were humans bound in chains. Thick blood flowed from rotting eye sockets.

In contrast to the half-decayed head, the teeth were unnaturally white—looking closer, they weren’t teeth but what appeared to be ribs of something inserted there.

But Kain saw the human sitting on top of the dragon. Like a crude joke, it was sitting on a horse saddle. A familiar face.

“William.”

William the Chaste was riding the dragon. He looked exactly as he had at the sealed monastery.

He was still smiling nonchalantly. He even smiled brightly when he saw Kain.

Behind Dragon Knight William, other dragons descended. They looked like human bodies with lizard heads attached.

They had absurdly exaggerated breasts and genitals which, unlike other parts that were rotting, swollen, and covered in boils, were overflowing with vitality.

“O chaste ones,” Laios shouted. “Show your desires!”

The dragons flew toward the ground, shrieking in ecstasy. The sound of crushing the ground with squelching noises. Obscene voices splashing. Happy screams and howls flowed from the dragons’ mouths.

The dragons rubbed their bodies against the ground, crushed it, and ground against it.

Then a huge tidal wave rose from the other side. A tidal wave of hands and palms. They surged forward from across the wasteland all at once.

The pleasure-soaked dragons thrashed about madly and clung to them. The wave of countless hands caressed the dragons.

Thousands upon thousands of hands stroked intimate places. The bodies of the trembling dragons shattered and collapsed.

Impure blood and murky fluid sprayed over them. The hands, covered in filth, moved around trying to smear the dirt on each other.

But when it wouldn’t wipe off, the hands began strangling each other.

The dragon William rode held out the longest. Its body, overcome with happiness, was slowly melting from the bottom up. The monster melted away, satisfied with the afterglow of climax and penetration.

Before disappearing into the wave of hands, William was still moving his hips. Truly, he was a chaste warrior.

At this absurd sight, Kain recalled a childhood memory.

The neighbor who farmed had too many centipedes in his storehouse, so the angry owner buried a pot with boiled chicken in the ground.

When he dug up the pot later, it was full of centipedes. They had been so desperate for food that they had eaten each other, leaving few intact.

The owner threw the pot into the yard. Countless pigeons, crows, and chickens rushed over to eat the centipedes.

Strangely, William’s movements resembled those centipedes. His twitching, as if still alive, was like the body of a severed centipede.

But finally, the last hand covered his face.

A black stain rose up. It ran across the sticky earth toward the mountain.

Like dry cloth absorbing water, the stain was sucked into the mountain. The mountain didn’t even stir.

Thus chastity was broken.

But six still remained.