Ch.40Corpse Collecting (7)

The man called Hans turned around.

He drew his sword from his waist with remarkable fluidity.

It was a smooth motion that suggested countless hours of training ingrained in his body.

He moved.

Just as he had been trained, just as he had always fought.

Naturally, he plunged his blade into the throat of the man approaching him.

“Hans, what are you do— Gack!”

With that scream, the nightmare began to bare its teeth and smile.

Earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, and so on.

Disasters could appear at any time to destroy human lives, but people often forgot this fact.

Of course, everyone prepared minimally within reason, terrified of the damage such catastrophes might bring. Yet no one imagined these disasters would actually break through the meager barriers they had prepared.

When you think about it, it made sense.

If you lived in constant fear of earthquakes, you wouldn’t dare walk outside.

If you worried about drowning every day, you’d be terrified whenever it rained.

People had no choice but to live day by day, clinging to the vague optimism that such unimaginable tragedies wouldn’t happen to them.

But disasters, mocking human common sense, always appeared when least expected, inflicting damage beyond comprehension.

That’s why they were called disasters.

And until recently, the greatest disaster to affect the human world was known as the Demon Lord.

Red eyes.

The Demon Lord’s curse—embers of destruction left by that terrible, horrifying calamity.

When the worst-case scenario he had only worried about in his mind actually arrived, Ash froze, unable to react.

Ash knew.

Silvia had already told him, so he could fully anticipate what would happen in this moment.

But that didn’t mean he was prepared.

He had naively thought that simply avoiding people would be enough.

But now, it had come to this.

“Fuck!”

When Ash finally assessed the situation, what he felt wasn’t despair, fear, or confusion.

“You fucking bastard!”

Only boiling rage and murderous intent that threatened to burn every corner of his brain.

The heat felt like it was bursting through his eyeballs.

Ash drew his dagger and charged down the slope.

His bad leg throbbed with pain, but he ignored it.

All that mattered was stabbing the target right in front of him.

He had to kill him.

That thing shouldn’t be allowed to live.

It felt like every organ below his throat had large thorns covered in fine hair stuck in them.

An unbearable stinging and itching.

It seemed like it would only disappear if he killed the person before him.

“Die! Die!”

Ash plunged his dagger into the back of that arrogant bastard who dared turn his back on him.

The sharp dagger sliced through the man’s back as smoothly as butter with just a slight push.

“Aaagh!”

Ash dragged the dagger downward.

Muscle and flesh parted smoothly.

Ash roughly grabbed the struggling man’s back and mercilessly drove the dagger deeper.

The blade caught on something.

Probably the man’s spine.

He irritably pushed the dagger sideways.

Crack!

With a chilling sound impossible to imagine coming from a human body, the man’s spine snapped.

The man collapsed with a miserable scream.

Ash still clung to the man’s back.

He wanted to see it.

He wanted to pull out the spine he had broken.

Ash cut away chunks of the man’s skin and flesh, peeling them off.

Blood spurted like a fountain, covering Ash’s face, but he didn’t care at all.

His vision had long since turned red.

“Guh, gah, kaack, gahaa”

He stabbed his dagger into the man’s nape, driving it through until it reached the ground.

With each strange sound that couldn’t even be called a scream, blood trickled from the man’s throat.

Ash saw the white spine covered in blood and reached into the flesh.

“Aaaaaaaaaah!”

The man let out a terrible scream.

The squelching sound of hands digging through soft flesh mixed with the man’s screams, spreading in all directions.

Ash gritted his teeth and pulled out the spine.

Snap.

With that ominous sound, Ash held four or five vertebrae in his hand.

Simultaneously with that snap, the man’s screams abruptly stopped.

Ash casually tossed the spine fragments onto the man’s mangled back.

“Melvin! Hans! What’s happening?!”

Someone was approaching from the distance.

These disgusting, filthy things, like cockroaches.

They all had to die.

All humans must die.

“Aack!”

“My God, what is this…”

“Th-that one! That one…”

“That…”

Ash slowly caught his breath, bending down to pull his dagger from Hans’s throat.

“That bastard.”

“Fuck.”

“You sons of bitches.”

Three opponents.

All drawing swords from their waists.

They glared at Ash with blood-red eyes.

One looked to the side.

Ash, his red eyes flashing with hatred and rage, conjured fire in his hand.

*

How much time had passed?

Ash stood in the middle of people torn to shreds.

Throughout his life learning magic, he had been taught never to use it against people, and Ash himself had naturally agreed.

But Wind Blaster proved to be the best method for impaling bodies on tree branches, Light was an excellent way to blind opponents so they couldn’t dodge his thrown dagger, and Fireball showed excellent results in continuously burning wounds that opponents tried to heal with holy power.

Ash willingly approached the men who were screaming pitifully and spraying blood, tearing and ripping them apart with his hands.

The abbreviated magical formulas he learned from Silvia could be applied excellently.

There was no need to use perfect arithmetic formulas.

All that mattered was being able to kill the opponent.

“Ku…ugh. Kugh”

Thinking everyone was dead, Ash slowly turned to the side when he heard a strange sound.

Melvin, whose throat had been stabbed by Hans first, was reaching toward Ash with blood-red eyes.

He seemed to be maintaining his life with holy magic.

Melvin’s eyes were full of anger and hatred.

“Maggot-like bastard.”

That face was disgusting to look at.

Ash rushed to the dying man and firmly grabbed his face.

Then he crushed those revolting eyes with his thumbs.

Melvin let out a terrible scream.

Ash found that scream extremely irritating.

He withdrew his right hand to pick up a fallen dagger and plunged it deep into the center of the man’s neck.

Despite its rough use, the dagger was still sharp.

It smoothly penetrated Melvin’s throat, but the handle was too slippery with blood and other unidentifiable fluids to sever his neck.

This damned man wouldn’t die and kept making wheezing screams.

Ash pinned down his flailing arms with his knees.

The man’s body, gasping for breath, flickered with white light.

Fuck, holy power.

“Just die already!”

Ash, struggling with the slippery dagger, plunged both thumbs back into the man’s crushed eyes.

Then, gritting his teeth, he pulled hard.

“Aack ga-ga aack”

“Die, just die, die, die!”

Ping.

With a sound like a worn-out rubber band snapping weakly, the skin around Melvin’s neck slowly tore.

Ash screamed as he gathered his strength.

And finally, he ripped that filthy face from Melvin’s body.

The recoil sent Ash tumbling backward.

“Ha, hahahahaha!”

Ash immediately got up and looked down at the proud trophy in his hands.

He breathed heavily.

No sound could be heard around him except for Ash’s breathing.

Ash slowly closed his eyes, taking deep breaths.

Now his whole body was starting to hurt.

He must have overexerted himself and gotten injured somewhere.

He hadn’t noticed at all during the fight.

He had been so wrapped up in excitement, elation, murderous intent, and rage that he hadn’t even been aware of what was happening to his body.

Ash slowly shook his head and lifted his stiff eyelids to look around.

“…Ugh, aack!”

Ash suddenly screamed in shock.

His red pupils trembled very uneasily as they darted around.

The forest, stained red all around, looked like a scene from hell.

Ash blinked blankly, as if unable to grasp the situation.

Suddenly, feeling the weight in both hands, he slowly lowered his head.

Aaaaaaah!

Ash threw Melvin’s head away.

His head, with eye sockets grotesquely widened, was no longer round and fell with a thud at Ash’s feet, unable to roll.

The Demon Lord’s curse.

The tragedy Silvia had told him about.

Villagers who killed each other in madness.

Ah,

Ah,

This isn’t what you told me at all, Silvia.

She never described such horrific scenes in the tragedy she spoke of.

Ha, of course not.

Five people. Just five people.

With just five people, it had become such a hellish scene.

How many people were in Milwood Village?

The cemetery had over 50 graves.

Milwood Village that day must have been a hell so terrible that even Silvia found it difficult to recall.

Ah, uaaaa…

Mom, Dad…

Sister…

Laila…

I… I killed people.

Ash slowly repeated those words in his heart, unable to speak them aloud.

“Ash.”

A gentle woman’s voice.

“This is what I meant… what I told you.”

From behind Ash, between trees soaked in red blood, Silvia slowly emerged.

*

“This is why… we can’t leave this forest…”

Silvia said with a bitter face, looking around.

Ash slowly curled up and tore at his hair.

…Yes, it would be strange not to be shocked.

Silvia slowly nodded.

An ordinary person couldn’t easily accept killing another person.

Even the most evil criminal rarely commits murder for the pleasure of watching someone die.

Even those who enjoy crime rarely enjoy mutilating human bodies to this extent.

Silvia spoke to Ash in a worried voice.

“Are you alright…?”

“Uu… uuu…ugh,”

“…Ash?”

Ash was trembling all over, making strange noises.

He didn’t seem to recognize Silvia approaching him.

Silvia slowly extended both hands under his arms and embraced him as gently as possible.

Ash flinched in great surprise.

He probably thought someone was attacking him.

Silvia held his waist firmly but gently until Ash calmed down.

He might not be able to see or hear anything now, overwhelmed by shock, but he would surely feel this touch.

Silvia rested her head slightly against his back, holding Ash without saying anything for a long time.

Ash was covered in blood from head to toe, but Silvia didn’t mind.

The dark red blood stuck stickily to her brilliant golden hair and pale skin.

But Silvia rubbed her cheek against Ash’s back even more, embracing him warmly.

When Ash’s trembling finally subsided,

Silvia slowly whispered in his ear with a gentle tone.

“Ash.”

“…Uh!”

Ash finally realized it was Silvia embracing him from behind.

Her soft voice penetrated the buzzing in his ears.

Through the vibrating smell of blood, the scent of wildflowers from Milwood Village entered his nostrils.

As he slowly opened his eyes, he could see her flowing hair swaying at the edge of his vision.

Silvia slowly whispered in Ash’s ear.

Like birds chirping happily under the morning sunlight filtering through branches,

Her voice was as comfortable and warm as her cabin.

“I told you, Ash.”

“…”

“You can’t leave now.”

“…Uh,”

Yes, so this is what she meant.

Ash muttered inwardly.

I knew but didn’t know.

If I had known, I would have been more careful.

No, she warned me enough.

These people died because of me.

Like Uncle Hardy.

Like my parents.

And… like Laila.

I’ve become a monster.

Or maybe I always was one.

I am a detestable monster who feeds on the deaths of others, a fragment of the Demon Lord’s curse.

It doesn’t have to be me who destroys this world.

Didn’t the Demon Lord say something like that?

Truly, an incomparably evil disaster.

Ash carefully gripped Silvia’s arms that embraced him.

Feeling his trembling touch, Silvia embraced Ash even more tightly.

“You can’t leave me.”

Ash nodded slightly.

Yes, now he had only Silvia.

He knew it before, but realized it again.

To Ash, Silvia was no longer simply someone he lived with because of a curse.

Himself—a terrible being who caused everyone around him to die.

Despite being born with a terrible fate no less horrific than the Demon Lord’s curse, Ash thought Silvia would be fine.

At least she wouldn’t die at the hands of a weakened Ash,

And even if Ash brought some misfortune, she was strong enough to survive somehow.

So, Ash thought, now he had only Silvia.

But for some reason, his throat tightened, and he couldn’t answer.

His lips were firmly closed, unable to speak as usual.

Perhaps he was being punished for tearing apart so many throats, now unable to speak himself.

Ash imagined this for a fleeting moment.

Even if that were true, it didn’t matter.

He wanted to die.

If only Silvia could bear the loneliness of being left alone, he wished she would kill him.

But as far as Ash knew, she would never harm him.

Knowing this, Ash shed tears.

Red liquid mixed with the blood covering his face dripped from his chin onto the ground.

The taste of tears at the corner of his mouth was as fishy as blood.

Ash swallowed the bloody fluid pooling in his mouth and forced out a sound from his throat through tightly closed lips.

“Yes…”

Silvia lowered her head, pressing her forehead against Ash’s back.

Ash probably couldn’t see it, but

“…Good.”

Silvia was smiling.