Ch.422Kill this to save it

Perhaps sensing the killing intent in my expression, Hush lowered her head completely and began to cry pitifully.

“Please, please spare me, master…! *sob*…! I don’t want to die…!”

The contrast between her current groveling and her earlier confident posturing on the rooftop was so stark it made me dizzy.

Really, what should I do with this woman? I couldn’t help but sigh.

I bit down on my cigarette and drew a dagger from my waist as I approached her.

“Hiiieeeek-!”

Hush screamed and fell backward as if a cockroach had crawled into her underwear.

Her teeth chattered loudly, clattering against each other in panic.

…I haven’t even done anything yet, and she’s already like this.

“Now, now. Calm down a bit. I haven’t said I’m going to kill you yet, have I?”

I gripped her shoulder as she tried to back away and lightly placed the blade of my dagger on her exposed collarbone.

She trembled violently at the cold metal against her skin.

“Unfortunately for our half-elf friend here… I have a certain condition. When I encounter evil people, I can’t resist the urge to tear them into seven pieces.”

It’s an incurable disease with no treatment.

“Hueeeeek…!”

“And over there, that white-haired young lady is a devout priest who believes non-humans are only useful as livestock and fertilizer. The green-haired girl next to her probably sees you as something like a kobold.”

Now that I’ve said it out loud, we’re basically a party of psychopaths.

What’s terrifying is that these are facts without any exaggeration.

“You understand what I’m saying, right? You’re about to become kobold fertilizer in seven pieces.”

“Hieeeeek! No, nooooo…! Radeli-! Save me, Radeliiiii-!”

Hush shook her head in panic, calling out her comrade’s name.

These villains must have been quite close.

“Shut it.”

I blew cigarette smoke in her face to calm her down.

“Kehek! Keheuk…!”

“As for your friend, it seems they’ve become family to the poor. I had hung the body up nicely… but when I went back to check, it was gone. So, unless you want to meet them again, shut up and listen.”

Hush coughed roughly, hacking.

I grabbed her hair and pulled her face close to mine.

Close enough that I could clearly see my reflection in her purple pupils.

…I have to admit, I look pretty scary.

Like a legendary serial killer who bathes in blood instead of water and casually slaughters hundreds of people.

Anyway.

“I’m going to ask you a few questions, and if you want to live a little longer, you’d better answer honestly. Understand? If you lie, you’ll end up like ‘Heinz’ or ‘Radeli.’ Behave yourself.”

“Yes, yes! I’ll answer anything! Ask me whatever you want!”

Hush nodded desperately while trembling.

Apart from the faint smell of urine, her attitude was quite satisfactory.

—-

Hush was originally an orphan abandoned in the slums right after birth.

She must have had parents, but she’d never even seen their faces.

She should have died within a day, but a man who recognized her ears picked her up and raised her.

Of course, it wasn’t out of kindness. If he had been truly good, he would have taken her to an orphanage in the Holy State.

The man was a slave trader.

Guessing the market value of a half-elf slave, the man “educated” and raised her for twelve years to sell her at a high price… and during that time, he developed a strange attachment to her.

Did he think it was affection? Of course not.

If he had been sensitive enough to feel affection for the product he raised, he wouldn’t have become a slave trader in the first place.

What he felt wasn’t affection but lust.

One day, drunk, he tried to rape Hush, and instinctively terrified by his unusually rough behavior, she stabbed his eyes and throat before escaping.

That was her first murder.

Well… he deserved to die.

Anyone who feels lust for a thirteen-year-old child.

Of course, the life that followed was incomparably more miserable than before.

A thirteen-year-old girl, completely alone in the world.

Not even human but a half-elf, and a child who had only learned one thing in her life.

The world is cruel to the weak.

Hush fell into the back alleys and for the next three years lived a life closer to that of a tool than a living being.

Even so, she stubbornly built up her strength, caught Heinz’s eye, and became a member of the Five Swords.

Her life story was more miserable and desperate than I had imagined.

—-

“Enough about your life story. So, what can you actually do?”

It was miserable, but not my concern.

An unfortunate past doesn’t excuse evil actions.

Whether her joining an organization that spread drugs among the poor was revenge against the men who had abused her or not, what did that have to do with me?

Besides, that’s a rather twisted form of revenge.

Hush’s fate depended not on her past but on her usefulness.

If she was completely useless, well, she’d have to become a torch to light up the Holy State.

“I-I’m very good at it! My previous masters praised me!”

Her future moved one step closer to becoming a torch.

“Sigh… not that. Think a little. I’m not some horny man, so why would I need a slave who’s good at that sort of thing?”

“Female mistresses praised me too!”

…Two steps closer.

“No, I mean besides selling your body. Don’t you have any other skills? I have no interest in that kind of thing.”

“B-besides that… well… I’m good at picking locks, taking things from other people’s houses… hiding and ambushing…”

Thief-like skills.

“…Let’s put that aside for now. Do you know anything about Kist and the cult leader? Their destination or purpose?”

“Oh, um… the cult leader is a woman!”

…I already know that.

“She had long purple hair… her name was… um… El… Eljur! Her name was Eljur!”

“The heretic Eljur?!”

Lacy, who had been listening, exclaimed in surprise.

I already knew this fact, but the identity of the current leader of the Council of Dream Utopia was top secret, unknown even to Heinz.

“How could Eljur, the apostate of the Church of Imela, be with the Council of Dream Utopia…?”

“Who is that?”

I feigned ignorance and asked Lacy about Eljur.

Actually, I didn’t know she was from the Church of Imela either. In the original work, she only appeared as the leader of the Council of Dream Utopia.

She was the type who openly displayed her hatred for the Eleven Gods, gathered every heretic she could find, and then got beaten like a dog and exterminated.

She barely qualified as a mid-boss.

“About ten years ago, she was declared a heretic by the Church of Imela. She claimed that free love unbound by convention was Lady Imela’s wish, and spread the lewd culture of group sex and communal child-rearing, completely corrupting an entire village.”

A woman who interpreted devotion to all people in an overly sexual way.

“The Church of Imela was convinced she was a follower of the evil god Lilith and sent paladins to burn down the entire village. I can’t believe such a woman has become the leader of the Council of Dream Utopia… what could have happened?”

Who knows. Perhaps the Council of Dream Utopia was the largest of the heretical forces that survived.

Though now they’re finished.

“It’s certainly interesting information. If it’s true. Even Heinz, the leader of the Five Swords, didn’t seem to know the cult leader’s name… how did you come to know it?”

“…I hid and eavesdropped. I was curious why the cult leader wouldn’t reveal her identity even to us…”

…I see. She’s good at hiding, at least.

If she’d been caught, her brain would probably have been wiped.

—-

In the end, I decided to accept Hush as a slave rather than turn her into a torch.

She didn’t seem particularly useful, but she wasn’t completely useless either.

Normally, one shouldn’t judge a person’s life or death based solely on their utility… but, well, evil people are exceptions.

They should be grateful just to be allowed to live.

“Thank you, thank you, master…!”

Hush wept tears of joy like a freedom fighter who had finally reclaimed her homeland.

Though what she had reclaimed was not a country but her life.

No, not even that.

Being a slave means someone else holds the power of life and death over you, so it’s closer to having her execution temporarily postponed.

Well, that alone seemed to be enough to make her happy.

She was kissing my shoes while crying.

“Just so you know… if you try to escape secretly or betray me to avenge the Five Swords, whatever you imagine will be nothing compared to what you’ll experience. Don’t think I won’t find you. I’ve already memorized your scent.”

“Hieek! Absolutely not! I wasn’t even that close with those Five Swords people! And Radeli and I were just physical!”

…Like a true thief, her skill at cutting ties with former comrades was masterful.

—-

And so I acquired a half-elf slave.

Lacy seemed a bit displeased, but nodded and said she would respect my wishes.

Afterward, we headed for Alhebron, the capital of the Holy State, with Hush wearing a slave mark and sitting in the driver’s seat.

I fell asleep using Leonore’s lap as a pillow, relieving the fatigue from staying up all night.

It was an uneventful journey.

I don’t mean that as a euphemism for a pastoral journey of slaughter—literally nothing happened.

While the inside of the city might be chaotic, the security was much better than in the Empire.

They seemed to have completely eradicated monsters and bandits.

We traveled like that for six days.

From what I experienced, Hush was more capable than I expected.

She seemed to have some connection with horses, as her carriage-driving skills were excellent, and when we needed to camp, she quickly set up the campsite.

Her cooking skills weren’t bad either.

I was ready to pull out all her teeth if she tried to poison me, but she turned out to be a master chef who could make preserved rations taste better than most restaurants.

Household chores were apparently part of basic slave education.

Her whole demeanor screamed, “I’m this capable, so please spare my life.”

Additionally, whenever we bathed, she offered to attend to me, washing my body and even giving massages with such skill that my entire body felt completely relaxed.

Even I, who had always refused such services until now, couldn’t reject her master-level touch.

—-

Six and a half days after leaving Holon.

We finally arrived at Alhebron, the capital of the Holy State.