Ch.75Even If the World Hates You (2)

Near the impoverished village stood a lush forest. It was a mountain that had flourished with verdant growth for over a hundred years.

For days, thunderous noise and dust clouds had made people tremble in fear. Many fled the village, mistaking it for signs of a natural disaster.

Those people were fortunate. They possessed the excellent intuition to escape from the clutches of calamity.

“Damn it, what kind of madness is this?!”

“Is that… even human?”

The hero and the saint—Cavannil and Yashasmisha—expressed their shock with hardened expressions. They stepped back in horror at the villain’s behavior that defied all common sense.

“Kugh… Aaaaargh…!”

A beast’s howl covered the now-barren mountain that had once been a forest. The wounded creature howling was Netionpis.

His broken sword split in half and countless stab wounds vividly depicted the fierce battle.

Cavannil and Yashasmisha were no different. While Yashasmisha had only minor injuries thanks to Cavannil’s protection, her knight escort had few uninjured areas.

Originally, the battle against the Founding Noble had been progressing in their favor.

At least until he began behaving strangely.

Netionpis had quickly analyzed his opponents and pressured them with frightening speed. In response, Cavannil resisted the pressure and deliberately dragged out the fight.

He sensed an inexplicable impatience from the Founding Noble. He was certain that the longer he dragged things out, the more that impatience would become the key to victory.

Cavannil’s judgment was correct.

In the end, he managed to thrust his sword into the opening that the Founding Noble eventually revealed.

Then came the sudden change.

The Founding Noble began to convulse. Rampaging like a beast that had lost its reason, his movements were straightforward and simple, yet extremely threatening.

I quickly noticed what was tormenting him.

“Ah… ugh… aaargh… Lorian…!”

‘Malice…?! So suddenly? Without any warning signs!’

If I had to reflect on what seemed suspicious, there was one thing. It was the golden light that had engulfed his vision just before the Malice manifested.

Due to that sudden golden light, Netionpis had allowed the sword strike and suffered a serious injury.

While I’m now familiar with Malice, Netionpis was different. His eyes rolled back, he repeatedly dry-heaved, and lost his reason.

BOOM!

Netionpis planted his foot firmly. There was only one reason—it was a preparatory movement for a leap. However, the direction he was aiming to jump wasn’t toward the hero and saint.

He hurled himself in a completely different direction, like a projectile. The faces of those who hadn’t anticipated that he would turn his back on his adversaries paled with fear.

“No!!!”

Yashasmisha belatedly deployed a portal beneath the Founding Noble. But the Founding Noble, with senses as keen as a wild beast’s, skillfully avoided it by stepping on a foothold.

Having quickly moved beyond the range of portal deployment, Netionpis was unstoppable. With explosive strength enhanced by Malice, he destroyed the ground. Small craters formed wherever his feet touched.

After his rampage, he arrived at a familiar landscape—the settlement that would later be called Citris Village.

“What, what is that?!”

“Isn’t that the noble lord who bought people…?”

“Uweeeeek! … Huh? Blood…?”

Though uneducated and poor, they weren’t fools. The people quickly realized that the current Netionpis was far from normal.

Moreover, a robust man who had been close to Netionpis suddenly coughed up blood and collapsed for no reason. The contagion of fear spread as quickly as the power of spatial leaps.

“M-monster!!!”

“Run awa— Kuhek!”

“He’s insane… completely insane!”

The panicking human crowd made perfect prey for a beast. The beast tainted by Malice killed all the scattered humans.

Calamity struck down the powerless, sparing neither the elderly nor children, neither men nor women. The sounds of people of all kinds dying transformed into screams of various colors.

“How could he cause such devastation in such a short time…”

“It’s like watching a Chainlich.”

By the time Cavannil and Yashasmisha caught up using spatial leaps, hell had already unfolded. The scent of extinguished life stung their nostrils from the blood-soaked earth.

Even these two, who had witnessed the world’s injustices, felt nauseated by this hellish scene.

‘Can Malice manifest so irrationally?’

Netionpis had once explained:

[What is Malice in the first place? It is, literally, an evil energy. Many humans harbor wicked thoughts, but not all of them manifest Malice. So another condition is needed.]

[When a human with excessive evil and sin becomes the target of seething resentment from countless people and is covered in corrupt malevolence—that is the first step to manifesting Malice.]

Clearly, wicked thoughts and excessive evil, along with the resentment of countless people, were prerequisites for manifesting Malice.

At this point in Netionpis’s life, after years of betraying human morality, it would be reasonable to assume he had reached the level of wicked thoughts and evil. But being covered in corrupt resentment and malevolence…

‘Is Asar’s malevolence that significant? Or did someone else harbor intense resentment?’

At that moment, I recalled the not-too-distant past.

[All negativity directed at Lorian will be attributed to me. Also, harmful diseases, wicked energies, human malevolence—all impurities of this world aimed at her shall be directed toward me.]

The Eldchain contract. Netionpis’s wish sworn upon the shining gold.

‘Lorian Feita…! If she harbored malevolence, that would make sense.’

If Duke Feita’s rebellion continued her will, the perspective changes. It would mean harboring malevolence and negativity spanning 400 years.

Moreover, according to the contract, all negativity directed at Lorian would be attributed to Netionpis.

Even if not from countless people, if she possessed malevolence and negativity capable of crushing many…

And Lorian, as an assassin, would have been a significant target of malevolence.

‘If this is true, then Grandpa’s suffering was essentially caused by Lorian Feita…’

A curse from the person he loved most, unable to fulfill even his wish to die…

One could say Grandpa took on such a curse through his own actions.

“Kugh… Aaaah… Don’t, interfere…!”

Netionpis placed his hand on the ground. Endless darkness spread, corroding the earth. While the space around the saint was distorted and inaccessible, that was the extent of it.

His senses, bordering on supernatural abilities, instinctively awakened dark arts. The dark arts that had become familiar to me were deeply saddening.

Dark Art – Ever-Changing Forms. A versatile technique that freely controlled the transformation of matter.

The ground, corroded by dark energy, writhed and took shape. The giant figure formed by the dark art resembled the black creatures of a Chainlich.

KUOOOOO!

The giant, massive enough to block the sun and cast a vast shadow, swung its fist with agility.

One, two, three successive attacks devastated the area. It annihilated innocent lives, turning the settlement into a mass of debris.

‘Now that I’ve assimilated, I understand. This must be Grandpa’s second sin.’

The sin of massacring countless people while consumed by madness. This was the first time I witnessed him taking the lives of unrelated people.

In the past, Netionpis had rationalized human trafficking as legitimate trade. He had taken care of his family honestly through their sacrifices.

In other words, despite his distorted standards, he had maintained a certain level of restraint.

But this was a massacre with no room for excuses. Though consumed by madness, it was merely the worst possible timing for the seeds he had sown to bloom.

“Cavannil, now’s our chance.”

“Indeed. I’m counting on you, Misha.”

Crisis is opportunity.

Netionpis’s position was at the center of the giant’s upper body—where the heart would be in a human.

A massive body makes for a large target. Yashasmisha distorted space haphazardly without precise coordinate designation, causing the earth to collapse.

Cavannil didn’t miss the opportunity she created. He leaped in with swift movements, concealing himself in the dust.

“Got you!”

Stepping on falling chunks of earth, he reached Netionpis. The villain’s appearance was horrific, with both feet torn off by spatial distortion.

Still, instinctively twisting his body, Netionpis avoided a fatal blow as Cavannil’s sword pierced his abdomen. Skewered like a kebab, the villain fell limply and crashed into the ground.

“Gurk… Grrgh…”

Coughing up dead blood, Netionpis sensed it. Even though he had avoided a strike to his vital points, he had already suffered too many fatal wounds. He expected the grim reaper to come with a fearsome scythe to harvest his soul.

“Ah…”

With his abdomen pierced, he looked around. All he could see were the two who despised him and the remains of what had once been human flesh.

His mind was clear. The near-death experience seemed to have helped him regain control of his consciousness.

A superstition he had heard during the war era suddenly crossed his mind.

“Let’s see… surely…”

They say all souls return to the world after a pilgrimage.

Among them, evil souls undergo a pilgrimage of punishment to cleanse their sins.

And after long years, souls that have cleansed their sins return to the human world…

That’s how it was told in the folklore of some tribe.

“Not… bad…”

The sin of abandoning Lorian to suffer alone.

The sin of dreaming of immortality, daring to exceed human limitations.

The sin of losing his past self.

The sin of massacring innocent people.

He didn’t know how painful this pilgrimage of punishment would be. But if it could truly cleanse his sins that could never be repaid otherwise.

If at the end of the pilgrimage, he would have another chance to meet her again…!

Death would be welcome.

It was what he desired.

…… Ha.

He dared to harbor such a wish.

“Cavannil? Are you alright…”

“Stay back, Misha!!! Something’s wrong with the Founding Noble!”

Twitch—his body moved slightly. Power boiled within him, and his dulled senses sharpened.

Tick, tock, it was as if the pocket watch constituting his body was turning backward. His rough palms, sagging forehead, and furrowed brows regained their elasticity. Even his severed feet had somehow regenerated, attached without any sense of incongruity.

Like in those days when he was young and powerful.

The era of war, in the body of a young man.

◇

“Malice distorts the bearer’s wishes and reconstructs them in the worst possible form. My resignation in the face of death drove me to become immortal.”

Netionpis sighed with regret. The atmosphere around the young old man who had endured for 500 years was so pitiful that it was difficult to express any other sentiment.

If there was an exception, it was only one person—Irefi Justitia, who shared a similar experience.

“Then what is my Malice? If I just control my emotions, I have no problems with daily life.”

“I do have a suspicion. Combining your memories with a certain incident leads to one conclusion.”

“Which incident?”

Irefi tilted her head in confusion. Even recalling the time when Malice might have manifested, she couldn’t guess.

“Eight years… no, it would be nine years ago now. Remember the day when the dimensional gate opened for the first time since the saint’s appearance?”

Irefi’s body trembled slightly. It felt as if the trauma from her past was caressing her skin like a cold blade.

How could she forget? The starting point of her path of sin.

The moment when Miren was bound in eternal sleep…

“The Chainlich Phenomenon in the Arlan Kingdom?”

It was a major historical event where Irefi had achieved merit before and after the war. At that time, she had single-handedly suppressed a large-scale Chainlich Phenomenon, proving herself to be unparalleled in history.

And Miren, who suffered from Chain Disease then, became the trigger for Irefi to point her sword at the Empire.

‘Even though Nepy twisted the future, uncomfortable memories remain uncomfortable…’

Even now, recalling that time stirred her Malice.

Irefi’s consciousness was like a cracked wall. Whenever she let her guard down, painful memories invaded through the cracks in her consciousness. The waves of shame leaking through the fine cracks soaked the wall thoroughly.

What kept her grounded were the currently healthy Miren and her beloved Nepy. She often forgot the past, finding salvation in the daily life they built together.

“So, what’s the connection between my Malice and the Chainlich Phenomenon?”

“Before I explain, let me continue the story. The pathetic end that my arrogance brought upon me.”

What happened right after gaining an immortal body. The conclusion of a fool who committed the grave sin of annihilating countless humans in another rampage.

Netionpis leaned back weakly. With darkened eyes, he revealed the final act of his narrative.

◇

The man who unexpectedly gained immortality was a monster.

He no longer feared the saint’s fatal strikes that compressed space. He even demonstrated pseudo-spatial leaps using his regenerative abilities.

In gaming terms, this would be considered phase two. I suddenly had an oddly amusing thought.

I shuddered at a battle I couldn’t even imitate, at Grandpa’s prime.

Along with this sentiment, my assessment of Irefi was constantly updated. If Irefi had been in peak physical condition during our confrontation, we would all have become rotting corpses.

The reason for Irefi’s poor physical condition remains a mystery. Either way, I considered it divine providence.

“Cavannil, my knight. One last request. Please buy me a little time.”

“Leave it to me and focus.”

Yashasmisha closed her eyes tightly and put her hands together in prayer. The space around her distorted. Like a whirlpool, the scenery twisted in a spiral.

Cavannil fulfilled his duty as a guardian with all his might. While crushing three black giants that stood tall with the Ever-Changing Forms technique, he also kept the Founding Noble, who charged like a beast, at bay.

For Cavannil, who endured the extreme time that stretched each minute and second into what felt like half a day, Yashasmisha did not betray him.

“Cavannil, over here!”

“Mm!”

As soon as he obeyed her command, the entire landscape transformed. The distorted scenery swirled around Yashasmisha.

The whirlpool gradually expanded its range, swallowing everything. Earth, scattered buildings, even light and darkness became victims of the bending space.

The merciless spatial storm circled, bringing everything within sight to destruction. Only one life remained—Netionpis, with only his upper body left, his limbs crushed.

The reason she executed this large-scale annihilation technique was to grind up the villain’s body parts scattered in all directions. She needed to seal his pseudo-spatial leaps for the plan to move to the next stage.

“Let’s end this, Founding Noble!”

As Netionpis fell from the air, regenerating, she deployed a portal beneath him. She dropped him into a predetermined location. Simultaneously, Yashasmisha and Cavannil also spatial-leaped to arrange the final battle.

The place they reached for the final confrontation was the cavern where they first met—the hellish landscape that would later be recorded as the Great Cavern of the Founding Noble.

“Close the door, Cavannil!”

“Good luck!”

The iron door closed with a grand sound. Shadows gradually crept into the cavern.

Netionpis, having lost his reason, had clouded judgment. He acted on instinct, knowing he needed to eliminate the saint before him immediately or face danger.

“Ugh… Graaaaaaah!!!”

A fragile woman’s body would be torn to pieces with one punch. With Netionpis’s strength, victory seemed certain.

However, the black beast’s instinctive judgment was a failed strategy.

For one simple reason—the saint’s response was just a moment quicker.

“Eternal Dimensional Freeze – Space Closure.”

The walls of the dark cavern emitted a bright light. More precisely, geometric light rays that engraved space were firmly binding it.

Yashasmisha painfully coughed up blood. It was the price for excessively using her power. Yet, in this extreme environment, she managed to smile.

The woman left a final farewell, declaring the end of the battle.

“May we never meet again.”

Immediately after, Netionpis’s fist pierced through empty darkness. The saint’s form had long since moved outside through the portal.

Now Netionpis was completely alone. Just a monster buried in quiet darkness, marinating in Malice.

“Kugh… Ah… Aah… Gugh, Aaaaaaaaaah!!!”

The man who had become a monster howled.

It was a lonely solitude with not a single life to respond.