Ch.9999. Septimus (1)

Though things have calmed down a bit lately, followers of the Revenge Cult still occasionally run amok, leaving the Holy City shrouded in confusion and an ominous atmosphere.

Almost daily, rumors spread about who died where or who did something terrible to whom… yet stories of Revenge Cult members being properly captured and taken away were rarely heard.

Meanwhile, with these so-called Special Investigators poking around every day, the overall mood throughout the Holy City had naturally become tense and on edge.

And even amid all this, various incidents continued to occur endlessly. Surprisingly, not all opinions about these incidents were negative.

In fact, looking at the proportions, there were more people quietly sympathizing with these relentless acts of revenge.

The contradictory and harsh reality of the Rom Empire was something anyone living powerlessly in the Holy City could feel. In such a reality, when obvious villains were killed by their victims, ordinary people actually felt a sense of satisfaction.

A prime example demonstrating this shift in public opinion was the murder of a Senate member—a shocking incident where a passing Senator was butchered in broad daylight by some fanatic suspiciously skilled with a dagger, along with twenty guards, and had his head displayed on a spike.

In modern terms, it would be like a passing congressman being attacked and beheaded by an assailant. Yet, apart from his family, no one sympathized with the Senator.

This was because rumors spread everywhere through an anonymous revelation that the perpetrator, who was caught later, had committed the act out of vengeance—his daughter had been forcibly taken by the Senator, treated as something less than even a concubine, and eventually killed along with her unborn child, becoming dog food.

As incidents like these—where clearly evil people who couldn’t be punished due to their power ended up dead—spread widely, public opinion toward law enforcement agencies worsened, as they failed to catch the real culprits and only harassed innocent people.

Naturally, thanks to this suspiciously favorable trend, the number of people joining the Revenge Cult, or at least secretly harboring faith in it without formally joining, increased.

And among these new believers was a man named Septimus.

The circumstances of Septimus’s initiation were, in fact, not particularly dramatic.

Working as a clerk for a merchant guild at the time, he deeply hated Meladona Pork, the guild’s owner and a Rom Empire aristocrat.

She would come in at all hours demanding document reviews as a matter of course. Sometimes she would suddenly reverse orders, resetting work in progress, issue contradictory commands that gave the clerks headaches, and even use employees as emotional garbage bins.

On top of being a complete trash of a person, she had no particular ability either, merely maintaining her lifestyle by squandering money she had received in exchange for giving up her family’s succession rights. The guild was always in deficit because this woman used guild funds for her own luxuries as if they were her personal money.

Because of this, several times a day, he struggled between his rage and his responsibility as a breadwinner who needed to maintain his livelihood, contemplating whether to kill her or not. Then one day…

“What?! How could you do this?!! This is why… people with poor education levels…”

‘You shit-mouthed bitch, don’t you know I was your senior at the academy? And what? My education level is poor?’

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

It was such a minor mistake that he couldn’t even remember it now… but Meladona, who was particularly sensitive that day—perhaps because a matchmaking attempt had failed due to her being overweight—seemed to want to relieve her stress by thoroughly insulting him.

Naturally, these insults extended not just to him but to his family as well, but as a breadwinner with an obligation to maintain his livelihood, he simply quietly burned with anger inside.

The next morning, when Septimus woke from an uncomfortable dream—perhaps caused by stress—he realized he was holding something in his hand in bed.

Of course, since Septimus had no habit of sleeping with something clutched in his hand, the existence of this unidentified object in his hand was a complete mystery to him.

‘What… is this?’

So when Septimus, with a slightly dazed mind, brought his tightly clenched left hand out from under the covers…

“…?!!”

To explain it simply, it was a wooden piece about the size of a pencil case—elongated and quite thin, stained with a hideous dark red color.

…Thud.

The eerie and hideous color, reminiscent of darkened blood, startled Septimus so much that he dropped the wooden piece onto the floor.

And the moment this wooden piece hit the floor…

Perhaps from the impact, with a rattling sound, part of the wooden piece separated…

‘…A knife?’

What emerged from between the separated wooden pieces was none other than a blade with a cold blue edge.

And Septimus, employing his unnecessarily detailed imagination, surmised that this was not simply a knife used in daily life but one meant for secretly killing someone.

Indeed, this knife had an appearance that didn’t look like a knife at all from the outside.

Moreover, the blade wasn’t very large and was uncomfortable to hold, making it difficult to use for work purposes, but nevertheless, a knife is a knife, leading to the conclusion that it would be sufficient for secretly stabbing someone.

‘…’

Naturally, waking up to find what appeared to be an assassination weapon in his hand, with the entire thing—including the sheath and handle—stained with what seemed to be blood…

Septimus was so shocked that he couldn’t speak and just stared blankly at the blade…

As he kept watching the blade, Septimus suddenly began to feel a strange urge to hold it in his hand.

He was fully aware that this was somehow due to some external and artificial interference.

But even so, despite recognizing this, and furthermore, instinctively feeling that picking up the dagger would be irreversible, Septimus couldn’t stop himself from reaching out and grabbing the dagger…

“…!!”

At that moment, Septimus felt something flowing from the dagger washing through his mind, giving him a refreshing sensation, and for a brief moment, he could feel a level of power in his body that was on a completely different dimension from before.

Momentarily feeling almost omnipotent from this significant change with its considerable drop, Septimus soon noticed that this dagger was revealing various knowledge to him.

From the fact that the original owner of this dagger was the evil god of the Revenge Cult, also called the King in Red, to methods of using the dagger’s functions to strengthen himself or use special powers by offering blood, to ways of gathering information about revenge targets or disguising killings as accidents.

Faced with knowledge that was nothing short of a bible for achieving his revenge, Septimus raised the corners of his mouth in a sinister smile, filled with twisted anticipation—

“Dad, what are you doing?”

“Hm? …Nothing, Otis.”

Correction, he was about to give a sinister smile born from anticipation of a malicious plot, but stopped.

※ ※ ※

After comforting his youngest daughter Otis, who had just turned five, Septimus set off for work with an outward attitude and expression no different from usual.

But naturally, this was a conclusion drawn merely from outward appearances.

In reality, Septimus was concealing a hatred-filled desire for revenge inside, with the sacred relic-dagger hidden in his coat, ready to be drawn and thrust at any moment.

Only revenge, only revenge was everything to him.

With such thoughts, he stepped into an alley while walking, secretly drew the dagger, pointed the blade toward his arm—and thrust it hard.

Squelch!!

The sound of skin tearing and muscle splitting could be heard, but not a single drop of blood flowed.

No, to be more precise, it would be quicker to say that the dagger penetrated the skin and sucked in the blood.

For about five seconds, he kept the dagger thrust into his arm, and when he pulled it out, there wasn’t a single wound on his arm, but the blade of the dagger was stained with blood, glowing red.

And as Septimus swung this dagger—emitting a strangely alluring, ominous red light—hard through the air…

“”So… this is how it works.””

Septimus felt himself split into two beings, and he could also perceive that one of them had concealed itself from the gaze of others.

In other words, he could create an alibi while simultaneously personally killing that disgusting sow of a bitch.