Chapter 53: Wolf Fang (4)

“Huh?”

It was while I was grabbing a quick bite from a nearby shop. Hadi, still looking drowsy with sleepy eyes, stumbled over and said:

“I was worried when you locked yourself away for two days muttering strange things, but seeing you out like this, it seems you succeeded in subjugating it.”

“Yeah, but what do you mean by strange things? I never said anything like that.”

“What do you mean… Well…”

Just as Hadi was about to answer, Otar, who had been listening quietly beside us, interrupted with a loud fake cough.

“Ahem…!! We have more important matters than such useless talk.”

“Ah, right. Now that you’re here too, we should take care of the postponed business.”

I awakened one of the death row inmates I had knocked unconscious with my mental Baldo for causing too much of a ruckus.

“Ugh, uuuugh…”

“Awake?”

“Uuuugh!! Mmph…!!! Mmph mmph…!!!”

Upon hearing my voice, the inmate started convulsing like a retired soldier having a PTSD episode.

“…What did you do? It was similar a few days ago, but not to this extent.”

“It’s because this bastard kept radiating killing intent at me several times while I was waiting for you. He’s trash that deserves to die, but it was enough to make me feel pity.”

“Killing intent… So you just woke him up the same way?”

As Hadi asked curiously, I kindly replied:

“That’s right. Want me to give you a taste if you’re curious?”

“Ah, no… I’ll pass. More importantly, hurry and show me the subjugated magic sword.”

I unsheathed the katana that was still rubbing against my hand and showed it to Hadi.

“Well, what do you think?”

“Hmm… I can clearly see the connection between you and the katana. Though it hasn’t received a name yet, this katana has acknowledged you as its master.”

For named magic swords, the master-servant contract is established when the sword acknowledges its master.

However, for unnamed magic swords, after subjugation, it’s necessary to give it a name to establish its existence and assert dominance.

‘It’s not urgent, so I’ll think about it slowly.’

Once named, it can never be changed, so I should decide carefully after thorough consideration.

The elegant name Baldomaru is reserved for Silence, so perhaps a sophisticated name like Baldotaro or Baldojiro might be good.

“It’s hard to give up either…”

“What? What nonsense are you suddenly spouting?”

“No, it’s nothing.”

Swallowing back the words that had slipped out unintentionally, I spoke to the inmate rolling on the floor.

“I can cut you while you’re lying down, but kneeling would be more convenient. Would you mind kneeling?”

“Mmph!! Mmph mmph…!!!”

As he continued to resist, perhaps as a final act of defiance, refusing to kneel, I sighed and whispered in his ear.

“Think carefully. If you stay lying down like that, I’ll have no choice but to cut your waist or chest. But if you kneel, my katana will be aimed at your head.”

Being cut at the waist and dying while writhing in agony, or being beheaded instantly for a quick death.

There was no need to say which would be less painful.

“……”

After a moment of silence, the inmate seemed to resign himself to his fate, trembling as he adjusted his posture.

“Good, you thought well. If you’re going to die anyway, it’s better to go painlessly and comfortably.”

I moved behind the tearful inmate and quietly took my stance.

Anticipating his imminent fate, the inmate’s body began to tremble, causing the crown of his head, which I was about to cut, to shake violently.

‘Wow, this is fun!!’

It felt like playing a game where the difficulty increases as he shakes his head vigorously.

Well, such head-shaking wouldn’t pose any problem for my cutting anyway.

“5:5 crown cut Baldo!!”

The katana sliced through the inmate’s head as smoothly as if cutting tofu, not human flesh.

The inmate, whose left and right brain had a sad parting, resulting in his IQ being halved, collapsed to the ground.

“…Huh?”

Looking at the corpse on the floor, I froze at the unexpected way it had been cut in two.

The cross-section of the vertically bisected corpse looked more like it had been sawn rather than cleanly cut with a katana.

“Why is it cut like this? Did you make a mistake because he shook his head?”

Hadi and Otar, who had been standing a bit away to avoid blood splatter, touched the ragged cross-section of the corpse.

I followed and touched the cross-section too, discovering another strange fact.

“Was this bastard’s nose always this small? And the amount of bleeding seems too little.”

With a suspicion in mind, I tried to put the separated body parts together, and as expected, the cut parts, including the nose, had completely disappeared, making it a poor fit.

“Hmm… It seems the cut parts have vanished. Or perhaps it would be better to say they were eaten.”

“Eaten?”

Hearing Otar’s words, I realized the cut surface looked more like it had been gnawed on by a beast rather than cleanly sliced.

Considering the materials used to make this katana, it might actually be natural.

“It seems we need more experiments to understand the exact power of this magic sword.”

After hearing that the flesh and blood had been eaten, I drew the katana from its sheath again and brought it close to the blood pooled on the floor and the corpse.

Then, like iron filings drawn to a magnet, the pooled blood and the bisected corpse began to gather towards the blade.

The moment the gathered blood and human flesh touched the blade, with a sound similar to turning on a vacuum cleaner, they were sucked into the blade.

It didn’t take long for the katana to devour all the blood and flesh. About 3 seconds, maybe even less.

“It sucked everything in.”

“What happens to the absorbed blood and flesh? There must be more to its abilities.”

“Well… But does this only work on freshly spilled blood?”

Just in case, I brought the katana close to a recent stain on my jacket, and the stain was sucked into the katana.

“Oh!! Cleaning and laundry function!! Super convenient!”

“That can’t be all. There must be more functions remaining. But how to find out…”

“Thinking about it won’t get us anywhere. Why don’t we just ask directly?”

“Ask? Who…”

As the two asked, my gaze naturally turned towards the katana that had just finished its meal.

[Woof woof!!]

As the katana responded energetically to their gaze, the two looked at me with incredulous expressions.

“…Can we actually communicate with this thing?”

“Just because you usually talk nonsense doesn’t mean you can speak to dogs.”

“Does this thing that barks like a dog actually look like a real dog to you? If we use words, we can communicate just fine.”

I sat down on the floor that the katana had cleaned, placed the katana on my lap, and concentrated.

As our minds connected, I could sense its desire for me to wield it more skillfully.

[Grr…!! Woof woof!!]

‘I see, so that’s how it is…’

After learning all of its abilities from the katana, I opened my eyes and stood up.

Unlike when I first subjugated the katana, I got up quickly this time. Hadi asked without much expectation in her voice:

“Well? Did you learn anything?”

“Yeah, I found out everything!!”

Since showing once is faster than explaining a hundred times, I held out the katana in front of them to demonstrate its power.

“…It got longer?”

Using the katana’s power, I slightly extended the blade. This is one of this katana’s abilities.

It can instantly repair itself if the blade breaks or chips by consuming the absorbed blood and flesh.

In addition, as I just demonstrated, I could freely change the blade’s shape at will.

“Ah, but that’s not all!!”

I went back to the smithy and dragged out one of the fallen death row inmates.

“Mmph!!”

Then I threw the inmate, who was shouting something incomprehensible but probably begging to be cut quickly, into the air.

“Uuuuugh!!!”

As the inmate flailed in the air, desperately shaking his body, I unleashed a Baldo strike, effortlessly slicing through his waist like butter.

However, the blood and entrails scattering in the air didn’t shower down on Otar and Hadi.

Not because the katana absorbed it all, but because the scabbard at my waist devoured all the severed blood and entrails.

“As you can see, the scabbard can also consume human flesh like this. Of course, the inside of the scabbard can be freely transformed just like the blade!”

To think even the scabbard has the function of cleaning up corpses, not just the blade! What a domesticated katana this is!

Besides this amazing ability, it could also convert the flesh absorbed by the blade and scabbard into aura or demonic energy.

In other words, it’s a sword that makes both its owner and itself stronger the more people it kills.

“A sword that gets stronger the more it cuts… It’s creepy, but certainly a powerful blade. However, compared to that, the ability to change the blade seems a bit modest.”

“What?”

“…Indeed, that’s right. It’s certainly a convenient ability, but compared to the effect of getting stronger with each cut, it does seem modest.”

What are these two saying? This ability to change the shape of the scabbard and blade, enabling countless variations of Baldo, is modest?

“It seems you both are too ignorant about swordsmanship. Let me show you the power of this ability.”

I went back into the smithy and dragged out all the remaining death row inmates.

After bringing them all out and removing their restraints, Hadi and Otar frowned and said:

“What now, what crazy stunt are you going to pull this time…”

“You’ll see. Now, all of you!!”

As I spoke with an energetic voice, the inmates, barely able to open their eyes in the intense sunlight, squinted and looked at me.

“I’ll give you a chance to live!! I’ll count to ten before I kill you, so try to escape in that time!! One!!”

Despite not having eaten for days and their bodies being stiff from restraints, they immediately stood up at the glimpse of hope for survival.

And they ran.

They might have considered taking Hadi or Otar hostage, but they probably thought I’d cut them down immediately if they tried.

“Five!! Six!!”

As the count approached ten, their pace quickened, but sadly, such a distance meant little before this katana.

“Ten…”

With that word, a red light flashed, and along with the sound of flesh being cut, the desperately running inmates vanished.

More precisely, they seemed to have vanished.

“W-What? Where did they go?! I didn’t hear anything about a wizard among the death row inmates!”

“Hah… What did you do?”

“Nothing too impressive, really.”

I simply extended the blade at the moment of the Baldo strike, cutting down all the fleeing inmates at once.

“T-Then where are the corpses? If they were cut, there should be bodies left…”

“Using aura allows for faster consumption. I showed you in an easy-to-understand way, but this is still just a fraction of this ability’s potential.”

The true value of this ability lay in increasing friction by bringing the blade and scabbard closer together.

As friction increases, it converts to kinetic energy, transforming even an ordinary Baldo strike into a lethal blow when channeled through this katana.

“In other words, using Baldo with this katana allows for the ultimate Baldo strike!!!”

“…What nonsense are you spouting? Why would friction become kinetic energy…”

“Enough!! Stop that talk…”

Interrupting Hadi’s words, Otar asked:

“Setting aside the friction talk, we now understand the power of that magic sword well enough. But have you decided on a name? Such a formidable magic sword surely deserves a fitting name.”

“Yes, actually I was planning to name it slowly later, but after using Baldo several times, a name befitting this child came to mind.”

“Hmm… It’s likely to be a strange name, but let’s hear it. What is it?”

“Wolffang.”

Although it was hard to give up names like Baldotaro or Baldojiro, the unparalleled sharpness I felt while using Baldo kept reminding me of Lobo.

Though he ended up as Ponpon hyung’s pet due to encountering the wrong master, his strength was worthy of respect.

“To honor Lobo, who was hailed as the Wolf King, I’ll name this child Wolffang.”

“…Unexpected. I thought you’d come up with some idiotic name that made me wonder if you’d lost your mind.”

“What… How do you see me, Master Otar? It’s not something to brag about, but naming is what I’m second most confident in after swordsmanship.”

How else could I have come up with names like Baldotaro or Baldojiro?

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