Chapter 93: Hero Wolf (1)

[Do you know the meaning of this flower?]

Purple, red, white.

Among the colorful flowers stood a woman with a radiant smile. She had long blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes.

“Angela…! Angela!”

It was that dream again.

Hero Wolf wiped the cold sweat dripping down his forehead and clicked his tongue. Naked women lay beside him, and bottles of alcohol were scattered across the table. No matter where he looked, there were colors everywhere, but nothing could calm Wolf’s heart.

He scrambled out of the mattress and rolled onto the floor. The soft thud woke a sleeping woman, who lifted her head with a dazed look.

“Hero… You’re awake?”

Hero Wolf didn’t answer the woman’s question. He shook a liquor bottle, confirming there was still a little left. He stuck out his tongue, moistened his throat with a few drops of wine, and then threw the bottle out the window.

The sound of the bottle shattering echoed, and the woman looked at the hero with her sleepiness gone. Wolf stood facing the woman for a moment before putting on his coat. The woman knew how to act cute in situations like this. She quickly erased the fear from her expression and crawled towards the hero with awkward movements.

“Hero. Where are you going? Don’t go, stay with me…”

Wolf met the woman’s eyes. The fingertips holding his clothes trembled, and his gaze wavered. No matter how much she tried to hide her fear with her expression, her instincts betrayed her. Wolf had seen that look countless times before. Demons and nobles begging him for their lives. They all had the same look in their eyes as this woman clinging to his clothes right now.

“Kyaak!”

Wolf kicked the woman away and walked out. A commotion erupted in the room after Wolf left, but the sobbing sounds and the murmuring voices of the women behind him were like meaningless echoes.

“Hero.”

A servant who recognized him in the hallway bowed his head. Wolf passed by the servant and said,

“Has there been any news from the Allend family?”

“Yes. They’ve been waiting, kneeling in front of the mansion since dawn. What should we do?”

[Wolf. I hope you become a truly wonderful knight. And I’ll be Wolf’s lady, and we’ll ride horses around town together.]

Wolf ran a hand through his hair. On days he had nightmares, auditory hallucinations always lingered in his ears. Those hallucinations, which persisted even when he covered his ears, drove people mad. The servant, meeting his wide-eyed stare, flinched back like an abandoned puppy.

Wolf said,

“Tell them to come in. Crawling.”

The servant nodded and brushed past Wolf. Beyond the dark window, amidst the dim fog lights, Wolf saw a silhouette lying flat on the ground. He saw the servant who had just passed him speaking a few words to the figure lying on the ground, and watched as the hesitant shape crawled like a caterpillar.

Wolf stood silently until that pathetic wriggling reached the entrance. An old man in a luxurious suit, sweat beading on his forehead, staggered like a sick dog. His skin, appearing like an ancient tree past seventy, pressed down on puddles in the yard, becoming stained a dirtier color than his own skin, leaving handprints.

“N-Nngh…!”

The guards watched the old man with strange expressions, while the servant turned his head away. Wolf paused at the old man’s movements and walked step by step towards the entrance. One step at the sight of him gritting his teeth and moving his trembling arms again. Another step, hearing his sobbing moans.

When the old man disappeared past the window frame, Wolf flung open the front door and turned towards him.

The old man was prostrate before the entrance steps. He pressed his body flat against the ground as if bowing to a king, his legs flailing as if splashing in water. Wolf looked down at the bony limbs and dirty clothes. The old man’s snow-white eyebrows were long lost of their color, stained by the muddy water.

“Hero…!”

The nobleman, reduced to a beast, called out to Wolf, pressing his head to the floor. Wolf merely looked down at the elderly nobleman with indifferent eyes.

“Please, show mercy so that the lineage of my family may continue.”

Wolf listened to the old man’s words and closed his eyes. The guards remained silent, and the servant stood beside Wolf, looking down at the nobleman. The nobleman’s retainers standing before the carriage swallowed tears with resentful expressions, while some clenched their fists, trembling.

The old man mustered his last strength and pushed himself up again. If Wolf didn’t forgive him, he intended to bow his head countless times. Wolf looked up at the sky and said,

“It was a few years ago.”

The old man’s expression hardened. Expectation and fear mingled in his hollow eyes. Wolf tilted his head as if drunk and continued the story, exhaling a sigh.

“On the academy graduation day, the young master of the Allend family was murdered by some knight candidate. That candidate fled, leaving the body behind, and the Allend family issued a warrant for this murderer who committed an unforgivable crime.”

The old man from the Allend family knew what this incident was. Since he was the one who issued the warrant for that knight candidate, he knew the details of the incident better than anyone. The old man bowed his head to the floor once more.

“I-It’s all my fault! Such a disaster occurred because I failed to educate my grandson properly!”

“No one seemed curious about why the murderer killed the young master of the Allend family. Anger towards the successful noble class, an expression of dissent against blatant class discrimination. Various embellishments followed, but no knight spoke the truth.”

The old man broke out in a cold sweat. Everything had happened a year before that murder. Wolf pressed down lightly on the old man’s head with his foot. The old man could do nothing but lie flat, even under that humiliating action.

“I remember you saying through newspaper articles back then that you couldn’t forgive me. To think that the old man who raged about not being able to forgive me is now kneeling before me, begging for forgiveness. Isn’t it hilarious?”

“I-I’m sorry…! I am reflecting…!”

The old man repeated the same words like a broken record player, bowing even flatter.

“Didn’t you think it was too late to apologize? Years have passed already. Angela is dead, and so is your grandson. There’s nothing to get back now, so what meaning does an apology hold? If you had bowed your head then, if you had sent Angela back, we would have lived on, forgetting each other.”

“Sorry……. I am…!”

Wolf’s foot tightened its pressure. The old man felt his nose bridge being crushed against the floor as he squeezed out his voice.

“I still remember. Angela came to the academy to see me, and when your grandson saw her, he ordered his servants to drag her into a warehouse. Do you know what I saw when I went looking for her after hearing about it late?”

He knew. He could still picture his grandson’s face, throwing a tantrum about taking a commoner woman as his concubine. The nobleman could never say he didn’t know. Because he knew it all too well. It was because he was the one who had bribed the knight candidate, who came from the gutters, with bags of money.

“If I hadn’t received a revelation and killed the Demon King, would you have knelt before me? If I weren’t the hero, if I weren’t holding your life in my hands, would you have acted so subserviently towards me?”

“Sorry…. I am…! I-It’s all my fault…! Just… let me continue my family line…!”

Wolf lifted his foot. Seeing the foot raised high as if to stomp on the nobleman’s head, the soldiers and the servant averted their eyes. The retainers standing before the carriage screamed.

CRASH!

“Kuaaaak! Aaaak!”

The old man’s arm was crushed. His elbow joint was completely flattened, leaving the imprint of the shoe sole perfectly intact. With his bleeding foot, Wolf pressed down on the old man’s neck.

“Kek… Kek…!”

Wolf’s eyes met the old man’s. The old man couldn’t look directly into those eyes blazing with hatred.

“I received a revelation. The Goddess appeared in my dream and gave me strength. Why did God grant me power only at the end of my life? I pondered it many times, but the answer was always the same. Even God must have pitied my life. That’s why He bestowed upon me the power for revenge.”

The old man’s bony fingers gripped Wolf’s shoe, pleading.

“P-Please…! I-I’ll take all the responsibility…! Innocent others…!”

Wolf cut him off and shouted.

“Why did I! I! Have to lose my woman and give up my dream of being a knight! What sin did I commit to lose my woman! I’ll kill them all! You! Your spawn! Everyone connected to you!”

The old man saw the beast-like glint in Wolf’s eyes. Those eyes were filled with hostility and murderous intent towards him. At that moment, the old man was certain Wolf wouldn’t let him live. The directionless sense of betrayal from false hope turned into hatred for Wolf and poured out.

“Ah, aaa…! Y-You devil! Killing innocent people too…! Do you have the right to do that?!”

A monstrous roar erupted from the old man’s mouth. Red veins burst in his yellow irises, boasting a grotesque coloration. He snarled in a voice like a howling beast, but Wolf didn’t bat an eye. He relaxed his contorted face and calmed his anger.

Facing the coldly cooled expression, the old man shrank back again. Wolf ran a hand through his hair and said,

“What does my right matter? What’s important is repaying my grudge. Whoever dies caught up in my revenge.”

Wolf extended his hand. A guard handed over the sword at his hip. The rain-dampened scabbard gleamed, and the retainers beside the carriage froze stiff. The sword was drawn along with Wolf’s voice.

“That’s ultimately someone else’s problem.”