episode_0010

“Let go! I said let go!”

Kara struggled in the knights’ grasp.

“Please remain still. You might get hurt if you’re not careful.”

Kara’s gaze turned to Agape behind her.

Agape, with both arms held by two knights on either side, looked critically ill, as if he could die at any moment.

Seeing that, Kara became even more frantic.

“Let go of me!!!”

*Thump- thump- thump-*!

“Hero!”

She struggled with all her might, but a woman with no power had no chance of breaking free from knights at the level of aura users.

Watching the hero struggle with all her might, refusing to give up despite knowing it was futile, the knights showed troubled expressions.

And then-

*Grinding sound*-

A strange sound came from Kara’s mouth.

When they shifted their gaze to her at the ominous sound.

“!!!!!!”

Inside Kara’s mouth was a tiny vial of poison, the size of a pinky nail.

It was an item she had obtained at Roland’s request.

Having once nearly suffered a terrible fate, she had kept the poison in her mouth just in case, preferring death to enduring such cruelty from them.

It was an item containing cursed power; if she swallowed it, she would be unable to use what they called the ‘power of the hero’s star’.

Not only Kara but also the knights knew this, so, with expressions full of shock visible through their helmets, they urgently tried to remove the poison from her mouth.

But she bit down on the vial of poison with her molars and spoke.

“If you don’t release both of us right now, I’ll die, hero or not!”

Her voice was filled with venom.

The venomous threat, powerful enough to make even them hesitate, contained a genuine intent to swallow it immediately if her demands weren’t met.

One of the knights, realizing this, reluctantly commanded.

“Let them go.”

“But-”

“The power of the star is important now. They can’t escape even if we let them go, so let them be together for a while.”

“…Understood.”

The knights released Kara and Agape.

Instead, they surrounded them, keeping a close watch to prevent any escape.

“Agape! Agape…!”

Kara rushed over and embraced Agape.

Then, she gently laid Agape’s overturned body flat and immediately checked if he was breathing.

Thankfully, he was breathing.

“Haa… Ka, ra…?”

“Agape!”

“Ka, ra… run away…”

“What are you talking about! Why would I abandon you and run away!”

Kara cried out with tears streaming down her face, but Agape’s eyes were filled with fear and worry.

This was because he had guessed why they were taking Kara and where they would send her.

‘It’s the Prophet and his knights.’

It was clear they had come here to take Kara, who was destined to become a hero.

‘If she’s dragged away, they’ll throw her into a battlefield where she’ll have to risk her life just for being a hero.’

A woman who had never fought in her life, simply because she was a hero.

Without even thinking deeply, he knew how cruel that fact was to Kara, who had no power, so he had to make her escape from here no matter what.

‘But how?’

Was there a way?

‘No.’

There wasn’t.

With his own strength, it was impossible to defeat those dozens of knights.

But he couldn’t give up just because there was no way, no possibility.

Giving up wasn’t even in his mind to begin with.

*Shing*-

With trembling hands, he drew the sword from his waist.

Seeing that, the knights cursed.

“Which bastard didn’t disarm him?!”

“Stop him! Not a single scratch must appear on the hero’s body!”

‘Bullshit.’

Who’s going to injure whom?

*Hooo*-

He inhaled, then exhaled again.

“Stay behind me.”

“Agape, I’m fine, so just-”

*Whoosh*-

He blocked the swinging sword.

*Clang*-

“What!”

*Grating- grinding-*

Lacking both strength and skill, there was a limit to how long he could block the sword of an aura-wielding knight.

As proof, his stance gradually began to falter.

“Hooo…”

Calm down.

And, erase distracting thoughts and focus on cutting down what’s in front of him.

Because he had to protect Kara.

*Swooshhh──*

A black haze began to rise.

The cursed power.

For the first time, he was beginning to wield the power he had previously used only instinctively, under his own will.

“!!!!!!”

*Slice*-

With the explosively unleashed brute strength and speed, the knight’s neck was severed.

Seeing that, the knights flinched.

‘Is that aura?!’

No.

It was absolutely not aura.

They had mistaken it for aura due to the enhancement of physical abilities, but as aura users themselves, they knew that was definitely not aura.

It was only similar to aura.

The power, which seemed embarrassingly unstable compared to aura, was far inferior to the aura they knew, both in terms of destructive force and stability.

At that fact, the knights charged again.

“Uwaaaaaa!!!!”

The gladius and the sword clashed.

The beautiful, silver-glowing sword, even amidst the filthy city, with its unique sharpness, completely severed the knight’s sword.

*Slice*-

“Unbelievable-”

The knight couldn’t finish his sentence.

*Thud*-

Because his neck was severed along with his sword.

One of the knights who saw it shouted.

“It’s a relic of the Golden Age!”

The Golden Age, which possessed the most brilliant civilization in human history.

A man born in a cursed city, for some reason, possessed the legacy of that era, which had the greatest technology and power.

The real fight began then.

Swords clashed.

*Clang-!*

Cutting.

*Slice*-

Being cut.

“Ugh…”

Being stabbed.

*Plunge-!*

He stabbed.

“Ugh…!”

Muscles were severed, organs were pierced, and bones were broken.

But in exchange for freely sacrificing that much flesh and bone, he took even greater tolls from them.

He cut them down.

He cut, he stabbed, he fought them with the sole resolve to make Kara escape, caring nothing for death.

Seeing that, the knights gasped in disbelief.

‘He’s a monster!’

He had probably never even learned, yet that man was born with an innate talent for wielding a sword.

He possessed an overwhelming genius, enough to make ordinary prodigies seem insignificant.

With the addition of his venomous aura, Agape no longer looked like a lowly man of beggar origin in the knights’ eyes.

He seemed like a monster, clawing and tearing at everything in sight.

*Slice*-

By then, Agape’s eyes began to grow calm.

The belligerence typically exuded by young knights had vanished by then.

In the eyes of this young man, who had only recently become an adult, there was only the gaze of someone analyzing how to kill them most efficiently.

*Slice*-

Even at this moment, as he fatally wounded and killed the knights one by one, that monster was growing.

If things continued like this, that man might actually defeat the knights and escape from this city.

But-

*Crash-!*

“Got him!”

Agape was too exhausted.

No, beyond being exhausted, Agape simply had very little strength left to begin with.

He had often gone hungry to get food for Roland and Kara first.

And the food he did manage to eat was barely enough to be called proper meals.

For a long time, he had been constantly hungry, spending all day roaming the dangerous fallen city to find food to feed the two of them, so it was impossible for Agape to have any strength left in his body.

Due to his exhausted stamina, Agape was overpowered by the knights’ numerical advantage.

*Thump-! Thud-! Thump-!*

“You son of a bitch!”

The knights, having witnessed the deaths of their comrades, mercilessly kicked Agape.

“Stop it! I said stop it!”

Kara pleaded desperately, trying to stop the knights, but their pride had been deeply wounded by the fact that a lowly man born in the cursed city had killed their comrades.

Because of this, they subtly ignored Kara’s pleas and relentlessly kicked Agape.

To the point where it seemed he might truly die.

“Stop!!!!”

It was the Prophet of Light who stopped the knights’ actions.

The knights’ gaze briefly shifted to Roland, who had followed him, but soon returned to the Prophet of Light as he commanded in a loud voice.

“We have found the hero and the great Prophet of the Moon. Our initial objective has been achieved, so we will withdraw from this city.”

“Prophet-nim, what about this man-”

“Leave him.”

*Swish-*

“Besides, letting him cling to a pathetic existence might be a greater torment for him.”

“…Understood.”

They seemed to have much more to say, but since it was the direct command of the Consul, the knights obediently withdrew.

And in the spot where the knights had moved away, Kara was there, embracing Agape.

*Drip- drip-*

Kara was crying, her head bowed.

“They are truly born with cruel fates.”

Both that man and that woman.

Having thought that far, the Prophet of Light stepped aside.

To allow Roland to say his final goodbyes, as he wished.

“Roland… *sob*… Agape… Agape is dying… Please, save him… Please…”

“…….”

Roland said nothing.

He merely looked down at the two with a deeply shadowed expression, clenching the potion in his hand.

“Kara.”

Roland called Kara.

“I’m sorry, but could I speak with Agape alone?”