episode_0010

Stunned by the terrible stench and the unidentified skeleton we had witnessed, Killua and I lost the will to do anything more and had no choice but to return empty-handed and helplessly to Rai’s house.

In front of the house, two pieces of bread, prepared as our share of the meal, were waiting, perhaps thanks to Rai having informed the villagers in advance.

Instead of Killua, who had listlessly entered the house first, I carried the two pieces of bread inside. Tearing the bread into small, easy-to-eat pieces, I asked Killua.

“Could that skeleton have been the corpse of an old villager?”

Killua slowly shook his head at my conjecture.

“It’s someone who died recently. If it had been the corpse of an old villager, even the bones would have vanished without a trace by now.”

“Right?”

True to their nickname as “cleaners,” the slime would repeatedly consume even the bones of creatures remaining within their mucus excretions, as if ruminating, decomposing them at a rapid pace.

“Then, an unfortunate person who got lost…”

“No one would get lost on the path connected to the village.”

We could have thought it was an unfortunate person who got lost and died in the Lime Forest, but of all places, the spot where we found the corpse was the forest closest to the village. In a place where the mountain path connected to the village was clearly visible, it was unlikely someone would have gotten lost and died.

Rather, it would be more fitting to say that someone who died in the village was abandoned here.

“Then, surely…”

Suddenly, Rai’s words from the morning came to my mind.

The low-ranking nobles who had gotten lost and entered the Lime Forest and were rescued. Those who had spewed terrible insults, made unreasonable demands, and even resorted to threats.

An ominous possibility entered my mind: that the skeleton remaining in the slime’s mucus excretions might be their ultimate fate.

“……”

Perhaps Killua was thinking the same thing. Without eating the bread pieces I had torn finely, she stared at them, deep in thought.

“Killua-nim. Please eat first.”

I gently pushed the plate, filled with bite-sized bread pieces I had cut for her easy eating, towards her.

Then, as if reluctantly eating, Killua put a dry piece of bread into her mouth and began to chew.

“Ah… they’re here.”

Chewing the bread in her mouth, she raised her head and looked at the house door, as if sensing something.

I, who had not sensed any particular presence other than the bleak sound of the wind, was startled by her reaction and looked at the house door.

Creak.

Was her sense correct?

The house door opened carefully, and Rai walked in, shaking off his outer garment which had a bit of slime mucus on it.

“Nothing happened to either of you, right?”

As if pleased by our safe return, having come back healthy, he smiled brightly.

But despite Rai’s bright smile, we could not relax our stiff facial expressions.

“What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

Noticing something was wrong from our reaction, Rai wiped the smile from his face, turned to us with a serious expression, and asked in a worried voice.

“Well…”

How should I explain that we had found a corpse in the forest’s mucus that appeared to have died recently?

As I hesitated for a moment, pondering and hesitating to speak.

“We found a corpse inside the slime’s mucus. And one that appeared to have died recently.”

“Ah… a corpse.”

At Killua’s direct statement about finding a corpse, Rai’s face darkened considerably.

First, Rai, without much agitation, calmly hung his outer garment on the wall and slowly wiped his hands with a damp towel soaked in herbal water.

“It’s a corpse found in the forest near the village.”

Sharpening my senses even at Rai’s small actions, I added further explanation to Killua’s words.

Then, as if he had already noticed that much, Rai heavily nodded his head.

“Did you kill them?”

“Ki… Killua?!”

The moment Rai’s heavy nod stopped, Killua, without warning, once again directly asked him a question.

It wasn’t Rai who was surprised by her excessively direct question, but I, who was next to her.

“There were no noticeable external injuries on the skeletonized corpse. That means a vital point was precisely severed or stabbed with something sharp. Among the people in this village, it seems only Rai possesses such precise hand movements and skill.”

“Ah…”

Killua’s deduction was accurate.

While I was just terrified and surprised by the skeletonized corpse, she, even at that moment, calmly analyzed the state of the skeleton.

Clearly, the bones of the skeletonized corpse were so clean that there were no visible traces of external injury from resisting a threat to life, nor any signs of damage from external impact.

In other words, it meant the corpse died from a sharp and fatal blow, such as a surprise severing of the neck or a precise stab to the heart between the ribs, without even realizing they were dying.

“……”

Rai’s action of slowly wiping his hands with the wet towel came to a sudden halt.

It became so quiet that his breathing could not be heard, and as an unusual atmosphere began to swirl, I quickly darted my eyes.

First, the sharp and menacing dagger tied to Rai’s thigh came into view.

In preparation for any unforeseen situation, wary of his movements, I slowly drew forth the magic flowing within my body.

“That’s right.”

At the end of a long, long silence, Rai heavily parted his lips and confessed his murder.

And he slowly moved his stopped hand again, finishing the act of wiping his hands with the wet towel.

Although he himself revealed he was a murderer, I could not move rashly.

Even from a distance, Rai’s dexterity was agile and precise, to the extent of piercing a wolf’s brow with an arrow.

The moment I tried to attack him, he would easily evade my attack, and it felt like he would accurately throw the dagger tied to his thigh towards our vital points.

“Why did you kill people?”

Unlike me, who was so tense I couldn’t even breathe properly, Killua, in her usual calm tone, asked about the reason for the murder.

Then, Rai finished wiping his hands with the wet towel, raised his still damp hands to chest height, wiped them with the dry towel hanging on the wall, and answered.

“If I hadn’t killed them… our village would have disappeared.”

Rai was wiping away all the moisture, even between his fingers and nails, much slower and more meticulously than usual.

As he wiped the moisture from both hands on the towel hanging on the wall, this moment, where both his hands were furthest from the dagger tied to his thigh, would be the perfect timing to subdue him.

Thinking this was my only chance, I bit my lip and carefully began to condense the magic flowing within my body at my fingertips.

“Stay still.”

But Killua, who noticed the movement of my magic, suddenly grabbed my wrist and told me to stop my attempt to ambush him.

Although I was anxious about missing the perfect opportunity, Killua-nim, the White Mage, surely had a better idea than an ordinary person like me.

First, I released the magic I had condensed at my fingertips, as per her instructions.

Rai sighed.

Rai, who had finished wiping his hands, slowly turned his body with a light sigh and looked at us.

Clearly, Rai was a man whose gentle and relaxed eyes gave the impression that he wouldn’t harm anyone.

But the current Rai was looking at us with the resolute and chilling gaze of a murderer, as if he had killed many people.

I gasped.

The moment I met Rai’s eyes, which had completely changed in atmosphere, I cowered, let out a short groan, and recoiled.

Too late, I fumbled for a weapon to resist him, but what my hand caught was only the dull bread knife I had used to cut the bread just moments ago.

“Surely you didn’t go into the forest to find that corpse?”

Rai slowly approached Killua and me, and as if he no longer needed to hide his murderous intent towards us, he slowly drew out the sharp dagger tied to his thigh.

“Were you searchers who came to find the missing nobles?”

The dagger, whose blade he had meticulously sharpened in the workshop every evening after hunting, boasted a chilling sharpness capable of easily severing tough animal hides or flesh.

“Ki… Killua?”

Facing Rai, who held a menacing dagger incomparable to the bread knife I held, with clear murderous intent towards us, I called out to Killua in a trembling voice.

“That was simply a coincidence.”

Unlike me, whose body and voice were trembling endlessly in the face of a clear threat to life, Killua answered Rai’s question in her usual calm tone.

In the meantime, Rai, holding the sharp dagger in his hand, took heavy steps and approached right in front of the dining table where we were sitting.

As he approached to a distance where the dagger he held could sever our throats if he swung his arm, I immediately bit my lip tightly to swallow the scream that was about to burst out.

“Here.”

With a calm expression, Killua, who had been calmly looking up at Rai, suddenly picked up a piece of bread I had cut into bite-sizes and offered it to him.

Then, Rai, with eyes still filled with chilling murderous intent, slowly looked back and forth between Killua’s offered bread and her face.

“You’ve had a tough day today. You must be hungry, so let’s talk while we eat first.”

“……”

Although he had confessed to being a murderer, Killua calmly engaged in everyday conversation, as if nothing had happened.

Then, as if trying to uncover Killua’s true intentions, Rai, without any reply, stared intently into her two black eyes.

However, Killua, without wavering, met Rai’s two eyes—which were trembling nervously, filled with clear murderous intent—head-on with her own calm, deep black eyes.

“My only remaining arm is about to fall off.”

As if her arm, which she had extended to offer him a piece of bread, was aching, Killua slightly furrowed her brows and made a complaint mixed with a small joke.

Then, Rai reluctantly extended his hand and took the bread Killua offered.

“It probably doesn’t taste good. I was too surprised to have time to prepare the chipotle leaves you like.”

As Rai picked up the bread she had offered, Killua also picked up one of the remaining bread pieces.

And as if to prove she had done nothing tricky, right before Rai’s eyes, she threw the bread piece into her mouth and chewed.

Rai, who had been watching Killua, only then slowly brought the bread piece Killua had offered to his mouth.

But he, still full of doubt and distrust towards Killua, held the bread between his teeth without chewing, glared at Killua, and waited for her next words.

“Alright… then.”

As Rai ate the bread she had offered him, Killua, without any sense of crisis, stretched widely, rested her arm on the table, and looked at Rai in a comfortable posture, propping her chin.

“Before I die by your hand, may I hear about the reason you killed people?”

“……”

Even with a murderer trying to kill her right before her eyes, at Killua’s unbelievably calm and bold attitude, not only I, but even Rai, felt greatly bewildered.

Killua, who had been calmly looking at Rai, then spoke with a bright, wide smile, unsuited for the current atmosphere.

“I’m curious about why a good person like Rai would kill people. Before I die by your hand, I’d really like to hear that reason at least once.”

“Th-That…”

Rai, unable to hide his agitation, opened his mouth with a trembling voice.

As he began to speak, Killua signaled to me with her eyes, pointing to the chair in front of Rai.

Understanding Killua’s gesture, I slightly pulled the chair, creating space for Rai to sit.

“Since the story seems like it will be long, let’s talk while sitting.”

As I pulled the chair to make space for him to sit, Killua gestured as if telling him to sit.

In the end, Rai, pretending to be unable to resist Killua’s consideration, sat on the chair, still gripping the sharp dagger in his hand.

And he slowly began to tell us the reason he committed murder.

“Nobles don’t change. Even after losing everything… they absolutely refused to acknowledge that they had become ordinary.”