Translator: Nox

Chapter 35

Oscar unleashed all his malice, hostility, and murderous intent without the slightest restraint. His lean, firm muscles moved with surprising fluidity, generating explosive power.

Even as he evaded a lunging mercenary, Oscar grabbed the man’s head in a crushing grip and slammed it into the wall with overwhelming force.

He ground the man’s head against the wall until the life left him, then tossed the corpse aside and turned his head. The mercenaries who had been swarming around him flinched and retreated. When another man charged, Oscar instantly caught his head in one hand.

Mana condensed and then detonated, causing the captured head to explode.

While the mercenaries turned pale with shock, Oscar advanced at a leisurely pace, killing the obstacles in his path one by one.

There was no mercy, no forgiveness.

With calm breaths and a composed expression, he crushed and pulverized everything that blocked his way.

Once the Combat Team, having finished clearing their sectors, joined up with the Search Team, the slaughter turned into a massacre. The elites of the mercenary group—men who were considered top-tier—fell helplessly, and the hallway, which had been as grand as any renowned mansion, became a tomb in the blink of an eye.

Oscar’s steps stopped at the end of the hallway, before a certain iron door.

He took deep, slow breaths before eventually pulling out a cigarette and lighting it. A bloody silence settled over them during the few moments of his short yet long breaths. After a moment, he stepped through the door opened by the Search Team, tossing the rest of his cigarette into a pool of blood.

Beyond the door was not a room.

The place, where everything from the floor to the ceiling was made of iron, was a slaughterhouse.

Standing as if claiming the doorway, Oscar’s gaze turned toward the Wolf tied to a chair. While Simon and the Combat Team, who entered behind him, subdued the personnel inside the slaughterhouse, Oscar walked into a pool filled with rotten pus and blood.

If it’s this bad, you shouldn’t have said recovery was impossible; you should have explained he was no longer human.

With that thought, he lifted the chin of the man who was still clinging to life. His right eye was gone, and his remaining left eye was matted shut with blood. Their eyes met through the gaps of the blood-caked eyelids.

No, the moment he felt their gazes meet, the life drained out of the man.

“Your Excellency, Combat Team 2 reports they have captured the mercenary vice-captain alive.”

Oscar let go of the dead man’s chin and pulled out another cigarette.

His cobalt eyes, revealed through the hazy smoke, held a chill like cold metal. Oscar commanded in a voice just as cold.

“Bring him in.”

---

Immediately after witnessing the chairman’s death, the man with the snake tattoo had led his subordinates into the fray. He had felt a surge of fear at the fact that no one in the main base could stop the chairman’s death, but at the sight of his numerous allies, that fear had receded like the tide.

Ultimately, victory would be theirs, and since the chairman was dead, he even reached the thought that he might take that seat for himself. However, that thought crumbled as quickly as a sandcastle.

The men in black suits were all silent.

The mana erupting from their hands swept through the mercenaries like explosives, and in their wake, only mountains of mercenary corpses remained.

There was no mercy.

It felt as though no one would leave this mansion alive tonight.

By the time he came to his senses, he was fleeing desperately, only to be cornered like a stray dog and captured by the Wolves.

His mouth was forced open and a cloth was shoved inside. His heart pounded as if it might explode.

He was dragged, almost crawling, through the hallway lined with the corpses of his fellow mercenaries.

“Mmph, mmph-mmph!”

They were dragging him toward the slaughterhouse.

“Mmmph, mmph!”

His instincts screamed.

I can’t go in there. I’d rather have my head cut off right here!

His frantic struggling ceased the moment he reached the room they called the slaughterhouse.

A man was standing there, still as a statue.

The four hounds that had been fed the Wolf were rolling on their bellies, fawning over him. The man, hands thrust into his pockets, was idly stroking their necks with the toe of his boot, though the dogs beneath his feet occasionally writhed as if he were applying pressure.

By the time he snapped out of it at the whimpering of the dogs begging for their lives, he was already tied to a chair.

Only then did the man who had been treading on the dogs’ necks look back at him. Cobalt eyes were visible beneath his draped black hair.

His entire body trembled.

Marquis von Reinhardt approached slowly. The prisoner did not dare look up at the man standing before him like a god of death.

Then, the cloth stuffed in his mouth was roughly pulled out, and the scent of tobacco drifted from above.

“I suppose it was the dogs’ feeding time?”

A low voice descended over his head. An extreme terror that felt like it might make him faint entered deep into his lungs along with the cigarette smoke. The sound of his teeth chattering echoed from his trembling jaw.

A very deep, low laugh brushed his cheek.

“P-please, spare m—”

Thud.

With an expressionless face, Oscar struck the man’s head without mercy.

Thud, thud, thud-thud-thud.

He beat the man’s head ruthlessly until bones cracked and his brain rattled, only catching his breath just a step before the man lost consciousness.

Then, with a face so composed it was impossible to believe he had just beaten a man to the brink of death, he spoke.

“If you want to walk out of here alive, think carefully before you speak.”

“Ugh, aaargh…”

“The one who sees the world even with eyes closed.”

“Haa… what…?”

When the man, who was drooling blood-mixed saliva, lifted his head, Oscar nodded through the smoke. In that moment, the man instinctively felt there was no hope.

“Who sniffed out the spies?”

His entire body shook violently. Words poured out from his trembling lips.

“I-it wasn’t found out from the inside!”

His speech was slurred, his mouth likely shattered. Those cobalt eyes were more terrifying than anything he had ever seen.

“That’s why I’m asking. Who did it?”

Even his unnervingly calm tone and expression made the man’s knees knock together.

“It was the chairman’s orders!”

“Not that dead bastard.”

The man opened his mouth to say something, anything, but it was impossible for coherent words to come out.

After a very brief silence, Oscar casually pulled off his gloves and tossed them onto the floor.

It was over. Realizing this instinctively, the man’s body jerked as if having a fit.

“T-the King! Following the Royal Palace’s orders—”

“I know about the King. Who in the Royal Palace?”

“……”

“……”

“…Excellency! Please, spare—mmph, mmmmph, mmph!”

The Wolves shoved the cloth back into his mouth as he tried to scream for his life.

Oscar turned away slowly and commanded the remaining Wolves.

“Make him the same.”

Ensure he doesn’t feel alive even if he lives. Make death seem like a mercy instead.

Then, he gave a thin smile as he looked at the hounds huddled in the corner, unable to even breathe loudly.

---

The mercenary headquarters had been literally decimated.

Oscar walked along the path the Search Team had cleared in advance. Though the corpses had been removed, the blood remained, making the insides of his boots damp. He was finally lighting another cigarette amidst the feast of terrible stench and gore when Simon, who had gone with the Search Team to look through the mansion’s internal documents, returned.

“Anything useful?”

“It seems most important documents were recovered when the leader was killed. We are currently interrogating those involved regarding how they identified the intelligence team, but they all claim they were simply following the chairman’s orders.”

“……”

Oscar put the cigarette back in his mouth, and Simon, watching the glowing red tip of the cigarette, continued his report with the information he had just obtained.

“The translation of the identification papers and Abel’s report have arrived.”

Only then did the sharp, cobalt eyes turn toward Simon. Sensing Oscar’s mood, Simon pulled an envelope from his coat and held it out.

“First, the translation of the identification papers.”

Amidst the vibrating stench of blood, Oscar unfolded the paper.

“They say the identification papers appear to be authentic official documents from Danguk. She seems to be from a cadet branch of a fairly well-known family within Danguk, and there appear to be no particular issues with the papers themselves. However…”

“However?”

“They said the name ‘Seo-ah’ is a bit unusual. Since they use logograms, each character has its own meaning. They said while the ‘Ah’ means ‘to love’ and is common, the ‘Seo’ character means ‘to forgive.’”

“Forgiveness?”

The image of Seo-ah, who had stubbornly refused to meet his eyes, flashed through Oscar’s mind.