Chapter 3: 2. The Screaming Spirit Stone

Somehow or other...

Lee Yohan left the abandoned building where he had been holed up.

His clothes were rags, and he smelled as though he had not washed for over a week, but he carried himself proudly.

Because now that the sun was high overhead, the horned bastards he saw as he walked around... in other words, the Sarkaz, were in even worse shape than he was.

Well, that was only natural. Any Sarkaz capable of moving properly had abandoned this unproductive city and run off to work as mercenaries. The ones left behind were mostly people with something wrong with either their bodies or their heads, along with mercenaries who had crawled back to collect payment after finishing a job.

So compared to the average of these horned bastards, it would not be an exaggeration to say that he possessed an overwhelmingly superior level of social skills.

...Though being evenly matched with people with physical and mental disabilities was not exactly something to be happy about.

’I decided to move around at night, but first I should get some information on the shacks around the outskirts during the day.’

That was why he headed without hesitation toward the only bar in eastern Kazdel.

They did not exactly sell a proper variety of drinks inside, but it was still right to call it a bar. They sold alcohol, at any rate.

So, beneath a sky that looked utterly bizarre to him, ignoring the occasional whispers from people watching him, Lee Yohan walked on.

He kicked open the shabby door, glanced around inside for roughly ten seconds, then opened his mouth.

"Bleach. Diluted. One part to ten thousand."

"What the hell are you talking about? Last time you ordered orange juice, which does not even exist... Bleach? What is that supposed to be?"

"Ah... you do not know?"

Fortunately, there were no Vampires inside, so he could speak with confidence.

In fact, there was not just an absence of Vampires; there was only one other customer. But that was a welcome sight to him. More customers would only mean more people to sell information about him.

So when he turned around and started walking away as lightly as if he were moonwalking, the old Goliath cursed him with his eyes as though looking at a lunatic. Yohan paid him no mind and merely took Lungmen currency from his pocket.

His entire fortune: 200 Lungmen dollars.

Fortunately, the people of Yan in this world used Chinese and Chinese characters, so his rare foreign-language skills had earned him this considerable sum. He pulled out part of it.

When he held up a ten-Lungmen-dollar bill and set it down on the table, the old Goliath’s eyes narrowed.

"You sure it is clean?"

"What is this? You do not trust me?"

"I sent three men to escort some drifter from Lungmen, and the three came back dead while this crazy bastard returns alone?"

"Come on. Those bastards got ahead of themselves and died. Why are you blaming me, old man?"

He was probably suspicious because it was money someone who normally dressed like a beggar did not seem likely to possess.

But in truth, he was right.

How much did he owe the human trafficker called Ska Eye after falling into this place? And how many people saw him as an easy target because he was small-framed?

It was true that he had not been able to save money even if he tried. Whenever he took on a small private job, horned bastards would come looking to take his money, like they were school bullies.

Then why did he have so much money?

Because he had taken out the two Sarkaz mercenaries who had gone on his previous job with him and stripped the leftovers off them.

Even before his dimensional displacement, Lee Yohan had spoken ten languages, and the Cantonese used by Lungmen people was merely a variation of standard Chinese.

Would it really be that difficult for someone like him to build connections with Lungmen people? Someone without horns on his head like those Sarkaz bastards, whom Ska Eye had introduced to Lungmen people as someone who was not Sarkaz?

Of course not.

That fact was proven by the two Sarkaz skeletons left behind in the wasteland.

"So, you are not taking it, old man?"

"...Damn it. I do not even have change."

As Yohan continued holding out the ten-Lungmen-dollar bill while thinking that, the Goliath picked it up as though afraid somebody might see. He smoothly slipped it into his pants.

It was disgusting, but it could not be helped.

Ten Lungmen dollars mattered more than dignity.

And because of that, the old Goliath—who understood that there had to be a reason Yohan was offering as much as ten Lungmen dollars—leaned down and took out a glass.

The bar, whose only customer besides Yohan appeared to be a drunken woman kneading mud with her head practically gone, fell quiet as the Goliath lowered his voice.

"So, what do you need?"

"Are the Vampires still looking for me?"

"Who knows. At least, I have not heard that the Freshblood Corps, which is supposedly attached to the royal court, has come into the east from the west... But Vampires live in the east too. A few of them have asked me whether I knew where you were."

"Damn it. It does not even seem like Sanguinarch ordered them to. Why are they chasing me around this much?"

Ten Lungmen dollars.

Yohan did not know about Lungmen, but by Kazdel standards it was enough money to feed a family of four for three days.

That should have covered the fee for keeping his information confidential, but it could not end there.

While the Goliath lowered his head to take out the glass, Yohan laid two more ten-Lungmen-dollar bills on the table. The Goliath froze when he saw them.

Once two more crisp bills came out—the bills Lungmen visitors who had come to Kazdel to enjoy hunting the Infected had given him as tips—the Goliath Kedel seemed to finally understand the situation.

"...Thirty Lungmen dollars is a lot of money, but it is not enough for me to refuse to reveal where you are or what jobs you have done when the Freshblood Corps comes looking. They will know you are in the west to begin with."

"Sure. I know that much too. Which is why what I want is not information protection. I want something else."

"Something else?"

"The locations of Sarkaz mercenaries who are finishing up their business and coming home to die. The ones without families, especially."

"...You..."

He had not come here to fool around.

"...I heard there was some bastard in the west going around looting corpses. That was you? And you are telling me you intend to do that right in front of me...?"

"It is not any different."

"Heh, hehehe... And you do not even have any strength..."

He had come here risking his life.

Just as he always had ever since falling into this place.

Only this time, fully aware that it would be even more dangerous...

Lee Yohan’s pupils suddenly constricted.

His senses moved before his thoughts did. A sixth sense that felt as though it were burning. Before touch, hearing, or sight could register it, he read the path by which the Goliath would raise his hand and strike him across the head.

The Goliath’s eyes were cold as he swung.

It was not a killing move, but neither was he going easy on him.

He was simply certain that the monstrous strength unique to Sarkaz—and Goliaths in particular—would smash Lee Yohan’s head apart. And if it did not smash his head, it would at least crush his shoulder. He was certain of it.

—Until now, that was surely what would have happened.

[Star-Sucking Grand Art]

[Absorbing Child Formula]

But in that instant, what the Goliath felt was a hand surging upward from below.

Within Kedel’s field of vision, Lee Yohan’s eyes were turning red.

The strength rising from Yohan’s dantian twisted his muscles and tore through his flesh as it traveled into his arm, producing a result that came later, yet arrived first.

Speed?

No. This was technique.

Striking after, yet arriving before.

The route of the Goliath’s moving hand was drawn in by the swelling attraction blooming from Lee Yohan’s right palm.

Not through physical force, but merely through fluctuations in Originium Arts that even the old Sarkaz could feel.

’—Leithanien.’

Just by entering the trajectory of Lee Yohan’s moving hand, a bizarre sensation swept over him, as if the Originium spread throughout the old Sarkaz’s body were responding.

It felt as if his blood were boiling just from standing in front of him. It was the reaction caused by the Absorbing Child Formula. The sensation of Originium dust running through the Goliath’s bloodstream gathering as his Oripathy worsened, trying to burst forth even if it had to rip apart his cumbersome body.

And the Goliath, certain that his Oripathy could not suddenly surge out of control on its own, knew what was causing it.

Long ago, Kedel had witnessed the signs of this phenomenon with his own eyes.

’[Frenzied Melody]...!’

The cursed movement that the high-tower Casters of Leithanien had performed by putting infected Sarkaz slaves at the forefront. That forbidden technique which, displayed as if mocking Kazdel’s army full of the Infected, had collapsed the front line.

Kedel knew how dangerous it was.

He knew because his friends had died on that battlefield. The wisdom carved into him by old age sensed that danger even more sharply than his rage did.

An instinct that if his hand was seized, the influence exerted over the Originium in his body would intensify even further. A judgment without logic, one that could only be made by instinct when one’s life was in danger.

—Naturally, a poorly educated Sarkaz who had learned nothing but techniques of slaughter chose to pull his hand away.

"—Huh."

With an incredulous exhalation, the hand dropped sharply away from in front of Lee Yohan.

A gale blew.

In stark contrast to how quietly the two had been speaking, a tremendously violent noise rang out.

Krrrraaaash!!

As the sound erupted, a table the old Kedel had cherished shattered, and a vertical cut through the bar counter crumbled into dust and shook apart.

A wind filled with splinters swept over the head of the bar’s only other customer. As the traces and sound of the impact rang loudly through the room—

Lee Yohan, completely outside the path of destruction, muttered while holding a glass filled with grayish-white liquid.

"Do I still look like I have no strength?"

Not a trace of the thought running through his mind—I was fucking terrified—showed on his face. While he circulated demonic qi, Originium dust inside him had stirred around and built up internal pressure, turning his eyes red, yet he did not even notice it himself.

He spoke boldly.

All while ignoring the Sarkaz trembling after testing whether he had enough strength to survive looting corpses, only to shorten his own lifespan instead.

Of course, Lee Yohan did not know that Kedel’s lifespan had been shortened.

But though Kedel visibly trembled... he finished sorting through every thought in a brief instant.

"Hmph. Fine. You certainly do have strength. To think that someone who knew absolutely nothing about Originium Arts could produce something like that... It appears you have become Infected as well. I suppose your day of death is not far off."

"..."

"Even so, I cannot sell out people who have already finished their journeys and chosen their hometown as their final destination. I am not like that verminous Vampire broker in the east."

"Then what?"

Yohan looked at him as though he were spouting complete nonsense, but Kedel steadfastly settled the debts and obligations within himself.

My lifespan has been reduced, but Yohan’s has probably been reduced as well. Then I should tolerate this much. Now that I know that hornless bastard Yohan is from somewhere around Leithanien, that alone is enough payment for the information...

That was roughly the extent of his reasoning.

Selling the Freshblood Corps the information that the bastard called Yohan was from Leithanien was another matter entirely, which made it all the better!

Well, so... Kedel, who oversaw information and jobs in eastern Kazdel under Ska Eye, sighed and pulled a sheet of paper from beneath the table on Yohan’s side, which was still somehow holding its shape. Yohan stared at it as though seeing something incredibly strange.

After all, it was the first time he had seen such fine paper since falling into Kazdel.

As he focused his gaze on the paper, Kedel spoke.

"I will give you information on a traitor."

"A traitor?"

"Information on a half-blood whom the residents here would rather see dead. He did not return to his hometown. He failed while trying to escape it, and now he is in hiding."

And on top of that, he heard that this traitor was a Vampire. It was not exactly what he wanted, but he decided to listen anyway.

There was no harm in listening.

He would not mind if the number of Vampires living in Kazdel shrank a little anyway.

So he stopped paying attention to the woman who had once again buried her head in the table as if drunk, and concentrated on the story flowing from Kedel’s mouth... Yohan did not know.

He did not know that, the moment he stopped paying attention, the woman who had been touching a lump of mud embedded with splinters raised her head like a ghost.

That woman was looking at Yohan.

Yohan did not know it, but even before he arrived, she had been kneading mud imbued with Originium Arts. Through that pile of mud, she could hear the sound ringing within him.

’A scream?’

That utterly miserable sound...

It was likely a sound that even Mudrock had never heard before.

After all.

The screams of a pre-civilization people, flowing back out after bizarre information had been etched into Originium.

It was the sound of a stone that could not be heard anywhere else!

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