Chapter 4: 3. Mudrock = Mudrock

It was about a year ago.

Right around then, there had been a time when Kazdel was on Easy, Normal... no, Hard? Very Hard? Something like that.

He was not sure, but it was not Lunatic like it was now.

Back then, there had been consideration for beginners.

That beginner consideration had been downright extraordinary. Its sheer scale could be explained by one fact: at the time, the King of Kazdel himself had been providing it.

And perhaps the King and the group loyal to him had gone insane, but they had thrown up a huge building in a city that was periodically wrecked by things like bombardments.

They brought people into that building, let them sleep strung up in camp beds on cold nights, and when they woke up, gave them one free meal a day at the shelter. They had cared for the people that thoroughly.

Looking back, it was hard to believe that Kazdel had ever been so full of compassion—but such an unbelievable time had truly existed.

He did not know how they had made any of that possible, but it had been possible thanks to a group directly established by the King called Babel. For him, a beginner in Kazdel, it was fair to call it fortunate that the place had been in that state when he arrived.

The important thing, however, was that it had been that way. Past tense.

An extraordinary food self-sufficiency rate below twenty percent. A place where the corpses of people who starved to death in the slums vanished before a day had passed. The lovely Kazdel where outsiders received different treatment depending on whether they had money or strength—

Obviously, such pleasant charity could not last long in a Kazdel this thoroughly fucked. There was only one reason those beautiful days had turned into the shitshow it was now.

The Babel Riot.

According to the Military Commission currently occupying Kazdel, that riot, supposedly caused in Kazdel by people from Babel and ordinary citizens, had cut off Kazdel’s last breath.

"They cut open the belly of the goose that laid the golden eggs."

"Goose? What’s that?"

"Ah, right, right. A Fowlbeast. A Fowlbeast. I said it wrong in Yanese."

Kedel handed Yohan a glass, and he downed the alcohol inside. It might carry a risk of blinding him, but he did not care.

He only thought it would be nice if they had cigars too, and lamented that this backward shithole did not even have such a thing.

No amount of Lungmen currency could buy what did not exist. As he recalled the cigarettes he had run out of long ago, Kedel recited in a sunken voice, as though sinking into himself.

"The riot was inevitable. Even if those who came here had committed no crime, seeing the children of the people who had tormented us so cruelly settle on this land made our blood boil. Our blood boiled, and there were young people who had accumulated too much to endure that boiling blood. Above all... circumstances were bad."

"I don’t know about that..."

"You may not think so, but that is how it seemed to me. So. So... in the end, Babel had no choice but to leave this nomadic city."

He was recounting something that had happened only one year ago as if peering into the distant past. And those words brought back the circumstances of that time in Yohan’s mind.

Burning earth. Howling Sarkaz. Bursting blood.

Horned bastards rampaging about, saying they would capture and kill the outsiders, and relief workers who could neither kill nor save those horned bastards, only breaking half of them apart.

All of it had begun from the fact that relief work in this underdeveloped region inevitably required outside assistance.

They could not sustain themselves, so they needed outside help.

The Sarkaz had been beaten down by Leithanien in the previous war and become a people without a land, their territory devastated to the point where they could not even farm. That was why they could not accept the goodwill of the Leithanien people who came here.

A circle of hatred.

The volunteer invited by Babel had cared for the sick, the starving, and the injured that day as well. But apparently, such things had not mattered to those who were not sick and still had the strength to go on a rampage.

He did not know what started it, but when Yohan woke and staggered outside, the shelter had already been drenched in blood.

The Sarkaz who came out of it set fires everywhere. The shelters Babel had built, as well as the sick Sarkaz staying within them, burned away, and he heard the cries of children who had lost their way. In back alleys and sinister corners, horned bastards trying to kill one another and steal each other’s possessions were everywhere. Watching that sight, he thought something along the lines of:

They’ll probably be living like this even two hundred years from now.

Well, it was not an important thought.

He had survived then, but he had not been able to flee, and he was still in Kazdel.

That was why he had to get out of this shitty neighborhood. More important than what would become of this place two hundred years from now was acquiring the spirit stones needed for thirty years’ worth of cultivation.

So he threw aside such impressions from that time.

And when he asked why this story even mattered—

"So what makes that important, old man?"

"The Regent personally executed the killer of the outsider who had been, for all intents and purposes, the spark that set off the riot. But not everything that happened amid that explosion was resolved. You know that, don’t you?"

"Of course. This city doesn’t have the administrative capacity for that, or anyone to investigate it either... huh?"

"Exactly."

All at once, Yohan came to a realization.

"I heard the ones who crossed the line during that rampage all keeled over and died one after another."

"Babel eventually left because they felt the hostility toward them was too great, but the Sarkaz who supported Babel did not go anywhere. From their perspective, they could not leave alone the ones who had made the situation such a mess."

"But it’s been a long time since anyone heard about important people getting killed like that. Wasn’t it around three months ago? I thought they said most of the ones in the west, where the riot happened, were already dead?"

"What if there were rumors that one of them was still alive?"

"...If word of his death spread completely even outside, they must have confirmed the corpse, and the foundation he had for using money and people was destroyed too... he’s alive somewhere inside Kazdel?"

"Yes. That is why I said it."

That was possible because he was a Vampire.

Even a half-blood Vampire could do something like that.

"No one wants Gerhard to be alive."

The other races’ royal court, entrenched as Kazdel’s ruling class, wanted him to bear the blame for that trivial little riot and die. Kazdel’s poor wanted him to pay for destroying the shelters and taking away their free happiness. And the Sarkaz, who were called Babel rioters despite getting beaten half to death themselves, wanted to kill him personally to avenge their grudge...

Yet that Vampire had survived. No—after being dealt with so thoroughly that he should have felt dead, he had still managed to keep his life tethered together and flee from the west to the east!

What the fuck are these Vampire bastards?

Are they cockroach-type Beastmen in a world crawling with Beastmen?

"...Why was he known to be dead?"

"Perhaps because he was a Blood Knight, he had plenty of money. He had even set up a proper residence for himself elsewhere. When one of his workers went there, they found a corpse left atop the Blood Knight’s uniform."

"What kind of condition was the corpse in?"

"They say the body had been torn to pieces and piled up like a mountain, with arms and legs placed on top. At the center, a banner and a cut-out heart had been skewered together."

"...And he’s alive?"

"Because there was no head."

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

His body was torn to shreds, but if the head remained, he might be alive?

What kind of demonic art did one have to cultivate to possess that kind of survival ability? Wasn’t the balance completely fucked?

Ah, right. That isn’t a demonic art.

Come to think of it, what those things used was not demonic arts, but magic.

He nearly felt a surge of indignation, but then calmed down and forced himself to accept it. Sorcery could not be helped. If they were magical immortal cultivators who handled spirit stones, they could pull off absurd things like that.

So he would put his doubts aside for now. He wanted to tear apart the immortal cultivators standing in his way, but he shelved that thought too and assumed Kedel was right.

Thinking of it that way—

"So..."

A natural question arose.

"Sure, let’s say Gerhard, with tentacles sprouting beneath his head, fled east, and is hiding somewhere in this vast eastern district while looking for a chance to escape Kazdel."

"...You do not sound as if you believe it, but let’s say that."

"No, no. It’s not that I don’t believe you. It’s this. This is the thing."

In other words, this.

"What does that have to do with me looking for sickly bastards who look like they’re about to kick the bucket?"

Why was this old man introducing someone so strong to him?

What Yohan needed were spirit stones. He had not said it outright, but did not such sickly people generally mean those in the terminal stages of Oripathy?

He needed people like that, but could a Vampire meet those conditions, even if only his head remained?

Did a Vampire reduced to a single head even have anything worth stripping from him in the first place?

Yet Kedel answered Yohan’s question firmly.

"There may be great danger, but there is great profit in it for you. And you will lose out if you do not do it."

Yohan tilted his head, wondering what nonsense that was.

Then the words that followed made his eyes widen.

"You see, what he is doing while staying in the east is human sacrifice. He seems to be gathering up old people who are about to die and are easy to dispose of, then trying to activate an Originium Arts ritual, [Return of Flesh and Blood]. They suspect he is attempting to recreate through a ritual the Arts presented by the Sanguinarch as proof of pure blood."

"...Return of Flesh and Blood? Since only his head is left, he’s trying to make himself a new body?"

"A diseased and filthy body is better than no body at all."

It seemed a mad disaster was about to spread through the east.

And that disaster, of all things—

"Fuck, goddammit..."

"He gathers the Originium and flesh spread through the old people’s bodies, compresses it, then compresses it again to create a new body before grafting the head onto it... Well, it is an obvious story. So obvious that Ska Eye ordered him eliminated before that fugitive succeeds or fails, since either outcome would turn him into a massive bomb."

"And you want me to get involved in catching something like that?"

"I never said you would be doing it alone. Do you not wonder why there are so few people in the bar at this hour?"

Of all times, this had to happen on the very first day he had cultivated a demonic art!

Grinding his teeth, he gripped the table and stared into the cloudy glass. Seeing his own stiff reflection warped within it, he thought:

Is this the will of Heaven?

Was this the tribulation that came for those who sought strength in this world?

Is Heaven telling me not to cultivate demonic arts anymore?!

But if this damned Vampire bastard was gathering up his spiritual medicine in advance to consume it himself, then even if Yohan did not interfere and ignored him, his spirit stones would rapidly dwindle, would they not?!

This could not be allowed!

Even if cockroach Beastmen seemed to have a racial trait of chasing after food... this was unacceptable!!

But could he really capture and kill that cockroach?

He had no pest control service. He had only avoided Kedel’s hand before because the old man had clearly intended to test his strength. If he had not dodged, he would have suffered quite a serious injury himself.

Put simply, his fighting strength was—third-rate, at best.

It would not be strange to call him that.

He clearly could not even take down one second-rate old Goliath, so what was he supposed to do against a Vampire who, even with only his head remaining, would be as strong as or stronger than a Goliath?

Tap, tap, tap...

His fingers struck the table in an irritated rhythm, while Kedel read over the paper he had received from Ska Eye a few more times.

Yohan sensed the drunk slumped over at the table behind him rise with a clank, and wet his mouth with another drink.

He really needed cigarettes.

He had smoked or sold all the cigarettes he possessed long after arriving here, but he still needed them...

If he had enough power and Sarkaz slaves, he would have defected to Yan, started a marijuana field, and crippled the whole country. Unfortunately, he currently had neither.

...And if he died here, he would never achieve even such a grand dream. That was indeed the case. He had finally succeeded in awakening his own [Special Privilege (Not)], so he could not gamble with a mindset of getting even after being beaten down.

So...

After briefly glancing sidelong at another horned bastard who had, for some reason, come over and sat to his left, he opened his mouth.

"On second thought, it’s still impossible. Thinking normally, if other people are after him too, even if I go, I’ll probably just get pressured around."

"Ska Eye said he would pay one ninety-percent-purity Originium stone for each Arts ritual formation Gerhard set up in the east that you find and destroy."

"What?"

The words stopped his body just as he was preparing to leave.

"And besides, I am not the one who knows where Gerhard is or where the ritual formations are."

"What the... You were spouting information you didn’t even have?"

"Introducing people to those who have the information is part of my job. And they came looking for me because they needed someone to show them the way while traveling through the east."

Kedel’s eyes turned toward Yohan’s left, telling him who knew Gerhard’s location.

When he turned his head, their eyes met.

A young horned girl, languid and looking both drunk and not drunk, was watching him...

"Hello."

"...?!"

What the hell are these tits?

"I’m Mudrock. And you?"

"Yohan."

"Johannes?"

"Not Johannes. Just Yohan."

Kedel was laughing.

He was grinning as if he had known this would happen. But it could not be helped. The universal force of mammary attraction had manifested, and Yohan’s eyes were moving of their own accord.

Was he worried about being caught?

But he swore to God that this could not be helped. Since coming here, he had never seen or even heard of boobs this big.

Kedel...

"..."

"...You."

This despicable bastard... exploiting a man’s weakness...!

But while Yohan fumed like that, Mudrock—Mudrock...? What a strange name—who had been looking at him oddly, spoke.

"The stone inside you has been crying for a while now."

"...What?"

She said it while looking at his dantian, as though she could see straight through the demonic art he had cultivated.

An unnecessarily erotic exchange of glances.

Even Kedel’s eyes widened, apparently not having expected this much... and Mudrock held out her hand.

It was aimed toward the place where his dantian lay.

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