Chapter 111 – 111. A Request You Can’t Refuse
Lunch today was a sandwich. A handful of dried pickles, a tomato, and a can of ham that, no matter how you look at it, seemed to be about two weeks past their expiration date, were cut into slices and put into rough whole wheat bread.
The poor, who had been left out and expelled from the city, scraped together what little food they had as a token of gratitude. They begged here and there, stole, and generously shared the food they had risked their lives for.
“My mother is very grateful to the saintess for curing gonorrhea and syphilis! I brought this to share!!”
The nun asked if she wanted to help the people over there, and the tentacle willingly dug a tunnel to this place and supplied supplies.
Eshir, the nun, on the subject of joining the work of secretly trapping women underground and using them as resources, worked casually on the ground to heal people. There was no difference between her smile at the women crying out for pleasure and the smile she made while wiping the sweat of the sick and playing with her children.
Brahms snorted as he thought of the bright smiling faces of the children who had come to express their gratitude to the ‘saint’.
‘I’m giving it to you so openly, but I can’t even refuse it face to face… ‘
All of the ingredients were inedible, but I couldn’t throw away their sincerity in front of my eyes. Still, I couldn’t bear to add the moldy cheese, so I put it in a corner somewhere.
The tentacles will take care of what’s left later. Brahms thought. From what I’ve observed over the past few weeks, it seemed that the creature would eat anything and everything it could eat. In fact, it was evident that Hans ate to his heart’s content even though most of the food he supplied was left over from sale and in poor condition.
“I shouldn’t refuse it as it’s a food that people appreciate, but it’s a bit difficult to eat it right away.”
The nun sitting next to her waited until any bit of moisture from the vegetables soaked into the bread.
It was because the texture of the bread was more like sandpaper mixed with sawdust than food, so if you ate it right now, your mouth would almost be torn apart.
The person (?) Who didn’t care if his mouth was split was already taking out the second one.
“Well, well, it was soggy and fishy at first, but after eating it, it’s much better! It reminds me of the diet I used to eat when I was a knight trainee… Gulp.”
“It’s probably because your tongue is so chapped that you can’t even taste it, Leah.”
Gulp, Cornelia swallowed her remaining sandwich in her mouthful. She stuck out her tongue to check the tattered tongue from forcefully chewing through the rough bread.
“I see… But the important thing is people’s sincerity!”
Positive. Or something stupid.
Her forked tongue immediately regenerated and regained her original tangled appearance.
When I saw it, I sighed for some reason. They do amazing things as if they were taken for granted, but when they don’t, they have an incredibly bewildered side. Brahms stared at the sandwich, then gulped it down.
Sometimes it’s nice to be this peaceful.
‘I want to go back soon. I can’t even remember the last time I hugged Roxanne…’
‘Fierce evil – iron blow!’
It was then that something like a lump of blood suddenly fell from the empty air.
“What!”
“Eshir, behind me!”
Cornelia’s eyes widened into vertical pupils and hissed menacingly. Brahms pulled out his machete and slowly approached the uninvited guest who had raided his precious mealtime.
“Turn off… Bleeding… Sir…”
“Ham… ? What the hell have you done!!”
The place where both of her eyes had been had been hollowed out, and even one was almost sunken in with the addition of a fracture on the side of her head. Her right arm was also tattered to the point where the bones were visible. Even so, she held a piece of paper lined with a cloth tightly in her fist.
“Looks like I’ve returned properly… What happened to the lady who came with you?”
“Miss? Are you talking about the nun and the chimera over there?”
Brahms looked around, but there were only two girls around. Hearing the answer, he said as if he felt sorry for Ham.
“Ah… It must have been blown to a different coordinate by the explosion when tearing the scroll. This is why I can’t use the scroll…”
“That, rather than that, get treatment right now! Hey, nun!!”
“No, no one comes closer!!!”
Hamm screamed as hard as he could, holding on to his dying spirit, and Eshir, who was approaching, hesitated.
“Bocchan, what I taught you as a child… Have you forgotten all the experience you gained while working as a mercenary? Cool, you said there’s something you need to do before you start treating the wounded… !”
Brahms brought his machete close to Hamm’s body. The blade, which glowed bluish even in the darkness of dawn and evening, suddenly began to emit a red light as it approached Ham’s head. Brahms gritted his teeth, confirming this even in the words engraved on the machete, “My first wife.”
“An external magic attribute response to the head. Instability. Determine the processing target… What the hell happened?”
“Warrior… Red put his magic into my head. I can’t stop it with my own strength.”
“But, Mr. Hamm, you have to treat the wound first… !”
“Back off, Sister Sister. I said no!!”
What should I do, it is impossible to heal that wound with the power of the holy relic I have. Should I bring out that demonic power in my belly again? All kinds of thoughts overlapped in Eshur’s head.
But before she could do anything, Hamm yelled. When she raised her voice, she said a fuhak, and a clot of blood poured out of his mouth.
He was already at his limit. He couldn’t suppress the buzzing in his head any longer. I want to explode, let it explode, it would be more comfortable if it exploded, as if a weak voice in my head was talking to me. Anytime Red gives a signal, it really explodes. For once a wizard, he had a vague idea of what was going on in his head.
“Red’s magic right now… Ugh, it mixes with my magic in my head, into an unstable mixture, literally on the verge of exploding. I’m a living bomb now. Whenever Red gives a command, it explodes. Even if more magic power came in from here!”
“Bocchan, what should I do… You know… ?”
“First, allies are immediately isolated from the danger zone. Second, remove the risk molecule immediately.”
“Yeah… Whoops, that’s right… You remember it perfectly.”
“Stand right there. I’ll make it easy for you right away.”
Cutting people is something I’ve done a lot. Those who cut and those who cut, this is something everyone understands.
But
I took a deep breath first.
Brahms then answered, looking so calm.
As he raised the machete toward Ham’s head, Cornelia caught her breath.
The time I spent with them was actually not long. A little over a month at most.
But at that moment, Cornelia really wanted to shout. She wondered what she was doing, how could she casually try to slit the throat of the person who raised her.
She knew in her head that it was to use her hands first before further damage occurred. However, in her human days, she was born into a prestigious family and lived her life longing for chivalry, so it was very difficult for her to understand this situation with her heart.
But it was Ham, her party, who spoke before Cornelia.
“But, Bocchan. It would be an honor for me to die at your hands, but you probably hate it. I can feel it even with my two distant eyes. Aren’t the blades shaking?”
Brahms checked his trembling hand and grabbed it with his other hand.
“It’s my mood, old man. I’ve done it hundreds of times before.”
“No. It can’t be here.”
“You’re not afraid now, are you? Put it in place I’ll finish it painlessly, so stay there… Whoa, just like that… Stay.”
The already grim face was even more distorted. Brahms caught his breath again and raised the machete high.
“If you cut me here and now, your location will be discovered. Then Red will come.”
“Red? Red good! I’ll take that bastard’s head off and send it to you, so go to heaven first and wait!”
“And then all the poor, lowly people here will be annihilated.
As long as the teleport scroll is used, Ham is bound to arrive at his place of origin somehow.
If he explodes, the explosion will reveal where they were, let alone people nearby.
If he doesn’t explode and dies before then, a massive search and massacre will take place using the point where the magic signal was cut off as a clue.
Just like that, he is arrogant and has no mercy.
Considering this in the first place, Red used his self-explosive ability on Ham.
But Ham still had one more option left.
“I will self-destruct in a nest of tentacles.”
“Well?”
As I watched the situation from the basement, I wondered if I had heard something wrong.
In my body? You’re going to come inside my nest, filled with some dangerous-looking mana, and explode yourself to death?
Of course, nothing is impossible. Because I have a body that can be regenerated to some extent.
But this is something
Therefore,
I wonder if it’s a matter of asking me for permission first. With the feeling of ‘Excuse me, would it be all right if I self-destruct inside yourself?’.
In fact, it is true that his choice is the best. Explosions and deaths, if done underground, would be barely noticeable on the ground, so everyone could be saved with the smallest sacrifice.
But above all else,
“I can’t refuse.”
It is not an atmosphere in which such an unreasonable request was bluntly rejected.
That old man knows that and deliberately pushes for this.
