Black Badger

Chapter 306: Rei (2)

Jason was watching the progress on the screen.

They were nearby. But not close enough. If the firepower they were pouring in didn’t work, Yehyeon would go in, and finally, he would go in last.

That was the role assigned to the two of them.

Because of this order, Jason had even gone to see the Commander-in-Chief side by side with Yehyeon.

“Fuck, everyone’s dying.”

He didn’t even know why this pale bastard had been given the order too.

“That sword isn’t going to work.”

Yehyeon didn’t answer.

He was just staring at the carnage reflected on the screen, his face chilled stiff. Jason didn’t like the look of that.

He hadn’t liked Yehyeon much from the very first time they met.

A guy who’d suddenly rolled into his unit out of nowhere. Unlike the other members, Yehyeon looked like he’d snap if you poked him. His hair was long enough to cover his entire neck, his way of speaking weak. With that pale face, he went around spouting cringeworthy lines like they were nothing.

Jason had thought, great, a gay finally joined the unit.

Even without that, he figured the guy was definitely the type he’d hated back in high school.

He and the others never acknowledged Yehyeon.

They called him by all sorts of nicknames instead of his name.

Yehyeon didn’t seem to care at all what Jason and his comrades called him.

“You’re watching this mess, and what, you’ve got something stuck in one ear?”

Jason spat it out while watching an entire unit turn into a heap of mangled corpses.

The man who hadn’t moved an inch while staring at the screen turned his head.

He didn’t like those big, pitch-black eyes either.

Yehyeon answered slowly.

“I’m listening to the words left behind by the owner of the sword.”

Jason snorted.

Bullshit to the very end.

He’d never understood the plan to begin with—sending someone in with a sword. Was it because that thing was using a blade, so they were sending a sword against it? Even so, who the hell uses a sword in this day and age?

Humans had slammed missiles into it, thrown grenades, riddled it with submachine-gun fire.

And it still hadn’t died. There was no way a sword would work.

Jason didn’t even spare a glance for the sword Yehyeon had clutched so carefully when he came back yesterday.

He just felt a bit of pity for the idiot who had to personally carry out some empty-headed strategy he’d clearly heard from a self-proclaimed prophet or shaman.

A sword, not a bomb. If someone up top had shoved a sword at him and told him to kill the thing that had shrugged off a Scud missile with it, he would’ve deserted on the spot.

They said he’d use other weapons until he got close, at least.

Still, in the end, he’d been told to use the sword. The most absurd order Jason had ever heard.

“So, you don’t have anything like last words or something?”

On the screen, Mark’s head was severed.

Jason broke the brief silence while staring at the head rolling across the ground.

“If, by some chance, I survive, I can at least pass your last words along.”

Yehyeon’s eyes widened.

Eyes filled with genuine surprise.

They soon curved gently.

“Thank you.”

This was exactly why the squad looked down on him—this kind of textbook-perfect reaction.

“I’ve already written my will. Still, thank you for caring. I hope you make it back alive.”

Hopeless bastard.

Jason shut his mouth.

When he’d received his final mission, the other squad members had been busy sneering and joking. Asking for his combat boot size, saying they’d take them since he wouldn’t need them again. Saying they’d take any belongings he left behind, miming digging a grave as they talked. Someone had even tossed him a pen and told him to write a will leaving his motorcycle to them.

That was how you confirmed camaraderie.

So who the hell had picked a guy who talked like this?

“My arm isn’t regenerating.”

While Jason sat in silence watching the screen, Yehyeon muttered.

“Looks like my body’s reached its limit.”

Not long after, the higher-ups summoned them.

The helicopter set them down behind a mountain of corpses. A burning stench stabbed at their noses. The intense stimulus quickly numbed their sense of smell.

They took positions in a trench made of bodies and shattered weapons.

Torn-off arms. Eyes rolling on the ground. Corpses killed by white phosphorus grenades. Broken rocket launchers. Blown detonators. Unexploded L-2 standard grenades. Mini submachine guns. Crumpled ammo boxes and belts of bullets wrapped around dead arms.

While Jason was doing his final checks, Yehyeon stood up.

He pulled his hood down over his head—what was with that stupid outfit now—and gave a faint smile when he saw Jason raising an eyebrow.

“Bye.”

Yehyeon looked strangely relieved as he said it.

“It was nice meeting you.”

Then he walked toward the Creature.

***

The final moment.

In the midst of battle, when Yehyeon, lost in a trance, managed to aim for its heart.

Yehyeon saw it hesitate.

Just as the owner of the sword had hoped.

The one raising the spear hesitated at the sight of the light reflected from the blade.

Thunk

Yehyeon, on the other hand, didn’t hesitate.

More accurately, he didn’t have the luxury to hesitate.

He knew he’d pierced the heart exactly. He knew he’d succeeded in killing it. Because through the sword, he could feel the life of a living being draining away.

Agonizing pain followed.

It seemed the spear had pierced through his back.

Good.

Fair for both sides.

Yehyeon slowly let go of consciousness.

A sense of release soaked through him, but he didn’t have time to fully feel it. He murmured to the owner of the sword—someone he’d never met, whose voice he only knew—that everything had turned out just as you thought it would.

He murmured to his father that even though the draw had been late, he’d still managed it, hadn’t he.

In the end, wasn’t it good enough.

He wouldn’t hear any praise, but still.

Yehyeon finally allowed himself to lose consciousness.

***

Jason ran toward where the Creature had collapsed.

Yehyeon lay unconscious, his back pierced through, and the Creature had turned to ash and vanished.

A white sword lay atop jet-black ash.

On blood and ash arranged like a cross, it shone beautifully.

A silence so deep it felt like it would tear his eardrums apart.

The scene sinking into that silence branded itself into his mind. He didn’t know why. He just knew he would never forget what he was seeing now. Until he was buried in the ground, he would not forget this scene.

He couldn’t even tell whether the memory stirred positive feelings or negative ones.

Either way, Jason wasn’t the sentimental type, nor someone who dwelled deeply on things, so he moved quickly enough.

He dropped down beside Yehyeon and began first aid.

Pressing down on the wound with torn fabric, he shouted.

“It’s over!”

While desperately trying to stop the bleeding.

“It’s all over!”

***

“Rei.”

Deltei collapsed in front of the glass bottles holding her kin turned to ash and burst into tears.

“Rei.”

You idiot.

You stupid bastard. Foolish knight. Stupid noble.

She wept endlessly as she consecrated the one who had left.

Humans would throw a fit if they knew. Even the kin who had died by Rei’s hand wouldn’t like it.

Still, she believed that the dead had atoned through death.

And she had been Rei’s friend for a very long time. The more she thought about it, the more distant those ages felt—ages when they had loved the World Tree together, breathed the air of the Empire together, and fought the corruption devouring the land.

Until differences in stance tore them apart....

“Rest now.”

She said it through choking sobs.

“Rest in peace now.”

Rei Renyr was dead.

No matter what happened now, she would never meet him again.

Another long bond in Deltei’s life had departed.

***

‘Did you hand over the sword?’

At the question, he remembered Hilde lifting his head from where he’d been lazily leaning back in a terrace chair.

The knight-commander with his hair cut short.

The commander smiled faintly, showing his empty hands.

‘Yesterday.’

Then, seeing Igor press his lips together, he’d smiled again, just slightly.

‘I’ve never handed it to anyone since becoming a knight. It feels like I lost an arm that was attached to me. My arms are still two, but.’

‘I don’t know who you gave it to, but whoever it is, they’ll never be able to wield that sword properly.’

That was all Igor could say.

He couldn’t fully sort out the tangled, subtle emotions coiled inside him.

Circumstances were circumstances, but still.

‘They probably don’t even know how heavy what they’ve received really is.’

They might understand the meaning of receiving the sword.

But the twisted time, resolve, and affection carved into it—never....

‘No.’

The train of thought didn’t last long.

Hilde, who had agreed with a bitter smile that the sword couldn’t be wielded properly, firmly denied Igor’s added words.

‘That won’t be the case.’

He didn’t explain why.

Instead, the commander stood up from the chair, walked out onto the terrace, patted Igor on the shoulder, and passed by.

With Yvon’s sword at his waist instead of his own.

Preparing to face the «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» divided kin and the monsters that had broken away.

‘Let’s go.’

Hilde never hesitated in war.

He didn’t look back, didn’t flounder in grief.

It was as if he pushed all emotions aside. As if he didn’t even have time to feel them. The knight-commander issued orders and swung his sword with consistently cool, composed eyes.

‘The war will end soon.’

Where was the one who had said that as he walked out of the hideout now?

Feeling the death of the Swordmaster, Igor wondered.

Would the delayed emotions crashing in with that death crush Hilde to death?

***

As he was dying, Kyle felt Rei’s death.

Who killed him?

The only person who could have killed him was dying together with Kyle, right in front of him.

Who was it?

He had thought he had no attachment left to life. He hadn’t doubted for a moment that this was the place where he would die.

But the instant he felt Rei’s death, Kyle burned with a desire to live.

To survive and repay the enemy without fail.

It felt like blood was pouring out of his heart in greater torrents, fueled by searing longing. Hatred and rage surged up. He craved revenge.

Rei’s killer.

If, by some miracle, he survived, he would never forgive that person.

If only he could survive....

Step. Step. Step.

Footsteps approached the resolved Kyle.

Footsteps without hesitation.

***

In his tangled consciousness.

Rei Renyr saw light.

“Hilde?”

That light was the light of Hilde’s sword.

The one Hilde never handed over to anyone.

The one he had held onto from their very first meeting....

“Hildebert?”

Those were the last words Rei spoke.

The wind carries the name, along with the ash, up into the sky.

***

A week later, John Mühlen activated the Core device.

The First War had ended.