Chapter 229: East, Hwaseong (17)
The king has no interest in the affairs of the world, and the foolish ninjas are merely cogs in a wheel under a witch who controls dangerous beasts.
That’s what my ancestors told me and my thoughts are no different.
A ninja is not an interchangeable part that can be replaced whenever it breaks.
If I ever get the chance, I’d like to ask Hanzo a question.
Why couldn’t a ninja be a boss?
Hanzo would argue that ninjas are only strong because they serve.
Then I would ask another question.
Aren’t discipline and oppression imprisoning the ninja?
A ninja can be strong enough without someone to serve.
They can be strong without anyone to follow.
“Why did you want to go it alone? Wouldn’t it have been better if you and your brother had gone together?”
Of course, I understood him.
He wanted me to survive, too, to fulfill his will.
“Still, it’s not long now.”
It was about to come to fruition.
When I entered the basement, my first thought was to look at the inscription on the floor.
The inscription was immaculately drawn and on top of it stood a dozen familiar faces.
One of them asked.
“What is this place, my lord, have you invented some new human law?”
“I didn’t invent it. I discovered it.”
“Oh…”
“Have you ever heard of a Zen law?”
“Isn’t it a human law that allows you to gain transcendent power like a god, but it’s too dangerous…”
“It’s a taboo.”
I cut him off and grabbed him by the shoulders, the tension evident on his face.
“It was devised by one of Hanzo’s disciples, and it doesn’t actually give you the power to become a god. It was a crude technique for turning humans into demons, but it seemed to be true in terms of transcendent power.”
“A goblin… That was a dangerous law… Haha…”
“Fuhahaha!”
He let out a stuttering laugh, and I laughed heartily in response.
“You guys are ridiculous.”
“What…”
“The state of ninja you’re in right now, half a penny on the back of a shrine maiden, holding on to her rather than slaying the insidious beast that’s wreaking havoc in the country, and being manipulated by a stranger with unknown intentions.”
“”……””
The men’s eyes shifted as if they sensed the sinister nature of my next words.
“My Lord, what you just said…”
“I know. Subversion of the state…What, you want to call it a crime, and is that so bad?”
I immediately took out the dagger from my arm and stabbed it into the chest of the one holding my shoulder.
-Pow.
I hear the sound of flesh piercing flesh and the sound of his breath being cut off.
Closing my eyes to take it all in, I continued nonchalantly.
“Hwaseong deserves to fall, doesn’t it?”
“Duryea… No, Bakura… What have you done…?”
“But if it becomes known that I’m plotting to overthrow the country, the other lords won’t stand idly by. Ninjas who’ve spent their entire lives being parts will never understand the will of a man who wants to rise to the top. They’ll never understand. Even I can’t stop nine of them at once. But…I wondered what it would be like to have transcendent powers.”
One by one, the sound of the people pulling their blades from their arms echoes through the basement.
“And that’s just as well, isn’t it, since killing me will put you on the path to the top of the heap, which is just as well. I was just in need of the blood of twelve ninjas. Ah, now I’m down to eleven.”
I said, looking down at the corpse on the floor.
The blood draining from the corpse was slowly trickling down the pre-drawn inscription.
Soon, the sound of clashing blades began to rise.
Under normal circumstances, dealing with eleven high-level ninjas at the same time would be a difficult task even for the lords but this was a different story, as the basement limited the number of people with great power.
Any semblance of orderly movement or breathing is lost, and the battle quickly devolves into a chaotic scuffle.
Blood splattered everywhere and countless blades rushed toward me.
After dozens of such exchanges of blows, only I and a senior ninja stood on the blood-soaked basement floor.
The answer was clear.
I was slightly wounded, but these were wounds that would heal quickly once the proper technique was applied.
I surveyed the faces of the men on the floor and opened my mouth.
“Foolish ones… Who do you think taught you?”
“…Lord, please stop now…”
“Juhei… something like that.”
“…”
Juhei nodded faintly.
He looked puzzled, as if he hadn’t expected me to remember his name.
I remembered all the names of the fallen, not to mention Juhei’s.
How could I forget?
How could I forget them when they were my subordinates who sweated as much as the blood they were shedding now?
“It’s too bad but I’ll remember your names. I’m not like other dumb lords. I do this… because I love ninjas. I promise you. In the generation of your children, I will turn the ninja world upside down.”
At the mention of children, Juhei’s breath caught in his throat for a moment as he imagined the face of his son at home.
-Phew.
And that was a bad habit of Juhei’s that I remembered.
“C’mon…”
“That’s why I told you to keep your personal feelings out of battle. But I understand. Nothing is more important than your children.”
“…My son…”
Juhei, who had been collapsing, grabbed my forearm.
“Don’t worry, he won’t die. Please rest in peace.”
The strength slowly drained from Juhei’s hand, and I closed his eyes.
Soon he let go of me completely.
Laying him on the floor, I turned my head and looked around the chaos in the basement.
The bodies of my beloved men lay everywhere, but I didn’t feel weak.
Their sacrifice fueled my determination to finish the job, no matter what.
As I watched the blood run down my armor, I waited for it to be complete.
“Who are you?”
I felt a movement at the entrance to the basement.
I almost didn’t notice it, but it was faint and stealthy enough for me to recognize, since I was the only living thing in the cellar.
“Ah….”
The sudden entrance into the basement was made by a young silver-haired boy.
“This doesn’t look like the kind of place a child would enter…”
“It was, but you made the way so difficult, I only found it thanks to your bloody scent.”
The silver-haired boy snorted, his pointed ears peeking over the top of his head.
“You’re not human in the first place.”
There was something different, something alien about him.
As his eyes swept across the flesh and blood strewn space, he had a gleam in his eye that made it hard to believe he was a boy.
“Not human, of course. Can’t you tell?”
“Then what the hell is your identity?”
“Identity… I don’t know about that, but I’ll tell you something fun.”
The boy approached with a nonchalant face, brushing back his mane of hair but I didn’t let my guard down.
As soon as our eyes met, I knew.
He’s strong.
“Something funny…?”
I lowered my stance and steadied my breathing as he approached.
In that split second.
Boom!!!
The boy leaped.
I saw the floor warp where he stood, but I missed the most important part of his movements.
It wasn’t until I heard his voice behind me that I spotted him.
“All the guys here are dead?”
I turned quickly and locked eyes with the boy.
He was tossing something in the air and catching it as if he were playing with a toy.
I recognized it immediately.
It was my left arm.
“Not human, beast… what does it matter…”
“Ugh…”
The boy threw my left arm roughly to the ground, and I immediately fell to my knees, clutching my left shoulder in agonizing pain.
I couldn’t even react so I hastily tried to close the wound, but I could clearly feel the blood rushing out of my shoulder.
If only I had been prepared, if only I hadn’t gotten injured in the process, and other foolish thoughts quickly flashed through my mind.
“You know, I wanted to ask you something…”
“……”
I glared at the boy.
He was scratching his cheeks and frowning, and I couldn’t help but think that he was in the middle of some kind of tense battle.
“Did you just see my move?”
It was the languor of a predator, waiting for its prey to play more tricks on it.
“Are you trying to humiliate me, boy…?”
“It’s not that, I’m just curious, how did he dodge when he couldn’t see me, and he didn’t look that fast. I thought I was really slow, but I guess I wasn’t.”
“Did you meet the paradise outcast?”
He was the only person I could think of who was blind. I’d never met him face-to-face, but he was the one who’d ruined my plans.
“I did. Paradise… What was it… I don’t think he’s an outcast, but I’m guessing it’s the same guy. What did you do to deserve to be marked by such a dangerous man?”
“Marked…?”
“He wants me to kill you.”
“Why would he…?”
We never spoke.
In retrospect, he had disrupted my plans by stepping on Hwaseong soil. I had hoped the chaos would be prolonged by the outbreak of the Divine Beasts, but the arrival of the Divine Compass ruined that.
He even asked for my death as if he knew this would happen.
“Hmph…I can’t believe he’s a god…”
“I don’t know if it’s a god or not, but since he said he could see something special, he must have seen something bad for you.”
“Just a little while longer… Just a little while…”
I fumbled with the inscription that was about to be finished and wondered if I could have changed the country if I had become a goblin.
I don’t know.
As I faltered, the boy approached me and drew out his sharp nails.
“I see… You’re an Inrang…”
The boy didn’t look like he belonged to the ordinary axis.
The next moment, Bakura’s head fell off.
“Hmph…You’ll keep your word, won’t you?”
Volk brushed the blood off his hands, his expression unchanged.
He didn’t think much of it. Or, more accurately, he was thinking something along the lines of, “I’m glad I didn’t have to take his head.”
From what he’d heard from Keraph, the news of Bakura’s death would be proof enough.
When Volk was done, he was about to make his leisurely exit from the cellar when he heard a strange sound from the floor.
Thud…
The ninja’s blood had soaked into the inscription drawn on the floor, and the inscription was about to be activated.
At this rate, Volk, who was in the center of the image, would be eroded by magick and become a demon.
Unaware of this, Volk frowned as he watched the glowing circle.
Clicking his tongue in frustration, Volk simply dragged his foot across the floor and wiped it off.
“Ugh, grown men doodling on the floor…”