Chapter 14: Iron Cross
Dong dong dong.
Dong dong dong.
The knocking at the door continued endlessly.
It started off restrained, but gradually grew in intensity until it sounded more like someone was trying to break the door down.
Shiltina silently gripped the hilt of the 「Shimmering Morning Star」, eyes fixed on the violently trembling door, prepared for battle—her energy expended from using the Night Blade earlier had already been fully restored during her recent sleep.
She had no idea who—or what—was on the other side of the door, but the "Hyper Intuition" bestowed by the War Chariot Sequence was now frantically warning her.
There was no doubt—standing beyond the door was something far beyond Shiltina’s understanding, something outside the realm of human logic… perhaps something that could no longer even be called human.
All Shiltina knew about it came only from Rast's vague words, and that single short phrase found in the Nightworld records—
“Iron Cross Plague.”
Suddenly, the banging on the door ceased.
But a few seconds later—
Screeech, screeech.
It sounded like someone was scraping their nails slowly along the doorframe, emitting a sharp, grating sound that made her teeth ache.
And perhaps it was just an illusion, but within that piercing noise, Shiltina thought she heard faint breathing and laughter… as if someone was trying desperately to suppress their laughter but couldn’t quite manage it.
She didn’t know how long the screeching went on before she suddenly heard Rast let out a sigh.
Boom—
The wooden bolt gave a sharp crack and was split apart with a creak, the door flying open with a loud slam.
In that moment, Shiltina finally saw what was outside.
The man's face was ashen, and beneath his blood-soaked coat, his left arm had already been torn to shreds—raw flesh mangled and smeared, bone exposed and jagged, with splinters of wood still lodged in its tip… it was clear now, he had broken the door bolt with nothing but the shattered bone of his own arm.
His right hand clutched a spine still clinging to bits of flesh, like a rack of ribs hanging in a butcher’s shop—only this spine clearly didn’t come from livestock. It was far too delicate, far too frail, and bore the obvious marks of being gnawed on.
But what drew the most attention was the enormous iron-gray cross branded across his entire face.
He looked at the two people inside the manor, and the corners of his mouth twisted upward into a maniacal, inhuman grin beneath the iron cross.
“I knew it… ha… you two were still here.”
Despite the twisted, nightmarish scene, the man burst into hysterical laughter, laughing like a madman.
“Is this the private investigator, or your cheating wife? …Ha… Doesn’t matter either way.”
The man raised the bloodied spine and pointed it toward Shiltina. “If I yank out her spine and use it as a whip, it’ll be way more useful than this little bastard’s.”
At the moment she understood his words, a wave of cold revulsion surged through Shiltina’s chest…
Was this the coachman who had driven them here earlier? And the source of that delicate spine in his hand—could it have been the coachman’s own underage child?
Beneath the cross-shaped scar, his bloodshot eyes gleamed with a deep, sadistic cruelty. His body tensed slightly—he was about to charge at Shiltina.
Bang—
But faster than the man could move was Rast’s gun.
The bullet whirled out, piercing the man’s left chest.
Yet what followed was a dull, heavy thud. Despite the armor-piercing nature of the full-metal jacket round, it failed to penetrate the man’s flesh and came to a halt, as if it had struck steel.
Through the tear in his coat, they saw that the muscle in his left chest was knotted like iron, the bullet lodged firmly within the flesh, leaving only a few shallow cracks and failing to reach the heart.
Bang—
Five more bullets followed.
Though fired in rapid succession, every single one followed the exact same trajectory, precisely striking the already-wounded spot on the coachman’s left chest.
Crack.
This time, even the steel-like muscle couldn’t hold out. The membrane shattered completely, and the heart within exploded into a cloud of blood.
But the coachman still hadn’t truly died.
Clutching his chest, he looked at Rast—who had just emptied his magazine and hadn’t yet reloaded—and the corners of his lips stretched into an exaggerated grin, as though he were about to speak.
In the next instant, a flash of silver pierced the air.
Sparks flew from the coachman’s throat as metal met metal, but the clash was short-lived.
Within a heartbeat, the silver rapier prevailed, and the head—still wearing its crazed smile—flew high into the air.
The knight’s rapier trembled slightly, a silver light flashing down the blade as it wiped away the blood, leaving not a trace behind.
Shiltina sheathed the 「Shimmering Morning Star」, her brows furrowing slightly.
Even though Rast had already blown apart the man’s heart, stripping him of most of his power, she had still needed to use seventy percent of her strength to pierce that steel-like throat membrane.
If she had faced that contaminant alone without Rast’s help, it would’ve taken her significant effort to bring it down.
If she wanted to end the battle quickly, she’d have to activate the Night Blade.
But how many times could Shiltina still use the Night Blade in succession? And just how many more of these contaminated beings still lurked in Deep Blue Port?
However, more unsettling than the sheer difficulty of the battle was the unfiltered malice that had emanated from the coachman.
He had clearly retained some semblance of reason—even the ability to speak coherently—yet he was no longer something that could be called human, but more like a beast in human skin.
She looked at the now-motionless corpse and recalled the conversation they’d had on the carriage earlier.
No matter how she tried, she couldn’t reconcile that warm-hearted coachman with this brutal madman who had torn out his own child’s spine to use as a whip.
Shiltina softly asked, “Was he… on bad terms with his child back at home?”
“No. In the previous loop, I once invited their whole family to dine at the Golden Deer Inn,” Rast replied calmly. “They were a happy family. The wife was diligent and resourceful, always doing some handicrafts to help with household expenses. They weren’t rich, but they lived comfortably.”
“Their two children were well-behaved and intelligent. The older one worked at a newspaper, and the younger had just received an admission notice from a university inland. The family had been preparing to cover his tuition.”
“After getting drunk at the dinner table, the coachman clapped me on the shoulder and said the thing he was proudest of in his life was his two precious sons.”
“He said that even if he had to sell everything and drive his carriage in the middle of the night, he’d make sure his son had a chance to make something of himself in the big inland cities. And if anyone dared to mess with his sons, even if it was a City Assemblyman, he’d bash their head in with a wine bottle.”
Rast’s voice remained steady. “I know every word he said was sincere.”
“But all of that means nothing in the face of an evil god’s will.”
“All the beauty and sincerity in a normal person’s heart… turned completely into the purest urge to destroy and to inflict suffering, until they’re nothing more than a beast with intelligence.”
“That’s what they call the ‘Iron Cross.’”