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It was Lardin’s birthday.
Many of the members of the organization were gathered in the main building to celebrate Lardin’s birthday. Everyone was looking forward to seeing Vincent’s specially planned fireworks to be displayed in time for Lardin’s birthday at midnight.
At that time, Barbara was ‘educating’ me.
“We need to quickly catch a top-level evil spirit. Lardin is very uncomfortable these days. At the very least, I hope everyone pressured Vincent and made him plan the event.”
Of course, this was not just any verbal ‘education’. My cheeks were blazing red from Barbara’s constant beating. Fortunately, she had to go to Lardin’s birthday party today, so I was glad I was only going to receive a mild ‘education’.
“The superlative evil spirits would only appear near the capital, but why can’t we encounter one even though we always go around the capital…”
Actually, I was only catching evil spirits near the capital. Our movement operation was also a problem because I was only aiming at the highest leveled evil spirits.
“… What are you going to do with the ‘Time Stone’?”
Since this kind of ‘education’ was a routine, I could continue the conversation while being beaten.
“I don’t know. Besides, I can’t plan anything ahead. The ‘Time Stone’ does miracles related to time, but there are many different types of it. How do you know what will come out?”
Barbara responded kindly in her own way, but I knew that her kindness only amounted to the ‘delivery of knowledge.’ [sarcasm]
Of course, this is because Barbara was the only one who trained me more brutally than anyone else.
“Still… You want it so much, but you don’t know what will come out?”
“The only people who know that are Duke Noavik and his people, right?”
Barbara said while raising her chin. It was a habit when telling information that the general public did not know well.
I rolled my eyes and thought of continuing the questioning somehow.
Barbara hasn’t pulled out the whip yet. So, before that, I had to stall as much as possible to get fewer hits. Because Barbara liked to show off her hidden knowledge to me.
“Because they are a family that has been fighting evil spirits for a long time, they have special abilities. It’s not well known by the outside world, though.”
I sighed inwardly. Johannes Noavik… It was a name I didn’t really like. At first glance, the man I see from a distance when dealing with evil spirits, had a cold and terrifying impression.
If Johannes hadn’t slain the top-level evil spirit when he was eight, Lardin might not have nurtured me, thinking that the ‘Time Stone’ was just a legend.
“It is the ability to anticipate where the top-level evil spirits will appear and to grasp the ‘time stone’. Isn’t that why Johannes Noavik fought off the top-level evil when he was eight? What are the odds of an eight-year-old kid staying in the capital and accidentally meeting a top-level demon?”
“Well said. I am not Johannes Noavik. How am I supposed to find and kill a top-level evil spirit?”
“Well, you can defeat evil spirits much faster and more accurately than Johannes. It’s like competing with a sheep.” [1]
Barbara chuckled as if she liked her own joke. I laughed awkwardly, then continued to ask more questions.
“Then did Johannes use the ‘Time Stone’?”
“I don’t know. But I wouldn’t bet on it. People of the Noavik Duchy would find it a disgrace to rely on the power of evil spirits. I guess that was the will of the first northerners.”
Barbara’s words were certain. This time I was really curious, so I narrowed my eyes and asked.
“Then… Would they have sold it?”
“Why would they sell it? The Duke of Noavik is as wealthy as the imperial family.”
As I continued to tune in and ask questions, Barbara was excited and continued the story.
“In the Noavik Duchy, there is a ‘Treasure Room’ that only direct descendants of the duke can enter. It is said that he collects various treasures. Perhaps there is also the ‘Time Stone’ that Johannes Noavik got when he was eight.”
It was when I was desperately pondering the answer, as I had no more questions to ask. A servant knocked on the door.
“Ms. Barbara, this is an invitation from Sir Lardin.”
“Invite? Again…”
What the servant handed to Barbara was a handwritten note from Lardin.
I leaned my head and took a glance at the invitation. It was a short message telling her to come out in 5 minutes.
“Oh.”
Barbara raised her glasses and smiled broadly.
“I really wanted to see it up close. Did Vincent personally plan this fireworks display? How much effort did that genius put into making it?”
“Oh, right?”
“Yes. The firecrackers that Vincent made as a trial were so pretty, we all kept encouraging him to plan in earnest for Sir Lardin’s birthday. At first, he didn’t like it, but after we hand him some money, he eventually did.”
Barbara, who was always kind to explanations, looked at me and spit out a smirk.
“Hey. Would you like to go too? It’s in 5 minutes. All the executives who had been dispatched to other provinces gathered to see this.”
I shook my head. In the midst of this, I thought that I was fortunate not to be whipped today.
“I’m fine. I think you can see it from here as well.”
“Well, whatever.”
And so Barbara left. She locked the door with a click outside.
And as soon as I was left alone, I pulled out the new gun Vincent had given me a few days ago. For the first time, my hands trembled.
When I carefully disassembled the decoration on the side of the handle, a bullet came out. It was all the bullets that Vincent could hide and deliver.
To be honest, I wanted to shoot Barbara with one shot, but… it was as obvious that nothing would change, so I endured it.
I reloaded the bullet for the first time, pondering the contents of the note from Vincent.
“…Do I do it now?”
At the time when everyone gathered in the front yard of the main building murmuring that the fireworks were about to start, I stood by the window aimed exactly at the coordinates that Vincent had given me.
Taang!
It was the first time I had tried to shoot bullets without power. The trigger sounded loudly, exhaling a physically. Contrary to my strength, the recoil was so strong that my shoulders throbbed. As soon as I fired the gun, I staggered backwards.
Indeed, the gun Vincent gave me this time had a long range. The bullets went straight from my room to the main building, and they hit something. At the same time, a deafening roar and a flash of light seem to burn.
Kwagwagwagwang!
As Vincent had planned, the firecrackers set up in the front yard of the main building exploded in a chain of explosions. Even my small living quarters far away from the main building were shaking.
The sound of the fireworks exploding was so loud that I couldn’t hear any screams or anything at all. I squatted in the corner of the bed, calming my pounding heart. I was stunned because it didn’t feel real.
Before some time passed, the door of the residence where I was staying at opened, leaving behind the chaos outside.
“It’s done.”
It was Vincent, wearing a dark gray hood. He said bluntly, throwing a similar hood at me, who stuck in the corner.
“Come out.”
I put on the hood that Vincent gave me with a blank face. I pulled back the small package containing the long gun he had given me. And I started walking after him.
“All… done?”
“As you can see.”
Most of the executives died instantly, and very few people paid any attention to us. In fact, the people who were in a similar position as us survived and were busy running away.
“Only victims like us survived. So, everything is fine for now.”
I killed so many people without feeling anything. Probably because I lived closer to death than anyone else. Because the brutal dark organization ‘Ace’ treated me like a weapon.
Especially since a few years ago, a very capable and weary stalker, Johannes Noavik, caught up.
“If I get caught by those tough northerners, I won’t die right away. I don’t have to escape even if I kill them all. If I can’t fight, will I be caught just like this?”
After Johannes Noavik started following me with determination to catch the ‘Blue Ruby’, I also learned how to kill people. Of course, I didn’t have the talent to use my body, so I couldn’t kill a dog, let alone a person.
Even so, ‘Ace’ did not give me live ammunition. He was afraid of me shooting my watchman. So, I was given only useless training tools to kill. In the process, my courage only grew.
From the beginning, I grew up in the middle of an inhumane criminal organization, but having received such an education, I had no choice but to have a high threshold for cruelty.
Despite the 17 years of being treated like a human weapon, escaping was ridiculously easy. Even I was aiming at the center of the firecracker connected by the detonator, not the person. Leaving behind the strong gunpowder smell, screams, and moans of pain, it was awkward to leave the base of ‘Ace’ without any guards.
Vincent said calmly as he led the way by my side without hesitation.
“We are free now.”
Freedom.
It was so hard to achieve what was given so naturally to others.
I couldn’t figure out what kind of expression to put on that unfamiliar and familiar word. Vincent spoke indifferently.
“You and I can live without doing the things we don’t want to do anymore.”
“Ah…”
“You can just quit that horrible killing job, and you don’t have to be dragged away every midnight to kill a demon.”
I looked up at the black night sky. It was close to midnight, and the white smoke has scattered. Various emotions came rushing in.
On that day, after undesirable power was exerted, how painfully I had been sold to a dark organization was now only a passing memory.
The headquarters of the now ruined ‘Ace’, the sudden liberation.
Like the terrible afterimage of the headquarters that exploded all at once, my hard life was over. I impulsively took off the hood. My hair, which had been in a tangled mess, fluttered in the wind.
No more painful training in a brutal environment, where I was treated like and non-human weapon and abused. No longer surrounded by guards, and I don’t have to hunt down evil spirits blindly.
But there was something I wanted to escape from more than those terrible memories.
I thought about the things I really hated in my life one by one, and in the end, I spit out the most terrifying thing.
“Then I won’t have to worry about Johannes Noavik anymore…”
It was the first sentence I uttered with a sigh after all this had happened.
“… Ah, I hated being chased by Johannes Noavik…”
[1] They are describing Johannes as a sheep. Sheeps are gentle and meek.