Chapter 40 - Seollang (2)

The Bloodsand bandits were a massive group that had operated in the deserts in the south of the continent for a very long time. Their members numbered in the hundreds, and most of their combatants could wreath their swords in mana—a force far too powerful to be called a mere bandit gang.

With that much strength, Bloodsand was bound to attract the attention of Coloni, the nation established in the desert. After all, their area of operations included Coloni's city and capital.

As the saying went, the stone that sticks out gets chiseled down. When a bandit gang grew this large, the appropriate response was for the nation to eliminate it. Bandits prowling nearby inevitably harmed a nation one way or another.

Yet Bloodsand operated freely in the desert near the capital because they had a patron. And no ordinary patron, either, but the gladiator who had held his position as a Baba Yaga longer than anyone else currently in Coloni: Kalman Arentz.

With his protection, a group of a few dozen that should have been wiped out long ago had grown into hundreds over the course of ten years.

Today, however, Draco—the leader of the Bloodsand bandits and a trusted subordinate of Kalman Arentz—was in a very foul mood.

"Jack is dead?"

"Yes."

One of his men had gone out to raid a caravan today and been killed.

"Hah..."

Draco scowled in irritation. It was not so much anger over a comrade's death as annoyance that one of the workers he had painstakingly cultivated had died so pointlessly.

'He had decent talent. I was going to train him a little more and use him as an assassin.'

Draco clicked his tongue and spoke.

"Who killed him?"

"Well, from what I've heard, he went after a mage and was killed by a nobleman."

"A nobleman? Killed Jack?"

"Yes. Apparently, when the nobleman used magic, the middle of the desert froze over..."

"His name?"

"... I've already sent urgent word to our men in Coloni to ask around, but I don't think we'll have any information until tomorrow."

Draco considered his subordinate's words for a moment before replying.

"Tell me as soon as you hear anything."

Naturally, Draco had no intention of leaving the mage who had killed Jack alone.

'I have to get revenge for wasting my manpower.'

Of course, killing a foreign nobleman could be a poor choice for any number of reasons, but Draco did not particularly care. Whoever the victim might be, deaths in this desert were hardly unusual. Without witnesses, most were simply treated as disappearances.

And Draco was among those who had committed such acts here more often than anyone. Once he discovered the nobleman's identity, he intended to wait until the man was leaving the desert and bury him there.

... If that thing had not appeared.

"Gakh!"

Draco vomited dark red blood and stared blankly at his hideout. Just ten minutes earlier, Bloodsand's secret base had stood in all its imposing splendor. Now it lay utterly demolished.

That was not all. The soldiers he had cultivated for over ten years were dying, every last one of them driven into the sand or embedded in the walls of the hideout.

And then—

"Hmm... Any more?"

Vivid golden eyes swept the surroundings—and vanished in an instant.

CRACKLE!

A golden flash sparked through the air.

When Seollang reappeared a moment later, she held something in each hand.

"That's the last of them."

The bandits' heads.

The two heads still wore the tense expressions of men hiding near the ruined base, waiting to launch an ambush—as though even now, they had no idea what had happened.

THUD.

As Seollang tossed them far away without interest, Draco's face betrayed his utter incomprehension. From beginning to end. All of it.

'What the hell—what is...?'

Draco stared at the bringer of death who was already approaching him.

STEP.

The one who had appeared in a golden flash and destroyed his hideout—his kingdom—with a single blow.

STEP.

Who had slaughtered every one of the hundreds of bandits he had spent more than ten years cultivating.

TAP.

The golden-eyed girl.

The bringer of death.

The moment those golden eyes, shining vividly against the blue moonlight behind her, turned toward Draco, his entire body began to tremble with fear.

Instinctive terror.

Yet even through that terror, he struggled to speak. To survive.

"S-Seollang, do you realize what you've done?!"

Draco fought desperately. His kingdom of ten years, everything he had built, had crumbled like a sandcastle, but he refused to give up. As long as he survived, he was confident he could rebuild his little kingdom whenever he wished.

But unfortunately, his words stirred no emotion whatsoever in Seollang. She merely raised her blood-soaked right hand and gripped his head. A gaping hole had been punched through his belly.

"If you kill me now, you'll make an enemy of Kalman Arentz! I'm under his protection!"

Sensing his impending death, Draco tried to escape by invoking Kalman's name, but Seollang's grip only grew tighter.

"D-do you want money?! Then take it! Take it all! Or do you want tribute?! I'll pay you tribute!!"

After screaming like a madman, he finally felt death closing in and shrieked as though in the throes of a seizure.

"Why?! Why are you doing this to me?! Why the hell are you doing this?!!!!"

His voice seethed with indignation and a sense of injustice.

In answer, a murmur reached Draco's ears.

"Because you laid a hand on my mentor. And—"

Neither particularly soft nor particularly loud. A quiet murmur.

And then—

"—I don't want to get scolded."

Seollang whispered, recalling a pair of crimson eyes.

CRACK!

Draco's head burst. With her task complete, Seollang vanished, leaving nothing behind.

The Bloodsand bandits, who had rampaged through the desert under Kalman's protection for more than ten years, disappeared into history.

... It had taken only ten minutes.

####

The next day, Alon felt all the weariness from his long carriage journey melt away at once. He also received two pieces of news.

The first was that they would not be able to enter the forgotten city for another three days.

The second was—

"My lord, apparently the Bloodsand bandits who attacked us have been completely wiped out."

"... The Bloodsand bandits?"

The people who had attacked him not long ago had been annihilated.

"Yes. They say every last one of them was killed."

"... When?"

"Yesterday, from what I've heard."

"The rumor spread that far just one day after they were wiped out?"

As Alon looked bewildered, Evan nodded.

"It's already all over the city. From what I heard, a caravan that arrived this afternoon seems to have brought the news."

"..."

Alon felt as though countless question marks might appear above his head. Even three years from now, when the original story was well underway, Bloodsand would never disappear unless the protagonist—Elivan—dealt with them.

'... Why would they suddenly be wiped out?'

He looked puzzled.

But a little while later, his question was answered all too easily.

"I took care of them!"

"You did?"

"Yep! Didn't I do a good job?!"

At Seollang's words, delivered with a bright, innocent grin, Alon and Evan slowly began to speak.

"... You took care of the Bloodsand bandits...?"

"Yep!"

"... Why?"

The question escaped Alon before he could stop himself.

But—

"Because you said so, Mentor!"

Alon looked at Evan, feeling very much like asking, Me? When? Evan stared blankly back at him, but only for a moment.

"You said you didn't want to meet them again."

"I did say that. I did, but—"

"If they're gone, you can't meet them again, can you?"

Seollang nodded once, her innocent smile seeming to say, Problem solved! I'm a genius! Watching her, Alon felt the sensation he had experienced when first meeting Deus return anew.

The feeling that this was going a little too far.

But after staring blankly at Seollang for a moment, something suddenly occurred to him.

"... Then you wiped out all of Bloodsand by yourself?"

"That's right!"

"..."

Seeing her nod as though it were nothing, Alon found himself falling silent.

The Bloodsand pirates he knew numbered in the hundreds, and most of their fighters could imbue their weapons with mana. In other words, they were no ragtag rabble to be taken lightly.

On top of that, their leader, Draco, certainly had enough talent to produce an aura blade three years from now, as far as Alon knew.

And she had killed that man and his hundreds of knight-level fighters all by herself...?

'... I knew the title of Baba Yaga wasn't something you could earn for nothing... But isn't she even stronger than I thought?'

Alon stared blankly at the grinning Seollang once more, then remembered that she was destined to become the Sin of Pride.

'...'

At that thought, he felt his posture grow reverent.

This happened three days before they departed for the forgotten city...

####

Around the time Alon left for the desert city of Coloni, a very secret meeting was taking place in a small tavern in eastern Teria, the capital of the Kingdom of Arteria.

"So, why did you summon me, Duke?"

"I doubt your instincts have dulled so much that you need to ask, Marquis."

At the words of Duke Limgrave, leader of the royalist faction, Marquis Philvoid, leader of the aristocratic faction, settled naturally into his seat and spoke.

"I assume it's about Count Pallatio."

"Quite right. I called you here because of Count Pallatio... More precisely, because of the Sword Faction that those scoundrels formed."

Marquis Philvoid nodded as though Duke Limgrave need say no more.

After decades of navigating politics, that brief exchange was enough for them to understand that the duke had called for an alliance to bring down the Sword Faction.

The Sword Faction was an objectionable organization that posed a serious threat to both the royalist and aristocratic factions. Its influence needed to be curtailed as soon as possible.

Having experienced time and again how yesterday's enemy could become today's ally when interests aligned, the two had no trouble boarding the same boat.

"So, what do you intend to do?"

Marquis Philvoid went straight to the point. In response to the marquis's swift judgment, having weighed the costs and benefits in just a few words, the duke began explaining his plan, piece by piece.

"I intend to bring Rosario into this."

"... Rosario?"

"Yes. A 'cardinal' of Rosario, to be precise."

A little while later, Marquis Philvoid asked, as though he had heard enough.

"... What do you want from me?"

"Half the bribe we'll stuff into the cardinal's maw."

"Not bad."

Having exchanged their views, the two nobles smiled in satisfaction.

If everything went according to plan, the recently formed Sword Faction, created by those underworld scoundrels, would surely crumble like a sandcastle.

"It won't take long. In fact, I've already made contact."

"I look forward to it."

And so the two left the tavern with smiles on their lips, each heading in a different direction.

Only two glasses of whiskey remained in the old tavern.