“Please, spare me.”
The thief pleaded. On the wasteland, several headless corpses lay in every direction, blood splattered all along the way. The thief saw a scene he could never forget.
A boy in pitch-black robes strolled among the crowd, elegant and composed. Beneath the black hood, his pupils emitted a piercing red light. Silver threads wrapped around his hands. As the threads kept swaying, the thieves who tried to fight back were crushed like dry branches, their bodies torn apart on the spot.
Even the weapons in their hands could not bear the strain and cracked into fragments.
“What kind of being are you…?”
Tap, tap.
The loose hair beneath the robe swayed wildly, and the crimson eyes turned sharp. The thief gritted his teeth, overcame his fear, and swung his blade in attack. The one he had formed a Contract Ritual with was a Two-Star Sword; otherwise, he would never have had the strength to fight his way out of the Elf Kingdom until now. Money, women, wealth, he had not tasted enough of them yet.
How could he die here, at the hands of a child wearing a mysterious uniform?
How absurd!
The sword vanished with the reflection of moonlight; the blade that erased its form thrust straight at the black-haired boy’s face. Shock appeared in Rekulai’s pupils, then from his head down past his neck, a deep bloody wound was instantly carved.
“Heh, you will pay for your carelessness! Kid.”
Rekulai, who had been slashed, grinned.
The next second, when the man raised his head, he could only see his own headless body; in other words, his head had rolled off under the strain. Rekulai appeared before the man’s dying head, stepped on it with one foot, and the blood that had spurted out gradually transformed into dark purple magic, then returned into his body.
“The performance was truly exquisite.”
While saying this, Rekulai crushed the man’s skull, walked to the bandits’ treasury, and thought of the merchant caravan outside that had been driven to hang themselves by these bandits. He nodded. “Consider this the tip collected as repayment for my predecessors.”
He began rummaging through the bandits’ den, searching for what treasures besides gold coins were worth investigating. This was an indispensable part of a Knight Passing By story.
“Treasure… treasure! Treasure!”
“Ah… huh?”
He searched through the stolen goods and finally found an iron cage at the very back. Inside the iron cage was a blood-tumor monster that kept writhing, with only two azure blue eyes remaining.
“What a huge tumor…”
“So smelly…”
“What exactly is this thing? Why does it resemble the Demon Death Curse on my sister a little?”
“Could it be that this is also a patient?”
“Well, let’s pack it up and take it away first.”
…..
In a small wooden cabin in the wilderness, Rekulai wiped his sweat and little by little poured gold coins and the large lump of flesh onto the floor inside the cabin.
The inside of the cabin was sparkling; it stored the treasures Rekulai had worked hard to collect and cherish from childhood to adulthood. This was a small cabin he had built himself, incorporating some craftsmanship techniques from his previous life.
As a qualified Passing Knight, the knowledge he needed to master absolutely could not be neglected. It was not simply about being able to win a fight. Rather, he needed to hide among all trades and look about as capable as the people working in each trade.
Therefore, these basic construction techniques.
Rekulai still had a slight grasp of them.
In other words, if he did not understand a little of everything, that would be quite a failure.
Back to the main topic.
Rekulai let both hands hang at his jaw, frowned tightly, and recalled some descriptions about the Demon Curse.
“A disease that occurs in girls, and the final result is complete death by bursting. It is considered by the church and locals to be a symbol of demons, an unclean existence.”
‘From the body of my sister it manifests more like a curse. No, precisely speaking, it is a power that is hard to control.’
‘As long as I use my own power to neutralize the violence of this power and guide the girl to control it better, this knot of illness will actually resolve itself.’
He stretched out his hand, and magic gathered in his palm. The originally faint purple light grew stronger with the passage of time, shining on the blood-tumor monster and filling the entire house.
The tumor receded almost without sound; moonlight came in through the window crack and fell right on her open eyes.
Very blue. Like a frozen lake in winter, bright in the shallows, bottomless in the depths.
She did not first look at her own hands, nor did she ask what year it was. She only looked at Rekulai, steadily, without shifting away for even a second. In that gaze there was no surprise, no grievance; it simply rested quietly on Rekulai–like a thing that had finally returned to the place it had always been.
Rekulai moved slightly, and her eyelashes moved with him. He took half a step back, and her line of sight shifted half a step as well, no more, no less, just enough to keep watching Rekulai.
The candle flame flickered in her pupils, then settled again.
Rekulai’s breathing grew heavier for a moment; he was at a loss for words, not knowing in what manner he should continue the act next. There was a small problem with his performance.
She had light golden hair and a pair of long pointed ears unique to the Elf race.
Under the moonlight, the body that had shed the tumor was gradually revealed before the boy.
The clothes she once had perhaps long ago burst apart from the tumor and were discarded. On the girl’s body not a trace of foreign matter could be seen; the moonlight presented all the beauty completely before the boy.
She knelt on the ground just like that, her body slightly relaxed. Her movements were very light and gentle, shoulder line open, neck elongated, like a birch washed by rain. Her hair fell from her shoulders down to the ground; moonlight came in from the side and painted a bright edge along the curve of her cheek.
Her azure blue eyes gazed at the boy, and the boy found it hard to explain the appearance the girl presented at this moment.
He thought for a long time before coming up with a word.
Very clean.
She was a very clear and pure girl.
‘But this is also the most troublesome part. How terrible. I never expected that even after her whole body had rotted like that, she could be restored. I have never dealt with a situation like this before.’
“Did you save…”
The boy, however, covered the girl’s next words with his hand, and his brain began to race.
‘No good. I need to think about how to say this properly.’
‘At least the way I was before did not seem very cool.’
He found a wooden crate nearby that was a little more than half his height, then sat on it just like that. The moonlight happened to be blocked by his figure, illuminating Rekulai’s crimson eyes.
“You are awake.”
The girl trembled all over, looking at her own flawless white skin, shock mixed with astonishment.
Then she again looked at the boy before her with a questioning gaze.
As if to say.
How did you do it? Why save me?
Purple magic swirled in the boy’s hand, and he spoke with a slightly solemn tone.
“An attempt.”