Episode 19 - Veilslayer's Rage 1

A temple situated on the outskirts of Pink Rose Street.
It was a temple dedicated to the Goddess of Creation, one of the Primordial Deities — a sect already in decline in the current age.


Unusually, the sect was known for having some of its clergy working in various manufacturing trades such as blacksmithing and alchemy. Most of the vestments and sacred implements used by the higher-ranking temple knights and priests were crafted by their own hands.


The Four Gang Lords and several senior members were in guest rooms within the temple, periodically drinking holy water as they underwent treatment.


"Cough, cough...! Damn it, still coughing up blood..."


Gabelth hacked a dry cough and grimaced at the faint traces of blood on his hand.


Thanks to Athunga's hastily cast defensive magic, they had somehow managed to avoid a direct hit — but the shockwave and the slowly spreading gas were another matter entirely.


By a stroke of luck, the force of the blast had completely demolished the rear wall where the VIP box's entrance was, sending all four of the Gang Lords hurtling through and beyond it. That, at least, had been their saving grace.


It had allowed them to escape with relatively little exposure to the gas — but Athunga and Gabelth, who had been closest to the front, had inhaled a fair amount regardless.


"Athunga! Are you alright?"
"...Yeah. This level of Corpse Poison... I'll manage."
"Damn it... that monster. Next time I see him, he's dead...!"


Beside Gabelth, watching him in silence, a middle-aged man with salt-and-pepper hair and sharp features gave a slow nod and quietly drew his heavy broadsword.


"Next time, I'll come along... I owe that bastard a debt."


Phantom Fang Lord — Bizeth.
Originally the leader of the maritime kingdom's largest bandit organization, he had drifted naturally into the underworld after his gang was broken apart in a decisive battle against an extermination force — a man with a uniquely crooked history.


His greatest pride was the heavy broadsword at his hip, which he swung with wild and brutal abandon. Despite the crude and graceless nature of his swordsmanship, he had reached the threshold of Sword Master — an achievement entirely at odds with how he fought.


It was not a realm reached through talent, but through sheer effort — and by the time he had mastered his blade, he was already staring down his sixties. That, if anything, was his one regret.


Not that it changed the fact that he was a Sword Master.
He was more than capable of cutting through Kaftin — a man who could form a powerful Aura Blade.


In day-to-day affairs, he was the one among the Four Gang Lords who primarily held sway over the thieves' guild and the information guild, and his business acumen was as sharp as his swordsmanship.
Whispermere, who had been making contact with Kaftin, was technically his subordinate, when all was said and done.


"Bizeth...!"
"Veilslayer."


Veilslayer.
A figure shrouded in secrets — always concealing everything but his eyes beneath a jet-black silk hood, his entire frame likewise draped in black silk.


Even among the Four Gang Lords, he kept almost entirely to himself, and the others knew precious little about him.


What he favored a transparent dagger forged from refined glass. That he kept forty-four different poisons hidden about his person at all times. That was more or less the sum total of what the other Gang Lords knew of him.


A man who ordinarily said nothing — communicating through gestures and body language alone — was now exhaling in ragged, furious breaths, his voice thick with barely contained rage.


"What is it, Veilslayer?"
"...That monster... he...he..."
"......?"


Grrk.


It was a first.
Even the Four Gang Lords had never heard that sound — teeth grinding — come from Veilslayer's mouth before.


"That monster has apparently been raiding my drug operations...!"
"What...?!"


Athunga's expression twisted.
He hadn't expected him to move this fast.


And not by going after the Gang Lords themselves — but by gnawing away at the organization from the bottom up, piece by piece.


The drug operations under Veilslayer's control were no ordinary drug business.
Beyond narcotics, they produced all manner of illegal aphrodisiacs and stimulants — and on the larger scale, served as the manufacturing hub for the various deadly poisons used by the assassins under Veilslayer's command.


One by one, those vital facilities had been targeted by Kaftin and reduced to ash.


"Th-that's impossible! Those workshops had elite guards, not just anyone! How could they fall so easily...?!"
"...Easily enough. For him..."
"......"


Athunga's grinding acceptance made Gabelth and Bizeth's expressions darken.


That was the measure of the monster the Four Gang Lords had come face to face with.
The sight of that enormous creature launching Corpse Poison like a cannonball was still seared into their minds as a living trauma.


"Damn it all...! Of all the operations, he had to hit the most profitable ones...!"
"...Athunga."
"Ah, right... what is it."
"...That man. I'll be the one to take him."


At Veilslayer's declaration, Athunga and the other three swallowed hard.
They knew all too well what Veilslayer and the assassins he had personally trained were capable of.


But their target was a monster — one against whom weapons, poison, and perhaps even magic might prove useless.
What exactly was he planning?


"Veilslayer... do you have some kind of plan...?"
"...Not yet."
"Then why—"
"He touched my operations."


Athunga caught a glimpse of eyes blazing with fury through the gap in the mask, and gave a slow nod.
When this man said he would do something, he did it.
And he was not the sort to listen when told to stand down.


In that case...


"Cough... Bizeth...!"
"Hm?"
"Didn't you say you have a subordinate who's been in contact with him?"
"Ah. You mean that fox of a woman?"


Athunga nodded at Bizeth's answer and slowly opened his mouth.


"Whatever weakness she digs up on him — pass it all to Veilslayer."
"......! Understood. I'll do that."
"Let's leave this one to Veilslayer... are we agreed?"
"...Fine."


He wanted nothing more than to draw his broadsword and charge at the man himself — but with Veilslayer showing this much emotion, yielding was the right call.


Pushing against his mood carelessly — even for someone like himself — was not something he could afford to do. Not if he wanted to stay beyond the reach of those assassin's blades.


With that settled, Veilslayer opened the guest room door and disappeared without another word.
Most likely to go and personally surveil his target, Kaftin.


*


At that same moment.
Back at the inn room where Kaftin had been lying low — he now had one unexpected addition to his quarters.


"You really want to stay here...?"


Kaftin looked down at the one who had come to find him, scratching the back of his head with evident unease.


The half dark elf girl who had been given a whip back at the drug workshop a few days ago stood in silence, holding out toward him the small pouch she had received as her share.


"No, wait... at least give me an ans—"


Something in her silent headshake gave him pause. Kaftin gestured for her to open her mouth.


Just as he'd suspected.
What should have been there was missing.
Or more precisely — part of it had been cut away.


Her tongue.


"...Hm."
"......"


The girl slowly drew from inside her coat the paper bag of medicine for lung disease that Kaftin had told her to buy at the pharmacy — then pushed the money pouch toward him once more.


"That's something I gave to you. Why are you giving it back to me...?"
"......"


She hesitated for a moment, then set down the pouch and the medicine and took a small piece of charcoal tied at her waist. She began writing on the wall.


[I want to follow you.]
"...No."


The instant he read it, his refusal came without a moment's pause. The girl flinched — then tilted her head, as if to ask why.


"I'm going to be at war soon. With this city — maybe this entire country. Do you really think I can manage that with a child like you in tow?"
"......"
"You'll get caught up in it if you stay near me. No one knows what might happen."


He waved her off, but the girl shook her head — eyes resolute, as if she had already made up her mind to follow him no matter what.


[I have nowhere to go.]
"That doesn't mean it makes sense to depend on someone like me. Should I find you decent foster parents or something...?"


She shook her head again.
There was no foster family who would take in a half dark elf girl — especially one who had once fought on the demon side.


What little she had learned throughout her life hardly counted as anything proper at all.


[If it's not you, I don't want anyone.]
"...You're just as out of your mind as I am..."


Kaftin started scratching his head, falling into thought.
Chasing her away would be simple enough.
He could force her out, reject her — end it there.


But that was the one option he could not bring himself to choose.
Violence against a small, frail girl like her?


That was something which, on his pride as a human being, could never be permitted.


"Ugghhh..."


As he mulled it over, something seemed to come to him, and he spoke again.


"What exactly did you see in me that made you choose me? You know what I did when we first met..."


Before he could finish, the girl reached behind her and produced what he had taken from one of the operatives and placed in her hands — the whip.


"...Ah."


As she nodded, he finally seemed to understand why she had chosen him, and pressed a hand to his forehead.


To Kaftin, that whip had been nothing more than a weapon he handed over to motivate her — something to use against the enemy.


But to the girl, that same whip had come to represent her life itself — the one that had been taken from her as she was passed from owner to owner as a slave.


"...You. What's your name?"


He lowered his head, as if admitting defeat, and continued the conversation.
The girl picked up the charcoal again and carefully wrote on the wall.


[I don't have one.]
"......"


Kaftin stared at the words on the wall for a moment, then snapped his fingers with a slow grin.


"Alright then. From now on, your name is 'Conquere.'"
"......?"
"It means to reclaim and seize back the true life that was taken from you. Don't like it, forget it."
"......!"


At Kaftin's explanation, the girl's expression brightened, and she nodded.


He slowly reached into the rack hidden at his hip and drew one of his torture instruments — a knife with a particularly keen edge, fine enough to serve as a surgical blade — and carefully placed it in the hand not holding the whip.


"......?"
"This one... keep it with you, and when you find the one who did that to your tongue, take it out and point the tip at them. Then I'll—"
"......!"
"I'll hold him down so he can't move. Then you cut out his tongue with that."


At Kaftin's cruel smile as he placed yet another instrument of vengeance in her hands, the girl met his gaze with eyes full of quiet satisfaction, and smiled back.


This would later be remembered as the first meeting with Conquere — the first lieutenant of Kaftin's organization, Another Blood, which would one day shake the very world.


"Let's head downstairs for now. You need to eat something. I'd bet anything you haven't had a single meal since you left to come here."


As she nodded, Kaftin shook his head slowly.
He had a sinking feeling that his food expenses were about to go up considerably.


—To be continued—