Episode 39 - The Beast Fist 1

Kaftin finished his story and quietly got to his feet.
Whispermere, watching his back with quiet concern, carefully opened her mouth.

"That right hand of yours... is it alright now?"
"...Yes. It's been uncooperative every now and then for a while — but at least right now it's fine."
"......?!"

The doubt in Kaftin's eyes as he looked down at his own right hand was unmistakable.
Whispermere found herself unable to say anything more.

Distrusting the world.
Distrusting others.
And now, in the end, unable even to trust his own body.

For any ordinary person, the sheer isolation of that would make holding onto sanity impossible.
It gave her a glimpse — just a glimpse — of why he was the way he was.

"If it's your dominant hand... are you really alright with that?"
"Heheheh... did I never mention?"

The sudden mischievous grin made her tilt her head.

"I was born left-handed."
"......!!"
"I use my right hand for things like writing and eating — but for most actual work, my left is the center. The reason I used my right hand for the finishing blow of the secret technique that day was..."

He paused, as if something had caught in his throat, then continued.

"...Because I was copying my master's technique exactly as he'd just shown it to me."
"...I see."
"Yes... and even then it wasn't a perfect copy. Which is why it ended the way it did."

The true core of A-Course was this: twenty-four attacks split equally between both hands, tearing into every part of the opponent's body, inducing an instant of overwhelming agony to lock their movement — and then driving Number Twenty-Five precisely into the heart for the kill. An absolute finishing technique.

But what Kaftin had executed in that moment had barely managed to partially cancel his master's assault.
He hadn't even managed to stop the Number Twenty-Five.

"Well. I can use it properly now, at least."
"......"
"Maybe that's why he kept putting off teaching it to me properly... deliberately."

Kaftin shook his head.
None of that mattered anymore.
His hands had been stained with the blood of someone he had never wanted to harm — and to wash that away, the blood of others was needed.
A proper sacrifice was owed to his master. Something befitting the grief.

"...So I'm going to kill all four of them. Wash these hands in their blood — and give my master the finest rest he could have."
"But why go that far—!"

Platt rose to his feet, visibly unable to understand.
Mourning someone precious — that much he could follow.
But offering living people as sacrifices for it? That was the thinking of some deranged cult, not a person with any grip on sanity.

But Kaftin only smiled and shook his head.

"Listen. Only blood can wash away blood. That's my conviction."
"......!"
"Shedding blood is not evil. Killing someone is not evil. If anything — it's good."
"Could you at least consider the position of those of us being dragged into your sophistry—!"

Kaftin stamped his foot with a sharp bang, cutting off the protest, and wagged a finger.

"I've said it before — I'm someone who reached the end of philosophy and found violence. We'll have that conversation properly later — once we have enough people and the organization is actually taking shape. Bear with it for now."
"Ngh—!"

Platt ground his teeth and looked away, unconvinced — and Kaftin turned his back and set off.
It was fine if they didn't understand yet.
The organization wasn't functioning as one body yet.

But eventually, they would need to hear his ideology properly — and understand it.
Not as a matter of agreement or disagreement. Whether they could understand it at all was what mattered.

The cruel truth he had found at the end of philosophy — the absurd reality of this world — would have to be embedded into the organization at its core.

Only then would it function as the merciless, indiscriminate, and utterly unrestrained force he needed it to be.

"Still... Maengseol's definitely going to hit me..."

Kaftin had taken countless attacks without flinching — but the particular blows waiting for him from the person he was about to meet were ones he would genuinely prefer to avoid.

The man had, after all, been the one to induce a concussion, subdue Kaftin, and drag him to his master in the first place.

*

The familiar mountain again.
He had never been fond of climbing, but getting to Maengseol meant going almost all the way to the summit.

"Honestly... why does he have to build his place all the way up here..."

He arrived at the hut with just enough light left in the sky before dark.
Fortunately, Maengseol was outside, loosening up his body.

"Hey. Maengseol."

He eased his head out from behind a tree to greet him — and instead of a greeting, a bang rang out as an Aura Finger shot past and tore the bark off the tree beside him.

A line of cold sweat ran down his back, but he set his jaw and walked toward him.

"It's been a while, hasn't it?"
"...Where is Vesren, and why have you come alone?"

Maengseol had been growing quietly concerned about Vesren for some time — since around last winter, when all news of him had stopped.

At first he had assumed the cold was keeping him inside, aching and irritable — but with the new year come and gone and still nothing, he had been on the verge of going to check himself.

And then, of all people — the student he had always been uneasy about. Just Kaftin, alone.

"There's something I need to tell you. Directly."
"...You?"
"Yes."

Clearly unwelcoming — but a thick hand waved him on, as if to say go ahead.

"...First of all. The master has passed."
"......!"

Maengseol was on his feet instantly.
The tiger demi-human — over two meters tall — pulled his training robe tight around himself and set his jaw.

"When? How? Did the cold take him? You were supposed to be looking after him properly—!"
"Ah... well... that is..."

He had started the story — but where to begin, and how to explain it, was another matter.
No — whatever he said, Maengseol's fury was unavoidable.

And lying would only come out eventually. Every lie was a time bomb, and Kaftin had learned long ago that the truth always detonated in the end.
Besides — this was Maengseol. Someone he respected as a martial artist. Someone he was about to ask to stand beside him.
Concealment or deception of any kind was something his own pride would not permit.

Kaftin set his jaw and went straight at it.

"By my hand—"
"......!"

Before the words were even finished, Maengseol came at him with explosive footwork.
Anticipating what was coming, Kaftin grabbed his right wrist behind his back with his left hand, held it there, and clenched his teeth.

A sound like a thunderclap split the air, and what followed was something close to the growl of a tiger.

Kaftin was flung backward, spraying blood, tumbling more than ten meters before hitting the ground — while Maengseol stood opening and closing the fist that had hit him, snarling like a beast.

"I knew it — I said it, didn't I?! I said it so many times—! That this one has lost his mind, that he's nothing but a killing machine with no heart, that putting him down would be a mercy—!"
"......"

Kaftin said nothing. He wiped the blood from his mouth and nose with the back of his hand and dragged himself upright.

Against an ordinary martial artist, Kaftin's dense muscle and metal skeleton would stop the blow cold — the attacker's hand would be in danger of breaking. But Maengseol was different.

That iron-like body could be beaten like clay under the power of his overwhelming strength and Aura Skills.

And indeed, the moment the punch connected with his face, Kaftin had felt the inside of his skull shake — a mild concussion, instant and unmistakable.

"Why aren't you fighting back? Did you come to kill me too?!"
"......"
"If you have anything to say in your defense, then say it—!!"
"The facts are the facts. There's no defense to offer. All I can say is that it wasn't deliberate."
"And you expect me to believe a convenient line like that—?!"

Maengseol's patience broke and his fist drove into Kaftin's abdomen — Kaftin was lifted off the ground, and when he came down, Maengseol grabbed him by the back of the neck and hauled him up.

"Kgh—!"
"Why—! I'm asking you WHY you killed him! You ungrateful—!"
"That's what I'm trying to say — I didn't kill him on purpose. I'm capable of feeling gratitude too, you know—!"
"......!"

Maengseol knew in that instant.
This, at least — this was not a lie.
If it were a lie, getting beaten like this should have made him drop the act and show his true nature.

But Kaftin still had his hands clasped behind his back, jaw clenched, shaking — and speaking calmly through it all.
Not the slightest resistance. Braced to receive every bit of Maengseol's fury, whatever it took.

That resolve — Maengseol felt it. And his head began to clear.
Something had gone wrong while he was not there to see it.

"Everything. Tell me everything. Now."
"......"

He let Kaftin down — not gently — and sat and listened as the full account unfolded.

Vesren's past. Why he had taken Kaftin as his student. And his death.

When it was done, Maengseol closed his eyes and sat in silence for a moment. Then he opened his remaining left eye and looked down at Kaftin.

"...You didn't lie."
"Of course not. You would see through it immediately."
"Understood. But before anything else—"
"......?"
"Take three more."
"......!!"

At that declaration, Kaftin said nothing — clasped his hands behind his back again, and closed his eyes.
The moment Maengseol saw that, something in his assessment of Kaftin shifted.

Kaftin himself had no memory of it — but the eye Maengseol had lost on his right side had been taken by no one other than Kaftin.

During a training session, he had been caught off guard and countered skillfully — but in one unguarded instant, that arm had extended and raked across his eye.

He had hit back immediately, concussed Kaftin, and subdued him — but what Maengseol had felt in that brief exchange was pure shock.

The Kaftin he remembered from that day was the reason he had always kept his guard up.

But the Kaftin in front of him now looked different.
He seemed to genuinely carry a sense of gratitude for his master.
And the resolve to atone for what had happened — that was real too.

He had barely maintained the shape of a person when they first met. Something had clearly changed since then.

Three heavy impacts rang out through the mountain air.
Maengseol hoisted the badly beaten Kaftin over his shoulder and they went together to find Vesren's grave.

He poured the snake wine he had been fermenting in his hut as a hobby into a cup and tipped it over the mound, then bowed his head in silence.

He had known the man was no one clean.
But to Maengseol, in his solitary life, Vesren had been a good friend — someone who stirred up the quiet, someone to talk to.
A fellow practitioner he had genuinely liked.

And at the end, at least, the man had come to regret something of what he had been.
Even if the regret had come far too late.

Maengseol glanced at the side of the grave — and something in his expression tightened.
The head Kaftin had placed there in mourning. Veilslayer's head.

"Kaftin."
"......?"
"Do you honestly think your master wanted something like this?"
"......"

Kaftin shook his head without a word.
Maengseol's frown deepened with visible discomfort.

"Then why did you do it?"
"...To wash my master's blood from my hands. To offer the ones who ruined his past as sacrifice—"
"You fool!"

He cuffed Kaftin across the head — harder than strictly necessary — and bit out:

"Do you still not understand?! Vesren didn't want you living like this! That's exactly why he told you not to use the Torture Martial Arts!"
"...I know."
"......!"

—To be continued—