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How fast are a dying man's reflexes?
The bald, burly bandit might have been able to explain it to his underlings—if he had the chance.
But right now, he had no time for such thoughts.
The moment he saw his own arm on the ground, disintegrated into neat slices of flesh, pain flooded his brain like a tidal wave.
He didn't scream.
Did the bald bandit not feel pain? No rage? No will to resist?
Of course he did.
But the sheer, suffocating weight of terror had drowned out everything else. It made him dizzy, nauseous, even detached—as if hovering outside his own body.
He smelled death.
In his peripheral vision, the young man before him had stopped his fingers right at the joint where his arm met his torso. Frozen. Unmoving.
That was why his arm lay intact on the ground.
And that was also why only his arm lay on the ground.
What if those fingers had been just a fraction slower?
That was the source of his terror. As an advanced North God swordsman, he knew exactly what he was witnessing.
This man hadn't even drawn his sword.
He was a true master. The kind so far beyond comprehension that escape was impossible.
Pure sword aura had cleanly sliced his arm apart without disrupting its momentum, letting it collapse into a perfect, reassembled replica of an arm upon hitting the ground.
The reason it eventually crumbled? Because the fingertips could no longer support its weight.
Not because the cuts were flawed.
Light of the Sword.
And not some half-baked version either. This was the real thing—polished, precise, honed over at least five years.
But how old was this man?
Twenty? Younger?
What kind of joke was this? He'd never heard of such a monster! Who the hell was he? Some reclusive genius from the Sword Sanctum, slumming it in a backwater town of the Fittoa Region?
Wait.
A genius?
The Fittoa Region?
No… it couldn't be—
His thoughts snapped back to reality just as blood gushed from his severed arm, painting the ground crimson.
The young man's finger now hovered beside his shoulder. One flick, and it would trace his throat.
The bald bandit heard his own trembling voice.
"Y-You're… Allen Boreas Greyrat… the one who slaughtered everyone at the Rigett outpost… But how… how do you know the Light of the Sword?!"
"P-Please… spare me! I don't wanna die—"
Allen seemed to be studying his reaction. Then, instead of answering, he spoke to someone else.
"Did you see it?"
The bandit froze before realizing Allen wasn't talking to him. He turned his head—slowly—toward the little girl he'd insulted earlier.
No. Not just any girl.
Eris Boreas Greyrat.
She was staring at his sliced-up arm, her face pale, gulping repeatedly—but forcing herself to keep watching.
Desperate, the bandit shook his head at her, then, realizing his mistake, frantically nodded instead. Tears streamed down his face, his earlier bravado completely gone.
Then came the verdict.
"N-No… I didn't!"
A cold sensation crawled up his phantom-limb stump. His mind went blank as he looked back at Allen.
The young man's lips moved, slow and deliberate, each word a nail hammered into his skull.
"Goods?"
"Top-grade?"
"Premium?"
"Bullshit?"
The bandit's pupils shrank. He spun to flee—
Too late.
Allen flicked his fingers.
A horizontal slash split the bandit's mouth.
A second flick.
His eyes.
Then—
Splatter.
Teeth, a severed tongue, and two bloody eyeballs hit the ground, propelled by the momentum of his turn.
Agony drowned his mind. Garbled, wordless sounds spilled from his ruined mouth, but he kept running—blind, bleeding—toward where he remembered the warehouse being.
Then, through the ringing in his ears, he heard a calm voice.
"Sit."
…Sit?
Like hell he would!
He ran faster, driven by pure survival instinct—
But his center of gravity kept dropping.
His legs grew colder.
And then—
He couldn't run anymore.
He collapsed onto his ass, writhing in the blood pooling beneath him, his cries reduced to wet, helpless gurgles.
Allen released the sword hilt he'd been gripping and turned to Eris. His expression was indifferent.
This bandit happened to be the same one who, in the original timeline, had kicked Eris hard enough to make her vomit.
This time, he'd been rude. His eyes had been disgusting.
Making his death slower was a mercy.
Eris, however, stood frozen, her pupils dilating and contracting as she stared at the scene.
Then Allen's voice snapped her back.
"Repeat."
She straightened instantly.
"Don't blink! Don't flinch! Watch the sword, not the corpse!"
"Did you see the technique?"
Eris took a deep breath, forcing her focus onto Allen's movements. The gruesome scene faded into the background.
She blinked.
"A little!"
Allen studied her, then nodded. Some things had to be forced. If she wasn't prepared before the royal capital trip, the consequences would be worse.
Fortunately, Eris had a natural resistance to gore. She was born with nerves of steel. In the original timeline, after being kidnapped, beaten, chased, and seeing bandits diced up by Ghyslaine, she'd held out until she got home before her legs gave out.
This time, after training under Allen, her mental fortitude was even stronger.
She was a natural warrior.
She might not have Rudeus's ceiling, but her mentality was far superior. With proper guidance and ambition, even Sword King wouldn't be her limit.
"Good. Let's go. You'll see it again soon. Repeat."
"Don't blink! Don't flinch! Watch the sword, not the corpse!"
"Correct. Keep it up."
"Yes!"
Allen turned to the guard nearby.
The man was trembling violently, his face blank as he stared at the scene behind them.
A gentle gust of wind straightened his posture.
Allen adjusted the guard's hat, then met his eyes.
"Do your job. Nothing more. Understood?"
The guard's teeth chattered. "Y-Yes, sir!"
Allen patted his cheek approvingly before leading Eris away.
Their footsteps faded.
The guard took a shuddering breath and fixed his gaze on the town entrance, standing rigidly at attention.
For once, he looked like a proper guard.
The few adventurers who'd been passing through earlier had all vanished.
But despite his efforts, the image burned into his mind refused to fade.
Humans were like that.
The more horrifying, the more unfamiliar, the more wrong something was—the harder it was to look away.
Against his will, he glanced back.
His pupils trembled.
On the ground:
Palm.
Heel.
Arch.
Wrist.
—A foot.
Shin.
Kneecap.
Thigh.
Hip.
—A leg.
Every part below the waist, laid out in cross-section, forming two parallel "rugs" of flesh stretching forward.
At the end, a pool of blood and churned-up dirt marked where the bandit had "sat down."
No body remained.
Further ahead…
Allen dragged the limbless, bleeding torso behind him, walking calmly through the carnage.
The guard stared numbly, then finally looked down at his own pants.
They were damp.
"S-Stop! I'll take 20%! Just stop—ugh—"
In the warehouse's outer hall, the fake noble—Black Snake, the deep-lined man from the Boreas banquet—set down his pen with a frown, ignoring the screams behind him. After rereading the letter, he nodded in satisfaction.
He needed to send this urgently. Allen was getting too comfortable in the Boreas estate. It was obvious what Count Sauros was planning.
Damn it.
If he waited any longer, letting Allen hitch a ride on the power shift would make him untouchable. Rumor had it the bandits had funding from James, enough to hire a new North King, two Saint-tier fighters, and even a visiting Dragon King-ranked mage from the Perugius Kingdom.
Black Snake took a deep breath.
The memory of Allen's cold glance as he entered the banquet flashed in his mind.
That monster has to die.
No way in hell was he letting some freak like that live.
Just you wait, Leopard, Gray Hawk… I'll send this bastard down to you so you can have your fun.
He closed his eyes, suppressing his fury, then stood.
Turning, he feigned shock.
"What's going on?! How did this happen while I was writing?! Stop this!"
The four other bandits immediately backed off, acting as if they hadn't been beating the fat noble moments ago.
Said noble—Piyanz—lay on the ground, his monocle shattered, face swollen, staring at Black Snake like he was seeing a stranger.
Black Snake rushed over, helping him up with exaggerated concern.
"Lord Piyanz! These brutes are uncultured bandits! Why lower yourself to their level?"
Piyanz's chubby face twitched. "W-We're all brothers here… It's fine…"
Black Snake patted his hand, then glared at the bandits.
"You hear that?!"
"Yes!" they chorused.
"The lord is apologizing! Is that how you respond?! Show some respect!"
"YES, SIR!"
Black Snake smiled, then paused.
"Wait… I was focused on my letter earlier. Did someone mention a split? What was the number?"
"Twenty percent."
Black Snake blinked, turning to Piyanz.
"Twenty? Didn't you say thirty?"
Piyanz gaped. "Th-Thirty…?"
Black Snake whirled on the bandits. "The lord said thirty! How dare you lie?!"
The bandits burst into laughter.
"Thirty!" "Yeah, thirty!" "No lying—it's thirty!"
Black Snake turned back, gripping Piyanz's hand earnestly.
"See? Thirty!"
Piyanz's lips moved soundlessly before he finally croaked, "Y-Yes… thirty…"
"How generous!" Black Snake grinned, dusting off Piyanz's clothes and tucking a bloodied handkerchief into his collar.
Then his smile faded.
"So, Lord Piyanz… where's that 'important person' you promised? How important are they, really?"
He leaned in.
"...You weren't lying to us, were you?"
Silence.
The bandits' stares sharpened.
Piyanz swallowed—
Then, in the quiet, they all heard it.
Footsteps.
Five bandits and one noble turned toward the door.
Click.
The handle turned.
90 degrees.
The door creaked open.
A head poked in.
Bald. Unshaven. Brutish.
Two hollow, bleeding eye sockets glared at them.
Blood dripped from the gaping hole where his mouth should be.
Plip. Plop.
A raspy voice gurgled out.
"Unfair."
"Let's split it evenly."
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