Chapter 24 -----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: uly
Chapter: 24
Chapter Title: Blackhand's Sinner
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[Are you kidding? You can't even do this? You planning to live as a disgrace to the family?!]
The boy's sin...
was his lack of interest in the sword.
[Why are you so weak-willed? You trying to tarnish the family name? How the hell are you supposed to face them like this—?!]
Another of the boy's sins...
was his inability to muster courage in the face of threats.
[You, cooking? Praise? Have you ever seen a lunatic like this! Fetch the switch right now!]
Liking to cook and wanting to show it off.
That, too, was a sin of the boy.
[Why did a kid like you have to... Sigh, you should've been born in some slum instead of coming out of my womb...]
The boy's greatest sin was probably...
being born into Blackhand without knowing his place.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇ "Kuhahaha! Hahahahaha!"
A roar-like burst of mad laughter exploded as Pollu thrashed about like a maniac.
The black liquid spewing from his body had already seeped back into every orifice.
He trudged through the snowfield.
The yeti beside him had also been overtaken by the black liquid and was following Pollu.
"Sik... sik..."
Its slurred speech sounded like its brain was fried, but the yeti was clearly marching toward its target with purpose.
Before long,
they reached the frozen stream, and the scout team's comrades came into view.
"Pollu..."
"It really is you."
Isaac and Meladic's mutterings drew a sneer from Pollu as he lifted the corner of his mouth.
"I've returned, everyone."
A far cry from his timid self back then.
His once pale skin was now bumpy with welts, darkening to a pitch black.
If not for the 'bone' still piercing his heart, no one would have recognized him as Pollu.
"I'm back! And get this—I subjugated a yeti! Kuhahaha! See? I've helped you all, right? Yeah? Isn't that right?"
The scout team had no answer for Pollu's obsessive questions.
As confusion gripped them over the situation, only Isaac stepped forward slowly.
"Pollu, calm down and listen."
"Huh? Isaac? Who are you to talk? You abandoned me! Silberna, tell him!"
Silberna approached with a frown. Pollu's mouth gaped wide, drool dripping like some beast.
"Abandon me? Silberna? Huh? You abandoned me? It's fine. You're pretty, so it's okay. Silberna's pretty, so it's fine. But abandon me? Was I that useless? Did I do something so wrong?"
"...Pollu?"
"Nah, no need to be scared. I won't kill you. But I could. Not sure, really. But Silberna, you're really pretty. I've thought so since I first saw you. You handle that spear so well—nothing like me."
Pollu, uncharacteristically spilling words.
His filter for cognition and thought gone.
His eyes lost all spark as instinct took over, and he nodded.
"Gotta kill you."
💥 CRITICAL HIT! 💥 Bwooom!
The yeti's fist swung wide. Silberna, who had anticipated it, leaped back in one step to evade.
"I'll handle the yeti! Everyone else, subdue Pollu!"
Her command was answered first—and absurdly—by Pollu himself.
"Subdue? Subjuuue?! Subdue Pollu! Yes! Kill me! Kill this trash! Blackhand's ashen star! The darkest of them all! Purge the family sinner!"
"W-Why is he acting like that?"
Isaac bit his lip at Anna's bewildered question.
Leaving the yeti to Silberna, everyone charged at Pollu.
Sharen Helmunt struck first.
💥 IMPACT! 💥 Kaaang!
"...!"
Sharen's red eyes trembled.
She stared in shock at Pollu, who had effortlessly blocked her strike with a single thin sword.
Not even a waver.
It was as light as catching snowflakes from the sky.
"Huh?"
Pollu was just as surprised.
He stared wide-eyed at his own sword, then pushed back against Sharen with force. His lips tore into a grin.
"Kuh, heh! Hahaha! Father! Can you see me now? Are you watching?! I'm pushing back a Helmunt!"
As Pollu burst into laughter, a spear thrust into his side.
"Huh?"
Anna had hidden behind Helmunt's Red Aura to land the blow, but
the spear tip bounced off like it had struck steel, and Pollu casually swatted it away.
Meladic, who had chased after with a fist instead of his sword, halted.
Everyone realized no attack was getting through to Pollu now.
"He turned into a monster all of a sudden."
"Lately, my spear's been getting blocked a lot."
Sharen and Anna fell back,
forming a encirclement around Pollu, but he paid it no mind, reveling in joy.
"Hahaha! So that's why! Father! Mother! That's why you always told me to get stronger! To swing the sword! To train! Every single day!"
"..."
"Ah, seriously! I never wanted to swing a damn sword! But now I get it—what it all meant!"
Pollu slumped, head drooping as he sniffled.
"Still don't wanna."
The scout team felt their own confusion mirroring Pollu's jumbled emotions and state.
"He's like a psycho."
"What the hell happened to him?"
Sharen and Meladic muttered in bewilderment.
Conversely, Anna instinctively glanced at Silberna battling the yeti.
It seemed like something they couldn't handle alone, but
"We can't pull Silberna."
Isaac gave a cold assessment upon catching her gaze.
"Pardon?"
"The yeti's not normal either. Not as extreme as Pollu, but it's under the black liquid's control."
The yeti's body was dulling with that light—clear proof.
Its strength and speed were incomparably greater than before.
Normally, they'd rush to help Silberna.
"With her tying up the yeti, this is our best shot."
If Silberna lost to the yeti, it was over.
No one here could withstand a joint assault from both.
"Do you have a plan, Sir Isaac?"
At Anna's question, Isaac eyed Pollu again. The black liquid oxidized around him like smoke, rippling as a black aura.
To Isaac, it looked like firewood blazing fiercely.
"Drag it out long enough, and we win. That state can't last."
"..."
"But we can't afford a war of attrition. So we target that."
Isaac's index finger pointed to the 'bone' embedded in Pollu's chest.
The yeti's initial ambush that had claimed Pollu—the true trigger of this mess.
"Use that to kill Pollu."
Meladic and Sharen stared at Isaac in shock.
Even as former comrades, did they have to kill him? But
"We have to."
No hope left.
Isaac knew that look.
He'd never seen the black liquid before, but he'd encountered people twisted like that in his past life.
"The moment he turned like that, he stopped being human."
Isaac's voice was heavy with regret.
"If you can't, I will."
His hand gripping the rapier showed no tremor.
As Isaac stepped forward, Anna cautiously asked,
"What exactly do you know? Please tell us too."
"...Familiarization."
"Familiarization?"
"A spell the Transcendent Race uses to turn humans into their possessions."
It rapidly boosts the body but twists the mind into something grotesque.
Acts on pure instinct.
Spits out every passing thought.
Forces out raw truth.
"I'm sorryyy! Father! Mother! I'm so sorryyy! Sorry for being such a maggot sonnn!"
"That means—"
"Kuhguh! I shouldn't have been bornnn! Me! With this power, but I never wanted to swing a sword—arghhh!"
Anna's eyes filled with fear as they turned to Pollu.
"Kill meee! I'm a disgrace that shouldn't have been bornnn! The filial impiety making Mother cryyy! Blackhand's sinner!"
Every word pouring from him now was unfiltered truth, devoid of lies.
"I'm a sinner! A sinner! Aaaagh! Kyaaah! Kill meee! Then Father won't be disappointed anymore! Then Mother won't cry anymore! I have to atone like that!"
Blackhand's sinner confessed his heart, pounding his chest.
His life, stained with tears and regret, seemed to have erased even the name Pollu.
That was why,
"Pollu! Snap out of it, you idiot! You can't give in to crap like that!"
Meladic shouted, overcome by some swelling emotion in his chest.
Desperate against Isaac's call to kill, he flailed for any other way, but
"Kuhk!"
The sinner of Blackhand whipped his head around.
He stared at Meladic, nodded, and drooled.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah."
And then,
"I want to live."
He charged straight at Meladic, swinging his sword.
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