Chapter 2 — 흉의 일족
Book 2, Chapter 14
The Clan of Malice
Elric came right up to him.
Close enough that Chens could make out the green of his eyes.
Whatever he found so amusing, Elric’s lips were curled into a smile.
Thump, thump, thump, thump.
Chens’s heart began to pound harder.
A bad feeling washed over him.
If this kept up, something really terrible was going to happen. His instincts screamed at him to run right now.
But he couldn’t. No matter how hard he struggled, the vines coiled around his body wouldn’t break.
‘What experiment are you even running here!’
Chens tried to demand answers from Elric standing before him.
To ask what the hell he was planning to do to him.
But—
“Mmph! Mmmph mmph!”
No words came out.
His speech-sealing acupoint had been struck. Realizing this a beat too late, Chens went pale.
To feel nothing and be unable to speak—
Chens’s pupils quivered.
Seeing that, Elric’s smile climbed higher.
Elric began to speak slowly.
“I’ve got a few pets I raise with special care. Problem is, they’re peckish right now, so I’m going to have them crunch you up.”
“Mmmph!”
“And you’re going to endure it to the end. Understand?”
“Mmmph mmph mmph mmph!”
“Sounds like you got it.”
“Urrrgh!”
Chens desperately shouted that this was bullshit, but his words wouldn’t carry.
With that, Elric disappeared from view. Darkness returned.
Tap, tap, tap. Footsteps approached.
‘Ah, hell!’
On a wild hope, he ran the Reverse Blood Art again, but nothing changed. Only those impossible footsteps drew nearer.
That was about when Chens forced his mind to steady.
‘Hoo… calm down, calm down.’
He squeezed his eyes shut to focus. Then, drawing deep breaths, he forced himself to settle.
His ragged heartbeat slowly eased. As the excitement ebbed, his mind began to turn quickly.
‘I can’t let myself get swept up in Merbinger’s games.’
From Elric’s words, it sounded like he’d unleashed a pack of starved hounds.
The approaching footfalls fit, more or less.
This sort of torture was a tried-and-true method in the Inspectorate.
Primal fear inflicted when your sight and hearing are cut off and your senses are numb.
Then, if you have an unknown beast nibble away at your limbs, that fear doubles.
Whether Elric knew that or not, using it on an Inspectorate officer—on the deputy director, no less—
All Chens could do was give a hollow laugh.
If anything, the situation made him want to turn the tables and make Elric regret underestimating him.
The usual point of torture was information.
He didn’t know what Elric wanted to learn, but—
‘I am never opening my mouth, Merbinger!’
He had no intention of talking.
He’d trained for horrors like this.
Kkiyuu.
By now, their breath was close enough to feel.
Judging by the cries, they didn’t sound like hounds. Chens sharpened the only sense he could still use: hearing.
He needed to gauge the size of the beasts approaching him.
The cries, the weight in their footfalls…
‘Reptiles.’
Reptiles the size of a human torso.
And the lack of any body heat, even at this range, confirmed it.
Three in all.
They flicked their tongues by his head, arm, and leg.
Something brushed his right hand.
Most sensation was gone, but he could still feel the faintest touch.
‘Is it starting?’
Chens steadied himself, recalling the training he’d undergone.
But then, a nameless terror began to crawl up his spine.
‘Wh-what is this…?’
He couldn’t help but panic. He’d trained countless times for torture, and yet he’d never felt anything like this.
An overwhelming fear unlike anything he’d ever known.
All that grueling training was useless here.
A reptilian snout clamped down on his finger.
Then—
Crunch, crunch!
A sickening sound of something being crushed. There was no pain, but his barely calmed heart raced again.
Fear had spread over his whole body.
‘M-my ring? Did they take the ring first?’
The ring he wore was an artifact that boosted his speed.
Issued by the Inspectorate, it was a precious piece.
It wasn’t the sort of thing that would break easily. You couldn’t even scratch it with ordinary force.
‘Then how can it make that sound? What kind of species can chew an artifact like that? What the hell did you unleash, Merbinger?’
Cold sweat began to bead.
Chens strained his eyes toward his hand, but the darkness showed him nothing.
Then—
Gulp!
When he heard the artifact being swallowed, a chill ran up his back.
Thump! Thump! Thump! Thump!
His heart, only just calmed, pounded as if it would burst from his chest at any moment.
And Chens knew, instinctively.
Those… were no ordinary reptiles.
And it didn’t stop there.
The unknown creatures proceeded to eat his other artifacts in turn.
The remaining rings, belt, sash, dagger, even his shoes!
‘Are they stripping me one by one and then going to tear me apart? Damn it! Goddamn it!’
As the artifacts on his body vanished, it dawned on him that this wasn’t just torture anymore. He could actually die here.
Around then, Chens began to lose his grip.
His thoughts froze, paralyzed by fear.
His whole body began to tremble.
‘Elric! Elric Merbinger! And you call yourself a hero of the Empire? The head of a great magus house?’
Chens howled toward Elric, wherever he might be.
‘I too am a noble ennobled by His Imperial Majesty! A titled noble, at that! Elric Merbinger! Treat me with honor! Now!’
But whatever he said, all that came out was muffled “mmph mmph.”
‘Treat me like an Imperial noble! Stop this insane crap!’
Chens thrashed with all his might. Nothing changed.
If anything, he now felt like they were chewing into his flesh.
‘Let’s talk—let’s just talk! We’re civilized—!’
As time passed, even his inner resolve changed.
‘Please, just let me go, let me speak! I’ll answer everything you ask, just let me talk…’
His vow never to open his mouth was long forgotten.
‘Please let me speak! Please undo this!’
But nothing changed.
The only sound in that dark room was Chens’s muffled groans.
When no amount of struggling improved things, Chens pressed his forehead to the floor and began to sob, shoulders shaking.
* * *
‘…This works way better than I expected.’
Wearing a wry look, Elric watched Chens bawl his eyes out.
He hadn’t planned to torture Chens from the start.
He’d only meant to play a little prank.
‘I didn’t think torture would work on him anyway.’
The training Inspectorate agents underwent was infamous for its brutality.
They would certainly have training to resist torture.
So, since Chens just happened to be loaded with artifacts, Elric thought he’d take the chance to feed his dragons.
He’d blocked Chens’s senses and let the whelps loose, and…
‘It hadn’t even been that long, and he broke this fast.’
It worked far better than expected.
He had no idea what Chens was thinking, but—
Kkiyuu!
Kkiyu!
The whelps, relaxed and unhurried, hopped over Chens and neatly picked off artifacts to snack on.
‘Is it the Dragon Fear? If so, I suppose this reaction makes sense… but I should study it more closely.’
Dragon Fear.
Also called Yong-salgi (Dragon-Killing Qi).
It was the aura dragons naturally exuded, said to instill terror in their foes.
With the ancient dragon species extinct, only a few lower draconic species still possessed a diluted version, but even that left those species ruling their ecosystems as kings.
If the downgraded Dragon Fear was that potent, then the ‘true’ Dragon Fear…
Even if they were just whelps, there were three of them right beside Chens.
There was no way it wouldn’t have an effect.
Meanwhile—
Mephisto clicked his tongue at the still-weeping Chens.
『Tsk, tsk. And they call that thing a Swordmaster? Back in this King’s day, even among humans there were plenty with enough grit to bare their fangs at a dragon. The man’s will is pitifully weak.』
[More that people now are unfamiliar with dragons, I’d say. In this era, humans have zero immunity to them.]
Dragons had been extinct for ages—who would be used to them?
Most would react much like Chens.
“Well, either way, it’s made things a lot easier.”
Elric smiled, satisfied.
For all that he looked like this now, Chens was the deputy director of the Inspectorate.
If he’d clammed up completely, it would have been a hassle in more ways than one.
It wouldn’t have been easy.
Elric beckoned the whelps to come out.
Kkiyu?
The whelps looked at him, startled.
As if to say, “But we’re eating so well!”
“I’ll make it up to you later.”
When the whelps showed no sign of stopping, Elric spoke.
Only then did they slowly climb down from Chens’s body.
Even so, having finally feasted, they still looked reluctant.
Elric released Chens’s acupoint and asked:
“How about now? Feel like talking?”
“I’ll talk! I’ll talk! Thank you!”
Chens answered on the spot.
“I’ll tell you everything I know. Just, please…!”
From the now-docile Chens, Elric learned a great many things.
.
.
But what most caught Elric’s attention was—
“What? It’s not just an inspection—an extermination force has already been assembled and is nearby?”
“Yes…! So just kill me if you’re going to. I’ve already puked up everything I can!”
The fact that the extermination army was already close at hand.
He’d heard the Imperial Family was moving, but he hadn’t expected things to have progressed this far.
Elric asked Chens, who was gritting his teeth in frustration:
“Then who’s commanding the force?”
“Zasaja.”
“Zasaja?”
At Elric’s surprise, one corner of Chens’s mouth twitched upward.
He was trying to sneer, perhaps, but the other corner kept trembling, making it only look ridiculous.
‘So… Zasaja is the commander?’
Zasaja. Bel Bahamut.
Elric knew the name.
He hadn’t met him in person.
But his fame—no, his infamy—he’d heard more than a few times.
『That “Bahamut” isn’t the Bahamut I’m thinking of… is it?』
[It’s probably exactly the Bahamut you’re thinking of, Mephi.]
『Ha! Madman. He took the name of one of the ancient demons as his family name?』
A man notorious for being so vicious he likened himself to an ancient demon.
No persuasion of any kind worked on Zasaja.
His other nickname was Sea of Fire.
They said only blood and flame were left in his wake.
If someone like Zasaja came here, to Huilan, a massacre would follow and everything would be burned to the ground.
Elric’s expression turned grave.
He sealed Chens’s acupoint again and left the room at once.
“Mmph! Urrrgh mmph! (I told you everything you asked! Please, just let me go now!)”
He heard something behind him, but he hurried his steps.
* * *
Elric shared what he’d learned with Trang.
Trang, alarmed, asked:
“What? You mean Zasaja himself is leading the extermination force here?”
“Yes. Looks like they’re serious.”
Elric nodded.
“They’re moving faster than we expected. We need to hurry, too.”
The extermination force was near Huilan.
They could arrive within hours at most.
Realizing the situation was more serious than he’d thought, Trang urgently called for Mord.
“Damn it! Mord! Go, spread word to the clan at once!”
“Yes!”
Even if they only saved who they could, as Elric had advised, they couldn’t just sit and watch Huilan be wiped off the map.
This was their home.
They needed to rally the militia and warn the other factions, fast.
Following Trang’s orders, Mord headed for the door.
But just as he went to step out—
“…Huh?”
Mord stopped.
Before him stood Taihol and his friend, Formant.
Taihol’s eyes blazed.
His voice shook as if he were barely holding back his fury.
“What? Say that again. What’s going to happen to Huilan?”
The Mage Who Devoured Talent