Episode 13 Auditore di Sicilia (2)
There is something that needs to be made clear.
To get straight to the point, this power I have been granted is not a blessing or protection from God. It is not some unique talent that the heavens have given me. Rather, I think it is more like a curse.
In order not to rely on the protection of the swordsman, I set out to find a new weapon. However, as if mocking my efforts, the power chased after me and took control of my body.
This time, there was no excruciating pain. No, rather than excruciating pain, my body was enveloped in an endless, intoxicating, pure pleasure and an overwhelming sense of powerlessness I had never felt before. The curse swung me around like a marionette bound by strings.
As I swung my sword half-heartedly, something sweetly whispered in my ear. It was a language I had never heard before.
It was like sweet persuasion, or like a creepy threat. But what it was trying to say was engraved on my brain. A dark evil thought rising from deep within.
‘Cut more, cut more, destroy more.’
Foolishly, I gave in. I wanted to sink endlessly into the abyss of extreme passion. At that moment, someone called me. A name that I had come to recognize as my own.
A red-haired girl caught my eye in the world that was turning blue. She was calling out to me as if screaming. At that scream, the world that had been torn apart into small pieces was combined and replaced as one.
I wanted to pull everything up and get away from something that was trying to eat me and contaminate me. I threw the broken wooden sword as if I was shooting it. Even in the process, it refused to come off my skin like black flesh.
Still, I took it off. Even if my skin peeled off, I felt like if I didn’t take it off now, I would lose my self forever.
As I shot my sword, my body was drawn to a magnet and shot out like an arrow, landing at the feet of the girl in front of me.
Only then could I remember her name.
Chloe.
Until recently, she was the yandere who tried to kill me. Now, she is the girl who woke me up from my faint consciousness. When I completely let go of the sword in my hand, I finally gained freedom of movement.
I was both annoyed and grateful that she tried to wake me up. After all, she was the one who broke my sword in the first place. So, even though she was mean, I decided to let her have a good time.
Chloe, who had been hit with a honey chestnut, opened her mouth several times and made a dumbfounded expression. I met her gaze and stroked her head.
It was one of the behavioral guidelines when encountering a yandere that I saw on YouTube. I don’t know if it’s reliable, but I wanted to get out of there quickly. I was worried that I would instinctively reach for the wooden sword she was holding.
If you keep acting like this, you’ll have to live your whole life avoiding swords. A talent that’s almost like a curse that manifests by trading your lifespan.
It was a talent that I had to live with from now on, thrown into this world as a heterogeneous being.
I didn’t expect much from this place. I just wanted to live an ordinary life. I thought it would be enough to just cover up the little incidents as they happened.
But now I realize that there was something lurking inside me, trying to swallow my reason.
On the way back to my dorm room, I thought about it as I tried to calm the torrential current that was racing through my veins.
This is not a blessing. It is a curse, a technique of reversing the flow, that seeks to swallow me whole.
* * *
After that day, Kang Geum-ma did not show up in the classroom for three days. Only Instructor Lee Won-bin and Chloe noticed his absence, but the atmosphere in the classroom remained unchanged.
Chloe wanted to ask why. If she had known the phone number, she would have called, but thinking about it, she didn’t even know the number until now.
‘Why didn’t I ask in advance?’
I went to Ganggeomma’s dormitory and knocked. Every time I did, only a groan mixed with the sound of metal leaked out from beyond the door.
Chloe tried hard to suppress the urge to break down the door and go in. She had a feeling that doing so would make the Black Knight hate her.
Neither conversations with her new friends nor her morning warm-up exercises could warm her cooling heart.
In the classroom, I always liked the sight of him looking out the window with his chin resting on his hand, lost in thought.
I don’t know how many times a day I would sneak a peek. I was even careful about what I said to her, for fear that she might think I was a bad woman.
At first, I thought she fell in love with the way he sacrificed himself for me, but maybe that was just an excuse. Chloe just needed a strong swordsman.
‘…I miss you.’
Now, I can’t even imagine my daily life without him, my feelings growing stronger by the second. I wanted him to be by my side no matter what.
And so, one day, two days passed by. It was a morning when the sky was covered with prey when Kanggeomma showed up in the classroom.
Instructor Lee Won-bin slammed the attendance register on the desk and spoke. It was a roar as loud as a wall. The aura of his presence was so overwhelming that even the noble children, who didn’t know where to turn, were left with their tails curled up in their hands at his expression.
Lee Won-bin turned his eyes and looked at the students. As expected, Kang Geum-ma was nowhere to be seen today.
One day, the sincere and humble cadet disappeared without a trace. If it were other instructors, they would have gone looking for him.
However, Lee Won-bin respected the students’ individual free will, so he decided to trust Kang Geum-ma. There must have been some reason.
“There will be no morning training today as rain is forecast for the morning. Instead, each person will study on their own.”
Lee Won-bin, who had said that, pulled out his chair and sat down. The students who were supposed to be studying were talking in a quiet voice, but the instructor just laughed it off.
He is a hot-blooded youth. If he stays still, his face will tingle, and if he has a friend next to him, his mouth will tickle. Lee Won-bin took out the pocketbook from his arms and read it.
Knock knock-
The classroom door opened.
In an instant, all eyes were focused on the door.
If it were normal times, his appearance would not have attracted much attention.
“uh……?”
Instructor Lee Won-bin was taken aback by Kang Geum-ma’s sudden appearance.
The pupils of his eyes had lost a layer of emotion. The tips of his hair were a few centimeters gray. The boyishness of just a few days ago had disappeared, and he was a young man with a decadent atmosphere.
“The Sword Demon Army!?”
Chloe stood up from her seat with a stiff expression. A faint sense of anxiety quickly spread through her body. The goosebumps on her arms did not subside easily.
“I apologize for being late, Instructor.”
“Uh, uh. No.”
Kang Geum-ma, who entered the classroom, gave a brief bow to Lee Won-bin and then went back to his usual seat. The eyes that glanced at him.
-Isn’t he a special promotion student? Did he originally look like that?
-I see… … ? But isn’t he a bit more handsome?
A murmur of voices filled the classroom.
Ignoring those stares, Kang Geum-ma stared out the window.
His eyes, covered in deep fatigue, were motionless as if he was looking down on all the cadets.
* * *
When lunchtime came, Chloe approached cautiously.
“Hey, Mr. Geumma.”
“Yeah, Chloe.”
“What happened?”
“No, nothing happened.”
“…that is.”
Chloe looked around carefully as if choosing her words, then spoke in a barely audible voice.
“I thought something was wrong because you hadn’t shown up for a few days. Was it because of the training?”
She sobbed with eyes filled with longing. To reassure Chloe, I smiled and shook my head.
“I was feeling a bit sick. Thanks for your concern.”
“If that’s the case, then that’s fortunate… … .”
Chloe trailed off, her mind still wandering. I reassured her again by simply telling her that she was okay. In fact, it was a blatant lie that she had been feeling sick.
For the past three days, I’ve been suffering from something more like severe withdrawal symptoms than excruciating pain, to the point where I’m mentally exhausted.
After the duel, I stayed in my room and didn’t eat anything. I buried myself in my bed and prayed that the tremors that were almost convulsions would go away.
The price of exerting force while holding the broken weapon far surpassed the compressed pain he had experienced before.
That wasn’t the only change. I looked at myself in the mirror. The frame itself was the same, but my impression had become so cold that I was surprised.
I don’t know how many times I touched my face. Even the ends of my hair were turning gray.
The penalty for that fucking protection was obvious. As I let out a deep sigh, Chloe shut her mouth and stared blankly at me.
She seemed to feel guilty. After all, the last person I met was Chloe, and she was my training partner in a fierce battle.
I changed the subject to try to ease the expression on his face that was clearly showing regret.
“The dinner we were talking about eating before, do you want to eat it today?”
“Huh? Really!?”
When I said that, Chloe’s eyes sparkled with joy. She was jumping for joy and didn’t know what to do. She seemed to be having a good time.
“Instead, I want to eat the food Chloe made today.”
“Of course! I will work hard!”
Chloe quickly nodded, her small hands clasped to her chest. She had been fasting for several days, and her stomach was stuck to her back. She wanted to put something in her stomach.
“Then today, I’ll make you eat whatever you want, Mr. Geumma! What do you like!?”
“Well, it’s been a while since I’ve had fish. I haven’t had it since I ate it at Chloe’s dorm because it was so expensive.”
As we were talking loudly, I felt eyes on me from behind. A cold, gloomy, unpleasant aura.
My eyes scanned the area. My senses, expanded by those few days, quickly found the source of my gaze.
At the door, a red-haired male student was staring at us, dripping arsenic.
As I cut off the conversation and looked toward the door, Chloe’s gaze turned toward it as well. Her expression crumpled in an instant without mercy.
“Do you know him?”
Chloe nodded silently. There was a faint emotion on her face, something akin to disgust and fear. I also felt a bit shitty about the arsenic he was spewing.
I clicked my tongue briefly and then got up from my seat and walked briskly towards the male student.
“hey.”
“… … .”
“If you have something to say, say it with your fists, like a man.”
