Episode 166: Sin and Punishment (5)

The sack opened wide.

What came out of it was a face, the face of Vikir’s beloved.

“……!”

And the moment she saw the face.

Dolores could only stare blankly.

‘Isn’t anyone here?’

Yes, it was.

The sack was empty.

Nothing. Nothing at all.

This only perplexed Dantalian even more.

[Nonsense! I’ve heard that man is an animal that lives for love! No, not just humans, but all animals have the emotion of love! But what the hell are you……!]

But Dantalian’s words were cut short.

…Thud!

Vikir’s sword, which had appeared while throwing away the black sack, had ferociously dug into his chest.

[Thud!?]

Dantalian stumbled backwards, spewing black blood.

All thirty-six faces contorted in disbelief.

Could it be that the magic hadn’t been activated?

Maybe that’s why no faces emerged from the sack?

Unfortunately, Dantalian’s hopes were dashed.

The spell had been activated as normal, and the massive mana cost of the spell, as well as the massive recoil damage from the shattering of the spell, were still a burden to Dantalian’s body.

Furthermore, as Vikir burrowed into Dantalian’s defenseless embrace, he continued to thrust his deadly sword at him, stabbing him repeatedly.

…Puff, puff, puff, puff!

An aura so dense that it felt like a solid rushed in.

It pierced through flesh like the teeth of a beast, shattering bones and slicing through entrails.

A boiling aura slithers out from its teeth, gnawing at the very soul.

Even in the body of a demon, there is no business.

[Aghhh……!]

Dantalian backed away in a huff, clutching his ragged stomach.

Blood, flesh, and guts dripped down, covering the floor like asphalt.

[No way! How is it possible that a human has never loved anyone in his entire life! There is no such thing as a human!]

“You know, here.”

Vikir answered, short and dry.

Having been taught from a young age to always kill her emotions, Vikir grew up straight, not crooked.

In a way, that straightness may have been a form of crookedness, but he didn’t know it at the time.

A killing machine, stripped of all emotion and driven strictly by command. A hound of death.

That was Vikir van Baskerville in his previous life.

A time when all things were fleeting.

Was there any room for love in a hound whose emotions had been worn and dried over five hundred crossfires, great and small? Was there anyone to teach him to love?

“…….”

And Dolores, watching behind him, could vaguely imagine Vikir’s reasoning.

It was the smell of life, the resonance of souls, that Vikir felt the more he opened his aura.

In the process of praying, healing, and buffing for others, priests empathize deeply with their souls.

They are affected and sometimes even assimilated by those feelings.

Dolores remembered a phrase she once heard from the Night Hound.

‘Theology is the study of understanding people.’

At the time, she didn’t fully understand the true meaning of this statement, but now she understands why.

At this moment, Dolores was empathizing more deeply than anyone else with the feelings and condition of the Night Hound.

‘What kind of life has he led? How heavy a burden has he been carrying alone? How long has he been fighting this lonely, solitary struggle?’

Right now, she knew the Night Hound as a terrorist not long ago.

The newspaper club she belonged to had even given him a ‘villain name’.

…… But no.

He was a fighter, fighting the evils of this world before anyone else.

A prophet who was persecuted by the world, understood by anyone, and loved by no one throughout his life.

How far does he stand and how far does he look ahead?

How lonely, how hard, how sick, how wounded must he be?

Suddenly, a warm tear dampens the corner of her eye.

Dolores wanted to stand behind him, or beside him, as a human being.

To walk with him, to be his strength, not just along his path.

Like the legend of a priest who went on a long journey along with a warrior to subdue the Demon King a long time ago.

I wanted to stand beside him, hold him close, and comfort his scarred soul.

I wanted to wrap my arms around his thorny feet and hold him close.

I wanted to hold his slashed hands.

I wanted to let you know that you are never alone.

…… But Dolores also knew.

The Night Hound was never one to lean on others.

He would never give his side to another.

He will not lean on or depend on others.

He will always stand tall, alone, and forge ahead.

Even if it is a thorny ascetic path, a path of blood and gore.

Dolores, whose soul’s temporary and partial assimilation had allowed her to know it so well, felt all the more sorry for him.

Deep down, she knows that the person she hopes will come to her will never come to her.

But what a painful, agonizing, and maddening feeling it is to be a woman who knows but can’t help but wait.

……But she was not the only one who was sick and tired of waiting.

[Aaaahhhhhhh!?]

Dantalian.

He really is sick and tortured.

The demon, who until now had been sitting in an arrogant posture and laughing at humans, contorted his 36 faces and screamed.

Vikir grabbed Dantalian by the hair and wouldn’t let go, stabbing him here and there with his sword.

Hounds don’t let go once they bite. That’s how they’re trained.

Vikir was trying to stay in the close combat, even as his body was being torn apart by Dantalian’s waves of mana.

[Aaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!]

Dantalian picked up a random shard from Vikir’s memory.

Vikir’s memories are filled with cold, sharp shards.

Dangerous enough that even the demon Dantalian could cut his hand if he made a mistake.

It was like sifting through a sack full of shards of sword and glass.

‘……Fuck. What kind of human has lived this kind of life!’

Dantalian’s hands turned to rags, and he picked up the one fragment of memory that still had some warmth in it.

He turned it into a face that he hoped would stir Vikir’s familial feelings.

[Behold, the face of one who once cared for you; can you stab me like this?]

……It happened to belong to Set Les Baskervilles.

Set had in closed training for so long that even those within his family had forgotten his face, and Dolores could only shake her head when she saw it.

‘……Who is that?’

A handsome man with white skin, dark eyebrows, and a rather aloof appearance.

His face was strikingly handsome, but his skin was bloodless, giving him an eerie appearance.

‘Could he be related to the Night Hound?’

But there was no time for Dolores to study Set’s face and remember.

“Thank you, for encouraging me.”

Vikir’s reaction was much quicker.

Seeing the look on Set’s face made him even more excited than he was before the regression.

So what was supposed to be one poke became two.

Puff! Puff-puff-puff! Pooh-pooh-pooh-pooh!

Set’s face explodes from the frenzied barrage of blows.

At the same time, the entirety of Dantalian’s body began to be shredded into smaller and smaller pieces.

[Aaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!]

A terrifying baptism of fire as even the demon’s soul is shredded.

Then.

[……aahhhh! Don’t bully me!]

One of Dantalian’s many faces changed.

An age that appeared to be early teens. Beautiful blonde hair. Fair skin. Slightly sunken eyes that looked somewhat sad.

An old, crude gold necklace around her neck with the word ‘Nymphet’ written on it.

Suddenly.

“……!”

Vikir froze.

Dantalian didn’t know what made Vikir pause, but he figured this was his chance.

[Fuck you!]

Countless faces shouted, purple tongues lolling out.

Dantalian sticks out his blade-like tongue, indeed a demon of discourse.

But.

Kurrrrr!

Dantalian’s attack fails again.

Dolores, enraged by the look on Nymphet’s face, intervened with another burst of white flames.

“I told you you had the wrong person.”

Dolores scorched the tip of Dantalian’s tongue and immediately leapt to the Night Hound’s side.

In a moment of crisis, she became even more poised and calm.

“?”

Vikir scratched his head, not sure why Dolores had suddenly become so brave.

Then, Dolores looked back at Vikir and said with a determined air.

“If it gets hard, lean on me.”

“??”

“I’ll always wait for you.”

“????”

Vikir tilted his head in confusion once more.

…Pow!

The white light that Dolores had just emitted instantly enveloped Vikir’s entire body.

“……!”

“……!”

At that moment, both Vikir and Dolores felt it.

Soul resonance.

It’s the kind of feeling you get when you’re walking down the same path together.

It was literally the kind of connection that can only happen between ‘soul resonance’.

And the moment it happened.

…A flash!

The light emanating from Dolores’s body exploded tenfold.

The Awakened Saint’s buff.

And the one that had the greatest impact on a saint’s soul.

The only being that can cause a Saint to awaken.

Those who possess a soul of the same magnitude.

The Night Hound.

He is what St. Dolores recognized as a “soul resonance”.

Whether consciously or unconsciously.

“……aah?”

Dolores felt all the strength drain from her body.

Divine power exerted with all her might to the point where she could not even stand.

The enormous buff of power that had been unleashed was instantly absorbed into Vikir’s body.

Dolores, who was naturally gifted, had an enormous amount of divine power.

Now that it had exploded tenfold, the resulting buff was no ordinary buff.

The moment Dolores’ buff entered his body.

Boom!

Vikir felt the wall that had been standing over his head had been breached with a single blow.

The high, solid wall that had seemed impenetrable for so long had been torn down, and he could see beyond it.

Swordmaster.

The realm of the supreme.

The realm of the superhuman.