Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Vampiric Iron and Relial the Unyielding (End)

“As expected... You truly are ‘Relial the Unyielding.’”

“How do you know that name...!”

Mikels, the current Relial, had lived under the name Mikels for five years.

Since he had been far from a famous person in his days as Relial, if one name was known better, it would have been that of Mikels, the leader of the bandits.

“In the game and now that it has become reality, you do not give up....That persistence, at least, I acknowledge. I too have something I do not want to give up on.”

Game? Reality?

The thought crossed Relial’s mind that this blind man, who kept spilling only incomprehensible information, might be a lunatic.

However, the problem was that the lunatic was stronger than him.

The blind man removed the hood attached to his robe and continued speaking.

“Even if you cannot understand my words, that is fine. This is nothing more than my selfish rambling.”

“You... Why do you want the vampiric iron?”

Vampiric iron was a metal with peculiar properties, but as known, it did not have many uses.

Most people who wanted vampiric iron were none other than blood mages trying to make bloodstones.

This meant that something terrible, involving living people being offered as sacrifices, was going to occur, and for that reason, even possessing it was considered taboo in many nations across the continent.

“I’ll tell you just one thing... I am not a blood mage, but merely an ordinary swordsman.”

The blind man said this while revealing the sword hidden beneath his robe.

The blade was thin and long.

Relial found a faint hope there.

“If this lunatic is someone who still cannot draw out sword aura...”

There was a chance of victory.

That was how he judged it.

With such a thin, thin sword, he could slice through his subordinates, who did not even have proper armor, as much as he liked, but he might not be able to pierce Relial’s “Blood Strength” so easily.

But this was only a wish.

Since he could not accurately know the opponent’s identity, Relial tried not to let his guard down.

“You really don’t know how to give up. Even in this situation, you are trying to grasp something about me somehow. What is unfortunate is that I do not fight battles with no chance of victory.”

“Enough with your pathetic bluffing.”

At Relial’s shout, the blind man shrugged.

Then the blind man continued speaking incomprehensible words.

“If I leave you as you are... you will probably be able to make it. No? You will end up making it. The ‘Grudge of the Wicked’ you have wished and wished for so desperately.”

“You bastard... What on earth are you...?”

“That is not an easy question to explain. I know the future and the past. Thinking of it that way will be easier for both me and you.”

The blind man before Relial was not simply a lunatic.

He knew.

Relial’s name, Relial’s goal... perhaps everything about Relial.

“...After consuming the bloodstone, you will obtain what you wanted. Powerful strength enough that you will no longer have to bow before anyone, nor hide from anyone. And that would become something not very good for me. It would be the moment ‘Relial the Unyielding’ becomes the horrific, truly horrific ‘Relial the Slaughterer.’”

Relial the Slaughterer.

Such an absurd phrase was spoken from the blind man’s mouth.

“You will become enthralled by the bloodstone’s powerful strength and continue trying to create bloodstones. You will kill blood mages to obtain other bloodstone recipes, create bloodstones atop the corpses of countless victims... It is true that I need the vampiric iron... but your existence, Relial, as someone who is destined to commit atrocities and massacres, is also one of the reasons I came here.”

After saying that, the blind man shut his mouth firmly.

As if he had become an executioner carrying out Relial’s death sentence.

Relial did not like that.

Why did he have to die like this?

Naturally, “Relial the Unyielding” had no intention of falling vainly before tasting the sweet fruit.

Relial clenched his trembling fists and corrected his stance.

Then he asked the blind man in a low voice.

“...You said you know the future, didn’t you? Then I’ll ask one thing. After I ate the bloodstone... did I look happy?”

The blind man also smoothly drew his sword from the scabbard he had brought before his face.

“Happiness for a villain who mercilessly killed countless innocent people? How meaningless. I will simply say that you went around laughing like a madman.”

“Laughing like a madman...”

Relial closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them wide and charged at the blind man, shouting.

“That is enough...!”

Relial, who had rapidly closed the distance to right in front of the blind man’s nose, swung his leg in an arc toward the blind man’s face.

—Thwack!!!

The blind man blocked Relial’s kick with his sword and created distance.

Even though the leg had touched the sword’s edge, not a single drop of blood flowed.

Normally, the leg should have been cut off immediately, yet not even a scratch appeared.

This was the power of Relial’s Blood Strength.

Though Relial’s talent was nothing impressive, Blood Strength was still proper magic.

It was very different from simple body strengthening, where one infused mana into the body to reinforce it.

“What? This is manageable, isn’t it...?”

That was the impression Relial felt from the first exchange with the blind man.

Soon, Relial, whose momentum had risen, shouted loudly.

“...If you thought you could stand in the way of my ‘future’ with only that much, you were mistaken!!”

“...”

The blind man merely stared quietly at such a Relial.

He could see the movement of mana circulating through the blind man’s entire body.

Relial could sense nothing particularly special in his mana operation.

Ordinary.

Nothing beyond that.

With such crude mana operation, he should likewise be unable to draw out sword aura.

His experiences of watching countless strong people only from afar told him so.

Relial decided to press the blind man further.

Then came Relial’s stomping step.

Relial’s fist shot out toward the blind man at a fierce speed.

However, this time, the blind man swung his sword in response.

“A blind man who can’t even handle mana properly... With that sort of sword, my arm will never...!!”

—Slice!

The cold sound that followed was far too soft to be the sound of Relial’s fist burying itself in the blind man’s face.

—Thud.

Relial’s arm, which had risen into the air, soon fell to the floor with a dull sound.

“Ggh... Ggaaaah!!!”

Relial stepped back from the blind man, repeatedly writhing in pain from having his arm cut off.

Relial could not understand.

“Why...? Why...?”

It was extremely ordinary swordsmanship, swung along a trajectory as ordinary as his mana operation.

The blind man’s swordsmanship was impossibly far from the swordsmanship of a powerful person like the “Sword Saint,” whom Relial had once watched from behind a wall when he was young.

If anything, it resembled the swordsmanship of a child often seen in any village, making a fuss about becoming a knight.

And yet he had been cut.

And yet, despite that, the blind man was stronger than him.

Because the word strength was always not absolute, but relative.

“Ghk...!!”

Relial barely used Blood Strength to stop the bleeding at the site where his arm had been cut off.

“Hah... Hah... This is why I hate bastards who use swords...”

Relial had not fallen yet.

He had not given up.

However, unlike his spirit, Relial’s stance was completely broken.

“I will end this now.”

The blind man who said that charged.

Relial thrust out his remaining left arm with all his strength.

But Relial’s fist never reached him.

—Slash!

Just before the fist could touch him, the blind man lowered his stance, avoided Relial’s fist, and cut upward with his sword, severing his remaining arm.

“Graaah!!”

Even through pain severe enough to make him lose consciousness, Relial moved his leg.

Relial’s leg shot out in desperation.

—Slice!

As if he had already predicted it, the blind man’s sword cut even Relial’s leg away.

In the end, with only one leg left intact among his limbs, Relial finally lost his balance.

—Thump!

Relial collapsed onto the floor.

His eyes still had not crumbled.

The blind man was strong.

He was not as strong as Relial had expected, but simply stronger than him.

There was no great difference in what that meant.

Relial was weak.

Even he, who had lived only the life of the weak, had a dream.

Today, his dream and the unyielding persistence that knew no giving up would come to an end.

“...”

In the fallen Relial’s vision, he saw the blind man approaching him.

“I did not intend to make you suffer, but because my skill is not outstanding, this dragged on.”

“...I still have not given up.”

“I know. That is... Relial the Unyielding.”

The blind man acted to the end as if he knew everything about him.

“Relial the Unyielding, huh...”

“Still, isn’t that better than Weakling Relial?”

Relial thought it was not so bad.

Relial had lived his entire life as the weak.

Coward Relial.

Weakling Relial.

Rather than those insulting epithets he had heard countless times, he thought “Relial the Unyielding” was acceptable.

“...I see.”

Even in the moment when Relial’s consciousness was gradually growing faint.

He was not giving up.

He did not close his eyes.

Only then did Relial’s owl in one corner of the room fly toward the rat on the floor.

The rat caught in the owl’s sharp talons struggled, but a mere rat could not possibly overcome the owl’s weight.

The owl’s sharp beak tore away the flesh near the rat’s neck.

The blind man approached the fallen Relial and put him to rest.

—Stab.