◈ Chapter 351. Recyclable Trash (1)
Drip.
Drip.
Drip.
‘Not even funny, you fucking idiot, Kinber.’
Kinber stared at the drops of blood wetting the floor.
It was well past midnight.
He had reached the exit of the gold mine, but not even moonlight seeped in.
Shadows danced beneath the flickering torches.
Shouts rang out.
“He’s injured, so he couldn’t have gone far.”
“Search every corner! We’re dealing with Kinber.”
“Master of Stealth Kinber. What, is he trying to play hide-and-seek with us?”
[Stealth], which had reached master proficiency, was activated.
Thanks to that, Kinber had completely melted into the darkness.
But no matter how perfect his stealth was,
it could not hide the blood flowing onto the floor.
Kinber looked back at the path he had taken.
In the darkness, he could just make out a trail linked by drops of blood.
It was too dark for it to stand out clearly,
but if one was aware of it, it was enough to recognize and follow.
‘Damn it.’
Squeeze—
Kinber clutched his torn abdomen tightly.
As expected of PKers.
No, they were murderers seasoned in killing.
Back when the Yusra Kingdom was still called the Yusra Archipelago,
Kinber had held a peerless position among the Supernovas, excluding the Five Stars.
‘Looks like none of them wasted their time the way I did.’
But after that day,
Kinber had not participated in PKs or operations.
Whether that was a side effect of meeting Harkon’s eyes,
or because he had grown older and turned over a new leaf,
Kinber himself could not tell, but……
‘What matters is that I’ve become a has-been.’
He had thought he could escape easily enough.
Because he believed in his [Stealth].
But to think he would suffer such a serious wound not long after fleeing.
Messages appeared before Kinber’s eyes.
[Status effect, ‘Bleeding,’ has occurred.]
[Status effect, ‘Dizziness,’ has occurred.]
[Status effect, ‘Excessive Blood Loss,’ has occurred.]
[Warning: Vitality is too low.]
A hollow laugh escaped him.
‘……Is this why they say people die when they do things they don’t usually do?’
The Summit of Stars.
If he had simply not attended, he would never have gotten caught up in this. Right. If he had no intention of taking part in the job, why had he gone to the summit?
Kinber, you fucking idiot.
‘Why else, damn it. Because.’
Because the place where the summit was held was the Yusra Kingdom.
‘Even a has-been has instincts.’
As if that were not enough, he had even heard that all Five Stars of the Supernovas would be attending.
Kinber swallowed a laugh.
When I’d guessed all of it already, what was I so surprised about……?
‘……Maybe I wanted to confirm it.’
Perhaps he had wanted to confirm whether his change was due to fear, due to turning over a new leaf, or, if neither of those, simply due to a whim. And what was the result of opening the lid on those emotions?
As could be seen, it was nothing short of a complete mess.
Because he was afraid, yet his heart was uneasy, and at the same time, he was disgusted.
One only had to look at himself, hastening his own death like this, to understand.
“Maybe he’s already fled outside the gold mine?”
“We have to be able to see something first. For now, outside……”
“……Wait.”
Suddenly, the pursuit party heading out of the gold mine stopped.
Kinber checked how much mana he had remaining.
Even maintaining [Stealth] was gradually reaching its limit.
And yet.
“The smell of blood hasn’t faded yet. He’s definitely around here.”
There was a bastard with far too sharp a sense of smell.
Kinber looked down at the blood that had soaked his clothes.
As expected, maybe he should have cauterized the wound with fire.
Just as he swallowed that regret—
“Found him. Kinber!!”
The bloodstains on the floor had been discovered.
‘You damned bastard.’
What mattered was swift judgment.
Tat-tat!
Kinber immediately broke into a run.
Every time he set his foot down, it felt as if his organs were about to spill out of the wound.
The pain was excruciating, but he did not stop.
“So that’s where you are?”
Even so, he could not hide the noise.
The men moved after his footsteps.
Threats continued from behind.
“Why don’t you give up around here, Kinber?”
“Isn’t it about time you got a feeling for it?”
“You’re used to this, aren’t you? How chases like this end.”
Used to it.
They were not wrong.
Even if he had not been one of the Five Stars, Kinber had been classified as one of the infamous stars among the Supernovas. He had experienced situations like this countless times, only with the positions reversed.
A mocking laugh reached him.
“I don’t know what got into you. But isn’t it funny? What, did you want to launder your bloodstained past? You think that’s enough to get rid of the garbage stench soaked into your body?”
……Who knows.
Instead of answering, Kinber rummaged through his inventory.
There were no potions.
Instead, he threw a bottle containing a rare-grade deadly poison at the ceiling.
Crash!
The poison poured down over the heads of the pursuing party.
“Krgh!”
“That son of a bitch!! It’s a blindness debuff.”
“Don’t rely on your sight. Follow the smell.”
As expected, things became troublesome when someone with sharp senses was mixed in.
“Tch.”
Rattle—
Kinber had used the commotion to roll and throw a potion bottle. Dawn was still far off. He had hoped they would mistake the trail of potion liquid for drops of blood, but with that level of awareness, there was no way they would be fooled.
A message blinked once more.
[Warning: Mana is too low.]
He truly was on the verge of his limit.
The moment [Stealth] was dispelled, attacks would rain down on him.
That would be the moment his life ended.
Kinber pulled out his final measure, a scroll.
[Scroll - Emergency Escape]
As short as several dozen meters.
As far as around a hundred meters.
It was a scroll that allowed instantaneous teleportation.
When dealing with monsters, it was useful for dropping aggro.
But against those bastards, an extra hundred meters would mean nothing.
Kinber smiled bitterly.
‘I don’t even know the reason myself.’
Even he could not understand his own whim.
Had Lee Hoyeol forgiven him?
Before that, had he even begged for forgiveness?
Or had he lived kindly enough to deserve forgiveness?
None of the above.
And besides.
‘Could I even have delivered the news in the first place?’
He did not even know where Lee Hoyeol was right now……?
Then why had he
mentioned Lee Hoyeol and gotten on the nerves of the Five Stars?
From beginning to end, it was to the point where even he could not accept it.
But one thing was certain.
“……It pisses me off.”
Kinber’s figure emerged in midair.
Had he finally run out of strength?
The pursuit party brightened.
“Yeah, Kinber! Being chased feels pretty fucking awful, doesn’t it? But wouldn’t it be bad to experience it for yourself? Why, you can try standing in the shoes of all the players you killed until now……”
“It’s unfair.”
“Unfair? Well, if that’s what you think……”
“Someone who made me……”
“……What?”
A conversation strangely out of sync.
Swoosh—
Kinber lifted the scroll and continued speaking.
“The man who made this Lord Kinber piss himself. Just imagining him losing his legs, being ambushed by maggots like you, and dying pisses me off, you sons of bitches.”
“……It’s a scroll! Stop him from activating it!”
“Shit! Too late!”
Flash!
The torn scroll emitted a light of mana.
However, they were none other than Supernovas accustomed to situations like this. It meant they knew better than anyone the effective range of scrolls used in emergencies.
Someone said,
“He couldn’t have gone far. At most, he’ll be collapsed somewhere within a few hundred meters. Follow the traces of mana or the scent of blood. Chase whichever you like and find him.”
Their guess was accurate.
“Kh.”
Because Kinber was collapsed on the floor.
However, their guess that it was at most a few hundred meters was wrong.
The method of drawing out the Emergency Escape Scroll’s performance to its limit.
Kinber had used that method.
“……Good thing I memorized the coordinates.”
An operation that had once come to him in the past.
He had refused the operation.
But Kinber had remembered the target coordinates precisely.
Step.
A presence approached Kinber.
“Are those your last words?”
A dry voice.
It was not the voice of a Supernova.
No, it was not a human voice.
The operation Kinber had refused
had been none other than a plan to raid
Lee Hoyeol’s flower garden located in a side chamber of the Golden Palace.
And so, to Kinber, who had collapsed in the [Garden of Dignity],
anyone could tell who the person speaking to him was.
The elf, Elsidore.
“……I have something to tell you.”
Kinber told the approaching Elsidore what had happened at the Summit of Stars. Elsidore listened to the story with an expressionless face. Then he abruptly said to Kinber,
“Garbage.”
Elsidore’s eyes were filled with contempt.
“Do you know this, garbage? One who has once stained his hands with blood can never wash that blood away. Once garbage, you must live forever as garbage.”
Kinber did not answer.
Not only did he lack the strength to answer,
he had no intention of refuting it.
‘I know that too, you bastard…….’
Someone might laugh at him.
Were you trying to deliver the news to ask Lee Hoyeol and Harkon for forgiveness? Did you think such an action could wash away the blood that had stained your hands until now? Not a chance.
‘I said I know that too, you sons of bitches.’
Kinber squeezed out his remaining strength and opened his mouth.
“Fuck off. I never had any intention of being forgiven in the first place……”
As he had said, it was merely a whim.
Elsidore stared silently at Kinber.
Then he said,
“So you admit that you are garbage?”
“……Are you trying to piss me off? You can fuck off too, you pointy-eared bastard.”
“Good. With a mouth that foul, you are certainly garbage.”
The corners of Elsidore’s mouth rose coldly.
“In that case, without any guilt……”
Shing—!
He drew the sword from his waist.
And continued.
“I can get along with you.”
……What?
All of a sudden, get along with him?
At those absurd words, Kinber opened the eyes he had closed.
To Kinber, Elsidore said,
“Guard the garden until I return, lowest-grade garbage.”
……Lowest-grade garbage?
What the fuck was that?
Did garbage have grades too?
“……What kind of bullshit is that?”
With those words, Kinber lost consciousness.
...
Supernovas.
Dozens of pursuers searched the darkness.
“The scent of blood cut off.”
“Was it not a random teleport?”
“No need to rush. At most, he’s within one kilometer.”
PK (Player Kill).
Even counting only the players whose lives they had ended so far, there were more than could be counted on ten fingers.
That experience was telling them.
“Well, even if we leave him alone, he’ll die.”
It was the dead of night, well past midnight.
There was no one who could help Kinber.
No, even if it had not been night,
Kinber was already one of the infamous Supernovas.
Even if he appeared drenched in blood and asked for help,
“Who could trust you, Kinber?”
The same went for Lee Hoyeol.
Given his lofty personality,
there was no doubt he would not lend an ear to the words of someone as infamous as Kinber. To begin with, it was questionable whether Kinber could even deliver the message to Lee Hoyeol directly.
However, they were overlooking something.
“Yeah, I knew bastards like this would exist.”
The fact that even garbage had grades.
An approaching presence.
Just as they tensed at the unusual force,
a figure emerged from the darkness.
“……!!”
It was not human.
Snow-white skin, blue eyes, and pointed ears.
An elf.
“I heard the story, garbage. You said you were aiming for Harkon’s life. Truly regrettable. Harkon, you see, is one of the few people I can hold a conversation with.”
“……Elsidore!!”
His infamy was beyond description.
The Shadow Mercenary Corps could, in a way, be called the perfect superior version of the Supernovas. And one of its members, Rockid, had been utterly crushed in a single exchange by none other than Elsidore.
Elsidore spat out,
“To begin with, do not think you will return alive.”
“!!!”
Blue eyes accelerated the instant those words fell.
In that fleeting moment, the Supernovas thought,
Even so, it was dozens against one.
‘If we make use of our advantage in numbers……!’
Of course, before absolute might, all of it was a miscalculation.
Slice—!
Dozens of wrists were severed.
“U-uaaaaaaagh!!”
Elsidore spoke irritably.
“Be quiet. The flowers will wake.”
“Wh-what does that even mean……?!”
“You do not need to know.”
Elsidore swung his sword without hesitation.
Elsidore.
The legend of the Colosseum.
In other words, a being whom even Rockid, the legend of PK, had been unable to lay a hand on. Moreover, in terms of experience taking others’ lives, Elsidore was on an entirely different level from the Supernovas.
And he knew that fact himself.
“U-uhaha. P-please spare me……!!”
Only a few minutes.
Of the dozens of Supernovas who had been chasing Kinber,
only one remained alive.
Swipe.
Elsidore wiped the blood that had splattered on his cheek and said,
“The world is not as beautiful as a flower garden. Whether on the Arcana Continent or here, garbage is strewn everywhere. To clean up such garbage, one has no choice but to dirty one’s hands like this. But for the mere act of taking out garbage……”
“……!”
“Is there any need to go out of one’s way to dirty clean hands?”
Yes, in order to cultivate a flower garden,
someone had to clean away the filthy garbage.
Someone had to dirty their hands.
“Wouldn’t it be efficient to use hands already dirtied?”
Elsidore knew that truth.
Because from the beginning, he himself was garbage that could not be reformed.
However, as he had said, even garbage had grades.
‘They do not need to know of such an ugly world.’
Lee Hoyeol.
Harkon.
And the retainers of the Golden Palace.
Elsidore, recalling their faces, murmured,
“I alone am enough.”
Stab!
“I alone am enough to accumulate karma.”
Elsidore stabbed his sword into the Supernova’s thigh.
The Supernova’s eyes rolled back.
Elsidore asked the Supernova groaning in pain,
“If you want to die comfortably, guide me to the summit hall.”
...
The hall of the Summit of Stars.
The gold mine of the Yusra Kingdom.
The Supernovas waiting for news from Kinber conversed.
“They’re later than expected.”
“I told you, didn’t I? That bastard is a master of stealth.”
“Still, well, before dawn……”
Soon, a line of message appeared before their eyes.
Step, step.
[Blood Elf, Elsidore, has appeared.]
Beneath the torch that fell to the floor, the Supernovas—
“R-run awaaagh……?!”
“Kuhurk……!”
“Cra……?”
“F……!!!”
No, the heads and bodies of the garbage began to be separated for recycling.