Chapter 13 – Auditore da Sicilia (2)

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Translated by Jinmu

Read only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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There was something I need to make absolutely clear.

To get straight to the point, this power I was given was not some divine blessing or gift. That said, it probably wasn’t some heaven-bestowed, peerless talent either. If anything, it felt more like some kind of curse.

In order not to rely on the Blessing of the Sword God, I set out to find a new weapon. But that power came chasing after me as if mocking my efforts and took control of my body.

This time there was no agonizing pain. No, forget agony. My body was wrapped in endless pure ecstasy and an overwhelming loss of strength the likes of which I had never felt before. That curse swung me around like a marionette bound by strings.

As I swung the sword in a half-surrendered state, something I couldn’t identify whispered sweetly into my ear. It was a language I had never heard before.

It sounded like a seductive persuasion, or perhaps a spine-chilling threat. But whatever it was trying to say engraved itself into my brain all the same. Dark malice blooming up from somewhere deep inside.

Cut more, slice more, destroy more.

Foolishly, I surrendered myself to it. I wanted to keep falling forever into the depths of that terrible pleasure and see just how far it went. Then someone called me. A name that before I knew it, I recognized as myself.

In that world slowly turning blue, a red-haired girl came into view. She was calling out to me like a scream. At that cry, the fragmented world fused back together and was replaced by one whole.

I wanted to break free from that something that was dragging everything upward only to eat away at me and stain me. I threw the snapped wooden sword as if firing it out. Even then, it clung to my skin like a black hide, refusing to come off.

Even so, I tore it away. Even if it stripped my flesh with it, if I didn’t tear it off right then, I felt like I would lose myself forever.

The moment I launched the sword, my body too shot forward like an arrow, pulled as if by a magnet, until it reached the girl standing before me.

Only then was I finally able to remember her name.

Chloe.

The yandere who had tried to kill me not long ago. Now, the girl who had awakened my fading consciousness. When I completely let go of the sword, I finally regained freedom of movement.

The fact that she had tried to wake me was irritating, and yet I was grateful. To begin with, she was the one who had broken my sword and caused the whole thing, after all. So, a little mischievously, I decided to let her off with a flick to the forehead.

After taking the forehead flick, Chloe opened and closed her mouth a few times, wearing a blank, stunned expression. Meeting that doubtful look, I patted her on the head.

It was one of the guidelines for what to do when meeting a yandere that I’d seen on YouTube. I had no idea how reliable it really was, but I wanted to get away from there as fast as possible. I was worried she might reflexively reach for the wooden sword in her hand.

At this rate, I was going to have to spend the rest of my life avoiding swords altogether. A talent that was closer to a curse, one that manifested in exchange for lifespan.

As a being cast into this world as something foreign, this was a talent I would have to carry with me from here on out.

I didn’t ask much from this place. I just wanted to live an ordinary life. I thought it would be enough to smooth over the little incidents as they happened.

But only now did I realize it. Something that wanted to swallow up my reason was lurking inside my body.

As I walked back toward the dorm room like that, calming the raging current racing through my veins, I thought.

This was not a blessing. It was a curse that existed only to devour me, a heaven-defying technique.

* * *

After that day, Kang Geom-ma did not appear in the classroom for three days. Only Instructor Lee Won-bin and Chloe noticed his absence, but the atmosphere in the classroom itself did not change.

Chloe wanted to ask what the reason was. If she had known even his phone number, she would have been contacting him, but come to think of it, she still didn’t even know his contact information.

Why didn’t I ask earlier?

She even went to his dorm room and knocked on the door. Each time, the only thing that leaked out from beyond it was a groan mixed with the sound of metal scraping.

Chloe forced herself to hold back the urge to break down the door and go in. Somehow, she felt like if she did that, Geom-ma would hate her.

Not the conversations with the new friends she had made, nor the morning warm-up training she did every day, could warm the cooling space in her chest.

She liked the sight of him in the classroom, always leaning his chin on his hand as he stared out the window, lost in thought.

She had no idea how many times a day she had stolen glances at him. She was even careful about speaking to him, afraid he might think she was some unpleasant girl.

At first, she had thought she had fallen for the way he threw himself in front of danger for her sake, but maybe that was only an excuse. What Chloe truly wanted was simply Kang Geom-ma himself.

…I miss him.

By now, her feelings had grown every second to the point that she could no longer even imagine daily life without him. If it came down to it, she wanted him to stay by her side no matter what means or methods it took.

And so another day, then another, passed. The day Kang Geom-ma finally showed himself in the classroom was a morning darkened by rain clouds.

Slapping the podium with the attendance book, Instructor Lee Won-bin spoke. His shout rang out like thunder. The pressure in it was so overwhelming that even the noble-born cadets, who never knew where they might jump next, tucked in their tails at the sight of him.

Lee Won-bin turned his eyes and looked over the faces of the cadets. As expected, Kang Geom-ma was nowhere to be seen again today either.

That diligent and humble cadet had, from one day to the next, stopped appearing as if he had vanished. If it had been other instructors, they would have gone looking for him.

But Lee Won-bin respected each student’s individual free would, so he decided to trust Kang Geom-ma and wait. Surely there had to be some reason for it.

“Since rain has been forecast starting this morning, there will be no morning training today. Instead, study on your own.”

Having said that, Lee Won-bin pulled his chair out and dropped into it. The cadets who were supposedly meant to be studying chattered in low voices, but the instructor merely let it slide with a faint smile.

It was youth with hot blood. Sit still and they grew restless; put a friend next to them and their mouths started itching to talk. Lee Won-bin took a paperback book from inside his coat and started reading.

Rattle.

The classroom door opened.

In an instant, every eye turned toward the door.

Ordinarily, his appearance would never have drawn that kind of attention.

“Huh……?”

Instructor Lee Won-bin was flustered by Kang Geom-ma’s sudden attendance.

There was a feeling to his eyes as if a whole layer of emotion had been shaved away. The ended of his hair, a few centimeters’ worth, had gone pale and whitish. The boyishness he had still carried only a few days ago was gone, and in its place stood a young man with a decadent sort of atmosphere.

“Geom-ma!?”

Chloe shot up from her seat with a stiff expression. A faint unease swept rapidly through her entire body. The goosebumps rising on her forearms refused to go away.

“I apologize for being late to attend class, Instructor.”

“Ah, ah. No, it’s fine.”

After giving Lee Won-bin a light nod of greeting, Kang Geom-ma stepped into the classroom and headed for the seat where he normally sat. Eyes glanced at him sideways as he passed.

Hey, wasn’t he that special advancement student? Did he always look like that?

Seriously…… didn’t he get way more handsome?

The sound of murmuring filled the classroom.

Ignoring all those stared, Kang Geom-ma gazed out the window.

His eyes, veiled with dense fatigue, did not move in the slightest, as though he were looking down on every cadet in the room.

* * *

Once lunchtime came, Chloe approached him carefully.

“G-Geom-ma.”

“Yeah, Chloe.”

“Did something happen?”

“No, nothing happened.”

“…Well.”

After only glancing at him little by little as though choosing her words, Chloe finally spoke in a voice so small it was almost impossible to hear.

“You didn’t come to class for several days, so I thought maybe something had happened. Could it have been because of that sparring match?”

Her empty-looking eyes began to well up. To reassure Chloe, I gave her a soft smiling look with my eyes and shook my head.

“I came down with a pretty bad fever. Thanks for worrying about me.”

“If that’s all, then that’s good, but……”

As if she still couldn’t shake off her concern, Chloe let the end of her sentence trail away. I simply told her again that it was all right to reassure her. The truth was, that claim about being sick was a blatant lie.

For the last three days, I had suffered until my mind was worn thin by something close to severe withdrawal symptoms, not pain.

Ever since the spar, I had shut myself inside my room and been unable to eat anything. I buried myself in bed and prayed only for the near-convulsive trembling to subside.

The price I paid for using my strength while holding a damaged weapon far surpassed the compressed agony I had experienced before.

And that wasn’t the only anomaly. There was the appearance I saw in the mirror. The basic structure of my face was the same, but the impression had changed so coldly that even I was startled by it.

I didn’t know how many times I touched my face over and over. Even the ended of my hair had turned faintly pale.

It was obviously the penalty from that goddamn blessing. When I let out a deep sigh, Chloe closed her mouth and stared blankly at me.

It seemed she felt guilty. Well, the last person to see me had been Chloe, and she had also been my opponent in that training session that had been closer to an all-out battle.

To ease the expression that made her apology so obvious, I changed the subject.

“That dinner you mentioned before, want to have it today?”

“Huh? Really!?”

At those words, Chloe lit up and her eyes sparkled. She bounced up and down, looking so delighted she didn’t know what to do with herself. She must have really been that happy.

“But this time, I want to eat something you cook, Chloe.”

“O-of course! I’ll do my best!”

Chloe clasped her small hands at her chest and nodded rapidly. I’d been on an empty stomach for days, so my skin was practically sticking to my spine. I wanted to get anything at all into my stomach.

“Then today I’ll make you whatever you want, Geom-ma! What do you like!?”

“Hm, I kind of want fish for the first time in a while. After eating at your dorm the last time, it was so expensive that I haven’t had it even once.”

While we were noisily talking, I felt a stare from behind me. It was a nasty, unpleasant presence that prickled at my skin.

My eyes swept in every direction. With the senses that had sharpened after those past few days, I quickly found the source of the stare.

A red-haired male student was standing near the doorway, watching us with a twisted little smile.

When I cut off the conversation and looked toward the door, Chloe’s gaze followed mine. Her expression twisted savagely in an instant.

“Is it someone you know?”

Chloe nodded silently. There was a faint emotion on her face, something like avoidance and fear. For my part too, there was something about the smile that bastard was wearing that made me feel sick.

Clicking my tongue once, I rose from my seat and strode straight toward the male student.

“Hey.”

“……”

“If you’ve got something to say, let’s settle it with our fists like men.”