Genius Corpse-Collecting Warrior - Chapter 39

Devil’s Holy Sword (12)

“I feel very fortunate.”

Snap.

Lucia’s boots stepped on a puddle of blood.

“That stupid devil was incompetent enough to let you go.”

Slurp.

She slowly drew her sword. The pure white sword body glowed softly under the starlight.

“Ugh…”

The bald man leaned back, his lips quivering. Lucia slowly followed him with her sword hanging down.

Snap. Snap.

A land where traces of bald heads crawling and dragging remain.

Lucia’s bloody boots leave red marks on them.

It was like the footprints of a criminal running away at the end of his life and a messenger coming to catch him.

“Thanks to that, I may not have been able to at least protect you…”

Saaaaa—

the sword body is covered in pure white light.

The sacred power pulsing with tangible energy on the sword looked like a burning white flame.

The bald head in front of me, shaking and turning my pants yellow.

Lucia held the sword with both hands and lifted it upside down with the tip pointing toward the ground.

And the last words, like a death sentence, flowed from her mouth.

“…Because I was able to directly receive the blood money of a colleague I respected.”

Phew.

The tip of the sword pierces the top of the bald head.

At that moment, white flames began to burn brightly and engulf my feet and ankles.

“Ugh! “Aaaah!”

The bald head screamed at me to leave. The flames didn’t stop.

It climbs up your calves and thighs and slowly engulfs your pelvis and waist. The other leg was already covered in pure white flames.

“Aaaah! Kwaaaa!”

Dallen watched from a few steps away.

A white flame that roars and devours the victim’s skin. Unlike real fire, there is no burning smell.

It’s natural.

That flame was created by divine power.

If you swallow the skin, the muscles.

Eat the muscles and then the bones.

It was a special flame that burns away everything else and regenerates the victim’s nerves until the very end, causing endless pain.

‘The white flame of Danma (斷魔).’

A secret that is almost taboo even within the Holy Knights due to its cruelty.

Only a very few selected paladins could learn this skill, and even that was a technique only used occasionally when interrogating followers of evil demons.

“Aaaah! “Ugh!”

My legs are completely burned and my bones are turning black. White flames spread to the abdomen, chest, and arms.

The sight of skin and muscles melting and scattering into ashes was a horrific sight in a different sense than the feast of blood and internal organs spread out in the open space.

However, Lucia watched the whole scene silently without blinking.

“Huh! “Wow~”

Soon, my lungs and airways were on fire.

Black ash and white flames flew out from the eyes, nose, and mouth.

A flame that burns the victim both inside and outside.

The bald head, which has been burned from the waist down due to the terrible pain that does not discriminate between the inside and the outside, is only covered in the blackened upper body.

The silent scream that screams with his whole body.

Kkuddud-kuk!

In the end, it ended when my heart, unable to withstand the heat, burst.

“…….”

Grumble. Hwareuk.

White flames that completely engulf the remaining skull and the brain inside it before disappearing.

The only evidence that the bald head existed here were his clothes, weapons, and mercenary badges that remained intact.

Sigh.

Dallen picked up a silver plaque among the clothes. Then I turned my head and looked at Lucia.

Lucia was holding a sword of light that burned like a flame, and her long blonde hair was falling down.

“…….”

Her body trembles slightly.

Wearing dark robes over her armor, she seemed almost completely matched to the darkness of the night, except for her blonde hair and blue eyes.

Dallen looked at her quietly and quietly put the silver plaque into his arms. He said.

“Do you regret it?”

“no.”

The paladin answered immediately.

“I have no regrets. “At least… at least about revenge.”

Her face said otherwise.

Eyelashes fluttering. A white face. A trickle of fresh blood flows from her tightly bitten lips.

Dallen muttered with an indifferent expression in front of an expression filled with guilt and confusion.

“Humans are creatures of regret.”

“I have no regrets.”

“Then do you blame yourself?”

There was no answer. Dallen scratched his chin. His beard had grown a little rough. He continued speaking in an indifferent voice.

“Having a past that I regret and blame myself for means that that past helped shape who I am today. In other words, would anything have been different if I had done this back then? “The question is nothing more than a meaningless delusion.”

After gaining strength that I could not have imagined, it suddenly occurred to me.

My past self, who worked at a respectable and prosperous company, but lived like a helpless gamer at home.

I asked myself this while achieving achievements that would have been unthinkable in the past.

If I were to go back to the old days, would I still live as an incompetent gamer?

‘It was a meaningless question.’

Bringing out the choices of the past and thinking about them is possible because we have already gone through those times.

Thirty-four years on Earth.

And these years on the continent.

The person we know today, Dallen, was created after building up bricks one by one over the years.

Reflection and regret are different.

Improvement and self-reproach were two sides of the same coin.

After much deliberation, Dallon’s conclusion was to take the former and let the latter go.

If only the gaming junkies of that time didn’t exist in the first place.

It would have been impossible to create the hero who saves the world from destruction.

“I am a better person now because of the times I regretted. “If I regret who I am now, my future self will be better than I am now.”

Tuk-tuk.

A large, thick hand taps Lucia’s shoulder.

At that touch, the strength in my clenched teeth loosened and the trembling in my blue eyes subsided.

And Lucia slowly but clearly spoke.

“Thank you. “Dallen.”

I take a deep breath as if that single word is too much. She slowly inhaled and exhaled again as she spoke.

“…Thank you for protecting Barrett’s honor.”

“I didn’t protect it.”

Lucia raised her head. Dallen shrugged.

“You were the one who put forward the request, and you were the one who expressed your colleague’s loyalty until the end. “I am just a mercenary who received a request in passing.”

And there is no need to feel indebted as you will receive ample compensation. Dallen added with a smile.

“great. “You did better than I expected, so let’s renegotiate the commission fee when we get out of here.”

“Clients who pay a lot of money are always welcome.”

Dallen laughed out loud. The corners of Lucia’s mouth also rose slightly.

Sad smile. But it was a laugh that no longer seemed complicated.

She took another slow, deep breath and said.

“Let’s leave right away. “It’s late at night, but I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep like this.”

“I understand.”

Lucia nodded and walked towards the camp first.

Dallon thought for a moment and took out a silver mercenary card from his pocket.

As I dusted off the black ash, I saw the name again.

‘Skinhead.’

Bald head. This is probably the nickname he uses as a mercenary.

Dallen chuckled and put the silver plaque in his pocket.

‘I have a request to make to the crow’s nest.’

Although his real name was unknown, it was not difficult to trace his whereabouts just by using his pseudonym.

According to his testimony, the explorer who stabbed the paladin in the back was not the only one.

His theory is that if you are going to get revenge, you have to do it perfectly.

In order to survive in this world, such a ruthless attitude is sometimes necessary.

It wouldn’t be easy for a young trainee to think that far.

In that case, I was willing to compensate for the trouble of finding the name.

Dallen mumbled the name engraved on the silver plate a few times, engraving it in his mind, and followed Lucia out of the clearing.

Soon, gnolls who smelled the fragrant blood began to gather one by one into the vacant lot.

***

After that day, the group increased their speed.

However, the route was a little different from before.

Previously, he had chosen the fastest and safest route possible, but after the battle with the explorers, Dallon went through more difficult and dangerous places.

‘If what the dead bald explorer said is correct, the devil may not have been as seriously injured as we thought.’

The devil is a cunning race.

There was a high possibility that he had already read the greed shining in the explorers’ eyes.

Even though the injury was not that serious, he acted as if he was going to die soon, leading the explorers to betray the Paladin.

Even from his perspective, a head-to-head match would have been difficult, so he would have used his head.

‘And if the devil has fully recovered from his injuries, we’ll have to prepare more as well.’

There was nothing grand about preparation.

The goal was to get as much as possible without significantly distorting the route.

On the first day, Dallon and Lucia entered a large swamp.

That night, Dallen wiped out a tribe of wild frogmen and recovered their corpses in the middle of their nest.

[The body of an archer who dreamed of becoming a magic archer has been recovered. The ability is inherited.]

[Inheritance Reward: Magic Power +1]

On the second day, the two people who were crossing the foggy hillside found an abandoned cabin and stayed there for a day.

While Lucia was sleeping, Dallen tore up the floorboards of the cabin’s main room and went down.

There was a hidden drug cultivation area in the basement of the cabin.

A farmland that has been neglected for a long time and is covered with weeds, perhaps because the owner had some kind of accident.

There was a herb there that had been corrupted by magical power over a long period of time and was now no better than an elixir.

‘Instead of increasing physical strength by 1, it lowers intelligence by 1.’

As soon as I ate it, I got a headache that felt like my head was going to explode.

The feeling of my intelligence decreasing in real time was a more unpleasant sensation than I could imagine.

“Ugh…fuck.”

Fortunately, the headache was gone when I woke up overnight, so there was no major disruption to my schedule for the next day.

On the third day, the group passed through a place called ‘Ghost Forest’ among explorers.

A gloomy forest where the trees move silently and arbitrarily, causing travelers to get lost or to a dead-end cliff.

Jizzik-thud!

Dallen carved out his own path by cutting down all the trees in his way.

His senses were overly sensitive to the point where he was confused by the movement of a few trees.

[The body of a lost guide has been found. The ability is inherited.]

[Inheritance Reward: Senses +1]

And in the process, recovering the body that had lost its way and starved to death, Dallan was able to become confident in the phenomenon he had vaguely guessed.

‘After forming a small territory, the rewards you get from recovering corpses have definitely decreased.’

Considering that the Crushing Sword was obtained from the fighter’s corpse, not all rewards were reduced.

However, the compensation for the corpses, commonly called failed characters, who did not grow properly was limited to one ability score.

This means that you can no longer receive as many stats and skills as before with a shabby corpse.

It’s unfortunate, but it’s something that can’t be helped.

However, there was a need to slightly revise the future mid- to long-term strategy.

‘Rather than searching for multiple corpses, I should focus on searching for the corpses of more powerful characters.’

So the fourth day came.

Even though it was a forced march that covered a longer distance than expected, Lucia followed along without showing any signs of hardship.

As a result, as the sun was setting on the fourth day.

Dallon and Lucia were able to arrive in front of the cave where the devil was hiding.

***

“This place…seems right.”

Lucia said, biting her lip. Dallen was next to him, quietly scratching his chin.

“I didn’t expect anything normal since this is where the devil is hiding, but this is still unexpected.”

“That’s right.”

Dallen had no choice but to agree.

The entrance to a cave that became the devil’s abode.

In front of it, the corpses of over a hundred explorers were piled up in a heap and displayed.

The piles of corpses were torn to pieces, torn into pieces, and oozed dark deceit.

The shape blocking the front of the cave seemed like a warning that if you go inside, you will look like this.

Ugh……

And the pile of corpses slowly began to rise.

A body with limbs, torso, head, and internal organs tied together by bundles of long blood vessels and intestines.

The pile of corpses, numbering over a hundred, took on the appearance of a four-armed giant and let out gloomy groans from its mouths.

Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

the… “God of war…”

Lucia sobbed and pulled out her sword. A soft light began to flow from her body.

Dallen raised his eyebrows, gently stroked the head of the axe, and looked at the Corpse Giant.

A corpse giant roughly as tall as the third floor of a building.

At first glance, it looked like it would give quite a bit of experience.

By dealing with a group of labyrinth bandits and annihilating a tribe of frogmen, his experience bar is slowly getting closer to leveling up.

‘That one thing would be perfect.’

“Dallen, I’m going to get his attention…”

Just as Lucia was slowly taking her stance and making a fuss.

Quaaaang!

A pile of dirt exploded next to her, and Dallen’s new form disappeared on the spot.