Second Intermission (5)
I had to admit it. They were masters at sowing discord among humans. Some of the knights' gazes shot toward me, sharp as arrows, and I swallowed dryly, refusing to let my finger leave the crossbow's trigger.
Leonardo retorted in a grim tone I had never heard from him before.
"Shut up."
At his words, the serpent twisted its body like a coiled spring, tightening its hold on the knights it had taken hostage.
"Isn't this a favourable deal? Twenty lives for one."
The serpent flicked its forked tongue and sneered.
"We want that!"
Like petulant children throwing a tantrum, the nameless beings pounded the ground, demanding their prize. It was Raul, far more adept than Leonardo at reading the mood among the people, who finally spoke up.
"Such favourable terms are all the more suspicious. If you're just pretending to negotiate and end up taking both the knights and the villagers, you lose nothing."
At last, the ripples of unrest began to settle. As the knights turned their focus back to the nameless beings, I felt a greedy gaze land on me. Two heads slithered closer, their eyes fixed on me.
One head spoke desperately, "Why are you different?"
The other added spitefully, "What makes you special?"
If anything, it wasn't that I was special—it was thanks to the protagonist, who chose to believe I was.
With a smirk, I replied in a tone only they could hear, "Maybe it's not that I'm extraordinary, but that you fail to meet the standard."
They hissed aggressively, clearly provoked.
Finally, I removed my hand from the trigger entirely and spread my arms theatrically.
"Well, fine. If you're not fools, you'd know that any deal must be built on mutual trust, right? Without trust, how could I believe your verbal promise to release the knights and the villagers if I give myself up?"
The serpents stared at me, their eyes narrowing, tongues flicking.
"Honestly, I can't even trust that you have all the villagers in your custody. So first, you'll have to prove it. Show me that you actually have them."
"Oh, what an obvious trick. You plan to ambush us and kill us when we get there, don't you?"
The sharper of the two serpent heads snapped at me. I shrugged nonchalantly and replied, "That won't be so easy as long as you're still holding the knights hostage."
At this, the other head twisted quietly for a moment before giving its answer.
"Fine."
The serpent's coiled body slithered forward, one head leading the way while the other kept a piercing gaze fixed on us. Watching the captive knights' faces grow increasingly pale, we followed in tense silence.
Leonardo had crept closer, his dilated pupils gazing at me with an intensity that was almost unsettling. But I lightly grasped his hand for a moment before letting go, silently reassuring him.
As we trailed the nameless creature, I observed its movements carefully, every coil and twist etched into my mind. Eventually, it led us to the entrance of a cave Raul had spotted earlier from the trees. The entrance was narrow, half-buried in earth and debris, more like a burrow than a proper cave. It seemed impossible for all the knights to fit inside.
"They're in there," the serpent hissed.
Raul frowned, leaning closer to me and muttering under his breath, "I can't see anything."
"They're deep inside," the serpent said, its tongue flicking with a smug air. "Would you leave live captives out in the open field?"
The serpent twisted its body mockingly as it sneered. Leonardo, closing his eyes briefly, whispered to me.
「I can hear groaning. Sounds like people, though I can't say for sure if they're human. No trace of a monster's presence, though.」
His sharp hearing had picked up something. I lifted my chin toward the serpent.
"Alright, let's set the terms of the deal. My friend and I will go into the cave first. Once we're inside, you release the knights and follow us in. After my friend leaves with the villagers, it'll just be you and me left in the cave. How does that sound?"
I murmured quietly to Leonardo, 'Tell Raul to stay behind and signal us with a whistle once the knights are safely released.'
Leonardo nodded and discreetly relayed the instruction to Raul. Though Raul looked uncertain, he followed his superior's orders without hesitation.
With that, Leonardo and I slid down the slope into the earthen burrow. Inside, it was pitch black, but as my eyes adjusted, I could make out rows of bars embedded into the walls. Beyond them, people lay sprawled as if dead, groaning faintly.
Activating my
"A whistle," Leonardo remarked softly as the sound came from outside. At the same moment, the serpent began to slither down into the cave, its body coiling through the narrow entrance.
"Alright. Leo, let those people out first. Once everyone's gone, it'll just be us left here."
I spoke casually, settling myself on a nearby rock with an air of nonchalance.
Leonardo, without taking his eyes off the nameless creatures, broke the bars and introduced himself as a member of the Ertinez family. Then, he instructed the hostages to help the injured and lead them all out of the cave together.
The villagers, who seemed to have been trembling in fear during their captivity and deprived of proper food and water, shakily supported the weak and injured as they staggered out of the bars. Glancing nervously at the massive serpent, they made their way outside.
Once the villagers had left, the cave was now occupied only by me, Leonardo, and the creatures. The serpent swayed its head threateningly and hissed.
"Honour the deal. If you don't, I'll collapse the entrance, and we'll all rot here together."
Looking closer, I realized the nameless being had piled earth and rocks over the entrance, prepared to seal it off at any moment. With its massive body, it could easily slam into the pile and bury the entrance, trapping us inside for good.
It had thought things through. A faint smile crossed my face as I rose quietly to my feet.
"Alright. I'll come to you."
Leonardo turned to look at me. For someone who rarely faltered in the heat of battle, his normally composed face betrayed a slight crack of unease as his hand tightened around his sword. I met his gaze and gave him a silent look that said, Trust me.Then, I began walking toward the serpent.
The closer I got, the clearer the serpent's scales became. They lacked luster, dull and blackened as though drained of life. They made one thing undeniably clear—the body before me was a corpse.
As the snakes coiled around me in apparent excitement, their bodies wound tighter and tighter. I reached out silently and placed my hand against the scales. They were brittle. Dry, cold, and devoid of any pulsing veins or life.
"Ah, your shell is truly fragile. If I push my way in, it'll split clean in half."
"We'll have to shrink the body again if you're to enter," the two heads murmured, their voices tinged with glee.
The coiled body squeezed tighter, lifting me off the ground. My lungs began to strain, and I felt the pressure constricting my ribs as though they were caving in.
And yet, I smiled faintly.
"You know…"
The serpent's heads turned toward me, their gazes intent.
"In the end, you're just a corpse, aren't you?"
The serpent froze.
Its massive body, the humans it held within—all of it was nothing more than a corpse. A hollow shell, moving but fundamentally dead. Pretending to be alive, but at its core, nothing but death, death, and more death.
And conveniently…
I have the ability to house corpses.
[Unique Ability,
Before it could even let out a final death wail, the massive serpent's form vanished in an instant.
As I plummeted from where I had been suspended in midair, someone caught me in their arms. It was a warm, comforting embrace. Despite the short sprint to reach me, Leonardo's chest heaved as though he'd run miles. His pupils were blown wide, and he clung to me with a strength greater than the serpent's, whispering hoarsely.
「Please, Isaac.」
He pressed his forehead against mine, his voice trembling with a rare vulnerability.
「I can't stand seeing you hurt.」
"Sorry, sorry. But you kind of expected it, didn't you?"
While Leonardo had been letting the hostages out earlier, I'd used the chance to secretly release Leovald's coffin from behind the rock I'd been sitting on and clear the slot for
The cave had reeked of human waste, and the shuffling chaos of the hostages had masked my movements. The serpent hadn't noticed a thing. Leonardo, however, must have realized by the time he came back to my side.
Stretching my stiff body, I glanced up, casually estimating the height of the cave ceiling.
"Hmm. Sir Raul nearly ended up with a concussion earlier. I suppose I owe him a little payback for that."
I extended my hand forward, not toward anyone in particular, but into the empty air.
How about experiencing a little gyro drop1 for yourself?
***
Outside the cave, Raul wore a grim expression as he helped pull the villagers out. They were clearly shaken, their faces caked in dirt and dust from their imprisonment. He questioned the more coherent ones about what had happened below, but their answers were scattered and half-formed, laced with terror.
"A monster… that vile thing… speaking like a human… and two men… they're still down there…"
Their disjointed explanations trailed off into incoherence.
And then—
Boom!
The ground beneath their feet shook violently. Raul's face twisted in frustration, muttering about how accidents never seemed to stop. He bellowed at the villagers and knights to get low and brace themselves.
Boom! Boom! Boom! The tremors repeated several times. During the chaos, Raul cursed his lot in life and the chaotic fate that seemed to follow Leovald like a shadow.
After a moment, the rumbling subsided, and silence settled.
Just as Raul was about to descend into the cave out of sheer impatience, faint sounds of movement grew closer. Soon, two figures emerged: a man with an infuriatingly calm expression and Raul's commanding officer, who clung anxiously to the man's waist.
"…What is the meaning of this?"
Raul asked, staring at the pair's nonchalant demeanour. The fox-eyed man flashed a sly smile and answered in a leisurely tone.
"What do you mean? We just used some of the terrain down there… Leo handled it brilliantly. Thanks to him, we're safe."
Raul was so certain the man's words were complete nonsense that he would've wagered his favourite spear on it. His commander, rather than showing any signs of post-battle adrenaline or exhaustion, was pristine and fussing over the sly man as if ensuring his every comfort.
The suspicious man dusted off his hands with a cheerful air, though faint traces of dirt clung to them. Then, with his now clean hands, he tenderly embraced Vittorio, who ran up to him with excitement. His flawless cover-up left everyone oblivious to any evidence of deceit—everyone except Raul.
Watching the serene and pleasant scene unfold, Raul silently etched another name onto his personal mental list of crazy people.
For a fleeting moment—just a moment—he regretted ever thinking that this man might have been an unfortunate soul ensnared by their already unstable commander. Clearly, he had been a fool to think that.
'Well, you two are quite the pair… Never let him go for the rest of your life.'
It was the moment when the list, which had never changed since he first learned his lesson after underestimating Leovald when he was a younger superior, was updated once again. That list, which had remained static until now, had just gained a new entry.