Instinctive fear.
It's coming.
Because of a single curse word that slipped out without thinking, the priest was now charging straight at him with deadly precision. Velkir tensed every nerve in his body and shouted,
"I'll take the priest! You all handle the rest and back me up!"
Of course, there was no reply. He had trained them that way himself. Velkir calmly nocked an arrow and fired it at the priest. He needed to wear him down before engaging in close combat.
The priest, with two arrows stuck in his body, calmly swung his sword and deflected them.
Velkir instinctively knew this wouldn't be easy.
"Shit."
Muttering a low curse, Velkir drew the longsword at his hip. Forged from froststeel, a specialty of the Northern Kingdom, it was the most valuable item he had taken with him when he deserted.
Clang!
The first clash was heavy. It made him question whether he was even fighting a human. But Velkir wasn't an ordinary man either.
If he had been, he would've been caught long ago by the Northern Kingdom's rangers and left to rot in a cold prison cell.
He was a man who had carried the title of genius for years.
Sparks flew as sword met sword. He deflected as much as he could. Fortunately, the priest, despite his physical prowess, wasn't very skilled in swordsmanship.
Velkir's judgment was accurate.
Marnak had only been learning swordsmanship for just under three years. As a priest of corruption, he had to start from scratch without any natural aptitude for it.
"This is dragging on."
Marnak bit his lip. His opponent was far too skilled for a mere thief. He quietly cursed the game's terrible balancing, then shouted loudly,
"How many?"
Velkir had no idea what the priest meant. In the middle of a sword fight, he was suddenly yelling "how many?"
Their swords clashed again with another burst of sparks.
"What the hell are you babbling about?!"
Marnak didn't answer. He hadn't been speaking to Velkir.
A withered hand from inside his robes showed two and a half fingers.
Two and a half fingers.
That was the same count as the most skilled ranger pursuing Marnak. A thief on par with a ranger? Weren't thieves supposed to be low-level fodder? Marnak grumbled internally and suddenly dashed forward.
Even if it cost him, he would cut down that thief.
If this dragged out any longer, he'd be at a disadvantage. He wouldn't die without divine power, but that didn't mean he couldn't be neutralized. If his limbs were severed, things would get very troublesome — though not entirely hopeless.
Velkir's sharp intuition told him the priest had made a decision.
But that was fine. He had a card to play too. He was already prepared.
Marnak rapidly closed the distance, swinging his sword with all his strength, leaving an opening on purpose.
"Haah!"
His bones would fuse again anyway — he'd trade bone for flesh. That was Marnak's strategy.
But Velkir didn't take the bait. He calmly parried the blow instead.
This time, the result was different.
Half of Marnak's sword blade broke off, flying through the air and landing in the snow.
"Hahaha! This is why I use froststeel!"
This was why Velkir had been relentlessly targeting Marnak's blade. A cheap mass-produced sword couldn't possibly stand up to one forged by a master from froststeel.
Marnak sighed, defeated by gear disparity.
"Ugh. So it's a gear gap, huh..."
Velkir pointed his sword at the priest.
"You don't look like you've got much loot on you anyway. I'll let you go, just this once. We're planning to leave this region after this job. So how about we part ways with a smile?"
To be honest, if the priest ran away without looking back, Velkir wasn't confident he could catch him.
In response to Velkir's polite offer, Marnak gave a slight chuckle.
"I'll make a counter-offer. Give up thievery right here and now and leave. If you do that, I'll let you off just this once."
"Are you seriously asking that? You really think we'll just go, like, 'Yessir!' and walk away?"
"Well, not exactly—"
Stab.
An arrow flew in and pierced Marnak's head.
With a clean shot, Velkir grinned like a mischievous kid.
"You're late, you bastards! I almost died out here!"
The subordinate who fired the arrow smirked.
"Don't be dramatic. We all saw you slice that priest's sword clean in half like it was nothing."
"Idiot. That wasn't some simple one-hit trick. It was all part of a precise and calculated series of strikes."
"Yeah, yeah. You're the best, boss."
"Damn right I am. Not like that's news. Anyway, are they all dead?"
"Yes, sir. Not a single one left."
"Really? All of them?"
Marnak casually asked as he pulled the arrow from his head.
Velkir and his men froze, their expressions hardening at the sight of what should've been a corpse getting back up.
"Why are you all so shocked? Like it's the first time you've seen someone take an arrow to the head and live."
Velkir wanted to scream, "Because it IS the first time!"
Marnak calmly repeated his question.
"I'd appreciate an answer now. Did you really kill all of them?"
The priest's face was unnervingly serene. Velkir swallowed hard before answering.
"Y-yeah. They're all dead. So how about we just go our separate ways now, huh?"
"I already gave you that chance. And your response was to shoot me in the head."
Marnak knelt on one knee in the snow and slowly brought his hands together.
"O Mother of Corruption, your son is in trouble. I'm so flustered and afraid, I don't know what to do. Surely now is the time for you to show your strength, after watching all this unfold?"
It was an offhand, almost playful prayer—one that would've had any other priest screaming blasphemy.
But power requires only two things: someone to ask, and someone to answer.
Marnak asked—and the Mother of Corruption answered.
A dark green light began swirling in his eyes. Velkir realized something was seriously wrong.
"Shoot! Shoot him now! Don't just stand there, you idiots—fire!!"
Arrows flew, turning Marnak into a human pincushion in seconds.
At that exact moment, a green radiance struck the earth, carving a massive circle into the ground and enclosing them all.
Velkir's sharp instincts kicked in. He gave the only order that made sense.
"R-retreat! Fall back, now!"
The thieves sprinted through the snow, only to slam into an invisible wall.
"C-can't get through, boss! There's some kind of invisible barrier!"
"I KNOW THAT, YOU IDIOTS!"
What blocked their way was a skill learned in the early training of a priest of corruption—"The Line the Living Cannot Cross."
This barrier was a necessary safety precaution, always cast before invoking divine power. It prevented the living from escaping and also veiled the divine presence of corruption from outside detection.
Marnak, riddled with arrows, slowly opened his mouth.
"If you wish to cross this boundary, then either kill me, break my spirit, or kindly just kill yourselves."
Velkir clenched his teeth and drew his sword, shouting,
"Draw your blades! No matter how monstrous he is—if we chop him into enough pieces, he's gotta die! Right?!"
"Right!!"
"Yeah! Maybe he survived the arrow because the hole was small, but like the boss said—if we hack him into little pieces, he's gotta die!"
Fueled by baseless confidence, the bandits all drew their swords.
As Marnak began pulling out the arrows lodged in his body one by one, he spoke in an indifferent tone,
"Your opponent isn't me. He's the one coming right now."
"What do you mea—"
Thud!
The air tore open, and something enormous crashed down.
Four massive arms. A smooth, faceless head with only a gaping mouth. And embedded in the belly of the giant—like a grotesque ornament—was the upper body of a muscular man split down the middle.
The giant's decaying flesh regenerated as it rotted, new muscle forming beneath the rot. And then, its two mouths opened wide to let out a monstrous scream:
—GRRAAAAHHHHHH!
This was the first divine power granted to Marnak, in exchange for the divinity of ten thousand souls gathered from his first relic.
The Giant of Corruption had answered the Mother's call and descended to the mortal realm.
As Marnak pulled the final arrow from his head, he said calmly,
"Do whatever you want with the rest of him—just leave the head."
—GRRAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!
The deafening roar seemed to drag every primal fear from deep inside the soul. Velkir's instincts screamed for mercy.
"Sh... shit..."
Crunch.
That was the last word Velkir uttered before the Giant of Corruption crushed him like an insect.
"Aaaaaargh!!"
"Please! Priest, please spare me!"
Flesh was torn. Bones shattered. Screams ripped through the air.
Marnak watched the massacre with a serene expression.
He gently tapped the Mother's Hand hidden in his breast pocket and smiled softly.
"This is my first time summoning our giant friend directly... and just looking at him fills my heart with awe. I really do love this power, Mother."
—GRRAAAAAHHH!!
The Giant of Corruption gave a final roar as a farewell... then vanished just as suddenly as it had appeared.
'Slaughter!'
"Yes, yes. This time I truly did as you wished, Mother. The enemies are all dead. Though, unfortunately, so are my companions."
I went around, organizing their corpses. While I was at it, I checked their bodies and retrieved the mercenary tokens.
'Slaughter!'
"You want me to harvest their divine essence now? I can't, Mother. If I do that, the bodies will rot and disappear. Then when the Mercenary Guild comes to investigate, they'll think something's fishy. You know very well—I need to keep a low profile right now."
'Slaughter!'
"I hear you. You're saying I should just absorb all the divine energy, turn the bodies to dust, and move on to another city. But I must respectfully decline this time."
'Slaughter...?'
"Look over there."
I pointed to where the Giant of Corruption had neatly piled up the severed heads of the bandits.
"Each one of those is worth twenty-nine silver coins. I haven't forgotten what I'm walking through this snowy wasteland for, Mother. Right?!"
Just as I was about to retrieve the mercenary token from Puer's chest—his body moved. Slowly, barely perceptibly.
The bear cub of a man was clinging to life by a thread.
I beamed.
"Looks like I saved at least one. See, Mother?"
'Slaughter!'
"You want me to 'finish him off' so he dies in peace? No thanks. This bear cub of a guy—I'm taking him back to Guisro and making sure he lives. It'll do wonders for my reputation. So go on and help me out, Mother."
After a brief prayer, a divine blessing settled over Puer, halting the worsening of his injuries.
I hoisted him over one shoulder and gathered the bandits' bounty-heads into a string in the other. Then I slowly started walking.
'Slaughter!!!'
The Mother of Corruption screamed in frustration.
"Oh, right! I really would be lost without you, Mother. I almost forgot."
I picked up a sword lying on the ground and strapped it to my belt—
the froststeel blade that bandit boss had been bragging about before he died.
"Thanks to you, I don't need to buy a new sword now. I'll make sure to give you a thorough hand massage when we get back."
'...Slaughter...!'