57 . The Hero’s Clue and the Bandit’s Last
Rark stopped talking with his body shaking.
“Uh, so where should I start talking….”
However, vague answers did not appeal to the elves.
When Lark stopped talking, Stella clenched his fists, took a threatening pose as if she would take his head down at any moment, then twisted her lips that glistened with dew and let out a cold voice.
“Where do you start? Don’t think about making excuses while rolling your head that doesn’t even make sense, and tell me everything from the beginning.”
Larc opened her eyes wide at the sight of Stella about to hit him, and raised her voice as she wrung her neck like a tortoise.
“No, I will tell you! I’ll tell you everything, so please… !”
He had no time to think about the question of why he, who was once the leader of bandits and had terrorized Brach, had fallen into such a pitiful situation. Lark gave up his pride to live on his own, and started talking about Leon right away.
The beginning was when he met Leon. Lark rubbed his chin, frowned, and recalled his past.
“It hasn’t been long since I met Leon. A year ago? At that time, I was the lowest of the bandits, so I was living a pretty tough life. Being the youngest, there are a lot of things I ask for, but nothing came back to me.”
“Sir….”
Stella barely swallowed the curse that was about to come out of his mouth, grabbed Lark by the hair and threw it into a tree, continuing in a threatening voice.
“Who said he was curious about your circumstances? Tell me only about the baby named Leon. “
Lark looked up at Stella with terrified eyes and answered while crying like a girl.
“Ha, but if we don’t talk about this, we won’t be able to proceed….”
Hearing Lark’s mournful voice, Stella kicked her tongue once, and when she swung her hand aside, Lark’s body was stuck in the mud, and Stella wiped her hands with a handkerchief as if she had touched something dirty. He went back and sat down with his legs crossed.
“Then keep going.”
At Stella’s request to continue talking, Lark, who didn’t even think to shake off the mud that covered his body, immediately stood up and, shivering, resumed his interrupted story.
“That, that day was the day I kept watch. It rained a lot that day, and I couldn’t see a single light, so it felt weirder than usual.”
Lark seemed to be completely immersed in the memories of that time, and had a much more serious expression than before.
“I still remember it vividly. All of a sudden, the screams of colleagues heard from behind, the sound of blood splattering, the sound of something being cut and falling to the floor. The one who appeared to me in terror was Leon, covered in blood and holding the head of our leader in his hand.”
Hearing her words, Elia snorted at her and opened her mouth in a cynical tone.
“Since she betrayed her father, I guess the bandit couldn’t be passed over as a hero?”
“Dad? Well, I don’t know…. Leon-sama asked the last of me. If you want power, if you want it, I can give it to you. When I think about it now, I think the rest of the people died because they were drunk, or because they were so proud that they couldn’t answer properly.”
Stella grabbed Lark by the collar again and lifted him up.
A violent grip, the collar tightened his neck, and Lark’s face turned red in an instant.
His face was bloody, and he had a painful expression on his face that seemed like he was going to run out of breath at any moment. Stella didn’t care, and let her doubts come out.
“Are you kidding me? Do you want power? He’s saying trashy lines that even a demonic sword from a third-rate novel wouldn’t do. Even if that statement is true, with just that much of a relationship, a hero can teach you?”
Just before his breath passed away, Lark, barely freed from Stella’s grasp, hurriedly spoke as he let out his extended cough.
“I don’t even know why I was chosen by him! To be honest, I don’t think he had anything to do with anyone. While he was being taught, he once got curious and asked. Why did he pass on these skills to a bandit, then he said to me:”
Lark caught his breath, and he opened his mouth with his gaze lowered, unable to overcome the burden of the four eyes looking down at him as if judging him.
“The continent still needs evil, wasn’t it?”
Olivia asked in a voice that she did not understand.
“The continent needs evil? If it’s evil, there’s a demon king. Wouldn’t the bandits have to be active?”
She listened to Olivia’s questions, but Lark, unable to answer them, continued to talk about himself.
“I don’t know much about that. What… Anyway, I trained under Leon-sama, and I remembered all of his techniques and teachings.”
Stella had a cynical smile on her face as if she still didn’t like Lark very much.
“That’s just the skill the hero taught me? Didn’t you learn something strange?”
Lark didn’t feel anger at Stella’s words of insulting his teacher and disparaging his efforts. Rather, he took it for granted.
Having experienced the skills of both Leon and Elf, Lark was able to look at the situation objectively.
“Leon-nim is strong too, but you guys….”
Lark, who had opened his mouth up to that point, soon kept his lips tightly shut and showed an appearance of sparing his words.
She had already realized with her body that her complacent words and actions could incur their wrath.
Lark’s silence was like announcing the end of the story.
After hearing all of his past history, the elves seemed to be worried for a while, then looked at Lark’s face and asked.
The most important, the information they longed for.
“I listened well, but that’s not the point. That guy, didn’t he tell you where he was going?”
“Well? Oh, I think you said you were going east next?”
“To the east….”
It’s difficult. I wanted to tear Leon to death right away, but the Great Forest was in the west, so I couldn’t go east again.
At least I was able to move after I finished this job quickly.
After finishing all the conversation, Lark stared at them with hopeful eyes.
Would you save me if I did this far? It was a look of anticipation.
Olivia, who was staring at Lark, spoke to her, raising the corner of her mouth slightly.
“Good job.”
Good work, those words weren’t a greeting to Lark who finished the story.
Lark, who saw the dagger in Noah’s hand glistening in the moonlight, had a hunch.
That these women have no intention of saving themselves.
The words you worked hard are the words of your life that you have lived so far.
An indescribable sense of betrayal covers your whole body.
“Wasn’t that saving lives!?”
Lark looked so flustered that he forgot all the honorifics he had ever said. His thick veins on his neck and his flushed face spoke for the embarrassment he felt.
“Didn’t you think of living a normal life after taking the lives of countless people and taking away their property? Did we look so easygoing?”
After Stella’s words, Olivia nodded her head and she added strength to her words.
“Right, at least we don’t kill innocent people like you.”
Lark shouted in a desperate voice.
“Ji, from now on I will live like a dead mouse! You just have to pretend you didn’t see it today!”
Ominous blue flames rose from Ellia’s fingertips.
Elia’s speed of slowly approaching Lark was intended to instill fear as much as possible.
“The weight and value of all life is the same, there is such bullsh*t in books written by humans. Wouldn’t there be more sacrifices if you don’t end your life here, which killed countless lives and trampled on their lives? Just die here for the sake of the next generation.”
Unable to bear the chill of death approaching him, Rark begged, begging his head in the mud.
“Please… I will never appear in front of you again. If you want, you can rot for the rest of your life in the slums….”
Stella stomped on his head and spat out the last word.
“Okay, then I’ll give you a choice. Will I live a life worse than death, or will I just die here comfortably? Pick.”
Even if life is worse than death, living first was the priority.
“I, I want to live. I don’t want to die yet… If I die like this, the things I have accomplished so far will be useless.”
As if they had expected Lark’s words, cruel smiles appeared on the elves’ faces as soon as he finished his words.
“Elia? You say so?”
“I hope you have no regrets about that choice. Oh, by the way, you won’t die, but the things you’ve accomplished will be useless.”
I didn’t listen to the elves’ words. He heard only one word that would save him, and thought about it in that situation.
As long as I don’t die, I can always revive myself with the skills of a warrior, rise proudly, gather bandits again, and rise to the throne again, hidden from the eyes of these elves.
He had small ambitions to live a life of plundering people, taking their goods, and bringing the women he liked into his bed.
But such a delusion never happened.
Lark passed out in an instant after Elia sprayed the mysterious vial around him and the poisonous smoke that rose.
A kind of ghost story that was later handed down to the people living in Brah.
A red-haired man was discovered in an orc colony, but he had all the holes in his body pierced and acted like a female.
Until the day comes when he is eaten by the orcs who are fed up with his body, he will continue.
It’s horrible…..