Chapter 73

Chapter 73

A picture resembling a bird with its wings spread wide had been drawn there.

It was a strange bird with three heads, three pairs of wings, and six legs.

Rather than a bird, it was closer to a chimera.

Up to that point, it was fine.

The taste of the person who had drawn it might simply have been unusual.

The problem was that the picture had been drawn not with paint, but with human blood. And in the places where the bird’s heads should have been, there were actual human faces.

At the ends of the three pairs of wings were human arms, and where the six legs should have been, actual human legs had been placed like decorations.

In other words, someone had killed people, drawn a picture with their blood, and decorated it with their bodies.

“Bad taste.”

This was a world where it was not strange for people to kill other people.

Even at this very moment, someone somewhere was probably dying. But the slaughter unfolding before Zeon’s eyes now was different from those deaths in nature.

It had clearly not been done for survival, but to satisfy someone’s own pleasure and desire.

“Tch!”

Zeon clicked his tongue.

That was because the terrible stench of blood stimulated his sense of smell.

The blood of monsters and the blood of humans were different.

Both gave off the same reek of blood, but human blood was far more stimulating. Perhaps that was why monsters craved human blood so much.

The victims all seemed to be one family.

The heads of a middle-aged woman, and a boy and girl who appeared to be her children.

Their wide-open eyes and gaping mouths vividly conveyed just how much terror they had felt while alive.

“It’s that lunatic’s work.”

Zeon instinctively knew this was the doing of the person old man Clexi had mentioned.

While he had been away for a short while, that person had committed slaughter three floors below his house.

The more he thought about it, the worse he felt.

It felt as if his territory had been invaded.

That was when it happened.

“M-Mom? Kids!”

Someone’s voice came from behind him.

When he turned his head, he saw a boy standing there in a daze.

Zeon recognized his face at once.

“Levin! Don’t tell me......”

It was definitely Levin, the boy he had met when leaving the house earlier.

Only then did he remember that Levin had said his house was the last house on the fifteenth floor. This very place.

Levin staggered into the house.

He looked as if he could not believe the horrific sight spread out inside.

When despair reaches its peak, the mind becomes empty.

Just like Levin now.

Levin could not think of anything.

Until he had left the house not long ago, his mother and younger siblings had been fine. He had fought with them since morning and said hurtful things he had not meant, but even so, he had never wanted them to die like this.

“No!”

Only belatedly coming to his senses, Levin screamed.

“Good grief!”

“What in the world is this?”

The onlookers shook their heads.

They were originally people indifferent to other families’ affairs, but this time, they could not be.

That was because it had happened right in front of their own homes.

If things had gone wrong, they could have been the victims.

The people shuddered and gave thanks that they had not ended up like that.

“Uwaaaah!”

Levin hugged the severed heads of his mother and siblings and wept loudly.

Even after seeing that, not a single person stepped forward to comfort him.

“Well, only the dead are pitiful.”

“More importantly, the smell of blood will reach our house too.”

“I hope he cleans it up properly so it doesn’t stink, but I don’t know if that kid has the mind for it.”

What they worried about was whether the bodies would not be properly cleared away, causing insects to swarm and the smell to reach their homes.

Zeon watched them with an indifferent gaze.

Perhaps because he had exhausted all his strength from crying, Levin could not even support himself.

His whole body was stained red with his family’s blood.

Zeon thought that perhaps even that sight might have been something the lunatic who had committed this wanted.

“It can’t be helped.”

BANG!

Zeon closed the door of the house, cutting off people’s gazes.

“What bastard did this to my family...... I’ll kill him. I’ll find him and kill him no matter what.”

As Levin sobbed while clutching the heads, bloody tears dripped from his eyes.

The corners of his eyes had torn, and blood was flowing down.

Tears and blood mixed and fell to the floor.

Light was leaking from Levin’s wrist.

Zeon knew very well what that phenomenon meant.

‘He awakened.’

A Rank Insignia, the mark of an Awakened, had clearly appeared on Levin’s wrist.

For martial types, it was red.

For magic types, it was blue.

For shamanic types, it was gray.

Those who fused with machinery gained black Rank Insignia.

Most Awakened could not escape these categories. But there were rare exceptions.

Zeon was the representative example.

His Rank Insignia was orange like a burning desert.

The ability he had awakened was also Sand Mage, not one of the existing systems.

The light flowing from Levin’s wrist was also unusual.

A vivid purple.

It was a color Zeon had never once seen until now.

Zeon looked carefully at Levin’s wrist.

The final seventh line was lit with purple light.

It meant he was a Grade F Awakened.

Starting as Grade F at the point of awakening was ordinary.

Many Awakened began from Grade F.

Zeon had also started as Grade F.

Just because one’s starting line was ahead did not mean one would grow first.

Some people grew slowly no matter how hard they tried their whole lives, while others started at Grade F and rose in grade at a rapid pace.

Each person, and each awakened ability, had a different growth mechanism.

What mattered was not the grade, but the awakened ability.

A purple Rank Insignia was something Zeon was seeing for the first time too.

He did not know what Levin’s awakened ability was, but it was clearly extremely rare.

That was when it happened.

Levin’s body, which had been swearing revenge, suddenly became transparent and rippled like water.

His appearance was like the ghosts Zeon had only heard about in words.

CRACKLE—!

At that instant, a tremendous amount of energy burst from Levin’s ghostlike body.

The energy destroyed everything inside the house.

---

After releasing a burst of energy, Levin lost consciousness.

Then his body, which had turned transparent, returned to normal as well.

Zeon moved Levin to one side, then gathered the bodies in one place.

The fragmented corpses were truly horrific.

It was terrible enough that those with weak stomachs would not even dare touch them. But Zeon touched the bodies without much change in his expression.

He had experienced plenty of things more terrible than this.

This much could not stir Zeon at all.

After gathering the bodies together, Zeon murmured,

“May you go to a better place......”

WHOOSH!

At that instant, the pieces of the bodies were engulfed in flames.

It was a fire Zeon had created.

The flames of extreme heat burned the bodies in an instant.

If a fire of this level had broken out, the entire house should have burned. Yet the other parts remained intact.

Only the area where the bodies lay burned, as if that space alone had been carved out.

It was a sight that would have shocked flame-type mages.

Among the various forms of Magic, the hardest to control was flame-type Magic.

Because fire naturally spread through mediums, it was not easy to control it precisely.

Yet Zeon had created flames indoors while controlling them precisely enough that nothing else burned.

As if he had been born with flame-type traits from the beginning.

The flames burned only the bodies and vanished.

Zeon opened the window and let the heat out. After that, he scraped together the remaining ashes.

Although three people had been burned, the ashes that came out amounted to only two handfuls.

Zeon placed the ashes into an empty bottle.

After looking around the empty house for a moment, Zeon carried Levin on his shoulder and went outside.

The people who had gathered to watch the murder scene had all vanished.

Since it had nothing to do with them anyway, they had lost interest.

It was a sight that showed how meaningless the phrase “neighborly affection” was in this place.

Zeon took Levin back to his own house.

After laying Levin on the bed, Zeon sat on the sofa. Then he recalled the sight he had seen earlier.

Levin had released a tremendous amount of energy while in a transparent state, as if he had become a ghost.

“Ghost Transformation...... Is it an ability like a Specter’s?”

Not all monsters possessed powerful bodies.

There were forms like the Ghost Horsehair Worm Zeon had obtained not long ago, parasites that lived inside and controlled other monsters, and there were also monsters with liquid bodies that changed according to the situation, without any fixed physical form.

Slimes were representative monsters of that kind.

Specters were also one of those unusual individuals.

They floated like ghosts without substance and carried out mental attacks.

Those whose minds were not firm would be bewitched by a Specter, lose their will, or be controlled.

“And on top of that, energy release.”

If he had to classify it, it was close to electrical energy.

If so, Levin clearly possessed two traits at once.

He had heard that there were occasionally Awakened with two traits, but this was his first time seeing one with his own eyes.

Levin was certainly an Irregular like him.

Zeon did not know where Levin’s limits lay, but if he grew well, he would clearly become a tremendous force.

Levin had fallen into a deep sleep, motionless like a dead person.

He had exhausted himself because he had consumed an enormous amount of energy immediately after awakening.

Leaving Levin alone, Zeon looked out the window.

Cheap neon signs were scattering light chaotically across his vision.

---

Levin woke up no less than three days after the incident occurred.

The atmosphere around Levin after he came to his senses had changed greatly.

Hollowed cheeks, sunken eye sockets, and deeply settled eyes.

It was as if he had skipped ten years of time.

Levin sat blankly for a moment, then looked at Zeon.

“Is this your house, brother?”

“Yes.”

“It looks nice.”

“I spent some money on it.”

“I knew you looked like you had money.”

“I have enough to live on.”

“Is that, by any chance, a magic power generator?”

“That’s right.”

“Wow! I’ve only heard stories about it. This is my first time seeing one for real.”

“It’s my first time buying one too.”

“As expected of a rich brother! Let’s get along.”

Levin smiled brightly.

Zeon looked at his face for a moment, then picked up the glass bottle he had placed by the window.

“What’s that?”

“Take it.”

“......”

“It’s your family. I cremated them without asking for your permission.”

“Th-thank you.”

A crack formed in Levin’s face, which had been trying to pretend to be calm.

Levin hugged the glass bottle deeply to his chest and lowered his head.

Zeon watched Levin silently.

Zeon knew that sometimes, silently watching was better than clumsy consolation.

It was a long while later that Levin raised his head again.

He forced a smile and said,

“Thank you, brother!”

“What are you going to do now?”

“I have to go back home. If I leave it alone, other bastards will take it.”

“And?”

“I have to find him. The bastard who killed my mom and siblings.”

Levin’s voice was chillingly cold.

Revenge was his natural right.

Zeon had no intention of stopping him.

There was only one thing he wanted to advise.

“You know you awakened, right?”

“Yes!”

There was no way he would not know.

The moment one awakened, one came to know one’s ability, even if no one explained it.

Zeon had also experienced it before, so he knew better than anyone.

“You know the ability you awakened is not ordinary too, right?”

“Yes!”

“It would be better to hide it well. If you draw attention carelessly, you could suffer terribly.”

“I will.”

Levin nodded.

Zeon said nothing more.

He did not know how much Levin would accept his words, but the decision and the responsibility that followed belonged entirely to Levin.