CHAPTER 687

[T.L: punisher87]

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Night.

As the Zephyrin and other officers of Kinzelo departed, only Hedo and Sandra remained, but now they had to become comrades rather than guests. It was the safest way for Hedo to protect Sandra.

Hoo...

Thick smoke poured into the moonlit night sky.

Instead of the unique strong fragrance of Mila's finest pine cigarette, Hedo could only taste bitterness and acridness.

Hedo's back, leaning against the balcony, looked like a worried father.

"Tower Keeper."

Jin called Hedo, leaning against his side.

Hedo remained silent for a while, continuously exhaling cigarette smoke.

From behind them, the orange lights and bustling people could be heard. It was the sound of Jin's companions and Sandra chatting in the restaurant.

As Sandra often did whenever she visited Tikan, she naturally mingled with all companions except for Valeria.

Hedo hadn't seen her so excited and chattering like a cheerful idiot in Zipfel.

"What could make her so excited...?"

Still gazing at the sky, Hedo muttered to himself.

"Do you also have plenty of time to laugh and chat like that?"

"I'm not as lively as Sandra by nature. But I do enjoy spending time with friends when I have the chance."

"I see."

"Have you never seen her behave like that in Zipfel?"

"Since she was young, she has never been in a happy mood for more than a few hours. At least, when young master Veradin was fine, they sometimes hung out. Laughing and then getting angry, getting angry and then laughing. As you know, the lady acted mostly like a crazy person. Since she met you..."

Thinking of Sandra, who had covered the room with news articles, advertising flyers, and various items related to Jin, and giggled endlessly, Hedo felt a headache coming on.

"... she got a little better...… No, I'm worried about whether it's right to express it like that. It was still strange. It could have gotten even stranger. Anyway, since she met you, there have been moments like now, where she's happy without ups and downs."

"Then joining Tikan is a better thing for Sandra, isn't it?"

"If you had seen that room, those words wouldn't come out easily."

"Room?"

"Pretend you didn't hear that."

"But, Tower keeper, how about you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Have you ever laughed and talked like that?"

"No."

Hedo's quick response, as if there was no need to think about it, made Jin shrug his shoulders.

"Can a person be like that?"

"Except for the lady, I don't experience significant fluctuations in emotions in everything else. I haven't had anyone by my side except the lady, and I haven't experienced loneliness since I met her, so it's actually natural for me."

From Hedo's transcendent power, his relatively modest reputation, his past with Chiron, his relationship with Sandra, and more.

Since their first encounter in the Sota Desert, Jin had been curious about Hedo as a person.

Somehow, he had a feeling that this conversation would bring some relief to that curiosity.

"Now that I think about it, you're the first person to ask me about that since I met the lady."

"As we're becoming family, we should know each other's personalities to some extent."

"But I recall that I haven't given you a definite answer yet about becoming family."

The night breeze passed between the two and disappeared somewhere.

Jin gestured toward the bottle and glass placed beside him.

"You had prepared two glasses, so I already assumed you had decided that. Please give me a drink."

They didn't make a toast.

The two of them drank five glasses without a word.

Jin waited, and Hedo reflected on the past.

When Hedo began speaking again, Jin heard a name he never expected.

"Have you ever met Vanessa Olsen, the former Black Knight?"

"I have met her."

"I was of the same kind as that woman."

"Same kind...?"

"I was a monster from the beginning. So even if I just breathed and lived quietly, accidents were bound to happen."

During his younger days, Hedo had fought Vanessa once in the Black Sea. Jin didn't hear the detailed story, but he realized that she and most of the former Black Knights were individuals fated for tragedy.

Jin understood Hedo's words immediately.

"I became aware of that fact when I was eight years old. It started bothering me when I saw the orphanage director's daily beatings. Without thinking, I threw a punch. Bang! His wrist shattered. He was a skilled fighter, around 3-stars or so."

"Hmm."

"And then, as the director fell, he reflexively swung the sword at me. The sword barely touched me. I didn't plan to kill him, but when I deflected the sword with my hand, it broke and bounced back, piercing his throat."

"You must have been shocked at a young age."

"I didn't think much of it."

"Because he was a worthless person?"

"In retrospect, he was that kind of person, but at the time, I truly didn't think anything of it. Ah, it's getting tiresome. That was the extent of my thoughts. I didn't even realize that killing was a wrong thing to do. It continued like that for a long time."

Accident and fleeing.

Until he turned fourteen, Hedo's life revolved around that.

He unintentionally caused accidents at first, and later, he dealt with bothersome people without a care, moving from place to place.

"It's strange how those people who seemed like they would die if I touched them always picked fights. Maybe it was because of my unusually sturdy build and my unyielding attitude at the time."

Jin listened to his story with great interest, sipping his drink.

"If you had stopped, you would have been wanted."

"I was too busy struggling at the bottom, so I didn't have much opportunity to harm powerful figures or famous individuals. I was too young at the time, so naturally, I avoided suspicion. On the contrary, there were occasions when I completely annihilated a few bands of thieves and they came looking for me, offering rewards."

"Did you go to them?"

"They came to me. I was thinking of leaving for somewhere else because I thought it would be troublesome, but they somehow found their way to the old house where I was staying. They told me to come down, but I refused, and a fight broke out."

"How old were you then?"

"Twelve or thirteen, I think. I'm not sure. The force he brought with him was around fifty..."

"Are you saying that all of them attacked a 12 or 13 years old kid?"

"Since I have a large frame, I must have looked more than that on the surface."

"Still, you must have felt resentment. Even if it was an order, there must have been some hesitation to attack a young person like you."

"What surprised me more was that they stood against me like demons, even when the first subordinate who rushed at me had his neck twisted and died."

"It's not surprising, but it's unbelievably ruthless."

"There are even more ruthless things in the world. Anyway, among them, there was one person who could be called a trained knight. Seeing my power, the lord's subordinates trusted him and fought alongside him."

Young Hedo said that it was during that encounter that he felt attracted to the concept of a "sword" for the first time.

"You've probably felt that way too. The feeling of those who gathered, full of confidence that they would kill me, but they looked so insignificant like jackals... I swiftly killed the lord and all of his subordinates, and then it was just him and me facing each other."

He was the best knight in the territory at the time, but objectively, he was at an average level. A person near the age of forty who couldn't break through the five stars. In his eyes, young Hedo was not a human being, but a monster or demon.

"There was blood and corpses everywhere nearby, and I was in a state where I narrowly escaped death multiple times. But at that moment, it wasn't fear or terror that filled my mind; it was the desire to learn swordsmanship from him. So I asked him to teach me, and he made a really strange expression."

"No wonder."

"And then suddenly, he prepared himself and started thinking that he had to kill me right here. He said that if he didn't, the village and the territory would be destroyed."

Naturally, Hedo couldn't understand his actions, but now, in his older age, he understood.

"He was prepared for the greater good. If it were now, I probably would have spared him, but at that time, I didn't have that luxury. He was stronger than me, but he was human."

If the knight had defeated Hedo at that time, he wouldn't be standing here.

Jin is a human being, and Hedo's face looked bitter for some reason as he spoke.

"When I killed him, I felt a sense of guilt for the first time. Somehow, I felt that he shouldn't have died like that."

Hedo looked down at the cigarette grasped in his left hand for a moment as he remembered him.

Among the belongings of the knight, there was a cigarette. 

He didn't remember the knight's face very well.

After that, Hedo took his sword and belongings and fled to another territory.

But wherever he went, similar incidents repeated, and Hedo rapidly grew stronger like a madman after obtaining the sword.

As he practiced alone, recalling the movements of the knight he had killed, he began to create his own swordsmanship.

And when the pursuers started catching up again, Hedo realized.

He was a person who couldn't blend into ordinary society.

So, he chose the Black Sea as his refuge.

"I entered the Black Sea alone when I was fifteen."

"Did you never think of asking for help? Going to a knight, for example."

"Do you think I was in a state where I could think rationally?"

Hedo had never received proper education, and his innate body and mind were too different from ordinary people.

He had never learned to solve problems through means other than violence.

If someone had taught him, he would have tried to find a knight or someone who could guide him.

But having realized it on his own, he simply wanted to go to a place where there were no people.

"They say the Black Sea is filled with monsters and devoid of humans, so it seemed like the perfect place to train with my sword. And in reality, the Black Sea was the perfect refuge for me. No matter how many demons I killed, it didn't pose a problem, and every time I defeated them, I became stronger."

"So, could it be... that your reputation didn't spread because you stayed in the Black Sea all this time?"

"Just as Vanessa Olsen became Sir Chiron's knight too early to become known, the same goes for me. I haven't counted precisely, but... I have been in the Black Sea for over twenty years."

Jin was momentarily speechless. He wasn't the type to tell lies.

A person who entered the Black Sea alone at fifteen and lived there for over twenty years... Even if it was possible, considering his harsh past...

"It was also the Black Sea where I met your father, Sir Chiron."

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