CHAPTER 689

[T.L: punisher87]

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"It's not that it couldn't be done, but rather that it couldn't have been."

"I think you would have sufficient strength."

"It wasn't just an expression, but Sir Chiron truly classified me as non-human. How can someone who isn't human become a knight?"

"It wouldn't have been much of a task for my father to educate you and make you into a human."

"I don't think your father is someone who would make an effort to tame anyone. Let alone a beast."

"Well, that's true. If my father hadn't directly recruited you, the Black Knights wouldn't have tried to persuade you either."

"I didn't particularly want to be Sir Chiron's subordinate. I just had a desire to reach the same level as him, and the stimulation from the Black Knights was the greatest. So, from that point on, attacking Sir Chiron and the knights became my most important routine. But it was no longer one-on-one; it became a common occurrence to be easily subdued by multiple opponents."

"Even if they didn't want to recruit you, there's no reason to force yourself on an opponent you don't want to kill. In your own words, well, since they found you cute..."

"And when I was subdued, I always had a meal together with the Black Knights at their camp. Even if I tried to escape, they would catch me and forcibly make me eat while I was bound."

"Did they really go to such lengths? Did they receive an order to have a meal together if you encountered each other?"

-If you kill me, he will kill you, what kind of bullshit is this?

-It is an order from the patriarch. To eat with you.

"So it was."

At that point, Jin fell into contemplation for a moment.

Why did Chiron give such an order? He wondered, wanting to figure it out himself rather than hearing it directly from Hedo.

"The act of sharing a meal... I think my father must have thought it was a good way to acquire humanity. And it seems that it also helped the mental state of the Black Knights. The Black Sea is a dreadful land, after all."

"I agree, 12th flagbearer. It was possible because I was a beast."

The two don't know, but at the time, Hedo played a role similar to Ozdock, who is currently part of the current expedition team.

Hedo spent quite a long time with Chiron's knights in such moments.

Eating together, sitting idly by the campfire, and then leaving. 

Sometimes they would have conversations, and sometimes the knights would advise Hedo on swordsmanship while he was eating, and sometimes Hedo would be attacked while eating and subdued.

They were becoming something like friends.

"Well, in that case, it would have been better for you to simply become a Runcandel back then. Why did you end up getting entangled in Zipfel and taking such a long detour?"

"Because it wasn't fate."

At first, if they continued like this, it seemed possible for Hedo to blend in among the Black Knights.

Hedo and the Black Knights both thought so.

But it was only for a brief period.

"I was a beast, Sir Chiron and the knights were human. But in the end, we were all becoming monsters. The desire to resemble Sir Chiron's sword gradually faded away. Madness was surpassing motivation."

While the Black Knights fought against the Black Sea, Hedo was deteriorating due to an increasingly inexplicable madness.

Chiron was the same. Genesis knight's unique demonic nature kept alienating him from others, and the gatherings they used to have for meals became less frequent.

Chiron's orders were undoubtedly helpful to those who were withering away, but they were only temporary reprieves.

"In the Black Sea, you can't survive without abandoning your humanity, and reaching genesis knight, the point where you can't control it without leaving your humanity, is the pinnacle."

The timing and the place. Hedo and Runcandel's encounter was not pleasant in any aspect.

Without anyone saying it first, from the point where they stopped having meals together, Hedo and the knights once again lifted their swords only to kill each other.

"That's how Sir Chiron, the black knights, and I grew older. Every time we met, we could see the hollow traces of the passing years on each other's faces. It felt like looking into a mirror. They must have felt the same when they looked at me."

The past that Chiron's Runcandel and Hedo had was far longer and more melancholic than what Jin had imagined.

"And I had planned to meet Sir Chiron one last time."

"...Judging from the flow of the story, it wasn't because of determination or a desire for victory."

"That's right. I had thoughts of dying. Just as I learned shame and the desire for revenge through Vanessa, at that age, I experienced emptiness for the first time. It was something that had always filled me, even though I didn't realize it."

Hedo's gaze remained fixed on the sky.

That emptiness was the cause of Hedo's madness.

"As soon as I realized it, an impulse surged that there was no reason to live anymore. The days I spent exploring swordsmanship and simply surviving meant nothing."

The knights, even as they were becoming monsters, had clear goals and dedication, so they had no reason to give up on life. But Hedo was different.

He was truly a man with nothing.

"I met Sir Chiron again and drew my sword. Until then, even if I aimed my sword at Sir Chiron, other knights dealt with me, but no one stepped forward. Instead, Sir Chiron chose Barisada. Just like when he silently cut previous challengers."

Hedo's skill at that time was barely a few steps behind what it is now.

After years of training in the Black Sea, coupled with advice from the Black Knights and frequent sparring, his achievements truly exploded from that point onwards.

However, the fight didn't even take place at all. Chiron, the insurmountable wall even now, had already been completed back then.

"When I came to my senses after being engrossed in the fight, Sir Chiron was looking down at me, who had fallen. 'Kill me,' I said, what do you think Sir Chiron would have said to me?"

"Hmm...."

Jin imagined Chiron's thoughts again.

Unable to think of anything, he simply provided the response he would have given in the same situation.

"He would have asked why you didn't have any intention of leaving the Black Sea."

Hedo's eyes widened.

"Indeed... as expected of his son."

-Why do you still remain in the Black Sea?

"Now that I think about it, it was a question I had never heard despite fighting for such a long time. The Black Knights never said such things to me. It was like not asking a wild animal why it lives here."

In other words, it meant that only then did Chiron try to see Hedo as a human rather than a beast.

-Go out and live a human life. Stop chasing after us.

"When I heard those words... I felt like I was going crazy. I'd rather die, I shouted several times. I tried to catch Sir Chiron and his knights, who were leaving suddenly, but my battered body wouldn't listen. They had things they had to do, but I didn't have anything."

Hedo remained collapsed in that spot for three days.

He couldn't move, but as usual, he hoped that monsters would attack and devour him.

However, just as beasts avoid the scent of predators, the monsters didn't even come near Hedo until he rose again, all thanks to the lingering aura of Chiron nearby.

"And then, I went out. I was expelled from the Black Sea by Sir Chiron. I didn't know the way back, but I walked aimlessly, and before I knew it, I was in the human world. I never once encountered a monster attack on that path. It felt as if they were following Sir Chiron's will."

Leaving at fifteen and returning as a middle-aged man, the human world was nothing short of hell for Hedo.

Because he had nowhere to go.

"12th flagbearer, I kept calling the Black Sea my refuge."

"Yes."

"A person cannot grow in a refuge. When I emerged back into the human world, nothing had changed from when I left the Black Sea fifteen days ago. I became a martial artist close to 10-star, but internally, I was still the same as when I killed the orphanage director."

The situation was the same as before going to the Black Sea.

The only difference was that no one dared to underestimate Hedo and recklessly attack him.

With a similar build as now, the image of a disheveled madman with a giant longsword, and a distinct sense of emptiness and gloom overflowing, there was no need for him to get entangled in the disputes of criminals.

Furthermore, except for a few instances of taking the wrong path, Hedo never sought out places with people.

He mostly wandered around mountains, seas, and uninhabited islands, lost in thought.

"Did you not think of going to the Garden of Swords?"

"Because I became a dead man. You didn't have such an experience, I suppose."

When Jin was expelled from his clan before regression, he remembered that he was just a waste man until he met Valeria.

"It could be. So... I think Zipfel would have come to you first by then. You said you had been taking care of Sandra since she was very young. That's all there is to it in terms of time."

"Yes. Suddenly, the White Night came looking for me when I was on a deserted island."

"Why did White Night look for you?"

"It seems there were some remnants of Zipfel among the unfortunate challengers I killed in the Black Sea. One of them, who survived and returned to his family, informed them of my existence. Since then, they have been waiting for me to get out of the Black Sea."

Even if it wasn't Hedo, Zipfel always planted people near the Black Sea.

That way, they could confirm the Runcandels passing through the Black Sea. 

When Hedo emerged in the human world and caught their attention, it was almost inevitable that he would be pursued.

Hedo starved for a few days but easily dealt with White Night. However, he wasn't able to handle Spectres who subsequently attacked him.

""I was imprisoned instead of being killed. I thought that if I stayed still, eventually they would stop trying to persuade me and kill me. But I was already in a state of being alive only in body, dead in spirit. So all the conditions offered by the clan were meaningless."

Of course, Zipfel didn't kill Hedo in the end. 

Losing a few white nights was nothing compared to gaining an unaffiliated superhuman.

Besides, Zipfel was already researching mind manipulation even at that time. If Hedo wasn't finally subsumed, it would be enough to use mind manipulation magic after it was developed.

Hedo didn't know about such plans, but even if he did, he wouldn't have acted differently.

"How did Sandra manage to move your heart in such a state?"

At those words, Hedo turned around, leaned against the railing, and looked beyond the restaurant at Sandra.

She was laughing even more joyfully than before, for some reason.

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