The Saintess moaned in pain.
“But I make the rules.”
She gasped and writhed. His grip must have been suffocating. The more she struggled, the more suffocated I felt too.
Oh, no. Oh my god.
It should never have happened, but it was happening right in front of me.
“I ask questions. The only thing you have to do is answer. You don’t need to answer out loud. If I guessed correctly, you nod. Otherwise, you can shake your head. It’s simple, right?” the Fire Emperor demanded.
The Saintess desperately gasped for air.
“I’ll spare you if you cooperate. You know what? I’ll even give you the antidote as a bonus, but if you choose to turn down my generous offer… Well, you don’t need me to explain, right? I heard you’re from Oxford University. Put your smart brain to work.”
The Saintess desperately hit the Fire Emperor’s arm to escape from his grip, but it didn’t affect him one bit. After all, the Saintess was a Healer, so even though she was a renowned Hunter, it was impossible to physically overpower the Fire Emperor.
“Actually, I only have one question for you.”
The Saintess struggled harder.
“Who ordered you to kill me? Was it the witch from the Black Dragon Guild?”
The Saintess’s resistance immediately stopped.
“Think carefully before you answer. I may not have Impervious Body , but I do have a lie-detecting Skill. I’ll cremate you right here if I catch you trying any fuckery with me.”
It seemed the Saintess hesitated a bit. The alley was dark, so I couldn’t get a good look at her face—still, I could tell she went quiet before she slowly nodded to the Fire Emperor.
“I knew it.” The Fire Emperor chuckled. “Goodbye, Isabel the Saintess.”
The fire he started reached the Saintess’s neck first. She desperately thrashed as she was slowly engulfed by the fire, but the Fire Emperor didn’t even budge. He watched the Saintess burn with an expressionless face.
“Hmm…” The Fire Emperor was nonchalant even in the blazing fire.
It eventually devoured the entire end of the alley, but he never let go of the Saintess. She clawed at his arm, but in the end, she gave up and reached for the night sky…
Her arms soon drooped, and she no longer moved.
The fuck…! I shut my eyes.
A hero died right in front of me. Perhaps that wasn’t an accurate description: Yes, the Saintess was murdered by another hero of the people, the Fire Emperor.
He’s insane.
The Saintess was already a lump of charcoal now, but the fire didn’t die out because the Fire Emperor chose not to let it. He burned her flesh and bones until they turned into a pile of ashes, and yet he never even batted an eye.
He’s not in his right mind. I stumbled backward. I should run away right now.
And then I made the third and last mistake of the day.
Crack.
It was very faint. It wasn’t even from a can. I stepped on a glass fragment. Maybe it was from someone’s soju bottle or it got carried here by a breeze… I didn’t know why it was there.
“...Hmm.” The Fire Emperor turned his head.
Although I didn’t have to know why the glass fragment was here, there were two facts that I couldn’t ignore: I had just made a foolish mistake, and the Fire Emperor was a predator who would never miss someone else’s mistake.
“I thought I dealt with all the rats nearby, but I must have missed one.”
The moment I met the Fire Emperor’s eyes, I squealed and ran away without looking back. His eyes belonged to a killer. He was a devil who had killed dozens of people at least, and today he was going to kill me.
“Ha.” The Fire Emperor sneered. “It’s cute that you think you can run away from me, you shit.”
I felt a burning sensation near my ankles and immediately went rolling across the ground. At first, I didn’t get why I fell down—then I saw both my feet still flat on the ground. I gasped. My feet were severed with my sneakers still on. The famous logo on the side of my sneakers looked unusually white today.
“P-please don’t kill me! Spare me, please!”
“Then you shouldn’t have run away in the first place. You scared me for a moment there.” The Fire Emperor bent over to pick up my foot and tossed it up and down like a baseball. “Hey, did you see it?”
“I-I didn’t see anything!”
The Fire Emperor approached me. “What did you not see?”
“I don’t know anything! P-please, I don’t know any—”
“What do you not know?”
“Please… Mr. Fire Emperor. Please…spare me. I won’t say anything. I won’t say anything to anyone…”
A shadow was cast over my head as the Fire Emperor crouched over me. “Wow, so you saw me and know I’m the Fire Emperor. You saw pretty much everything.”
“Please…”
“Bro, you’re making me upset. You know everything, so why would you keep bullshitting me?” The Fire Emperor turned my foot this way and that. “Tell me. Who sent you? Is it the Black Dragon again?”
“I… I really don’t know anything… I know nothing….”
“Yet you were quietly watching me and the Saintess from there like a rat. That sounds so trustworthy, doesn’t it? I would have bought it if I was an idiot .” The Fire Emperor grinned crookedly. “But I’m not, you dipshit.”
Woosh!
The Fire Emperor started another fire on the famous logo on my sneakers. Before long, the sneakers I had worn for a long time disappeared. I had been with my feet longer, but they were now gone too.
“Next will be your head, so answer me.”
My head went blank. This devil… was crazy. There was no talking to a psycho, and he was one. Everything inside his head was the absolute truth, so he was supposed to be always right. In truth, he was just a psychopath who would kill an innocent without hesitation.
The Fire Emperor was the Rank 1 Hunter, so how could he—no, how could a human do that? Had I been fanboying for a psycho? I used to think that he was a hero and I liked him for his candor and straightforwardness. That was what other people thought too—but he was just a lunatic.
“L-lie…”
“What?”
“Lie-detecting Skill… You said you have a lie-detecting Skill,” I desperately blurted. “You told the Saintess to think carefully before she answers because you can tell if she’s lying. Use the Skill on me, and you’ll know I’m not lying. Mr. Fire Emperor, i-it really was a coincidence. Please believe me!”
The Fire Emperor’s expression subtly changed.
“I was lying.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Translator's Thoughts