Chapter 288: Treason If We Fail, Revolution If We Succeed (2)

Even on a battlefield, night fell.

“Ugh...”

Rajis, who had been knocked unconscious after picking a fight with Keter, finally woke up. He tried to stand up right away, but his body didn’t respond the way he wanted.

As his senses returned belatedly, the first thing he felt was the cold. It was winter, so feeling chilly was only natural, but that wasn’t the case for Superhumans. Once one reached that level, one hardly felt heat or cold anymore.

Growl...

Rajis heard an odd sound from his stomach, but he just dismissed it as one of the aftereffects of being beaten up by Keter. After all, he had never experienced hunger in his life. As a child, he’d enjoyed abundant meals, and after becoming Superhuman, he could easily go a week without eating.

However, his biology was honest. As hunger set in, his sense of smell sharpened, and soon an appetizing aroma tickled his nose.

What... is this smell? It’s savory like corn, but there’s a faint sweetness too.

Rajis, who was born into a master family and had tried almost every food in the world, was confused by this unfamiliar scent and by the emptiness in his stomach.

“Hey, that guy’s awake. Go bring him over.”

He heard Keter’s voice. Heavy footsteps approached, and then he was suddenly lifted into the air.

“Jordic?”

Supporting him, Jordic brought Rajis over to a warm campfire. Everyone was gathered there: Keter, Jordic, Tesla, and Zion, but one person was missing.

With his senses mostly restored, Rajis looked around.

“Where is Sir Gargan?” he asked.

Jordic pointed up at the sky. Rajis turned to look at Keter. He had clearly been gravely injured earlier, yet now he looked completely healed, as if it had happened in the blink of an eye.

“How long has it been? A week?”

“What do you mean? It’s only been about three hours.”

“That can’t be right... Those wounds... They weren’t something that could heal in just three hours.”

“What, do you think elixirs are just for show?”

“But when elixirs are used, they leave distinct traces on the skin, don’t they?”

Rajis held out his own wrist. The skin that had been healed by an elixir was flawlessly smooth—so smooth it looked like his fingers might slip if he touched it.

“Keter... are you really human?”

With an irritated expression, Keter held out a bowl. Inside it was a hearty soup, filled with generous chunks of ingredients. Rajis was being very serious right now. There was no reason he should be distracted by mere food, but...

Growl

...

His biology didn’t lie. His nose eagerly inhaled the scent of the soup, and his eyes—rather than looking at Keter—were fixed on the bowl.

“...What did you do to me?”

Rajis was convinced Keter had done something to him. Otherwise, how could he be so fixated on food of all things?

In response, Keter gave a simple, concise explanation.

“I made you human again.”

“...!”

“You’re not going to eat that?” Zion said cautiously.

Rajis flinched. Zion’s eyes looked almost desperate. Looking closer, he saw that Zion was holding a bowl identical to his, except it was completely clean, as if brand new. Sensing something was off, Rajis glanced around. It wasn’t just Zion watching him. Jordic and Tesla were staring intently as well—not at him, but at the soup in his bowl.

What the hell is in this soup for them to look at it like that?

Rajis couldn’t understand why the three of them wanted the soup so badly, especially since there was a whole pot of it right in front of them.

Reading his confusion, Zion explained, “Sir Keter said no one is allowed to touch it unless he personally gives it to them.”

“Ah...”

“Since I’ve explained it to you, Sir Rajis, that soup should be given to me...”

“Wait a moment. I was the one who brought Rajis here.”

“I’m the one who gathered the firewood!”

Jordic and Tesla, having apparently abandoned all dignity, began snarling at each other over the right to the soup. Seeing this, Rajis felt even less able to give it away.

Just what is this soup?

There wasn’t even a spoon. If he wanted to eat, he’d have to put his mouth directly to the bowl and drink it, and that was a disgrace for a noble. He wasn’t a beggar, so why would he put his mouth to a bowl?

But if he didn’t, he couldn’t eat at all. In the end, Rajis brought the bowl to his lips and drank.

Slurp.

“...!”

Rajis’ eyes grew wide. Starting from his tongue, a rich, nutty flavor spread through his entire mouth. The warmth flowed down his throat, passed through his stomach, and he could feel it spreading throughout his entire body in real time.

It wasn’t an especially complex taste, just the natural nuttiness of nuts melted into the soup. With nothing more than a gentle warmth and just the right amount of salt, it somehow tasted better than any lavish delicacy.

“Huh?!”

Rajis was startled. He thought he’d only taken a sip, but when he came to his senses, the bowl was empty. A wave of regret washed over him, but at the same time, vitality surged through his body. He ate regularly, of course, but never before had his condition improved so dramatically the instant he finished eating.

“Sir Keter. Just what is this food, and what did you do to it?”

“Good, right? I put in pine nuts, mashed potatoes, water, and rock salt, and simmered it slowly. It was a special dish I ate on my birthday when I was young.”

“This kind of food on your birthday... Oh!”

Because Keter was so overwhelmingly strong, Rajis and the others had forgotten something important: Keter wasn’t born into nobility but was a commoner—no, worse, a vagrant from the lawless city of Absinthe.

Rajis suddenly found himself imagining Keter growing up in that place.

“Keter. Were you strong from the beginning? Or did you become strong?”

“That’s a good question for a night like this. I used to think it was the latter, but now I think it’s both.”

Clack.

Keter ladled more soup into Rajis’ bowl, filling it to the brim. The other three looked at him with envy.

“I was stupid and weak back then, too. I got tricked, lied to, and betrayed by people I trusted. There wasn’t a day I didn’t have bruises from getting beaten. I thought my life was complete shit. Being abandoned in that godforsaken Lawless City was bad enough, but having no special talent on top of that—it was miserable.”

“...”

The four of them couldn’t believe it. The Keter they knew had defeated six Grandmasters and even brought down a Prime. It was unthinkable that such a strong man had endured such a brutal childhood.

The strong people they knew were born with superior bloodlines, drank rare elixirs like water, had great teachers, and were even blessed with extraordinary talent.

But Keter hadn’t grown up like that. He spoke of surviving in a harsh, barren environment, constantly facing death.

“At first, I lived solely for revenge—revenge against the parents who abandoned me, which was the only thing that kept me going. I ate mud cookies, drank rainwater, hid in filth to escape pursuers. If it meant surviving, I’d do anything and learn anything. No one wanted to teach skills to someone as lowly as me, so I made everyone my teacher. I learned how to use strength from ants, how to jump from frogs, and how to fight by watching dust scatter in the wind.”

Crackle.

The campfire crumbled softly. By now, the four of them weren’t even breathing. They were imagining Keter—cowardly Keter, beaten Keter, weeping Keter, Keter swearing revenge...

“Anyway, I don’t think I survived because I was exceptional. I just had more survivability than most. But survivability alone only makes you persistent—it doesn’t make you strong. So I learned weapon techniques. I started with the sword, then the sickle, axe, hammer, spear... there’s no weapon I haven’t used. And in the end, the one I chose was...”

Snap!

From his fingertips, Keter formed an Aura Arrow and spun it lazily.

“They say a sword takes ten thousand days to learn, a thousand for a spear, and one hundred for a dagger, but I think something is missing here. Why isn’t there one for archery, one that requires endless learning?”

Rajis and Tesla, members of the Masters of Swordsmanship, frowned, but they couldn’t refute him. After all, they had been defeated by the very archery they’d looked down on.

𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

“Archery is incomplete, and because it’s incomplete, its potential is infinite. That’s one of the many reasons you can’t beat me.”

Whoosh!

The Aura Arrow flared like flame and vanished. As Keter finished speaking, the four of them felt unsettled.

Why are we listening to this story here?

The answer wasn’t hard: somehow, it just happened. Keter had spared them, and as they read the room, things had simply turned out this way.

What happens next?

The anxiety of being at the mercy of someone stronger, unsure of what the future held, was unfamiliar to them. And Keter was enjoying their confusion.

Letting the strong experience how the weak feel... that’s pretty entertaining too.

Keter found it amusing to see the direct descendants of master families—those praised as geniuses since childhood and revered as Superhumans—reduced to helplessness.

At that moment, Keter sensed a presence and turned around. There was nothing there, but that only made him smile.

Standing up, Keter said to the four of them, “I’ve got something to take care of. You guys hang out here.”

Whoosh!

Without waiting for a reply, Keter vanished straight into the darkness of the forest.

* * *

Crackle, crackle.

“...”

Without Keter, the four men sat around the campfire, exchanging awkward looks.

“Sir Rajis. How are you holding up?”

It was Zion, commander of the Order of the White Leopard, who broke the silence first. But before Rajis could answer, Tesla suddenly shot to his feet, angry.

“Come on! What are we even doing here? Keter’s gone!”

“Keep your voice down. Keter will hear you.”

“That’s exactly my point... Why are we just sitting here doing whatever Keter told us to do? Shouldn’t we get back to the main force, report what happened, and request reinforcements?”

“Sir Tesla, you’re sitting here just like the rest of us.”

Jordic sided with Zion. Tesla turned to Rajis.

“Sir Rajis. Let’s go together.”

Rajis had been sipping his soup sparingly, but he quickly set the bowl down.

“Ahem, Sir Tesla, regardless of anything else, we lost to Keter, and we owe him our lives. We would do well not to forget that.”

“That’s true, but... won’t the Bydent family be in danger while we sit here? What if when Keter said he had errands to run, he actually meant he was going to massacre our knights?”

“Keter is not that kind of man.”

“If he intended that, he would not have spared us.”

Rajis and Jordic spoke almost at the same time.

Tesla blinked, bewildered. “Are you defending Keter right now?”

“We’re not defending him; we’re stating the truth.”

“And since we’re on the subject of Keter: how is he even unharmed? I didn’t see any trace of him using an elixir,” Rajis asked partly to change the topic, partly out of genuine curiosity.

“...He said he recovered using a cultivation method called Survival of the Fittest. Apparently, as long as he survives a life-or-death crisis, he becomes stronger. He said it healed his wounds, restored his aura and mana, increased his resistance to slashes, and even sharpened his reflexes against ambushes.”

“How do you know that so well, Jordic?”

“Keter told me himself. He was bragging.”

“How could a cultivation method like that exist? Is it a Sefira technique?”

“He said he’d teach it to me if I became his student.”

“...”

Survival of the Fittest was a common cultivation technique in Liqueur, like a pebble lying on the roadside. But the four, unaware of this, fell silent.

“Did you bury the commander of the Grand Corps?”

“We buried him.”

“Any personal effects?”

“There was a ring on his left ring finger.”

“...I’ll deliver it.”

“Alright.”

Rajis collected the commander’s keepsake and let out a heavy sigh.

“...Keter has gone far.”

“I figured as much.”

“Aren’t you worried about not going back? You are the head of Bydent.”

Though they had been defeated and Jordic, the patriarch of Bydent, was now basically a prisoner, the Family War was not over. Even now, in this cold, dark night, Bydent and Sefira were likely still fighting, and Bydent was hardly in a favorable position.

“If I return now, there’s no way Keter would stay quiet,” Jordic muttered, throwing a stone into the fire.

“No, he won’t.”

“Keter is not merciful. He will only let us off the hook a couple of times. If he realizes I’m disobeying him, he’ll just kill me.”

Jordic glanced at the fresh grave of the Grand Corps commander and stared at the flames.

“Other nobles would say living like this is disgraceful, that we should die honorably in battle. But I disagree. Living is the right choice.”

“...I feel the same.” Rajis tossed a dry branch into the fire. “I was ready to die fighting, but I survived. Keter spared me. If I wanted to die, I could still do it by charging at him again or taking my own life, but I chose to live, not because I fear death.”

“Worthless death is frightening.”

Zion and Tesla said nothing, but they listened and nodded quietly.

“We never trained to die meaninglessly. We trained to survive. And maybe because of that... when I actually thought about dying, it terrified me.”

Perhaps the darkness was giving them courage, or the small campfire was making them honest, but Jordic, the head of a noble family, was openly admitting his fear. However, no one mocked him, as they all felt the same.

Rajis smiled faintly and said, “Keter turned us into boys.”

“Would you stop saying his name? The more you say it, the more it sounds like we’re friends.”

“It’s not like we’re mortal enemies.”

“...In the middle of a Family War?”

“This war wasn’t started because we wanted it.”

“...”

That was true. It was the princes who declared the Family War, not Bydent or Sefira. Neither side had truly wished for a fight to the death. Jordic suddenly felt the princes were the real culprits behind all of this.

“The soup is over-reducing,” Zion commented, breaking the awkward atmosphere.

With a sigh, Tesla picked up the ladle.

“Keter wouldn’t want this soup to go to waste.”

He filled not only his own bowl but everyone else’s as well, making them accomplices. The others didn’t seem particularly inclined to refuse either; they only cleared their throats and didn’t try to stop him.

* * *

Moonlight poured down heavily over the hill. Keter stood facing a young girl, who had two fluffy ears poking up from his head. It was Nila from the Moon Rabbit Tribe.

“I only meant to take a quick look before leaving, but you noticed me,” Nila said.

Keter stroked his chin as he looked at Nila.

“Hmm... Yeah.”

“...What is that look supposed to mean?”

“Can I touch your ears just once?”

“Hands off. For the Moon Rabbit Tribe, our ears are second only to our hearts in importance.”

“

Tsk

, acting so hard to get.”

“I received your letter.” Nila tossed Keter the note Katherine had given her.

—I’ll spare you. Let’s meet.

The letter’s content was incredibly simple: he would spare Nila, so they should meet. Originally, Keter had intended to conquer Bydent and then seek Nila out, but Nila had come to him first.

Bathed in moonlight, Nila looked both adorable and dignified.

“Tell me, then: how exactly do you intend to save me?”

“Before that, I should warn you that the Special Task Force is looking for you.”

“It wouldn’t be just them. Anyone who knows they could live a lifetime in luxury by turning me, so I cannot even trust my fellow beastfolk.”

“Then this will be even easier. I can make you completely safe, so long as you’re willing to pay the price.”

“Equivalent exchange is welcome on my end. What do you want? Knowledge? Ancient technologies? Or perhaps an artifact imbued with divine power?”

“I’d be grateful for all of that, but there’s one thing you must give me.” Keter pointed his finger at Nila. “Give me your life. Then I’ll save you.”

“...?”

Upon hearing such absurd words, Nila’s two ears drooped flat.