No Dark Secrets In This Book

Episode 53

“Are you going to say it’s only a duel if someone dies?”

“What a thing to say. That’s the reality. If you dig into the history of the concept of duels, it was the law that one of the two had to die for it to end. Recently, the concept has been diluted and it’s being treated as an all-purpose buzzword to pretend to be serious, though.”

He smiled, saying he wondered why he was acting like a curator. Ryuseong also knew the history of the concept. But that’s not what he meant to say.

Before Ryuseong could continue what he was saying.

Cassice Demillang started analyzing the previous battle with an seemingly innocent face.

“Perhaps, if Capone hadn’t been impatient, she would have won.”

“Why do you think so?”

When a calm counter-question came back, Cassice Demillang raised the corners of his mouth as always.

“If she had thought to meanly and miserably run away, dragging out the game instead of trying to end it in one blow, she might have been able to easily win by provoking the hot-tempered Hae Yuna. To think a mage doesn’t know how to act like a weakling, was she intoxicated by the hammer and thought she was a tank? She killed her strengths and kept her weaknesses alive. Foolishly.”

His attitude in evaluating his subordinate was businesslike.

But since it was closer to indifference than ruthlessness, he looked like a human looking at an object rather than a master coldly treating his servant.

As if he didn’t consider people as equal beings.

As the world says, does he truly treat all his subordinates like chess pieces?

But suddenly, as the masked assassins flashed through his mind, at the end of his realization, Ryuseong discovered himself softly judging that there might have been reasons Cassice Demillang had to be that way too.

Because something makes you miserable, you became vicious.

If I dare say I want to know what made you like that, you would scoff, but.

“As for Hae Yuna, well… I don’t think she necessarily had to get hurt herself, but she was great… However, that soft mindset needs to be fixed somehow to be useful. Her fair play spirit overflowed to the point it’s embarrassing to call it a duel. My god, when did the sanctity of duels fall so low?”

Nevertheless, I wanted to ask.

“Are you… not afraid of death?”

Cassice, who had been rambling on criticism as if it were a battle analysis assignment, stopped his lips.

“What an absurd thing to say. Where did that suddenly come from…”

“Have you never felt terror at its weight?”

“…”

Cassice Demillang frowned as if perplexed, but it wasn’t a sudden question. It was a question that had been endlessly echoing within Ryuseong since the assassination attempt.

Cassice Demillang is accustomed to death. He is skilled at having his life targeted by someone. And even at driving someone to ruin.

Then Cassice Demillang must have been aware of the weight of death.

‘Like I am.’

Ryuseong was afraid that Cassice Demillang knew the weight of death and had indifferently cast it aside. Because the weight of death could only be the weight of life in the end, and Ryuseong chose the troublesome life of not destroying people at least because he didn’t have the courage to embrace that weight.

He was afraid he had thrown it away like dust.

That Cassice Demillang had already become a human who considered life less than specks of dust.

‘I’m not condemning murder.’

Ryuseong at least didn’t often face the danger of being killed by people. Therefore, he thought he shouldn’t make value judgments about the killing Cassice Demillang commits as self-defense, having faced assassination attempts by people countless times.

But his recognition of the weight of the act was a separate concept.

People must not be unafraid of death. People must not fail to revere life. People should live to live, not live to die.

But Cassice Demillang, as if he had never heard such a question before…

Was making a strange expression.

“Afraid of death? Isn’t that something only cowards say? Isn’t crossing the line between life and death supposed to be our future profession? I’m not afraid.”

“Even of you dying?”

“Was it that much of a shock that I killed the assassins? If they try to kill me, they should be prepared to die by my hand too.”

“I know.”

“Then that means when I try to kill someone, I too must be prepared to die. So if I must answer, yes, if the moment comes when I must die, I will gladly die. If all the schemes I prepared to live are shattered, wouldn’t that mean the day has come for me to die?”

Cassice thought this is how Cassice Demillang would have answered. Of course, Jeong Eui-an’s self was saying something completely different.

‘…Can’t you just not die? Do you have to say such scary things…?’

While Cassice Demillang, whose outside and inside differed, and Ryuseong were silently measuring each other endlessly.

“So is it my turn now? I’m excited to go up against a cute girl.”

“Wow. Please take care of me, cute boy.”

“…”

[Diedrich VS Shin Myohan]

The second battle began between the sly man and the woman who didn’t lose to him in that aspect at all.

Unlike Shin Myohan, who is a steadfast shaman and warrior, Diedrich is a triangular human with the identity of a warrior, mage, and (fake) shaman, if we must classify. The reason Shin Myohan is also a warrior is because the god she serves is a war god, but the reason Diedrich is triangular is simply because he gets bored easily.

Since he was young, he learned various weapons like spears, fists, swords, maces, scythes, etc. and got bored of them.

Then what he finally settled on was the bow, and the reason was because he liked hiding quietly in the back and being called a hidden hero just by hitting a few shots. Of course, that’s something that only happens in movies, and real archers were different, but anyway, when he was young, he believed that could happen.

The reason he learned magic quite deeply was because he was too lazy to build muscle.

He researched whether it was possible to permanently enhance physical strength other than temporarily enhancing the body to increase strength, but he got scared and gave up research when he was told to come to grad school for a cell division-related thesis, but well, until then, he was sincerely looking into all sorts of tricks because he hated building muscle.

The reason he has a partial shaman identity is also because he made a contract with the wind spirit sealed in his family’s artifact, which was also the result of him trying to shoot arrows more easily and failing.

So Diedrich became a jack-of-all-trades who built muscle, handled multiple weapons, learned magic, and even contracted a spirit. By the way, unlike games, in reality, the more abilities one person has, the more advantageous it is.

Like in the current battle.

– Ding-a-ling!

How many exchanges have they made? Each time she swung her sword, the three bells attached to the end clashed sharply. The blade advanced forward, slicing through all the arrows, but due to the blind spot created by the flying arrows, the wind spirit jumped out and grabbed Shin Myohan’s ankle.

By the time she regained her balance and sliced the spirit with her sword, Diedrich’s instep, which had already performed a fancy high kick, was aiming for Shin Myohan’s throat.

Diedrich, who stopped right before the impact, frowned and smiled.

“Haha. Since we don’t have much conflict, I think it’d be good to stop here.”

“Yeah, I think so too. I lost.”

With that, the outcome was decided. Diedrich lowered his foot and Shin Myohan put away her sword in her dimensional storage.

Diedrich tried to give himself cheers for lightly ending the fight without even breaking a sweat and finishing it gentlemanly, but after seeing the talisman fly out of Shin Myohan’s bosom and burn in midair, his complexion changed.

“This is…?”

“Since I’m not using it now, it’s better to burn what’s already activated.”

“…”

Hmm, I wonder what effect that talisman had? From what I glimpsed for a moment, it seemed to contain dreadful Chinese characters like curses and whatnot…

Come to think of it, making enemies with a shaman is indeed an unpleasant thing. Diedrich decided to give himself cheers for his social skills in quickly ending the situation before the talisman was used, not to mention other things.

Now there’s only one fight left.

“I paid back what you messed up, Capone. Aren’t you grateful?”

“Just shut up and die. Stick your nose in dishwater. Suffocate with your mouth covered by a pillow and die.”

When Diedrich ridiculed Capone with a snicker, Capone growled like a wounded beast. Logan elegantly rose, not caring what they were fighting about.

“Come out, prince of the ruined nation.”

Drawing the hellish aggro with a single line.

Diedrich and Capone stopped fighting and fixed their gazes forward. Hae Yuna jumped up furiously and Shin Myohan lowered her eyebrows. Since all the Korean members who knew Esteban was the leader in trying to divide and conquer the fallen Korean peninsula did so, it was natural that Ryuseong couldn’t remain still. He clenched his fists as if gritting his teeth, and then.

‘Logan, you crazy bastard?’

Others may not know, but even Cassice Demillang’s soul was shedding tears of blood. He wanted to give him the middle finger with all his heart, but he was about to resent not being able to do so. But in fact, Lee Hyang answered indifferently.

“That’s right. Unlike some who left the class system half-assed, democracy won in the proud Korea. Right?”

Contrary to his sound answer, Lee Hyang took out a smoking pipe, lit it with his fingertips, took a deep drag, and puffed out a donut shape.

And then he said this.

“But you need to handle that pretty mouth of yours. If you’re dying to bite off everything that’s not your master, you should get training to be socialized. Fuck, what kind of home education did you receive to be spouting that bullshit?”

Suddenly, Cassice Demillang became curious about this.

Between the ruined nation joke and motherf*cker joke, which one is stronger?