“I feel like I’m going to vomit from disgust.”
In truth, wound was not even the right word. If one had to choose an appropriate term, mutilation would have been closer.
Despite his words, the man with the snake tattoo seized the head of the person whose scalp had been completely peeled away and snarled,
“Speak, you bastard.”
The man’s single remaining eye rolled white.
“How many of your kind are there under Oscar von Reinhardt, and where are they? Huh?”
Only a scraping, metallic sound escaped from the throat that had been ruined by boiling water.
The snake-tattooed man clicked his tongue sharply. He tapped the exposed skull mockingly with his fingertips, then turned his gaze to another wolf slumped nearby.
There was no need to argue over who was more mutilated. If one had to choose, it was this one.
His body sagged, twitching intermittently, as though on the verge of death.
The subordinate who had carried out the torture nodded, indicating the man was close to the end.
The snake-tattooed man licked his lips and crooked a finger. The subordinate who had opened the iron door hurried over and bowed his head. The man stroked his hair as though petting a dog, a gesture steeped in ridicule.
“Bring the dogs.”
“You mean the hunting dogs?”
“Yes. Once they’ve tasted human flesh, they won’t eat anything else.”
“Should I release them immediately, or—ugh!”
The snake-tattooed man suddenly clenched the hair in his fist.
He leaned in close, his face nearly touching the subordinate’s twisted expression, and whispered,
“You need the Chairman’s permission. If something goes wrong after feeding them without authorization, can you take responsibility?”
“Yes!”
“Then be smart. Be smart.”
Releasing his grip, the snake-tattooed man turned and left the torture chamber.
—
Outside the torture chamber, an astonishingly opulent corridor stretched on.
Marble—once a luxury reserved for nobles half a century ago—covered the floor. Paintings depicting famous mythological scenes adorned the walls. A chandelier made of natural crystal hung overhead, and porcelain vases imported from the East were lined neatly along the passage.
The man with the snake tattoo was the deputy leader of the Beta Mercenary Group. When he spoke of the Chairman, he meant the group’s leader.
“Where is the Chairman?”
“He has not come out since entering his office.”
He crossed the corridor at an unhurried pace, smiling faintly.
The sensation of stepping on marble was always pleasant. Nobles had loved marble for a reason.
The world was changing.
This was an era in which a wealthy commoner outranked a destitute noble. The day money finally overpowered status had arrived.
This job, according to reports, had been ordered directly by the King of Luxen. If he handled it well and earned the King’s trust, would that not amount to becoming a new noble?
In keeping with the times, they planned to abandon the vulgar name Beta Mercenary Group and relaunch as Beta Group next month.
Either way, this matter had to be resolved cleanly.
It was somewhat unsettling to kill members affiliated with Reinhardt. Still, according to the mercenary group’s intelligence division, the number of armed personnel within the ducal family would not exceed three hundred.
It was remarkable for a non-royal noble house to possess that many covert fighters.
But in the mercenary world, three hundred was not enough to even be called a proper force.
“Chairman!”
He pushed open a heavy wooden door.
Inside was a room decorated in a chaotic blend of tastes. The Chairman sat on a sofa facing the window, his feet visible beneath the tall backrest.
“Ah—they’re tough. Both are crippled, but they won’t open their mouths.”
“…….”
“The dogs are going wild with hunger. Shall I feed them?”
The Chairman did not respond.
“I’m sorry, Chairman. But what else can I do if they won’t talk? You said it would be fine if they died.”
“…….”
“…Chairman?”
The silence thickened into something ominous.
In an instant, the Chairman’s previously relaxed demeanor vanished—as though flipped by a palm. The deputy leader surged forward.
“……!”
There was no need to call him again.
A pale blue knife was embedded squarely in the Chairman’s forehead.
A cold sensation rushed down to the man’s toes.
The Chairman had been quite literally dismembered and killed. It was strange that the amount of blood spilled was small compared to the extent of the dismemberment, but that was not what mattered.
“Aaaargh!”
The moment a death scream rang out from somewhere, the man yanked the knife from the Chairman’s forehead and burst out of the office.
“You sons of bitches!”
At his enraged roar, mercenaries poured out from all directions.
But the Chairman’s death—and that scream—were only the beginning.
The clash of metal, shrieks, and rupturing flesh descended like a torrential rain, sweeping everything away and engulfing the Beta Mercenary Group’s main base.
—
A hill overgrown with dry, tangled grass.
“We’ve received word from the search party.”
Simon reported to Oscar, who stood gazing down at the mercenary group’s main base.
“We located the leader of the mercenary group, but he was already dead.”
Oscar’s dry laughter drifted through the air like a barren wind. Simon licked his lips and delivered the next report.
“We have also secured the locations of Intelligence Team 3-2’s leader and deputy leader.”
“Their condition?”
“They say recovery will be impossible.”
Before Simon finished speaking, Oscar began to descend the hill. The combat team surrounding him moved like silent shadows.
The wind tore roughly through his hair. Pitch-black, like a moonless night, it fell into disarray, obscuring his vision. He swept it back with a sharp motion.
In siege warfare, it was said that the attacker needed three times the defender’s numbers to stand a chance—assuming both sides possessed comparable capabilities of both sides were similar. Under normal circumstances.
Here, they did not.
As the search party that had infiltrated from within launched a surprise attack, and the combat unit stormed the main base from outside with overwhelming force, the mercenaries collapsed into chaos.
“Ughhhhhh!”
The closer they drew to the base, the heavier the air became with the stench of blood and slaughter. Simon, walking behind Oscar, glanced back once. The men who had been following like shadows immediately repositioned themselves, flanking Oscar from front and rear.
Oscar, expressionless until now, tasted something akin to arsenic the moment he stepped onto the threshold of the mercenary base. A vulgar, blood-soaked odor wafted from the garishly ornate entrance.
As he crossed the doorway thrown open before him, the search party waiting inside approached, as if they had been expecting him.
In the air saturating the base, Oscar could feel the wolves’ fury.
Following the search party, inhaling the metallic tang of slaughter and blood, they descended the stairs. Below them stretched a corridor as splendid as a wing of a royal palace.
Crystal. Marble. Porcelain vases imported from the East.
The corridor was filled with mercenaries gripping swords.
Seeing this, Simon turned instinctively toward Oscar. He was about to step back and ask for instruction, but Oscar merely swept his hair back, his expression cruel and cold. Simon silently tightened the buckle of his leather gloves.
One mercenary suddenly burst into exaggerated laughter.
“Fuck, what is this, a ball? Shirt, jacket, shoes.”
The mercenaries roared with laughter.
The wolves did not.
Their silence crushed the laughter in an instant. Where laughter vanished, silence settled like frost—and it was the mercenaries who could not endure it.
“Kill them all!”
At that moment, the stagnant standoff shattered.
“Kill!”
“Aaaargh!”
Shouts meant to smother fear rang out, rattling the fragile crystal overhead.
The wolves, with Oscar at their center, stepped forward.
And—
A one-sided slaughter began.
The wolves surged ahead of Oscar, meeting the mercenaries rushing in with pale blue swords. Fists struck with dull, wet thuds. Thwack. Bones splintered. Skulls collapsed. In the melee, the swords meant for the wolves carved instead through their owners’ throats.
Crimson blood erupted like fountains.
Clad in black suits, the wolves continued their killing with terrifying calm, and Oscar walked the path they carved.
“Dieee!”
From within the carnage, a mercenary charged forward, eyes drowning in madness and terror.
At the sight of those eyes—consumed entirely by fear—something Oscar had barely kept restrained began to stir.
The demon within him stepped forward.
—