Chapter 338 : Side Story (8)

“…Run over by a carriage?”

Obro was bewildered.

“Mano?”

“Yes! Quickly…!”

“Where!”

But his body moved faster than his bewilderment.

Without realizing it, he shouted with all his might. Cheshih froze as if he had encountered a beast.

Obro pressed Cheshih again.

“I asked where-!!”

“…The entrance to the village, the road…!”

Bang, a roaring sound rang out.

It was because Obro had leaped up with all his strength.

Cheshih covered his ears and sank down.

A person had jumped, but it sounded like a cannon firing.

A pit was dug into the spot where he had been standing, as if it had been bombarded.

A very brief suspension.

Obro Denoebang looked down from the air.

With a single stomp, he soared above Peniteo Village.

He would fall soon, but it didn’t matter.

Obro Denoebang’s eyes scanned the road entering the village as Cheshih had said, and he discovered the fallen carriage.

Was it bitten by a snake?

One horse had collapsed, foaming at the mouth.

The other horse fell in surprise, and that was when the carriage seemed to have overturned.

Obro dropped down next to the carriage in an instant.

“Mano!”

Obro shouted as he landed.

He immediately threw the coachman aside.

Since he threw him lightly so as not to hurt him, he would be fine. He also threw the two dying horses aside carelessly.

The two horses died soon after. It was pitiable, but it couldn’t be helped.

“Mano-!!!”

“…….”

There was no answer.

Obro Denoebang realized that what was inside the carriage were wheat sacks.

Since such heavy things were packed so tightly, the horses had no choice but to be exhausted.

Spilled wheat grains.

The frame of the broken carriage.

A child was stuck in between.

She wasn’t even visible.

Obro Denoebang diagnosed the situation in a very short moment, and he had no choice but to spit out a curse.

“…Damn it!”

The carriage frame, ropes, and sacks were tangled in a very complex manner.

And Mano was stuck tight in between.

If he made even a slight mistake, her fragile life would be cut off in an instant.

“It’s twisted terribly, just terribly…!”

“Mano!”

Another shout came rushing in.

It was Ferbias.

Although he wasn’t as good as Obro Denoebang, he was a superhuman with skills comparable to an Imperial Commander of a Thousand.

Sweat dripped from his beard. Ferbias discovered Obro and asked urgently.

“Mr. Obro! How, how did this…!”

“Shut up.”

Obro gritted his teeth.

His right hand trembled.

However, he grabbed his right hand with his left and applied strength.

He craved alcohol.

But he bit his tongue.

Now was not the time to shake his hands or drink alcohol.

It was not the time to do such cripple-like things.

“…It’s distracting.”

His eyes sank into a deep blue.

Blue demonic energy seemed to shimmer, then it was sharpened more keenly than any blade in the world.

It became a single sword and was held in his hand.

Obro Denoebang’s Ars,

‘Grayish-white Nobility’.

The sword resembling a tree branch cleaved the carriage.

It cut through the ropes, the sacks, and everything that was complexly twisted and binding Mano, leaving nothing behind.

Mano became free from everything for a very brief moment.

The debris would crush her again in a moment, but Obro was there.

Obro Denoebang jumped into the debris with his bare body, hugged Mano, and sprang out.

“…Oh…!”

Ferbias let out a gasp.

Cheshih, who ran up behind him, was the same.

Obro diagnosing the situation, cutting the carriage, and saving Mano was an overly instantaneous event.

At most, the time it took to blink twice.

They laughed looking at Obro Denoebang, that miracle-like man.

However, Obro could not laugh.

The presence of the small life he held in his arms was only getting smaller.

‘…The wounds….’

Obro bit his lip.

‘…The wounds are too severe.’

Mano’s body was covered in wounds.

Even excluding bruises and the like, there were six serious wounds.

Her neck, in particular, was torn significantly. Perhaps she had been stabbed by a piece of the broken carriage.

Obro’s hands trembled before the dying child.

The eleven years he thought he had completely forgotten.

The time he had spent sitting helplessly as a cripple-like drunkard tried to pop out again.

‘…Again. Again?’

The lives he failed to save.

Millions! His responsibility that he could not possibly bear.

The people of the three cities sacrificed to his arrogance.

The screams of those who had fallen into the underworld suddenly soared and tried to bind him.

‘No!’

However, he is Obro.

He is Obro Denoebang.

‘Not again-!’

He gritted his teeth between the sparse beard growing back.

What did it matter if his mouth smelled of alcohol?

Hadn’t he already made a vow?

He calmed his breathing that was about to become rough and shook off the screams that tried to intrude.

He took out a small medicine bottle from his chest.

This bottle was full of Golden Medicine, the elixir that cures all wounds.

But the concentration was too high. Because it was meant for him to use.

He quickly put a drop of Golden Medicine into his canteen and mixed it.

Of course, it contained water, not alcohol.

He calmly tasted the diluted Golden Medicine.

This concentration would be sufficient for a child.

‘…Live, Mano….’

He carefully trickled the diluted Golden Medicine into Mano’s mouth.

Even though it was a life already extinguishing, he wanted to hope.

He didn’t forget to tilt her head so the liquid would go down easily.

‘…….’

An instant felt like an eon.

Obro listened closely.

He had already poured a sufficient amount of Golden Medicine into Mano’s mouth.

Then he just had to wait.

He waited with a very desperate heart for this small life to blaze up on its own.

‘…The breathing….’

The small breath became even smaller.

Obro’s beard trembled.

‘…The breathing stopped.’

But on the contrary, the sound of her heart was getting louder. Obro smiled.

‘It means the Golden Medicine is circulating properly.’

He was relieved only then.

The Golden Medicine also had the effect of putting a body with too severe wounds into a state of suspended animation for a while.

Mano would look dead for a moment, but literally, only for a very short moment.

‘…In thirty minutes, she’ll wake up as if nothing happened.’

Obro slowly put down Mano’s limp body.

At a glance, she really looked like a corpse.

However, Obro’s ears heard the sound of her heart and the sound of blood spinning tautly throughout her body.

‘She lived. Mano lived.’

Obro raised his body.

He felt refreshed.

‘…That’s a relief, what a relief….’

***

“Mr. Obro….”

It was a voice as shabby as a lamp flickering in the wind. Ferbias asked weakly, like a person about to die right away.

“…Why….”

The limp Mano.

Obro Denoebang who put her down and stood up.

To Ferbias and Cheshih, the series of events was not interpreted positively in the slightest.

The two men of Peniteo Village had no choice but to assume the worst situation imaginable.

Ferbias asked, his face turning pale.

“…Why isn’t Mano moving?”

“…….”

Obro did not answer.

Instead, he stared blankly at Ferbias.

‘Mano lived.’

Obro Denoebang suddenly wanted to test the man named Ferbias Caseptus for the last time.

‘But if I don’t tell you that fact, what will you do?’

Ferbias Caseptus was still looking only at Obro’s lips, his face pale.

Because he wanted to deny it even while imagining all sorts of bad things, because he couldn’t do so even though he wanted to deny it, he waited desperately only for Obro Denoebang’s next words.

‘…I’m asking what you will do, Ferbias Caseptus?’

Anyway, Mano was living life.

She would wake up in thirty minutes and scurry around asking what happened.

Because the Golden Medicine Obro Denoebang used was the highest quality among high-quality goods.

Therefore, Obro decided not to answer.

It wasn’t as if Mano would die just because he didn’t answer, and there was no reason to tell Ferbias Caseptus the whole truth.

He decided to let Ferbias misunderstand his silence.

“…Mr. Obro! Please, please just answer….”

“…….”

Obro hardened his face.

As if telling him to accept the determined fate.

“……Ah…….”

A lament.

“…Ah, ahh….”

Ferbias Caseptus collapsed in the end.

He was a man of great strength, though not as much as Obro.

Even if one didn’t know, he would juggle rocks the size of a person or run for three days and nights without eating or sleeping and not get tired.

However, now he collapsed meltingly like a chunk of ice under the scorching sun.

Thus, all his strength cut off, he stuck to the ground and began to sob.

He knelt, but he seemed unaware that he had knelt.

“…Ah, ahh, aaaaaah….”

Ferbias cried.

He looked as if he wanted to scream.

But he couldn’t dare to scream.

He looked as if he wanted to run to Mano and hug her.

But he couldn’t dare to even approach.

He looked as if he wanted to lie down and throw a fit.

But he couldn’t dare to even straighten his body properly.

He couldn’t dare to beat the ground, couldn’t dare to approach the dead child, couldn’t dare to even straighten his body once, and just cried.

He sobbed as if vomiting, choking without being able to make a loud sound.

Tears flowed incessantly from the golden eyes that once arrogantly looked down on everything from the center of the Empire.

“….…”

Cheshih cried as well.

Tears also flowed from the Horm person’s characteristically sharp eyes.

He glared at the sun.

As if this was too much, as if asking why this was happening again, yet as if he couldn’t hate Him, he cried glaring at his God.

“…Ugh, ughh, uhhh….”

“…Cry, Village Chief.”

Ferbias collapsed as if melting, but Cheshih did not collapse.

This Horm person had already experienced too much loss.

In this situation, rather than collapsing, he knew how to embrace the man who had already collapsed.

Cheshih hugged and patted the sobbing Ferbias, the enemy of his motherland and family, and cried together.

“…Yes, cry. You may cry. Just for moments like this, it is okay to cry….”

“…Ahh, Mano, Mano… pitiful, pitiful….”

Only after receiving Cheshih’s consolation could Ferbias cry a little louder.

He cried gasping, seemed a little relieved, felt great guilt at the fact that he felt relieved and made his face a dull color, and finally raised his head.

“……Ah…….”

Ferbias looked at the sky.

He raised his head for the first time toward the blue sky he had never been able to look up at properly, the sun hanging there, and perhaps someone who might be beyond it.

“…….”

Tears flowed from his golden eyes.

Ferbias Caseptus was regretting his past life.

A guilt so terrible yet inexcusable weighed down on him.

However, he could not lower his head.

Because of the pitiful child, he looked straight at the sky.

“…Please….”

Ferbias adjusted his posture.

He knelt most humbly with a body breaking down from hard labor.

With a body that seemed to have melted completely, shedding tears, slowly… very painfully… he clasped his hands.

“…Mano, please….”

He prayed with clasped hands.

“…Please have mercy on Mano, on Mano….”

He beat his chest looking at the sky without a bit of hesitation.

He wailed, tearing his clothes as if he no longer thought about what kind of person he was.

Cheshih also beat his chest beside him.

He also shouted in anger toward the sky.

He also shouted to cut it out and save the child.

They did so for a long time.

***

It was a very ridiculous sight.

There were two men; one cried toward the empty sky, and one got angry.

It had to be ridiculous like a skit, but strangely, Obro Denoebang did not feel that they were ridiculous in the slightest.

“…….”

Obro watched.

Watching Ferbias for several weeks, he saw that he had tried to clasp his hands several times.

He clearly saw the sight of him wanting to ask for forgiveness from the God who might be somewhere, following Cheshih, but failing to do so, unable to dare clasp his hands once and just trembling.

He ended up seeing such a man crying and clasping his hands before a child’s pain.

“…Stop it….”

Obro gritted his teeth.

“Mano is….”

He gestured to the limp child with his chin.

“…Her breath will return soon. She just looks dead because of the Golden Medicine’s effect.”

“…What…?”

“So right now… carry her on your back carefully and go back.”

“…Really?”

“Really.”

Ferbias stood up as soon as the words fell.

He shouted Mano, Mano! and hugged the girl.

Then, hearing the heart sound that was reviving, though very faint, he smiled brightly.

“Mr. Obro!”

What kind of smile was this?

Ferbias was smiling innocently as if the fact that Obro had deceived him, the fact that he had wailed toward the sky until just now, did not exist.

He was smiling as if he had the whole world just by the fact that Mano was still alive.

“Mano, Mano is alive! Mr. Obro…!”

“…Take her inside quickly. Wipe her body with a warm towel, and feed her food that is easy to digest.”

“Thank…!”

“Stop.”

Obro spoke coldly.

He gritted his teeth even harder.

“Today is the last. Watching is over today.”

Obro Denoebang realized that if a little more time passed, he would not be able to kill Ferbias. So it was today.

“I will kill you tonight.”

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