Because I Am Surtr

Surtr didn't really feel like answering that question.

"Let's get back to the point, Persephone. You've strayed too far from the topic."

However, a light chuckle came from the other end of the communicator.

"Interesting, was I not clear enough? Surtr."

"Your subconscious is telling you that there are still omissions on that list."

Miss Surtr shifted her gaze, noticing that the observatory was not far from her. From within the building, which was filled with a scientific research atmosphere, came the faint sounds of fighting and explosions. Her dynamic vision caught sight of a window, and she saw the movements of a swordsman dressed in red and black.

So that's how it is.

There was indeed one person missing from the list.

The girl stuck out her tongue and hit her own head. Although she never bothered to train operators who were given away as event rewards, and wasn't particularly interested in them, since they were also members of Rhodes Island, she couldn't pretend they didn't exist.

—Yan Ke.

………………………………

4000 words done. I have errands to run this afternoon, so I'll just do two chapters today (:з」∠)

Chapter 38: Onboarding Assessment

Yan Ke.

Yan Ke's name was Yan Ke.

For the Sarkaz, there wasn't much difference between a name and a codename. This was because, in the eyes of most Sarkaz, there was little distinction between people and objects.

Objects could acquire many names for convenience.

People could also have many aliases for convenience.

On this land called Terra, the Sarkaz were a special race—they embraced Originium, rather than fearing or rejecting it. They were out of sync with the world, yet they didn't care about the malice and hostility the entire world threw at them—the origin of this philosophy was unknown. But this ideology had long been deeply rooted in the race's bloodline, passed down through generations of Sarkaz.

In the eyes of the Sarkaz, human lives were equivalent to the lifespan of an object, and they rarely believed their philosophy to be flawed.

Therefore, Sarkaz mercenaries were always different.

They disregarded life, whether it was their enemy's, their companion's, or their own.

They craved war, whether it was against enemies, friends, or themselves.

Yan Ke was a qualified Sarkaz, and also a qualified Sarkaz mercenary. Compared to these two identities that determined his essence, his top-tier swordsmanship was secondary.

Yes, insignificant.

For several years since the end of the Sarkaz civil war, the swordsman, who once roamed the battlefield of that internal conflict, had been frequently bound by a recurring dream—he returned to that battlefield, to those ruins, more than once. Then, facing enemies surging from all directions, facing betrayal from superiors, facing hunger and thirst, facing depleted ammunition, facing... that glance from the Queen of the Underworld that occasionally appeared from the mists of war.

He once had a team, had brothers and sisters, had comrades he could trust with his life.

However, all of that vanished with his opposition to Sarkaz Babel Tower—it was just a piece of intelligence, a transfer order, an ordinary escort mission. The evil spirits of Babel Tower used a simple train dilemma to force his superiors to turn on him and his team—it took him half a year to deduce the full picture of that battle from scraps of paper and the words of the dead. Only then did he learn that the role his team played in that battle was utterly insignificant.

The Queen of the Underworld's carriage crushing Theresis's legion was no more difficult than harvesting ripe wheat with a sickle. And Yan Ke and his comrades were merely unremarkable stalks in the wheat field.

He didn't hate the evil spirits of Babel Tower—why should a pawn hate the player? The Sarkaz morality did not allow him to easily immerse himself in simple emotions like 'revenge'. After all, human lives were just numbers, and the number represented by the evil spirits of Babel Tower was far greater than the sum of his and his companions' lives.

He was merely curious.

If, back then, he and his small team had joined the side of Babel Tower, would the number he held now be far more substantial than it was?

He joined the Reunion Movement with this thought in mind.

He abandoned the Reunion Movement with this thought in mind when the Dusk Fire appeared.

He had a conjecture, and this conjecture was gradually confirmed when he saw a familiar face in Chernobog. And when the armband of Rhodes Island Pharmaceuticals, which looked very similar to that of Babel Tower, appeared in his sight, he acted involuntarily.

The memories and laments ended there. When he recovered from his wistful contemplation of the past, he found his long sword already at the collar of the Lupo Cataclysm messenger belonging to Rhodes Island Pharmaceuticals.

He regretted it a little. This wasn't what he was supposed to do. And attacking a messenger on the eve of a Cataclysm was clearly not rational.

However...

He turned his head, and at the edge of his vision, he saw an entire sturdy protective wall being torn off, along with its steel bars and carbon framework, by a slender hand, as if tearing apart bread. He saw the writhing flames, the humanoid silhouette surrounded by crimson.

Ah... the guess was indeed correct. The ultimate 'power' once held by Babel Tower. It was indeed the greatest nightmare currently shrouding the entire land of Terra.

So he swung his sword and knocked the messenger unconscious.

Then, he raised his long blade.

……………………………………

Miss Surtr felt a bit confused.

She couldn't quite understand why her own operators and those who were about to become her operators were fighting here. Even more confusing was why Persephone hadn't told her about such a trivial matter.

"I have real-time monitoring in this area. I judged that the Sarkaz swordsman bore no hostility towards Operator Provence, and there was a chance the swordsman was on your list—therefore, I left this matter for you to handle."

Alright, one problem solved. Persephone could detect hostility through the monitors... If she said so, then it was so.

So—

She glanced at Provence, not seeing any injuries or unusual fluctuations in Blood Essence on this big-tailed wolf. It seemed she had merely been knocked unconscious, and might not even suffer from a headache for half an hour.

Then she shifted her gaze.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"Yan Ke," the man with the sword replied in a deep voice from ten meters away. "I want to join you. I want to witness peerless swordsmanship."

Among the Sarkaz, stating your name while holding a weapon was equivalent to issuing a challenge to a duel.

He was Sarkaz, and Surtr, ten meters away, was also Sarkaz.

"If you hadn't harmed the messenger, I would have been happy to grant your wish," Surtr replied, her eyebrows raising slightly, her sharpness spreading like a blade. "But you did something wrong, so I'm going to deal with you."

"Wrong? Wasn't it help?" The swordsman stepped over the unconscious Cataclysm messenger, reducing the distance from ten meters to nine.

"Many people know there are powerful Sarkaz swordsmen within Sarkaz Babel Tower. Many know that Sarkaz swordsman became a renowned legendary mercenary, the 'Fire Giant King,' after leaving Sarkaz Babel Tower. This entire city knows that the 'Hunter King' arrived in Chernobog and destroyed the Reunion Movement. But very few people know the 'Fire Giant King' and know that she and the 'Hunter King' are appearing in this city at the same time."

"You are hiding your identity, and I can guess what you intend to do next—before I could act, this young lady of a messenger had already completed her job. Then I deduced that you might not want her to know this secret." He raised his hand, revealing a draft that was still wet with ink but bore precise figures.

"I guessed you would knock her out or send her away, so I did it for you. And if you agree to this bargaining chip, then I expect a duel with you as my reward."