Do You Know Humans Devour Night Hawk Souls?

The boy stood up. He trembled and limped, looking as though he could collapse at any moment.

But Hope knew he still had plenty of strength. He was only acting that way out of fear.

The boy looked back at Hope one last time.

Hope did not know whether the boy could see him clearly, just as Hope could not see the boy clearly.

But he took the look in the boy's eyes as admiration—perhaps mixed with fear, but Hope only wanted to see it as admiration.

It gave him the thrill of being a hero.

"Go on. Hurry and leave," Hope said. He was not entirely sure whether the boy could hear him, considering how weak his voice was now.

But the boy did leave. He hurried away, running faster and faster, and Hope soon lost the sound of his footsteps.

Only Hope and the Great Night Hawk remained in the room.

They regarded each other with hostility.

Yet compared to Hope, the Great Night Hawk was far more relaxed. A hint of confident smugness showed in its humanlike eyes.

Of course, Hope understood why. Unlike him, the Great Night Hawk faced only a crippled enemy: one leg broken, eyesight pitifully poor, and on the verge of passing out.

Maybe it thinks staying behind is no different from giving up resistance. Hope thought.

This was not without reason, because in truth, all Hope had to rely on now was the shotgun in his hand: an old flintlock hunting gun with only one bullet.

Only one bullet meant that if he fired and the Great Night Hawk still lived, it would never give Hope another chance to escape.

"Ta!"

The sound was practically a provocation. The Great Night Hawk seemed unafraid of the shotgun, or perhaps it believed Hope would not dare fire.

One of Hope's fingers lightly stroked the patterns on the gun. Maybe it was only meant for hunting birds... definitely not a bird this large.

The Great Night Hawk began to stroll leisurely, its body swaying.

That finger slowly moved until it finally rested on the trigger.

Bang!

A blaze of fire!

An unexpectedly thunderous boom rang through the entire room.

The flash from the muzzle made Hope shut his eyes instinctively, and the recoil knocked him off balance and sent him crashing to the floor.

But lying there, he relaxed every muscle in his body. He knew he had hit the target. At such close range, there was no way he could have missed.

"Ta!"

After the gunshot came the Great Night Hawk's loudest cry of the entire night.

It fell at once, crashing into a pile of clutter and wood chips. The bullet had pierced its abdomen and shredded what lay inside.

It struggled, but its life had already reached its end.

Yet it would not die immediately. It would keep bleeding and uttering harsh, grating cries, a process that would continue without stopping for one or two hours.

The lead shot was embedded in its belly. Air rushed through the wound and scoured its small intestine. It was torture; it would want to beg someone to cut off its head.

The only one here who could do that was Hope, and Hope naturally would not grant it that mercy.

Its wails would replace Hope's gunshots and continue warning passersby to stay away.

"Ha... ha..."

Hope laughed as he lay on the floor, but the consequences of harming the Great Night Hawk soon found him.

"Urgh..."

Hope could no longer make a sound.

The moment the Great Night Hawk began bleeding, he felt as though a nail had been driven into his brain—a nail sprinkled with salt, soaked in alcohol, and coated in every poison in the world that caused pain, stirring everything inside up and down, left and right, like beaten eggs.

He grabbed a splinter that had fallen from the wall. Its tip was incomparably sharp. Hope gripped it in both hands and pressed the point against his throat...

Hope clutched his own fingers and used the last of his strength to fling the splinter away. Biting down on his nails, he curled into a ball.

He felt something changing within him, both physically and spiritually. He was losing some things, while other things grew anew.

Pain. Dizziness. He began to black out intermittently, losing consciousness, then waking again in pain.

Clang!

A huge sound drowned out the Great Night Hawk's wailing.

It was the grandfather clock.

Hope crawled up from the floor, face down.

"Urgh... ack..."

The contents of his stomach... all the food that had not been digested surged upward... Tricolor Rose and paper covered in writing... Number Four Hope's lunch... *! Nothing but undigested peas...

Hope glanced at it.

"Bleurgh..."

It was as though he had vomited everything out. Hope finally regained some feeling in his body.

He sat up from the floor, and his eyes focused again.

Is that it? Hope stretched his hand. It felt fairly easy... He shook his head. No, I never want to go through that a second time in my life.

"Ta..."

Perhaps it was an illusion, but the Great Night Hawk's cry sounded even more unpleasant.

Hope felt some discomfort in his back. He reached back to touch it and felt something soft at his shoulder blade, with the same thing on the other side. It felt like a Great Night Hawk's breast.

There was a small tuft of feathers there. Hope tried to tear them off violently, but the pain forced him to stop.

They had grown there. The Curse of Darkness? I wonder what it does... Maybe it will just make bathing more troublesome. Hope mocked himself.

He closed his eyes, but instead of returning immediately, he first arrived in Old Williams's bedroom, where Old Williams's wardrobe stood.

Red, light blue, yellow, white with blue checks, white with yellow stripes... As expected, he had a plain white short-sleeved shirt.

Hope threw away the rags he was wearing and changed into this "new" shirt.

...His whole body felt limp and weak. Even changing clothes was somewhat difficult.

The size was surprisingly suitable, though it was somewhat damaged and yellowed. That was better, really; his original shirt had not been new either.

But I don't have any money on me...

Forget it. Hope looked at the nearly completely destroyed storage room and felt the ease of someone who no longer worried about piling debts.

I'll compensate for it, he thought. Just not now. One day, I'll compensate... Old Williams's granddaughter?

Pants... There were none that fit, but the pair he wore now was of fairly good quality. Though there were several more worn patches, they were still mostly intact. It was not a major problem.

His leg... That was the most troublesome part. It had swollen up, probably a fracture... I have no idea how to deal with this... But I probably won't need to walk around much lately...

I'd better behave myself from now on. This rotten world is more dangerous than I imagined. Whateley House can be dealt with slowly... If Wilbur or Lavinia come to my room, I can just stay in bed the whole time.

The bloodstains... There were not many. He could say Wilbur had caused all of them...

And the dust on him... He had not been very clean when he came here, and after fighting Wilbur, he had become even dirtier. Now he had merely gone from eighty percent filthy to one hundred percent filthy. Hardly any difference.

Still... if I could, I really want to take a bath... Later, then.

Hope appeared on Old Williams's roof. He turned on the gas stove, set his original clothes on fire, and threw them into the half of his sleeve embedded in cement.

They quickly burned into a pile of ash. The portion of the sleeve inside the cement could still not be removed, but it was now almost impossible to see from the outside.

This world probably does not have fingerprint matching or DNA yet... Blood types prove nothing... I have a solid alibi, as long as nothing supernatural is involved...

If someone really investigates with supernatural abilities... No, there's no need to worry about that. Worrying won't accomplish anything, and Number One Hope's remaining knowledge contains nothing about such things.

Witnesses... I can't exactly go deal with that boy...

Hope checked the Great Night Hawk's body and the cellar entrance again. He had left no evidence that he or the boy had been there, so the boy would have no way to prove what he said.

He covered the Great Night Hawk's eyes, brought it into the cellar, placed the newer shotgun at the cellar entrance, and returned the older shotgun to its original spot.

It's messy enough...

After finishing all that, Hope closed his eyes again. The Great Night Hawk's wails faded into the distance, and he returned to his bed.

He stared at the handcuffs until he understood them well enough, then closed his eyes again. His arms were already restrained within them.

Uncertainty: 1

Source-ification: 0.3

Curse of Darkness: 1

None of the numbers had changed, but... Curse of Darkness?

How dark could it be...

Is this the consequence of killing the Great Night Hawk... As usual, there's no explanation... I'll just pretend it doesn't exist for now...

Hope vaguely remembered there was still someone beneath his bed... He could actually send her away first... I don't want to move...

But the weather might turn cold at night. He needed to give her something warm, something to cover her stomach...

Hope fell into a deep sleep.