Carefully Selected, Unhurried, and Minced Their Wits

Chapter 11: Carefully Selected, Unhurried, and Minced Their Wits

The Crimson Finale was a Nostramo gang that was difficult to describe in any detail. Don't get me wrong—it wasn't because their appearance was especially terrifying or their methods particularly brutal.

You have to understand that those two traits were practically standard for Nostramo gangs. If you lacked either one, the gang would come and "fire" you.

Besides, they weren't even particularly high on the brutality scale. Aside from having lots of motorcycles and liking to paint half their faces red with blood, the Crimson Finale had nothing worth remembering about them.

And they weren't especially inventive in the way they used their motorcycles, either.

They didn't tie people to them and drag them to death, nor did they use them to run down passing civilians. They really just rode around shooting and swinging blades. Compared with other gangs that also loved motorcycles, they had practically no imagination.

The reason this gang was so difficult to describe in any detail was that, right now...

Well, most of them were in pieces.

Literally.

Karyl stood calmly before a tightly shut wooden door, his hands hanging low and tucked inside his cloak.

He breathed quietly, almost inaudibly. The floor beneath his feet was slick with blood, which had even risen above the thick soles of his boots. He stood there motionless, waiting patiently.

He had always been patient.

Fifteen minutes later, two faint sighs of relief came from behind the door, then quickly faded away.

Karyl kept waiting, still as a statue. Five minutes later, he heard quiet voices inside, along with the soft tread of boots on concrete.

At that moment, Karyl abruptly changed his stance.

He drove forward with both legs, leading with his right shoulder. The force sent the door crashing down, along with the unfortunate person who had come to check what was happening behind it.

The man screamed as he was hurled away, slamming into the wall. He fell silent at once. Gunshots rang out soon afterward, but this time Karyl had prepared for them in advance.

The sound would not escape again. In fact, the killing had already been underway for a while, yet the other gang across the street still hadn't noticed that a massacre was taking place here.

"Hello there," Karyl said softly. A cold blue light gleamed in his eyes, making his voice terrifying and low, like the eerie scrape of a blade against bone.

He stood in the open doorway, his head tilted. He wasn't in a hurry to kill the last survivor. Blood pooled at his feet, and the corridor behind him was littered with corpses. Pale light from outside shone through the broken windows and holes in the walls.

Karyl had carefully chosen this angle. He needed the survivor to see all of it.

"Don't come any closer. Don't come any closer."

There was a few seconds of silence in the room. Then a terrified voice cried out, accompanied by the protest of a gun whose trigger was being pulled again and again despite its empty magazine.

The gun's complaints were especially clear.

Karyl smiled. He didn't rush to apply pressure; he could already smell the fear.

Fear could change many things. It could make the wise foolish and the foolish resourceful. A small number of people could withstand the pressure, ignore their fear, and keep going. But most people inevitably became its slaves.

He took a slow step forward, making sure the survivor could see him.

The unfortunate man immediately screamed. His imagination forced him to picture what Karyl was going to do to him next.

He scrambled backward on his hands and feet, grabbing whatever junk and debris he could find on the floor and hurling it at Karyl.

Good. Just as I expected.

Karyl narrowed his eyes. The cold blue light flashed in them once more, then vanished. He stood still, making no attempt to dodge. The debris passed right through his body without even brushing his clothes.

It fell among the shattered flesh and corpses, splashing in the pools of blood with dull, wet thuds.

A few seconds later, the screaming started again.

This time, it was much louder and sounded more broken. The Crimson Finale's sole survivor closed his eyes and began babbling incoherent words, waving his arms wildly as he begged the Vengeful Wraith to spare him.

What he didn't know was that Karyl couldn't move at all right now.

That was too much.

He frowned. I still don't understand this power well enough. But it seems that as long as I don't use it too forcefully, that thing from the afterlife can't find me.

That was an unexpected bonus. He could make a note of it and tell Wraith later. He had the potential to awaken this power too, though I hope he never has to use it.

Karyl sighed silently, enduring the intense pain and soreness as he continued walking forward.

He really was moving slowly and stiffly now. This posture, caused by his actual body rather than an act, made the survivor—who had opened his eyes at the sound of his footsteps—scream even more horribly.

In the corridor outside the room, Wraith bent over and frowned.

Still screaming, the survivor continued to retreat. Fear had shattered his reason into pieces so thoroughly that it could never be put back together. But his instinct to survive still drove him to react.

For instance, he backed away, trying to escape the freezing room and the ghost standing in the doorway.

Unfortunately, his back had already hit the wall.

He had nowhere left to retreat.

And then—

The Vengeful Wraith standing before him, the one who had personally brought all this about, slowly opened his mouth.

"I still don't understand why we didn't kill him."

"Because—wait, let me catch my breath."

Karyl took a gasp of air. Leaning against the filthy wall of a dark alley, he bent over and needed several seconds before he could answer Wraith's question.

"Because my plan needs him as a broken husk, shattered by fear."

"A plan?" Wraith tilted his head from where he was crouching. "What plan? You never told me."

"You don't need to know the details of the plan, Wraith. You don't even need to know what it's called. There's only one thing I can tell you."

Karyl paused again, then began to take deep breaths. The process was painful. Wraith saw his contorted features and sweat-soaked face, and stood up.

"What is it?" Wraith asked quietly.

"What it's for." Karyl managed a weak smile. "I let him go because I knew he'd spread the word about what had happened to his gang."

"And then?"

"Then the gangs will learn where the Vengeful Wraith is operating. And those who didn't believe in him before may start believing he exists when faced with a living, breathing example of madness."

"But didn't you say it was best not to leave any witnesses, and only leave the name at the scene?"

Wraith came closer, puzzled, and helped Karyl sit on the ground.

"Thanks, Wraith."

Karyl said this before rushing into an explanation.

Politeness mattered.

"Both approaches have their own advantages. Don't fixate on just one. Consider the circumstances and use whichever suits them."

"I don't really understand."

If you did, I'd think I'd gone crazy—you little one-and-a-half-year-old monster.

Karyl smiled. "You can find out what each approach is good for later. Back to the point, Wraith. Do you remember that woman?"

"I remember."

Wraith's expression tightened a little. He asked quietly, "She said I was a low-intelligence iron golem. What does that mean?"

"You could hear that? All right, we'll talk about it later. Anyway, she came from the Skolevok Family, a longstanding Upper Hive family. No fewer than seventeen people in it hold the title of Earl."

"She was an examiner for the Skolevok Family. Her job was to patrol the lower Hive City, maintain order in the territories of the gangs under the family, and collect their taxes."

"Compared with the gangs, she wasn't especially high-ranking, but an examiner was a direct employee. Do you understand what I mean?"

Wraith listened quietly and patiently, then nodded. The moment the words "direct employee" came up, they stirred something in his mind. He understood the phrase, along with the meanings of many others that came with it.

"And she's dead. I killed her, along with the priest from the Church of Rest, Razor from the Razor Gang, and the Tremor-Tooth member you killed."

"Tremor-Tooth?"

"No lips, and lots of piercing studs or chains on his body."

Wraith suddenly understood. "The bald guy!"

"Anyway, on the eve of the Great Purge, we managed to get on the wrong side of both the Skolevok Family and Tremor-Tooth. To ensure the Great Purge goes smoothly, they'll definitely send people down to deal with us."

"This is a good opportunity, Wraith. We finally have a chance to kill some nobles from the Upper Hive."

Karyl slowly grinned. An indescribable joy suddenly appeared on his pale face. "This is the first time, after all."

Wraith nodded, then continued thinking.

He didn't really understand the strange words Skolevok Family, Tremor-Tooth, and Great Purge. They didn't simply appear in his mind.

He didn't understand them, just as he didn't understand why Karyl knew so much. In fact, as far as Wraith was concerned, Karyl knew more than he did.

But some things didn't need to be understood. You only needed to tell whether they were right and good. That was enough.

After a cautious moment of thought, Wraith reached a conclusion.

Karyl was right, and this was good.

Still, there was one last thing he wanted to ask. Karyl had told him that when he had doubts about something, he should ask directly instead of hiding them.

Wraith did as he'd been told.

He frowned and asked, "But we never used to leave anyone alive."

"You're really fixated on this, Wraith. All right, listen carefully—killing is always a means, never an end. Don't get the fundamental relationship mixed up. And..."

Karyl sat on the ground and slowly held out a hand.

Wraith looked at him in confusion.

Silence.

One second, two seconds, three seconds—the famous Vengeful Wraith finally sighed.

"Give me a lift back to Sanctuary," he said. "I can't move for now."

"Oh."

The next moment, Wraith obediently picked him up and carried him.

Thanks to everyone for the monthly and recommendation tickets—and to me for my own monthly and recommendation tickets.

Thanks to this book's first patron, Plastic Bag of Marine Litter, and its first steward, Brother, Be Gentle, for their support.

Thanks to Blood Sacrifice God Emperor, Demolition 2099, Slaanesh Chosen Monaha, binfou, Sudden Summer, Aman Ayan, Ice Cave Seal, and book friend 20190309164243994 for their donations.

I'm truly overwhelmed to have achieved this kind of success.

(Next time I'll just make a separate post for this sort of thank-you.)

During the new-book period, I'll keep up two updates a day, 3,000 words each. I'll post a big batch on the day the book goes premium. The original plan was twenty chapters, but now I've increased it to thirty. (Tragic.)

I thought starting a new book meant I'd get to slack off for a while.