Releasing Pressure

Wraith shook his hands, trying to fling off the sticky blood. It clung stubbornly, but there was nothing it could do. The blood spattered onto the brown carpet, adding even more bright-red stains.

Staring at them, Wraith blinked.

As time passed and he grew more adept at his work, he began to feel that tearing people apart with his fingernails every time wasn't such a good choice.

First, it always made a huge mess.

Second, it always left him covered in blood.

Like now, for instance. He was covered in blood from head to toe. Not only that, bits of flesh were dangling from his shoulder, swaying with his movements.

These were all evidence of the slaughter.

And on top of that, a plainly bewildered expression had appeared on his pale face.

A swift and efficient killer shouldn't have looked so bewildered.

As for why, you'd have to ask the person walking back and forth in front of him, constantly hauling away corpses.

"What are you doing, Karyl?" Wraith asked, puzzled.

Karyl didn't answer. He simply dragged two dead nobles into the hall, even wiping the blood from his hands on their clothes.

What was he doing?

The answer was obvious: moving corpses, hauling them by hand. He was carrying the bodies piled up in the corridor into the hall one by one.

Karyl had chosen not to use that power for the job. He knew he could, but he hadn't.

He didn't want to.

After all, who knew whether it really came without a price?

It was best to be cautious with such a strange power, something that defied explanation.

Besides, if he had to use it even to move junk around, what was the point of having arms?

Evolution wasn't about turning people into lazy slugs who did nothing but enjoy themselves.

"Karyl?"

Wraith called again, not forgetting to lower his head and scrape the bits of flesh from beneath his fingernails.

"We've finished the job. Shouldn't we head back to Sanctuary?"

"Don't rush, Wraith."

Karyl answered without turning around, continuing to move the corpses.

"But..."

Wraith glanced back at the growing mound of bodies in the hall and frowned. "Aren't we supposed to leave the scene quickly once the job is done? You said so yourself."

"Not always. I've said that, too."

"Won't we be discovered, then?" Wraith asked again.

Karyl gave a low chuckle.

He hoped they would come.

"It doesn't matter if we're discovered, Wraith."

Karyl explained gently.

"For one thing, most nobles don't care what happens on another family's turf. They don't judge how other people unwind. In my opinion, that's the only good thing about them."

"For another, this is a rare opportunity."

"An opportunity?"

"Yes, an opportunity." Karyl turned and nodded. "A rare opportunity for you."

At last, he had finished clearing the corridor of the bodies strewn all over it. Karyl had carried every one of them into the hall by hand, one after another, without missing a single one.

Then he walked to the end of the corridor and pushed open a door wrapped in dark-patterned leather. He peered inside.

"Good. Go take a bath." He turned around, clapped his hands in satisfaction, and said it.

Wraith blinked, looking a little dazed.

He hadn't expected Karyl's rare opportunity to be this.

"...A bath?"

"Yes, a bath."

Karyl nodded and leaned against the bright-red wall, folding his arms. He looked relaxed—a first.

"Everyone should take their personal hygiene seriously. It helps keep germs away and prevents some unnecessary illnesses. And, of course, there's one most important thing."

Karyl tilted his head back and glanced at the ceiling, letting out a silent sigh. "The moment warm water washes over you, it makes you feel relaxed, if only for a little while."

"That's important, Wraith. If you're stressed, you have to find a chance to let it out. Understand?"

"Relax?" Wraith asked, confused. "I've washed myself with acid rain, Karyl. I didn't feel relaxed."

Karyl turned away and didn't answer right away. After a while, he finally spoke.

"...Strictly speaking, washing with acid rain doesn't count as cleaning yourself, Wraith. Did you know that the acid rain is actually the nobles' household wastewater?"

Wraith was horrified, his expression changing in the space of half a second.

"I, I—" He stammered. "But... I?!"

"Just go take a bath now."

Karyl's voice remained as calm as ever, but he still made sure Wraith couldn't see his expression. "Anyway, take the time to relax."

Wraith nodded repeatedly, then dashed toward the room, not forgetting to shut the door behind him.

Behind him, Kael Lohars gave a calm, fleeting smile.

He closed his eyes and slowly breathed out.

The air purifiers installed by the nobles were working without pause. The overpowering stench of blood left by the grand slaughter could only dissipate little by little, reluctantly.

In the end, it couldn't resist the machines, just as the nobles couldn't resist Karyl and Wraith.

Whether they'd prepared or not no longer mattered.

The objective was complete, Karyl thought.

But—what now?

He narrowed his eyes and paced slowly beside the pile of corpses for a while, trying to think, but the sticky sensation under his feet made it impossible to continue.

Blood.

Karyl sighed silently, turned, and looked toward a sofa in the middle of the hall. He walked over to it.

Only after carefully choosing a spot without too much blood did he slowly sit down.

The softness beneath his waist, back, and body made him let out a relieved breath. It felt completely different from sitting in the chair back at Sanctuary.

When sitting in that rickety chair, he had to keep his back perfectly straight to avoid losing his balance. Sitting in it didn't feel like relaxing so much as enduring torture.

It couldn't compare at all to sitting on this soft, comfortable sofa.

How luxurious. Even the sofa was like this.

Karyl lowered his head and sat quietly, deep in thought, surrounded by the nobles' corpses.

Some of the bodies around him stared wide-eyed; others seemed to scream soundlessly. Some still wore the expressions they'd had before death, smiling or excited. Others were full of terror, their faces twisted into grotesque grimaces.

Among all these corpses, only Karyl's expression was calm. He sat quietly on a sofa stained red with blood.

His calmness was almost uncanny.

In contrast to the stillness of the scene, his thoughts were in turmoil.

At first, he hadn't considered what to do afterward. When he first came up with the plan to ignite the flames, it had no next step.

Before he met Wraith, the plan's ultimate purpose had been to use himself as bait and blow up the entire Upper Hive.

Karyl knew perfectly well that it was reckless and utterly irresponsible, but someone had to step forward.

Thousands of years had passed, and nobody on Nostramo resisted the nobles anymore. Some didn't even know why they should fight back—they'd completely forgotten the meaning of resistance and only knew how to endure.

The workers in the Underhive worshipped the nobles as gods. Their children even saw joining a gang as a promising way out.

If they didn't want to become emaciated consumptives in a factory or mine like their parents, their only choice was to join a gang.

The gangs, in turn, took the nobles as their role models. They were always scheming to seize a seat, enter the Upper Hive, and become nobles themselves.

Once they made it into the Upper Hive, they wouldn't have to put up with the sour stench and filth anymore, right?

On patrol, Karyl had heard the gangs describe their imagined futures in words like these countless times.

Yes, they did all kinds of evil.

But who had made them this way? Who had forced people to eke out an existence in dark, cramped corners? Who had left them with no decent clothes or enough to eat?

Karyl would kill them, and he wouldn't pity them, because they had done things no one worthy of being called human would do.

But there was one thing he wouldn't do—he wouldn't mock the gangs' illusory dreams.

Everyone wanted to live with dignity, and the dream they clung to was Nostramo's only way—its one and only way—to make life better.

It was laughable and cruel, so absurd it was unbearable.

The truly terrifying part was that, before he met Wraith, Karyl had been the only person on all of Nostramo who found it unbearable.

Wraith was just as unhappy about it. Unlike Karyl, he only had a vague sense that something was wrong.

In the heart of this innocent monster, an instinct gently reminded him of one thing: people shouldn't have to live like this on Nostramo.

And so, after that, Karyl came up with a second idea.

He planned to clear the way for Wraith before he died, killing every last one of the great nobles in the Upper Hive.

Then, after Karyl's death, Wraith could raise the banner of resistance that Karyl had planted and let the flames wash away the darkness. He also planned to investigate Wraith's genetic defect, so that he could live a normal lifespan like an ordinary person.

But now, he hadn't died.

And Wraith wasn't an experimental product of the nobles, either. He had a father, a name, and even a brother.

Karyl closed his eyes. He'd never imagined that one day he'd be troubled by the fact that he "hadn't managed to die."

But, no matter what.

He opened his eyes.

Being alive really wasn't so bad—

Two shadows leaped through the darkness. Behind them, the Upper Hive remained peaceful, with many nobles still enjoying lives of decadent luxury in their family estates.

They knew nothing about what had happened tonight, and they knew nothing about what was about to happen.

From Mantas Skraivok to an unnamed patrol guard, it had taken most of the night—ten hours—to bring about the total destruction of the great nobles.

Efficient, Karyl thought. Very efficient.

They leaped over the spires and ran down. The dark clouds overhead were still ominous, but Karyl's state of mind had changed completely since they'd come. Wraith followed close behind him, as always.

"Karyl?"

"Hmm?"

"What are we doing tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow..."

"Are we going to keep patrolling?"

"We'll think about tomorrow when it comes," Karyl said gently. "Tonight... let's get a good night's sleep, all right?"