Gaban's already thin, withered body had nearly turned into a skeleton.
"Mr. Gaban?"
Red-Haired called out tentatively. He could barely tell whether the person before him really was Gaban.
"Red-Haired, you brat. You finally came. I thought I might not last until you got here."
Gaban opened his eyes. There was no light in their murky depths.
The shadow of death already seemed to hang over him.
Perhaps the Death God, scythe in hand, was lurking silently in the room, waiting for Gaban to die.
Gaban raised an arm as thin as a dead branch and studied it. Then it dropped weakly to his side.
"Gaban, how did you end up like this?"
Kozuki Oden clearly remembered how Gaban had looked when he left that morning. He had been weak, and his complexion had been terrible, but he had looked nothing like this.
"I think... my soul was wounded."
Gaban pressed a hand to his chest. The wound there had already scabbed over, yet he still felt as though a gash lay open beneath it, letting something vital slowly drift away.
Red-Haired narrowed his eyes at Gaban's words.
"Your soul? Did Charlotte Linlin join the battle too? Apart from her, hardly anyone in the New World can attack someone's soul."
Gaban waved a hand, indicating that it had not been Charlotte Linlin.
"It was that Cursed Sword in the Thunder Swordsman's hand. Now I finally understand that strange pain I felt when it cut me. That sword can wound the soul."
Red-Haired instinctively looked toward Kozuki Oden's severed arm.
Only then did the three of them notice that blood was still pouring from the stump despite its rough bandaging.
"Mr. Oden, does the bleeding feel like it's slowing?"
Kozuki Oden shook his head, his expression grim. If he lost too