Who hid My Corpse!

Chapter 40: Thirty-four Three Things

Everything happened so quickly that it was only after the servant’s head bounced on the ground like a ball that the well-trained knights violently realized what had happened.

“It’s Ulu!”

“Damn, where was that guy hiding?!”

The knights, belatedly aware, now surrounded Ulu, their expressions tense because the Ulu before them was completely different from the harmless-looking man they remembered (from the point of view of a Rhein Knight). He was like a wild beast gone mad. His once-pristine Priest Robe was now stained with mud and fresh blood; both black and red, resembling torn, putrefied flesh. He was still clutching a shovel of unknown origin, the very one that had just sliced off the servant’s head, dripping blood.

But it wasn’t just his appearance that frightened the knights. What if Ulu also possessed the legendary Taboo Items—”Visas’s Corpse”? Already, more than one clergy had died at Ulu’s hand.

All these elements combined created a ludicrous scene—a fully armed squad of knights hunting down a defector from the Orthodox bureaucracy, yet it felt as though a pack of wolves was hunting down a lion.

...

And this lion was not even paying attention to the wolves. Since entering the room, Ulu’s gaze had been fixed on the man standing before him—Kelsay.

Facing this version of Ulu, Kelsay remained calm. When Ulu had charged in and decapitated the servant with his shovel, Kelsay was the only one in the room who hadn’t moved a muscle, his hands never leaving the hilt of his sword. Now, he was locking eyes with Ulu, his brown eyes betraying little emotion.

Yet he did not remain silent but spoke slowly, “Your entrance has caught me by surprise, old friend.”

Ulu growled back, “I’m not your old friend.”

“Hmm… indeed,” Kelsay nodded calmly, “My old friend would not have the guts to show up here, just as you said earlier. You’re not what again? Oh, ‘you’re not a worm.’ So, you can’t be my old friend because my old friend…”

Kelsay’s lips curled up slightly, revealing a mocking smile.

“He’s just a despicable worm that shies away from the light.”

At these words, Ulu’s hand holding the shovel trembled again, not from fear, but from… anger.

Ulu felt that the anger he had suppressed for twenty years was now ignited tonight, and this anger-fueled fire had burned away his reason. Otherwise, he would never have appeared before Kelsay.

“Although I don’t know how you’ve become like this,” Kelsay’s fingers lightly tapped the hilt of the Holy Sword, then he spoke slowly, “but in consideration of our friendship of over two decades, I can give you some dignity.” @@novelbin@@

As he said this, Kelsay raised his hand, signaling the Rhein Knights to step back.

His lieutenant immediately exclaimed in surprise, “Knight Master, what are you suggesting?”

Kelsay smiled, “Let me catch up alone with my old friend, will you?”

“But he is…”

“Don’t worry,” Kelsay’s smile broadened, “I understand him better than you. He won’t hurt me; right, old friend?”

This seemingly touching scene of comradeship, with a Law Enforcer facing a friend who had fallen into the Abyss, still refusing to give up on him and treating him with sincerity and trust, attempting to redeem his old friend… But the reality was, even someone unfamiliar with Kelsay and Ulu could detect the undisguised—sarcasm—in Kelsay’s words.

So, the true meaning of his words was, Kelsay didn’t believe Ulu could harm him. No matter how fearsome Ulu looked, no matter that he had just killed a person, and before that two knights, a priest, and an Esoteric believer, Kelsay still held contempt for Ulu, even scorn.

The knights present looked at each other in confusion.

Frankly, Kelsay’s action was against the rules of the Rhein—the rule that when faced with the “Taboo,” everyone and every unit must give their all.

But they also understood their boss, so after exchanging glances, they still slowly exited the room, leaving Kelsay with a sufficiently spacious stage for his performance.

And it was at this time that Ulu could finally turn his attention to the siblings who were blankly watching them, accurately speaking, the brother—because the sister had always been in a daze, and the little boy had not responded since Ulu had barged in. He sat there covered in blood, staring blankly at the still-dripping bloody shovel that Ulu had used to help bury their mother just a few hours ago.

With a “snap,”

Ulu threw a heavy bag of money at the feet of the little boy, which finally startled him awake.

“Three things,” Ulu slowly began, “First, take the money and leave this place, second, don’t come back, and third…”

He paused, as if he wanted to say something else but then stopped himself.

“Don’t become a priest, don’t even enter any church, do you understand?”

The little boy opened his mouth, about to say something, but was cut off by Ulu’s furious shout, “Don’t you understand? Take your sister and get out!”

The little boy was scared. The threats of those people hadn’t scared him, the beatings hadn’t scared him, but Ulu’s outburst did. He immediately picked up the money with one hand and his sister with the other, and then limped out of the room, only to be stopped by the knights.

Ulu looked at Kelsay, who, interested, waved his hand to let the knights stand down.

Thus, the little boy went out that way, but still, he limped, repeatedly looking back at Ulu.

“You think you’re saving him,” Kelsay said indifferently, “but you’re actually harming him. In such a disaster year, a little kid like him, with a simple-minded sister and carrying such a large sum of money, they won’t survive.”

“What should be done, then?”

“Let him enter Rhein, make him a novice priest.”

“Like I once did?”

“Yes,” Kelsay smiled, “just like you once did.”

Ulu did not speak.

Kelsay then asked, “So why did you come back?”

Ulu’s lips parted with difficulty, and he smiled.

…

The little boy, with his sister in tow, left the village, yet he still looked back from time to time, hoping to catch sight of Ulu.

But he had gone too far already and could no longer see Ulu’s shadow, just a cluster of firelight that could vanish at any moment. Then he looked down at his dazed sister and looked up at the road ahead. At that moment, a surge of intense emotion overcame him—stronger even than when they had nothing to eat, stronger than when his mother had died.

So he suddenly burst into tears, finally crying like a normal child, his sobs seeming to tear through the dark.

…

“Because, I’m not an insect,” Ulu softly said.