GRP Chapter 9

"It stung a little…."

"Stung?"

"I think my indigestion cleared up."

Samthyeon's face twisted. Garth let out a refreshed sigh and pulled the dagger out smoothly. Blood spurted from the red wound, then healed without a trace. Garth, who'd removed his blood-soaked upper garment, tore down a fine tapestry hanging on the wall and wiped himself clean.

To drive a relic that killed with a mere touch into his heart and actually look refreshed afterward. Watching the calm grooming, Samthyeon sighed. It came from relief, but also contained disappointment at yet another failure.

'They say you have the grand epithet God-Slayer.'

Garth smiled coldly, light lost from his eyes like a dead fish. The smell of ash came from his body. Like a campfire burned out, producing only smoke.

'Can you kill me?'

After shaking hands on that, Samthyeon had tried various methods to kill Garth. But Garth didn't die even when beheaded, dropped from great heights, starved for three months, drowned, burned, or poisoned. Only after attempting murder by every means and watching them all fail did Samthyeon understand why Garth had sought him out. Ordinary methods couldn't bring Garth to death. He needed Samthyeon's ability to create weapons against beings that defied providence—'gods.' Because Garth himself defied providence. But today was another failure.

"You must be more attached to life than I thought."

At Samthyeon's words, Garth chuckled.

"Is that so?"

Garth stretched out on a long sofa and put a pipe to his lips. The pain seemed to be intensifying. There was nothing more Samthyeon could do to help him. He couldn't break the curse or kill him. Enduring the pain was Garth's burden alone. Samthyeon turned and grasped the door handle.

"Samthyeon."

Garth stopped Samthyeon as he left the room. Samthyeon turned back to look at him. Garth, eyes closed, lit his pipe. The acrid smell filled the space instantly. The man's voice resonated faintly, dissolved in it.

"Tell everyone not to approach."

I might kill by accident today. With those final words, Samthyeon closed the door and left.

The candlestick shattered and candles rolled across the floor. The dimly burning wick's flame died leaving only a point of smoke. The room darkened. Garth exhaled long within it. It was the periodically recurring cycle when the curse intensified. His already sensitive nerves became even more blade-sharp.

Whiiiii, wind blew through the window. Garth listened to the wind's sound and recalled the death-throes of various gods and monsters who'd died beneath his hands.

'You filthy, greedy one who dares to defy divine might, may the curse of death….'

'I condemn you to a curse that robs even life itself!'

Garth laughed with his forehead against the back of his hand. By that time, Garth had already been afflicted by the most painful curse. One that made the 'death' curse they thought humans would fear most meaningless. He didn't die. Didn't age. Pain didn't disappear. He suffered alive for years, for hundreds of years. The long life ahead would be the same. Perhaps eternally.

It was a journey without signposts. Not knowing where the destination was, or even if a destination existed. Reaching the desired place would be so difficult. Unless by unexpected fortune.

'Unexpected fortune….'

Garth snorted. He'd thought of that charlatan fortune-teller's prophecy. You'll meet your soul's other half. The long wait and pain will also end… Plausible words that could apply to anyone.

He might have believed it a few decades ago. He'd once lived with something like expectations, so he would have thought even vague prophecy was a ray of hope he'd been waiting for. This time it'll be real. This time I'll really find it. Struggling in baseless, complacent belief.

Sometimes the moment when hope's light came within reach would surely arrive. And so he'd reach out. The result was obvious. Only after falling would he realize it was an illusion. He'd experienced it countless times long ago.

The fall had no bottom. He'd been slammed into the deep muck underground. Garth had fallen hundreds, thousands of times, and now there wasn't even muck left to fall into. Even a place collecting all filth and dregs would be heaven compared to here. Where light didn't reach, no illusion remained to grasp.

Garth stared at the space stained with darkness. In that moment, moonlight leaked through the window, faintly brightening the room. The wind blowing especially hard must have driven the clouds away. Rattle, the sound of the window shaking roughly.

Soon cold wind rushed in. Garth turned his head to look at the open window. In the long window opening, someone stood. A woman with glittering silver hair. On this snowy night, in this land where the cold of deepest winter raged more than anywhere else, she wore only a thin tunic.

Eyes accustomed to darkness drew the woman's form accurately. Bright silver hair that gleamed in various colors like opal even under dim moonlight. Skin transparent and white as if sculpted from ice. Red lips gently closed. Every line forming her features was delicate and beautiful as a work of art.

As a hero, how many opportunities had he had to encounter rare objects and beauties? With slight exaggeration, the continent's greatest beauties were more common than roadside stones. Yet the woman was more beautiful than anything Garth had seen. Strangely so. Even her hair swaying in the wind created the illusion of adding melody to music. The eyes that met his drew his gaze, shining faintly in darkness as if holding moonlight. That surreal beauty awakened Garth to reality. She wasn't an ordinary human. Because she wasn't an ordinary being, she was this beautiful.

The woman walked several steps over the window without any hint of urgency, unlike someone intruding into another's room. Then she picked up the dagger rolling at Garth's feet and aimed it at his throat. The process was so natural that Garth thought she seemed to be offering a flower rather than a dagger.

Garth lifted his head to look at the woman's face. No emotion showed on it—like a sculpture made of snow. The sculpture's mouth opened slowly.

"If you stay still, I won't hurt you."

One of the most absurd things he'd heard in his life. Garth merely watched her while leaning back on the sofa, arms crossed. After a long while, the woman spoke again.

"You've imprisoned spirits, haven't you?"

"Ah…."

A matter he'd briefly forgotten passed through his mind. Two thief spirits locked in the dungeon. The woman seemed to have come looking for those spirits. A spirit stealing precious ingredients and a god climbing others' walls. Birds of a feather flock together—a perfect combination.

"Guide me there."

The woman's speech was as stiff as her face. Almost no difference in pitch, no pauses between phrases, just syllables produced at regular intervals. She seemed to have learned human language but spoke as if producing it aloud for the first time. Well, she was a god, so that made sense. How unfortunate that their first and last conversation would be like this.

Garth slowly rose from the sofa. The woman who'd been looking down at him just moments ago had to tilt her head back sharply. Despite the clear difference in build that should have created pressure, she didn't retreat at all. The dagger aimed boldly didn't waver either.

Garth took in her exquisite face. The Great God seemed to have no notion whatsoever that a lowly insect-like human might harm her. Such arrogance. Truly an attitude befitting a 'god' who'd been born to naturally reign over insignificant creatures.

Garth took one step closer to her. Sharp metal touched his chest. The blade's point passed through cloth, creating a scratch on his skin. A red dot appeared on the white fabric. Amid the silence, the gazes of one human and one god tangled.

"Come closer and I'll kill you."

At her threat, Garth tilted his head askew and smiled.

"How will you kill someone by stabbing somewhere other than the heart?"

The dagger's point did aim at his left chest, but was far from his heart. Even if it stabbed an ordinary human, the position was lucky enough to survive. While aiming at a sloppy vital point, her attitude could rival an assassin's.

The woman obediently followed the advice. The dagger turned toward below the collarbone. Even farther from his heart than before. One of Garth's eyebrows lifted slightly. Roughly catching from his expression that she'd gone the wrong way, the woman's hand moved again. This time it landed about chest center.

"No, no… not there."

Garth leisurely grasped the woman's wrist. Then drove the blade into his own heart.

"Here."

Sharp metal pierced his heart. The resistance of firm muscle transmitted wholly from the dagger to the woman. Blood spurted from the wound, thoroughly soaking the woman's hand. Red blood flowed sticky down her white hand.

The woman stared at the heart with the dagger lodged in it. Despite the situation, still no emotion rose to her face. Exactly like viewing a book whose content she didn't know. A book randomly opened that had a picture of a man with a stabbed heart. What could one feel from this? Just the thought that such a picture existed. An event involving a character not sharing the same world couldn't leave much impression. Even less if it was an unfamiliar book.

The woman wore precisely that expression. A dagger is stabbing a heart. Blood is flowing. She simply judged what she saw, not seeming included in this situation.