TRSDICI 05

Chapter 5

Laugh Again

“Ah, welcome! Hahaha, entering like this…”

A tall man approached while watching me cautiously. Some vicious-looking bastards were also staring at me.

They were not treating me as the eldest son of the Luminar Family, but as a troublesome guest.

‘As expected, they can’t recognize me immediately because of the straw hat.’

To begin with, very few outsiders knew my face. How many people would recognize the delinquent son of a baron family?

At best, these bastards only knew my general features.

The residents also seemed too drunk to notice yet.

For me, that was good news. The operator of Pleasure Village was probably here, but I did not know who it was.

“Would you like me to guide you? We have many seductive girls here.”

When the man smiled again, the others finally looked away.

Several gambling tables were in full swing, while others drank alcohol and played around with women.

Judging from their appearance, most of the customers were residents from nearby villages, while the prostitutes and workers seemed to come from other regions.

These bastards sold pleasure while sucking money from the residents and gathering information about the territory.

The moment I remembered that, my head suddenly became hot with anger.

“Fucking bastards…”

“Pardon?”

“Forget it. I’ll move around myself.”

“Ah, yes. Understood.”

The man carefully continued.

“However, could you leave your sword with us…”

“Why?”

“If you carry such a sword around, the other guests may feel uncomfortable. There could also be accidents.”

It was a reasonable response.

But I was not a reasonable person.

“That’s your problem.”

“…What?”

“You can’t even handle one guest, yet you run a place like this? Looks fancy outside, but it’s a worthless establishment.”

“……”

“Tch. My mistake for coming to this countryside dump. I’m wasting both my time and my manners.”

I spat roughly onto the floor.

“They say once you enter a gambling den, you lose everything. Looks like the adults were right after all.”

At that moment, one of the vicious-looking men stood up. The customers and workers quietly stared at me.

I simply stood there and watched their movements.

“Hahaha! That does make sense!”

The guide nodded.

“You are correct. If we cannot stop guests from causing trouble, we have no right to run a place like this. But our establishment has many skilled men, so please don’t worry.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. So please relax and enjoy yourself.”

“Hah, thank goodness there’s at least one man here who can talk properly. Then I’ll be going.”

I crossed the first floor and headed toward the stairs leading to the second floor.

“Please wait.”

The guide stopped me, and I turned around irritably.

“What now?”

“Where are you going?”

“To the second floor, you bastard! Aren’t there women upstairs?”

“There are, but… you cannot enter the second floor alone.”

“And the third floor?”

“The third floor is completely forbidden.”

“I see.”

He revealed that surprisingly easily.

The guide glanced toward one of the men.

“Escort him to the second floor.”

“Yes.”

The vicious-looking bastard who had been glaring at me stood up. He was a giant at least a head taller than me.

I nodded and walked toward the entrance.

“No, forget it. I don’t think I need a guide anymore.”

The muscular pig smirked and followed behind me.

“Why are you leaving? Stay and have some fun.”

I kept walking without answering.

“Did you get scared? Don’t worry. As long as you behave quietly, we’ll treat you kindly.”

By the time I reached the door, the muscular pig was right behind me.

I let out a quiet laugh.

“You insect bastards.”

The instant those words left my mouth, I drew my sword and swung backward.

A red line appeared across the muscular pig’s neck—

Then his head flew through the air with a spray of blood.

The body without a head collapsed backward.

“……”

For a moment, silence filled the room as the severed head rolled across the floor with blood.

Then suddenly, screams and crashing noises exploded everywhere.

Workers carrying weapons and terrified customers stared at me.

“What is the meaning of this?”

Instead of answering, I lifted my straw hat high enough for everyone to see my face clearly.

“W-What?”

“T-That person is…”

I glared at the residents and spoke.

“All residents, get out. Unless you want to die. I’ll question you later, so wait inside your homes.”

The frightened residents rushed out through the door behind me like cockroaches.

Even after many people left, around twenty men still remained inside the building.

The guide asked,

“Don’t tell me… you are the eldest son of the Luminar Family?”

“So you finally figured it out.”

“You came here alone? You’ve completely lost your mind.”

“My mind has always been gone.”

I pointed my sword at them.

“But you bastards aren’t sane either. Who gave you permission to do business inside someone else’s territory? Do you want to ascend to the Goddess?”

At my question, the bastards burst into laughter.

“Why are you laughing? Are you happy because I came here myself? Let’s laugh together.”

“Well, yes.”

“Hmm. Actually, I’m happy too. In this life, I can kill all of you with my own hands.”

I poured Holy Power into my sword.

The clean and refreshing energy violently surged before transforming into sharp wind that wrapped around the blade.

The moment they saw it, their expressions instantly froze.

“Hehe… are you still laughing?”

I sneered at the bastards who had become frozen statues.

“Laugh again, you bastards.”

Silence settled inside the building.

Now that I looked at them, these men were not very cheerful after all.

The guide spoke.

“Forget about the consequences and kill him. We’ve lost contact with the men watching him. He’s not someone we can capture alive.”

So news of my escape had already reached this place.

‘Looks like that guide is their leader.’

Honestly, I already suspected it from the moment I entered the building.

He could not hide the calluses on his hands or the faint killing intent from me.

“Come at me. But the first bastard who rushes in will lose his head like that muscular pig. Now then, who wants to go first?”

“……”

The bastards swallowed nervously and glanced at one another.

The guide asked,

“How did you find this place? Did the men watching you talk?”

“They did.”

“What a lie. Those men didn’t know this location.”

I nodded.

“Then someone else must have told me.”

“…The residents wouldn’t report this place to the lord.”

“And why do you think that?”

“Because they know what happens if they do.”

“Hmm, I see. Understood.”

At that exact moment, I kicked off the ground and swung my sword at one of the men standing blankly nearby.

The sharp wind wrapped around my blade cleanly severed his neck in one strike.

I shook the blood from my sword and glared at the rest.

“Just come at me together.”

The moment my words ended, the headless body collapsed onto the floor.

Seeing that, the bastards frowned and rushed at me all at once.

I opened my mouth slightly while watching the swarm approaching me.

“Wow… insects.”

One grasshopper in front of me swung down an axe.

I knocked it aside with my sword and split his body apart while pulling my blade back.

Red liquid burst upward before falling again, and another grasshopper’s eyes appeared before me.

‘There are so many.’

I stabbed, sliced, and sent the grasshoppers flying with my wind-covered sword.

Sometimes giant swarms of locusts flew into our territory and devoured the crops.

When that happened, the territory’s finances rapidly worsened, yet back then we lacked the power to stop them.

Slash! Slash!

But this swarm of oversized locusts could easily be stopped with my sword alone.

Every time I unleashed my strikes, the locusts died without even properly reacting.

“Damn it!”

Only then did some of the locusts realize the situation and try to flee.

If I let them escape, they would surely lay eggs and invade our territory again.

So I chased those bastards down first and killed them.

‘This year will be a good harvest.’

I unconsciously smiled while watching the collapsing locusts.

If the harvest became plentiful, the residents would probably share food with me again.

And the scarecrow could wear a fine straw hat too.

But the locusts resisted more fiercely than I expected.

Whoosh!

A sickle slashed toward my neck.

Unlike the others, this attack carried genuine power, so instead of deflecting it, I blocked it directly.

Swish!

At the same time, another sickle flew toward me, forcing me to leap backward.

A tall locust holding two sickles.

I stared at him and took my stance.

“Come. King Locust.”

“What nonsense are you saying?”

Looking closely, it was actually the guide.

I nodded and corrected myself.

“Come. A praying mantis pretending to be a locust.”

“…I heard you were crazy, but this is beyond imagination.”

He sighed instead of charging immediately.

By now, blood and corpses were scattered across the floor.

Only the guide and I remained standing.

“How many residents did you kill?”

“Why should I answer that?”

“I am the sword-bearing guest of this establishment, and you are the guide. Does that answer your question?”

The guide narrowed his eyes before replying,

“Four or five. I don’t remember.”

“What did you do with the bodies?”

“Burned them.”

“Did they have families?”

“It was an entire family. One of them secretly headed toward the mansion at dawn, so we killed them all as an example.”

So the residents had witnessed that.

That was why nobody dared report this place.

Even if patrols came, everyone probably stayed silent about Pleasure Village.

At best, Father only heard rumors about suspicious establishments appearing around the territory.

Now my curiosity was satisfied.

But the knot inside my chest still remained.

“Do you plan to repent?”

“If I repent, will you spare me?”

“No. I mean repent and then die.”

“What difference does that make?”

“It changes how I feel. Perhaps your sincere apology might even change the hearts of others.”

The guide nodded.

“Then I repent.”

“You made a wise choice.”

Holding my sword diagonally, I slowly approached him.

The bastard stepped backward in panic.

“Why are you coming closer?”

“If you want to repent, shouldn’t you first go to the afterlife? The people you killed are waiting there too.”

“……”

“They are probably waiting for you. You’ll apologize to them before heading to hell, while they go to heaven. Who knows? Maybe their hearts and the Goddess’s heart will change, and you might—or might not—also reach heaven.”

Sharp wind wrapped around my sword.

“Wow, I wonder how it’ll turn out. Make sure to send me a letter from the afterlife.”

“You fucking bastard!”

The guide charged at me.

I immediately grabbed a nearby chair and threw it at him.

Slice!

The moment he cut the chair apart—

I appeared before him and swung the Sword of Joy.

The startled bastard tried to block with his sickles, but my blade had already slipped past them.

I precisely targeted his wrists and sent both hands flying into the air.

“AAAAARGH! MY HANDS!”

The bastard collapsed onto the floor, blood pouring from his severed wrists.

He was not weak.

In fact, nobody in this territory could realistically defeat him.

It was simply that I, who had obtained the Sword of Joy after watching Aren’s sparrow-like swordsmanship, was stronger.

“W-Wait!”

The bastard looked up at me with eyes full of pain.

“I’ll tell you the locations of the other establishments in the territory too!”

“That’s unnecessary. Once this core base disappears, the others will naturally collapse. I’ll slowly erase the rest myself.”

“Then why did we even create these establishments…”

“That’s unnecessary too. I already know. And most importantly…”

I stood directly before him and raised my sword.

“I don’t want to see your face anymore.”

My sword swung down violently.

The bastard’s eyes widened—

Then his head disappeared together with a spray of blood.

A moment later, only the sound of something falling onto the floor remained.

“……”

Blood stained the ground at my feet, and the bodies of the locusts were scattered everywhere.

Standing in the center of it all, I stabbed my sword into the floor, closed my eyes, and pressed my hands together.

‘Goddess Ella, it seemed you were short on workers, so I sent you a few men. Holy Power will be enough as thanks.’

Warm Holy Power slowly began filling my body.

The Goddess must have been touched by my sincerity.

When the incoming Holy Power gradually weakened, I stopped praying.

Then I searched through the guide’s clothes and pulled out a pouch filled with gold coins.

‘This is mine.’

A kind of labor fee.

I placed the bloodstained straw hat on the table.

‘Since I got money, I should buy a new one.’

After that, I organized my thoughts.

‘That guide was probably only the leader here, not the true operator. The real operator wouldn’t show his face so openly.’

Of course, maybe they were simply careless idiots.

But the Baron Scalen I knew would never place someone like that in charge.

‘Well, I’ll know once I go upstairs.’

I headed toward the staircase leading upward.

The third floor was forbidden, which meant something important was definitely hidden there.

Either the money earned from Pleasure Village—

Or the real operator himself.

‘If I get caught, I’m dead…’

Holding my sword, I climbed the stairs.

(To be continued)