The Reincarnated Assassin is a Genius Swordsman 1204

 Chapter 1204

 

“Follow me.”

Baif moved inward, into the strange city, as if he intended to guide them personally.

“Yes.”

Raon nodded just like the others and followed behind Baif.

“Hand it over!”

“You vermin!”

“Even rotten bread is too good for the mouths of trash like you!”

People wearing fairly expensive-looking clothes were beating those clad in worn garments and stealing what little they had.

Even though robbery was happening right before their eyes, neither Baif nor the Celestials standing guard made a move. Rather, they mocked the people being beaten, curling their lips in amusement.

‘This place….’

Raon narrowed his eyes as he watched the robbery and violence unfolding on the brilliantly glittering street.

‘It feels like reality.’

Reality?

Wrath scrunched the bridge of his nose, as if asking what he meant.

‘Yeah. It’s like the survival-of-the-fittest world we live in.’

Unlike the Land of Clouds, where only pleasure existed without any effort, Heaven instead felt exactly the same as the outside world.

“Is it fascinating?”

Baif turned around and let out a short chuckle.

“You’re wondering why we don’t stop it, right?”

As he looked at the people staring in shock, he gently raised his eyebrows.

“Y-Yes.”

“Why aren’t you stopping them? That person is almost dead….”

They swallowed dryly as they looked at someone who had been beaten unconscious while trying to protect a piece of bread.

“That person was beaten for no reason at all!”

The woman whose belly had swollen like a mountain from overeating in the Land of Clouds trembled as she spoke, her lips shaking in fear.

“W-What kind of place is this, exactly?”

“Is this really Heaven?”

“This is… very different from what I imagined….”

The others also scanned their surroundings anxiously, as if they had begun to doubt the very meaning of Heaven.

“This is indeed Heaven.”

Baif swept back his pitch-black robe and spread both arms wide. Because his arms were so long, it looked as though black curtains were descending from the sky.

“A place where you can spread your desires wider and higher.”

As if telling them to look carefully, Baif raised a finger. At the tip of his long finger were the wealthy people standing on the left.

“Look. In this Heaven, you will be able to enjoy pleasures you have never felt before.”

Baif twisted his lips upward as he pointed at those immersed in pleasure, wrapped in every negative emotion in the world.

“On the other hand….”

He rotated his finger and pointed to the right.

“Those vermin are failed trash. They lounged around with their mouths hanging open like they did in the Land of Clouds, and this is what they ended up as. They’ll probably die like that.”

Baif deeply furrowed his brow, as if disgusted by the wretched ones. A face that could have been called beautiful now began to look sinister, like a venomous snake.

“T-Then what do we have to do to go over there?”

The woman with the mountain-like belly clasped her hands as she looked at the wealthy people on the left. She bit her lip, as if she was willing to do anything to get there.

“Hmm….”

“Please tell us!”

“We beg you!”

The others also stared at Baif with tense eyes, asking him to tell them the method.

“The method is simple.”

As if savoring the desperation in their eyes, Baif paused instead of answering immediately.

“Desire.”

With his long finger, he pointed to the left side of the chests of those whose hearts were pounding violently.

“Focus on your desire, and be honest with it! To obtain what you want, you must be able to kick out your aging parents and even steal a single piece of bread from your starving child.”

Curling his lips, Baif said that only by discarding the social values humanity had built up could one pursue true desire.

“This is a dreamland where desire itself becomes power. The more faithful you are to desire, the more openly you reveal your urges, the more you can possess.”

He clenched his fist, saying that in Heaven, desire could even be transformed into actual might.

‘Indeed….’

Raon nodded slightly as he looked at the people on the left and right.

‘The ones on the right are much stronger.’

When I spread my sense, the people on the right felt like Grandmasters, while those on the left didn’t even seem to reach the realm of Master.

‘A place where desire becomes might….’

Raon let out a hollow chuckle.

‘They’ve really made something ridiculous.’

It was ridiculous, yet so fitting of something Derus Robert would do that it made me laugh.

It seems they borrowed the power of those archangel bastards for this as well.

Wrath smacked his lips while examining the ground and buildings.

It smells of filthy divine power everywhere.

He frowned, clearly irritated at being in this place.

“If you can stay true to your desires, you’ll be able to obtain true pleasure that the joys you experienced in the Land of Clouds can’t even come close to.”

He snickered while pointing at the wealthy people on the left, whom others admired and feared.

“But….”

With eyes gone cold, Baif looked down at the people on the right who were slumped on the ground like beggars.

“If you just sit there with your mouths open like you did in the Land of Clouds, that’s what you’ll end up like.”

He twirled his finger as if telling them to think carefully about what they were going to do.

‘That kind of thing certainly matters too.’

Raon nodded calmly.

‘Discrimination is a form of pleasure as well.’

In the Land of Clouds, everyone was treated equally, but Heaven was a place where discrimination was the norm.

In other words, it meant one could also feel the pleasure of superiority by possessing what others could not.

“Hmm….”

“If that’s the case, I’m confident!”

“E-Even stealing from parents and children…?”

“When it comes to desire, I won’t lose to anyone!”

“Sounds fun.”

Out of the ten people, half dreamed of pleasure, red light igniting in their eyes, while the rest trembled, their shoulders shaking as if worried about what lay ahead.

‘As expected of Derus Robert.’

Raon let out a dry smirk as he looked at the people split into two groups.

‘You really put together a well-designed structure.’

Structure?

Wrath tilted his head as if asking what he meant.

‘You lure people who are lacking something into the Land of Clouds, let them taste what pleasure is, then send them to Heaven and make them compete with each other through desire.’

After teaching those who lost in competition in the outside world about desire and pleasure, he creates an arena where they can compete again and sends them out to fight. Cruel yet efficient, exactly like Derus Robert.

What is that bastard Derus aiming for?

Wrath raised an eyebrow, clearly curious.

‘He’s probably collecting the negative energy that comes from people pursuing their desires. This place called Heaven is a massive breeding ground for that.’

Raon rubbed the stiff back of his neck.

‘Everyone in Heaven is nothing more than Derus Robert’s slaves.’

The wealthy who strutted around as if Heaven were their own land, and the wretched who were so emaciated they could die at any moment, all of them were merely dairy cows trapped in a pen, being milked.

Ha, now that you put it that way, you’re right!

Wrath nodded his blue head vigorously, as if he finally understood.

‘There are those who become stepping stones and those who climb by stepping on them, this place truly is the wild.’

Realizing Derus’s plan to turn humans into slaves of pleasure, Raon felt his shoulders tremble slightly.

‘A frightening and petty bastard.’

The King of Essence finds you more frightening.

Wrath frowned, finding Raon more frightening than Derus.

‘Why me?’

Raon tilted his head at Wrath.

The moment you stepped onto the board that scheming bastard set up, you grasped everything! No, just entering this place at all is something not even a ghost could do!

Wrath snorted, saying that even Derus Robert would never have imagined Raon entering this place.

‘That’s probably true.’

Raon slowly curled the corners of his mouth upward.

‘That means I need to see and experience as much as possible.’

To kill Derus, I had to understand him as thoroughly as possible. Even in this land called Heaven, I needed to extract as much information as I could, one way or another.

“Take one each.”

Baif reached into his robe and took out ten pouches. Inside each pouch were twenty gold coins engraved with an angel’s wing.

“W-What is this?”

A balding middle-aged man blinked as he accepted the pouch.

“It’s the currency used in Heaven.”

As if wondering why he was even asking, Baif held up a winged gold coin between his fingers.

“C-Currency?”

“There’s money here too?”

The people tilted their heads, as if they hadn’t expected currency to exist.

“I told you earlier. This place is different from the Land of Clouds. There are no attendants here who will feed you and give you a home just because you sit still. You have to sell your desires to survive.”

Baif sneered, saying that everything in Heaven was competition.

“But as long as you have desire, you can buy money, power, women, men, anything at all!”

As if wishing them luck in the fights ahead, he handed the pouches of gold to them one by one.

“Thank you!”

Raon raised his voice loudly as he accepted the bundle Baif handed him, acting as though he were eager.

“Good. I have high expectations for you.”

Unlike the others, Baif handed Raon the pouch personally and even patted his shoulder.

“Yes!”

Raon bowed his head again, saying he wouldn’t disappoint him. As he slowly straightened his back, he felt sharp gazes around him.

They weren’t the looks of those who had arrived in Heaven together with him. They were the piercing stares of people who had already taken root and lived in Heaven, stabbing down like arrows.

However, the attention was not focused solely on him. Interest and desire were fixed on everyone who had received gold coins.

‘That bastard….’

Raon narrowed his lips as he watched Baif’s back as he turned to leave after handing out the coins.

‘So that’s why he gave it here on purpose.’

The place Raon was standing now was a main street, with people constantly passing through. Seeing Baif hand out gold coins in such a crowded place made his intention perfectly clear.

“Now then, be on your way. In this land of freedom, spread your desires to your heart’s content!”

Baif wore a broad smile, as if saying he believed in them all.

“If you grow strong, we will meet again.”

He nodded as if looking forward to that day, then left.

“Hmm….”

Raon gripped the pouch of gold coins, feeling its heavy weight, and glanced around with uneasy eyes.

Yet inside, he was thinking the complete opposite, holding back a laugh that threatened to burst out.

‘This is going to be fun.’

*   *   *

Ssssh.

The young man known as Charlie bent his waist and erased his presence.

‘I can’t afford to fail this time.’

His hands trembled with tension as he gnawed on his lips.

“Hup.”

Charlie slowly drew in a breath, then held it.

‘If I mess up again today, I’ll really starve to death.’

Heaven. No, this land that could just as easily be called hell. It had been half a year since he arrived here.

At first, he thought he could do anything for the sake of the pleasures he had tasted in the Land of Clouds. But on his very first day, he was betrayed by a companion and had his pouch of gold stolen. Since then, he had lived like a beggar.

He had failed every time he targeted the pouches of newcomers, but this time, the one he had marked looked weak and stupid, so it seemed likely he could succeed.

‘Stupid bastard….’

If he slept at an inn, he could have protected his pouch, but seeing him enter the bushes to save money reminded Charlie of his past self, when his pouch had been stolen by a companion.

‘I feel sorry for him, but it can’t be helped.’

If he didn’t get money today, he would be the one to die. There was no room to think about a newcomer. Nodding to himself, he resolved to steal the money no matter what it took.

Ssssh.

Charlie silenced his footsteps and slipped into the bushes where the newcomer had hidden himself.

‘He probably thought he was being clever, but that won’t work.’

The newcomer must have thought that hiding among the bushes would let him hear anyone approaching, but everyone living in Heaven possessed some degree of might. Moving without making a sound was child’s play.

‘There!’

Charlie’s eyes lit up as he spotted the newcomer’s thin breaths slipping through the bushes.

‘If stealing doesn’t work, I’ll just take it by force. He’s a newcomer, there’s no way he’s stronger than me.’

Just as he reached his hand toward the newcomer’s chest, determined not to miss his chance—

Flash!

The sleeping newcomer snapped open his vivid blue eyes and instantly grabbed Charlie’s hand.

“W-What the—!”

Charlie cried out in shock, trying to yank his wrist free, but it wouldn’t budge, as if he’d been caught by an ogre.

“You’re too late.”

The newcomer smiled brightly, like someone who had been waiting desperately for his lover, and tightened his grip on Charlie’s wrist.

“I’ve been waiting for a long time.”

 

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