The Cardinal of the Holy Empire, Eiros.
Delpo Eiros. He was born with a reduced ability to feel emotions.
He wasn’t a psychopath. At least he could somewhat grasp the emotions that people felt. It was just that he experienced feelings to an extreme degree less than others.
He hailed from the back alleys of the Holy Kingdom. In those filthy backstreets where sunlight never shone, the ones born there extended their lives by backstabbing and killing others day by day.
For a small child to kill people and scavenge for food daily would indeed be an incredibly hard and cruel task, but that didn’t apply to Delpo.
If you were to put it differently, he actually took pleasure in killing.
The moment a person dies. The instant hot blood splatters across his face, he recalls vividly even now.
When the warm blood that had been pulsating through a body just moments ago is sprayed around like confetti by his fatal blow, especially when he feels the warmth of that life, a strange ecstasy would wash over him.
It was an entirely new sensation.
As if he were being reborn.
Delpo hunted and killed other humans for ‘entertainment’ rather than merely to survive.
The results were exceptional. Each time he killed someone, and each time he slowly tore apart an artery with the back of his blade, the chilling sensation it brought him was sufficient to experience joy.
It was electrifying. So this is what it feels like to be alive.
Little Delpo realized he was living.
And thus began the relentless spree of murder. With his innate combat sense that he possessed since birth, he accumulated experience through killing and quickly took over the back alleys entirely.
Every single day, he killed those pitiful beggars.
And little by little, as he slaughtered them, he felt:
“What a lousy bunch.”
Boredom.
Every day was a monotonous repetition. Pitiful idiots would blindly come at him, and it was just a tedious and tiresome task of smashing their heads in one by one.
Before long, the initial thrill of killing faded, and the exhilaration of taking a life had long since diluted.
In his life, a new wind blew one day.
An aristocrat came to visit. The nobleman from another country offered Delpo a handsome sum if he would become his subordinate.
The way that arrogant fellow spoke was truly pitiful.
Yet, curiosity stirred within him.
They said nobles had blue blood. Would it truly feel different to kill a noble?
To cut to the chase:
It did feel different.
An aristocrat who had grown up well did not exhale a resigned sigh when facing death but rather exhibited outright denial and hatred to the very end.
In truth, it wasn’t all that different. However, the situation of a noble struggling beneath him became a boundless source of thrilling amusement and joy for him.
From that moment on, he changed his target.
He took pleasure in killing the nobles from other countries.
Naturally, being nobles of a foreign realm, those they had in tow were quite formidable. Were they knights? Those guys in their bulky metal armor swinging their swords clumsily were a sight to behold that made Delpo chuckle.
They were clumsy. Of course, they were surprisingly quick for someone in such heavy armor, but they were no match for Delpo, who was naturally gifted in combat.
He tore apart the noble, who was being escorted while effortlessly dodging the myriad attacks from the knights in front of him.
Unfortunately, due to that heavy armor, he couldn’t slay all the knights, but he managed to take out quite a few.
It was exhilarating. Every time a knight’s sword brushed against the tip of his nose, an electrifying sensation coursed through his entire body.
From that moment on, he became known as the noble hunter.
He sought out nobles, killing them, again and again.
Because of this, the nobles significantly ramped up their defenses.
But at times like that, he would resort to assassination. Those complacent nobles began to suffer from paranoia, fearing that he might come for them at night.
It was enjoyable. And thus, greed began to creep in.
“I wonder what the old folks of the Holy Kingdom would taste like.”
Those who serve the Gods—how would they die, truly?
With that thought, he stormed into the Holy Kingdom. He boldly broke down the main gate and, with an ecstasy-filled expression, slaughtered all the old folks who were lost in prayer.
The results, however, were underwhelming.
“How boring.”
There was no reaction at all. Even in the moments of their choking death, they continued to pray to their God.
Within those crazed eyes, there was no fear or dread of death. Instead, only the thrill and brightness of meeting the Goddess they longed for awaited them.
So, he decided to turn away.
“An interesting one.”
Until the Pope approached him.
“Are you the Pope?”
“Indeed.”
“Then I’m curious—what kind of scream will you let out?”
The outcome was a catastrophic defeat. The Pope was stronger than anyone he had ever encountered.
With just his bare hands, he shattered Delpo’s blade and crushed his body to bits; the Pope was certainly not someone he could contend with.
Naturally, he thought he would die. Surely, the Pope would take revenge for the dead followers.
But that wasn’t the case.
“Good. You shall become a Cardinal.”
Instead, he proposed that Delpo become a Cardinal of the Holy Kingdom.
It was an unbelievable offer. Why would he grant him such a position?
He studied the Pope’s eyes for any sign of deception, but those tranquil and unwavering orbs did not speak of falsehood.
Initially, he was not swayed.
However…
“Aren’t you curious? What sort of pained expression the Saint, the Goddess’s representative, will make?”
“…!!”
The Saint.
Undoubtedly the most noble being in the Holy Kingdom.
To see her pained expression? There was no greater thrill for him than that.
Thus, he accepted.
And then the Holy Kingdom began to abuse the Saint as they pleased, imprisoning her while executing people in front of her under the charge of heresy.
It was a delightful time. Watching the most noble being gradually darken was truly a sight to behold.
And so it was.
Just as the Saint hoped to regain her senses once more, he became furious.
Was the punishment he delivered only that little?
Was she still searching for even a fragment of the sense of touch?
But when she truly regained her sense of touch, what arrived late was an overwhelming ecstasy.
It was the Saint herself. Imagining the sheer thrill contained in her screams of agony as she bled was beyond comprehension.
Thus, he planned to take her back to the Holy Kingdom at once for a “correction.”
[Now, bow your head.]
Until he met that being, everything was overwhelming.
Setting aside his massive physique, the transparent blue eyes that gazed at him emitted a murderous aura that took his breath away.
He could hardly dare to breathe.
In his presence, even a blink was forbidden. He felt his entire body being forcibly fixed and moved according to his wishes.
I will die, I will die, I will die, I will die.
Throughout his life, there was no fear of death.
But that being was different.
It stirred a more primal fear within him.
Every single cell in his body screamed. It felt as if all the nerves that composed him were being torn apart, vaporizing instantly like water turning into air.
Such was the nature of that existence.
The malice radiating from him was more than enough to reduce humans to mere insects.
[How dare a worthless bug step into my domain.]
Kugugugung!
The heavens and earth shook. Delpo wondered if he was facing the end of the planet.
That was the extent of the sensation—everything around him trembled, lava surged from the ground, and the sky shattered, descending upon him.
“Ah…”
It was overwhelming. His entire body was dominated by that presence.
“Ah, ah… Aaaah…!!!”
His eyes melted away.
Dare not face his existence.
His nose was completely pressed down, and he couldn’t even breathe.
Dare not consume his essence.
His tongue melted to a gooey mass and fell to the ground.
Dare not speak of his existence.
His eardrums burst, collapsing and disintegrating in an instant.
Dare not attempt to hear him.
His entire skin felt like it was being shredded into pieces.
Dare not try to feel his presence.
It was horrific.
Delpo realized, amid the ghastly pain, that all of this occurred in the blink of an eye, split thousands of times over.
His existence was one where merely facing the divine would lead to a collapsed and melted fate in the instant.
It was despairing.
He resented how his existence crumbled so worthless and vacant.
It hurt.
So painfully, he wanted to scream, but he could not.
Is feeling emotions so difficult?
Just confronting that being caused every cell in Delpo’s body to tremble in fear, making it hard for him to even recognize the moment.
In that horrific pain, Delpo slowly began to die.
Ah.
Please… let me live…
The last echoes of a garbage’s final breath were unheard.
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