# Chapter 13
Ion draped himself with the longest of Levi’s clothes to make it like a robe, and since there were no pants that fit, he used two shirts, placing one in front and one in back like a skirt to cover his exposed legs. He pushed the hood down low over his head until he could barely see in front of him, and made a mask from black cloth scraps lying around in the tent to cover his face.
Since Levi only owned black clothes, Ion, armed with these garments, looked like a walking black mass.
Ion hadn’t forgotten that he was a fugitive. While his sense of duty to save Levi, who protected him, was strong, he couldn’t afford to leak his own information. The slave traders would still be looking for him, so he needed to be extremely careful.
After walking for about 30 minutes, staying close to Levi’s side toward the forest entrance—
Finally, a flat path appeared in the distance through the thorn trees.
‘Huh? But…’
Looking around, Ion felt a chill run down his spine and tugged at Levi’s sleeve.
“Levi, um… what happened to those dead people from before?”
Until they reached the entrance, not a single corpse of the attackers was visible. Ion wondered if they were on a different path, but he remembered that due to the densely spread thorn trees, there was only one entrance to the forest.
Levi showed no sign of surprise.
“They were absorbed.”
“Absorbed…?”
As if to help Ion understand, Levi pointed to a nearby thorn tree.
“Nutrients.”
As Ion processed Levi’s words in his mind, he gulped. He trembled as he looked at the black thorn trees growing abundantly around them.
‘Man-eating trees…?!’
Ion clung to Levi’s arm with a terrified expression.
Until Ion arrived, the only living beings in this forest were the black thorn trees and Levi. Thinking about it now, it was strange that the thorn trees, which were also living organisms, had survived so well. It seemed they weren’t ordinary thorn trees after all. Trees that used humans as nutrients.
Imagining himself sleeping in the tent house while being drained of nutrients by the thorn trees, Ion asked for confirmation.
“Do they eat living people too?”
“They only eat corpses.”
“Phew…”
Only after confirming this did Ion feel relieved. Though whether they ate people or corpses, they were still man-eating trees.
“That’s why after I kill someone, people come later to bury the bodies here.”
“Ugh…”
The thought made him queasy.
‘So not only do they commission murders, but they also go through the trouble of bringing the corpses here to bury them? And infected corpses at that?’
Ion couldn’t comprehend the behavior and psychology of the people who hired Levi for killing.
That thought was short-lived.
Emerging from the forest, Ion saw a bandaged man waiting outside and realized his thoughts were partly mistaken. As soon as he followed the man into a crumbling abandoned house in the shantytown, he gasped.
“Ugh… urgh…”
The man lying on a blood-stained cloth, enduring extreme pain, emitted an unbearable stench of pus and blood that was difficult to stomach with a clear mind. Added to this was the smell of bodily waste released due to physical agony, making it necessary to hold one’s breath even from several steps away.
In this house full of horrific sights and unbearable odors, only Levi remained composed.
“Please… hic, please help him.”
The bandaged man standing nearby bowed his head to Levi, tears streaming down his face. Levi, still showing no change in expression, approached the man lying on the floor.
At that moment, a small child crouched in the corner suddenly rushed toward Levi.
“Go away! Get away! Don’t touch my father—!”
The young girl, not yet ten years old, had apparently been crying until the bandages on her face were completely soaked. The child clung to Levi’s thigh, using all her strength to push him away. The young man who had guided Levi from the forest entrance quickly pulled her away and bowed his head.
“I’m sorry. I’ll calm the child down…”
“I know this person! He’s a murderer, Uncle! Why are you asking a murderer to help father?!”
“Kana, this isn’t helping!”
“I said go away! Stay away from my father!”
The child shouted loudly despite the man’s attempts to restrain her, tears falling. Then she turned to look at her father and wailed.
“Dad, you said you’d live with me for a long time! You said that when we buried Mom! You said you’d stay with me for a long time!”
The child’s father, struggling with pain, could only groan and cry as he watched his daughter.
If he could have endured the pain and lived on, he would have done so. But the wound had already formed and gangrene was spreading from that spot. Even if he struggled to hold on, he would die within days. The problem was that as he endured, the pain would only worsen, and until his last breath, he would only cause suffering to his brother and daughter.
That’s why he had no choice.
“Lu…i… ugh, take Kana… out…”
“Daddy!”
Hearing his daughter’s desperate cry, the man managed a difficult smile from beneath his bandages.
“You have to… listen to uncle…”
“Daddy! Don’t do this—! Daddy!”
The man called uncle embraced the child with both arms, his expression heartbreaking. Carried out by the man, the child continued crying for her father outside the house, her voice hoarse and cracking.
‘What is this…’
Levi kneeling on one knee next to the man, the relieved expression on the man’s face, and the mournful crying of the child outside.
Ion clenched his hands hidden in his long sleeves. The pain in his chest was greater than that of his fingernails digging into his palms.
He had heard much about the Numinel disease. And about how those lives ended.
They wanted their end to be as peaceful as possible. They didn’t want to burden those around them, nor did they want to endure the extreme pain that would continue until their last breath. Since death was the only outcome anyway, they wanted to end their lives comfortably, even if it meant hastening it by a few days.
Understanding this, Ion was considerably shocked by the current situation.
Levi had indeed taken a murder contract, but it was commissioned by the person who was to be killed.
It was a request from someone in a terminal state seeking momentary comfort.
Levi was neither a brutal murderer nor being exploited by evil people.
‘But that child…’
Thinking of the child crying outside, Ion bit his lower lip firmly.
“He’s a murderer, Uncle! Why are you asking a murderer to help father?!”
The child had called Levi a “murderer.” Ion couldn’t forget the small, angry eyes directed at Levi even as she was carried away in her uncle’s arms.
Yes, strictly speaking, Levi was a murderer. He had killed all the attackers who had pursued Ion with his own hands, and until now, he had gone out to take the lives of those who requested it. Soon, the man before his eyes would also become a corpse by the black hand.
But no matter how he thought about it, Ion couldn’t accept Levi being viewed as a hateful murderer who unilaterally killed the child’s father.
Just before Levi’s black hand touched the man’s head, Ion grabbed his wrist to stop him.
“Wait, Levi.”
At Ion’s intervention, Levi withdrew his hand and looked up at him. Ion’s golden eyes, visible outside the mask, shone with determination.
“Let me try to save this person.”
Levi looked into Ion’s eyes without saying a word.
After staring as if trying to read Ion’s thoughts, Levi obediently stood up. Taking this as permission, Ion quickly bent down to examine the man’s condition with his eyes.
The man, who had closed his eyes thinking he would die soon, exhaled a labored breath upon seeing the black mass examining him.
Ion met the man’s gaze.
“Mister, let me ask you one thing.”
“What…”
Ion pulled out his left hand from inside his long sleeve and asked seriously.
“Do you have any food besides potatoes and cabbage?”
At this unexpected question, the man could only blink without responding.
“Do you have something or not? I’m not even expecting meat.”
“Maybe… ugh, some dried freshwater fish… caught from the nearby stream…”
“Good.”
Ion’s eyes curved prettily.
“Add that as extra compensation. It’s a must.”
“…?”
Before the man could understand the situation, Ion’s left hand touched his forehead. Soon, a soft golden light flowed from his palm, and eventually, that light was absorbed through the man’s forehead.
The man felt a warm energy starting from his head and caressing his entire body. As it circulated throughout his body, following his veins, the pain disappeared wherever it passed, and a comfort like lying on the world’s most luxurious bed came over him.
Amazed by this sudden phenomenon, the man then felt his body, which had been too painful to move even a finger, moving comfortably. By the time Ion removed his hand, the man let out a groan-like exclamation as he looked at his two hands, which no longer hurt no matter how he moved them.
