Disgusting. I could forgive it if Belsus spat out the food I made, but I can’t forgive you. I slammed my fist down on Archer’s head.
Archer coughed and wiped his mouth with his sleeve, but his eyes were still wide open.
“You’re going to catch Kaline? You?”
Soon, he scrunched up one eyebrow and looked at me with pure bewilderment rather than mockery.
Right. How does a farmer catch a Paladin? Since it was a perfectly valid point, I took zero damage. I even nodded my head in agreement.
Royal Knight Kaline Rioden. A young and enthusiastic individual, he had personally captured more than ten criminals by running around himself.
They say if there were five Kalines, criminals would disappear from the kingdom, and if there were ten Kalines, they’d need to build more prisons because he’d even catch people who weren’t criminals.
Young and sturdy, full of spirit, a diligent worker who learned martial arts from outstanding seniors in the knight order.
Should I add one more characteristic that’s different between day and night?
‘By day, an honorable royal knight; by night, a Hunter serial killer…’
That’s right. This bastard who appears to be a righteous knight actually goes crazy whenever he sees Hunters. Since the kingdom’s policy is to discriminate against Hunters anyway, he kills Hunters and drains their experience points without any hesitation.
‘He himself awakened as a Hunter, but seeing how he hides the secret and goes around killing other Hunters, he’s actually not that honest either…’
I thought about Kaline’s terrifying character setting, but I wasn’t trembling or intimidated at all.
When I fell silent, Archer felt suspicious and instinctively raised his eyebrows. I grinned as if I’d been waiting for this.
“Kaline caught Belsus and grew rapidly in the early stages, right?”
“Uh, yeah.”
Although they say Kaline’s early stats are overpowered, Kaline’s prologue starts after killing Belsus, so he begins in a state where he’s already devoured Belsus’s experience points.
“Then since he didn’t catch him, he must be weaker than what we saw in the game.”
“No, that’s true, but…”
“And I’m a farmer. I can apply debuffs to the food I make. Let’s feed Kaline my food.”
Archer blinked at the sudden information.
The next moment, Archer had a fit.
“Then you’ve been feeding me things made like that this whole time?!”
I shrugged my shoulders and brazenly mocked him.
“Well, you’re also a competitor, so why would I give it to you for free? It’s your fault for accepting and eating it without suspicion. It was delicious, wasn’t it?”
Archer made an expression as if he’d eaten food waste.
His head was thinking he should throw up everything he’d eaten until now, but he couldn’t even spit out the piece of stew meat currently in his mouth because it was too delicious, so he chewed it with a tearful expression—this bastard was done for.
“Will you starve to death without eating, or eat and become a little weak?”
“…”
“If you don’t eat, it’s 0 calories, but if you eat, it’s 1 calorie, so eating is more profitable, right?”
Tears welled up in Archer’s eyes as he whipped around to look at me.
“I ate pork, salt, pepper, oil, eggs, and even cheese, so why is it only 1 calorie?!”
I patted his shoulder and calmly tried to calm him down. Of course, he didn’t seem to calm down at all.
“I fed you a weak version. But I’m going to feed Kaline a really strong one.”
“Ugh, fine. Let’s say I understand that! But how are you going to feed it to Kaline?”
An important question.
I scratched my head with a thoughtless-looking face and mumbled casually.
“Well… should I open a food cart or something?”
“Are you crazy?”
I imagined hanging a sign next to where Kaline passes by that says <Premium Stew Made by a Farmer! Only 2 Silver!> and luring Kaline in with the smell of stew.
If life gets boring, I guess I could do that.
“I’ll handle the feeding part myself. Your role is important. I’ll only say this once.”
When I gripped Archer’s shoulders tightly, perhaps intimidated even by this scrawny farmer, Archer’s momentum diminished slightly.
It must have been because of the merciless voice I spat out.
“I’ll draw Kaline’s attention. When I feed him the food, you shoot and kill him with your bow.”
In other words, catching him meant eliminating Kaline from this ranking competition so Archer could compete alone.
Archer’s face turned pale. Archer, who had become quiet as if it were a lie, slowly lowered his head.
“I told you I can’t do it. You want me to… kill my own character?”
When he heard the same words before, he was indignant, but now he was intimidated. I’d never heard such a powerless voice from him before.
“What do you mean ‘your character’ when you can’t even control it?”
However, I had no intention of going easy on him.
“Look at Kaline’s personality. Do you think we could ever team up with him later? You guys absolutely can’t. As long as you can devour each other with those abilities.”
Don’t you want to win? What are you going to do being so soft-hearted?
A long silence flowed.
Perhaps realizing there was no other way, Archer eventually nodded his head.
Archer’s jaw, filled with tension, seemed to tremble slightly.
* * *
Kaline had dreamed the same dream thousands of times.
A dream of finally cutting off that sluggish bastard’s neck today.
—There is the last remaining bloodline of the former dynasty. A collateral figure who hasn’t been caught for 20 years. There would be no greater glory than crushing the last ember with the knight order’s own hands.
A person who became the kingdom’s worst death row inmate because of the bloodline flowing through his body.
It was the moment he first witnessed him up close. Kaline’s eyes widened as he took in Belsus’s information.
He was a Hunter.
Someone he could kill and extract experience points from.
‘How can there be such a perfectly made sacrifice for me…’
With that person’s severed head, both the reward from the nation and tremendous power would roll in simultaneously.
So he had to be the one to take Belsus’s head. He couldn’t let any other knight or hunter claim it.
Kaline chased Belsus for years. Later, even the time spent at the royal palace made him anxious. Whenever he went on dispatch, he always tracked down where Belsus would have gone.
Belsus gradually wore down day by day from the persistent pursuit. No matter how much fleeing was in his nature, he couldn’t help but weaken as Kaline threw away his entire daily life to chase him.
Every time Belsus barely escaped from his grasp, Kaline would kick the wall and curse.
—You bug-like bastard!
Even when stabbed in the shoulder with a sword, he survived and ran away. He should have stabbed the heart.
He poisoned food and sent it to the farmhouse where Belsus stayed overnight, but even after eating it, Belsus crawled out and escaped. He should have put in enough poison to turn all his skin black.
Kaline was sick and tired of this now. Today would be the last day. He would finish it in this slum.
Belsus’s face was unrecognizable from severe starvation, extremely weakened.
Dodging the arrow must have been his last struggle. There was no way he could have escaped this slum.
Kaline closed his bloodshot eyes once and opened them. He roughly rubbed the skin of his face, which had become slightly stiff and dry like a viper.
It was when he raised his head, vowing to kill that vermin.
“Wow, it’s a knight!”
Suddenly, a lively voice came from slightly below. Kaline spotted a boy who had approached closely.
“You came to catch a bad guy, right!”
It was a boy he’d never seen before. Whether a boy or a young man, his height wasn’t very tall but his eyes were strangely alive, making it confusing.
Street kids who admired royal knights were everywhere. It wasn’t a big deal for some clueless brat to cling to him chattering away.
But… usually they’d hand over flowers if anything, but it was rare for one to offer food.
“I made it… Will you have some?”
The boy lifted the cloth covering the basket and showed Kaline the food slightly.
A sandwich with thinly sliced ham and cheese between bread, sprinkled with sugar syrup and pepper, gave off an incredibly heavenly smell.
“…”
It was purely instinct. Seeing food that looked strangely delicious, saliva went down Kaline’s throat.
‘Come to think of it… I kept skipping meals while chasing that bug.’
Although it was made by some beggar rather than a chef, it wasn’t something Kaline couldn’t eat. Kaline had frequented commoners’ street food shops during missions.
Moreover, he was extremely hungry.
However.
“You take a bite first.”
He was very suspicious.
Royal knights, especially those like Kaline who received special orders to apprehend kingdom criminals, accumulated many grudges through word of mouth. This boy also looked very insignificant, but he might be someone trying to poison him.
“Ah… me?”
The boy hesitated for a moment, then tore off a corner of the sandwich with hands that were clean and dust-free for a commoner.
Kaline’s eyes watched the piece of sandwich being pushed into the mouth through the boy’s fingers. Every motion of chewing and swallowing.
“…I’ll accept it.”
The sandwich was handed over to the royal knight wearing shining armor. The knight slowly bit into the sandwich and swallowed.
It was then that the boy, Hian, sent a look behind the knight.
‘…Ha.’
Archer, hiding behind the corner, drew his bowstring. His arms trembled.
The tip of the arrowhead aimed at the nape of the knight visible in the distance.
