The Immortal Had a Guardian Spirit Chapter 10

“This is information about the slave traders, obtained by roughing up that pursuer earlier. Take this and go to the Imperial Palace. Go there, prove you are a Sculpted Soul Orb Master, and ask for help.”

Dan looked down at the small piece of paper that had come into his grasp, then clenched his fist around it. Crinkle—the crisp sensation of the stiff paper crumpling was vividly felt.

His noona had asked that man to take good care of him. But that man had no intention of doing so, and he himself was in the position of wanting to kill him.

Thus, the conclusion he reached was this:

‘An adult does not need a guardian.’

Until he became an adult, he would follow him, build up his skills, and uncover his weaknesses.

The general standard for adulthood was twenty, but depending on circumstances, one could be recognized as an adult from eighteen. Considering his own situation—having lost all his family and needing to stand on his own—he could likely follow the latter standard.

His seventeenth birthday had just passed. The remaining time was one year. As soon as he became an adult, he would move in earnest to kill him.

Creeeak.

With each step he took, the old wooden floor let out an unpleasant noise.

The innkeeper lady, who had been staring blankly at the stairs Raven had climbed, only then noticed the arrival of another guest and hastily turned her head. With a brazen look that said ‘look at me, spacing out,’ the standard customer-greeting lines flowed out.

“Welcome. Here for a meal?”

Shake shake.

“Ah, lodging then? How many days will you be staying?”

…Raven had said he would stay a few days, wasn’t it?

Based on the information he had overheard, Dan unfolded one finger and focused on the scene visible through his Sculpted Soul Orb.

To properly set a target, one must know the opponent. In the vision of the black bird perched on a tree outside, the interior of the room Raven had barely managed to find was reflected.

And then his eyes flew wide.

‘…What.’

At the unexpected sight—no, the sudden influx of information—his eyes trembled minutely, filled with confusion.

“Room key is here… customer?”

As if intending to change bandages soaked in blood, Raven had stripped his upper body and rolled up his trousers, untying the bandages.

The all manner of terrible scars densely covering his torso were secondary. Dan’s gaze was fixed on the wounds revealed as the bandages came undone.

Wounds that showed no sign of healing whatsoever, bleeding steadily as if freshly inflicted. Even the scratches from when he had clung to him still had blood beading up in droplets.

‘The wounds… don’t heal?’

They were injuries that should have scabbed over long ago. The small scars all over his body also looked as if just made. There was no choice but to understand it as: all injuries simply did not heal.

‘I did think he wasn’t an ordinary person…’

Truly… what is he?

During the journey following Raven to this place, Dan had observed him more diligently than anyone, trying to figure him out. Thus, he already knew to some extent that he was a somewhat strange existence to call ‘human.’

After all, they had traveled for a full day.

‘He doesn’t use the toilet.’

‘He doesn’t sleep either.’

‘He doesn’t eat.’

So he had been certain that tricks like surprise attacks or poisoning food wouldn’t work on him.

As for rest, sleep, and eating—it had only been a day, so that might be possible. But the physiological functions were truly incomprehensible.

For Dan, who had nearly lost track of him several times while pursuing, this sense of foreignness struck him all the more keenly. If he hadn’t been a Sculpted Soul Orb Master—if, at the very least, his Sculpted Soul Orb hadn’t been a winged animal—he would have lost him long ago.

Now, the information that ‘his wounds do not heal’ was added to the mix. Dan’s face stiffened faintly.

‘Is he truly… not human?’

But other non-human races ate and excreted just the same, he’d heard. He’d never heard of a race whose wounds didn’t heal.

“Customer!”

“…!”

“You’ve finally come to your senses? How could you be lost in thought with someone right in front of you!”

“….”

“Oh dear, here’s the key. Go upstairs and find the room matching the number. You seem tired, so get some good rest while you’re at it.”

Dan stared blankly down at the key, then silently stepped onto the stairs Raven had climbed. The swelling doubts were stored away in a corner of his chest.

‘…I’ll know more if I observe a little longer.’

There was still plenty of time.

∞ ∞ ∞

Entering the room, Raven stripped his upper body and tied back his bothersome hair to change the bandages soaked with blood.

His exposed upper body was a wreck.

All manner of large and small scars filled his body, and on top of that, there were the minor scratches from being scraped here and there before meeting Dan, making it all the worse.

The moment the bandages were loosened, blood began welling up everywhere. In the originally quiet space, a somehow complicated air drifted through.

[…Guardian Spirit ??? says it would be best to hurry to the fairy tribe’s territory.]

“No need to hurry that much. It’s fine as long as I don’t die.”

In contrast to the heavy mood of the guardian spirit, Raven’s expression was serene.

Not only did he not die, he would never run out of blood either. A body whose time had stopped also maintained the amount of blood within, so it wouldn’t hinder his activity.

Thus, with an unconcerned face, he rolled up his trousers and wrapped fresh bandages around his bleeding leg.

“It’s just a bit painful and bothersome.”

…Silence descended.

The silence stretched on in the heavy air. The long silence, continuing until Raven had finished replacing all the bandages with new ones, seemed about to be pushed aside by a newly risen message.

[Guardian Spirit ???…]

Drop.

It vanished.

Before he could even feel puzzled, a low, subdued voice resounded in his head.

[That pain is the problem.]

A voice thick with sorrow and distress, filled with complicated emotions.

Flinching at the sudden voice, Raven rolled his eyes around. His lips, which had been moving silently as if awkward, instead brought up another topic as if nothing had happened.

…Rather than that—,

“I need to win that wager with Death quickly. Then I won’t need to bother finding herbs.”

[…Guardian Spirit ??? expresses doubt.]

“Because I can just cut off the injured parts and then die and resurrect.”

[…!]

Actually, simply cauterizing with fire would be faster and easier than that method, but he really didn’t want to do that. And rather than get burned, it was better to just die and come back.

“In that sense, esteemed ancestor.”

Green eyes curved gently, holding a trace of laughter.

“A hint for finding your name—can you give it to me now?”

[….]

“…Esteemed ancestor? Hyung?”

No answer came back.

“Hyung, are you… angry?”

[….]

“Are you really not going to tell me?”

[….]

“At least give me an answer…”

He had told him time and again to treat himself as precious.

At the remark that openly disregarded this, the guardian spirit, feeling bitter anger, shut his mouth entirely.

∞ ∞ ∞

Having changed all the bandages and put his clothes back on, Raven lay on the bed and waited for night to come.

At first, he called out to the guardian spirit a few times, pressing for an answer. But when no response returned to the very end, he had no choice but to give up and lie down.

In the silence that felt newly unfamiliar and awkward, he fiddled with the folded paper and let out a dim sigh.

‘I know I did wrong.’

Once, back when he treated himself carelessly, the guardian spirit—who had sent messages time and again telling him not to—had eventually raised his actual voice.

Was it when he had abused the method of dying to recover whenever his wounds bothered him, until Death finally blocked that path?

Seeing things reach such a state, it seemed the guardian spirit could no longer let it be. A rather firm voice had resounded in his head. Reading his self-loathing for having opened the gate and caused countless casualties, it was a statement made to impart value to him, whose self-esteem was at rock bottom.

[Child, I was a hero of the ‘Age of Myth.’ I placed value on nothing, including myself, and dedicated the entirety of my remaining life to just one thing before I died.]

If such a person had begun to love again, had begun to look upon something else—

How great and heavy must the worth of that object be?

[If you have no confidence in yourself and feel no worth, then think of me, who loves you.]

[….]

[Think of the worth as the object cherished with all the heart of a hero of the Age of Myth—a man who even abandoned himself.]

Though it could be seen as coercion at a glance due to the resolute voice, this statement clearly carried a request, a desperate plea.

The last resort and maximum effort to somehow bestow value so he could live a life like a human.

Raven knew what it meant for the guardian spirit—who was reluctant to reveal himself—to say such a thing.

‘So I’ve been restraining myself in my own way.’

In any case, now even dying and resurrecting couldn’t heal him, so there was no choice but to endure. There had been no further clashes since then. But it seemed he had grown lax precisely because of that.

To make a mistake like this.

“Esteemed ancestor.”

[….]

“Hyung.”

[….]

Hmm.

It seemed he’d have to wait a bit longer, until the guardian spirit’s anger subsided.

Still, should he be grateful that the eyes were lent to him as usual? Rolling the eyes that vividly reflected the world, he unfolded the paper in his hand.

Information related to the slave traders, the same as what he had given Dan, filled his vision.

‘Good thing I didn’t kill him right away.’

It was bothersome, but a good thing he’d had a little patience and extracted the information before killing him. Truthfully, while Dan was making the grave, there hadn’t been anything else to do, and he couldn’t let a child’s hands be dirtied already—but anyway.

The furious face asking why he had killed the man when it should have been him filled his mind again, but he pretended not to see and pushed it aside, closing his eyes.

‘Thanks to that, there’s no problem leaving Dan behind now.’

So it’s fine.

Dan would someday forget ‘Raven.’

But still, even if the memories of ‘Raven’ disappeared, the memories of the slave traders and the information on the paper in his hand would remain. The advice he’d given would also stay somewhere in his mind. It would become another path for the child who had lost the target called ‘Raven.’

Thinking of Dan, who had set killing him as his goal, Raven looked at the paper again and frowned.

‘…It really does seem like I’ll have to go to the Imperial Capital.’

Something seemed to have gone wrong there.

Whether the imperial authority had weakened, or there were those aiming to weaken it. Whatever the reason, the situation didn’t look very good.

If the Empire was solid, it would be impossible for such scum to operate against imperial citizens within the Empire…

‘When I thought they’d hold out for ten years—they’re not really going to collapse right after barely holding out exactly ten years, are they.’

It would be troublesome if the Empire collapsed.

Other small kingdoms might be one thing, but if the Empire collapses, the aftermath would certainly reach the entire continent. The era of war to regain power and national strength would begin again.

‘…If war breaks out, most of the combat-capable forces would have to go out to the battlefield.’

Naturally, the manpower to deal with gates would decrease.

Since it was absurd for humanity, already struggling just to cope with gates, to wage war and close gates at the same time, it was obvious the victims of the gates would increase if war began.

‘That cannot happen.’

He didn’t care about people dying from war.

But there must be no one dying from gates.

‘I don’t like it, but I had to go there anyway…’

As Death had said, there were faces he must face at least once. And to find out the guardian spirit’s name, he needed to go to the capital, where the head of an information network he knew was located. Therefore, regardless of his unenthusiastic feelings, Raven confirmed the capital as his destination after visiting the fairy tribe’s territory.

‘Now then… shall I move?’

Lying down, he subtly shifted his gaze to the window, which had grown dark before he knew it, then lowered his eyes slightly to check on the crow dozing off on a tree branch.

Yes, it was about time it got tired. Handling a Sculpted Soul Orb without rest was like using one’s brain without rest.

He had known the crow was watching this way even after he entered the room. So, having waited until the sky darkened, Raven took advantage of the moment the crow’s gaze had fallen away from him, grabbed the room key, and quietly opened the window.

Since he had no luggage to speak of and hadn’t removed anything from his person, there was nothing to get caught on. Stepping onto the wide windowsill to jump outside… his eyes met the sleek, glossy eyes of the crow.

“….”

“….”

“Ah.”

Busted.