Only I Know the War Hero’s Secret Chapter 7

***

 

His vision flashed red.

At the same time, a sound like tens of thousands of monsters shrieking in a frenzy reverberated through his mind.

“I was wrong. Lord Richard, please…….”

As Richard suffered from an unbearable headache, an irritating voice buzzed around his ears like a pesky fly.

He tilted his head to one side.

Was the man begging for his life?

Hadn’t he already been prepared to die when he betrayed him?

The man groveling before him was one of his trusted subordinates. Just ten minutes ago, he had led a group of assassins and plunged a dagger into Richard’s abdomen.

It wasn’t particularly surprising.

Lately, attempts to bribe those close to Richard had been incessant.

The more his fame and popularity grew, the more brazen his political enemies became in their underhanded schemes.

“AAAAAAGH!! Guh……! H-hhk. Lord Richard, please…… Please, spare m……!”

Without hesitation, Richard silenced the annoying fly. Then, the corners of his lips suddenly twisted.

After all, the petty power struggles surrounding him were nothing compared to the monster rampaging inside his body.

While hunting down Baelmos, the rampaging Black Dragon, he had been swallowed by an enormous, unidentified hole.

It was a space that brought to mind the ‘Chaos’ described in the Holy Scripture’s account of the Creation of Heaven and Earth—a place beyond the reach of God’s hand, completely shrouded in disorder.

Chaos, said to have given birth to all manner of abominations.

After entering and emerging from that dark abyss, a monster had taken up residence inside Richard’s body.

And yet, despite being swallowed by that dreadful Chaos, he had not become a complete monster.

His mana core, unprecedentedly powerful, suppressed the demonic energy, leaving him in a half-monster state—neither a complete monster nor an entirely human being.

At the same time, mana and demonic energy coexisted within his body in an unnatural state. And today, the demonic energy was particularly violent.

The arteries bulging beneath his skin were gradually turning black, while his muscles swelled abnormally and writhed.

Amid the pain that felt as though his blood vessels were burning, he briefly retraced the possible cause of the demonic energy’s rampage.

‘Was it those cigarettes……?’

The moment he inhaled the smoke from the cigarettes with the peculiar herbal scent offered by the street vendor, the mana inside his body had subtly twisted.

Had that caused the internal disruption?

The demonic energy, which had been suppressed by his mana, began rampaging all at once like a horse that had broken free of its reins.

To make matters worse, tonight was a full moon, when demonic energy grew stronger, and he had also been wounded in the ambush. It was only natural that it would become even more violent.

As the burning sensation tearing through his entire body grew increasingly unbearable, Richard’s patience began to wear thin.

The demonic energy extending from his back writhed like a living creature, swallowing everything around him in darkness, while his round pupils narrowed into slits.

If he simply surrendered his body to the monster, he would feel better.

However, if he went on a rampage in the Imperial Capital, dealing with the aftermath would be even more troublesome. So he scraped together every last bit of his remaining patience.

‘The demonic energy weakens when the sun rises. I just have to hold out until morning…….’

That was when it happened.

“Hk……!”

Beyond his blood-red vision, he heard a small gasp.

‘There’s still another fly left.’

The irritating emotions that had been festering inside him all day began bubbling up violently.

His eyes glinting, he glared in the direction of the fly.

 

***

 

The moment those vertically slit pupils fixed on her as though they could pierce straight through her body, primal terror tightened around Mona’s chest.

‘That’s not something I can handle the way I would a slime.’

She had to run.

Frozen like a herbivore, Mona finally managed to move her feet.

She hurriedly turned around, grabbed the hem of her skirt, and began running as fast as she could.

But she didn’t get very far.

KWA-BOOM!

Suddenly, the mana around her twisted violently, and the tall wall surrounding the alley exploded.

“Ugh!”

The tremendous blast and fragments flying in every direction sent Mona tumbling to the ground.

As if things weren’t bad enough, the wall came crashing down in pieces, completely blocking her only escape route.

“Hk……!”

Like a mouse trapped in a jar, Mona swallowed a trembling breath and turned around.

Beyond the thick clouds of dust, a figure with blood-red eyes was gradually approaching.

“……!!”

As the moonlight broke through the clouds, the predator’s face became increasingly clear. Mona’s eyes widened.

‘Richard Cronell……!?’

The moment she recognized the face of the war hero who had received everyone’s admiration and praise at the banquet just a few hours earlier, her breath caught in her throat.

“H-hhk. Lord Richard, please…….”

At the same time, she remembered the pleading voice she had heard just moments ago.

Yet even in the midst of her terror, Mona sensed something terribly wrong.

Was that…… really the war hero?

‘Something’s strange.’

To Mona, the being standing before her looked less like a human and more like a monster.

She could swear to that on her entire lifelong devotion to monsters.

For one thing, the mana surrounding it was circulating in reverse.

And those reptilian, slit-like pupils were hardly something one would expect to see in a human.

‘But there’s no way Grand Duke Richard, the Emperor’s nephew, could be a monster…….’

Then what on earth was that thing?

Ah……!

Suddenly, a plausible answer flashed through Mona’s mind.

A Doppelgänger.

She remembered reading about them in an old book when she was young.

It said that monsters capable of imitating human appearances weren’t merely creatures of ghost stories, but actually existed.

However, perhaps because their true nature was so elusive, the information about Doppelgängers in the old book had been scarce.

They had no body heat, disappeared during the day when the sun rose, and were classified as high-ranking monsters because of their intelligence. That was about all……?

“Looks like there’s one little rat left…….”

Just as Mona was recalling the characteristics of Doppelgängers, the air around her began to vibrate, and a chillingly deep voice resonated through her head.

The creature she suspected was a Doppelgänger had somehow approached to within just a few steps of her.

As the distance closed, the smell of blood suddenly rushed into her nostrils. Mona held her breath.

A dagger was embedded in the man’s—or rather, the monster’s—firm abdomen, which was exposed through his shirt, now reduced to bloodied rags.

Dark crimson blood streamed down from around the blade, which had pierced his pale flesh. Mona instinctively covered her mouth.

‘How…… is he even moving in that condition?’

Was it because he was a monster and couldn’t feel pain?

Swish.

While she stood frozen at the horrifying sight, the man—or rather, the monster—pulled out the dagger with his gleaming eyes fixed on her.

“……Who sent you?”

The tip of the monster’s dagger pointed toward the mask Mona had put on in place of her glasses.

The blade lightly tapped the mask as it passed, but she didn’t even have time to straighten it.

“……!”

Soon, the dagger’s tip lowered to her chin, and her lips began trembling involuntarily.

The fear of having her throat pierced at any moment swept over her.

The hostility contained in those blood-red eyes was so intense that it was almost unbearable.

‘Well, he was stabbed in the abdomen. It would be strange if he didn’t feel hostile toward humans.’

Even though she knew the collapsed wall had blocked her escape, she desperately tried to retreat.

Tap.

When her back finally hit the wall, Mona tightly clenched the hand that had been trembling all this time, as though giving up on it.

‘I can’t touch that thing.’

Although the unfortunate experiment had changed her into someone with a special constitution that made monsters follow her, that ability only worked through physical contact.

But at this moment, her head would be rolling on the ground before she could even reach out.

She had come here to observe monsters, relying on this very constitution. She never imagined she would encounter something so terrifying that she couldn’t even touch it……

‘Is there really no other way……?’

But she couldn’t think of any way to survive right now.

Biting her lip tightly, Mona rummaged through her skirt pocket with the desperation of someone clutching at a straw and pulled out a small perfume bottle.

Inside was a concentrated essence of perfume designed to elicit a friendly response from monsters.

It was known as ‘Monster-Friendship Perfume.’

Even after her experiment had ended in spectacular failure when she was seventeen, Mona had never given up.

Far from giving up, she had continued her research in secret at an abandoned monastery near the Academy.

‘It’s unfinished, and I’ve never actually tried using it…….’

For now, all she could do was hope it would work.

She could only pray that the perfume would soften the creature’s murderous hostility, even just a little……

‘Open, please.’

Cold sweat gathered in her palm.

Trying to open the cap with only one hand so as not to attract its attention, she kept fumbling with it.

Click.

It opened……!

At that moment, she felt the dagger aimed at her throat prick into her skin. Her heart sank.

Mona finally lost her grip on the glass bottle.

‘Oh, heavens……!’

The perfume spilled all over Mona’s skirt, and its intensely concentrated fragrance spread through the air in an instant.

“……!”

As soon as the scent spread, the creature before her let out a short groan and staggered.

Crash!

At the same time, the dagger that had been pointed at Mona’s throat slipped from his hand and fell limply to the ground.