Please Kill Me - Chapter 59
Something rolled to Vasily’s feet. It was a familiar face, familiar in appearance, and familiar in its…
Massacre.
‘It’s an illusion.’
It had to be an illusion. Please let it be an illusion!
“Sir….Vasily… run away…”
The jovial young man, who had been laughing and joking just a moment ago, now whispered this, and as Vasily was about to lose his grip on reality.
A whisper-like voice came from somewhere.
“Snap out of it. All of this is fake.”
A voice without any emotion.
When Vasily looked up, the scenery had changed in an instant. The hellish sight from moments before was gone, replaced by a monster with countless teeth in its gaping maw, gaping as if to swallow a rock whole.
Crrack. The sound of flesh being torn as the monster’s jaw widened.
“I, uh…”
Although he knew he had to run, still shocked, his body couldn’t respond to the imminent threat in front of him.
He was going to be eaten without a chance to escape.
Just as Vasily braced for the sharp teeth or the damp interior of the monster’s mouth, he felt nothing but dry air and a slightly metallic scent.
Feeling the discrepancy, he slowly opened his eyes, and the first thing he saw was the monster’s corpse sprawled on the ground. The monster was dead, neatly cut down the middle.
Instead, what filled his view was fluttering silver hair.
A woman with her back to the light appeared.
Like those who stand on the edge of life and death, she had a faded expression, her clothes marked with patches of red.
“Congratulations on becoming a better person, Vasily Arkady.”
Hearing his name in that emotionless voice, Vasily finally came to his senses and realized who stood before him.
– “There comes a time when you must strike down someone else to protect yourself. Only those who survive can truly be called better.”
The conversation they had shared on the training ground echoed in Vasily’s head.
“…Yekaterina.”
It was her.
* * *
Moments earlier.
Yekaterina stood in the forest that was now losing its white luster, and thought to herself.
‘It’s an illusion.’
Surrounded by the slaughtered carcasses of monsters, with blood still dripping from the daggers in her both hands.
Yekaterina took a moment to breathe in the cool air of the forest, slowly calming her slightly ragged breathing. She realized she had wandered into the domain of a mental type monster.
The reason was simple: suddenly, the dead around her appeared not as animals but as something else. Silver-haired corpses were strewn around her feet.
Yekaterina looked down at them without disturbance. The dead all bore familiar faces. Perhaps it was inevitable, for beneath the silver hair lay the pale faces she always saw in the mirror.
In a way, the illusion was so clear it made her yawn.
Anyone else might have screamed at the horrific scene, but Yekaterina remained composed. Having hunted monsters for years, she would have already silenced herself if she was going to scream at such things.
Although her encounters with mental monsters were rare, drawing fear from her was futile. Especially now, when she longed for death. Far from being frightened by the scene, she instead pulled out a small dagger from her belongings and threw it towards a tree in the distance.
Thud. The dagger embedded itself into the tree with pinpoint accuracy.
This was a bad sign. Illusions like this usually have a range, and throwing something usually reveals the boundaries, even if faintly.
The problem was that the dagger hit a tree quite far away without reaching the boundary, indicating a mental monster with a significantly large domain. If a monster could create a boundary this vast, it was undoubtedly of a higher grade.
‘I’ll have to confirm, but it’s probably at least a 2nd grade.’
In the worst case, it might even be a 1st grade monster.
In a situation that would have made others fear, Yekaterina remained unfazed, perhaps only slightly annoyed by the inconvenience.
‘I’ve never had a good experience dealing with mental monsters.’
Mental monsters manipulate illusions to target the weakest aspects of the human psyche. It plunges their prey into confusion before consuming them. Panicking and floundering in this situation would be akin to willingly walking into the monster’s jaws.
Yekaterina stepped over the strewn corpses of her doubles on the ground and retrieved the dagger from the tree.
As she turned around, the scene before her eyes transformed.
She was no longer in the forest. She now stood in the expansive garden of the Offenbach mansion. With Ludmila and Sergei appearing as if out for a stroll.
“Oh, look at you. Why are you standing there, Yekaterina? Come here.”
“Leave her be. The child often acts this way.”
“It’s not befitting of an Offenbach to be so dazed.”
Ludmila smiled and pulled Yekaterina’s hand gently.
“Come along now. It’s your birthday, isn’t it? Father has prepared a wonderful gift for you.”
