Death Ascension - Chapter 98

“MOVE!!!” the referee roughly pushed Nora out of the way.

‘Oh, Sh*t…’ he mentally cursed the moment he saw Adam.

As the captain of the first Knight Order, the referee felt sick when he saw his subordinate lying on a pool of his own blood.

Sir Adam was a precious knight entrusted to him by his friend in the military who had recently retired after sustaining major injuries in an S-class monster subjugation. Although Adam’s personality was not the best, he had his Captain’s unwavering trust and pride. This is why his passive behavior in this fight had been such a mystery to the referee. It made him wonder what tricks the commoner slut used to manipulate the poor knight.

“MEDIC! What the hell are you doing?! Heal him!” the captain roared as he felt Adam’s weakening pulse through his index finger. Adam was losing insane amounts of blood by the second. So much that his once healthy-looking complexion quickly turned pale and clammy.

“Sir… It’s too late…” The medic fretfully told the referee, clutching his first aid kit in defeat.

There was nothing he could possibly do in that situation.

The blade had touched Sir Adam’s jugular vein. Hence, attempting to remove the sword would only sever the veins completely, leading to a quicker death.

In a way, the medic thought mercy killing would be best. Instead of letting Sir Adam slowly suffer from blood loss, it would be better to stab him in the heart.

But the medic did not have the guts to tell the captain, seeing the boiling rage etched on the man’s visage.

Stillness swallowed the atmosphere.

Time seemed to have stopped as the people held their breaths, frozenly standing from their seats in shock.

And while everyone was at a loss, Sir Adam breathed his last breath. His brown eyes, wide with a mixture of disbelief, fear, and anger, stared lifelessly at Nora.

The referee abruptly stood. Then he turned, walked briskly toward the dame, grabbed her by the collar, and gave her an accusing glare, “Tell me! What did you do?!”

“W-what? I didn’t do anything! You saw it yourself! It was an accident!” the dame defended, holding up her arms with an innocent expression.

The captain continued to glare at her as if gouging out the lies in her statements.

With a threatening voice, the referee asked, “Why did you throw your weapon away then?”

“Because I’ve already won. Didn’t you hear him say ‘I give up’?”

“Why did you sweep him off his feet?”

“I just wanted to make sure he doesn’t attack me after surrendering. My opponents haven’t been the best, morally speaking,” Nora pointed at her own neck wound, “Anyway, I didn’t think he was that fragile, but I guess I was wrong… Sorry.”

Indeed, the first to show hostility were the First Order knights. They even went so far as to aim for the dame’s life in the second round.

And so, the captain was forced to accept Nora’s excuses:

That Sir Adam ‘accidentally’ slipped off the bloody ground.

That the sword ‘accidentally’ landed where his neck would fall.

That the sword ‘accidentally’ bounced with its blade pointed up.

And at that exact moment, that Sir Adam would be skewered– Accidentally.

‘Damn it! Was it really a coincidence?’ the captain pulled his hair in frustration.

However, there was nothing he could do.

Nora did not kill Adam with her own hands.

As she said, everything was just an accident– A gruesome misfortune but an accident, nonetheless.

The referee bit his lower lip hard. He felt dirty and unpleasant. Like the feeling he gets when a vicious monster manages to escape from his clutches.

Still, he pushed the thoughts away.

For now, he had a job to finish.

“Haah… I SHALL NOW ANNOUNCE THE RESULTS OF THE SPAR!” the captain raised his head toward the king, “AFTER SUCCESSFULLY DEFEATING THREE OPPONENTS FROM THE FIRST ORDER, AS PER THE KING’S COMMAND, DAME NORA IS NOW AN OFFICIAL KNIGHT!”

The referee pulled out a small box from his uniform pocket, opened it, and brought out a thumbnail-sized golden brooch bearing the kingdom’s emblem: two crossed spears behind a decorative heater shield.

He approached Nora with a disgusted look and pinned the brooch on her bloodied collar. The spectators half-heartedly clapped and with that, the spar had finally ended.

Meanwhile, Nora stared at her brooch in silence. She thought she would be happy to finally be Prince Deon’s knight yet, somehow, she felt empty.

Was it because she had to kill another person?

Or was it because she had to pretend like it was an accident? — Again.

Nora thought she had finally shed her assassin’s mask. The mask she wore whenever she had to kill for the sake of money. As an assassin, Nora often had to stage different accidents to kill her targets as cleanly as possible, leaving the detectives in the Royal Investigations Bureau running after her tail like a bunch of headless chickens.

Once, she set fire to a noble’s house, burning the whole mansion down along with the Lord and a few employees. The detectives concluded that it was an accident caused by an unattended candle.

What was disgusting was that it was the lord’s own wife who hired Nora to kill him. The madam, who went away on a trip with her children as an alibi, returned as a widow… but with more money than she could handle. Months later, the madam remarried the man she cheated her husband with.

Another time, Nora tampered with a wealthy merchant’s carriage wheel. She set it up so it broke down by the riverside then she killed the merchant and threw his remains in the river along with pieces of a smashed carriage. A week after, the noble who hired her established an identical business but with higher prices. Without any competitors, he unapologetically sucked dry the people’s pockets.

After that…

The cycle repeated itself until Nora became desensitized with killing.

Yet every time she went home, hands covered in her victim’s blood, she would see her brother fervently praying in his bedroom and she would feel the crushing guilt. As if her brother took over all her sins and was begging the goddess for mercy on her behalf.

She hated that scene. She hated it with every fiber of her being.

That’s why she pushed Arthur to become a knight instead of a priest.

‘I thought… now that I’m here, serving a kind master, I would be able to live a new life…’

‘I thought I wouldn’t have to live like a murderer again…’

‘I don’t want to be a murderer again.’

‘I—I just wanted to live honorably.’

‘I wanted to be someone who saves lives… Not take them.’

‘I wanted to be someone who protects…’

‘But can I?’

Nora’s dark eyes burned, hot tears flooding her vision.

‘Arthur… with you gone… who would pray for me?’

Just then, a voice pulled Nora out of her miserly thoughts, “DAMEE!!! ARE YOU OKAY?! HOW IS YOUR NECK WOUND?”

Nora turned to the source of the voice. It was her new master, the third prince, with her new comrade, Sir Finn.

They were waving at her with looks of relief.

Their welcoming appearance felt like home and Nora thought, ‘Maybe…’

‘Maybe I can?’

–Chapter end–