“Humanity is a delusion”

 

***

 

I stood at the center of the stage and looked over the crowd of monsters disguised as humans. Each of them smiling, laughing, joking, and drinking as if they were having the best time of their lives. At the first glance, no one would even think that these people were trying to buy slaves here, which leads me to come up with a few questions,

Are these people just acting and going with the flow or do they think of all of this as something natural and that’s why they don’t feel any remorse for their actions at all?

Is the life of a human really worth so less in their eyes or are they just putting up a front of indifference to enjoy dominating and stomping over the lives of others?

I shook my head in resignation,

There’s no use thinking about things that I can never understand or resolve, the only thing I can do right now is to wait and watch, just 2 more minutes and I will be free.

 

I decided to sweep over the crowd once again

It was then that my eyes met with someone in the crowd

They were a pair of beautiful golden eyes,

At first glance, most people might not be able to notice it but there was a small amount of anger and frustration in those eyes and they were flickering back and forth between the host and the little girl standing just beside me.

I looked in the direction of those eyes and then just for a moment they met with mine,

Just that much was enough for the two of us to understand the situation

 

I don’t know why but all of a sudden I was overwhelmed by an almost suffocating urge to start laughing. It was as if someone had started tickling me or something

I somehow pressed down my urge to laugh and looked back at the Host who had been looking in my direction for a while now,

When the host’s eyes met mine he flinched back in surprise. He had a surprised look on his face and he was eyeing me somewhat suspiciously

Should I surprise him a bit more?

 

I looked back at the crowd, raised my hand, and flashed a ‘V’ sign made with my fingers to them,

The crowd went completely silent all of a sudden, everyone; the crowd, the host, the other auction ‘items’, hell even Cerise was looking at me incredulously as if I had done something completely incomprehensible, they were all looking at me gaping mouths opening and closing frequently.

There was an awkward silence in the hall but that didn’t last for too long as just after a moment the crowd erupted with an even bigger roar, they must have taken the ‘V’ sign for victory, what a bunch of idiots, can’t believe they were actually thinking about ruling over me

As for the sign, it was for ‘that’ person in the crowd. It meant that I needed 2 more minutes,

I looked back at the crowd, hoping to get a glimpse of those beautiful eyes once again but to my disappointment, I wasn’t able to find them, it was as if they had disappeared into thin air, I hoped that ‘that’ person at least received my message

 

It took quite some time for the cheering to finally stop. The host took the charge as soon as the cheering stopped and then started speaking,

“Since this is a special item, the two of them will have to be bought together, the starting bid is 12000 Gilians…huh…?”

But too bad, I didn’t feel like listening to him any longer as the 2 minutes had already passed

 

A dark-red liquid came trickling down my palm and then finally fell to the ground through the gap between my fingers, it was the slave mark that I had finally dissolved after so much hard work. A similar thing was happening to Cerise, she also raised her palm to see the slave mark getting dissolved and then flowing out of her skin like blood.

Only a moment had passed since I broke the slave mark,

Hmm… onto the next course of action, I suppose

I stepped ahead, formed an illusionary short sword of mana using my fingers as the blade, and then slashed the host’s head without any hesitation whatsoever

 

I was standing at the center of the stage holding a severed head in my hand whilst a headless corpse lay twitching beside my feet,

There was a death-chilling silence in the entire room and I was the source of it. For a moment it seemed to me as if the time had stopped.

Everyone in the hall was looking at me with dumbfounded expressions as if they weren’t able to process what had happened just now

But this atmosphere didn’t last for too long,

“Aaahahhhhhhh!!!”

Ah, fuck!! Who’s screaming like a dog now!? My ears hurt dammit!!!

I turned towards the source of the scream only to notice that it wasn’t a dog but a bitch, Madam Maxwell. She was screaming at top of her lungs as if she had seen the most atrocious and disgusting thing that could ever happen in the world, mind you, she was the same woman who was buying that guy Max as if he wasn’t even a human but rather a large bulk of meat. She even listed the specific items that she has wanted. Just a pathetic little bitch in my opinion

 

The scream was the trigger for the next events though

In just a matter of seconds, the entire auction house got enveloped in an atmosphere of chaos.

Humans who had been laughing, joking, and drinking just a few minutes ago had now started fighting in order to leave the auction hall.

I could see people jumping over each other, an old lady probably 70 years of age fell to the ground but before she could ever get back on her feet countless people ran over her thereby, breaking a few of her bones probably.

The screams filled with pain, agony, frustration, and anger covered the entire hall, looking at these people I was overwhelmed by a sensation of disgust

 

It was then, that I felt a slight fluctuation of mana pass through the severed head in my hand

Poor doomed thing, is he actually still conscious? I don’t know if it’s a blessing or curse though

 

“Crawling, pushing, and killing each other like insects. They make you sick, don’t they Mr. Host?”

These words escaped my mouth without me intending to

I didn’t bother with him after that, I just threw him or well, more precisely his severed head away amongst the maggot-like crowd of cowards who were running here and there to save their petty lives.

Guess he probably got stomped by someone amongst the crowd

 

I turned my attention back on Cerise, she was there standing beside me like a statue looking at me with wide eyes, I smiled at her and patted her head, for a moment it seemed to me as if she was going to cry, but in the end, she didn't, she just stood there making a half-smiling half-crying expression.

“Uhm… c-could you please help us, sir?”

Suddenly an impatient yet hesitant voice called me out, it belonged to one of the auction ‘items’,

I didn’t say anything I just walked over to the group of slaves and started releasing the slave marks on their hands.

Seeing me do that some of them started laughing and some of them started crying.

I didn’t pay much attention to them and just kept on releasing their marks

 

It was then,

Two menacing auras enveloped the entire auditorium, these auras belonged to the pair of men who had previously taken out Mr. Max with them for ‘processing’

As soon as they entered the chaotic auction house everyone stopped moving, everyone but me, to be precise.

 

Of the two men one was carrying around some kind of an object in his hand, on taking a closer look I found that that ‘object’ was actually the head of Mr. Max, looks like he has been thoroughly processed, hah?

The two men arrived in front of Madam Bitchy Maxwell and threw her a sack full of something I truly didn’t want to know.

As for Lady Honeypoke, where… is she?

Oh, there she is

Lying on the ground and unmoving… I guess she is probably dead by now,

Was she killed by her friend Maxwell? Or was she killed by someone else?

Well whatever is the case, it serves her right

 

Coming back to the scenario, 

One of the guys from the pair of butchers looked in my direction and said in a loud voice,

“What is the meaning of this!?”

At first, I felt like saying something to him but then I decided not to. So I just ignored him and kept focusing on releasing the slave marks

Seeing me ignore him he got even angrier and pulled out his sword and pointed it at me.

Looks like the conflict cannot be avoided… sigh... why do innocent people like me always get into such trouble (Author's note- he’s the one who was deliberately provoking him)

I turned towards the man and I don’t know why but as soon as I saw his face I felt like slapping him to death, it was the same for his companion. I truly felt like beating the two of them to death but I cannot do that, since it might expose Cerise to danger.

 Or that’s what I would like to believe anyway,

Yep this is all for Cerise’s safety not because I want to witness the abilities of my golden-eyed partner.

I closed my eyes, shook my head, and said,

“How long are you gonna keep hiding? Come out”

I tried my best to look like some kind of nihilistic hero who was too bored to fight these small fries

 

The look on the two men’s faces changed as soon as they heard me and they frantically started looking here and there but after a while when they didn’t find anything they looked in my direction again, right now they must be thinking something like, ‘damn him! He dared to make a fool out of me! I’ll kill him!!!’

Now I could see it in their faces, their bloodlust made it all the more evident to me, these guys really hate me now, don't they?

The man who had pointed his sword at me before didn’t say anything else, he just covered his sword in mana and came running towards me,

“Hey behind you~”

I said but he just sneered at my face and kept on running

But soon after that, he regretted not heeding my advice as he abruptly stopped in his tracks and looked back only to be met with an otherworldly sight of a reaper with beautiful golden eyes holding a shining black sword in her hands standing behind him

The sword holding reaper slashed the man’s back with no hesitation at all

“Aaaahhhhhh!!!”

In the end, the man could only give out a painful scream and fall pathetically to the ground like a squashed bug

 

The entire hall was enveloped in a deathly aura once again, the atmosphere had gotten so heavy that for a moment it seemed to me as if the reaper had cast away some kind of a magical spell of death on everyone present in the hall.

Even I was feeling a little bit of dread now, I clung close to Cerise and covered her in the protective layer of my mana,

 

It was then that I saw the reaper,

The reaper, as I just said, couldn’t look any more different from the aura that she had been radiating for a while now

Yep, the reaper was a gentle-looking girl, probably the same age as me. She was wearing a black tunic buttoned from her neck to waist over a pair of tight deep blue jeans and a pair of dark maroon boots.

Her appearance and clothes caused a few questions to take root in my head,

How the hell did she not get caught whilst wearing such casual clothes!? Wouldn’t wearing such clothes mean that she is uncultured or something!? Aren’t you supposed to come to an event like this wearing formal attire? Did I mess up somewhere? Or do I look like a country hick that’s why I got targeted!? Dammit!!!

 

I wanted to ask her many questions but I didn’t have any time to as the second man came dashing towards the girl, aiming to finish her off with a surprise attack whilst she had her back to him

The girl, as if she had anticipated the move just ducked in order to avoid the blow and then turned 180 degrees with a half-kneeling position and chopped down the legs of her assailant

She did all that while maintaining an indifferent look on her face, how cruel

 

I would have loved to describe how silent the room had become now, but I have already done that in this chapter, haven’t I?

So I guess I wouldn’t say anything else, apart from one thing, the girl was seriously a monster

 

And it’s not because of her nonchalant attitude that I am branding her as such, no, to be honest being indifferent is nothing but a means to hide your cowardice in my opinion. Most of people, as they grow up, tend to become indifferent about certain things, but in my opinion, the only reason they do so is because they don’t want themselves to get hurt. They cut off anything that might give them pain, and well, I don’t really think that’s a bad thing. I mean I, myself, have been doing a similar kind of thing for god knows how long.

 

The actual reason why I called this girl a monster is because of her instincts, her instincts to kill, to be precise. It was just for a moment but I noticed it, her expression just before she was going to cut down the man’s legs, for a single moment I saw an expression of conflict on her face as if she didn’t just want to cut down his legs, it was as if she wanted to aim at his waist and slice him in two but she stopped herself midway from doing that.

Her instinct to kill was completely natural.

Scary

Well, I can’t really say anything to her since I am not much different

 

“How cruel~”

I commented from the sidelines as I finally dissolved the slave marks on everyone’s palms.

Some of the people tried to thank me but I just sort of shooed them away saying it was no big deal. The reason why I did that was to take a proper look at the girl in front of me, but before I could do that, Cerise shook away my hand that was over her shoulder and ran towards the reaper only to stop when she collided with the latter and broke into a hug.

 

“Big Sis!!!” Cerise screamed out loud and then started crying