Kill no more volume 11, p.11
Kill No More - Volume 11, page 11
Mocha didn’t answer. After a stagger, his bloodied body fell down…
“Mocha!”, “Brother!”
Everyone ran up, but Mocha seemed to have mustered his strength, and maintained a kneeling position. He waved his hand towards them, gesturing them not to come up.
“Brother, I am the one who should be sorry.” Mocha’s words were mixed with bitterness, “If it weren’t for my predictions, you wouldn’t have landed in strange lands; if it weren’t for my negligence, you wouldn’t have been controlled by the Dragon Emperor; if it weren’t…”
“No!” Silver Moon suddenly raised his head, and shook it desperately, “Brother, don’t apologize, don’t!”
Mocha smiled lightly, and spread his arms. He encircled his brother with them, and whispered to his ear, “You are Silver Moon, you are also Liola. You don’t need to withhold your emotionless side, and you definitely should never cast away any of yourself.”
A hug… other than Anise, no one had ever touched Silver Moon. Most people would hurriedly avoid him after seeing Silver Moon’s eyes, or their faces would be filled with disgust. Now, there was finally another person who would treat Silver Moon with warmth and hug. He couldn’t help but hug Mocha back with his trembling arms; he hugged tightly, unwilling to ever let go.
“Brother, I’ll listen to you.”
Silver Moon — or perhaps Liola, now that there was no longer a distinction between the two — slowly let go, hoping to see his brother’s smile again. But as soon as he had done so, Mocha’s body slowly fell down…
Silver Moon froze. When he woke from this daze, he couldn’t catch Mocha in time. Mocha slowly fell to the ground, with his black hair spread on the ground, and his purple eyes half closed. His breathing was labored and hurried, and the pool of blood underneath him slowly spread.
Liola didn’t know what to do. He hurriedly climbed up. He transferred his Ki into Mocha’s body, while not caring whether or not it would actually help; he also pleaded while doing so, “No! Please don’t die like Anise!”
Receiving the support of Liola’s Ki, Mocha’s breath became slightly smoother, but he knew, this was the brief moment of clarity before his death. Before he would undoubtedly fall, Mocha still had a few things to say. He smiled as he look towards Liola, whom was no longer his cold former self, but he did not have Liola’s blank expression either; his face was filled with panic and fear, like a child who had just stepped out of his home for the first time.
“Liola… or Silver Moon… now I don’t even know what to call you anymore.” Mocha slowly reached out his hand towards Liola, whom immediately grabbed it and held tightly in his hand.
“Liola, brother, call me Liola.” Liola said timidly, like a child who had just learnt of his own name.
“Promise me something, okay?”
Liola nodded immediately. The person who would obey the most at this moment would be none other than Mocha. Even if Mocha were to ask him to kill someone, he might not be able to say no.
“From now on, live for yourself.” Mocha’s purple eyes stared directly at Liola, and said slowly, “Only you can decide the path you walk, brother, you have to live for your own happiness, and don’t let anything stand in your way.”
Living for himself? Liola froze, and nodded instinctively.
“You!” Mocha smiled bitterly, “Didn’t I just tell you, you have to live for yourself? Why would you promise me so easily?”
Liola frowned. So should he promise or not? He was clueless as to what he should do.
Seeing his brother frustrated, Mocha couldn’t help but laugh a bit. However, he suddenly felt empty in his chest, to the point where he couldn’t feel his heart. He knew, by now, his time was almost up…
“Liola, just do what you want to do,” Mocha murmured, at a voice so quiet that almost nobody could hear him, “I truly hope that… you wouldn’t be in pain again, and I truly hope that you wouldn’t kill Caffey… not just for Caffey’s sake, but also for your own…”
Mocha slowly closed his purple eyes. No matter how much Ki Liola kept sending, the practically non-existent breaths ceased to exist…
Younger brother and younger sister, the person who should’ve sacrificed… was the elder brother…
“Eldest brother!” Lanski climbed up hurriedly. After staring Mocha for a long while, her trembling hand reached up towards Mocha’s nose. Before her finger moved away, her tears had already rolled down her face. Her tears were obvious enough to everyone else that Mocha was no longer breathing.
“No——” Liola gave out a roar like a wounded beast.
Lanski wept quietly. Other people slowly walked up; Lancelot and Blood Wolf’s faces were dark, but Cappuccino’s face was pale as snow, for he was the one who spent the most time with his eldest brother. His death impacted Cappuccino the most, to the point where he didn’t even know how to react.
Without saying anything to one another, Lancelot and Blood Wolf both lifted their right fist and held it on their left chest, performing a Knight’s salute with the utmost respect towards the eldest Prince.
After the blow had finally sank into him, Liola was completely absentminded, to the point where things blurred in front of his eyes. He had, once again, killed someone who was important to him. He slowly raised his hands, and the palms were covered with Mocha’s warm blood. He couldn’t help but remember his brother’s warm smile.
The things he want to do… Then, what did he want to do now? Liola’s eyes slowly focused around the people around him. He saw Mocha quietly lying on the floor, quiet as if he were asleep, this was his eldest brother; he saw Lanski putting her head against Mocha’s chest and crying, this was his twin sister; and he saw Cappuccino burying his face in his palms, trying desperately to refrain from crying, this was his elder brother.
Everything, was caused by him.
“Liola?”
Jasmine was the first one to pay attention to Liola. After seeing his face horrifically pale, she called out to him with worry. Liola looked towards her, eyes filled with self-blame and helplessly. Jasmine’s heart pounded; her senses told her that Liola was about to do something she didn’t want to see. As that thought entered her mind, Liola did a backflip, and jumped onto Baolilong’s back.
“No!”
Jasmine took a deep breath, and panickedly ran towards Liola. With the Sacred White Dragon’s speed, there was no way for her to catch up. In the blink of an eye, the Dragon had already lifted off and bolted away.
“Liola!”
Though she knew it was useless, but Jasmine still had to yell as loud as she could towards what was now a small dot in the air.
* * *
‘Master, where to?’
Baolilong asked with confusion. Though it obeyed its master and immediately left, but Liola didn’t give it a specific destination, or even a direction.
Liola paused, and answered irrelevantly, “Don’t call me master anymore; you can call me like how you used to.”
“Can I really? I can call you papa?” Baolilong was shocked, and its tone was clearly happy.
Liola nodded.
“Papa! Baolilong can call papa now. Baolilong hates saying master, so strange, papa is better.”
Having received Liola’s approval, Baolilong seemed to have noticed Liola’s difference again, and it immediately began to become chatty again, with “papa” here and there. Its originally stable flying under Silver Moon’s control had become unstable again: tilting left, then right; after seeing Liola didn’t seem to have any unhappy reaction, Baolilong returned to its former self with its 8 shaped flying again, and its “roller coaster Dragon” mode had activated again…
“Papa, papa, where are we going?” After flying happily for a long while, Baolilong finally remembered to ask Liola where they were going.
Hearing this question, Liola said blankly, “I-I don’t know; I just didn’t want to continue to stay there. Eldest brother said I could do what I wanted to do… I just wanted to leave.”
“Then let’s go find Kaiser! Baolilong misses Purity, and also Flames.” Baolilong said naturally. When it mentioned Purity, for some reason, its mouth began to water.
Kaiser, Purity, Daylight, and Meinan… Liola hesitated, just for a brief moment. He immediately nodded. The reason was simple: he missed them, and now, he could do what he wanted.
‘Then let’s go find Kaiser and others.’
Chapter 8 : Being Lost, a Precursor to Being a Wanderer
* * *
“Papa, which direction is Kaiser?” Baolilong flew a while, but suddenly stopped perplexedly; it didn’t seem to know where Kaiser was..
Liola paused, and asked with a lowered head, “I thought you knew.”
“Baolilong doesn’t know!”
Baolilong turned its head and looked innocently at him with its pink eyeballs at the size of Liola’s head, while Liola also stared blankly back at it. He was never the one to be the pathfinder. After thinking for a while, Liola looked up at the boundary-less land and clear skies, and noticed the winds had changed directions.
“Let’s go with the wind.” Liola decided easily.
Baolilong yelled “okay” loudly, and happily began to play a game of gliding in the wind. There were countless number of wind changes in their journey, and Baolilong naively thought: no matter how many times the wind would change, because papa said to go with the wind, that would be exactly what it would do.
A Dragon who knew nothing about the concept of path, plus a person who never had to find a path, both allowing the wind to determine the direction they would take…
The two also didn’t seem to care much. If they got thirsty they would find a river for water; if they got hungry they would land and cruise around the bushes and trees; Liola could always find some form of food. Besides, they didn’t even need to start a fire; he could just release his aura, and the meat would be cooked.
Also, these meat were usually taken from gigantic animals, such as a three-story tall Lesser-Dragon. In the end, Baolilong ate even more satisfactorily than before, and therefore it didn’t miss Purity as much.
They continued as such for days, to the point where they lost track for how long, and lived carefreely and leisurely, until one day, when Liola suddenly saw a strange city. He thought for a moment… in fact, more like was put in a daze for a while. After Baolilong suggested getting some desserts, they decided to enter.
Because he didn’t have clothes for Baolilong to wear, Liola asked Baolilong to resume the form of a small Dragon to enter the city. As they walked through the streets, the small city looked very crowded. Everyone seemed to be carrying luggages of varying sizes, as if they were carrying all of their wealth on them at all times. Some of the bags were even so full of gold and silver that one could see them from the outside. Nevertheless, no one’s eyes showed any signs of avarice, instead…
Liola frowned; it seemed like all their eyes were towards him? He looked to the side, other than Baolilong chewing a piece of meat, there was nothing else there. Could Baolilong stand out too much? Liola thought about it a bit, and felt relieved; after all, a Sacred White Dragon was a rare sight to be had.
The more Liola walked, the stranger he thought it was. Everyone he saw in Aklan capital used to be glamorous, but this city was the complete opposite: their clothes were torn and dirty, and the sides of the streets were littered with pale and thin people. The whole city looked like a giant refugee camp.
“Yo! Yo! There’s a Knight here. Look at him, such beautiful clothes, he looks like a Prince or something.”
A refugee who looked somewhat alive said loudly; his tone was obviously mocking, but no one knew his words hit spot on: Liola was indeed a Prince.
Liola looked confusedly at that person, not sure what he meant. He thought, could this person had already recognized he was the Dragon Empire’s Prince, Silver Moon?
“Mama, I’m really hungry, I want meat!” A child on the side suddenly began to cry loudly.
“Don’t cry, there’s still a piece of cracker here. Here, hurry and eat it.”
The mother who held the child’s hand reached into her bag and painstakingly took out something so broken that it looked nothing like a cracker, then handed it to the child. The child took the cracker, but his eyes were fixated on the meat in Baolilong’s mouth. Had it not been his mother holding him back, the child might have already ran up to fight the Dragon for the food.
Seeing this, Liola seemed to have realized something, and he walked towards the child. The mother immediately threw the child panickedly into her arms, and looked at Liola’s approach with fear on her face. Some of the refugees dashed off, but some of them inched closer with a gloomy look; out of the crowd who drew near, the person who spoke mockingly before was the one leading them.
In an instant, there were a dozen or so people blocking Liola’s path to the mother. Liola thought it was strange; he said with a frown, “Please let me through.”
The person leading seemed to be surprised, most likely with the word “please”. He thought briefly, then asked carefully, “How come your clothes don’t have lining? What rank of a Knight are you?”
Liola lowered his head and looked at the black Knight’s uniform he was wearing; the uniform did not have the lining other uniforms usually would have, but instead it had a Dragon pattern indicating his royalty in the Dragon Empire. If the person looking at the uniform was from the Dragon Empire, just by looking at the Dragon pattern, they would have known this person had the Royal Family’s blood running through his veins, and they could determine which of the royalty this person was.
The current Dragon Empire had a Purple Dragon as his pattern, while the Eldest Prince used Black Dragon. The Second Prince was dead, but used to use a Gold Dragon when he was alive. Third Prince used red, to represent his Fire Dragon. The only Princess, Lanski, loved blue. The one on Liola, was Silver Dragon; not only did it reflect his unique eye color, it represented his title as Silver Moon.
However, the Dragon Empire’s royalties rarely appeared in front of the general public. Even the Dragon Empire’s peasants wouldn’t recognize the looks of the royalties, they would have only heard about the Dragon pattern colors, but the Aklan peasants would know of no such thing.
Liola frowned, unsure of what he should answer. The Knights who have their own unique auras have always been recognized as Knights who have surpassed ranks, and they were often famous, such as the Paladin and Dark Knight. They would only call out their titles, and no one would ever ask them about ranks.
“I… am Silver rank.” Liola didn’t know why, but for some reason he stated the rank far below his true power. Perhaps it was because Silver Mask had been a silver Knight for a while.
Silver Knight… everyone present spitted. They clearly knew a Silver Knight’s power was more than enough to handle a dozen of these people. The dozen or so people standing in front of the mother and child looked hesitant.
“You are a Knight, you wouldn’t hurt a peasant, would you?” The person in lead clearly knew what code of conduct a Knight should follow, and he took off his hat towards Liola.
Liola shook his head. Of course, he wouldn’t harm any ordinary person without a reason.
The person in lead was hesitant for a moment, then slowly backed away. The others following him saw and slowly backed off as well. There were nothing else blocking between Liola and the mother and son. Seeing this, Liola began to walk again towards the mother and child.
The mother clearly was panicking, and she apologized hurriedly, “S-sorry, sir Knight, my child didn’t mean to stare at your Dragon.”
Liola had already reached the mother. He was confused about what the mother said, but he continued to do what he wanted to do: he took out something wrapped in lotus leaves from his pockets, and slowly put it in front of the child.
By now, the crowd didn’t know what this Knight wanted to do, and they looked timidly at the lotus leaves wrapped bag. The child scaredly went further into his mother’s hug; the mother also seemed timid and unsure on how to react.
“For you.” Liola pushed the wrapped bag forward a bit more.
The mom was at a loss, but the child seemed to have noticed something. He hurriedly struggled out of his mother’s arms, and grabbed the bag out of Liola’s hands. After quickly tearing off the leaves, he began to bite into the thing inside. The mother saw, and panickedly grabbed it from the child’s hands, fearing that her child would have mistakenly eaten something fatal. As soon as she had done so, however, she realized it was a juicy piece of meat with the same size as three adult fists.
