The Hunted Regressor: My Heretic Saint System-Chapter 48: Heart At Peace

Ignotus ignored the butler’s internal crisis and continued his lecture:

"You’re insulting ignorance now. No, you’re not ignorant; you’re beneath that. What you do is gang up on the needy and the weak to rob them. You act like scavengers; yeah, you’re nothing but a cancer to this world."

He pointed a finger at the three terrified men.

"I’m sure you have your own strategies. Maybe you use your heads sometimes to flank a client or ambush them when guarding them seems too risky. So it’s not ignorance. No, it’s more accurate to call your lot a bunch of idiots who don’t properly use what they have."

He paused and glanced at their leader’s blank face.

"Are you guys even understanding a word I say...?"

Gorm said nothing, staring at the dirt.

"Hm?"

Ignotus pushed, and one of the mercenaries, emboldened by confusion or perhaps just tired of the monologue, finally spoke up:

"You said we’re pieces of shit."

"Yes..."

Ignotus beamed while pointing at him.

"That’s exactly what you are. You get a gold star for listening."

The other mercenary asked hesitantly:

"T-Then... what’s ignorance?"

Ignotus stopped pacing.

"Hm."

He looked up at the stars high above and then back at the dirty, blood-stained men.

"Ignorance means having not seen, heard, or learned something properly or to any extent. It’s a lack of knowledge. It’s no crime or sin, and it certainly isn’t something to be ashamed of... at least in your case."

He leaned in close.

"So, no matter how ignorant you are, if you have a sense of right and wrong, you won’t be killing the weak or doing the shit you do. That’s fundamentally different. That’s a lack of sympathy, remorse, guilt, regret, and shame."

The third mercenary blinked.

"...why?"

"It means you don’t feel for the ones you kill, you don’t even think of them as human. Or rather, you don’t think about them at all, and most importantly..."

Ignotus explained patiently, like he was teaching toddlers.

"You don’t know that what you’re doing is utterly pathetic."

The knife-thrower—who was barely clinging to consciousness after the stomping—lifted his swollen head from the ground and looked at Ignotus with one eye swollen shut.

"P-P-Pathetic?..."

He stuttered, spitting out a tooth.

"Why? ...whether...whether we beat the weak or the Hierophants kill us... it’s all the same, i-isn’t it? Might makes right... dog-eat-dog, it’s the nature of the world..."

Ignotus let out a weary sigh.

"Are you playing some game with me?"

He glanced at the others, at Lykos and Ulv as well, who smartly stayed out of this.

"What do you guys think? Are we in the Academy right now?"

"..."

"..."

"..."

Given no answer, he walked over to the groveling man.

"I swear, with people like you... if I make a logical argument, you’ll just respond with a similar example to counter it. Shameless. Both pathetic and damned shameless. Pick one struggle and stick with it."

Ignotus knelt as his sword appeared in his right hand.

The man flinched, but he couldn’t move fast enough.

Shk.

He was stabbed in the neck.

It was a clean strike that had the man gasp, choke, and then go still, his misery ended.

Ever so casually, Ignotus pulled the blade out and wiped it clean on the dead man’s shirt.

"Hierophants are stronger than you, but they’d only come out here to kill you so you’d stop abusing the weak. They come here to protect the weak. You don’t matter. You’re only part of the solution when you’re dead. You dare compare the two?"

He stood up, his eyes glaring at the remaining survivors.

"Your fellow mercenary deserved death for that comparison alone."

The clearing was silent again before Ignotus spun around, his scary demeanor vanishing instantly, replaced by his usual smiling expression.

"Anyways... are any of you wondering why I’m preaching so much? Don’t you want me to just get to the point and move on?"

Gorm swallowed hard.

He looked at the dead Silas.

He looked at the dead knife-thrower.

Finally, he looked at Ignotus.

"Are you... deciding who you want to kill?"

"Oh, you’re sharper than I expected. Good."

Ignotus’s smile widened.

"So... did you understand?"

It was a genuine smile, which made it even more terrifying.

"Yes..."

Gorm looked down at his hands.

"If I... if we remain as we are, doing things without much thought, just taking what we see as the easy way through life... that’s not our Fate... that’s just us slowly killing ourselves."

One of his lackeys next to him nodded frantically, sweating bullets.

"It’s just us being shameless. We need... shame? We need shame!"

"Exactly!"

Ignotus clapped.

"You heard it here first, everyone! Shame saves lives!"

The firelight flickered on the faces of the spectators, each of them digesting the bloody sermon in their own way.

Felix gripped his ladle tighter, his knuckles white.

Shame. He had spent his life bowing, scraping, and hiding behind someone stronger.

Now he was doing the same, only to someone that he’d once thought was weaker than he was. Just minutes ago, he had kicked a man while he was down. Was that really what he wanted to do for the rest of his life? Shoving his own fear at others in the most opportune moments?

’...Yes.’

That was the conclusion he’d come to.

’Right, hugging a thigh is an honorable strategy!’

There was no hope for him.

Lykos, meanwhile, couldn’t take his eyes off the dead man.

The word resonated differently for him. He was a noble of House Death, yet he had been hunted like prey, relying on some unknown man to save him, to teach and lecture him.

’Do I have shame? I like to call myself a leader, but I’ve been nothing but a burden. Ignorance is one thing... but weakness without the drive to change it? That is shameful indeed.’

Yes, unlike Felix, Lykos was capable of feeling shame... not that he’d ever admit it.

Even Ulv was affected, though for a very different reason.

His new friend had just defined honor better than most Saints he’d read about in the books their House owned.

’He’s right.’

Ulv looked at his greatsword, feeling a sudden, burning heat in his chest.

He had been arrogant, calling Ignotus "technically weaker" than him, judging solely by the fact that he himself had two Runes while the normal human had only one... one that he had yet to use, or so it seemed.

For the Saint Ulv aspired to be, that act was a very great shame.

Not at all knowing the effect of his words on them, or even caring for such a thing, Ignotus had walked away, heading toward a nearby tree to finally get some sleep.

’Hmhmhmmm~.’

He closed his eyes as he walked, hearing Eris chuckle in his mind.

’I’d laugh too,’

’It’s funny how I’m made to be, no?’

’All that I said was for me, and me alone.’

’I can’t help it, I just feel a need to clown on such bastards.’

Ignotus listened to the terrified, hushed whispers behind him.

’Harass them to the point they go insane...’

’Force them to question their own existence.’

His smile turned the softest it’d ever been.

’Ah... my heart is at such peace.’