I Became A Thief Who Steals Overpowered Skills - Chapter 44

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 44. Sword Ghost’s Arm

Two days later.

Kraushu was engaged in the peculiar feat of performing push-ups with only his left arm.

Sweat poured down like rain.

It was the result of concentrating his Aura into a single left arm.

But that wasn’t all.

Kraushu was currently wielding not just his Aura, but also the Extreme Blood Venom simultaneously.

Two forces converging into that single arm trembled in unison.

Because of this, each of Kraushu’s push-ups was painfully slow.

“Huff… hah.”

With each quiet breath, Kraushu extended his arm gradually.

Then he simply collapsed onto the ground.

‘I’m going to die.’

An honest assessment.

The reason he practiced this way was none other than the training method of One Sword.

One Sword is a secret art of concentrating everything into a single blade.

And Kraushu intended to graft this secret art of One Sword onto the Sword Ghost’s Draw Technique.

To do that, he had to be able to concentrate both his Aura and Extreme Blood Venom into a single point.

Conveniently, he had only one arm left, so he was using it to train.

“……This is hard.”

Of course, there had been no major results.

He didn’t expect it to happen overnight, and truth be told, he had no talent for that sort of thing.

‘That I could create Extinction Flame Erosion at all was almost a miracle.’

No matter what he did, the reality of his own stupidity didn’t change much.

‘But at least I’ve figured out the blind spot of Extinction Flame Erosion.’

Extinction Flame Erosion is a secret art that burns the power of World Erosion within with Ignis, forcibly severing the body’s limits.

The drawback is that by its very nature it raises the body’s temperature far too much.

It can produce tremendous firepower, but in exchange, the moment the Extinction Flame Erosion’s effect ends, he’s forced to retire.

In any case, this weakness was bound to become a serious liability.

So Kraushu found himself thinking.

If he could regulate his body’s heat after using Extinction Flame Erosion, he could extend both his recovery time and his duration of use.

With that realization came his next target.

The Lunar Yin Body.

A figure born with a physique brimming with the moon’s yin essence throughout their entire being.

“Kraushu.”

At the sound of his name, Kraushu lifted his head.

Before him stood Bianca, towel in hand, gazing at him with gentle concern.

“You’ll catch a cold sitting in the snow like that.”
“I’m just resting. It’s exhausting.”
“Even so.”

Bianca knelt lightly in the snow beside him.

Then she carefully cradled his face in her hands and began to gently dry it with the towel.

The soft cloth retained a pleasant warmth—as though she’d heated it beforehand.

“Just stay still for me.”

The problem was that Bianca herself was rather clumsy at it, and his face wasn’t getting particularly clean.

But Kraushu sat quietly anyway, moved by her earnest effort.

“How are things with your family?”
“Nothing’s happened since then.”

Perhaps it was the result of his confrontation with Meliocan.

Since that day, Meliocan had issued her no commands whatsoever.

“But my sister’s been acting strange.”

Kraushu fell silent at her words.

The rift between Jenika and Bianca ran deep.

Before his Regression and even now, it remained unchanged.

“She avoids me whenever she sees me. Before, whenever she saw me, she’d torment me or make threats.”

Bianca’s brow furrowed slightly.

She too found Jenika uncomfortable.

Any real progress between Jenika and Bianca was still far in the future.

And only after Jenika had hidden Bianca away.

Without an event of that magnitude, such a rift could never be bridged.

“If you find him distasteful, just tell him so to his face.”

Bianca, holding a towel, looked toward Kraushu.

“Once you start feeling things, you’ll keep hiding your true heart. It’s good to learn how to be honest from the start.”

There would be plenty of things to hide later on, after all.

“If you want anything, tell me. I’ll make it happen for you—in a big way.”

Revenge, for instance.

As Kraushu spoke, Bianca’s fingers fidgeted atop the towel.

“You’ll really give me what I want?”
“If I’m capable of it.”
“I don’t think you will be.”

Was she hoping he’d annihilate Hadenhartzs itself?

Bianca said nothing more.

Her desire seemed to be something rather substantial.

-She’s been enjoying herself while I’ve been suffering.

At that moment, Kraushu snapped his head up at a voice he hadn’t heard in two days.

There, gliding leisurely across the sky, was a single raven.

“Crimsongarden!”
-I told you my name is Crimsongarden.

Crimsongarden, scolding him once more, descended slowly from the sky.

She looked at Kraushu and Bianca and spoke.

-Did you get married while I was gone? Your affection seems different.

“We didn’t do much of anything.”
-Do you know what happens when a man loses his wits to pretty women? All that nonsense about heroes succumbing to beauty is a lie. Most men who indulge in such pleasures die young.

Kraushu felt bewildered.

If Bianca were the extraordinary beauty she would be called in time, perhaps—but currently she was still a child, not yet having entered puberty.

Recently Kraushu himself had started to feel his second growth beginning, his height increasing noticeably.

But Bianca remained small.

‘Now that I think about it, Bianca didn’t grow much even after that.’

There was a whole head’s difference between them without much strain.

Kraushu being tall played a part, but Bianca’s lack of height was also a factor.

-Why don’t we castrate him preemptively? That way he won’t be tempted by pretty women.

Crimsongarden spoke with a giggle.

Kraushu ignored Crimsongarden’s words, carelessly digging at his ear.

—Tsk, tsk, you stubborn fool. It’s advice. Good advice. Even if you don’t want women, they’ll swarm around the path you’re walking—that’s what I’m telling you.

Hearing that, for some reason Arthur came to mind.

Was that why so many women circled Arthur?

‘I’d rather not deal with that.’

Kraushu, who knew about the hidden struggles that unfolded endlessly among the women behind Arthur’s back, narrowed his eyes.

He absolutely didn’t want anything like that for himself.

Then Kraushu turned to look at Bianca.

Come to think of it, unlike Arthur, didn’t he already have a fiancée?

If so, the solution was simple.

“Bianca, shall we marry?”

It was an engagement that wouldn’t fall apart anyway, not at this point.

So if he held the ceremony soon and married her, wouldn’t that keep other women from swarming around him?

Hearing Kraushu’s words, Bianca’s eyes blinked.

For a moment, her expression showed she hadn’t understood what he said.

Bianca’s pupils rolled once.

Then her body twitched slightly, and she looked at Kraushu.

Bianca’s face was expressionless, but her eyes were quite busy as she soon closed both of them.

With her closed eyelids trembling faintly, Bianca spoke softly.

“Don’t tease me.”

It wasn’t really like that.

Since she chose to take it that way, Kraushu said nothing more.

—…Are you an idiot?

And he got cursed at first by Crimsongarden.

“Cut the nonsense. So about the arm—”

This was the real matter at hand.

As Kraushu asked, Crimsongarden spread her wings.

—Follow me. We can’t do this where so many eyes are watching.

Kraushu agreed with that.

So Kraushu rose from his seat.

“Bianca, I’m heading out for a bit.”
“Are you going with Crimsongarden?”
“Yes. I need to settle the arm issue and come back.”

Bianca looked up at Crimsongarden soaring through the sky.

“Crimsongarden isn’t an ordinary person, is she?”

Bianca spent a great deal of time with Kraushu.

Kraushu had spoken with Crimsongarden many times in front of her.

Since there were limits to what he could hide from her, he simply hadn’t hidden anything from the start.

Bianca accepted this without complaint and didn’t dwell on it much.

“It’s just… complicated.”

A contractual arrangement, after all.

When he thought about it from Bianca’s perspective, he must seem profoundly suspicious.

Suddenly growing stronger from some arbitrary point, his mannerisms shifting, conversing with ravens—

it was all deeply strange.

Yet Bianca raised no questions about any of it.

At first, she simply hadn’t been interested; now, she believed she had no need to doubt the path Kraushu walked.

Bianca simply wanted to be by his side.

“Don’t come back hurt.”

Since Kraushu returned injured every time, when she said this, he tried to reassure her.

“I’m just fixing my arm. How could I get hurt?”
“You always do, Kraushu.”

Kraushu felt a flicker of ‘What’s wrong with me?’ but his track record spoke for itself.

He acknowledged her words and rose from his seat.

As Kraushu moved to leave, he encountered Jenika lingering on the other side of the passage.

Jenika flinched and averted her eyes; Kraushu continued on.

But as he passed in front of her, his footsteps suddenly halted.

“Jenika.”

Her shoulders tensed.

Without turning his gaze toward her, Kraushu finished what he had to say.

“If you choose to make someone your enemy, they will become your enemy in equal measure.”

It was a fundamental truth of the world.

And now, at sixteen, Jenika would slowly learn this lesson.

“Even if who you were in the past and who you are now have switched places, the things you’ve done don’t vanish. That’s why people try to live rightly from the very beginning.”

That doesn’t disappear even with Regression.

Because the things you’ve done remain whole and intact within your own heart.

“So listen carefully to what I’m warning you about.”

A desolate chill settled into Kraushu’s eyes.

He wanted nothing more than to beat the truth into her in Bianca’s stead, but Kraushu was an outsider.

And despite appearances, he was Bianca’s blood sister.

This was a matter between Bianca and Jenika alone—he had no intention of stepping further in.

“If you’re thinking of apologizing to Bianca out of your own selfishness and calling it closure, don’t. Ever.”

That wouldn’t be for Bianca’s sake—it would only be selfishness serving yourself.

These rotten human entanglements never resolve cleanly, not the way bards tell their stories.

Most of them end sordid and repulsive, stitched through with your own self-interest, leaving nothing but unease in their wake.

That’s why the world hinges on the first button.

Fasten the first button wrong, and no matter how perfectly you button the rest, the garment will be ruined.

And once a button is sewn in place, no force on earth can undo it—it stays entangled in the cloth forever.

“If you ever try to use the excuse that it was something you did as a child,”

Kraushu left Jenika—frozen where she stood—with one final warning.

“You’ll never see Bianca again. Just forget her.”

If he kept Bianca at his side, she would fade from Jenika’s memory soon enough.

That’s why he’d taken Bianca into his embrace.

With those words left behind, Kraushu departed, and Jenika crumpled slowly to the ground.

Confronted with the truth that nothing she did could erase what she’d wrought in days past, Jenika could only lower her head in silence.

＊ ＊ ＊

Within Hadenhartzs Forest, at one particular place.

Heavy snow fell, and few voices stirred that realm.

Kraushu halted before a towering tree.

As Crimsongarden descended to his shoulder, Kraushu tapped the trunk lightly with his hand.

“Evelask.”

At the call, a groove began to form in the bark of the tree.

With a creak, the wooden door swung open, revealing a woman with dark skin, black hair, and a maid’s outfit standing in the doorway.

For reasons of her own, she wore black rabbit ears as a headband—an odd touch—and upon seeing Kraushu, she bowed respectfully.

“Welcome, Kraushu. The master has been waiting for you.”

Her name was Number Eight.

One of Evelask’s vessels.

Number Eight promptly led Kraushu deeper inside.

After a corridor stretched out that seemed impossible to exist within a tree, she came to a halt before a single door.

A room that resembled exactly the one where he had first seen Evelask.

When Number Eight knocked, a voice from within invited him to enter.

As the door opened, what greeted him was yet another spectacle of countless books.

Looking at the room scattered in utter disarray, Kraushu stepped inside, once again experiencing that familiar sensation of standing in a pigsty.

“A pigsty?”

At Kraushu’s blunt assessment, Evelask—who had been sprawled across the floor wrapped in a blanket—thrust out her lip.

“Everything here is arranged with purpose! A pigsty? That’s harsh.”
“What’s harsh is the brain that arranges things like this. More importantly, are you ready?”

At Kraushu’s question, Evelask rose from her position.

Cookie crumbs stuck to her considerable chest from whatever she’d been eating, though Kraushu decided not to comment on it.

“I got it from Crimsongarden and prepared everything right away.”

As she led Kraushu deeper into the room, they came upon a small altar surrounded by a magical circle.

Upon the altar, where candles burned, lay a single scarred arm.

It was none other than Sword Ghost’s Arm.

Crimsongarden had brought it at Kraushu’s request.

“You’re going to attach it right now?”
“Yes. Help me out.”
“I’ll need to reconnect the nerves. It’ll hurt quite a bit. Can you endure it? If you can’t, I’ll knock you out.”

As she raised her hand, Number Eight brought forth a hammer.

She was serious about knocking him unconscious.

“Never mind. Just do it.”
“You’re sure? I’m not taking responsibility. Even if you cry and beg later, I won’t stop. No matter how much you plead.”

Perhaps recalling the image of Kraushu whimpering and begging, she broke into a smug grin.

Kraushu ignored her and unwrapped the bandage from his arm.

Without another word, Evelask stepped forward to the altar.

“Attach the severed part to my arm.”

This was Evelask’s specialty.

Kraushu followed Evelask’s instructions, fastening his own arm to the Sword Ghost’s Arm.

Crimsongarden seemed to know precisely how much of her arm had been cut away.

Fortunately, the length matched perfectly.

The only issue was the size—since it was an old man’s arm, it differed from Kraushu’s.

Evelask would handle that part without difficulty.

At that moment, metal clanged as iron rose from the altar, immobilizing Kraushu’s arm.

Evelask had prepared it in advance.

“Bite down on this.”

With that, she handed him a cloth.

It was clearly a warning not to bite through his own tongue from the pain.

Kraushu obediently took the cloth between his teeth, and Number Eight gripped his shoulder from behind with her hand.

She meant to keep him from moving.

“All right, then. Here goes.”

In the next moment, Evelask placed her hand on the Sword Ghost’s Arm.

Following the trace of her touch, the bluish tint of the Sword Ghost’s Arm gradually shifted toward a color suffused with blood.

The wrinkled fingers straightened completely, and vitality returned to them.

Remarkably, the arm began to steadily match Kraushu’s own arm in size.

Next, Evelask placed her hand over Kraushu’s severed arm.

In that instant, Kraushu felt as though the skin of his partially regenerated arm was being torn away entirely.

Simultaneously, the fractured bone seemed to grow through muscle and flesh.

It was overwhelming—

Kraushu clenched the cloth so hard it nearly tore.

The agony was so intense that cold sweat poured down his face in streams.

Though the curse had inured him to pain, this was something altogether different.

Evelask glanced at him as if asking whether she should knock him unconscious, but Kraushu simply signaled with his eyes for her to continue.

“Stubborn. Have it your way.”

Evelask said as much and began connecting the nerves of Kraushu and the Sword Ghost.

Crackle!

In that moment, Kraushu felt as though sparks were erupting before his eyes.

The impact was so violent it threatened to scatter his consciousness, and as it shook him, the cloth fell from between his teeth.

The blood-soaked fabric bore witness to how fiercely he had clenched his jaw.

But gradually, the pain began to recede.

“Why didn’t you just lose consciousness?”

As Kraushu gasped for breath, Evelask spoke with tired eyes.

But there was a reason he had chosen not to pass out.

“Release it.”

At Kraushu’s command, the iron bindings on the altar clattered open.

Kraushu slowly lifted his arm.

The Sword Ghost’s Arm rose with it, as though it had been perfectly reattached.

Kraushu, watching it, clenched his fist once, then opened it.

It moved smoothly and naturally. The sensation felt intact.

‘Now comes the next part.’

Kraushu immediately began pouring Aura into the arm.

The Sword Ghost’s Arm consumed his Aura as though possessed, swallowing it greedily.

This was the true test.

Thump!

Kraushu suddenly saw the muscles of the Sword Ghost’s Arm writhing of their own accord.

Veins swelled and muscles twitched—a grotesque sight to any observer.

But Kraushu watched and adjusted his Aura flow carefully.

After a few seconds, the muscle spasms and veins gradually began to settle.

Kraushu felt a wave of relief wash over him.

The Extreme Blood Venom had successfully taken root in the Sword Ghost’s Arm.

This was precisely why Kraushu had chosen not to lose consciousness.

Had the arm been attached while he was unconscious, the Sword Ghost’s Arm would almost certainly have gone haywire, absorbing the Extreme Blood Venom against his will.

He had no intention of losing an arm he’d worked so hard to obtain.

Kraushu sensed relief in Evelask’s expression as she watched from nearby.

“Is it done?”

Crimsongarden’s voice came as a question.

Hearing her words, Kraushu swung his right arm once and let out a dry chuckle.

“Yes, it feels just like my own arm.”
“Then we’ll need to test it. I should master the Sword Ghost’s Draw Technique as well.”

That was something Kraushu welcomed too.

“Evelask, do you have a training ground or sparring arena somewhere?”
“I’m no servant here.”
“But you do have that ancient text you wanted—the one called the Boxing Manual? I have it.”
“Sister!”

She referred to Crimsongarden as her sister and turned to Number Eight.

“Number Eight, show them the way, would you?”
“Yes, Master. I shall guide you to the training grounds.”

It was time to put the Sword Ghost’s Arm to use.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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