Chapter 45: The World is Out of Joint

Leica kicked out toward Kobayashi’s wrist in an attempt to break free, but Kobayashi paid it no mind, releasing his grip a fraction of a second early.
The two of them slightly widened the distance between them.
They say it takes one to know one; from that split-second exchange alone, Leica felt a wave of pressure.
"I admit I underestimated you a bit, but now I’m going to use my true strength!"
"Is that all your last words amount to?"
Kobayashi twisted his neck, clenching the fingers of his right hand one by one, producing a series of sharp cracks.
Now, it was Leica who was being looked down upon.
Feeling insulted, the corners of Leica’s mouth twitched, his gaze turning far more dangerous before he charged forward once again.
As still as a virgin, as swift as a startled rabbit!
Leica held nothing back this time. Moving like a thunderbolt, in the blink of an eye, he was right before Kobayashi's eyes!
Both fists struck out together, dancing into a tight wall of wind, launching a fierce, storm-like assault directly at Kobayashi’s face and head.
Kobayashi refused to show weakness, returning fire with his own flurry of punches.
The two traded punches and palm strikes in mid-air, colliding violently and sending out loud shocks of displaced air.
Realizing his prolonged offense was getting nowhere, Leica shifted his body slightly, zeroed in on a gap in Kobayashi’s defense, and unleashed a two-hundred-and-seventy-degree spinning sidekick. Carrying an incomparable and fierce momentum, the blow aimed straight for Kobayashi’s temple!
The temple is a fragile part of the brain; taking a heavy strike there means falling unconscious at best.
He truly lived up to being a master of the Imperial Fist Temple.
Whether in terms of force, angle, or the grasp of timing, it was all precisely calibrated.
This was a fatal strike. If he were hit, Kobayashi would surely die on the spot.
Yet Kobayashi remained completely unfazed. Because the movement was far too rigid and textbook, all it took was a slight lean of his waist to evade the fierce onslaught entirely.
His battle with Leone had made him much more accustomed to enemies launching chaotic, reckless attacks; moves as rigid and textbook as these were riddled with openings in his eyes.
The duel continued, but Kobayashi began muttering something under his breath.
"Straight punch, low kick, spinning elbow strike, chopping palm, side kick, hook punch..."
"What on earth are you mumbling about, you bastard?"
"Nothing much, just figuring out the pattern of your moves."
"——What?!"
In the split second Leica was stunned, a faint glint flashed in Kobayashi’s eyes. He stepped in close to Leica’s chest, twisted his body, and delivered an elbow strike that slammed ruthlessly into Leica’s sternum.
"Ptu— cough!"
Suffering heavy trauma, Leica’s momentum stalled as he staggered backward to widen the distance.
Kobayashi did not press the attack. Instead, he pulled out an adventurer card, glanced at the entry for [Imperial Fist Temple Boxing] displayed on it, and couldn't help letting out a soft chuckle, uttering a single sentence:
"You are surprisingly talentless."
The abbot of the Imperial Fist Temple had dealt him such a cruel evaluation.
At the age of 15, having entered the temple for three years, Leica finally relied on his own talent and hard work to become the most outstanding trainee of his cohort.
Leica thought he would only grow stronger, that his power would eventually reach the level of an acting master—even the veteran fist-fighters in the temple believed so.
However, from the moment he met the abbot and those words about having "no talent" were spoken aloud, he was cast down into the abyss.
From that day onward, the nightmare began.
And it lasted for a full twenty years!
It was as though he had been cursed; for twenty whole years, his strength failed to advance even an inch!
No one knew the reason, and no one could figure out the cause.
Some said he was cursed, having exhausted all his innate gift and talent, and even he himself came to believe that his natural aptitude had been completely spent, which was why his strength remained stagnant.
He racked his brains, desperately searching for a way to break the deadlock.
Finally!
He thought of a brilliant method!
——Since his own talent and aptitude had already been used up, why not simply plunder someone else's?
That’s right!
That was what he should do!
Having fallen into madness, he actually believed he could steal the talents and abilities of other people.
Taking his own case as a reference—since ages 12 to 15 were the years when talent and aptitude burst forth—he began hunting children of that exact age group, using various methods to stimulate them before taking their heads.
He stubbornly believed that doing so would increase his own innate talent and aptitude.
Little did he know, he had long since lost his mind to madness!
Kobayashi looked at the adventurer card, at a loss for words.
To be able to practice a martial art to the point where he only needed to watch it two or three times to fully internalize it as a skill, yet possess a boxing style that fundamentally required flexibility and creation—he honestly didn't know whether to call him a genius or an utter fool.
"Shut up..."
"Hmm?"
"I told you to shut up! I have already absorbed their talent! Given time, I will definitely become stronger!"
Leica roared loudly, as if desperately denying something.
Seeing his distorted expression, Kobayashi hadn't expected a casual remark to strike right at his deepest pain point.
"What talent? It's nothing more than the madness of a paranoid mind."
"I told you to shut up, ahhhhh!!!"
Leica charged at Kobayashi once again, still employing the Imperial Fist Temple boxing he was most skilled in. But now that his rigid, textbook moves had been completely unraveled, he couldn't even graze the corner of Kobayashi's clothes.
Coupled with the loss of his sanity, his superfluous movements multiplied rapidly.
The next move: a stepping kick.
Spotting the exact timing, Kobayashi suddenly launched his counterattack, kicking sharply toward Leica's left knee.
"Crack—"
Suffering the heavy blow, Leica's knee instantly buckled as he collapsed onto the ground.
Kobayashi looked down at him from above, saying coldly: "What's wrong? Wasn't the next move a chopping palm? Can't execute it? Of course you can't, because your left leg, which generates the power, can no longer bear any force. That's why I said you have no talent—you only know how to execute moves by the book."
"Wh—what?!"
Kobayashi’s mockery caused his expression to twist violently, but before he could react, a hand grabbed him by the throat and hoisted him high into the air.
Without hesitation, Kobayashi directly applied a primary-tier Lich-class magic spell—Drain Touch.
Feeling something draining away from inside his body, Leica’s face turned pale with horror.
"What is this? Something is draining out of my body!"
"It's talent, you see."
"W-What?!"
"Didn't you plunder a lot of talents? I'm currently absorbing those talents."
In truth, it was his life force.
But purely to punish Leica, Kobayashi altered his words to "talent."
"Stop it! Don't! The talent is mine! That belongs to me! Give it back! Give my talent back! Hurry up and give it back to me, damn you!!!"
"I refuse to give it back."
Kobayashi curled the corners of his mouth, speaking with a malicious sense of humor: "Thank you for all your hard work collecting these talents for me. I'll be sure to put them to good use."
With that, he increased the absorption output.
Now Leica could feel it even more clearly, the terror on his face growing increasingly pronounced. Yet no matter how wildly he thrashed and struggled, he could not break free from Kobayashi’s iron grip.
"Give it back! Give it back! Give my talent back! Give it back! That's mine, that's my talent! That's my talent! Hurry up and give them back to me!!! Give them... back... to... me...!... Give... them... back...!"
From his initial violent reactions down to his fading breath, the dance of death for a man consumed by paranoia played out right before the eyes of the Night Raid members.
Yet none of those present felt that Leica deserved any sympathy.
When he finally ceased breathing entirely, Kobayashi released his grip, and Leica’s corpse fell to the ground with a dull thud.
"Lord Kobayashi..."
Lulubell walked up to him, handing him a sphere wrapped in cloth.
Kobayashi knew what it was.
Remaining silent, he accepted it, a sudden surge of sorrow brewing deep within his heart.
Why?
Didn't you already know?
This is a world where the strong prey upon the weak; anyone could die at any moment. Why should you still feel sorrow, and why would you harbor the urge to do something about it?
...
I know.
It is kindness.
It is the kindness residing in my own heart that is compelling me to take action.
The moonlight poured down over him, as though he were the protagonist of this world, and his time to step onto the stage had finally arrived.
Standing amidst the darkness of the warehouse, he delivered his very first declaration to the world:
"——The time is out of joint.
O cursed spite, that ever I was born to set it right!"