Chapter 45
The floor of the slaughterhouse was soaked in blood. Amid the overwhelming stench of blood that made one’s head spin, the one-eyed Yoseph, the manager of the slaughterhouse, picked up an axe.
Thud!
The rabbit’s head was severed cleanly. The cut was so clean that no traces of the axe strike could be seen.
The rabbits trapped in the basket leapt up in fright. The blood from the dead rabbit flowed between the tiles and seeped through the gaps in the basket.
Yoseph tossed the severed head into the basket beside it—the one that contained the dead rabbits—and straightened his back.
Even as he stood upright, the massive lump on his back forced him to remain half-bent.
Little light made its way into the slaughterhouse. As if to keep the sins committed here hidden from the eyes of God.
In the darkness, Yoseph wiped away the rabbit’s blood that had splattered on his forehead, along with his own sweat.
His hair, grown coarse and shaggy, was black, dyed by the shadows. His clothes were the same—garments that wouldn’t reveal blood or filth. A color that swallowed all sin.
Within the order of Impellias, black was the exclusive color of God’s agent, Ragnar.
It was the color symbolizing the battles he had fought and the traces of that blood left behind. The color of light and death. Even Del Rose’s Theogrim was not permitted to wear it.
The citizens wore gray clothing during funerals.
But there were those who, aside from the most exalted lord, were permitted to don that noble color.
The workers of the slaughterhouse—the lowest class of all.
In the holy world of Impellias, they were not considered humans under the protection of God. And for that reason, they were free. They were beings unbound by the laws, and thus not restrained by them either.
Because Yoseph was considered the lowest of all, he could wear the color of the most noble.
If Ragnar’s black signified purity and nobility, then Yoseph’s black was a shadow hiding sin.
“Phew.”
He washed his hands clean. His gaze, as he looked at the rabbits leaping in terror after witnessing the beheading of their kin up close, was large and gentle, like that of a puppy.
The windows of the slaughterhouse, set in damp stone walls, were very small. The wall with a small square window above the head resembled that of a prison.
Under the faint sunlight trickling in, there was no trace of emotion on Yoseph’s face for what he had just done.
As if what he struck with the axe had been a block of wood and not a small animal. Like a holy carpenter in a sacred painting, he washed his hands after his labor.
It was the face of someone who had grown used to everything. To being a hunchback. To not being chosen by God. To being someone no one could love. And to staring into the faces of dying animals.
People despised animals and tore into their flesh and meat.
And they despised the hunchback too, placing the sins they committed for the sake of eating upon him.
The ones in clean clothes relished the joy of the meat on their table, while shifting all the blame onto Yoseph, who willingly dirtied his hands for that joy.
However, Yoseph no longer felt wronged by anything.
Just as God had allowed humans to tear apart and consume fairies and beasts, he too had been sent into this world for such a purpose.
If he didn’t quickly grow accustomed to the scorn and contempt, he wouldn’t be able to continue living.
Then the hunchbacked Yoseph washed his face. The light splatters of blood and sweat were wiped away. Beneath the uncombed black hair, Yoseph’s face was revealed in the faint sunlight.
Yoseph, unexpectedly, was a handsome man.
That beautiful face only made the lump growing from his back more of a mockery. Just like how Arzeletta’s beauty had made her life all the more difficult.
Yoseph, having washed his face, sat down on a hard wooden chair.
It was a brief peace after labor.
Chirp, chirp. The sound of birds filtered in. Unlike the beasts inside the slaughterhouse, it was the song of free creatures.
Then, the voices of children singing came from outside the window.
Clear and lovely like the ringing of bells, voices that seemed to express the brightness of a fleeting time permitted in a long life.
“Hunchback Yoseph took the monster Arzeletta as his bride.”
“Hunchback Yoseph can’t perform at night, so Arzeletta goes around begging.”
“A demon is spying on them in bed!”
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