Leonidas fell forward. Using his tail as leverage, he just barely pushed himself toward his goal quicker.

Lacroix thought that Leonidas’ tail was poised for him when the truth was that Leonidas knew his tail was too heavy and slow to be used mid-battle.

Leonidas just wanted something to grab onto, a sturdy structure to help him push this heavy body of his forward.

And that… was exactly what he managed to do.

Leonidas' low rumbling voice pushed out a roar. It sounded as though he had poured all the energy he had left into this final strike.

Lacroix’s shovel smashed against Leonidas’ head once again, taking another shower of blood with it, but like a beast that could only see red, Leonidas pressed forward, lunging at the butler.

Leonidas’ hand plunged downward.

He could barely see, but he felt his rusted butterknife pierce skin and he just barely heard Lacroix’s high-pitched cry even over Bennett’s continuous, perpetual screaming.

Leonidas’ hands shook under the exertion as he struggled to see what was before him.

When his vision somewhat cleared, though, his heart couldn’t help but quake.

His butterknife had indeed pierced through Lacroix’s chest. But, it had gotten lodged in his ribcage, too blunt to continue any further. In the end, Leonidas’ strength was simply too weak.

“You little bastard! I’m going to kill you!”

Leonidas caught sight of a glistening knife. Compared to the rusted piece of scrap metal in his hands, it was truly a work of art.

He couldn’t help but laugh at his bad luck. This eunuch actually had such a weapon.

Just as Leonidas and Lacroix were falling backward, Leonidas felt a sharp pain shoot through his chest as the glistening knife slid into his delicate skin.

“Die, you little shit.”

Lacroix couldn’t believe that he had actually been put into such a situation by the son of a whore.

However, he hardly had time to be pissed before he crashed into the ground and his eyes widened.

Lacroix looked up at the night sky, his vision slowly fading to black. He didn’t get a chance to scream like Bennett before he felt the world slip away from him.

Leonidas coughed, a mouthful of blood spraying all over Lacroix’s face.

At that moment, he began to laugh. He laughed with Bennett’s screams as his backdrop, his body being ripped by an endless pain from all sides.

To think that in the end, it would be this damnable weight of his that saved his life.

That instant when he fell on top of Lacroix, all 200 kilograms of his weight had been transferred into the rusted butterknife, helping him drive it all the way into Lacroix’s heart.

As for the knife that had gone through his own chest?

Leonidas coughed violently. He rolled himself off of Lacroix, looking at the knife that had traveled three inches into his chest.

There was no doubt that this was enough to pierce his heart. Even though his sturdy bones managed to stop it from driving in any further even after the two men crashed into one another, in the end, if the Lower Ogres were so invulnerable, they wouldn’t be Lower Ogres.

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That said… Leonidas had two hearts, not just one.

The double heart mutation was actually a rare one amongst the Giant race. Those that had it would have bodies with far more stamina and power than those without it. One could guess how useful two hearts would be with such large bodies.

Unfortunately, though, much like everything else in Leonidas’ life, this so-called boon actually played out more like a curse.

Because Leonidas had the flesh of the Red Fox Half-Beasts, the walls of his hearts, arteries and veins weren’t strong enough to withstand the furious pumping of two hearts. In his youth, he would often get spontaneous bursts of internal bleeding that left him at death’s door more than once.

Luckily, his mother somehow managed to bring him to a Healer. Unable to afford the full treatment, though, rather than having his heart amputated, Leonidas’ second heart was instead pinched off from the rest of his body in what could only be described as a crude measure.

This sounded like a good thing. Maybe Leonidas would be able to grow strong enough to use this second heart of his in the future?

But no.

What would happen to an organ that suddenly stopped receiving blood supply?

If one cut open Leonidas’ chest right now, you would find one healthy, slightly violet, beating heart. And, if you looked over to the side, you would find a shriveled-up lump of black that looked no different from a tumor.

There was quite literally a tumor of dead flesh within Leonidas’ chest right this moment. The fact he had survived so long was a miracle in and of itself. He was under the constant assault of infections as his own body poisoned itself.

This was a large part of the reason his skin was so sickly pale. But, he simply couldn’t afford the procedure that would be needed to safely take his useless heart out of him.

Leonidas didn’t have all the information. Was it really easier to tie off a heart’s arteries and veins as opposed to just cutting it all out? He didn’t know. All that mattered was that this was his reality.

The only good that came from all of this was that Leonidas’ mother had been clever enough to ask the Healer to tie off his left heart. As such, his one functioning heart was actually located on the right side of his chest, giving him a small advantage that had just saved his life.

Leonidas pulled the knife from his chest with a slight groan. It didn’t escape him that black blood poured out from the wound, but there was already nothing he could do about this tumorous heart of his. It could kill him in ten years, or it could kill him tomorrow. He really didn’t know.

For now, he was entirely focused on surviving for as long as he could. He would live up to the promises he made to his mother.

Finally managing to stand, Leonidas’ tail wrapped around one of Lacroix’s ankles, slowly pulling him along.

When he made it to the side of his mother’s former grave, he came to a stop, Bennett’s screaming resonating in his ears.

Leonidas lowered his tail into the hole. Being face down, Bennett didn’t even know what was happening.

Leonidas’ tail wrapped around the butler’s throat tightly, his coarse fur spearing Bennett’s neck and face. Before Leonidas even began to squeeze hard, Bennett’s throat was already gurgling with blood.

With a clean crack, Bennett’s head was twisted 180 degrees.

Over the next few moments, Leonidas dragged Bennett’s corpse up and pulled along both butlers to the side of the cliff.

Making sure to avoid the ledge his mother’s corpse had fallen to, he threw them both over the edge.

Walking back to the gravesite, he did his best to pile the dirt back in.

After he was done, he took both shovels, his mother’s coin pouch, his butter knife and Lacroix’s knife to the cliff’s edge once again.

Leonidas paused for a moment before throwing his butter knife and one of the shovels over the edge. He couldn’t bring himself to get rid of the second shovel. It might become useful to him in the future.

With a deep breath, Leonidas turned to leave. He had resolved himself.

His mother had worked her whole life to give him a small chance to better himself, but he had refused her, choosing instead to bury the silver she had given up herself for along with her. Yet, when it came time for him to sacrifice himself, it was once again his own petty arrogance that didn’t allow him to take those final steps.

‘I will go to the Church. For ten silver a month I can become a clergyman. That will give me a small bit of protection from Gauteron and his lackeys. Then, I can think of a second step.’

In the land of Maladoneae, a clergyman was no more than an empty title. It was meant to set one on the path of becoming an Apostle, but everyone knew that the likelihood of such a thing happening was close to nil.

To put matters into perspective, Sir Gauteron was a mere subordinate to a Paladin. A Paladin was a subordinate Knight to the Church. An Apostle of a certain standing could have a Paladin as a subordinate should he or she choose to.

The current Leonidas had just been in a life-or-death struggle with two men Gauteron used for nothing more than serving his meals and relieving his lust. This peak was too far away from Leonidas.

What did becoming a clergyman really mean, then?

He was essentially paying to have the right to be a cleanup boy.

In exchange for his mother’s life’s work, he could have such a ‘right’ for seven months.