Karyl Lohal lifted his head and looked at the gargoyle crouching above him, the stone monster staring silently into the dark distance of the night, its mouth open in a fierce, silent snarl.

"Goodbye," Khalil said to it.

He stretched out his hand from under the roof, his skin pale and with a prominent tattoo on his wrist. A few seconds later, his palm felt the cold raindrops, causing him to immediately withdraw his hand.

However, a slight burning sensation was already coming from his palm.

Khalil bristled, a flicker of displeasure flickering across his pale face, but it quickly faded.

"Very well," he said to himself."It's raining."

He turned around, keeping his feet away so they wouldn't get soaked in blood.As for the source of the blood, you'd have to ask the body at his feet, its chest and stomach wide open.

Khalil bent down and turned the body on its side.His movements were gentle, but as he did so he heard a dull snapping sound.

He knew it was the sound of a corpse's intestines falling out of its chest and stomach and hitting the ground.

It made Karil sigh and wonder if his handiwork had regressed.

It was just a single swing from the bottom to the top, how could it just open him up like that......??

He thought as he pulled the cloak from his body, the side that was supposed to face in was still stained with blood, so Karyl had to shake it out and turn it around to make it wearable.

A little bit of trivia, if it's raining in Nostramo, if you have to go out at this time of year, well, you'd better find something to cover yourself with.

If you don't have one, don't go out from a place where you can get shelter from the wind and rain.

As for why......

The rain was poisonous in Nostramo.

He stepped out of the eaves of the house, there were no more pedestrians on the street, but there were a number of curious eyes in the darkness, looking hungrily at the shadow walking in its cloak.

Such was the case in the Quintus Nest capital of Nostramo, or any nest capital on Nostramo for that matter.

They were perpetually overcrowded, perpetually foul-smelling, and full of fumes that could suffocate people; the natural environment has long since been destroyed by endless mining, and the sun has long since left Nostramo.

Gangs have carved up the territories, large and small, replacing law with force to control everything, but they were really just dogs raised by the upper class nobles.

Between breaths, Karil caught a strong whiff of rust, the damned smell filling his mouth and making his tongue feel like a rusty nickel stuck between his upper and lower jaws.

The stickiness disgusted him immensely, and what disgusted him even more was that he found himself surprisingly accustomed to the sensation.

With that thought in mind, Khalil tugged at the corners of his mouth and smiled a little, his shoulders naturally relaxing and drooping, and there were two glimpses of silver light at his cuffs.

It was raining.

A good day for killing.

He made his way forward, across dark metal bridges and through narrow shantytowns, and as he passed he could hear the disquieting murmurs of the shantytown dwellers as they slept through the night.

The smile on Karyl's face grew wider and wider until it became a ghastly, sardonic grin that horrified those who saw it, the skin hanging hard with muscle and the teeth rubbing slightly against the air.

The suffering, the sinking, the oppressed, even in their sleep they dare only whisper curses.

Toxic chemicals fill the air, devouring the lungs, hearts and bodies of these poor workers.

It also eats away at their feelings, at everything they are, while the originators sit back and enjoy everything in their exquisite homes, not even having to witness the deaths of the oppressed.

It wasn't all fair, was it?

Khalil kept walking, and after about half an hour, he cleared a high fence and came to the door of a church.

Two gargoyles stared at him from the spire and stained-glass windows, and raindrops fell vertically to the ground, crashing.

"Good evening."

Karil greeted softly, his Nostramo hissing in the damp stench stirred up by the curtain of rain.

He took a step forward, his posture already very different from when he had walked down the street.The leather boots touched the ground without a sound, and the speed was amazingly fast, more like gliding than walking.

With that, Karil reached the side door of the church and put his hand on the knob, and after half a breath, the heavy and unlocked metal door opened spontaneously without Karil even pushing it.

He smiled slightly, a deep, cold blue light flickering in his eyes.

-----------------

"Colpa's gang didn't bring enough money, Father."

Said a man with tattoos on his face.

His skin was as pale as any Nostramoan's, and the pupils of his eyes were completely black, but his physique was not.

Where most Nostramoans were thin from famine and oppression from above, he was strong.

The man he called a priest didn't answer at first, his eyes closed and his hands clasped together with ten fingers, as he kneeled down before the idol in prayer.

"Father......"

The tattooed man called out again hesitantly, and this time the priest opened his eyes.

There was no other reason, the priest was just too tall.Seeing him stand up brought such a sense of oppression that it was like watching a mountain move its spine in front of you, it was eerie.

"Kolpa......Pit to the north?"The priest opened his mouth to inquire.

His voice did not match his stature, it was neither heavy nor deep, but rather soft.The Nostramo language took on a certain elegance even as it came out of his mouth.

It wasn't the accent of the people down below.

"Yes," the tattooed man replied, "the pit that produced the fine gold ore."

The priest sighed.

"Always," he said slowly. "There are always those who think they can escape the watchful eye of God, and I bestow upon them favors they do not appreciate....

The tattooed man bowed his head - he dared not answer the priest's words; it was the priest's prerogative to speak of God and His favors within the church.

"Send someone tomorrow."

The priest waved his hand slowly.

"Bring Kolpa to me, and I will make him realize with my own hands what a precious love God has bestowed upon us....A sinner like him, who commits the sin of godlessness, should be pulverized in the fire."

He stopped speaking and stared at the man in silence, a stare that was like the blade of a knife, coldly scraping the marrow of the man's bones and causing him to stop trembling.

Finally, the priest spoke again, slowly.

"In the future, do not disturb me at night; that is my prayer time."

"Yes, Father." The man hastily bowed his head in agreement, his back already wet with a fine sweat.

"So, are you pious, Father?"

There were no lights in the church, only a few candles burning softly near the idol, their tiny light not enough to dispel the darkness.

Something moved in the foggy darkness.

The tattooed man's expression changed violently, and he immediately came to the priest's body and pulled a pistol from his waist.

The thing was crude in appearance, the handle was even just a wooden plank wrapped in duct tape, but it was capable of killing a mutated beast in the wilderness outside of Nestor with a single shot.

"Of course I'm pious."

The priest didn't seem flustered as he spoke softly, "And you, Your Eminence?Do you come to my church in the middle of the night to confess to me?"

"Oh....Confess?"

A low chuckle came from the darkness, "I do have something to confess....Well, Father, I've killed a lot of people.It started with just a tyrant who was oppressing the miners, and I hung him in his room."

"Then I started to get out of hand.The second was a bastard who used drugs to control children to sell their bodies."

"As for the last one.............................................................................."

Upon hearing this, the tattooed man's hand shook violently and his face became alarmed; he had realized something.

The priest gently raised his hand and placed it on his right shoulder, stabilizing the unstoppable trembling.

Then he said, "From your description, I take it that Your Excellency is the vengeful and fierce spirit?"

"Vengeance for whom?" the man in the darkness asked rhetorically. "No one knows me in this town, so who am I going to avenge?"

"So you do not kill for justice."

"Justice?"

A loud, sharp, piercing laugh came steeply out of the darkness.

The priest frowned, and his hand, which was pressing down on the tattooed man's right shoulder, tightened at that moment, and the tremendous force caused the man to grunt in pain, preventing him from making any great movements.

There was a monster peering into the darkness, and there was a monster behind him as well, and he didn't know which was scarier.

"Justice exists," the priest said slowly. "You are too paranoid."

"Is that so?"

"Yes."

"Then do gods exist?"

"Of course they exist."

A low chuckle came from the darkness, and a cloaked man stepped out of the darkness.

"O priest....If the Divine really exists, why does He who is omniscient and omnipotent not send down thunderbolts to punish us?"

"Because He has mercy on us," the priest said calmly, "He wants us to be lost, not to cleanse our flesh with destruction."

The tattooed man let out a low hiss of pain.

The priest's tone was calm as the force of his right hand increased, the source of the tattooed man's pain.

The cloaked man laughed again as he lowered his hands and removed his cloak, tossing it aside.

His complexion and eyes were the same as all Nostramoans, skin as pale as a corpse, eyes as black as tombstones, opposing colors, yet symbiotic and coexisting.

The priest stared at him, and the moment his eyes met and he saw the man's face, he lashed out and crushed the tattooed man's shoulder blade.

A scream of pain like that of a wild animal erupted, and the tattooed man fell to the ground, his weapon falling to the ground as blood began to spread across the floor.

"My name is Karyl, Karyl Lohals, Father," Kahlil said with a smile."How does the family name sound to you, does it ring a bell?"

The priest raised his hand grimly and unbuttoned his cassock.Gradually, he removed the heavy, stately black priest's robe and tossed it aside on a bulletin board.The body beneath the robe was full of vertical and horizontal scars.

Above the chest was a tattoo.

"Familiar," the priest said. "There is no family name on Nostramo more familiar to me than Lohals."

"That's good."

Kahlil smiled faintly and raised his hands, the two sharp blades reflecting the disorienting light of the wavering candle flame.He began to skip gently in place, his spine relaxed and his stance leisurely, the blades at his wrists.

"Mr. Karil......"

The priest slowly clenched his fists, a rumbling mechanical sound echoing through his arms.

"Go ahead, Father - you can speak longer and make it your last words," Khalil replied with a gentle smile.

The priest did not reply, just took a deep breath of blood-soaked air.

The man on the ground was still screaming in agony, so he lifted his foot and stomped hard on the soft neck, ending the man's pain.

The priest said, "You have indeed come for revenge."

"No, Father, that is not so," Khalil replied quietly, "I am here for you."

The swing flickered, the candle flame went out, roars of rage alternated with maniacal laughter, and one of the tattooed man's eyes rolled away bone deep, fading silently into the darkness.