“A beautiful tree sprouts in front of my very eyes, distant and yet so close.” I walked through the catastrophically raided village, citing a few artists here and there to get back on track with my faked personality after showing the real me for a prolonged time already.
“Zori?” Hannah walked by my side leisurely, occasionally glaring towards the bound humans begging to be released. And no, I wasn’t citing the guy who thought the world only existed in his head. That was a tad too insane for me.
“Hallers.” I told her and made my way over to the well to get rid of all the blood. Before I was there though, a man laying on the ground grabbed my ankle with the last bit of strength he had left. Ropes bit into his flesh and he had a rather serious wound on his head, but otherwise he looked perfectly normal, if not for all the mud on his body.
“Please … save us.” A feeble voice left his mouth, barely audible to me. He didn’t get anything to drink that night, so his hoarse was kind of to be expected.
“Sorry, but I need you to die for me.” Without wasting any second, Hannah cut that guys hand off and inevitably set me free with that. “And now there is even more blood on my shoes … what a pity.” I kind of started to like the black shoes I had. They were quite comfy and sturdy, giving me rather good grip in any terrain. A bit bummed out, I cleaned them up properly at the well while ignoring the pleading cries for help to the best of my abilities.
There was already enough going on in my head with this endless stream of ‘Level u- Le-Level up! You gained a t- Lu- Level up!’, so I really didn’t need much more in that regard. Even worse, their loud pleading somehow made the voice of the system resound through my head even louder, so much so that I had nearly missed Hannah´s attempt to get my attention. Or at least I thought she said something as it was drowned out by the system basically screaming at me.
“Did you say anything?” I thus asked and looked over to her as she was sharpening the blade underneath the glaring sunlight.
“No?” Okay … maybe I had misheard something. “Are you okay?” I … was certainly feeling better than the day before, but my heart wouldn’t stop clenching anymore. My soul was getting damaged quicker than anticipated, making me rush stuff that should be done carefully.
Tired, I leaned onto the well and stared down at my pristine shoes. Satisfied, I rubbed my leather amour as well in an attempt to get rid of all the blood which worked semi well. Shrugging my shoulders, snipped my fingers and gave the exact same order to every undead in the surroundings. They drew their weapons – from pitchforks to swords – and murdered their friends and families without exception. I didn’t even spare the children, but rather set their souls on the journey into another world that was seemingly less turbulent.
I felt no remorse whatsoever. I didn’t enjoy their death´s either, but rather saw it as a necessity to reach my goals. Making sure that not much blood spilt onto my attire, I strolled through the village one last time and ended where I started – in front of the tavern. The twins were still inside and they would remain as such until the main attraction was basically over. The four idiots weren’t that dumb after all. They wouldn’t fight us during the night, not if they could avoid it.
“We have everything, don’t we?” On the whole way of travelling back, I made sure to let others know where we were by committing massacres near us, but never with any connection to myself. It was a trail of blood I left behind … one the demon king stood at the end of. All the others who were still alive did remember me as a kind person who was greatly hurt by the way things were going.
“I do hope so.” Stretching my arms a little, I looked in the direction where a few undead were dying occasionally and nodded towards Hannah. “Let’s see what our other friends have been up to, shall we?”
Her sword danced through the air hungrily, stopped short of my chin and then wandered back into the seethe. I meanwhile was still without a sword for several reasons, one of them being that I still lacked the strength to wield it easily during the day. As such, I was empty handed as I followed Hannah out of the village and then further east towards another village which was nearly evacuated. There were some adventurers guarding the perimeter, taking care of those who didn’t or rather couldn’t flee their homes.
This time, we weren’t there for murder at all, but rather because we wanted to help … or something along these lines.
“Hello?” Hannah shouted towards the three adventurers and waved her hand. Despite all of our attempts to act like a normal person, the three drew their weapons anyways. “My name is Hannah, and this is Lucy Worchester, saint and queen.”
“We heard she is working with an evil god?” They might have realised who I was and yet none of them tried to fight me, a prominent figure in the enemies forces. The indoctrination from the church was honestly great for that. Additionally to that, I also attempted to control the information I gave them tediously, from erasing everyone who had seen me with the demon king to pushing all the blame onto him.
“Sadly, that is the case. But unlike the demon king, I try to keep harming others to a minimum. Could you have any idea where he is?” I explained while looking to the ground feigning to be utterly ashamed.
“… there was a horde of undead passing by to the south a few hours ago.” One of them answered with the other two nodding along.
“Oh no …” I balled my hands to fists to show myself as determined, but also a bit panicked.
“… it’s good to see the saint hasn’t left us yet.” The leftmost one explained while smiling hopefully. The situation was dire for them, but they still believed in me.
“I would never. Hannah, we need to hurry up.” I nudged her side a little and wanted to turn away as one of them grabbed my arm with his filthy fingers.
“We will come with you.” He was determined, that was for sure. I usually wouldn’t mind it, but I needed witnessed form my good deeds more than I needed them dead.
“You need to protect those you can. If you follow me, he will hurt you but if you stay here, you may be able to protect the citizens. So please, I implore you, help me to protect them.” He slowly let go of my arm, looked to the ground and nodded reluctantly.
“Good luck out there.” Hannah and I excused ourselves afterwards. We had set out alibi for anyone bothering to ask and this left rather high spirited towards the place the undead were dying left and right. For several minutes, we strolled through the forest closest to the capital city and viewed our destination from the edge of it. To nobodies surprise, that area turned out to be a wheat field.
A levelled one in the battle area, but the close proximity to the capital city meant that the view was still beautiful. Green unripe wheat grew everywhere around me, covering me until my hip, which was far from enough to hide me from the curious gazes of the five fighters in the distance.
The fight must have gone on for an hour or so already with no clear winner visible. Both sides must had exhausted much of their mana already as the demon king relied more or less on physical attacks the whole time and Louis stood around, hands on his knees and breathed roughly.
The first one to spot us was Sofie. While I went over the surface of the wheats with my palm, she pointed towards me with a rather uneasy expression. She knew for sure that with Hannah around, there wasn’t much they could do except to teleport away. But honestly, I didn’t look that threatening as I waved happy to see her again.
The demon king, having noticed my odd behaviour, distanced himself from his two close combatant opponents and looked over to me.
“What took you so long?” Well, capturing a village and spending my time there took time, especially when my brain was literally turning to mush.
“How about you tell me that? You just left yesterday and we had to search for you? Did you know I nearly fell into a well because of you?” So far, I didn’t tell him a single lie. He left around twenty four hours beforehand for several reasons.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have played board games with kids a day before we reached the capital city?” But the kids were insanely happy? How could I leave them that early then?
“So what? I had fun?” I told him. I really did enjoy playing games with them, but that was only part of the reason why I did so. The other was to get him part ways with me, which worked just fine.
“… just help me here.” He sighed a little, but kept his gaze darting between me and the four heroes.
“No.” I told him rather plainly and crossed my arms in front of my chest while Hannah yawned beside me.
“What? We are on one side!” He said not desperate, but rather annoyed by my behaviour.
“So what?” I didn’t perceive us to be on one side. He was Aska’s lackey, even though he might not have realised it yet.
“Huh?” This time, it was my dear heroes who couldn’t comprehend my words. They must have assumed the worst already after hearing that I participated in the invasion of the human lands and coupled with all the lies I told them, that was kind of to be expected.
“Why are you looking so shocked? As if I’d fight against my friends? For what do you take me? A bloodthirsty murderer? A serial killer?” I laughed a little to ease their minds, which seemed to have the opposite effect.
“You are complicit in the crimes he committed.” Ellie told me, which wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be, but not that great either.”
“STOP!” The demon king interjected, much to my surprise. “Stop, stop, stop! You … you want to murder me, am I not right?”
“Why would I want that?” I asked a bit stunned about his sudden spike in intelligence.
“A story ends when the antagonist is dealt with …” That was usually the case, but I highly doubted the gods would end spying on us after he died.
“Wait, you are still claiming this insane shit that we are being watched?” Schwarz pointed my sword towards the demon king threateningly, but had yet to dash ahead.
“It’s true though … I have rewatched my whole life in a matter of a few days.” I grabbed my chin still a bit disturbed by the experience. Knowing that every single one of us was watched put a huge pressure on my shoulders already.
“You are also claiming that now?” Louis asked a bit shocked by the revelation. Before, they could have written it off as the talking points of someone crazy, but after this? That was hardly possible.
“Because it’s the truth.” I told them.
“See? And the best way for her to stop this shit is by murdering all of us. If we continue to fight, she will just kill whoever is left at the end.” The demon king waved around with his arms wildly. At last, he did have the right idea, but only partly. I wasn’t interested in my heroes death … at least for the time being.
“That’s not t-“ I told them, but was rather surprised as Schwarz dashed towards me all of a sudden.
“We just have to beat everyone then, right?” I … nobody was able to talk sense into him at this point. My sword, part of my very being had twisted his being completely. I wasn’t even sure how much of himself was left at this point. But I couldn’t see myself in him either. All that’s left was a tainted soul, possessed by the sword which robbed him his sanity.
“A beautiful tree sprouts in front of my very eyes, distant and yet so close.” I walked through the catastrophically raided village, citing a few artists here and there to get back on track with my faked personality after showing the real me for a prolonged time already.
“Zori?” Hannah walked by my side leisurely, occasionally glaring towards the bound humans begging to be released. And no, I wasn’t citing the guy who thought the world only existed in his head. That was a tad too insane for me.
“Hallers.” I told her and made my way over to the well to get rid of all the blood. Before I was there though, a man laying on the ground grabbed my ankle with the last bit of strength he had left. Ropes bit into his flesh and he had a rather serious wound on his head, but otherwise he looked perfectly normal, if not for all the mud on his body.
“Please … save us.” A feeble voice left his mouth, barely audible to me. He didn’t get anything to drink that night, so his hoarse was kind of to be expected.
“Sorry, but I need you to die for me.” Without wasting any second, Hannah cut that guys hand off and inevitably set me free with that. “And now there is even more blood on my shoes … what a pity.” I kind of started to like the black shoes I had. They were quite comfy and sturdy, giving me rather good grip in any terrain. A bit bummed out, I cleaned them up properly at the well while ignoring the pleading cries for help to the best of my abilities.
There was already enough going on in my head with this endless stream of ‘Level u- Le-Level up! You gained a t- Lu- Level up!’, so I really didn’t need much more in that regard. Even worse, their loud pleading somehow made the voice of the system resound through my head even louder, so much so that I had nearly missed Hannah´s attempt to get my attention. Or at least I thought she said something as it was drowned out by the system basically screaming at me.
“Did you say anything?” I thus asked and looked over to her as she was sharpening the blade underneath the glaring sunlight.
“No?” Okay … maybe I had misheard something. “Are you okay?” I … was certainly feeling better than the day before, but my heart wouldn’t stop clenching anymore. My soul was getting damaged quicker than anticipated, making me rush stuff that should be done carefully.
Tired, I leaned onto the well and stared down at my pristine shoes. Satisfied, I rubbed my leather amour as well in an attempt to get rid of all the blood which worked semi well. Shrugging my shoulders, snipped my fingers and gave the exact same order to every undead in the surroundings. They drew their weapons – from pitchforks to swords – and murdered their friends and families without exception. I didn’t even spare the children, but rather set their souls on the journey into another world that was seemingly less turbulent.
I felt no remorse whatsoever. I didn’t enjoy their death´s either, but rather saw it as a necessity to reach my goals. Making sure that not much blood spilt onto my attire, I strolled through the village one last time and ended where I started – in front of the tavern. The twins were still inside and they would remain as such until the main attraction was basically over. The four idiots weren’t that dumb after all. They wouldn’t fight us during the night, not if they could avoid it.
“We have everything, don’t we?” On the whole way of travelling back, I made sure to let others know where we were by committing massacres near us, but never with any connection to myself. It was a trail of blood I left behind … one the demon king stood at the end of. All the others who were still alive did remember me as a kind person who was greatly hurt by the way things were going.
“I do hope so.” Stretching my arms a little, I looked in the direction where a few undead were dying occasionally and nodded towards Hannah. “Let’s see what our other friends have been up to, shall we?”
Her sword danced through the air hungrily, stopped short of my chin and then wandered back into the seethe. I meanwhile was still without a sword for several reasons, one of them being that I still lacked the strength to wield it easily during the day. As such, I was empty handed as I followed Hannah out of the village and then further east towards another village which was nearly evacuated. There were some adventurers guarding the perimeter, taking care of those who didn’t or rather couldn’t flee their homes.
This time, we weren’t there for murder at all, but rather because we wanted to help … or something along these lines.
“Hello?” Hannah shouted towards the three adventurers and waved her hand. Despite all of our attempts to act like a normal person, the three drew their weapons anyways. “My name is Hannah, and this is Lucy Worchester, saint and queen.”
“We heard she is working with an evil god?” They might have realised who I was and yet none of them tried to fight me, a prominent figure in the enemies forces. The indoctrination from the church was honestly great for that. Additionally to that, I also attempted to control the information I gave them tediously, from erasing everyone who had seen me with the demon king to pushing all the blame onto him.
“Sadly, that is the case. But unlike the demon king, I try to keep harming others to a minimum. Could you have any idea where he is?” I explained while looking to the ground feigning to be utterly ashamed.
“… there was a horde of undead passing by to the south a few hours ago.” One of them answered with the other two nodding along.
“Oh no …” I balled my hands to fists to show myself as determined, but also a bit panicked.
“… it’s good to see the saint hasn’t left us yet.” The leftmost one explained while smiling hopefully. The situation was dire for them, but they still believed in me.
“I would never. Hannah, we need to hurry up.” I nudged her side a little and wanted to turn away as one of them grabbed my arm with his filthy fingers.
“We will come with you.” He was determined, that was for sure. I usually wouldn’t mind it, but I needed witnessed form my good deeds more than I needed them dead.
“You need to protect those you can. If you follow me, he will hurt you but if you stay here, you may be able to protect the citizens. So please, I implore you, help me to protect them.” He slowly let go of my arm, looked to the ground and nodded reluctantly.
“Good luck out there.” Hannah and I excused ourselves afterwards. We had set out alibi for anyone bothering to ask and this left rather high spirited towards the place the undead were dying left and right. For several minutes, we strolled through the forest closest to the capital city and viewed our destination from the edge of it. To nobodies surprise, that area turned out to be a wheat field.
A levelled one in the battle area, but the close proximity to the capital city meant that the view was still beautiful. Green unripe wheat grew everywhere around me, covering me until my hip, which was far from enough to hide me from the curious gazes of the five fighters in the distance.
The fight must have gone on for an hour or so already with no clear winner visible. Both sides must had exhausted much of their mana already as the demon king relied more or less on physical attacks the whole time and Louis stood around, hands on his knees and breathed roughly.
The first one to spot us was Sofie. While I went over the surface of the wheats with my palm, she pointed towards me with a rather uneasy expression. She knew for sure that with Hannah around, there wasn’t much they could do except to teleport away. But honestly, I didn’t look that threatening as I waved happy to see her again.
The demon king, having noticed my odd behaviour, distanced himself from his two close combatant opponents and looked over to me.
“What took you so long?” Well, capturing a village and spending my time there took time, especially when my brain was literally turning to mush.
“How about you tell me that? You just left yesterday and we had to search for you? Did you know I nearly fell into a well because of you?” So far, I didn’t tell him a single lie. He left around twenty four hours beforehand for several reasons.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have played board games with kids a day before we reached the capital city?” But the kids were insanely happy? How could I leave them that early then?
“So what? I had fun?” I told him. I really did enjoy playing games with them, but that was only part of the reason why I did so. The other was to get him part ways with me, which worked just fine.
“… just help me here.” He sighed a little, but kept his gaze darting between me and the four heroes.
“No.” I told him rather plainly and crossed my arms in front of my chest while Hannah yawned beside me.
“What? We are on one side!” He said not desperate, but rather annoyed by my behaviour.
“So what?” I didn’t perceive us to be on one side. He was Aska’s lackey, even though he might not have realised it yet.
“Huh?” This time, it was my dear heroes who couldn’t comprehend my words. They must have assumed the worst already after hearing that I participated in the invasion of the human lands and coupled with all the lies I told them, that was kind of to be expected.
“Why are you looking so shocked? As if I’d fight against my friends? For what do you take me? A bloodthirsty murderer? A serial killer?” I laughed a little to ease their minds, which seemed to have the opposite effect.
“You are complicit in the crimes he committed.” Ellie told me, which wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be, but not that great either.”
“STOP!” The demon king interjected, much to my surprise. “Stop, stop, stop! You … you want to murder me, am I not right?”
“Why would I want that?” I asked a bit stunned about his sudden spike in intelligence.
“A story ends when the antagonist is dealt with …” That was usually the case, but I highly doubted the gods would end spying on us after he died.
“Wait, you are still claiming this insane shit that we are being watched?” Schwarz pointed my sword towards the demon king threateningly, but had yet to dash ahead.
“It’s true though … I have rewatched my whole life in a matter of a few days.” I grabbed my chin still a bit disturbed by the experience. Knowing that every single one of us was watched put a huge pressure on my shoulders already.
“You are also claiming that now?” Louis asked a bit shocked by the revelation. Before, they could have written it off as the talking points of someone crazy, but after this? That was hardly possible.
“Because it’s the truth.” I told them.
“See? And the best way for her to stop this shit is by murdering all of us. If we continue to fight, she will just kill whoever is left at the end.” The demon king waved around with his arms wildly. At last, he did have the right idea, but only partly. I wasn’t interested in my heroes death … at least for the time being.
“That’s not t-“ I told them, but was rather surprised as Schwarz dashed towards me all of a sudden.
“We just have to beat everyone then, right?” I … nobody was able to talk sense into him at this point. My sword, part of my very being had twisted his being completely. I wasn’t even sure how much of himself was left at this point. But I couldn’t see myself in him either. All that’s left was a tainted soul, possessed by the sword which robbed him his sanity.
