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Published at 6th of February 2023 10:16:55 AM


Chapter 32

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I had plenty of time to myself as it seemed to be a very, very long talk. 

It gave me a lot of time to think. To plan. To decide. And I’d come to a decision. 

It wasn’t in me to abandon people, to abandon this village to a clearly malicious force. Even more to the point than that, this village was what, a week's walk from Selve and Celena? Doubly dangerous. 

But there was no earthly way the Heroes could win.

If I wanted to overthrow a king, I wouldn’t run at a castle and die immediately. That’s not brave, that’s stupid. The Heroes couldn’t feel what I felt, and didn’t trust me on top of that. They simply couldn’t understand the quality difference between their strength and whatever monster was lurking about, kidnapping and fucking around with people. Hell, if the sensation wasn’t so potent, I wouldn’t trust it either. 

There really was only one move. I was going to have to let the Heroes die. Things would inevitably go wrong, they would end up murdered, and I’d run away. Go back to the village head, ask them to leave or to somehow contact someone stronger. It’s not like I had a lot of options! I may be ‘C-Rank’ but so were the heroes and they were already worth at least a few of me each. Calling for help was it. Maybe the thing could be reasoned with. Maybe. Outside of taking a few women and removing anyone that tried to go looking for them, it hadn’t done anything. The Goblin Horde was the only outlier and that was only because we had survived the ogre. It had attacked the village with the horde, instead of us. That seemed… petty. 

Great. 

So, Heroes die, I run away, warn the village head and… keep running? Best I could do was probably act as a messenger. But would the elven town nearby send reinforcements? Probably not directly… but adventurers probably traveled through borders all the time. Putting up a quest in a guild hall would probably do it. As for the reward… well, that’s the villages issue. I’m sorry! I can’t do much more. 

It had been a long, long day. And it still hadn’t ended. The B-Rank(?) blast had been this morning, then the village crisis, the trek towards the ogre where I got clocked by a tree, the run and stress relief explosion from the Goblin Horde, the actual fight itself with the Goblin Horde, the trek to the Goblin Cave and that horrible time, the woman I refuse to remember, the trek back, the two hours of cleaning and now we were heading out for another battle. All while I had barely slept or had any kind of good rest for the past week. 

I was bone dreary. Tired. Tired physically, mentally, and slightly spiritually. I was really tired of, this. Problems, crises, not being able to sink into a good book and lay in bed for a few days. Not have weeks or months pass without much of a care in the world. A world where I could pick up a part time job if I wanted, barely pay my bills, live in my shitty little apartment, and never have to worry about a thing again. 

Now? Now everything matters. And I hate it so much. No, no those words are correct but under the wrong ailment. I hate them like how I hate being tired. It’s dreary, pulling, weighty. Like a man forced to keep working overtime, again and again, till he looks up at a clock and realizes there's still three hours left of his shift. 

I took a deep, long breath. 

And let it out. 

One more. One more crisis, one more problem, one more nightmare. Then I get to the elven kingdom, I relax, I drink, I take time off from life and living. I just, fully, finally, relax. Then, after a few weeks or months, working some basic boring job for money, I’ll go and look more into my actual vacation. Yeah, touring around different places, seeing if my plans are even possible, seeing if my fantasy can be reality, and checking out the church to see if there’s any god I can start ‘worshipping’ for some rewards. 

Yeah. Yeah, that sounds nice. That's the plan. 

I heard the door behind me open and looked over. Riary stood there, with a slight smirk but it didn’t really go up to her eyes. She looked truly done this time. Her eyes seemed more dead than even when I had first seen her. She didn’t seem angry, more like, her rage had temporarily burnt her out. 

I understood, she was tired too. Tired of wanting to kill me and being unable to. She had wanted to, every second, of every day. And she had been denied constantly, at every turn. A desire, a passion, can turn into ash in your mouth even if it doesn’t really ever leave you. It can lose its taste and flavor, becoming a need, and then a robotic changing of life. She has the same eyes of overworked workers who know they’re still many, many decades away from retirement. Chasing the dream of money while being tired and miserable for most of their life. I understood. I had never really hated Riary. I should have, I didn’t. She made me angry but she always just seemed, I don’t know. Not hurting, although she definitely bore her scars. I guess inevitable. War torn. That was it. I can hardly blame a human for hating me. A demon. 

Sigh. 

That was my life now huh? A natural enemy of humans.  

Tyler had a very conflicted look on his face. I was pretty sure Konahora had given him a talking to. About what specifically, I didn’t know. I could guess. Hadn’t met any other demons but Tyler seemed to think they were all evil monsters and I had somehow gotten lucky in both intelligence and a moral compass. Pretty sure that was as untrue of demons as it was of elves and humans. But I didn’t know for sure, seeing as I hadn’t met any, so whatever. Oh Tyler, you’re a good person, if young and naive at times. Forgetful a little bit too. Courage in spades but you just don’t see the world very well, do you? 

And Konahora. Truth priestess. Mentor to a rebel and an angel. She was curious. She must have known I told the truth, that I believed what I had felt. Did she know she couldn’t stop them? Did she not trust me? Did she have some way to protect her allies, her companions, from a B-rank? I didn’t know, but she gave me a sad smile. 

I gave one back. I looked back at the cups. I may have drank a few. Turns out I was a bit of a sad drunk now. Or maybe it was just the mood. 

After all, I was looking at three people I knew were going to die. Maybe even I would as well.

“Well, let’s all go I guess. Death waits for no one.” 

I walked past them and soon we were heading to the source of that power. 

.

.

.

I’d shaken off most of my somber mood and gotten my head in the game. The first thing I’d asked Konahora was simple. 

“If this is a B-Rank creature or person, how are you guys going to survive?”

“It’s unlikely to be a B-Rank but… if it is, while we may not be able to defeat it, I am confident we will be able to survive and escape.” 

“Foolish.” 

Riary turned to me, a new anger in her eyes. Even Tyler turned back at me, shock on his face. 

“You assume you can survive something stronger than your whole team, multiple times over. If it’s a person, they have hidden cards just like you do. You are all going to die.” 

I kept trudging forward, ignoring the creepy ass four eyed, two tailed squirrel. I, particularly, hated them. Why can’t squirrels be normal in this world? Just creepy things. At least have a normal amount of eyes… 

Bah. 

I led the way, the sensation of power growing and growing. It made my mouth go dry, to approach something like this. I tried to ignore, ignore the small sun’s worth of energy trying to burn me out, to burn me alive. It was easier, after having experienced it once. Still, hard. Still difficult. There were no words that I could ever encapsulate to explain what a presence it was. It felt like it was going to drive me to my knees. 

Finally, we reached our destination. How did I know?

Because there was a huge fucking mansion in front of us, out in the middle of the woods. 

Something I strongly doubted was there earlier.

It had it all. Size, a massive yard, and two suits of armor in front of a gate that led inwards. It was dark, there was a disappearing mansion in the spooky woods, and it was guarded by two suits of black armor. Two suits that clearly were empty. Yet still stood vigil. 

My mouth dropped open. Dead or not, at the very least, I could say I saw a pretty cool sight before we all died. 

A proper fucking mansion! 

Fuck your manor, dead baron, that shit paled in comparison to this thing! Always hated that place. I’m glad it burned down. It had been bothering me since literal day one, that a random outskirt village had such a large building with so many rooms. That had only increased once I saw this village, where The Baron had a normal residence. 

Somehow, it felt like this place was washing away the sin of that horrible building. I think I even saw a god damn hedge maze in the back there! 

At the very least, if I die tonight, it will be in a place that’s cool as hell. 

“”Fucking awesome.”” Me and Tyler said at the same time, before looking at each other. 

Riary let out an explosive, exasperated sigh. 

“Let’s just go kill the damn thing.” 

 

Warix_Viviana

Well it 'finally' happened. But in my opinion, it happened way too soon. I got a 1 star rating, dropping the book from 4.8 to 4.6. That's a pretty massive hit, especially when it comes to the book appearing in search results and is absolutely *crushing* as an author, let me tell you. I don't think my book deserves a one star... I at least have decent grammar and a plot. They didn't even leave a review so I knew what they hated... anyway. If you like my book, please give a rating because of stuff like that.





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