Alice was always trying her best not to die. She never would have thought it was possible to fail this seemingly simple task so thoroughly.

It was a normal morning. Nothing out of the ordinary happened.

Well, almost nothing.

“And so, Alice, you are banished from our guild. Please leave immediately.”

She was expelled from the guild she had been a part of for three years.

Of course, the situation came as a surprise, and she was baffled, but Alice quickly recovered her composure. She could now make an argument about how bad of a decision this is.

“Good riddance!”

Instead, she jumped at the opportunity and left while slamming the door, leaving the man who had banished her bewildered.

Enraged and insulted, Alice headed to the fields. The best way to vent her feelings was always to burn monsters to crisp.

Taking out her wooden staff, she closes her eyes and begins to chant.

“Fire Lance.”

Slowly but surely, a spear of fire is formed. It materialized from the visualized image and Alice's magic power.

That was magic.

The spear of flames was projected at a moderate speed, aiming for a blue slime. At the moment of impact, the slime was vaporized.

“Wind Arrow. Flame Orb. Spiral Blast.”

Magic spells of fire and wind elements were cast without break, creating a storm of destruction that pulverized the poor and weak slimes.

It was a natural result considering slimes were one of the lowest-ranking monsters, and Alice herself was a capable magician.

Unfortunately, a magician isn't physically strong. They were weak in close-quarter combat.

So the goblin that stealthily approached Alice was a major threat to her life. The whistling sound of the blade cutting the air was the last thing she heard.

Thud.

The head of the goblin fell to the floor, cut by an unfamiliar man.

“Be careful there,” he said with a charming smile. “It would be a shame if you died.”

Alice blushed in an instant, her heart thumping. Maybe it was because of the handsome young man who had saved her life like a prince on a white horse, or maybe it's due to the adrenaline and the stream of warm blood coming out of the headless corpse in sprinkles.

It's open for debate, really.

“Are you fine? You weren't hurt, right?” The man's eyes contained deep concern.

“I'm fine, no injuries or anything.” She spun once to show she was uninjuried, then remembered she hadn't thanked him yet. “Thank you.”

“Don't mention it.”

Considering the location is in a grassland where many ferocious, albeit weak, monsters live, it wasn't the ideal place for a talk. Realizing that, they left the grassland.

Insisting on thanking the man who saved her life, Alice invites him to lunch.

“Let me thank you once again. I was just venting and didn't pay close enough attention to my surroundings.”

“It's fine, really. You said your name was Alice? Nice to meet you; I'm Albert.”

Albert was a young man with distinct black hair and obsidian eyes. He was taller than Alice by an entire head. Fitting the sword he carried on his waist, Albert had tuned muscles with a slim appearance, although he wore only a black robe without any piece of armor, which is very strange.

In the eyes of a successful mercenary like Alice, who had seen countless warriors, Albert appeared fairly capable.

“Actually, I was following you since you seemed upset. Challenging monsters in an unstable state could be dangerous. Still, I'm sorry.” Albert bowed his head, perplexing Alice.

“No, please raise your head. It was my fault, and I really was upset.”

“May I ask why?”

At the question, Alice sighed. “My ex-boyfriend kicked me out of the guild we founded together.”

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

Yes, the man who boldly expelled Alice was someone whom she used to date.

“We were childhood friends. He was the third son of a poor baron and was quiet and shy. I am just a commoner from a poor household in the village, but it wasn't an issue, really. We played together and quickly grew to like each other. Then, as I discovered my talent for magic and his for the sword, we left to form our own group of mercenaries. My reason was to send money home, mostly.”

They were all bittersweet memories now. Alice had a perfectly normal childhood, and she was content with her life as it was. Unfortunately, things weren't going as smoothly as they should have.

“Although we were successful for a while, I started to notice we were always recruiting only female members, never males. There was a story each time: a sad history, great talent, an aspiring goal, and blah blah blah. Rumors began to circulate about him being a womanizer, so I tried to recruit some men, but he kept refusing them.”

Just thinking about it made Alice feel wronged to have to deal with such an unreasonable boyfriend, and it gets even worse.

Her 'boyfriend' confessed to having feelings for the other girls. They were girls she had bonded with over time, and she also knew of their feelings, so she tried to be understanding and supportive. Polygamy was allowed in this country, after all, so the concept wasn't that detached to her.

But when he brought more women, Alice had had enough. She broke up with him.

Although she chose to stay, since their breakup, they had quarreled countless times, and their tensed relationship couldn't be mended.

“Success had gotten to his head, and he became a womanizer scum! He is probably just disappointed that I wouldn't sleep with him. Oh, and the girls are so stupid! Whenever he brought a new girl, they would all go at this as if it were natural and couldn't be helped. Apparently, I was the only one who wasn't fine with that.”

It seemed Alice had a lot more pent-up emotions than what she had released at those slimes. She ended up grumbling about the ridiculous situation she found herself in.

And Albert, who had stayed quiet throughout, started to laugh. “So that's what happened. I would have been satisfied with the first sentence, but okay.”

The embarrassment came fast, causing her cheeks to burn red.

“Well, since you told me so much about yourself, it's only reasonable to tell you about myself. Is there anything you'd like to know?”

“Are you from the east, by chance?” Alice quickly tried to move on and jumped at the change of subject that Albert provided.

Easterners tended to have darker tones of hair and eyes, but the name Albert wasn't, so she was curious.

“My father is, but I was born and raised in these parts of the west. Though I have been to the east for two years for my training, I only recently came back.”

“I see. Why did you go all the way to the east?"

“I guess I'm on a sort of self-discovery journey. Since a young age, I felt something missing from my life, something crucial, so I went to find it in the east.”

“Did you find it? The thing you were looking for?”

He looked at Alice with a heartwarming smile. “I have. Though honestly, I feel stupid since the answer was right under my nose. All I ever needed was a peaceful daily life.”

Peaceful daily life. After years of traveling and fighting monsters, the thought of staying in one place and relaxing seemed irresistable. Alice reminisced about her life at the village with her mother and felt a surge of yearning.

That's right, she missed home. Alice had finally realized how badly she wanted to see her mother again.

“I will go back home, to my village.” She declared, then looked at Albert, who had helped her realize what she wanted.

Albert, who also wanted a peaceful life.

“Would you like to come with me?”

He said yes.

It was a very spontaneous invitation, and Alice was glad Albert had accepted; otherwise, the embarrassment might have killed her!

They rented a carriage. Alice's village was still a few days away, so they also brought camping equipment.

As a pastime, the two engaged in a long conversation. Alice talked about her experience as a mercenary, her mother, the shopkeeper who always gave her extra fruit, and the lake she used to swim at (and bathe at), but she found no use sharing this particular detail.

Albert didn't hold back, either. He shared his bitter childhood growing up with foreign facial features, his journey to the east, the training he undertook there, and even describing the unique eastern culture to great lengths. It seemed he had become self-absorbed in his own story, as every word contained a strong passion.

It was refreshing. Talking to someone you didn't know and getting to know them better. Alice had never had this sort of communication with anyone, as she was mostly surrounded by familiar people. She rejoiced at this new experience.

“This was fun.” Alice stretched her stiff body after the long ride. “But my muscles are so sore.”

“Nothing a short walk can't fix. Come on; I am really eager to meet your mother.”

The thought of introducing a stranger that she had only known for a couple days made Alice worried. It was unlike her, so he hoped her mother wouldn't read too much into this.

“It isn't like that...” Alice muttered, imagining the expected conversation vividly.

Still, the excitement of seeing her mother again made her smile widely. It had been a while since she could feel that happy from the bottom of her heart.

But any trace of a smile was quickly erased when the world was suddenly dyed emerald.

As if their eyes were covered by thick lenses, everything gained a strong, glistering, dark shade of green, no matter where they looked.

Subsequently, there was a powerful smell. The putrid smell of death.

“No! No! No!”

“Alice, wait!” Albert chased after Alice, who began sprinting with all her might.

Maybe she shouldn't have entered the village. This way, she would have been saved from the horror.

“...”

A pile of corpses.

Men, women, and children all piled indiscriminately as if to boast of this atrocity.

Alice couldn't process what she was witnessing. Not the burning, rotten smell, not the red earth soaked in blood, nor the mysterious death god standing there hazily, holding a sword colored deep red.

His hair's gray like an elder, and his eyes gleamed with an unnatural light, also containing uncontrollable madness.

“You will die for me, knowing it was your fault this has happened.”

“Why?”

“I'm the Malevolent One. Isn't it the privilege of evil to torture the weak for no reason?”

She couldn't react. The shock was too great, and the unreasonable accusation seeped deep into her subconscious. The sheer absuridity left her overloaded brain went blank, and her body just felt so heavy. As if her muscles were replaced with lead.

Pointing the tip of the blade at her heart, the death god, who called himself the Malevolent One, drove the sword in a merciless thrust.

“No!” Albert cried out, trying to reach her. But he was a step too late.

The sword had pierced Alice's heart.

And she collapsed into oblivion.