I left the blood-soaked community behind, along with the corpses at its gate. I hoped that when the army made it here, they would give these people the burial they deserved. Husks of people they may be, but that was no excuse to abandon your humanity and treat them as less than people.
I decided to return to the Village, as I doubted Father Adam had much to tell me, since I’d yet to retrieve his map. Without having searched the Red Runner Hideout, I instinctively knew it to be in the personal possession of Red Rian himself.[1] I would seek out this Captain Tabian and hopefully he could provide me with clues to other potential hideouts of Red Rian.
After passing the first corpse of the scout on the road back into the hills, I heard a familiar rustle of metal-on-metal, and saw Kerebor up ahead, just before a bend in the road.
Goddamnit…
He quickly came up to me.
“Aiko, please!” he started, no doubt noticing my irritated expression that I didn’t try to hide in the slightest.
Aiko? I thought, confused as hell. Why is he calling me that??
I almost said, “My name is Raven-Black, not ‘Aiko’,” but before I opened my mouth, I had a sudden realisation.
Holy shit… the memory I lost was of my real name…
I rubbed the bridge of my nose in exasperation. If this fool hadn’t been here, who knows when I’d remembered. How little attachment did I have to my real name that it was the first memory to go?? It was so absurd that I momentarily forgot how annoyed I was with Kerebor showing up after I explicitly told him to stay away.
“…What do you want?” I finally asked, addressing him.
“You’ve seen what this world has to offer: the challenge involved. Let me join you! I can help you!”
Stolen story; please report.
“I didn’t need your help,” I told him. After all, aside from the near-death experience, I had been fine. Okay… maybe he had a point, but I’d rather slash my own hamstrings and run a marathon before I admitted that to him.
He took a step towards me, so that only two metres of gravel separated us. I pulled my katana out and levelled its tip at its throat.
“Don’t come any closer. I’m warning you. Stay away from me.”
“You don’t wanna do that,” he replied. There was an uncomfortable amount weight to his voice. I knew he could back it up, after all, he’d seen so much more of this realm than me and he’d lived a lot longer. I was two days old, while he might have been alive for years since his last death. Basically: I probably didn’t stand a chance if we were actually going to fight.
Regardless, my katana remained.
After what felt like five minutes, he took a step back, lifting his arms in mock surrender.
I looked him in his eyes, or well, in the eye-slits of his bucket helm. “Don’t go looking for me again. I don’t know what kind of relationship we had before I died, but I’m telling you, I’m not that person anymore, and I will never be. So please, stop following me.”
He seemed to deflate at my words, and I knew I’d struck a nerve with him. His arms fell to his side and he stepped back off the road, letting me pass uncontested.
Just like after the camp Stage, he didn’t try to immediately follow me, though that was little assurance that he wouldn’t try to find me again later. If it comes to that, I might have to actually fight him…
When I wasn’t too far from the Forgotten Village, I checked my progression with the katana. It showed the dot halfway to ‘Level 3’, and I looked at the next obtainable skills. One called ‘Riposte’ was blacked-out as it had the prerequisite of unlocking ‘Guard’. The two other skills were, ‘Quick Draw Follow-Up’ and ‘Lacerate’. I either had the choice to focus on Quick Draw or gain a new skill, which, by the looks of it, could be upgraded at ‘Level 4’. I wasn’t a fan of this type of system, since it left so many possibilities inaccessible, but at least it meant that each player had a setup that was completely tailored to their style. As to which skill I would choose, that was something I’d decide when I actually reached the next level.
After a while of walking, I’d regained most of the stamina I’d spent fighting, and thought it was a good idea to try and run back, since otherwise the sun would set fully by the time I came back to the village. The possibility of Kerebor catching up with me might also have had something to do with it…
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[1] Don’t ask me why… Though let’s just say I hoped my intuition was right, since otherwise I’d have to make the long trek back there again, and I really had no desire to revisit the scene I’d left behind.