Chapter 11: Daddy issues

“Emily, aged 12.

Short red hair, a little over a meter tall, and was last seen three days ago wearing a brown shirt.

Any information on this lost child, please contact your local authorities.”

Steve frowned.

He had just arrived in the city due to his information source telling him the potential whereabouts of one of the other heroes.

However, the first thing that greeted him when he first entered the town was a crying woman, begging random people to help her find her missing child.

The guards tried to calm her down, insisting they were trying their best to locate them, but the woman was still frantic.

‘Seems no matter the world I’m in, some issues never change. Missing children… unfortunately, I can’t help, but I hope she finds her child.’

Despite being the chosen hero, Steve was still just one man. No matter how much power he has, he can’t help everyone with their individual issues.

Even heroes have priorities, and sometimes they can’t afford to help a single person.

Still, this soured Steve’s mood.

‘Whatever. I’m here to find Summoner Lora. Hopefully she’s here.’

Steve and Pethnor’s plans were to currently find and gather all the former heroes and get them onto their sides.

However, most of their location’s were unknown to the world (unlike Lumal who was a public figure) and at this point in time, several of them still hadn’t even become heroes yet.

A little while ago, Pethnor’s informants got information regarding the whereabouts of where one of the heroes, Summoner Lora, was currently living.

Upon getting this news, he went to share it with Steve immediately.

“Good news Steve, we have whereabouts of one of t-”

“GOD FUCKING DAMN IT!”

The moment Pethnor walked into the living room of his demon castle, Steve slammed his fist into the table, completely smashing it into a million pieces.

“My expensive table…” Pethnor muttered in sadness.

“If only Lumal had fucking listened and came here with me, he’d still be alive right now! BUT NO! That fucking dumbass bitch got himself killed!”

Steve’s face looked like a veiny red tomato with literal fumes coming out of his nose every time he breathed.

He tightened his grip on the newspaper in his hand and threw it across the room straight into Pethnor’s face.

“…”

After a moment, Steve’s anger cooled down..

“God damn… oh, Pethnor. You’re here. What’d you want?”

“I got a report on where Summoner Lora might potentially be living.”

“That’s good news. Hopefully she won’t be a stubborn fuck like Lumal and get herself killed!”

“…”

Pethnor decided to stay quiet.

He knew about Steve’s short temper for a while now and he’d gotten used to it.

Though if it were anyone other than Steve doing this, Pethnor would probably have killed them for insolence.

“Whatever… so, I’m assuming I’m going to be the one to go find her then?” Steve asked.

“Yeah, I’m the demon lord so I can’t go. And you’re the hero so she’ll probably recognize and listen to you.”

“Give me the details and I’ll leave right away.”

“Well, we knew her name, age, appearance and some basic information prior to the regression, so using that we were able to narrow our search down to a city far west. We haven’t found any specific people but we’re fairly certain that she’s somewhere in that region, or at least, have left traces behind there. I’ll give you a map and you’ll go there looking for her.”

Steve let out a sigh.

“Alright. I’ll pack my stuff.”

Before he could leave though, Pethnor stopped him.

“Steve… you sure you can handle this?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine, I’m the hero after all.”

Pethnor scoffed.

“I ain’t talking about you. I’m talking about everything around you. I’m afraid you might fuck up and accidentally do something that you shouldn’t.”

“Seriously Pethnor? You have that little faith in me?”

Steve was kind of annoyed that Pethnor even doubted him.

But Pethnor just pointed at the rubble that was formerly the table that Steve had smashed earlier.

“That table was made of ancient demonic wood reinforced with condensed magic steel… if you used the same amount of power required to smash that thing, you would be able to easily pound a knight in mithril armor into a stain on the ground.”

“Oh.”

Steve just stared at the broken table and scratched his head dumbfounded.

“Sorry about that… I seriously don’t know what’s with me. I’m getting worked up so easily all of a sudden, I didn’t used to be this way. Believe or not, before I came to this world, I was known for being cold and emotionless. I promise I’ll be extra careful.”

“If you don’t mind, may I make a suggestion?”

“Huh? Oh sure, go ahead.”

“Have you ever heard of personal conditional restrictions?”

“What the fuck is that?”

Pethnor cleared his throat before he started info dumping on Steve.

“Many humans apply conditions or restrictions to their powers and abilities. I will only use this ability against my archnemesis… I will never use this power for self gain… I will only use my strength to save others… I will only use this move against demons… these are some of the restrictions and conditions that former heroes had given themselves. By restricting your abilities and only using them when they fulfill certain conditions, it strengthens your own resolve and can boost your strength.

In your case, you’re already freakishly strong so you don’t need to become stronger, but I think if you give yourself a conditional restriction for using your heroic powers, it’d be beneficial for you… and everything around you. Might help you contain your emotions. Something along the lines of, I will not use my heroic powers if I’m angry.”

“That sound pretty cool actually. So what do I do? Do I have to sign a contract with you or something? Or will you just seal my powers when I get mad?”

Pethnor just stared back at Steve like he was crazy.

What kind of hero offers a contract with the demon lord? It should be the other way around…

“No, no. It’s a personal thing. You apply the restriction yourself and you manage it. It’s not a hard coded iron rule, you can break your restrictions and conditions if you want, but doing so is not advised. Many heroes have lost their willpower and determination after doing so and as a result, weakened. Though in this case, it might be better if you weaken… ahem, but you can just make a personal vow to never use your powers in certain conditions and do your best to follow it. Simple as that.”

“Well, I guess from now on, I’ll apply a personal restriction on myself. I hereby vow to myself and swear on my left testicle that I will never use my heroic powers when I’m angry!”

Steve did say it in a half joking way, but he intended on maintaining this rule he gave himself.

After all, he didn’t want to show Pethnor that he was a man who goes back on his words.

Upon hearing this, Pethnor did seem a little bit more relaxed.

Hopefully this means none of his furniture gets destroyed anymore.

“Good luck with bringing back Lora.”

Steve nodded as he headed off.

And now, Steve was at the city located on the map that Pethnor had given him.

All he needed to do was to find Lora and persuade her to come back with him.

But that’s harder than it sounds since he didn’t even know where Lora was.

At this time, she wasn’t even a hero yet.

In fact, she probably wasn’t even an adult yet.

Out of all the heroes, Lora was the youngest.

When they had fought Lenier, she was a relatively young lady at around her twenties.

So during this timeframe, she should still be a child.

Steve was essentially searching for some random kid.

“Guess I’ll start by asking around.”

Steve walked over to a random guard standing around and started a conversation.

“Hello sir.”

“Oh, hello there. Is there something you need?”

“Yes, I am looking for someone right now and I was wondering if you could help…”

“Oh no! Is it another missing person?!”

The guards sudden rise in volume startled Steve, who quickly made something up on the spot.

“Huh? No, I’m just looking for a… distant cousin of mine. Haven’t seen her in a long time so I was trying to get some information about her.”

The guard let out a sigh of relief.

“That’s good. We’ve been getting a lot of missing people cases for a while now so things have been a bit tense.”

“Sounds like there’s something going on. Are the authorities not doing anything about this?”

“We’ve had this issue for a long time. A few people go missing once in a while and never get found. Obviously, we tried tracking them down but nothing ever comes out of it. Not only that, but most of the missing cases are commoners and peasants so it doesn’t concern the nobles. It’s truly unfortunate but it’s a waste of manpower searching in vain when there are other problems this city faces. Because of that, we get a lot of desperate people… like that woman over there.”

The guard pointed over to the sobbing woman with images of her child in her hand.

Steve furrowed his eyebrows.

He reluctantly reminded himself that it wasn’t his job to find missing people, and that he had more important things to be doing.

The guard quickly changed the subject as things got a little awkward.

“So anyways, you said you were looking for someone? I don’t know if I can help but I’ll try.”

“I’m looking for a little girl, um, not sure how old she is but she should be a child around the ages of 12 to maybe 16. I think she has blonde hair and uh… her name’s Lora.”

“Hm. Lora, eh? I can only think of one person who fits that description and it’s… Sir Joseph’s daughter.”

The guard slightly hesitated.

“Sir Joseph?”

“You don’t know of him? He was the former knight’s captain. Retired a while ago but he’s still well known for his achievements. Now, he’s living the rest of his life with his wife and his daughter. Can’t say if that’s the Lora you’re looking for but it’s the only one I know.”

“Thank you, I’ll go pay him a visit.”

“Ay, stay safe.”

Steve nodded and left the guard to do his job.

He followed the direction that the guard gave and after around an hour of searching, Steve entered an extravagant neighbourhood.

Compared to the rest of the city, this section of housing was big and clean, each house taking up a chunk of the street, each one surrounded by fields of green grass.

It was clearly the high-end district of the city, reserved for the wealthy and high status.

Steve wasn’t fazed by this.

He too once lived in a grand and extravagant mansion back on earth, and even in this world, he lived in Pethnor’s demonic castle, so such houses seemed trivial to him.

Steve scanned through every house, looking for the address that the guard gave him.

He kept walking and walking until he reached the end of the neighbourhood located near the corner of the city walls.

“…seems I’m in the right place.”

Steve muttered to himself as he felt an ominous presence that felt like it shouldn’t exist in this world.

He recognized it.

It was the same presence he once felt from Summoner Lora’s creatures.

In front of one of the houses on the neat freshly cut green grass, was a tree, and hanging down from it was a swing.

There was a little girl sitting on the swing, slowly rocking back and forth.

“Well, that was easier than I thought. There she is.”

Lora quickly noticed Steve approaching her.

“H-hello sir…?”

“Hey Lora, it’s been a while.”

“Wha…? Sorry, I don’t know who you are…”

“You forgot me already? It’s me. Steve, well, I guess I was known as hero Xavier back then.”

Lora slowly got off the slide and backed away as Steve got closer.

“I’m sorry, I… I don’t know who you are…”

“Do you not remember me Lora?”

Steve narrowed his eyes.

This girl was definitely Lora.

She looked extremely similar, but the dead giveaway was the creature that was crawling in her sleeve.

A single eyeball stared back at Steve from behind Lora’s palm.

No doubt that it belonged to Lora.

“How do you know my name?”

Her voice was shaky and she seemed scared of the foreign man who came out of nowhere, acting all friendly.

So what was going on here?

Using his heroic insight ability, Steve could tell she wasn’t pretending or acting, she genuinely didn’t know who he was.

If she were the only hero that Steve had met, it wouldn’t have surprised him that she couldn’t remember.

But both Pethnor and Lumal remembered, so why didn’t Lora?

Unless…

‘She died.’

Steve was fairly certain that the reason for them keeping their memories was because of the sigil that Lenier gave them.

If that sigil were to somehow disappear, they wouldn’t keep their memories after time got reversed.

Dying would likely cause the sigil to disappear.

So either Lora died or…

‘It was stolen from her.’

Steve vividly remembered what happened moments before the regression.

He had gotten into a fight with Serena, the original demon lord.

Serena had tried to take away Steve’s sigil.

It’s very much possible that Serena had stolen it from Lora.

While Steve was busy thinking, Lora had run back into her house.

Not wanting to seem like a weirdo, Steve turned around and left the scene.

He needed to figure out what he planned on doing.

This situation had gotten a lot more complicated.

In the future, Lora would become a powerful summoner and tamer, but right now, she was a clueless kid who knew nothing about what was to come.

“ARGHHH!!! What the fuck do I do now?”

Should he try talking to Lora again?

Maybe try to get her to regain her memories?

Would that even work though?

And even if she doesn’t regain her memories, he still can’t just give up on her.

She’ll be a hero in the future, having her on his side would massively increase their fighting force.

Not only that but if Serena or the cult of Lenier find her first… that could be disastrous.

By now though, the sun was already going down and it was getting darker.

“I should probably find a place to sleep and figure out what to do tomorrow.”

Steve had an adequate amount of money on him as travel funds, so he went looking for a hotel or an inn.

As he was walking though, he noticed in the far distance a teenage boy staring at him from behind a tree.

The boy seemed to be watching him.

Steve was new around here so it wasn’t strange to get weird looks, but something about this place felt off to him.

Maybe it was because of the darkness of the night, or perhaps the emptiness of the neighbourhood except for the boy staring at him, but something about this entire area felt eerie.

Looking back, the boy had disappeared almost like a ghost…

But ghosts couldn’t hurt Steve anyways, so he shrugged it off and left to find a place to rest the night.

Steve found a nice-looking place to stay, got a room and took a bath before heading straight to bed.

Ever since coming to this new world, Steve had been keeping a very strict sleep schedule.

This was very different compared to his life on Earth where he would often stay up and rarely slept unless he was too physically exhausted to stay awake.

Steve stared up at the ceiling as he remembered his life back then.

It felt like such a long time ago, yet at the same time, it felt like he was still living that life in a way.

Miserable.

That’s how he would describe his life.

But Steve knew that if others had heard this, most people would be quite mad.

On Earth, Steve was wealthy.

Lived a life of luxury and comfort.

In this world, he’s the most powerful hero.

He physically could not lose a fight and would be able to achieve anything he set his mind to.

These were things that people would quite literally kill for just to have a fraction of.

Yet he felt no fortune in what he had.

Perhaps, if he were to be put in a situation where he was stripped of all his wealth and power then maybe he’d come to appreciate… no, never mind.

That scenario reminded Steve of his time in the trenches during the war.

An awful memory came back to him.

Steve sighed in frustration, trying to forget that and focused on trying to sleep.

Despites his efforts, Steve couldn’t fall asleep.

He let out a sigh and stood up to go get a drink when suddenly he felt something staring at him.

At the entrance of the room, was a tall slender creature.

Due to the darkness of the room, Steve was unable to make out the details of its body, except for its big round glassy eyes and pitch-black pupils which stared back.

It didn’t move at all.

Almost like it wasn’t alive, an inanimate object.

Just kept standing there looking at Steve.

Steve sat back down on his bed and stared back at the thing.

“How’s Lora?”

It didn’t move or respond to Steve’s question.

“Is she nearby? Or did you come here yourself?”

Again, no reaction.

“What? Did you come here to watch me sleep or something? I thought you came here to communicate but I guess not, so what the fuck you want?”

Steve began releasing a small portion of his own energy from his body causing himself glow and pushing away the darkness in the room.

As he did this, the creature finally started speaking.

“H e r o X a v i e r. Y o u h a v e c o m e f o r L y l a.”

“Yeah.”

Upon hearing that, the creature in the corner started violently shaking.

Its entire figure shook and convulsed rapidly making its body seem to blur.

It continued trembling until it eventually distorted and seemed to glitch out of reality and completely disappeared.

The darkness dispersed and everything returned to normal.

All that was left was silence.

“The fuck…? Why’d that thing come here just to say one sentence all dramatically and leave?”

That thing that Steve just spoke to was a creature he had seen before.

Boogeyman.

Lora’s original familiar.

Most summoners and tamers typically have familiars such as wolves, griffins, dragons or etc.

But Lora was special in this regard, she didn’t tame the typical fantasy creatures, instead she tamed creatures of horrors.

Boogeyman.

Wendigo.

Leviathan.

Cthulhu.

Basically, terrifying creatures of mythical and urban legend that had not been confirmed to exist.

Even Steve recognized these names.

It was something that had bothered Steve, not that these scary monsters existed, but the fact that he recognized their names.

This was a different world from Earth. A fantasy world.

So how come creatures and monsters from the stories on Earth exist in this world?

You would think that if a completely separate world unrelated to Earth were to exist, it’d have a ton of monsters that we wouldn’t have even imagined, right?

But weirdly, a lot of the monsters in this world are things that also exist in Earth’s fiction.

Which made Steve wonder, is this truly a separate world from Earth?

There has to be some sort of connection.

Is this world based on Earth’s stories?

Or are Earth’s stories based on this world?

Have there been other people like Steve who came to this world and returned to Earth and shared stories of the monsters?

A lot of questions like these had plagued Steve’s mind when he first came to this world... now though, he just doesn’t care anymore.

After Steve realized that no matter what world he was in, he was going to be miserable anyways, he stopped giving a fuck.

Putting aside the depresso expresso though, Steve was very confused right now.

The boogeyman just came out of nowhere, watched Steve sleep for who knows how long before being caught, said one sentence, and then left.

But the odd part was that it seemed to know who Steve was, or at least his hero identity.

“Why is this getting so complicated. Tsk. I’m going to need to do some investigating it seems.”

After meeting the Boogeyman though, he got a headache and suddenly felt tired with all this shit.

Steve dragged his body back into bed and forced himself to sleep by using his magic to block the flow of oxygen to his brain, immediately knocking him unconscious.

The next day he woke up with a severe migraine, a typical morning for Steve.

Using his spatial inventory magic, he pulled out a cup of coffee he had prepared and a new fresh set of clothes.

After the drink and changing, he left his room to figure out what to do.

He made his way to the neighborhood and started spying on Lora from afar.

She was currently in her house sleeping.

“I feel like a creep doing this, watching a random girl who doesn’t know me, sleep.”

Steve set up a little chair on the grass he was on and sat down to continue observing the situation.

At the same time, he was trying to figure out what his next move was going to be.

His conclusion was that:

“I have no idea what to do.”

Steve truly had no ideas in his head.

Lora didn’t know who he was so he can’t even try convincing her. She’d think Steve was a madman if he suddenly talked about being a hero and needing her help to take down an evil man.

What the fuck was he supposed to do then?

Kidnap her?

“Wait… Kidnap her?”

Steve’s eyes slightly widened at the idea.

“Just kidding haha! I may not be a hero, but I don’t go around stealing children, right?”

A bead of sweat slowly slid down his face as he pushed that idea away.

He enhanced his eyes and continued spying on Lora from afar.

However, she was still sleeping.

“Hm, this is kinda boring.”

It was still pretty early though so not surprising that she hasn’t woken up yet.

Looking around her room, it looked very ordinary and normal… except for the monster hiding under her bed.

After visiting him last night, the boogeyman returned back to its master’s side, dutifully watching over her from the dark undersides of the bed.

This gave Steve a bit of a chuckle.

On Earth, there were many stories about monsters living under children’s beds but Steve had never seen any.

To think that in a fantasy world after death, he would get to see it, and he would even get to speak to that very monster.

It was just slightly funny to him.

However now, the monster remained still and dormant while Lora was sleeping so there was nothing else to see here.

Steve used a bit of magic to stare straight through the walls, allowing him to see everything happening in the house.

In the kitchen, there was a lady washing the dishes, presumably Lora’s mother.

Past that in the living room, there was an older looking man, likely Lora’s father, sitting on the couch with a bottle of beer in hand.

Upon seeing his, Steve just muttered to himself under his breath:

“God, I wish I had some beer on me…”

Unfortunately, when he checked his spatial inventory this morning, there weren’t any left.

Pethnor must’ve removed it before the trip.

He could go buy beer at the tavern, but it tastes like shit compared to the ones he had prepared.

Steve made a mental note to himself to complain the next time he sees Pethnor.

For now though, he just sat there on his fold up chair watching Lora’s house.

Suddenly as Steve was mindlessly staring, the father who had been drinking beer in the living room started shouting something.

“LORA?! WHERE ARE YOU!?!?”

Lora, who had been sleeping in her room, jumped out of bed upon hearing it and rushed out of her room.

“Y-yes father?”

She frantically scrambled to her father’s sides.

His father raised the beer bottle in his hand and smashed it on Lora’s shoulder.

“Back when I was in the army, if you slept even a minute past 6, you’d be beat and left to starve for the day! Now go get me another fucking beer.”

Lora nodded her head as she struggled to stand up from the ground after she had fallen, cut wounds scattered over her body and drenched in whatever beer was remaining in the bottle.

“Yes father… right away…”

She used her surroundings to support her weak legs as she scuttered off to find another beer bottle for her father.

Steve frowned as he watched this from afar.

“Ah. I see how it is now. Typical shitty family, huh?”

Steve shook his head as he pitied Lora.

Back on Earth, Steve had seen many situations and cases like this, especially after the war.

Many soldiers who had suffered in the war would vent their trauma on unrelated family members and would often abuse substances.

It wasn’t uncommon, but still tragic nonetheless.

Steve was tempted to just go in and beat the shit out of them, but he decided not to.

For one, he wasn’t too worried about Lora.

He knew Lora was bound to become one of the world’s most powerful heroes, and currently, she has a monster hiding in her shadows, protecting her.

Even if someone tried to murder her, they wouldn’t be able to with her monster protecting her.

Not only that, but Steve had personal experience dealing with these situations. Back on Earth, he took care of many orphans and dealt with many of these cases.

He knew that recklessly getting involved can make things worse for the victim.

As long as the abusers are still in control of them, any conflicts or accusations will only cause them to vent their anger and frustration on the victim even more.

For now, he decided to just watch.

He needed more time and information on the situation before he could make a decision on what to do.

Back in the house, Lora limped into the kitchen where her mother was.

“M-mama… can you grab the beer for me…?”

Lora asked as she opened the refrigerator, unable to reach the top shelf where the beer was stored.

The mother slowly turned to her and nodded.

“…sure…”

The mother reached over and handed Lora a bottle, before looking away again quickly.

Steve shook his head again upon seeing this.

The mother looked pale and sad, subtle bags under her eyes.

She probably wasn’t treated too well by her husband, though judging from how they look, Lora took most of the abuse.

With Lora around, most of the abuse would be focused on her instead of the mother.

That’s probably why Lora’s mother won’t stand up for her.

An all-too-common case in domestic abuse, he had seen it before and he’s seeing it again.

Lora handed the beer to her father and then stood there awkwardly, hoping he wasn’t mad.

The father immediately started gulping it down as he munched on some bread and cheese.

“What? Stop staring at me. Go away.”

Luckily for Lora, her father must’ve been satisfied with what he was doing so he just shooed her away without getting violent.

Lora retreated back to her dark and unlit room, sitting at her desk as she began writing on some papers and books spread across the table.

She seemed to be working on homework or something similar.

It was pretty boring to watch but Steve would rather be bored than the alternative of her getting beat.

Still, it was strange.

“Shouldn’t a kid her age be going to school?”

Her family seems wealthy enough to afford education.

Today wasn’t a weekend and he had seen students around the city, so she should be going to school at around this time.

Yet she didn’t leave her room, much less her house at all.

Steve wanted to get a chance to talk to Lora alone, but if she doesn’t leave her house, he wouldn’t be able to do that.

“ALRIGHT LORA! Time for class.”

Lora’s room door burst open as her father staggered in, clearly drunk and still had beer in his hand.

“Open up your book and uh, hic… show me what the fuck you’ve been doing, or whatever.”

He slammed his beer bottle down onto the desk as he loomed over Lora’s shoulder staring down at her papers and books.

“The… the homework thing. Did you fucking do it yet?”

He roughly grabbed the books on Lora’ desk and stared at it.

“WRONG! YOU CAN’T EVEN SOLVE SOMETHING SO SIMPLE?!?!”

He grabbed Lora’s hair and yanked her head up, shoving it into the book.

“I’VE TAUGHT YOU THIS SO MANY TIMES! FIRST YOU ADD THE 3 WITH THE 4… Hm? Oh wait… You got the answer right, I must’ve seen wrong. Didn’t think a retard like you could actually solve it.”

He let go of her hair and threw her back onto the chair.

Lora didn’t cry or scream at all during this, she remained quiet and let her father do whatever he wanted.

She was used to it and knew resisting only made it hurt more.

“This is hard to watch.” Steve muttered to himself.

He had seen such victims before but rarely had he seen the actual abuse happening itself.

Steve’s urge to kidnap Lora suddenly reemerged.

Her family was shit anyways, so even if he kidnapped her, she’d just be taken out of a bad situation.

Kidnap might actually be the best option here…

“Nah, I can’t do that. Even if I know her situation, kidnapping her would only make me look like the bad guy.”

Steve went silent for a moment.

“Wait a second, I don’t consider myself a hero. Since when did I care about being bad? Should I actually just go in there, beat the shit out of them and just take her?”

After a bit of serious pondering though, he decided not to.

“That’s a stupid idea. It’d probably only make her less likely to cooperate. I don’t even know if she would want to be kidnapped. Kidnapping her would only make her more afraid and confused. It could also end up changing her future to becoming a hero somehow. I’ve also only watched her for a few hours, so I don’t really know her full situation, I could make things worse if I do something stupid…”

It was frustrating but he decided it would be wise to observe for a while longer.

Lora’s father sat his fat alcoholic ass down next to her and started scribbling something into the notebook.

“Let’s just start today’s lesson and get it over with already…”

It seemed the reason why Lora wasn’t at school was because she’s homeschooled by her father.

Well, that would actually imply that her father actually taught her anything.

Throughout the next several hours, her father would just constantly insult and abuse her whenever she made any mistakes.

The only thing that Lora learned was how to take hits.

“That’s it for today brat, I’ll be back for our night lessons later.”

Her father finally stood up and left the room, probably to get more beer since he had run out.

Lora was finally given some peace by herself… and the monster under her bed who had been watching the entire time.

“Why the hell did it not do anything this whole time? Isn’t it Lora’s pet? Why the fuck didn’t it defend its master… unless Lora doesn’t want it to help her?”

Steve just grumbled as he kept his thoughts to himself.

He continued watching but nothing else happened, his father passed out drunk in the living room so at least Lora was safe.

And slowly, the sun started going down and it was becoming night again.

An absolutely unproductive day, all Steve did was watch a kid get bullied by their father.

Steve still had no idea what he was going to do, but he didn’t want to keep watching this.

As he was about to stand up and leave, he noticed Lora’s stepfather enter Lora’s room again.

Steve groaned.

Just give her a fucking break already man.

You’ve been beating her all day already, just go to sleep like the old retired miserable fuck you are.

“Time for your… night lessons, Lora dear.”

Her father chuckled, before slowly moving to the window, looking around a bit before then closing the blinds.

This wasn’t a problem to Steve though since he could just see through the wall itself.

However, Steve suddenly felt an ominous feeling watching this.

He had a very bad feeling…

It was at this point that Lora’s father started unbuckling his belt and dropped his pants.

Steve’s eyes widened.

After slowly removing his clothes, Lora’s father crawled onto her bed as she just watched from the corner.

Lora seemed scared… but not surprised.

Almost as if this has happened before.

“Come here to daddy, girl.”

Lora’s father grabbed her arm and started to…

Steve closed his eyes.

He had no intention of watching what was about to happen.

He took a deep breath in and took a deep breath out.

In and out…

After calming himself, Steve made his way towards the entrance to Lora’s house.

When he made it there, he raised his fist and politely knocked on the door.

“Who is it?” A woman’s voice called from inside.

Steve heard the doorknob start to shake, but before the door could open, Steve punched straight through it and planted his fist deep into the face of whoever was on the other side.

The woman screamed and was sent flying back as Steve raised his foot and kicked the door in.

The door exploded with shards bursting everywhere like a shrapnel bomb.

Steve slowly walked into the house, observing his surroundings and ignoring the injured screaming woman.

The wooden planks under him creaked loudly as he took big heavy steps forward towards the room which he was watching into earlier.

“Wha? What’s going on?!”

The door burst open as a half naked man, Lora’s father, stepped out from one of the rooms hearing the commotion.

Steve stared at his target and slowly made his way towards the man.

“Hey! Who are you?! If you don’t know, I’m Joseph! A former knights captain! If you dare to do anything, I’ll have you captu-“

Steve immediately threw forth a fist, breaking the sound barrier and smashed Joseph’s face in.

He made sure to grind his knuckles in to deal extra pain.

Lora’s father… that fucker, was sent flying back and smashed through the wall.

Steve wasn’t done yet though, and he slowly stepped forward.

That punch was strong enough to kill a normal person, but luckily… or I guess, unluckily for Joseph, he was a strong trained knight and managed to just barely survive that.

Of course, if Steve had been using his heroic powers, Joseph’s head would no longer exist… but he didn’t use it.

Because Steve was beyond furious.

And if not for that stupid promise he made to Pethnor, that stupid little condition that he gave himself to not use his powers while he was anger… he would’ve fucking pulverised Joseph until not even his dust would be alive.

As Steve took another step forward, something blocked his path causing him to freeze.

“P-please! Don’t… don’t hurt my daddy!”

Lora was the one stopping him.

“What? You’re… defending him? After everything he’s done to you?!”

“My… my daddy loves me, so don’t hurt him…!”

Lora was terrified, tears pouring down her face as she stood her ground.

Steve was momentarily taken aback.

He understood if Lora didn’t defend herself from her father… but why would she actively protect him?

Steve just couldn’t understand why she was doing this.

“Get out of my way Lora.”

Steve didn’t know and he didn’t care.

He was going to kill her father.

“NO! PLEASE!!”

She grabbed Steve’s legs and tried dragging him away, of course, to no avail.

“My… my daddy, he’s all I have! Please! Don’t hurt him!!”

“GET OUT OF MY WAY DAMN IT!”

Steve shook his leg violently to get her off, but when she didn’t let go, he… hit her.

While in his rage, Steve accidentally used too much force and launched Lora into a wall nearby.

“I… didn’t mean to do that…”

Thankfully, he was not using his hero’s powers, and the boogeyman had protected Lora from any major damage.

Steve felt extremely guilty but there was something more important he had to deal with.

As he turned back to search for Joseph’s body, he felt something stab into his rib.

“How do you like that you damn intruder!” Joseph shouted as he backed away, hoping this would scare Steve off.

Steve looked down and yanked out the knife that had been embedded in him.

“Next time, aim for the neck. Because that’s where I’ll be shoving it into you.”

Steve gripped the knife in his hand and walked towards Joseph again.

“Y-you… stay back! Stay back!! What do you want?! Money?”

Steve didn’t bother entertaining him and just kept walking, knife in hand.

But before he could reach Joseph, he was tackled onto the ground by several people.

“Put the weapon down!”

Several guards had arrived and pinned Steve to the ground.

It seemed that Lora’s mother had run off and called the guards while all this was happening.

“You’re surrounded! Give up!”

But Steve was still fuming.

“YOU BOYS BETTER FUCKING HOLD ME DOWN, CUZ IF I FUCKING GET OFF THIS FLOOR, I’LL TEAR OFF THAT FUCKTARDS CHILD SIZED DICK AND SHOVE IT SO FAR UP HIS DAMN ASS HE’LL KNOW HOW IT FEELS TO DEEPTHROAT HIMSELF IN REVERSE!”

Steve clenched the knife in his hand and chucked it as hard as he could towards Joseph, slicing off an ear but not managing to inflict anything fatal.

The guards quickly swarmed and dragged Steve away, all the while tending to the wounded.

Today, that fucker may have gotten off free… but Steve would be back.

For now though, he was tossed into a jail cell.

“Well… this is awkward. Didn’t think I’d be seeing you again, especially not like this.”

As Steve stared up from behind bars, he saw the same guard that had given him directions to Lora’s house yesterday.

“Oh, hey,” Steve just mumbled angrily in response.

“You caused quite a ruckus I heard.”

“Yeah, did you guys know what that piece of shit does to his daughter?”

The guard shrugged.

“Listen man, Joseph… he’s a rough man, always has been. Part of being a knight captain and all. Now, I’m sure he hits Lora a bit, but who’s old man hasn’t? I remember my old pa used to beat my ass so often… I miss that old bugger. Doesn’t mean you can go in and try to kill him though.”

“He tried to rape his daughter.”

“What?”

There was silence for a moment.

“Well… um, I can’t say since I don’t know but maybe Lora wanted it? I know she loves her father very much after all, she even protected him while you were attacking him. Are you sure she was against it?”

“Huh? THE FUCK DID YOU JUST SAY?”

Steve stood up and grabbed the guard by the collar.

“Did you just say that Lora, a literal child, happily agreed to doing it with their old ugly alcoholic father???”

“H-hey man! Like I said, I don’t know! I wasn’t there, I don’t know if she agreed to it or not!”

Steve just pushed the guard away and sat back down.

“Fucking forget it…”

“Listen man, calm down. I’ll um, I’ll be back in a bit to check up on you. I don’t think you’re a bad guy, but you definitely look like one, so might wanna calm down.” The guard said before leaving Steve alone to his thoughts.

Steve tried to listen to the advice and calm himself down.

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

The guard’s response pissed Steve off so much, but it wasn’t surprising either.

This world Steve currently lives in… it’s primitive.

Yeah, there’s magic and technology that surpasses modern society, but it’s very far behind when it comes to many things.

Such as the fact it doesn’t have any child protection laws.

People aren’t educated on child safety.

Children are basically treated the same way adults are.

So yes, while Steve wanted to strangle the guard, he knew the guard’s way of thinking wasn’t uncommon in this world.

“Yeah, I see why Pethnor became a demon lord now. Some people in this world have got to go. It’s so much easier to be a demon lord than a hero.”

Steve just grumbled to himself as he had no idea what his plans were.

His first step was to calm himself down so he could start using his powers and break out of this prison…

Steve regret applying that condition onto himself so much, when he gets back, he’s planned on complaining to Pethnor so much.

But as he was mentally sending complaints to Pethnor, some time passed and a boy appeared in front of his cage.

“Sup.” The boy greeted casually.

“And who are you?”

Steve wasn’t in the mood to entertain some random kid, so he tried to shoo the boy away.

“I’m the person who’s gonna get you out of here. Out of this cell that is.”

As the boy said that, a guard walked in with a pair of keys in his hands and unlocked Steve’s cell.

“You’re free to go chump, don’t go causing any more trouble. You’re lucky that Mr. Lewis’s son here is vouching for you, otherwise you’d be in this cage for much longer.”

The guard turned away and left, leaving Steve and the boy alone.

“You just going to stay in there, or you wanna come out and have a walk with me?” The boy said as he too, turned around to leave the building.

Steve followed along.

He wasn’t sure what this boy was up to, but Steve figured he’d play along for a bit.

“What’s your name kid?”

“I’m Bradley. You?”

“Steve. You got me out of jail without even knowing my name?”

Bradley just shrugged.

“I guess so. Knowing your name wasn’t that important, but it’s nice to meet you Steve.”

Bradley extended his hand.

As they shook hands, Steve took a careful look at him.

He seemed to be an ordinary teenage boy, slightly pale and subtle bags under his eyes, but nothing worth noting.

Although strangely, the boy did look vaguely familiar, almost as if he had seen him recently.

After their handshake, they left the building, Bradley in front with Steve following behind.

Steve had a lot of questions to ask but he took it slow and asked a basic question first.

“So Bradley, care to explain? How’d you get me out of there? I was imprisoned for some pretty serious crimes, home invasion and attempted murder… can’t imagine it’d be easy to get me out.”

Bradley just scratched his head. “Well, my dad’s rich. He basically funds this entire city and everyone knows that. That means I get a lot of privileges for being his son. Just by vouching for you, and a little bit of money, it wasn’t too hard to get you out.”

Steve nodded; he knew firsthand the power that money held so he didn’t doubt it.

Still, that answers the how, but not the why.

“I’ll get straight to the point, why’d you get me out of there? You don’t even know me.”

“I heard about what you did last night, broke into Sir Joseph’s house. Injured his wife and his daughter, and nearly killed the man himself. Yeesh.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt Lora, her father was the one I was after.”

“Oh, I know. I know why you did it.”

“You know…?”

“Yeah. You were trying to help Lora right?”

Steve was surprised.

He didn’t expect Bradley to actually know.

From everyone else’s perspective, Steve’s actions should’ve looked completely violent, as if he were trying to attack the entire family.

Steve did mention Lora when talking to the guard earlier but it shouldn’t have been enough for someone to confidently assume his motive.

And yet, Bradley seemed to confidently know that Steve was helping Lora…

“You’re the first adult I’ve seen to have stepped in and try to help her. Most people turn their heads when they notice what happens to her.”

“So you were also aware of her situation then, yet you didn’t help her at all?”

Bradley’s gaze fell as he looked down with shame.

“I’ve tried to, but there’s only so much I can do for her. I’m still just a kid, and her father is a former knight’s captain. People respect him, and he knows important people. He’s basically immune to the law. And not only that, Lora herself refuses to be helped as well… but in the end, those were all excuses. I couldn’t help her in any significant way. I’m just like everyone else. But not you! I was so amazed to see you actually do something. I knew someone like you didn’t belong in a cell.”

“Don’t think too highly of me, I’m not as good of a person as you think I am. I also watched her be abused for a while without helping. But the worst thing is I even accidentally hurt her myself.”

Steve recalled the moment last night as Lora clung to his legs while crying.

He couldn’t even control himself and ended up hurting her.

Steve was extremely disappointed in himself.

“Yeah, what you did wasn’t good… but it was an accident, and you hitting her once is better than what her father was going to do.”

“You sure do know a lot about her situation. And you care for her too. Are you her friend?”

Bradley hesitated for a moment before nodding slowly.

“Friend? I guess you could call us that. Her father won’t allow her to have actual friends, but sometimes she sneaks out and we’ve kind of hung out together. It’s not much, but I try to comfort her when I can.”

“Well, at least you cared enough to help in your own way, unlike most of the useless cunts in this city.”

“I guess so… it’s more mutually beneficial though. We understand each other and hanging out with her helps me too.”

“Hey… you’re not also being abused by your dad by any chance, are you?”

Bradley was slightly surprised by that question, but immediately shook his head.

“Nope, my dad loves me a lot. He would never intentionally hurt me…”

Steve let out a quiet breath of relief when he confirmed that Bradley wasn’t lying with his heroic insight.

He was glad that he doesn’t have to deal with yet another abusive family.

With that out of the way, Steve decided to change the topic.

“I forgot to ask earlier, but how’d you know that I was trying to help Lora from her father?”

“Oh. The guards told me.”

“…”

Bradley wasn’t telling the truth.

His answer didn’t seem likely to Steve.

First of all, the guards hadn’t interrogated Steve yet, so they didn’t know his motives for certain.

They shouldn’t have been able to confidently conclude that Lora was the motive, and as such, it’d be strange for them to tell Bradley that.

It was extremely subtle, but despite his very quick and nonchalant reply, Steve could sense that Bradley was hiding something.

If not for Steve’s enhanced perception, he might’ve missed it, but Bradley seemed to have flinched upon his question.

His eyes darted around and almost seemed like he was looking at someone, or something.

But Steve didn’t detect anything odd around them.

They were walking along the streets so there were passersby but no one suspicious, or that Bradley could have been specifically looking at.

Why would Bradley lie though?

It was such a strange thing to not be honest about.

Still, Steve didn’t pry further.

Although Bradley was suspicious, he seemed genuine when he was talking about Lora.

Everyone has their circumstances after all and it’s not like it was an important question anyways.

“We’ve been walking for a while now. Where are we going?” Steve asked to get the conversation back.

“Uh, nowhere really. I just wanted to talk to you. But I guess we are also going in the direction of my house though.”

As they kept walking, Steve noticed that they had entered the same fancy neighbourhood that Lora house was.

‘I guess it’s not that strange that they live close together if they’re friends. And Bradley did say his dad was rich so of course he’d live in one of these big houses.’

Steve turned to Bradley.

“Is that everything you wanted to talk to me about then? Because I should probably leave before Lora or her family sees me with you.”

“I guess so. I didn’t really plan this out to be honest. I just wanted to help you since it’d be like as if I was indirectly helping Lora…”

“Yeah, thanks. Don’t worry, you were more than helpful. I was hesitant before, but I think meeting and talking with you has convinced me to do what I need to do.”

“I believe… you can help Lora.”

“I will.”

Steve replied firmly, before turning away and waving his hand.

“Cya Bradley.”

Bradley watched as Steve walked into the distance, hoping that he would succeed in what he does and that Lora would finally get the help she deserved.

With a sigh, Bradley also turned away and walked towards his home, thinking about Lora and Steve.

As Bradley’s house came into view, he saw that there was a man sitting on the porch.

When the man spotted Bradley approaching, he rushed over.

“Bradley, you’re back! Where’d you go? You were gone for so long!”

The man grabbed Bradley and hugged him, before being quickly pushed off as Bradley stepped back.

“Sorry… there was something I wanted to do. I thought I’d get home before you would, so I didn’t bother telling you.”

“Oh, that’s alright. I was just a little worried, but all is fine. Let’s go inside for dinner, Bradley. I’ll even get your mom from the basement. She’ll want to join us for dinner."

Bradley flinched as the man grabbed his hand and guided him into their house.

Bradley was led into the kitchen and was sat down on a chair.

“I got us some food from the market, you can sit down and start eating. Your mother’s almost ready, I’ll bring her up in a bit.”

The man went into the basement and closed the door behind him.

“Remember Bradley, no peeking!”

After the man said that, Bradley could hear groaning from the basement, and then some chopping noises before everything went silent.

The man opened the basement door and came out carrying Bradley’s mother on his back.

“Here she is! All right, now let’s sit down and eat dinner together as a family!”

The man sat down on the opposite side of the dining table, setting down Bradley’s mother on the chair next to them.

“Well, lets dig in shall we!”

The man grabbed some of the table on the food and started eating, while Bradley just sat there staring at it.

“Hm? What’s wrong Bradley? Why are you not eating? Is the food not to your taste?”

“No, I’m just not hungry. Plus, mother’s not eating either.”

“Aw, you won’t grow big and strong if you don’t eat. Your mother’s already a full-grown adult so she doesn’t need as much food, isn’t that right dear?”

The man nudged his wife’s shoulder

However, she did not respond.

Bradley’s mother merely groaned as her face drooped down.

Suddenly, her eyeball fell out of its socket and splashed into the soup ball.

Her entire body abruptly just collapsed headfirst onto the table, spilling and making a mess of all the food.

“Aw shit! My bad Bradley, looks like this batch was no good. I can’t believe I ruined our family dinner.”

The man face-palmed and picked up Bradley’s mom, slinging her over his shoulder

“I’ll have her fixed up, I’m so sorry you had to see that. You mind going back to your room while I clean this up?” The man asked before heading back to the basement.

“Sure…”

Bradley mumbled to himself as he stood up and started heading upstairs to his room.

Before he could make it far though, a hand was placed on Bradley’s shoulder.

Bradley turned around to look at the man, who loomed over him, staring down at his face.

The man slowly leaned down, bringing his face closer, before kissing Bradley’s forehead.

“Good night, Bradley. Your mother and I love you.”

“I know dad. You have a good night too.”

Bradley pushed his father away and hurried back up to his room, closing the door behind him and let out a long deep breath.

He sat down on the edge of his bed and just stared out his window, sitting there in silence for hours, watching the sun sink below the horizon as the fog of night started to rise.

Even though his body was physically tired, Bradley’s mind was whirling with thoughts of what happened.

Despite knowing he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep, he laid down onto his bed, resting his head on the pillow and just let his eyes close.

It was a brief moment of rest that he knew wouldn’t last long.

Eventually, he started hearing some noises around him.

Scratching and heavy breathing started to grow louder as they creeped closer to all sides of his bed.

And the air grew colder carrying the smell of rotting flesh.

Out of nowhere, something grabbed Bradley’s foot and started pulling him off the bed.

Bradley’s eyes popped open.

“Don’t worry… I’m not sleeping. I’m awake, I’m just thinking.”

Bradley stood up, kicking away the severed hand that had latched onto his foot, and stared at the sight before him.

Blood dripped from his ceiling as the dozen or so corpses surrounding his bed just stared at him.

Well, some of them didn’t have heads, much less eyes, to be looking at him.

Most of them were just severed body parts and broken limbs strung together by random organs or intestines, but they seem to at least be looking in Bradley’s direction.

One of the smaller looking corpses, a child looking one that has its head split open, started making loud screeching noises.

Bradley started patting the exposed brain of the child to calm it down.

“I know, I’m worried for Lora too. That’s what I’ve been thinking about…”

The other corpse shook in response, splashing blood everything, and letting out low guttural moans.

Bradley let out a sigh.

“I just hope he can help her. Steve seemed different from the others, so maybe he can do what I can’t.”

The corpses all moved closer to him, almost touching him.

Bradley didn’t respond to their movement and just muttered to himself.

“I wonder what Steve is doing now…”

As Bradley was contemplating this, Steve was currently in the process of kidnapping Lora.

Steve had waited until night, and then applied a stealth ability on himself to sneak into Lora’s house.

He had made up his mind to kidnap Lora.

“Those shit stains should be asleep now so I don’t think they’ll notice anything. Now I need to find the girl and get out.”

Steve walked around the house, noticing the damage and destruction he had caused the last time he was here.

He ignored all that and barged into Lora’s room.

However, no sign of Lora.

Activating his energy senses, Steve searched through the walls and detected a small quivering life form huddled in the bathroom.

He made his way there, breaking the lock and entering the bathroom forcefully.

There, on the floor, was Lora, beaten up and drenched.

She was shivering, clutching the torn rags that were covering her body.

Her ears were still ringing so she barely even noticed Steve come in, and her eyes were bruised enough to prevent her from seeing him.

Steve looked over and saw the boogeyman kneeling on the toilet seat, staring down at Lora with its big beady eyes.

“Hey, I’m going to kidnap your master. You better not stop me.”

It didn’t respond.

Steve focused back on Lora.

He grabbed her entire head by the palm of his head, and directly injected vast amounts of heroic energy into her.

With the amount of power being poured into her, she began to softly glow as her wounds healed.

“Wh-wha…?”

Before she could even stutter out a full word, Steve lifted her up and shoved her into a bag he had brought with him and tied it shut.

He could feel her struggling and trying to rip her way out, but the bag itself had been reinforced with his magic and wouldn’t tear so easily.

The only one present who could even potentially damage it was the boogeyman, but it just silently followed behind as Steve left the building.

“Fuck, I just realized. Not only did I not solve the missing child cases, I contributed to it.”

Steve grumbled to himself as he made his way to an abandoned house he had scouted out a few hours prior.

Once inside, he locked the door behind him and then untied the bag containing the child.

Lora stared back up at Steve with wide teary eyes, trembling in fear.

“Hey Lora…” Steve awkwardly greeted.

Lora immediately threw her hands forward and flailed them around randomly in an attempt to defend herself.

When she realized she wasn’t doing anything to him, Lora frantically looked around the room until she spotted the boogeyman in the corner, who had followed Steve here.

“S-sir Monster! Please h-help me! Send… send this bad man away!”

For a while, Steve had the idea that maybe Lora wasn’t even aware that the boogeyman existed by her side since he hadn’t seen her give it any commands, but this confirmed that wasn’t true.

Steve turned to look at it.

“So what’re you going to do booger man. You going to listen to your master and send me away?”

The boogeyman remained still.

It knew its place.

“Sir monster…? Why… why won’t you… hic…”

Lora’s face twisted in despair as she realized her only hope wasn’t helping her.

“I know you’re scared, but I’m not going to hurt you. I want to help you.”

Steve attempted to soothe her but it didn’t seem to be working.

“G-get away from me! Please! I… I want to go home! Sob… please don’t hurt me…”

She got on her knees and began crawling away, trembling like a leaf.

Steve didn’t get closer as he knew she was terrified.

“Please listen to me. I’m not going to hurt you like your father. In fact, I am here to save you from him.”

“My daddy protects me from bad people like you!”

“Your father hurts you. He’s not protecting you. He’s the one you need protection from.”

“My daddy told me that the world is a bad place! Bad men like you would capture me… they’d lock me up forever and do whatever they’d want with me, and that it’d hurt a lot… a lot more than I can even imagine. Much more than my daddy’s love…”

Steve could feel his anger rising.

“What the fuck has your father told you…”

Steve didn’t disagree with Lora’s father.

There were definitely bad people who would do that.

But a kid shouldn’t be hearing about this in this much detail, much less as a way to justify abuse.

She’s been manipulated into believing and relying only on her father.

Basically, she’s been brainwashed.

“Fuck… maybe if I give her some food and water, she’ll calm down…? I don’t know, how the hell do I deal with kids. Boogey bitch, you got any ideas to help calm your master?”

The boogeyman just stared back.

“Tch, don’t know what I expected.”

Steve glanced over to Lora who crawled next to the boogeyman, hugging and grabbing onto its leg tightly like it was her last lifeline.

“Can you at least comfort her?”

This time, the boogeyman raised its arm and wrapped it around Lora, patting the back of her head gently.

Its limbs coiled around her body, forming almost a defensive shell against the world, keeping her safe inside.

Lora eventually exhausted herself and fell asleep.

“Thanks boogeyman… I will admit, you’re not bad. Somehow a more decent person than her fucking father. I’m glad she had you protecting her.”

Steve collapsed on a chair and let out a long sigh.

He stared at the ceiling as he just thought about what to do.

If he were to forcefully bring her back to Pethnor’s castle, no doubt she’d break down and despise everyone.

He needed Lora’s trust so he could help her.

But as of right now, Lora probably thought of him as a very bad man who beat up her parents and kidnapped her in the middle of the night.

Gaining her trust would be hard…

What if he used the boogeyman to vouch for him, could that work?

Knock. Knock.

Steve immediately went on alert.

This place was abandoned and no one should know he’s here, yet someone’s knocking on the front door.

“…”

But upon recognizing who the person knocking was, Steve relaxed.

He walked over and unlocked the door, allowing the person to come in.

“Bradley, what the fuck are you doing here?”

“Hey.”

Bradley waved his hand as he looked past Steve’s shoulder and saw Lora sleeping.

“Seems you went and did it… you took her.”

“Yeah, I’m a kidnapper now. You going to tell the guards?”

Bradley shook his head.

“Of course not.”

“How’d you know I was here anyways? I never told you about any of this…”

“Oh. Um… I saw you through my window and followed you.”

Bradley was lying.

And Steve knew that. However, he didn’t really care since he had better things to worry about.

“Well, since you’re here, could you help me talk to Lora? Since you’re her friend and all.”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m here.”

Bradley walked past Steve and crouched down next to Lora before softly shaking her shoulder.

“Hey Lora… wake up.”

“Mnm…?”

Lora’s eyes fluttered open as she slowly looked up at Bradley.

“Oh, h-hi…”

That’s when she saw Steve standing behind and remembered everything that had happened.

“Ah! B-Bradley! Were you kidnapped too?! Oh no…!”

Before she could freak out though, Bradley put a hand on her shoulder.

“No Lora, calm down… I came here myself. The man behind me, his name is Steve. He wants to help you. From your dad.”

“Help me…? Why? My daddy loves me…”

“I know that. But not everyone does. When other people see your dad hit you, they don’t know and think he’s hurting you. Steve is one of those people. He wants you to not be hurt.”

“I… I don’t know… I just want to go home…”

“I know, but if it’s hard to trust Steve, trust me at least. And your monster friend. We all want to help you.”

“Okay…”

Bradley smiled softly.

“I promise you’ll be safe here, right Steve?”

“Yeah. It’s fine if you don’t trust me yet, but I won’t hurt you.”

Lora nodded and seemed to at least have accepted her situation.

Bradley got up and moved over to Steve’s side so they could talk privately.

“So, what’s the plan now? Just going to take her away from her family forever?”

“I’ll be honest, I don’t fucking know. I just kidnapped her because the longer she’s in that house, the more pain she’ll go through. I don’t know what I intend on doing with her yet, and it doesn’t help she still believes she’s the safest at her father’s side.”

Bradley nodded, falling into thought for a moment.

“By the way Steve, how do you know Lora? You seem to know her, but she doesn’t seem to know you.”

“It’s complicated. If I said it, you’d think I were insane. But the gist is she’s an important person. And I came to find her, only to find her in this situation.”

“Important?”

“Yeah.”

Steve pointed over to the boogeyman next to Lora.

“She’s got a special ability. That thing over there is proof of it. You also knew about it, didn’t you?”

“I did, but I didn’t think that it was so special…”

“Well, most kids don’t usually have horrifying monsters protecting them.”

Bradley didn’t respond.

“She’ll eventually get more of those monsters and she’ll become a worldwide powerhouse, but that’s in the far future. Right now, she’s just a kid.”

“I’ve always wanted her to just live a normal happy life, but I guess being someone special is also pretty good.”

Steve glanced over at Bradley, who was staring at Lora.

“I will say though, I’m a tad bit surprised you’re just believing everything I say. You aren’t doubtful at all how I’m talking about the future?”

“I… don’t know why either. But I just feel like you’re trustworthy…”

Steve sighed as he figured it was probably due to his passive hero abilities causing others to be more trusting of him.

He never liked how his hero abilities affected other people’s minds, but in this case, getting Bradley’s trust was very helpful.

“You should probably head back home Bradley. It’s like midnight or something, so your parents might notice you’re gone. I appreciate your help with Lora though. I’ll try to slowly gain her trust and figure out what to do from here.”

“Oh, sure. I guess I should… I’ll come visit tomorrow.”

Bradley made sure to say goodbye to Lora before leaving.

Bradley stared up at the sky as he walked home.

He was filled with a strange feeling of… hope.

That Lora could be saved.

She’s going to get the help she needs.

She’ll be free.

She’ll be happy.

Finally.

That thought made Bradley happy.

It made him forget everything at home.

Even if his life continued this way, he would be able to deal with it knowing Lora would be happy.

Bradley arrived home.

Upon opening the house door, he could immediately hear noises from the basement.

It was almost as if his dad wasn’t even trying to hide what he was doing.

Ba-dump.

Ba-dump.

For some reason, after meeting Steve and seeing him try so hard to save Lora… it filled Bradley with a newborn determination inside him.

He was afraid, but maybe, just maybe, he can change his life… and his father’s.

He grabbed the basement door’s knob and twisted it open, revealing a long stairway down.

His heart pulsated in his chest every step he took down.

Every step taking him a little bit closer to his father.

And then, he reached the bottom of the stairs.

He was finally in the basement.

Ba-dump.

Ba-dump.

‘I can do this.’

Bradley thought to himself as he calmed his shaking.

And just as he was about to take a step forward…

“H…help…!”

Something grabbed his foot.

Bradley barely even reacted, but he did look down at what it was.

He shook his leg and was about to kick it away, when suddenly his eyes widened.

“Hurts… so… m-much… help…”

The thing that grabbed his foot… was alive.

It wasn’t an undead.

It wasn’t a ghost.

It was a living human.

Ba-dump.

Ba-dump.

All the determination and confidence Bradley had immediately disappeared.

His body immediately stiffened as he couldn’t bring himself to move away.

If he tried, he easily could. The grip that the thing had on his foot wasn’t very strong, after all, it was on the verge of death.

Half its lower body was missing, and it was drugged to the point it probably couldn’t tell reality from delirium.

Yet he couldn’t break free from its hold.

Or rather, he couldn’t break free from himself.

It was at that moment that a knife was plunged deep into the back of its head, causing the hand to loosen and its body collapsed.

“Bradley! What are you doing down here?!”

Bradley’s father rushed over and grabbed him by the shoulders.

“I’ve told you so many times to not come down here! You know that!”

Bradley couldn’t respond, he remained frozen and slightly shook in his father’s hands.

“I… I’m not mad Bradley, but you shouldn’t be seeing this.”

His father wrapped his arms around his body and hugged him tightly.

His body was covered in blood and bits of meat, so his hug was very warm.

“I’ll walk you upstairs Bradley, I’m sorry you had to see that. Go to sleep and forget this, alright? And please, remember not to come down here. It’s for your own good.”

Bradley barely managed to force himself to nod his head.

His father grabbed his hand and led him back up the stairs to the main floor.

“I’ll make you some warm milk to help you sleep, alright Bradley?”

His father opened the fridge and looked for the milk, only to realize that there was none left.

“Ah, darn. I forgot I didn’t go shopping… its kind of late right now. Bradley, are you okay if I quickly grab some milk from the store? Won’t take too long, and you’ll get to have some warm milk after.”

Bradley just nodded, agreeing to whatever was said.

“Alright, I’ll be back real quick. Stay put.”

His father quickly changed clothing and waved goodbye before leaving the house.

Once the door was closed and he was finally alone, Bradley collapsed onto a chair and breathed heavily.

It’s not often for him to be alone, even briefly, so he allowed himself to relax.

Or at least, he thought he was alone.

“Bradley.”

The sudden voice startled Bradley causing him to immediately jump up and whip his head to look at the speaker.

It was Steve.

He was leaning against the wall silently, his semi-transparent body slowly returning to full visibility.

“Your dad… he’s responsible for all the missing cases around here, isn’t he? He’s the fucking serial kidnapper, and murderer.”

Bradley’s eyes widened as he stumbled back.

“Steve! What… what are you doing here?!”

“I did what you did to me. I followed you. I knew something was off about you.”

Bradley grabbed Steve’s arm and attempted to drag him away.

“You… you have to leave! Before they come back!”

“Your dad can’t hurt me Bradley.”

“NOT MY DAD! I’M TALKING ABOUT THEM! LEAVE BEFORE THEY GET AGITATED!!”

“What?”

Steve stood his ground as Bradle frantically did whatever he could to force him out of his house.

Bradley’s eyes widened as he stared at something behind Steve.

“…?”

Steve looked around and didn’t see anything.

“It’s… too late. They’re here.”

Bradley dropped to his knees weakly and started grabbing his own arms as he trembled.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry… I’m sorry… I’m sorry… I’m sorry…”

It was then that Steve finally sensed something off.

The room was growing darker as he felt invisible entities enter the room.

They were surrounded by hundreds upon hundreds of things.

“Please go away…” Bradley muttered as streams of dark black blood poured from his eyes and mouth.

The entities started to close in on them.

Steve couldn’t fully see these things, mostly just distortions in the surroundings but based on the reaction, he figured that Bradley could clearly see them.

So Steve used one of his heroic skills to connect their vision, allowing him to see what Bradley sees.

“…holy shit…”

It was some of the most repulsive shit he had ever seen.

The entire room looked like it was made of living breathing flesh.

The walls and floor pulsated as limbs and arms reached out grabbing for any living being.

And then there were the undeads.

They looked exactly like the dismantled corpses he had seen in the basement, except now they were alive.

And these undead ghost things were crawling all over Bradley’s body trying to enter him.

They were even trying to touch Steve as well…

He had seen enough.

Steve closed his eyes and took a deep breath, before releasing a small portion of the heroic energy in body causing the entire house to light up.

He abruptly grabbed Bradley by the neck and poured holy energy into him, causing him to shine like a light bulb as torment screams started to escape his body.

It was not Bradley’s screams, but the screams of the damned being vanquished by Steve’s overwhelming power.

The flesh trembled under every step Steve took and the undeads disintegrated from his mere presence.

Steve was simply too divine for them to exist.

At this point, Steve’s entire body was radiating like the sun, banishing the darkness and evil.

It was night but his presence made the entire town bright as day.

People were starting to wake up from all the light and commotion.

Steve turned off his energy before quickly exiting the house with Bradley in his arms.

After making it back to the abandoned house, he tossed Bradley next to Lora.

“Alright, so I guess I’m kidnapping two kids then.”

Lora, who just witnessed this, was confused and wide eyed.

“B-Bradley…?!”

She quickly shook his shoulder to wake him up.

“Lora? What’s… where…”

Bradley grabbed his head and sat up, only to be met with Steve’s face staring back seriously.

“Bradley, you got a lot of shit to explain.”

“Explain…?”

“I know you’re disoriented so I’ll start simple. What the fuck did I see five minutes ago. Ghosts? Undeads? A mix of both?”

Bradley’s eyes slightly trembled as he clutched his head.

“They’re… they’re my dad’s victims.”

“Right. Onto the next question, your dad. I saw what was down in the basement. He’s a serial killer, isn’t he?”

Bradley weakly nodded in response.

Steve grabbed a water bottle and handed it to him.

“You seem thirsty. Drink.”

“Thanks…”

His mouth was dry so he gulped it all down.

After he was done, Steve spoke up again.

“Well, I could keep asking questions, but instead, I’ll let you do the explaining. Tell me your story.”

“...oh. Ok…”

Bradley took a moment to gather his thoughts and figure out how to say everything.

“My dad. He didn’t always used to be like this, but I caused him to change.”

He looked back up at Steve, waiting for him to respond.

“Go on, I won’t interrupt you.”

“Ah, okay…”

Bradley closed his eyes and took a deep breath before continuing.

“Well, I guess it started when my mom died. It happened when I was very young. After giving birth to me, she became very ill. Eventually, she passed away. My dad didn’t take it too well. Honestly, neither did I. I… loved my mom. I remember crying for days when she was gone, I didn’t leave my house and just holed up in my room. I think my reaction made things even worse for my dad.

He believed that a child needs a mother in order to grow up happily and healthily. My dad, he loves me. A lot. So he was willing to go the extra mile, even doing things he would never do. He resorted to necromancy. He wanted to bring my mother back. For me. And the worst part is that it worked. He managed to create something that resembled my mother using the flesh of others. At the time, I was young, so I didn’t know it was… an imposter. I was overjoyed that my mom came back.

My dad saw how happy I was… and that must’ve been the moment when he fully committed to this. His necromancy mother didn’t last forever, it eventually rotted and broke down. He needed more bodies to maintain it. So he kept getting more. Eventually, I stumbled into the basement by accident… and saw everything. I remember being shocked. That’s probably an understatement. I remember wetting my pants and being so paralysed in fear, that it took several minutes for my dad to realize I was down there and came to rescue me. He told me to forget everything I saw down there.

Obviously, I couldn’t. It’s forever etched into my memory… and then I started seeing them. I’m not sure what the exact cause is, but I started seeing them. The victims. The people whose bodies and flesh were used to create my mother.”

As Bradley started mentioning them, the room started to darken once more as Steve felt something enter the building.

“Wait a second Bradley. I know I said I wouldn’t interrupt but I need to deal with this.”

Steve stretched his arms and drew something in the air.

After doing that, all the malice that was seeping in was blasted away by a barrier that was erected around the building.

“Continue on Bradley.”

“…alright. I started seeing them. At first, it was quite vague. Just like moving shadows in the corner of the room. I didn’t even know what it was at first. But slowly over time, it became clearer. They become clearer. More vivid. More real. Eventually, I could see them as they were. Their body and their soul. There are thousands of them residing in my house. And the more I could see them, the more they could see me as well. They know my dad’s the one who murdered them.

Many of them hate me and want to turn me into one of them. They want to either kill and turn me into them, or they want to take over me so they can live again. But a few of them don’t want to see me share their fate. Some of them became my friends, staying by my side and watching over me, alerting me of danger. They can also help with things I ask then, like spying on you or getting information.

But regardless of whether they’re friendly or not, they all despise my father. At the same time, they’re afraid of him. He was the one who killed them so they want to kill him as well, but they’re also terrified of simply seeing him. They can’t even go near my dad, which ironically, means I’m safe as long as my dad is nearby. When he’s not around, I usually rely on the friendly ones to keep me safe. But they only help me though, they’ll let anyone else die. One time a delivery man came to our house when my dad wasn’t home… and he was ripped apart. I was scared that they would do that to you…”

Bradley had spilled everything he had been hiding.

He felt like his insides were turning inside out, he was terrified of how Steve would respond and react.

Would Steve be disgusted by him?

Would he sympathize?

But Steve’s response was not an answer, it was a question.

“Did you ever tell your dad about what you see? Ever try to stop him?”

“…no.”

“Why not.”

“I don’t know. I think it’s partially because I’m scared… of him. And everything.”

Bradley paused to think.

Even he wasn’t sure why he didn’t try to stop his dad.

He knew his dad loved him and would never hurt him, no matter what.

There was no real reason for him to be scared of his dad.

Yet there was just something that terrified him, just the mere thought of confronting his dad terrified him.

He didn’t know why, but it was hard to put into words.

It was just this heavy feeling that coils around him and stops him from ever doing anything.

“I’m responsible for causing my dad to become this way. He’s become a horrible person because of me... so I’ve always known I had to be the one to stop him, but I don’t know why I physically can’t do it. What would even happen if I did try it? What would I do after? What would my dad do? What would… they do? I just kept hesitating and then it never happened.”

Bradley looked down and went quiet again.

No matter how long he thought, he couldn’t come up with a good excuse to why he didn’t prevent this from happening.

And Steve did not continue asking more questions.

Steve understood pretty much everything that was going on.

“What… what do you plan on doing with us?”

“I don’t know. I’ll figure that out tonight.”

After answering, Steve went silent and continued watching over the kidnapped kids.

They were nervous so they didn’t say anything either, resulting in the room being dead silent with a suffocating atmosphere.

Steve didn’t like the heavy feeling that was in the room and stood up, breaking the silence.

“I haven’t eaten all day; I’m going to go out and get myself some food. You two hungry? I’ll get you some too.”

Bradley and Lora stared down at their stomachs and realized they had not had proper meals today.

“Some food would be nice…”

“Yes please…”

“Alright, I’ll get you guys some.”

Steve headed for the door and said one final thing before leaving.

“Oh, and don’t bother trying to escape. No one can enter or leave this barrier beside me… and maybe Pethnor, since he’s strong enough to break through it.”

Bradley and Lora had no idea who Pethnor was, but they understood the message.

Once Steve left, Lora turned to Bradley.

“That’s the first time you ever told your story…”

“You already have it rough Lora, I didn’t want to make you worry for me on top of it.”

“I already knew.”

“…you did?”

“Yeah… I asked Sir Monster to… spy on you, so I already knew most of your story. But I never knew the part about your mom, and how you felt…”

“That’s funny, because I’ve been using the friendly undeads to keep an eye on you…”

Bradley and Lora couldn’t help but softly smile.

They were like a messed-up match made in hell.

“What do you think is going to happen to us now Bradley?”

“I don’t know, but I think it’ll be for the better. Steve seems like a good guy, I trust him.”

“…”

“You thinking?”

“Yeah… I feel like I recognize him, Steve I mean.”

“You know him?”

“No. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him… but I feel like I have. It’s a blur, but I remember his face, he looked different, but similar.”

“Maybe you met him when you were very young?”

“It’s not that either. I was in a completely different place. When I look at him… it hurts.”

“Hurts? Did he hurt you?”

Lora shook her head again.

“I remember feeling pain, but he was being hurt as well. I think there was something going on, and a lot of people were getting hurt.”

She closed her eyes and saw fuzzy figures of multiple people.

They were bloodied and ran towards a massive glowing ball of light in the center.

She was one of those figures.

Steve was another one of those figures.

What were these memories?

Were they just a figment of her imagination?

All of a sudden, the boogeyman who had been quiet this entire time spoke up.

“T h o s e m e m o r i e s a r e r e a l.”

“Do you know something Sir Monster?”

It did not respond.

Lora sighed.

“Why won’t you ever tell me anything.”

“What even is Sir Monster? You don’t talk about it much.”

“Sir Monster is… my friend. He makes me hurt less. I was very small when I met him, and he was small too. He was small enough to fit in my hand. I was hiding under my bed from my daddy, and he was next to me there, just looking at me. I don’t know why but I grabbed him and just held on to him. And then after that, he kept staying by my side. At night, he would watch over me, making me feel safe. When daddy is around, he hides in my clothes and protects me when I get hit. Now he’s big and ugly, but he’s still my friend.”

“Sounds like you don’t know much about it either then.”

“I never asked. I didn’t need to. It doesn’t matter what he is. To me, he is just Sir Monster. He’s my friend. Just like you.”

Bradley smiled at her words.

She really was one of the few joys he had left in his life.

The two of them kept talking until eventually Steve returned.

However, he was empty handed.

“Were you unable to get any food Steve?”

“Nah, it’s just in my inventory. Give me a sec, I’ll grab it.”

Steve extended his hand forward, and suddenly his arm disappeared!

But then as he retracted his hand, his arm reappeared… and he was holding a ton of food!

He sat down in front of the kids and laid out the food all over the floor.

There was a lot of food.

“I didn’t know what you guys wanted, so I got everything. Eat as much as you want.”

Chicken, sandwiches, noodles, bread, pork, steak, meats, vegetables, deserts, fruits… and a lot of beer and alcohol.

“I wasn’t going to drink, but I think I need one to deal with this shit.”

Steve grabbed a bottle and popped it open before chugging it down.

When he put it down, he noticed Lora staring at her.

She was slightly hiding behind Bradley as if she was scared.

“What’s wrong? Are you not going to eat?”

“You’re not going to hit me, are you?”

“Why would I do that?”

Lora pointed to the beer bottle.

Then it clicked in Steve’s head.

Whenever her father drank and got drunk, he would become violent.

She must’ve ended up associating alcohol with abuse.

“Don’t worry. This isn’t some angry juice or anything, it just causes people to become stupider. Not everyone who drinks it will hit you though.”

Lora didn’t seem to believe him.

“How about this. Why don’t you drink some? Just to show you it’s just a drink.”

“You’re gonna let Lora drink alcohol? She’s underage.”

Bradley interrupted after hearing the suggestion.

Steve turned over and stared at Bradley.

“You’re shitting me. This city has no age of consent, but it has minimal legal drinking age? Ya know what, I don’t fucking care. I won’t force you to drink it if you don’t want to, but it can’t hurt to try.”

Steve handed two bottles over to them.

He knew it was irresponsible of him as an adult to be allowing them to do this, but after everything that happened, he didn’t care anymore.

“It’s up to you.”

Bradley and Lora looked at each other.

Considering most of the things happening in their lives, drinking alcohol underage is nowhere near the worst.

They grabbed the bottle and they both took a sip.

Bradley’s reaction was, “Ew… that tasted disgusting.”

Lora’s reaction was, “That… wasn’t as bad as I thought. It’s kind of… nice.”

Steve raised an eyebrow.

“Wow, I thought if one of you were to like it, it’d be Bradley.”

“I don’t know… it just feels kind of nice.”

Lora took another small sip of the alcohol.

Bradley on the other hand was baffled.

“How do you like this? It tastes like an expired soda… and burns my throat!”

“Well, that’s not surprising. I wouldn’t expect most kids to enjoy it. It’s something that grows on you over time, and maybe you’ll appreciate it once you grow up.”

“Maybe I just don’t like this specific flavor, give me another one!”

Steve chuckled and handed him another one.

“So how is it?”

“Hm… this one’s a lil better. I’m still not a fan though.”

“I got lots more different types if you wanna try more. And you too Lora, eat and drink whatever you want. We got lots.”

Steve said as he pulled out more food and beer from his inventory.

He bought a ton, thinking to himself that since food doesn’t rot or expire in his inventory, he could stock up for the future.

But if they want to eat and drink more, he wouldn’t mind bringing it all out.

“So what do you think now that you’ve tried alcohol, Lora? Do you feel like you’re going to become violent and start hitting people?”

Lora slowly shook her head.

“No… I feel kind of floaty… mhnmm… it’s almost relaxing…”

She took another sip of the alcohol.

Her face was already flushed and despite sitting down, she was slightly wobbly.

“I did say drink as much as you want but might want to put down the bottle now. I mean, we got food as well. So don’t forget to eat as well.”

Steve grabbed a meaty chicken thigh and passed it over to them, before he grabbed his own and started munching on it.

He didn’t bother eating neatly and got grease all over his face.

Seeing this, Lora and Bradley loosened up a little, getting more comfortable and started eating as well.

“It’s… yummy.” Lora muttered to herself quietly.

Steve grinned.

“It sure fucking is! It ain’t no five-star gourmet meal, but it’s delicious. Nothing beats unhealthy, greasy, junk food! I used to get so sick and tired of eating those high-class foods like A5 steak and lobster and whatever, going out for some junk food like this always hits the spot!”

Steve chugged down some alcohol to wash down the food.

“You’re rich Steve?”

Bradley asked as he stuffed his mouth with a burger.

“Used to be. Not anymore. Instead, all I have now is the power to destroy the planet.”

“You’re that strong?”

“I’m like the second strongest person I know, tied with this nasty demon guy who happens to be my friend.”

“You’re friends with a demon?! Aren’t you a holy man, Steve? Or like a priest or something? How can you be friends with a demon?”

“A priest? What makes you think I’m one of those pricks?”

“Well, the friendly ones told me that there’s a bright holy energy around you that hurts them.”

“I guess I’m something along those lines then.”

Steve just gave some vague answer, since he was too lazy to explain.

But suddenly, Lora asked something that snapped him to attention.

“Steve, are you a hero?”

“Lora! You remember?!”

The sudden enthusiasm in Steve’s voice startled Lora.

“Um… no. It was just a guess.”

“Dang, got my hopes up for nothing.”

“I’m sorry…”

Seeing Steve get disappointed, Lora looked down in shame.

“You don’t have to apologize, it’s not your fault. If anything, it’s that damn mage’s fault, he brought us all back and then he just up and died after! Man caused half this mess and just dipped! What an asshole.”

As Steve was fuming, Bradley asked his own question.

“Steve, if you don’t mind, could you tell us about who you are? Because clearly you came here to find Lora for a reason, and there’s something going on we don’t know…”

“No point in hiding it. I’m from the future. I’m the hero. One of the heroes. Lora over there is also a hero. Another one of the heroes used some spell to turn back time and only some of us kept our memories. I’m trying to gather all the good heroes to stop the world from dying. That’s basically it.”

Bradley and Lora just stared in disbelief.

“Yeah, it’s hard to believe. You don’t have to believe it if you don’t want to, but it’s true.”

“I… I believe you… I’ve been having these weird fuzzy pictures showing up in my head, and… hearing you say that, makes those fuzzy pictures less fuzzy.” Lora said in response.

“Fuzzy pictures, huh? I can’t tell if that’s you being drunk, or if there’s a chance of you regaining your memories. Let’s hope it’s the latter.”

Steve sighed and stared at the pile of food in front of them.

“Whatever, we can figure out your memories another time. I’m not in the mood to think too hard right now. I know it’s been quite… stressful these past couple days, especially for you two. So let’s just unwind. Eat and drink! No worrying allowed!”

They continued eating.

However, it was a little awkward as the only noise in the room was munching.

“You guys wanna play some cards?”

Steve suggested out of the blue.

“Cards?”

“Yeah, we can play black jack or poker, or whatever card game this world has.”

“Um… I don’t know how to play any card games… I’ve never played cards.”

“Then it’s a good time to learn and kill some time.”

Steve reached his hand into his inventory again.

He rummaged around the inventory a bit before pulling out a giant pickaxe.

“Nope, not what I’m looking for.”

He tossed it away before reaching into the inventory again.

This time, he pulled out a shield.

He tossed it away.

Then a chest plate.

Tossed away.

A rainbow-colored potion that seemed to distort the space around it.

Not it, off it goes.

An Excalibur.

Nope.

Severed head of a dragon.

Into the trash it goes.

“Nope. Not this. Not this. Where’d I fucking put it? Should be somewhere around here… ah! Here it is!”

Finally, he pulled out a deck of cards.

“Alright, let’s play.”

Steve shuffled the deck of cards and passed the cards around to each of them.

Once he did that, he turned his head over to look at the corner where the boogeyman was sitting.

“Yo, boogeyman. Come join us. It’s more fun with more people.”

The boogeyman did not move.

Steve turned to Lora.

“Hey, why don’t you convince your friend to join us. More players are always fun.”

“Huh? Oh… um, Sir Monster? We’ve been together for a long time and… we’ve never played together. So if… if you don’t mind, I’d… like for you to join us.”

For a moment, the boogeyman did not move, but after a moment, it disappeared and then suddenly reappeared next to Lora.

“Hell yeah! That’s more like it! Also, we got lots of food left so take any if you want.”

Steve pulled out several more cards and dealt it to the boogeyman.

As this was happening, Lora stared down at her own deck.

She had seen people play cards before so she recognized the symbols on them, but she didn’t know what any of them were, much less know how to play herself.

Bradley leaned over to her.

“See that heart arrow thing? That’s a spade. That card is a 7 of spades.”

Lora nodded eagerly.

As the game went on, she slowly learned how to play better.

The more she played, the more unusual she felt.

It was a feeling she had felt before, but it was so infrequent that she didn’t recognize it.

She looked over to Bradley, then Steve, then at Sir Monster, before looking back down at her cards.

In her hands were four cards.

She had 4 cards of fours.

“…ehehe…”

Lora giggled.

She didn’t know why but it was so funny.

She had four cards of 4s!

“Hahaha!”

Four 4s!

She laughed so hard she teared up and her face turned even redder than it already was.

Bradley stared at her with wide eyes and an open jaw.

This was the first time he had seen her smile, much less laugh like this!

Steve chuckled along with her.

“Seems like she drank too much! Looks like she’s having fun though, so it’s all fine.”

Lora’s giggles slowed down hearing this.

…fun…

Yes.

She finally remembered what this feeling was.

Fun.

Lora was having fun.

It was so long since she had this much fun, she forgot how it felt like.

On her turn, she slammed her card down before grabbing another bottle and chugging it down.

“Hey, don’t you think you might be drinking a lil too much…?”

“Don’t worry Bradley… I’m… I’m fine. I’m just… a bit excited… I can keep playing, who’s turn is it?”

The boogeyman waved its hand and slowly placed down its card to finish its turn.

They continue playing for hours, all of them winning and losing several matches.

During this time, they seemed to have forgotten all about the events hours prior and just immersed themselves in the moment.

They enjoyed themselves.

But eventually, they grew exhausted.

It was way late into the night, and it was a very tiring day.

By the time they were done, the entire room was a mess.

Half eaten food splattered everywhere, dozens of empty beer bottles and junk laid out everywhere.

Despite this, Steve, Bradley, Lora and boogeyman all laid on the floor, stuffed to the brim with food and drinks, staring up at the ceiling.

They all felt strangely satisfied.

“Hey, want to see the stars?”

Steve asked, but he didn’t wait for a reply.

He flicked his wrist and the roof exploded outwards, revealing the starry night sky.

Together, they just laid there in silence, watching the stars.

It was a calmness and tranquility that they did not expect to be experiencing considering what they had gone through today.

Several minutes in, Lora broke the silence with a question.

“Hey Steve, can I ask something?”

“Go ahead.”

“Is… is my daddy’s love not normal?”

“No. It’s not… well, it’s not exactly uncommon though. Doesn’t make it any less scummy.”

“…”

Lora went silent.

She had a lot to think about.

She had thought that almost everything her dad did was normal.

How he spoke to her.

How he treated her.

How he hit her.

How he touched her.

She knew that her dad was a little strict compared to most because he’s a former knight’s captain, but she always believed that it was because he loved her.

After all, many people knew about how her dad treated her and yet no one said anything.

So it must be normal, right?

It seems that was not the case.

Lora was slowly starting to finally see that.

She was not the only one reflecting on their situation however, Bradley too was also thinking about him and his father.

He knew that his situation was not normal.

Because of his hesitation, countless people have died.

He may not be the one directly harming people, but he is every bit responsible for it as his dad.

He knew he had to do something about it.

Several hours passed as they were deep in thought.

Eventually, Bradley sat up and glanced at Steve, who was still lying on the ground, his belly rising and falling with each snore.

“Now’s the best time to leave.”

Bradley said as Lora also sat up.

“Yeah…”

They got up and slowly headed for the door.

As they got closer though, a voice behind them suddenly called out.

“Whatever you two decide to do, I’ll accept it.”

Lora and Bradley looked back over at Steve, who’s eyes were still closed but his mouth was not.

“I know you’re both kids, but I’ve decided you’re mature enough to make this decision on your own. If you both decided to keep things how they are, I’ll respect your decision and leave. I trust you’ll make the right choice. Good luck.”

And then Steve went silent again, presumably asleep.

Lora and Bradley looked at each other for a moment, before nodding and leaving to head back home.

Despite the fact they’re about to make the most important decision in their lives, they felt weirdly calm unlike they’ve ever felt before.

Maybe it was the alcohol in their system.

As they neared their houses, they saw lots of guards and soldiers gathered around and there seemed to be some sort of commotion.

Lora and Bradley looked at each other one final time before nodding and splitting up, heading back to their own homes.

From here, their perspectives separate.

Let’s start with Bradley, shall we.

Despite the dozens of guards patrolling around, Bradley managed to sneakily slip by all of them and enter his house.

His father wasn’t home, so it was dark and quiet.

At least, for a moment before they started to come back.

The friendly ones showed up first, warning Bradley of the danger.

But Bradley shook his head.

“Thank you, but no. I’m not going to hide. I need to do this myself, if I don’t, nothing will change.”

He could feel the malice slowly returning.

Hundreds of them were once again entering the house.

As this happened, Bradley walked to his kitchen and grabbed a knife.

He stared at it and twirled it in his hand.

By now, they had gotten close to him, completely surrounding him and almost within reaching distance…

THUNK!

Bradley abruptly stabbed his knife in the table.

“Touch me, and you’ll die a second time.”

They froze upon hearing the coldness in his voice.

“Don’t forget who I’m the son of.”

They began trembling at the mere reminder of his father.

“Now you’re scared, huh? Just because I brought up my dad? Well, go ahead and try taking my body, and I’ll show you I can be just as scary as him.”

Bradley dragged the knife along the table, scraping off chunks of wood, causing them to flinch and back away.

He realized now that he was the one in control, not them.

He had no reason to fear them, while they had all the reason to fear him.

“I’ll grant you your wish for revenge. I swear my life upon it. So back off.”

As Bradley walked out of the kitchen, they parted ways for him and allowed him through.

He sat down on a chair and waited.

A bit of time passed, but eventually the front door opened and his father returned.

“Bradley…!? Oh my god! You’re back!”

Upon seeing him, his father rushed over and gave him a big hug.

“Where were you?! You disappeared for hours! You know that there have been a lot of kidnappings and missing cases lately, I was so worried something happened to you…”

“Dad. You’re the one responsible for all the kidnappings and missing cases.”

His father blinked for a second, before completely ignoring that statement.

“At least tell me before you leave. You know how worried I get for you… I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you too.”

Bradley’s father’s arms slowly retracted as he took a step back.

“I ordered every single available soldier and guard to look for you. You’ve caused a lot of trouble today young man! But I’ll forgive you since you’re safe. Stay here Bradley, and don’t move! I’m serious, don’t go missing again! I’m going to go out and tell everyone that you’re safe now.”

As he turned around to leave, Bradley grabbed his father’s arm and stopped him.

“Bradley…?”

“Dad… We need to talk.”

“Okay? Is something wrong?”

“…y-yes.”

The moment he spoke, he felt his mind suddenly go blank.

His mouth dried up and his heart pounded in his chest.

He felt so confident in being able to finally confront him, but now that his father was right in front of him, he felt it all crumble.

It was so much easier to deal with ghosts, or undeads, then it was to deal with his father.

But Bradley had already come this far, he couldn’t stop now.

His father must be stopped.

Bradley forced the words to come out of his mouth.

“Dad, I… you…!”

It was at that moment that suddenly his father softly put his hand on Bradley’s shoulder.

“Son. I will always be here for you. If you’re not ready to say what you want to say… it’s okay. You always have tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after that.”

Bradley just looked up at the soft smile on his dad’s face.

There was not an ounce of malice in that smile.

Only compassion and love for his only son.

The same one that Bradley had seen all his life, even before his mother passed away.

“…”

And then Bradley stabbed the knife into his father’s chest.

“Bradley…?”

“I’m sorry dad.”

His father staggered back, removing his hand from Bradley’s shoulder and moved it to the knife embedded inside of him.

“This is… I’m bleeding.”

His eyes widened as he said this.

He could feel the pain and heat spreading through his body.

“I’m sorry I turned you into a murderer, dad. I’m sorry I didn’t stop you sooner.”

Bradley’s dad grabbed the knife and slowly pulled it out, squirting blood onto the ground while doing so.

He let out a grunt, suppressing the pain he felt before looking back at his son.

“I should’ve told you sooner. The people you’ve killed, I can see them. For a long time now.”

The room grew darker as Bradley said this.

They were coming back.

They were always afraid of his father, but now that he was injured and bleeding, it showed that he too was killable.

“I don’t know if you can see them, but surely you can feel them… right? They’re the people who you killed…. for my sake. And their hatred caused them to remain in this house. They want to hurt you the same way you did to them.”

Bradley felt a whirlpool of emotions.

He felt something about to explode inside of him, something threatening to pour out.

But he suppressed it.

He knew that if he were to let it spill out, he wouldn’t be able to finish this.

“Dad, you’re a horrible person. You’ve killed dozens, maybe hundreds of people. You’re about to get what you deserve.”

Bradley’s voice shook as he spoke.

Every word that left his mouth felt heavy on himself.

He knew that he was equally as guilty as his dad.

Regardless, this was something he had to do.

“I won’t be the one giving you your punishment, they will.”

They started appearing in the room one by one.

Standing bodies and corpses inched closer and closer.

Limbs drooped from the ceiling and arms reached out from the ground.

His father had nowhere to go, nowhere to escape.

They grabbed at him from all angles.

They did not intend to give him any mercy. Not for all the crimes and atrocities he’s committed.

“Dad, thank you for loving me… but please die.”

Nails and bones stabbed into his skin and flesh, drenching him in blood.

And in this moment, Bradley’s father looked up at him, and just… smiled.

It was the same soft loving smile that Bradley had seen his entire life.

Bradley flinched.

“I’m so happy you grew up to be a good person.”

He wanted to move and hug his son, but the arms that were grabbing him stopped him from moving.

Tears just gently poured from his eyes.

His eyes wandered behind Bradley as he stared at something.

His smile grew wider upon seeing whatever he saw.

Then he looked back at Bradley.

“No matter where you do go, or what you do, just know that both your mother and I will always be watching over you.”

Then he was ripped limb from limb.

He did not resist, for even he knew this pain was only a fraction of what he had inflicted to others.

But even until his final moment, enduring horrific pain, his smile never left his face.

“I love you son.”

Those were his final words.

Bradley looked upwards, allowing the blood pouring from the ceiling to cover his face.

This gave him an excuse to wipe his eyes.

It wasn’t over yet though.

“I have given you your long-awaited revenge. All of you belong to me now. You will not harm another soul and you will not do anything without my permission. Understood?”

They all turned their heads and looked over at Bradley.

Most of them didn’t move, but a few seemed to scream in defiance.

Bradley walked over to those who didn’t obey and grabbed their heads.

“You will listen. This is an order.”

It stopped screaming and just trembled upon the pressure.

“Good. Keep behaving and I won’t re-enact what my dad did to you while you were alive.”

They seemed to understand as they backed away and dispersed.

They had accepted him as their new master, for he had killed the one who killed them.

Thus was Bradley’s conclusion.

This leaves us with Lora.

Unlike Bradley, Lora just walked home normally.

One of the guards who had been patrolling, noticed her and rushed over to her.

“Lora?! Is that you??”

“Oh hello sir. Is something wrong?”

“Wrong? Yes! You’ve been missing for hours! Where have you been!?”

“I was… lost. I went to go play outside to play earlier, but then it got so dark, I couldn’t find my way home. I’m sorry…”

Lora didn’t want to tell the truth about Steve, so she just quickly made up a lie on the spot.

“Well, your parents have been worried sick about you!”

Lora looked down and thought to herself, ‘Worried sick? They would worry for me if they loved me, right?’

“Well, let’s get you home alright?”

The guard walked Lora home to her house.

When they arrived, he knocked on the front door and a few moments later, Sir Joseph answered.

He was bandaged up from his injuries that Steve had inflicted on him before.

“…what is it?”

From the way his words slurred, it was clear that he was drunk again.

He stared at the guard before looking down and seeing his daughter standing there as well.

“Oh, this lil fuck…”

Joseph grabbed Lora’s arm and roughly yanked her towards him.

“Now where the fuck have you been?!?”

“D-daddy, I’m sorry. I wandered out and got lost.”

Joseph slapped Lora right across the face, knocking her onto the ground.

The guard tensed up awkwardly seeing this, unsure of what to do.

“What? You going to keep staring? Go away.”

Sir Joseph barked out angrily before dragging Lora back inside and slamming the door behind him.

When fully inside, he chucked Lora’s body into the living room.

“…L-Lora??”

Lora’s mom had come out of the kitchen to check on the commotion.

She was about to step forward when she saw Joseph.

She froze for a moment, before shakily looking down and silently retreated back into the kitchen.

Joseph furiously stomped his way to Lora’s body.

“Now you come crawling back home huh?! You know how god damn embarrassing it is to tell a dozen guards that my daughter just up and disappeared?!?”

He started stomping his dirty foot into Lora’s body.

“Daddy… stop, it hurts…”

“No shit it hurts! Maybe a little pain will cure your stupidity!”

“Please… if you love me, please stop!”

“ARE YOU TRYING TO GUILT TRIP ME?!”

He used his body’s entire weight to swing his foot and kick Lora’s head like a soccer ball.

She was sent flying into a wall, blood dripping from her head as her vision blurred.

Despite this, Lora’s mind was clear.

It didn’t even hurt all that much for some reason.

Her body trembled as she forced her body to stand up.

It was the first time she ever stood up during a beating.

She knew it was better to be on the ground when she was being hit, it was better that way.

Yet for some reason, she stood up.

“Daddy… on the nights where you come to my room and sleep with me, you tell me you love me. Is… is that a lie?”

She needed to know.

Did her daddy actually love her?

Or…

“Haaaaa? Love you?”

Joseph actually stopped for a moment to think.

“Bahahahaha! Hilarious. Yeah sure, I love you, I love you the same way I love alcohol and whores! Keep being usable, and I’ll keep loving ya~.”

His face turned even more red than it already was as he thought of the fun he could have.

Lora felt her stomach churn inside her.

It hurt every time Joseph showed her his love.

But she always endured because she believed that this was his love.

Joseph stumbled over to Lora and grabbed her arm, attempting to drag her into the bedroom.

“Since you’re so desperate for my love~.”

Slap!

“…the fuck?”

Lora had slapped Joseph’s hand away.

She no longer felt like she wanted her father’s love anymore.

When she hung out with Bradley and Steve, she genuinely had fun.

A stranger she met for the first time treated her more kindly than her father ever did.

She didn’t understand what love was, but if love meant continuing this life, she didn’t want it.

Her hands started to move without even realizing it.

Lora lightly pressed her finger against some of her spilled blood on the floor and slowly traced it across the floor around her.

“The heeell are you doing?! You’re dirtying the floor!”

Joseph tried grabbing Lora again, but for some reason, he couldn’t move.

Something was restraining him.

He couldn’t see it, but there were arms that extended from his shadows that were grabbing onto him.

Lora continued spreading her blood across the floor.

Eventually, she had drawn a whole circle around her using her own blood.

She didn’t know exactly what she was doing, it was something she just instinctively did.

Almost as if she had done it before.

She started to fill in the circle, with herself as in the center.

She drew stars, triangles and various other strange symbols she had never seen before.

Until suddenly, her finger finally stopped moving.

She was done drawing.

She stared down at her creation.

It somehow felt familiar to her.

Drawing it felt as natural as breathing to her.

She grabbed her head with her hand, gathering a lot of blood onto her palms and pressed it down onto the very center of the circle.

She closed her eyes and felt a flow of energy gather.

The circle started to glow.

Using her blood to draw a summoning circle, and her own body as the catalyst, she performed a summoning for the first time in this timeline.

It was at that moment, Lora collapsed onto the ground.

She immediately went limp, and then silence.

Joseph was suddenly no longer restrained.

Seeing his daughter suddenly collapse, he crouched down and touched her face.

It felt cold to his skin.

But what startled him even more was… she wasn’t breathing.

Her heart had stopped.

“G-god!”

Joseph fell backwards onto his butt.

“She’s dead.”

He quickly scrambled up and shouted out.

“BITCH! Come here! We have to hide this body!”

Lora’s mother scrambled to his side upon his command.

Her eyes widened.

“My… my daughter…”

“This is a god damn mess! Help me clean this up, I’ll throw the body into the trash can.”

“L-Lora… oh… oh my god… she’s….”

“What? It’s not like you loved her. Fuck, if she had to die, she should’ve jumped in a river or something!”

She just kept crying and trembling.

Neither of them noticed Lora’s body subtly shaking at first.

It was only until Lora’s entire body was practically convulsing that they finally turned to look at her.

A black smoke started rising from her body.

“Uhhh, are you seeing this too bitch? Or am I just too drunk?”

At that moment, Lora’s mouth tore open as a giant black hand shot out from it, blasting a hole into the ceiling.

Almost like she was just a mere costume, an abyssal entity started crawling out from her body.

“Uhhhhh, what in god’s name…”

The entity began spreading its long limbs around the house.

Limbs might not be the right word; it was more like a formless liquid in the shape of limbs.

A large smile formed on its massive body.

Then, it opened its eyes.

It’s many many eyes.

An uncountable number of eyes began gazing down upon the mortals.

Oh, how it had longed for this day to come.

Lora had summoned the boogeyman’s true form.

And she gave it only one command, “do whatever you want to anyone here who doesn’t love me.”

For the first time, the boogeyman was given full control.

A wicked grin.

Joseph tried to scream, but the moment he did, his mouth twisted into a spiral, sealing it shut and stopped him from making any noise.

He stumbled backwards until he crashed into a table.

One step.

The boogeyman slowly crawled forward.

Two steps.

Joseph was backed up into a corner.

He couldn’t go anywhere.

Three steps.

Every time the boogeyman moved, the sound of cracking could be heard… despite it not having any bones.

Joseph found a knife that had been on the table and he raised it up.

He was the former knight’s captain!

An aura started to form around him as he confronted the boogeyman.

Four steps.

Its wicked grin grew wider.

It loved struggle.

Five steps.

Joseph swung the knife, but as he did so, the knife spun of control and embedded itself into his arm.

He tried to scream, but nothing came out.

Six steps.

The knife in his arm started to move as if it had a mind of its own, digging itself deeper and deeper.

It crushed bone as it crawled up the inside of his arm.

Seven steps.

The boogeyman’s limbs had engulfed the entire house.

The house was now a living breathing entity.

Eight steps.

This step count is meaningless as the boogeyman was present everywhere in the house.

It could easily at any moment kill anything within it.

Nine steps.

It stood right before Joseph.

It’s grin, which was already wide enough to span across the entire room, grew wider as each cheek stretched outside both ends of the house.

Suddenly, the boogeyman remembered something.

Something that Steve had said.

“I’LL TEAR OFF THAT FUCKTARDS CHILD SIZED DICK AND SHOVE IT SO FAR UP HIS DAMN ASS HE’LL KNOW HOW IT FEELS TO DEEPTHROAT HIMSELF IN REVERSE!”

This was what Steve had said before when he was attacking Joseph.

What a wonderful idea, the boogeyman thought to itself.

And it took one more step forward.

Ten steps.

Despite having no mouth, Joseph’s screams could still be heard from outside.

“That is… gruesome.”

Steve muttered to himself as he watched everything from outside.

However, Steve felt no pity.

If anything, Joseph was more of a monster than the boogeyman.

After some brief shaking, the entire house collapsed.

Steve sat in silence for a couple more seconds to confirm that nothing more was happening before he jumped up and started walking towards the wreckage.

He was going to retrieve Lora.

To his surprise, he saw something he didn’t expect.

Underneath the rubble was Lora being held in her mother’s arms.

Both of them were still alive.

The command Lora gave the boogeyman was “do whatever you want to anyone here who doesn’t love me.”

Considering she was still alive, it likely meant that Lora’s mother had a minuscule amount of love for Lora.

However, she let her daughter get abused all this time, clearly knowing what that bastard was doing to Lora.

Steve grabbed Lora from her mother’s arms and lifted her into his own arms.

He turned away, leaving Lora’s mother under the rubble.

He did not intend on saving Lora’s mother, because he felt nothing for her.

He did not pity her, nor did he feel anger towards her.

This is because technically, Lora’s mother didn’t do anything wrong.

She too had been a victim to her husband.

However, she allowed Lora to be abused.

She knew what that bastard was doing to her, and she let it happen.

Although obviously not to the same extent as her husband, she too shared some blame for Lora’s suffering.

However, Steve knew he wasn’t the one to judge her for her crimes.

So he decided to let fate do its thing.

If she survives, she’ll likely live in guilt and trauma, but if she dies… her suffering will end.

As Steve started walking away, he heard whimpering behind him.

“…kill… it…”

“Hm?”

Steve turned around to see Lora’s mother had regained consciousness.

She weakly raised her finger and pointed at the child in Steve’s arms.

“…it summoned… a devil…! A… a monster… it’s… a monster! Kill… kill it…!”

“…”

Steve had misunderstood.

Lora’s mother wasn’t trying to protect Lora, she was trying to kill Lora but got knocked unconscious due to the collapsing house.

“I gave birth… to a demon… I… I have to end its life…!”

Hearing this, something snapped inside Steve’s mind.

Steve walked over to Lora’s mother and loomed over her.

Steve raised his foot… and abruptly stomped it downwards onto her head, immediately crushing her skull and ending her life.

Her blood splattered everything, dirtying his pants.

Steve panted heavily.

He was not physically tired, but his conscious was.

“Fuck…”

Steve groaned as he turned away, leaving the crushed body behind.

“I fucked up. Even after I firmly made my decision to not get involved and let fate do its thing… fuck. Why do I keep doing this. Pethnor was right, I really can’t control myself.”

With a grim face, he carried Lora away to safety before any guards and soldiers arrived to investigate what happened.

He laid Lora down in a park nearby.

As it was still very early in the morning and the sun still hasn’t fully risen yet, the park was empty.

Except for Bradley who was waiting for them.

“Hey. Did Lora settle everything on her end?”

“Yeah. I see you did as well.”

Steve said as he rested Lora’s body on a tree next to Bradley.

Soon, Lora’s eyes began to flutter open as she immediately saw Bradley looking down at her.

She took a second to gather her memories before sitting up.

“…both our parents are dead?”

Bradley nodded.

Her body was still wobbly and weak, but she mustered enough strength to stand up on her own.

“So I guess now we’re both… criminals now. Since we killed our parents.”

“Yeah. I suppose so. I bet they’ll put wanted posters of us and try to capture us.”

Bradley let out a chuckle at the thought of living a fugitive’s life.

Steve interrupted their conversation.

“No. You guys did nothing wrong. I’ll make sure of it.”

Neither Lora nor Bradley knew what he meant by that, but what happened next was definitely not what they expected.

Steve raised his hand and pointed his finger forward towards their neighborhood.

At that moment a white energy flowed out of Steve’s body.

KRA-BOOOM!

A deafeningly loud thunder sound blasted through the entire region as a massive hole tore open in the sky.

The hole grew wider and wider, parting the clouds as a surge of energy crackled around it.

Steve flicked his finger down.

And then a blinding light illuminated the world.

Two pillars of divine white energy shot down from the sky, piercing the ground.

It lasted no more than a second before dispersing and leaving a gaping hole where Lora and Bradley’s houses used to be.

Steve had condensed the energy in the pillars so it would only affect the targeted area, and nothing around it so the surrounding area remained untouched.

“As far as the world is concerned, you two are dead. Both of your families have been punished by the gods in heaven.”

Both Bradley and Lora stared wide eyed.

They had believed Steve when he said he was the hero before, but they still had some lingering doubts.

This removed all those doubts.

No one other than a hero could display such power, especially of such divinity.

Steve did it so casually too, and he seemed unimpressed by the power he just displayed.

He didn’t even bring up the fact he did that and just immediately changed topics.

“It’d be best if we leave as soon as possible. Don’t want anyone spotting you two.”

Bradley and Lora nodded as their reality was slowly setting in.

They were leaving everything they had known behind.

What happened today was irreversible.

“So, if you two have nowhere to go, why not come with me? Even though I only came here for Lora, I wouldn’t mind taking you as well Bradley.” Steve offered.

Although Lora had already made her decision to go with Steve, Bradley had other intentions.

“Um, actually… I planned on going on a journey by myself.”

Lora turned over to him in surprise.

“Bradley, you’re not coming with me?”

Bradley looked back at her and shook his head.

“Unlike you, I’m not completely innocent. I wanted to explore this world and help people to atone for everything. I’ve managed to tame the undeads, so I think I can do good with them. I’ll be like a necromancer, but just in name. A good necromancer who helps people. Maybe by using the same ghosts that my dad created, to help people… I can make my dad suffer a little less in hell.”

Steve understood Bradley’s decision and didn’t intend to force him to come along.

Lora looked sad though.

“Bradley… will I ever see you again?”

“Why wouldn’t we? It’s not like I’m leaving forever.”

Bradley looked down and scratched his head.

“Listen, Steve said you’ll become a hero in the future. So when that happens, and you become an amazing hero… I’ll come find you.”

As Lora nodded, some of the tears in her eyes spilled out.

“But what if I want to… see you? I’ll miss you if I don’t see you for that long. How will I know if you’re doing fine? How will I know if you’re still alive? You’re just… going to leave me?”

Bradley put on a sad smile.

“I know, I’m sorry. I’d love to be with you but, I feel like this is what I need to do. I’m sorry.”

Lora just trembled as she held herself back from crying.

It wasn’t just sad tears though.

Lora was happy for Bradley.

She knew how much he went through, and likely how much guilt he felt.

So the fact that he’s actually making this decision made her so happy for him.

“I’ll be waiting for you. You better come find me… or else I’ll come find you first!”

Lora declared with determination, causing Bradley to chuckle.

“That’d be great. If you become a great hero and come find me. Well to make it easier for you, I’ll… hm, I’ll make a name for myself. Since I’ll be travelling the world, I’ll probably use an alias. Since I’ll be a travelling necromancer who goes around helping people, I’ll call myself… uh…”

Bradley paused to think.

He wanted to come up with some kind of nickname to give himself since he didn’t want to use his real name as a necromancer.

Well, he wasn’t a real necromancer.

He wasn’t going to go around killing things and reviving bodies, he’ll only be using the undeads he currently has and his abilities to help people.

So he’d be a necromancer just in name.

“A necromancer just in name…”

Just in name…

Just. In. Name.

J.I.N.

Jin.

“Yeah… that’s what I’ll call myself. Jin. Necromancer Jin. Which stands for a necromancer just in name. If you ever hear of the name necromancer Jin, that’ll be me. A necromancer doing good deeds.”

All of a sudden, Steve grabbed Bradley’s shoulder.

“S-Steve?!”

“Bradley. What’d you just say? Repeat that.”

“Uh, what?”

“I need to hear what you just said again.”

“A necromancer doing good deeds?”

“Before that.”

“Um, if you ever hear of the name necromancer Jin, that’ll be me...?”

“…”

Steve stared at Bradley’s face.

Bradley found this quite uncomfortable and looked away.

“Ha… haha… hahahaha! Oh my god. Are you kidding me? Holy shit! Necromancer Jin!”

Both Lora and Bradley were confused by Steve’s sudden outburst.

“Alright, Bradley, you’re coming with us.”

“Eh?!”

“Yep, you don’t have a choice, you’re coming as well.”

“Even after I gave such an emotional farewell to Lora?!”

“Sorry, I didn’t know you were Necromancer Jin. You’re one of the heroes as well, just like a Lora is.”

“A hero?! Me? Can a necromancer even become a hero???”

“Yep. Come along now. It’ll be a long journey, so we got a lot of time to talk as we travel.”

Steve turned around and started marching off into the distance.

Bradley sighed and shook his head.

With no other choice, he started following behind.

Lora held back a smile as she also began walking.

A part of her was glad that Bradley was coming along, even if it was against his will… but she didn’t say that out loud.

The sun was rising in the distance, rays of light beaming across the far lands as the three former heroes who fought Lenier began their journey back to Pethnor’s castle.

And so, Steve had been successful in not only recruiting one, but two of the former heroes.