They’re… yep, that’s definitely Anna’s dead body, and Jack’s, and Mathew’s. I should be feeling something, but emotions elude me. All I felt was water desperately clinging onto my eyes, and HER. She was the leader of a small cult we were tasked to destroy, dressed in only the most elegant black priestess robe outlined on its edges with a shiny red film of metal. The only thing that didn’t scream evil about the woman in front of me was her dark brown hair, which was natural, and also distinguished her from every other person who reincarnated on earth.
“You control yourself very well, adventurer. I thought you’d be–” I rushed straight at her, and could only watch as my sword missed her by the slimmest of margins. “Ohoho! What a rambunctious one we have here.” I ducked, or fell down on purpose if you want to be accurate, in time to avoid a swing of her staff. The mud stuck to me, but not hard enough to stop my foot jumping upwards to hit her face while I picked myself up with my hands.
“Fuck!” I could only let out that small scream as she hit my knee and sent me right back down. I used the momentum of my fall to propel myself upwards and turned around only to not see the woman, and to elbow the empty air behind me just in case she was there. She, in fact, was not there. She was behind me, but much further away, readying a blast of red energy that would’ve had me face the same fate as my companions if I got hit by it.
I swerved out of the way of it just in time only to realise that it wasn’t a blast at all. It was a pole of energy stretching out for at least fifty metres. She began moving it towards me, and I began dodging. A duck here, a jump there, but I was getting nowhere by simply evading it. If the beam was truly made of light, Jack’s sword should’ve been able to reflect it away. My one was far too rusty thanks to my ego and stinginess, so his spending habits might’ve actually saved me this time.
“Stop dodging, little boy. Join your comrades in the fate you most deserve. You’re only making my eventual direct attack come sooner the more you run..” Of course she talks like that. Did I really expect anything else?
SHOULD NOT HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT THAT! My back hurts! Holy shit my back hurts! I have to keep running, but my back is about to make me give out any second now. Thinking about anything she says is a distraction. I jumped towards Jack’s corpse, knowing very well that a part of my foot would be singed off as I jumped. I threw Jack away and grabbed his broadsword polished to the point where it might as well have been a mirror.
I stuck it into the ground and hid behind it as the beam collided with the sword. The attack split into several more, all going away from me, and towards her general direction. Then, the beam just stopped, and a slow, meticulous series of claps began.
“Good. Very good. You sacrificed two parts of your body just to survive a little longer. What’s next? Are you going to let me snap your arm off just so you get to break your sword on my neck?” I pulled Jack’s sword out of the ground, looking in the direction where the woman should be, and once again, she was gone. I elbowed the empty air behind me again, and this time it wasn’t empty. It was so not empty that I felt a hand grip my elbow to block my attack. “All you can do right now is delay me until I run out of patience, and I must say, you’re becoming rather boring.”
I threw Jack’s sword at my free hand, then glided my foot on the muddy ground to whip around and strike her neck with it. She didn’t even bother to block me, and my sword just bounced right back as if her neck was made of the toughest steel out there. Her smile could’ve been infectious if I wasn’t focusing on falling down yet again to avoid her staff, only to feel the heat of a spell beneath me.
“I fear this is thy end little–” I grabbed her leg, knowing that her strength would allow me to use it as a pole, to lift the rest of my body up. “You’re clever, I’ll give you that.” She kicked me away, and I stabbed the ground with my own sword to use it as a platform for me to jump off towards her. I didn’t care if her strength was unmatched. I didn’t care for anything but the blind feeling of revenge that was first to show itself in my robotically determined heart. I flew right at her at a speed that would surely even strike her shocked.
“Alright, I’ve seen enough.” She teleported again! I turned my head, only to see shadows of her tangible form. The spell had worn off by now, but so did the slippery mud that allowed me to evade her grasp. I began spinning once I landed, using the weight of Jack’s blade to keep up my ever increasing momentum. “You just don’t know when to give up don’t you?” The woman said before teleporting close to me and stopping the blade with her free hand. “This has lasted long enough.” I tried falling down again, but she could see that coming from a mile away.
All that was needed to knock me out was a hit from her staff.
I jumped forwards when I awoke, only to feel a chain that wasn’t there pulling me back into my chair. I pressed my hands against my neck and… shit, a slave mark. I had heard too many of the most degenerate adventurers from other worlds talk about the mark to not immediately recognise it. It varied based on what one wished to do with their slave, but mine was almost blank, with only a circle trapped by chains being chiselled into my neck.
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“At ease, adventurer. I wouldn’t want you to damage that pretty head of yours.” I looked to my left to see her on the opposite side of the carriage, and felt a tremor as we rode on the destroyed roads of Romania. The magical apocalypse had left our governments defenceless, and if America barely lasted a day, the EU stood no chance. Reincarnators like her had profited from our demise, and now she dared to be courteous towards me? “Why’re you looking at me like that, little one? Does the greatestness on display make you jealous?”
“Are you stupid?” Her smile didn’t falter. “Because I know you’re not, so why did you ask me that?” Both her eyebrows raised themselves, perceivably involuntary at first, and purposeful after she was back in control of herself. “I’m looking at you like that because you put a slave mark on my neck.”
“So you’re not just a suicidal adventurer. I honestly expected some full hearted speech about my evil or whatever the last ten people I found interesting talked about, but you gone straight to the point without being predictable. You might actually be what I’m looking for.” She slid closer to me, so we’d be face to face. “You see, I’ve already reincarnated before. One hundred and twenty eight times to be precise, and the goddess has enshrined within my contract another hundred reincarnations. I’ve been good sometimes, I’ve been bad most of the times, I’ve won, I’ve lost, but I never found a permanent companion through my travels.”
“Sounds like a you problem. I am not going to be that companion. I would actually rather end myself than endure that.” She sighed, and her right cheek twitched a little, presumably due to her not being allowed to ramble for an unreasonable amount of time. Her hand moved forward slightly, before choosing to rest on her knee. She was already going to change my slave mark to be something more specific, and was probably just going to ask me a question before doing so, whose answer would be used to justify it to herself.
“Oh well, you asked for it.” Wait… what? She just moved her hand forward, and stuck her nails into my neck to create the outlines of a rose with my permanent sunken skin.
“A rose?” I said after a solid minute of pain.
“Yep! It’s specifically made for dumb people who don’t know what’s best for them, like you. It stops you from attempting to reincarnate by any means, having free will when I grab the chain around your neck, and will mess with your mind a little to stop you from believing stupid stuff if I want it to.” I grabbed my neck, trying to stretch or deform the mark to no effect. It was as if the blood-painted skin was a stone, immovable and indestructible.
“So that’s it? You’re just going to brainwash me into siding with you?” She laughed at my response, before leaning back into the cabin wall.
“No. I enjoy the resistance, the back and forward, the arguments. I just like to know that it’s all fruitless in the end. It’s… comforting. Now, I’ll need you to wear a scarf to hide that mark since the current company controlling this area has banned slavery. Nobody bothers to actually enforce it if the symbols are hidden though.” She tossed a red and black scarf at me, which I started putting on. “And that wardrobe of yours, it’s atrocious. You practically reek of impoverishment.” I looked down to see my usual set of armour plates tuck onto a kevlar vest. It was the most practical thing a swordsman could wear. What was she expecting me to wear? A suit and tie?
“What exactly is so wrong with it?” She sighed, then opened her water flask right before the carriage shook again. The water practically jumped out towards her, covering her face and neck.
“Excuse me.” She took her staff, and summoned a wave of fire to crash into her to boil off the water. She didn’t even look affected as the fire faded. “Where were we again? Oh! Your fashion sense, right. You’re wearing a hybrid armour set! Not to mention the few pieces of actual armour you wear are half broken. It’s like you couldn’t choose between a robe or a suit of armour, and chose the worst of both worlds. I’ll have to re-read Emmet Mcdermott’s first book to know what exactly to do with you. You seem to be similar to him in all but competence.” I didn’t know whether to take that as a compliment or not.
“Are you just saying all that because I’m not wearing red and black? My armour is both flexible and protective, unlike a robe.” She scoffed and looked out the window of the carriage to see the newly renovated city in the distance.
“Well, yes. Red and black are objectively the two best colours. Anyone who isn’t a paladin knows that. What other colours come even close to their magnificence?” She paused just long enough for me to think of an answer, but not long enough to let me say it. “I’ll spare you the response. There are NONE! If you think otherwise your brain is deficient and lobotomy is the only solution to fix you.” Ok, so that’s what she’s insanely petty about. Better not annoy her by disagreeing with that. “And a robe just looks better. You don’t need to worry yourself with practicality anymore. You have me to keep you safe.”
“Of course.” I should’ve just let her kill me.