“Demon!” The knight captain jumped away with incredible speed after his blade failed to make me budge. “Such a foul thing shouldn’t even dare to exist near me. Your courage and ambition have led you astray, great warrior.” As my aura began affecting me, everything started passing by faster. The captain’s speech accelerated to the point where I could barely even understand what he was saying. It seemed that my perception of time sped up as my body’s biological processes slowed down.

I managed to snap out of the stiffness the transformation put me in and ran forward. I could barely manage to keep up with my own speed as my eyes and perception of time impeded me. The world turned into a soft blur that left my own senses useless. I would have to calculate my each and every move if I wanted to use my power to its full potential.

My initial charge was met with the captain’s own charge. My palm connected with his sword as our auras tried overtaking each other in a light show that consumed the entire town. We both backed away and looked at each other, but I was the one who moved first.

I ran forward, right past him and punched the ceiling of the tavern to shake the entire establishment and break the windows. I then activated my “Bullet Hell” ability and forced every last shard of glass to rush into the gash in his helmet as me and the captain clashed again. Sure, the glass shards weren’t exactly bullets, but if the goddess that controls magic was trying to win me over, she’d probably be more lenient with her rules.

The captain tried moving away, but I held his sword so tightly that he had to let it go and focus his aura on the glass. I grabbed the sword by its handle and charged at him while he was handling the glass. He had no choice but to face me and my aura with his bare fists. His palm bled as he barely stopped the blade for a couple seconds. First, I cut through his skin, then pushed through his muscle, and finally, forced his bones to crack and give way to the blade.

“Knights! One of you! Give me a sword!” One scared knight ran away from their battle with Christian only to be engulfed by my aura and slashed back into the building. “Dammit! How does a peasant like you have such mastery over the art of swordsmanship?” Now that he mentioned it, I wasn’t even thinking about how to use a sword. It was like the feeling I had when I got good enough at art that my pen started feeling like an extension of myself. It must’ve been the Revifier’s fault. She was most likely trying to prepare me for her eventual conquest of my allegiance. I could’ve already heard her saying ‘See? Doesn’t the feeling of using a sword feel better than just seeing your bullets explode your enemy?’.

Me and the captain clashed again, but it wasn’t even a challenge at this point. He couldn’t do anything as I kept slashing at him from all angles. I was slowly getting used to my faster perception of time and was planning three moves ahead of time so that I didn’t even need my senses to fight. The captain’s armour and aura kept him in the game for a little while before it gave out right as I pierced his heart.

“How… Unexpected. A demon I cannot vanquish with a mere thought… I hope I’ll get to meet you in another lifetime. I’ll vanquish you then, demon.” He immediately turned to dust and I took back the attribute of unchanged from my body. I looked at myself, and my body was still burnt, but now my veins had weird little bumps in them, as if my blood also slowed down and coagulated at several points.

I ran to the library as Christian was finishing the last knights off. I had to tell Anna and the nano-chatte about the good news, and I also had to get the nano-chatte to fix me before anyone else could see me like this. I entered the library, ripping out one of the window curtains and wrapping it around myself like a toga. I go into the main hall only to see… nobody. I could see several books about magic and clear traces of teleportations gone wrong, but I couldn’t see them.

“Shit. Why did you two have to disappear now?” I said as my body started failing me. I tried walking out, but stumbled right before reaching the door. I could hear Christian walking closer, but instead of opening the door for him, I crawled up to it to hold it closed.

“You in there pal?” I could hear him try opening the door, but he stopped as he felt resistance.

“Look, I don’t want anyone to see me right now. My skin is burnt and my armour isn’t here to hide it. Please just stay on the other side of the door.” Christian dropped down, resting his back against the door.

“Oh. My bad pal. Didn’t mean to intrude. You know where the ginger is? Haven’t seen her in a while.” The… ginger?

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“I mean… she was supposed to be in here, but I can’t find her. Do red-heads even count as ginger?” Gingers were more orange than red.

“Aye, probably. If you can’t find her, then she probably skipped town. She never seemed like the type of person to value others.” That wouldn’t make sense. If she wanted to leave alone, then why blackmail me into going with her in the first place? The nano-chatte wouldn’t have gone with her either, so it’d be here.

“No, she wouldn’t do that without telling one of us about it. She’d need somebody to create an excuse to why she left that’d buy the people of this town some time. She’s not a sociopath.” I said while still staring at the empty space ahead of me. The scorching heat felt a thousand times worse than usual until I covered myself entirely in the curtain.

“I wouldn’t be sure of that one, pal. I’ve been with her for a long time and she’s really only been interested in that damn sword magic thing. She doesn’t even drink for fucks sake! Bloody woman thinks alcohol is beneath her while suffering with sadness that wouldn’t be there if she drank.” Christian said with his heavy British accent, and not the posh British accent. It was more like the pub accent mixed with some Scottish.

“How did you guys even meet?” Christian paused after I said that. He took a deep breath, and began his story.

“Well, I was out on a vacation to California. I never visited Disneyland, and wanted to see what all the fuss was about before I got married. Guess I’m never getting married now because my sweetheart and entire fucking country is in flames.” I could sense the bitterness even without seeing his face. He nearly choked on his own tears before calming down.

“Anyway. I was with a military convoy after the whole thing started. They claimed whatever was left of the government peaced out to Greenland or something and left everyone out to get taken over by those magic cunts. Then, she showed up. Bright lady wearing nothing but her hair descended down like an angel and burnt up the trucks and tanks we had and then roasted the soldiers alive… fuck. Sorry pal, it’s just… nevermind.” He paused, seemingly stuck in thought.

“And then?” I said.

“Oh! Yea. She went up to me and was like ‘Oh, poor soul. You’ve been deceived by these people, right?’ with the kind of tone that screamed ‘agree with me or you’ll end up like them’, so I said yes. She led me to a pillar, got me to go in, pick my magic, all that stuff. She only did it because I fit whatever image she had in her mind of a big dumb brute to act like the defence for Sam. The ginger got roped into it after Sam took a liking to her, and she thought sticking with us would help her in the long run. That’s really it.” He paused again, and returned to his usual attitude after a good ten minutes of silence. “What about you pal? What’s your story?”

“I was a streamer. I wasn’t too big, but big enough to make a living off of it. Mostly just played niche games and read horror stories. I went into the pillar, found my armour, got blessed by two gods and a half, helped a couple soldiers before they died, found the president dead, and travelled the world until ending up here.” I omitted some stuff of course. I didn’t want him to know too much incase he told Sam about my armour’s true nature, and Sam would then rat me out to the Revifier who would have to strip me of the armour just to appease Sam.

“Hold on there pal, what do you mean half a god? And where’d you even find the president? Didn’t he flee with the rest of the government?” Christian said.

“A demi-god also blessed me. The lady you met was actually the goddess of change, and the second god I met was the god of… whatever the opposite of change is called. The half I was talking about is a demi-god or something. My armour said it’s a mortal so strong he can contend with the gods. And no, the president–” I was cut off as a portal appeared in front of me. Anna got flung out of it without the nano-chatte on her. “Anna!”

“Your armour!” Anna looked back and tried going back into the portal but it closed before she could make it in.

“Oh, so that’s her name.” Christian said.

“This isn’t the time for jokes, you fat slob! Ian, the Revifier took it.” I immediately got serious and reapplied un-change to myself.

“Get in here Christian. We’re going on a rescue mission.” The Revifier made a mistake by threatening my machine.