I awoke in a dumb stupor with my face pressed into the hard wood floor. The events of last night slowly flooded my mind; causing a great turbulence within me. The events of last night only prove that, and further exemplify that, the relations between demons and humans is at a breaking point and war is likely to break out by the years end. I could, with all my power, hold the two sides at bay for an extra year or so but that would only be delaying the inevitable. I need to hurry with my plans as it seems it won’t be long until the gears of war begin to turn once more.
I pulled myself up in a slothenly manner and looked around the room I was in. The walls were covered in a salmon pink paint. The ceiling was clear white and the bedding matched the aesthetic and colouring of the rest of the room. The bed itself was for a small child.
Wait a minute…
Even though I was tired last night did I really sleep in that little girls bed?
Well it matters not; I need to finish up things here and get to the east gate by high noon to meet back up with Vinoessa. As I collected my thoughts; two voices’ cries echoed throughout the INN. The voices themselves were calming given the amount of reciprocity they held. I gradually moved towards source of the almost tragic melody; if you could hold cries of anguish under this title.
I opened the door to the room holding the two draconians. The cries of the draconians gradually declined into a slow and sombre song of short gasps and swift wales of indistinguishable joy or sorrow, all while retaining the prior melodies euphonic nature. After a long while they both calmed down to a point where I felt it was ok to interject.
*Cough*
The two draconians jumped at the sudden sound and the shock of being pulled from the dream into the real world. They both turned their heads towards me showing me there tearstained appearances. The little girl hid behind her mother, poking her trembling eyes out at intimidate intervals; this high level of cuteness would make even a rock want to pet her [1]. The mother gazed towards me with a mix of emotions spread across her face. Her gaze was somewhat reprehensive; her disposition was fearful and her facial expression was one of pensive thought. She wiped away her residual tears and took my que by standing up.
“I must apologise for my unsightly appearance, welcome to the Evit Inn” she said; getting the self-imposed formalities out of the way.
“… The Evit Inn, Quite a strange name… Also I must apologise for breaking in last night but your condition warranted, and required, immediate action” I said to clear things up.
She let out a slight gasp of realisation.
“T-Then yo-“
”Indeed” I said.
She looked to have just had an epiphany as if a vail had been lifted from hazy uncertainty. She lowered her head and exclaimed
“Thank you! You truly are my benefactor”.
Though it was the normal thing to do, was it not? Well I don’t wish for any gratitude; the fact that she is alright is all the repayment I need and exceeds the amount of gratitude I deserve.
“There is no need to show any gratitude; as long as you are ok there is nothing else for me to worry about.”
She stepped back and bowed once more:
“Regardless I must thank you. Oh! How rude of me, I forgot to introduce myself. I am Able. Able Evit. ”
Able brought out the child from behind her who had become a lot more docile and was looking at me with a slightly curious gaze.
“And this is my little demoness [2].”
Able let out a smile of utter fulfilment, as if she were looking at a concatenation of her entire world and her entire life’s work in one go.
“Her name is Novae Evit.” Able added.
“A fitting name, by the way I’m Vacare” I replied.
“It is a nice name. Anyway Vacare you must be hungry.”
How did she k-
*Rumble*
Oh.
“I guess so.”
Novae made an *Un* sound while nodding her head in agreement.
Though I can go quite a few years without eating with the use of magic it is a truly pointless thing to do unless absolutely necessary as it takes away one of the better elements of life. Though I cannot be called a glutton I do enjoy foods and taking that aspect away because ‘It makes thing easier’ is an invalid reason for me to do so.
Able, Novae and I descended the stairs to the tavern below. The place had been cleaned up during the use of [Event Nullification]. Novae and Able were both surprised to find the tavern as clean as it was; as it was in a state of utter disrepair only a few hours ago. Novae then smiled and ran around the room in an ecstatic joy while breaking away from her prior stupor.
“Novae has a deep attachment to this inn and so do I.” Able said as she made a melancholic smile and looked at something that was not there or was long gone.
“Anyway I must apologise I digress. I will make you a meal as fast as possible” she said as she broke her gaze from whatever she was looking at before.
Whatever is troubling her is none of my business I don’t want to bring forth past woes as I have so many, myself, already.
At that moment a hard dull thud came from the door I put the magic barricade over before. It seems I was too tired to be bothered to add a sound dampening function to the barrier.
A loud and deep voice roared out
”GET OUT HERE BITCH WER NOT DONE WIT YER YET!!!”
The man’s bellowing voice bypassed the door and resounded throughout the room; petrifying Able and Novae. Well that is understandable given the events of last night.
“IF YE DON’T COME OUT IN 10 SECONDS IM BREAKING DOWN THAT BLOODY DOOR!”
Well… you trying to break down that door is similar an ant trying to pull a vault door off its hinges. Anyway, regardless they were going to be beaten down anyway.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
“Boss I don’t think she be listenin”
“Can we have some fun with her?”
“ye boss ‘fun’ he he he he”.
The laugh was laced in a heavy lascivious intent. It made, even me, slightly disturbed.
“TIMES UP YER BITCH WERE COMIN FOR WHAT YER OWE US”
I look towards Able who is hiding Novae and asked:
”Protection racketeering?”
“Indeed.” She aptly replied.
“Boss dats the kid we wer talkin about.”
“Oh his voice was that of a babies… AND YOU WERE AFRAID OF HIM? ”
*smack*
“OWWWWW!”
The voices of two hooligans resounded throughout the room once again.
I opened a window and overlooked the gang of men standing outside the Inn.
There were men of various statures and sizes covering the street as far as the eye could see. There must have been at least a hundred men. This was to the point of the gang being better referred to as a small militia. All of the men looked to be of varying ages but all were human. They all also emitted a seemingly oppressive and unlawful aura.
Towards the centre of a group; a notably larger man was looking ruefully at one of the men I had seen departing from the INN last night.
As I looked over the group of ruffians, thugs, thieves and bandits I thought to myself. Should I kill them all?
Typically they would be executed for their transgressions, though that would be after a trial. A conflict of ideologies had formed within me between my conditioned morality and the ideologies of a feudal world. One that was raised in a nation that attempted to construct itself on egalitarianism, where possible, could not live properly in a world where might makes right. I was given three options.
1. Retain my set of ideals and live in a feudal world.
2. Change the ideals of this feudal world into the ones I want.
3. Regress into the ideological values of this world.
I know that this is not a simple situation; and I should not blankly slit it into false dichotomy but these are the three extremes I can think of taking. If this were to be me before the war I would have most definitely picked option 1 but, as it so happens, though I had faced many smaller wars before that one, the war changed me. Cured me of my naivety, let’s say. The atrocities were not only done by the humans. In the last days of the war I, with many others, did things we were not proud of. But as war gets to that stage, ironically, the core reasons for fighting to begin with are washed away within the disorder and chaos; only the rule of kill or be killed stands strong.
This was especially true for us and if I did what I did inside peacetime I would have most definitely been sentenced to death or exile. But war gives a justification to the atrocities for a lot of people; including myself. It was a battle for the survival of my entire race after all. The crucible of chaos would eventually re-forge any good man into something they would only see in there nightmares beforehand. This even occurred to me as I must have killed millions directly and tens of millions if not hundreds of millions indirectly. This is to clarify to myself that I am by no means good but wartime greatly warps morality to begin with. I feel that the responsibility of those who perished by my hand cannot lie with me as they would have died to the mechanics of the world to begin with. Though I acted as a conduit for this travesty; was the entire demon race just to await there inevitable demise because the world deemed it as necessary?
[The Hero] deemed it as necessary?
I still feel remorse and regret over every death I caused but I must remain strong until the war is over. [The Hero] and I are mutually exclusive existences and the war will not end until [The Hero] is gone forever. So I will adopt a middle ground between option 2 and 3 where I will slightly adopt the ideals of this world until I can normalise the morality I want to see.
I think that that is the best thing to do with the situation as given. Though I myself still dislike killing, this world deems it necessary. If you offer mercy to people who are capable of such atrocities only more deaths will follow and continue to mount. Therefore, with my ethical qualms being justified to a degree that I won't have any apprehensions about it in the future, there deaths are imminent.
Though I soon after; let out a self-mocking chuckle. It happened again, did it not?
In moments of high criticality or danger I have some new "epitome" and thereafter have a long inner monologue that causes me to go into deep thought for a moment.
In my moment of indecisiveness Able had gone up to the large brawny man after releasing the one way defensive barrier that I had set up last night. [A one way barrier is a barrier that can be nullified with the application of force to one side. The other side acts as a typical barrier would otherwise.]
I used my abnormally high agility to get to where Able was as fast as possible. The new body I have is surprisingly agile and is, if anything, an improvement over my old body. I stared at the larger man after, to them, appearing out of nowhere. Thereafter, I made a stern declaration with absolute confidence.
“Your executioner has arrived.”
[1]GEO-GEODUDE. Cuteness is justice.
[2] Bibliography shift from chap 4-5 ish. (don’t care)
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I hope you enjoy.
leave your advice and feedback below.
Oh and this has not been entirely proof read (will do later).