CHAPTER 25 -TWO PAWNS-
CHARLOTTE BAMFORD
“How long are you going to keep staring at me?” Said Noah with an embarrassed face.
I snapped out of the daze shaking my head left and right before clapping my hands to my cheeks. This startled Noah as he asked me if I was okay, to which I responded with a simple smile.
We really came a long way huh? Remembering how Noah searched for days restless for Alter among the burnt and collapsed buildings. His eyes filled with tears as his hope seemed to dissipate little by little. The huge eyebags he had at the bottom of his eyes, spending restless nights searching until he would find a clue or a piece of Alter.
But now those days are gone, he was now given a new chance to search for Alter. Not in the collapse pieces of the building but in a new dimension, However, that required for him to get stronger than what he was. He had to leave his loved ones behind as he sought strength to help his first friend from the academy, the decisions that were given to us were not easy.
Telling us that we could probably never come back, getting stuck in a dimension where there is another race and not even knowing how they live over there.
These memories played in my head for a while until I decided to push them in the back of my mind, picking up a notepad and pencil and then began to write what I saw.
I studied the same sculpture for an hour long, looking at each detail that it provided and wrote it down. Noah tried doing the same but got bored in the next thirty minutes or so.
These sculptures showed many things such as a human boy and demon girl.
The human boy was abandoned since birth, he was raised by the streets and nothing more. The boy went into the garbage dumps to search for food.
While the demon girl was nothing more and nothing less than the princess of the demon race. She woke up to delicious foods on her table including her family, the demon royals.
However, both races hated each other and started a full on annihilation against each other. Both of them were dragged into the war, fighting hopelessly against the opposite race.
During one of the battles, the boy, a soldier, fought in the front lines along with his friends. The horde of enemies appeared after one disappeared, until a battalion that had general rank soldiers.
One by one, the boy’s comrades fell to the bloodied terrain with the other bodies. The battalion’s force didn’t diminish, not one single bit. But the boy didn’t back down, instead he fought with all his might, all his will to stop the battalion coming into his home kingdom.
Nevertheless, the boy was unsuccessful.
Even though he took down two generals, more still came to be in front of him. He possessed no power, no knowledge of mana, or mana manipulation. All the boy had at his position was a sword that became dull from the enemies he striked down, the bloody blade gave fear to his enemies as they saw what destiny awaited them.
The demon princess on the other hand, was in the back lines as the acting commander. Her insights of battle strategies far excited those around her, even her father, the demon king.
Her subordinates didn’t seem to agree with the king’s decision, instead they trampled over her and blamed her when something went wrong. The only thing that the princess did while she got scolded was to accept it as a way to advance, but her subordinates didn’t see it that way instead they saw it as if they were being mocked by her.
Their anger reached a limit where they thought it was a good idea to trouble the princess to the max, leaving the demon king no other option but to de-rank her to soldier and send her to the front lines.
Their commander had sent a scouting team over the mountains, trying to find the human army that was advancing to their main base. In those scouting ranks, there were the unhappy subordinates infiltrating and alerted the commander personally that the human army was already far away when in reality they were closer than expected.
The army attacked at night, no sound was made, but only the sound of crackling.
The commander noticed too late this attack, ordering the remaining troops to fall back while they still could. Some brave warriors stayed back to buy the fleeing one's time. Humans and demons attacked each other without hesitation, no remorse, not mercy.
The tents that were set up, burned down causing the surroundings to cloud in smoke, making it hard to see on both sides. Nevertheless, the princess stayed back and fought alongside the other demons. Only picking off a couple off, her swordsmanship began to fall.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Her sword play was one of the strongest in the demon kingdom, but it wasn’t the most practical when it came to constant use.
This particular swordsmanship was a double edge sword. It brought success for the user, and yet it brought misfortune to the user too. After using the sword play, a great amount of fatigue will hit the user until they can’t use the style ‘til they have rested.
Knowing this, the commander still decided to stay and fight with all her might…
She was then later taken prisoner after being overwhelmed by the one human, a kid.
In their fight to the death, the kid displayed no fear, no emotions. Swordsmans are able to feel the opponents emotions as they cross swords, but the princess didn’t feel anything but a giant void of pure darkness.
His strength was far more than her in every way possible.
After her capture, the decrease in the demon army’s force began to be noticeable to the human army. The human army pushed their forces to the border of the demon kingdom and started their attack.
While the princess was kept in the dungeon in the dark, the merciless kid strived through the battlefield killing anything that opposed him, no matter the size or color. That is when four particularly strong demons approached the battle and faced him, the kid with no emotions towards the outside or inside.
No matter how strong the four demons were, they stood no chance against someone who has nothing to lose. The four demons that confronted the sole human kid were called ‘Marshals’, strong beings that could even destroy kingdoms like nothing.
One of the marshals suffered an unbearable loss, the knowledge that he built up on mana over the years collapsed in front of him as the human destroyed his mana core.
The emotionless human casted a curse over the second marshal, being unable to wield a weapon ever in his life no matter how much of a will he has. Leaving the only way to lift the curse to a high rank angel.
Seeing as the human couldn’t be defeated one-on-one, the two remaining marshals immediately ganged up on the uncaring human, hoping to stop the monster that didn't look human in their eyes.
Yet, they were met with the same fate as the first two, unable to use their most loving thing…
As the in-human boy arrived at the doorstep of what appeared to be the throne room, he noticed that the only one in there was the demon king, alone.
He questioned whether it was a trap or not but then he remembered the power he had, no one could match him, ever.
The boy walked forward to the demon king without any care at all, until. The demon king asked the boy if his daughter had died in battle, which the emotionless boy responded with a simple ‘no’. The demon king then continued.
A row of sentences were engraved into the walls instead of sculptures.
“Is she doing okay?”
“She is in one of our most protective dungeons, in the capital of the kingdom. They give her three meals a day and while having the privilege of going to the restroom.”
“...Is that so? Say kid… what do you think that the human kingdom will do with the demons after I am defeated?”
“The king said that there will be peace, and no more wars.”
“Do you think he will live up to his word?”
“Even so, that’s what I’m fighting for.”
“What you’re fighting for? No, I know damn well why you are fighting for.”
“What do you–”
“You are fighting because of your old self…”
“What are you talking abou–”
“The you before you reincarnated told you it was the only way to live for the sins you’ve committed! The many innocents you have killed with your own hands because of the revenge that drove you to do it.”
“H-How do you know that!?”
“That is because I was the one who brought you or should I say reincarnated you into this world after you died.”
“Huh?”
“Because of that achievement, the killers of my wife came to me and offered me something irresistible. It was to become a god and make something entertaining for them.”
“I rejected their offer along with their sense of entertainment.”
“Why did you reject their offer?”
“When I experimented on reincarnation, I didn’t have a daughter much less my wife. My life was as lonely as you are right now and then. My only reason for living was to experiment on reincarnation.”
“You might not be able to understand now but maybe just maybe you might understand in the future, when you get a wife and daughter.”
“Why me? Why was I chosen? Why was I reincarnated into a world where I will continue to suffer?!”
“Was I the lucky one for being randomly chosen when I clearly didn’t want to?”
“Is that what you think? That you were chosen at random to reincarnate into this medieval–mystical world? No, you were not chosen at random, you were not lucky.”
“You and your ‘original’ birth world were chosen from the moment both of you were created.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that you have been a pawn of entertainment the moment you were born into the modern world.”