new chance (2)

Right now, among the many kingdoms still intact, there were literally hundreds of over-powerful guys. Sorcerers, heroes, saints and sages, fighting the enemy every night, or defending fortified cities that lined the front lines, filled with soldiers to defend them tirelessly.

But eventually they would all fall. The great extinction was going to strike them as surely as a natural disaster.

The first time he had believed, like so many others, that his actions could make a difference in the war and save this world, he had tried to survive, and when he could he had tried to protect the people around him. But if there was one thing that experience had painfully taught him, it was that he had been naive.

This war was impossible to win. How foolish of him to think otherwise.

Monsters and demons fell upon them in almost infinite numbers as if the Nightmare Gods themselves were pissing in their faces from the sky! They would have had a better chance of putting out a forest fire by pissing on it than by winning!

The truth was cruel, he was stuck on this world and condemned to watch it be destroyed again.

Condemned to watch again the faces of the people around him being twisted by horror as they are torn apart and eaten alive before his eyes.

Condemned to watch again as others beg him to finish them off while the demons eat their flesh slowly and methodically, piece by piece, before breathing their last sigh of relief when death finally wrenches them from all the horrors.

Condemned to know that those he meets will eventually be devoured, tortured, or used for experiments. To see them sewn alive and magically kept intact, imprisoned in a life of endless pain, to form gigantic golems and titans of flesh.

So what was he to do? Should he try to save the world?

No.

Aside from the many people who deserved to die, whether it was the people of Earth or the people of Yvelmore themselves, there were certainly many people who deserved to be protected or saved, and there were many of them. He did not believe that all the others deserved to be sacrificed because some unworthy of living garbage had acted or made unacceptable decisions.

But he also knew best how useless any struggle was. He had no chance of saving anything. As a veteran of the final war, he knew full well that he could not make a difference.

I'm sorry, Aleria, but... I can't do something like that. Don't blame me for that, you should have known that it was totally impossible for someone like me to accomplish what you wanted to do.

But could he just give up like that? The answer was obvious. He wouldn't let his life be taken so easily.

So the simplest thing would be to become as powerful as he could, so that he could take as many of those sons of bitches with him when he died.

He had to become strong, so that when desperate times came, he could endure them.

He has to become strong, so that he could protect those who were kind to him.

But above all: live a comfortable life!

If he wanted to avoid living a miserable life, the only thing he needed was to be strong.

At this very moment, in the kingdoms, sectarians, traitors and incompetents who would be responsible for the worst acts in their darkest hours were working in silence to bring about the fall of the kingdoms, while many armies were under the yoke of incapable and complacent leaders.

All this while he had his ass in the mud and his guts, these dirty bastards had probably lived a life far too comfortable and opulent, and that was unacceptable!

Was he going to let them live a comfortable and luxurious life? Not a chance. Whenever he could, saying hello to them and stealing their stuff before throwing them on a battlefield seemed like a good idea to him. He didn't know what to do for the moment, but to create a better destiny, it seemed like a very appropriate first step. And then it would be a good opportunity to improve his lifestyle.

Except that for the moment he was as weak as a virgin and innocent girl before the sword of Excalibur. Focusing again on his surroundings, the fat priest finished his speeches and the group was ready to be evacuated to go somewhere else.

(Is it too late to apologize? Shit, if only I had known, I would have stayed quiet and silent.)