Chapter 32 - Sorry I’m different

A good distance North-West of the Capital is a little village called Wonsu Village. It's known for its expertise in exterminating ghosts and is usually a very idyllic and peaceful village with a big shrine and brightly lit lamps at night.

(A/N: Location here!)

Ghosts are beings that live of people's life force and like to bring fear and terror to their prey. There are all kinds of ghosts with different appearances, but they are mostly black ghastly beings with a purple glow that will shine more depending on their strength.

But the merry village's happy mood will soon be destroyed as some people with a terrible intention are lurking all around the village.

"Is everything ready and set up? We have to be fast and swift in killing all the villagers. The higher-ups want this village gone because of their specialty in exorcising ghosts. As their previous plan failed in Maquarry City, they decided to remove Wonsu Village before war breaks out fully." Asked a tall and muscular middle-aged man with long and wild, brown hair. His name is Kasai.

"Yes, the seals are planted all around the village and are ready to be activated!" Replied his right-hand man who is a tall and fairly built young man with short, loosely hanging white hair.

"Good, tell the others to move out to their positions, and wait for the signal." Ordered Kasai, the white-haired man who is about a decade younger than Kasai.

…

Inside Wonsu Village is an 18-year-old girl with long blackish-purple hair that extends down her back, with some strands ties behind her head, thin eyebrows, brown eyes, and a scar on the right side of her face that crosses the bridge of her nose. She wears a traditional Miko outfit with a white-colored top and a red-colored bottom, along with brown-colored leather boots from a Magic Beast.

(A/N: Reference here!)

She was sitting absentmindedly on a stone touching her scar with her fingers.

"…I wish I didn't have this scar. Everyone is avoiding me like a plague because of it. But I don't regret saving that little girl. I'm happy that she's safe!" This girl's name is Gina and she's a shrine maiden that was taken in after her parents disappeared when she was just a little girl.

While she was touching her face, a tremor suddenly came and with it a big stone wall raised all around the village, making the villagers terrified and the mages scared. A few seconds after, a red light began lighting up around the village before red beams shot towards the village, making explosions all around.

Near one of the red lights stood Kasai looking at the damage they are doing. "Keep firing!!" He yelled making 1/4 of the mages around the village fire with even more intensity.

Back inside the village, Gina saw explosions happening everywhere. Horror, it was pure horror for her. From the stone she was sitting on, she saw the shrine she has been living in for years blow up, and her fellow shrine maidens and priests are crawling out from the shrine, or what was left of it after exploding.

She wanted to save them for the incoming ray coming at the shrine again, but before she could raise her hand and use her magic that she was normally hiding, it already exploded and killed them. She could only watch the remains of them blasting all around with an utterly terrified and sad expression. None survived.

While explosions happened all around, the surviving mages of the village coincidentally gathered where Gina stood rooted on the spot with her hands raised. Even some brave magic-less people came and wanted to help with weapons in their hands, while the rest wanted protection.

It all happened so fast the mages of the village couldn't react to the attacks from all sides and only managed to save the nearest people around them and bring the few survivors here.

The mages began voicing their opinions. "We can't just stay here and take the attacks. We should try to break through their wall!" An old woman said stopping the younger mages from discussing among themselves that lead to nothing.

"But how? We don't have enough firepower to destroy that stone wall!" A mage pointed out.

"I can destroy it…" The old woman said, surprising the other mages. Most doubted her, but they didn't have any solution themselves so they had to trust her.

"Let me help you!!" It was Gina who volunteered, making the old lady sigh.

"…Gina, can I count on you keeping the villagers safe?" The old woman asked with a hidden meaning.

"Yes, leave it to me!" She exclaimed with a very serious face suiting the situation they are in.

…

While terror rained down on Wonsu Village, Rofta was standing outside the wall. He intended to get into the village and wait for Marc, but he met this earth wall obstructing him. He concluded it was all around the village and was about to climb it with his bare hands. The wall was rugged making it possible to climb, but if he falls he will break most of his bones.

Thus he began climbing slowly, but steadily. He could hear the explosions, but he didn't get impatient or hurried up. Something was wrong behind this wall, he knew that but if he falls he won't be any help anyway, so he took it slow.

Rofta is a scaredy-cat compared to Marc, but he's also insane in Rofta's mind sometimes, mostly. But he's fun…

As he reached halfway, he could hear someone screaming his name from below.

"Sup Rofta, you are a pretty bad climber! You are going at a snail's pace…" The voice scared the shit out of Rofta and he nearly jumped away from the wall and fall.

He looked down and saw Marc who just arrived a little while ago. Marc looked up the wall intending to climb it too, then he saw Rofta halfway up and decided to catch up to him. He easily climbed it, or more he jumped and disregarded safety to gain speed.

"Are you crazy? Can't you announce your presence like a normal person, or do you have to scare the shit out of people every time?" Rofta tried to kick Marc in the head, but he just jumped sideways and held on to a good spot with one arm, dangling like an idiot.

"Hehe~ I do, it's in my blood!" Marc laughed at his friend's terrified expression.

"Fuck, just fuck…" Rofta cursed while beginning to climb again, trying to ignore Marc's monkey climbing.

It didn't take long for them to climb up. Marc could have been much faster if it wasn't for him losing his grip, falling a few meters before he managed to get hold of the wall again.

Rofta nearly died of a heart attack a second time.

When they reached the top and looked down, they saw black dust flying with the wind and an old lady and multiple other people were laying on the ground, dead. Ruined houses everywhere their eyes could see. It looked like a war zone.

…

"Damn, that old lady nearly burst through. Good, we were prepared against her or they would have escaped!" Kasai said while breathing heavily with many wounds on his body. The old lady used everything she got in one spell. Her spell called upon the clouds and transformed it into a 10-meter high big bird that burst down on the weakest link in the wall. But before it hit, Kasai stopped it with multiple layers of thinner walls before he took it head-on and stopped it from destroying the wall.

The old lady died of overuse of Magic Power, but Kasai wanted to make sure she was dead and shot an earth spear into her heart.

Despair, they felt despair. The villagers knew they would die, and gave up any resistance. Even the mages began giving up one after another, that is if they didn't already die by an explosion.

The only person who didn't give up that easily was Gina. She used her magic to gather sand with iron minerals in the earth to make a small black dust-looking dome around them. The dome was almost too small to fit all the survivors in it, showing Gina was inexperienced with her magic. In fact, she was hiding it, but she promised the old lady to protect the villagers, so she revealed it.

"Don't you dare relax yet! Keep firing!" Kasai yelled to his tired men before he used his Earth Magic to make a giant arm with a mace in its hand, about to crack this little black dome open and finish their mission.

The mace descended with high force and hit the defensive spell Gina had up.

*Boom*

Against Kasai's expectoration, his magic didn't do a thing aside from making a little dent that healed itself less than a second later.

"What defense!" Kasai exclaimed, and began to hit the same spot multiple times while his underlings kept firing the only spell they have been taught.

*Boom*

*Boom*

.

.

.

He kept hitting the dome with everything he got himself. But he saw it wasn't enough.

Gina though felt her knees very weak and was about to collapse inside the dome. She kept pulling and adding new iron sand from the ground to rebuild it, but she was about to reach her limit.

The villagers were scared, but of something else right now…

Kasai turned to his right-hand man with white hair. "Use your magic and boost me. We need to finish soon, or we won't have a chance to escape the country!"

The white-haired young man just nodded and held Kasai's shoulder before mumbling "Multiply".

The big earth arm and mace began to grow in size in bulks. It didn't slowly grow, but seemingly instantly got bigger in small intervals. In the end, the already big arm just grew to 7 meters high excluding the mace. Normally it would have been bigger, but his Magic Power was running low from fighting the old lady.

"Let's see if your little shell can take this," Kasai said out loud, hoping that the people inside could hear it and induce fear.

*Boooooooom!!*

And the black dome was blasted open, making powder flying all over, just like a cloud of dust.

Gina and the people were revealed to the enemies shortly after. She was kneeling on the ground while heavily breathing. The odd thing though, was that the villagers she was protecting were distancing themselves from her, seemingly more afraid of her than the surrounding enemies.

"Devil!!" Exclaimed a magic-less woman after seeing the evil-looking magic Gina used.

Gina felt sad that the people she was protecting now looked at her with fear.

"So it comes to this? Guess people acted just like she thought they would now that they know it…" Gina thought all this while looking at the dead old lady meters away, who was the only person who knew exactly what happened to Gina when she was younger and how she got the scar on her face together with the Sand Devil Slayer Magic that she just used.

Devil Slayer Magic. A very misunderstood magic in this era and especially in Wonsu Village. They believe everything related to devils should be eradicated as they are evil beings.

Kasai who was about to finish them off, hesitated when he heard the word 'devil' and realized that the very tough dome spell earlier might have been the very rare and forbidden Devil Slayer Magic. Greed filled his eyes for just a second before he managed to shake it off. Greed is every man's enemy and he has a job to do. Besides does he want to be everyone's target?

"Earth Spikes!!" A lot of spikes came out of the ground in front of Kasai, and he was just about to send them forward to end the defenseless people in front of him who acted very idiotic in their last second of life, just because of some superstition they have.

When all spikes were out of the ground, he waved his hand and the spikes began moving toward Gina and the others. They couldn't do anything as every mage from the village is dead, leaving only magic-less people and a drained and sad Gina.

"I'm the Devil's servant and I deserve to die…I want to die!…No that's a lie, I wanted to experience so many things. Friends, I never had any friends…" As death neared Gina, she realized that she didn't want to die and had so much she wanted to do, but won't have the chance to…

"Sorry, I'm different."

***

(A/N: Remember Jose Porla? Well, his magic originates from another country now…)

(A/N: So I added Magnet Release (Naruto) as a Devil Slayer Magic. I'm not sure if I got it right…Let me know what you think of it.)

(Words: 2167)

(A/N: Read 1 chapter ahead on -> bit.ly/2MZTn3p )