Metal Suppository

Uli knew well were to find the list of unfortunate names, and stood up without looking at the man in the throne. As he turned around and put his hat on, The Father spoke.

"Lately, you've been behaving rather coldly"

Uli froze. His hand fell to the side, still holding the hat. As he turned around to look The Father in the eye, a little metal cilindre of about a hand in length floated from inside his long, worn tunic, down to his left sleeve. He put it behind his back, aligning it with his left leg, and let the cilindre slip into the wooden floor unnoticed.

"Have I?"

The Father stood up. Slowly, he stepped down the podium.

"You have served me well for the last five years. I'd say you are one of the best children i have ever had. Even without affinities, you have been able to kill every target without a single mistake. Not even once have i heard of a loose end when it comes to you. And only using that toy of yours."

The Father pointed at the long, wooden stick in Siu's belt. Then he continued.

"You've been just like your sword. Unexpectedly sharp" He took another step "Too sharp for what looks like a wooden stick."

As he took his second step, the carriage shook. The horses outside started to neigh, and the naked girls knew it was their moment to get out of the way.

"Should I screw up for you to trust me?"

"I do not like what I do not comprehend. I've been trying to get my head around you. So last time, I mandated you to kill Grevas and..." The Father took a third step and the air started to crackle in front of him. Suddenly, a fire ball appeared in the center of the hot mass of air and moved to the left, burning the wood below "and you killed him like he was nothing. You killed a multi-elementalist mage with a hundred and fifty years of war experience. How? Wielding a pointy stick?"

At this point, the naked girls had already fled the scene. The carriage ceiling was starting to catch fire, and Sui could hear alarmed voices outside. he knew they would probably never try to discover what was going on. It just wasn't worth the risk. Either The Father was in danger, which wasn't something they would cry about, or he was very angry and approaching him would be akin to throwing their lives away.

"You know, I was hoping something like this happened. A situation in which I have no options aside from killing you. Even if I die to your boyfriends"

"And how will you manage to..."

The father looked at him. Terror filled his eyes, pain started gathering between his thighs. A sharp, cold pain. He couldn't tell where it ended. Blood started to form a small puddle at his feet. Something had just entered his body through the backdoor. He took a step backwards, and he saw how the blood formed a swirlpool around a small, inconspicuous, hole, perfectly aligned with the previous location of his anus. Then he stared back at Uli.

"See?" Uli said with a smirk "That is the look i was waiting for."

Terror turned into anger, and The Father raised his hands, throwing the humongous fireball towards him. Still smiling, Uli unseathed his sword, cutting the fireball in two with a single smooth motion. Behind him, the carriage walls exploded; in front of him, the Father face shattered into tears as the metal cilindre penetrated his crystal heart, breaking it into pieces. His dead body fell heavily on his knees, and to the ground. Uli turned around, ready to face the guards, and moved his left hand backwards. The metal cilindre flew from the fat, dead body, and rotated in the air, cleaning itself before returning under his sleeve.

As the smoke cleared, Sui knew something was going on. Someone was attacking the caravan. He couldn't believe how lucky he was. He jumped to the ground while putting his hat back on.

The image of a man happily walking among burned corpses with a smile on his face was the first thing the adventurers saw as the smoke cleared the way. It may be difficult to understand, but death was the landscape he was born in, and to him, the sight of chaos in this very moment only meant one thing: freedom.

An adventurer ran to him with an oversized sword. His strange metal armor was shining red, fire poured from the grooves in his helmet. The adventurers saw him advance towards the robed demon, the silhouette of the warrior blocking their view of the enemy. Suddenly, a sharp silvery line diagonally crossed the red armored figure, and it vanished into the air with a red glow.

Sui had prepared his cape to avoid being covered in blood, but the absence of it left him dumbfounded. When he looked where the soldier had died, only some ashes remained.

"What the fuck?" He said. He rotated his hat, leaving the veil hanging from the back and, to the adventurers surprise, a small and cleanly wrapped cigarette flew from his sleeve into his mouth lighting on its own. He exhaled the smoke and looked again to the little ash mountain that represented the red armored warrior. "I've seen lots of weird things for an eighteen year old, but this clearly takes the cake."

Even his sword was clean. It felt wrong. Although blood was not convenient when it came to personal hygiene, he felt like the job wasn't really done. Also, there was other thing that was bothering him; the guy's companions weren't even mad. They saw their friend being split in half and turning into dust like he never existed to begin with, and they..., they didn't even bat an eye, they were talking among each other with the attitude one takes when a slight problem takes place. Like a sudden rainfall, or a tree blocking the way.

Either way, he could tell they weren't really dangerous to him. He walked towards them with his sword unsheathed. When they saw him coming, they seemed surprised.

" Didn't you cloak us, Jane?" A guy in a purple robe prepared his magical staff and started walking to the back of the group

"Of course I did."

"Fucking useless. Jake, distract him, Jane, buff him and heal him. I will deal with him from" before he could even finish his phrase, a sword appeared out of nowhere and severed the top half of his head. His body vanished.

The so-called Jake ran towards Sui, his axe over his head, screaming in a weird and exaggerated manner. Sui dashed towards him and punched him in the helmet with such force that he blew his head off. He saw, amused, how the head vanished in mid air, along with the body of the warrior. Another guy with a black hood and two red flashy daggers run to his side in a lame attempt to attack him from the back. Sui didn't even bother turning around, he tilted his body to the side, leting his flying sword, that was already coming back, pierce through the hooded guy's head. Only the Jane girl remained alive. She looked at him with an annoyed face and fixed her blond hair in a relaxed manner. No trace of fear in her eyes. She raised her hand, and a little blue light shone in her eyes.

"S-class bosses this early in the run? What a fucking joke" To Uli's amazement, she disappeared without him having to kill her. He stood there puffing at his cigarette. He spat it to the ground, retrieved his sword and moved on, wandering about the girl's strange words.

Uli walked further into the caravan line. Some of the strange guys were fighting the guards of the wagons killing them on the spot. They didn't take anything from them, but they were clearly looking for something, or someone, among them. When he noticed a big group coming, he ran to the side and hid behind a pile of horse corpses. Somehow, dead horses made him feel sad. He wondered, too, how in the hell did they pile the horses the orderly way they did. And how fast. He had been less than five minutes inside The Father's wagon. Or at least thats the way he felt.

He looked at the group. It's leader was a big guy in a weird dark suit with red shiny stripes that moved along his arms and legs. They looked... alive. The guy raised his hand just like the blond girl did. For a second, Uli thought he would disappear, but he didn't. He just stood, there, looking at the blue screen. After a few seconds, he turned to his weird looking retinue and spoke.

" The System tells me its over" Said the big guy in the black suit. "It says the objective is dead, but we were the only ones that arrived in this area. It shouldn't be possible. "

A brown skinned girl wearing some short of blue uniform took a step forward

"The only explanation is that someone killed it from inside. What bugles me is their behaviour. Demons are supposed to be much more violent than this. This guys seemed..., organized."

Uli noticed the team wasn't very cohesive. They seemed like they were forced together, in a way. They were competing. The reason behind that was that, even when they were discussing what looked like an important thing, the rest of the group was dispersed along the caravan. He wondered how was Jax doing.

Suddenly, a scream cut the atmosphere, and one of the demon guards came at the group from behind, stabbing one of the adventurers from the chest. When they turned to face him, another two emerged silently from the weeds, and attacked the guy in black. The guy in question turned around and chanted some gibberish. Seconds after, a giant blue lightning pierced the tree ceiling and fell upon the demon soldiers, burning them into a black crisp. one of them, still alive, cried in pain and put his hands on his face, touching his burned, smokey skin. By that time, the first assailant was dead too. He grabbed the lightning-cooked one by the horn, and raised him in the air, bringing him to eye level

"Where is The Father?" The black suited guy asked. One of the guys in the team stepped forward and raised his right hand towards the soldier. A green light-like liquid poured from his fingers, and flowed into the demon's nostrils. The guy stopped crying in pain and looked at them with his eyes wide open. His burned skin had started to heal rapidly.

"Where is The Father?" The guy repeated.

The soldier looked at him and mumbled "Will you let me live?" The black suited man nodded.

"The wagon at the front of the caravan. Its big and fancy. You won't miss it."

Unsurprisingly, the black suited guy wasn't planning on taking prisoners, he launched his right hand into his chest. The demon's muscles tensed, his face trembled in horror, and he witnessed, still alive, how the man retrieved his crystal heart and threw it to one of his companions, who just grabbed it and put it in a bag. It didn't even feel serious. It looked like a bunch of friends looking for mushrooms in the forest. The man tossed the corpse to the side.

"This one survived a lightning. His beast core must be somewhat valuable" He made a signal to his three closest companions, the black-skinned girl, and the weird healing fluid guy, to come forward. "The rest of you, gather the beast cores , and make sure they match the number of corpses. If you find a thief, take note of his name before ending his run. We will report them to the academy when we get out of this shithole."

The three adventurers approached the area where the remainings of the luxurious carriage were burning down. Uli dived into the jungle and followed them behind the scrubs. He was so curious about this people. He couldn't comprehend the way they disappeared and the way they talked, and was determined to know the reason. He stopped for a second, with a dumb smile on his face. He realized the way he was acting. He had a desire, and he was following it freely. The thought alone made him excited like a child. Not like a Hidden one of course.