The tale of the brave knight (III)

The traitor was still impaled by the spear made of ice, unable to break free while his beasts were wreaking havoc in the background.

He was the only one in the hero's party who dressed in peasant clothes, without ever bothering to buy a new armor or weapon. So he was powerless to the mage's attack.

A sorrowful look covered the hero's face as he walked past the remains of his former comrades, his jaw trembling as he stared at the corpse of the mage. He hesitantly reached out to her with his trembling hands but later stopped himself.

"Why?" He asked the beast tamer. His voice was trembling, yet that question alone raised the tension in the room a hundredfold.

Even I could feel the tension in the air; it felt as if I was walking on an extremely thin thread that was about to snap. It felt as if the entire world had stopped moving, just to let those two have a conversation.

"Ha, you're not so perfect and infallible as I thought then; even you, at the end of the day, are just human." The beast tamer seemed pleased to see the state the hero found himself in. His voice slowly grew weaker as he was losing more and more blood.

"You haven't answered me."

"You know, I always envied the likes of you, born strong and confident, with the ability to learn anything taught to you on the first try… If I was only half as good as you, then maybe my life could've turned out for the better." The beast tamer began spouting nonsense as he began to look up towards the cloudy sky.

"Don't change the topic; tell me, why did you do it?" The voice of the hero was unlike the usual; it was cold and emotionless, something I had never heard before from him, as he was quite an emotional individual. It removed all the tension yet made me feel uneasy about him; it was too unnatural for it to feel right.

"It's useless; no matter how many times you ask, I won't give you the answer you want me to say. I'm not going to give this last moment of mine, you monstrous freak. You won't get your good ending, not after all the atrocities you've committed… Do you think just killing everything in your path will get you applauded? Fuck you!" The tamer said before he began vomiting blood.

The hero rapidly unsheathed his sword and rushed forward to execute the traitor, but just as he was about to do so, Helena intervened by using her mirror card.

"What are you doing?" I shouted at her.

She used the card demonic corruption to heal the beast tamer and turn him into a demon so that he could put up a fight against the hero.

A wave of darkness covered the skies and turned the moon red; all that energy was then shot down and coated the beast tamer's body, granting him horns, wings, a long tail covered in metallic scales, turning his skin dark, and splitting his pupils in four.

I used the card "duel" to make sure she could no longer interrupt the fight between those two individuals.

I saw the flesh of the demon's right arm melt, reshape itself, and then harden once it had taken the form of a sword.

The demon screamed loudly as he charged forward, ready to clash swords with the hero. Crying tears made out of blood as he swung down his blade.

The hero, on the other hand, moved past him, completely ignoring the sword of the corrupted beast tamer, stabbing his right biceps using the sword. He then spun behind the demon, violently extracting the sword and then stabbing it into the demon's left side.

The hero lowered his head to avoid a backhanded fist, extracted the sword out of the body of the demon, and hit him one last time under his chin, using the pommel of the sword.

In such a short and extremely fast exchange of blows, the hero had brought the traitor to its knees, yet I didn't feel satisfied with it, not one bit. I wanted the hero to make him suffer, to make the traitor pay for his crime.

When I had the chance to get a proper look at the hero, I realized his once pure face had vanished; his eyes no longer glimmered with hope and wonder; they were void, empty of any emotions.

He didn't hesitate for a second before beheading the demon that was once his companion; he then pierced his chest using his bare left hand and retrieved the pulsing heart of the demon only to crush it in his palm.

When he turned around and faced us, I instinctively took a step backward.

W-what? Why am I trembling? Why is that illusion scaring me?

"Aren't you going to play your card? It's your turn!" the old man asked me while tapping on my shoulder to get my attention.

"My turn? Ah, yes, my turn; let's just put an end to this." 

I had no more cards in my hand; my new hand was simply waiting on the table. It contained four mirror cards and a card showing a winged human hugging a deer called angelic embrace.

I decided to play one of the mirror cards and copied the knight.

I had no idea what something like this would've caused; I didn't care anymore; all I wanted was for the story to end now that it was ruined.

The salty smell of the ocean mostly masked the smell of blood, thankfully, but even that faint smell could nauseate me; I felt like throwing up. Instead, I simply swallowed whatever was rising towards my mouth and endured since everyone else seemed to have no problem dealing with the smell.

The card of the hero simply allowed him to unleash a series of devastating long-ranged attacks using his sword; they swiftly dealt with the dragon king, the kraken, and the defensive walls of the port city.

Of the many humans that departed, the hero was the only human who landed on enemy soil. All the other ships had already sunk down, and the remaining humans were now left to be sea monsters' prey.

End it, I'm no longer having fun; this is just… I don't like it!

I saw the exhausted hero fall on his knees, taking some time to recover his breath while the demons were desperately running away; they were giving priority to women and children; the men stayed behind to buy time.

"Just go, ignore them, don't waste more time, kill the demon lord, finish your mission, and return a hero." 

"What did you say?" Helena asked me.

Oh, did I say it out loud?

"Nothing, I was just… It's nothing." I responded.

The knight dragged his body forward. He was barely able to walk, much less hold his sword properly, yet he didn't give up, nor did he stop. He simply kept advancing forward, slaying every being that got in the way until, at the end of that path, his sword finally pierced the heart of the demon king.

When he returned, however, it was too late; the princess had already gotten married to the foreign prince and had two kids with him. He had become the most hated person in the kingdom for leading countless men to their deaths when he could've simply resolved the situation all on his own.

His family suffered persecution, and he received a death sentence.

Why hasn't the story stopped? Why do they hate him so much? He just saved the world; now the threat of the demons is gone, and everyone can rest easy knowing that everything will be fine.

The hero ultimately chose to slay his own kind after he had enough of the persecution, killing everyone he could until there was nothing left.

Only then did the illusion finally dispel itself.

"Does it always end so tragically?" I asked the old man.

He was shuffling the cards back into a pile and then hid them inside one of his pockets while everyone else was stretching themselves.

"It depends. I saw much happier stories being shown, some with good endings and some with tragic endings; everything depends on our choices."

Mph! Is this his way of preaching to me? Something along the lines of cherishing every moment? Is he really using this moment to nag at me? Do you know that one word of mine could get you killed? Are you not scared of it?

I wanted to say something, but after locking eyes with the disfigured man, I simply remained silent. After a small pause, he smiled at me, then switched the focus of his attention back to his daughter.

She was yawning a lot and had been secretly crying all along, so after wiping away her tears using a paper tissue, he took her in his arms to bring her back to her room.

"Excuse ourselves." Was the only thing he could say to me before heading away.

From my room, I was able to take a small peek at hers and saw that the room of the girl had many teddy bears, mostly on the larger side, with one on her bed that was bigger than her. One thing that bothered me was the absence of colors.

The more I realized how colorless the life of the common folk was, the more I missed my home.

I wonder if my father has finished dealing with those thugs. I wonder who will make it here first, mother or father? Once we're back, I want some ice cream… Maybe some hot chocolate and a soda; that would be nice.

Once the man put his daughter to sleep, he headed downstairs, never to be seen again.

This is incredibly dull; with a broken remote, I can't even enjoy some alone time. What are my options?

I took a peek outside and saw another building next to ours, so I checked the outside to see what the neighborhood looked like.

The building we were currently in looked to be a two-story building the man owned, with a small garden where he was raising a bunch of plants such as some tomatoes, some peppers, and cucumbers.

Around us there were mostly four- to five-story apartment buildings, all lined up in front of a large stadium; every house seemed to have well-decorated balconies; most of those buildings had a little space for plants to be cultivated; some gardens were big enough to host large trees.

There wasn't a need for artificial light to see, yet there was no sun to illuminate the place; there weren't many people around, and the few that were there were happily chatting, sitting near small bars, drinking coffee, and enjoying light snacks.

It was in complete contrast to what I imagined the fracture to look like. I always imagined it to look like a war zone, constantly in conflict with demons, with strange superhumans battling in every corner just to earn their living.