Chapter 58 - Assassins and Blackheart (2)

When I regained consciousness, I found myself tied to the trunk of a small tree. Inspecting myself, I found that my weapon and armor had been stripped from me. Thankfully, I had not been stripped naked; the black clothing the eldest had created for me had been left alone.

Looking around, I saw women and children, whom I assumed were the kidnapped victims of the town. I could also tell that I was outside of the forest, most likely at the other side from whence I had entered.

The women and children of the town were not tied to trees like I was. Instead, they were huddled around in six large groups with four dark elf raiders assigned to each group.

Out of the dark elves who were not on guard duty, a dark elf woman came walking toward the spot where I was bounded. Even walking normally, I could observe the litheness and natural grace to her gait.

“I must ask you a question...human. How would you like to die?” she said in a sibilant voice.

Well, that was quite direct, I thought to myself. How amusing that she assumed right away that I was the one who decapitated that dark elf, whom had most likely been a scout. I could, however, see where she was coming from. The evidence, after all, pointed all toward me.

I answered the pretty dark elf woman in a calm voice.

“By your dainty hands, of course.”

“Hah! I admire your composure, human. Make sure to hold onto it while I break you. You shall soon know the meaning of why I am known as Blackheart.”

I did not reply to the woman as I was somewhat relieved that the dark elves had done nothing except carried me here while I had been unconscious.

“No more words, eh?” she said mockingly. She made a small shrug with her shoulders, causing her metal pauldrons to move along with the motion. “No matter, you shall soon be singing words to me.”

Silence was my only reply to her small speech. I was calmly observing the situation I was in, for I could not act too rashly and create unneeded casualties. Thus, I would bide my time for now and await Blackheart's next move, though I had a hint of what she was going to do next.

Blackheart unsheathed a small dagger form her waist and twirled it around with her right hand.

I watched this circular motion indifferently as I listened to the dark elf speak in a low, threatening voice.

“Do you know, my sweet, that humans are social creatures?” Blackheart whispered while continuing to play with the dagger in her hand.

“For example, if I do this!”

The dark elf suddenly stopped twirling her dagger and threw it toward the nearest group of humans. The weapon struck a woman in her back, eliciting a cry of agony from her.

The spectacle of the human woman slumped down on the ground and moaning in pain caused the other dark elves to laugh gleefully.

“Do you see what I mean now, human soldier?' Blackheart continued speaking without even looking backward to see what she had instigated. “Do you not hear those sympathetic, human cries?”

As she said this, my face remained blank and impassive. Her cold cruelty toward the human woman in an attempt to frighten me had barely affected my emotional state. I was not the slightest bit distraught. It was just another reminder of my changed humanity, not that I had one in the beginning even before my reincarnation, looking at it from a somewhat ironic perspective.

“How unusual...you do not seem to be the slightest bit fazed, soldier. Perhaps you are too used to seeing bloodshed?”

Hearing that somehow made me remember one of the sayings of the Shail Kingdom military, which had been common sense to me when I was a human in this kingdom.

How did it go again?

'Death is lighter than a feather, but duty is heavier than a mountain. So you better do your damnedest best doing your duty so that you can hope for a light death.'

Yes, I believe that was how it went.

This saying, however, did not apply to me. And my patience was growing short. I would like to think, in some misguided, feigned humane notion of mine, that the cause of this shortage was due to a human woman bleeding to death in front of me...but reality was not kind.

I realized that nothing good would come from waiting; this was the true reason why my patience had been cut short.

“I grow short of this farce, dark elf.”

Even with my weapon and armor confiscated from me, even with my whole body tightly bound by thick ropes to the tree, I still easily broke free of my restraints. The ropes had dug deeply into my skin with my breaking free, but I felt no pain. No marks had marred my seemingly weak human skin either.

Before the dark elf named Blackheart could even form a surprised face, my right hand had already found her slim throat. Then I gripped hard, crushing her windpipe. I released my death grip on her and the dark elf woman slumped down onto the ground. Then I quickly sprinted toward the nearest dark elf raider after looting her sword, leaving the woman known as Blackheart to await death as her breath slowly slipped away.

This was how the first of my many kills went as I began my methodical slaughter of the dark elf raiders. The looted sword in my right hand became a tool of death, and the screams of the dark elf raiders only confirmed my assertion.

I was merciful in my slaughter, however, giving each dark elf raider only one deathstroke. It did not mattered even if five of the raiders grouped up against me at the same time—only one well-aimed slash from my looted sword, and the dark elf was dead or dying.

Then the inevitable thing happened.

After finally killing ten or so of the dark elves, the remaining ones got the bright idea that taking some of the human women and children hostage would cease my slaughtering. But I knew for a fact that it would be folly to give in to their demands, for once I stopped, the vengeance of these raiders would be swift and cruel.

The personality of Blackheart, who was a mere corpse now, could attest to that.

Casualties occurred.

I could not change this result. I was not an all-powerful being. And even if I had used my magic and went all out, casualties would still occur. And if I had transformed into a dragon...well, let me just say that there would be puddles of blood instead of intact corpses on the ground.

The reason the casualties happened was because the dark elves were sure that I would stop dead in my track if they killed some of the hostages. To their dismay and to my indifference, I only continued killing them mercilessly, perhaps even quicker, since I was a little motivated.

What also contributed to the casualties were the mentality of the dark elves who knew they were in their last living moments. It was a take-everyone-with-you-to-your-death sort of mentality. And I suppose I could sympathize with them a little for that.

By the time I was finished, I counted the bodies of twenty-two dark elves and thirteen human casualties, a few of them children. Some of the dark elves also had ran away, fleeing from fear. Plus, it was the sensible act to do in the face of greater power. I could not chase those few who had fled, for I was reluctant to abandon the human hostages, as there were still other dark elves alive who had chosen to stay and fight.

The slaughter and the personalities of the dark elves, for some reason, reminded me of the incident with the lich. To be specific, it reminded me of the incident where I had been almost killed and the appearance of the voice slicked with pure darkness who had called himself my other self. Strange that I would think of this incident in such a place as this, but I put it out of my mind. I had a task to focus on still.

I searched a while for my longsword and my black armor. It took a while, but I finally found my longsword underneath a dirt-covered cloth near a campsite, where a campfire was still in its preparation stages; kindling, tinder, and wood logs. Such and such.

It seemed to me that the dark elves were already preparing for the night, and at the moment, the sun was beginning to set. Night was rearing its dark head.

My armor, though, I never found.

Strapping the longsword to my waist, I looked around and could see that a majority of the human women and children were huddling together in fear. Only a few had relieved looks in seeing themselves rescued from the dark elves by a strange white-haired man—me.

I tried to appear as unimposing as I could, my hands spread out in a calming gesture and my outward pose took a nonthreatening stance. The truth of my appearance, however, could not be covered. The blood stains on my clothing and my slightly glistening scarlet hands could not be hidden. They were in plain sight.

I realized then that I was quite foolish and that I should have just stuck to appearing commanding, calm, and imposing; the ideal image of a soldier, I suppose.

I cleared my throat loudly, catching their attention. My voice was the embodiment of calmness as I spoke.

“I am Verath, the commander of the squadron of soldiers who have come here to subjugate the dark elves and help out your town. Let me be blunt. Rid your fear and stand up, for there are still some dark elves left. By my count, I have only slain twenty-two of these dark elf raiders, so I am pretty sure there are more left, even if we do not count the ones who fled.”

I waited a second or two for my speech to sink in before continuing. Then I bluntly said, “Now then, I would like for the adults to each gather a weapon from the dark elves and any items that were stolen by them.” I paused for another short moment before continuing. “Any questions?”

A small girl who looked around seven or eight raised her trembling hand.

“Yes?”

Her small lips were quivering as she spoke in a tremulous, soft voice. “Mommy's...dead.”

Two words said in a whisper I could barely hear. That was all it took to make me lose my words. I calmly looked at the small black-haired girl, who had burst into tears at the end of her sentence. She was standing timidly beside the fallen body of her mother.

The small girl did nothing. She only stood there crying.

I felt—

What was it? Was it regret? No, it was not exactly that. Yes, it was more like sympathy.

Call me a hypocritical, cold bastard, but somehow I felt more sympathy for this little girl,whom I did not even know, than for all the human lives I have taken. It was almost close to how I felt when my human father and human life had been taken from me.

“I am...sorry.”

I do not know why I apologized to the small girl, for the three words were useless—they would never bring back her mother back.

A woman nearby finally obtained the courage to shake herself out of her fear and hug the child, softly shushing her in a small, placating voice.

Rain would have been perfect at the moment then, for the girl had set into motion a chain of crying women and children.

Indeed, rain would have been a perfect guise for the sadness. It would have certainly helped, for the atmosphere of loss had the power to even cut through to my dampened emotional capacity.

I could never cry, though. Nor could I ever feel such sadness as these humans. My mind just did not have the capacity for it. Even as a baby or a child, I had been told that I was unnatural, for I did not even cry during birth.

Quiet, too quiet.

Tears were so unfair...

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By the time I found my way out of the forest and arrived back at the frontier town of Listace, it was night, and the twin moons, Seli and Vali, were shining brightly overhead.

The townsmen, along with the women and children, ran out to greet the returning group behind me. The atmosphere was a blend of joy and sadness.

On my side, my squadron of soldiers gathered around, eager for details about what had happened. I didn’t embellish the tale. I bluntly told them that I had killed twenty-two dark elves (though I left out my encounter with the four-horned female). It had been easy to come up with a small, believable lie about how I had fainted.

Simple, really. I told them a dark elf had sneaked up on me and knocked me unconscious.

At first, my squadron was skeptical about my claim of facing off against twenty-two dark elves. But the evidence and the witnesses left no room for doubt.

-----

My squadron and I stayed at the frontier town for one more week, combing the nearby areas and forests for dark elves.

We killed seven raiders in that time.

As for the other remaining dark elves, we found their dead bodies in a strange area of the forest where the ground looked to be upturned, as if something monstrous had erupted from the ground. All the soldiers agreed that the bodies were days old and had been killed cruelly. Decapitations, that is to say.

Only I knew the truth of the matter: it had been the work of that four-horned woman.

------

[280 Days Remaining]

Our journey back to city of Asolance took three days as our pace was a little slower on the return trip; we had, after all, time to relax since our pressing quest had been finished.

Although the reason the journey took longer was partly due to our slow pace and needs to relax ourselves, the real reason was because it rained for the most of the three days we were traveling.

Funny how Lady Fate, or was it the whores of fate—the stories and books I had heard and read were quite varied on this—decided that it should rain on our return trip.

An assassin also attacked me on the second day of our journey. This time, however, the assassin was not covered in a faint pink-colored magic. No, this female assassin was covered in yellow magic and shot balls of fire and tongues of lightning at me.

Luckily, none of the soldiers in my squadron had been hurt and we had repelled the assassin smoothly, causing her to flee.

On the last day of our return trip, when we were nearing Asolance, another assassin attacked me. This time, the assassin was male and had no magic.

Well, not exactly. The assassin hiding on top of a tree did not even have a chance to attack me.

I was, after all, on my guard now and had sharpened my senses to that of my dragon form. I spotted the assassin far away and from a distance away, made my magic slowly extend across the ground and carefully shot an earth spike toward him.

Once I confirmed that the assassin was dead, I carefully evened out the ground with my earth magic and buried the fallen assassin's body into the earthen ground.

I did all of this from a distance away, somewhere well over a hundred feet, if I had to estimate. That was the limit distance to my developing magic—I knew that I still could not efficiently draw out the full potential of my born and set magic capacity, so it could still improve.

With more practice, I would learn more about my magic. It was a duty I would not shirk.

I also wondered what I had done to incur the wrath of so many assassins.

Hah. Bloody ashes and whorish fate.

Thankfully, the rest of the journey was peaceful and I arrived at Asolance without trouble.

It was time to report the result of the subjugation to the Third Minister of War.