Chereads / Tale of Bahamut / Chapter 33 - Chapter 33: Vengeance is Best Served on Fire

Chapter 33 - Chapter 33: Vengeance is Best Served on Fire

Junior stopped before the doors of the manor, and Bast leapt off, shoving the door open as she entered, a crowd of curious villagers looking on with confusion.

'Why was she going to see Jonathan?'

'Where has she been?'

'Where was George? And why did she look different?'

A gathering of the town's people was happening around the manor as they questioned what was going on, only to hear a an explosion as a fireball ripped out of the roof!

One of the crowd exclaimed, "this is too much! Is that monster using magic against his own fiancé?"

Grumbles and condemnations spread. Jonathan wasn't seen as good, generally he was disliked as an arrogant noble, but he'd always been careful about his crimes to the point where it didn't enter the public eye in conversations casually...

However that night he had felt drunk on the power of finally advancing to become a mage capable of spells!

And now...

"You! You bitch, how dare you run from me-!"

Bast simply opened her palm... and shot a spear of light through his evil limb he had hanging out from his actions upon the maid.

He stood in stunned silence as he stared at his member, impaled.

"Ah..." he gasped slightly.

And then he looked up to see a chilling and terrifying smile on Bast's face as she raised a hand skyward... and blew the entire roof off the room.

"BFAMP!" Heat hit him like a wave flying out from the explosion of fire, and he was tossed back, landing heavily on the ground and grinding the solid light into his flesh more down there.

Finally the pain properly hit.

"Ah...AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHGGGGGGGGGGGGH!"

He screamed as he cradled himself, unable to focus enough to even attempt to breathe in world energy to cast a spell, and he only looked up when a foot entered his field of view.

He shakily looked up as Bast bent down over him, and whispered in his ear.

"You will watch as I burn it off you so you can never again hurt a girl. You will watch as I burn down your house and destroy your riches, and you will suffer after I burn away your legs and arm."

"And I will leave you a beggar and cripple, who's mind will be tortured by the memory of the pain brought by your own evils."

Bast leaned back, letting him see the rage and anger in her face as a few tears fell.

"And you can do nothing to stop me."

The villagers might never forget that day.

The most bone-chilling scream they'd ever hear in their entire lives came from that part of the manor that had exploded, and it cut off as the person screaming tore their own throat and vocal cords with their agonized voice.

'...'

"What the fuck was that?!"

"Is he torturing the poor girl?"

"We can't stand for this! Knight lineage or no, we should do something!"

"You want to go challenge a mage capable of making a girl scream like that?!"

"Urgh... But..."

"We're just commoners. What the hell are we going to do?"

"I see someone!"

Everyone shut up.

And then their eyes almost fell out of their heads as Bast walked out unharmed, dragging a legless torso by its one remaining arm.

"Sorry to disappoint, but only a sniveling shit-stained coward could scream THAT pathetically. And I've never been anything but brave." Bast said stone-faced as she dropped Jonathan's now-mute body onto the ground.

"Wh-Why... why did you..." a townsperson asked.

"He's a rapist. A power-abusing rapist who abused and used every woman within his reach."

Silence as the woman of the crowd found fear and shock in this as many of them took a step back, while the way a few of the men AND woman looked at Bast had clearly changed.

Such is the way of people. Shitty, shitty people.

But a few looked shocked, but quickly enraged.

And for one couple... their faces went white as the woman began to cry.

The man's face went white, then red, then white again.

Finally he walked to the shaking body of the maimed Jonathan.

He leaned over and spoke, loud and clear for the village to hear, not on purpose, but because he'd forgotten they were even there.

"I was proud of my daughter for making money. For getting work. I encouraged her to do well, and felt confused as to why she seemed withdrawn."

"I told her to stop being sad about working, it's a part of life and she could get over it.

He clenched his fist.

"You... you did it didn't you? To her? To my Clarissa? My daughter?!" The last sentence he roared in a broken way, tears falling as he screamed it.

Now it was so dead silent a coin could be heard if dropped.

Bast kneeled beside them, and put a little light magic into Jonathan, just enough to make him conscious and aware through the pain without actually healing anything.

Jonathan's eyes focused on the man above, his brain addled from being freed from the pain for a brief moment.

'Huh? What is this commoner doing in my face?'

As if his brain had reset, the very memory of the last day was gone and he forgot what was going on, in a half-lucid state.

The man looked at him.

"Did you r*pe my daughter."

Jonathan's eyes shine with recognition realizing who this man was.

And then his mind turned to the question, then to his daughter, and through that train of thought he thought of all he'd done to her.

Jonathan's face split into a perverted and sadistic smile.

And the man roared as he punched his face so hard the entire 8 front teeth were knocked out. 4 above, 4 below.

Bast suddenly thought of something.

She picked up a rock from the ground and light magic began swirling all over it, this time in a different way than the usual way she used it.

She thought of a certain memory, a bit of knowledge from the dragon: programming.

Each line of code contains a specific purpose.

Some hold their own "action", some hold data to inform other lines of which action to take.

So as she put the magic together, she focused on making several little nodes, small stars of light magic. Each had a purpose, while some would check a factor to inform others.

A program.

And as the links of magic formed to connect the nodes in order and relation as they would activate... a spell constellation was made.

And then she melted small lines into the rock and hollowed out other lines to put the constellation IN the pebble.

Then she turned around and stabbed her hand into Jonathan's guts, burning through them.

The villagers flinched back at the sight in horror, and a few became sick at the smell of cooking flesh soon after.

Then she withdrew her hand, pebble absent.

The crowd watched in shock as light magic worked through Jonathan from the inside out, restoring and healing even his limbs, but using his own energy to do it, leaving him weak and unable to even move.

As he found himself lucid, he attempted to absorb world energy to prepare a spell before that crazy bitch could attack him again-!

His eyes went wide in confused terror as he felt every bit of mana he prepared get sucked away into his gut.

The pebble ate it all away.

Bast looked to the man. "You can kill him. Again and again. He'll keep coming back until he dies from lack of energy. So as long as you starve him and keep him in too much pain for long enough to empty all mana the stone has so it eats away at his vitality..."

She didn't smile at the thought. She simply looked hard, maybe what the face of lady justice would look like beneath her blindfold.

And the father got off him to walk away a few steps... to pick up a plank of wood thrown by the explosion earlier, once a part of the roof.

Bast began to walk away to the sound of a dull thudding, increasing in intensity.

"THUD! THUD! THUD! THUSHK! SHK! SQUELK! SQUELK! SQUELK! SQUELT! SQUELT! SQTHUT! THUT!"

From hitting flesh, to tearing it, to hitting bone.

And so Bast went to find the father who raised a son capable of such things, who would even maybe encourage such acts with the maid.