I pulled my arm back and punched her face. I didn't have to hold back. At all. I could go right up till her death. Maybe if my morals allowed me at that moment, even kill her in cold blood.
Rumie wouldn't be the first to die by my hands.
Add to that the fact that she was still in a much better condition than she had left me in a couple of days ago. I felt no guilt. There wasn't a gaping hole through her abdomen after all.
She didn't feel her entrails spill out over the ground. Or her blood form a pool under her face.
"Kuk." Her face tried to retaliate as her neck pushed back but I pulled back and hit her again. No matter how fast she was, it was nothing compared to the barrage I hit her with.
"You are such an irredeemable monster. Following innocent people to a peaceful town and mercilessly killing." My tongue seemed to be possessed. And so did my thoughts to some extent. I never remembered being this eloquent. And I still didn't know how she even managed to follow me.
"Hearing a skeleton call me a mons-" I punched her face again but this time she fell back on her ass and rolled over. Her nose was broken.
"Did you say anything? Even if I look like this, I never hurt people for something like money." I barked.
I was angry. I felt rage. I had an outlet for said rage. Yet I had no one to blame. I mean when did it even start? I couldn't remember anymore.
I flicked my wrist as she tried to get up again.
You had to admire that level of resilience.
"Don't judge me, you stack of bone-" Rumie rushed at me, this time with visible furiousness. But she had lost her bite. She couldn't hurt me even if she wanted to. I slapped her face and she fell back down to the ground.
"I'm not judging you. I'm just calling you for what you are. An actual monster."
"Uhhh..." She tried to speak but was clearly concussed.
I crouched down as the town around me started to become quieter and quieter. Probably because all the guild members were already dead. I could feel the beings that I had summoned no more. They had perished along with the people of Luoris. Muscle fibres started to wrap around my bones as my skin crawled back up.
I had exhausted my power.
I felt human.
"I AM NOT A MONSTER!" Rumie in her final attempt tackled me again. But this time, I was lying with my back against the ground and with her on top of me pinning me down. I wasn't scared for my safety at all. "Stop calling me a monster." Angry tears started to fall down her bruised face as they fell on my face. Not tears of hurt or because she wanted pity. Her eyes were red and burning from hatred.
She was boiling over.
Tears from fatigue? She had gone way past her limit. I'd recon she should have waved the flag after that first kick.
"Such a despicable being."
"I'M NOT! STOP SAYING THINGS YOU KNOW NOTHING ABOUT!" She shouted. Her arms had lost all strength. "SURE I KILLED MANY INNOCENT PEOPLE! I saw them beg for their lives, use their kids for pity, cry holding my legs. BUT I DON'T CARE! As long as I can survive their lives don't matter!"
"Survive? Don't get ahead of yourself. You just want to live in luxury. You selfish bi-" My outlet was turning more pitiful by the second. This was getting tiring. My eyes were half shut.
"WHAT PART OF THIS LOOKS LIKE LUXURY TO YOU?! Chasing deserters through the wild? Killing pitiful people? Is this luxury?! Fuck luxury then! I can barely earn the right to live! Is that luxury?! Why should I go through this shit?! Just because my grandmother happened to be a succubus? That's so fucking wrong!"
Calling others pitiful was so ironic. Any way you looked at it she was the pitiful one.
Her outburst was unwarranted. I would have had a much easier time murdering her if it was not for that. But a single part of her very subtly resonated with me.
I grabbed the side of her waist and pushed her off me and sat on my knees next to her, holding her by her purple long hair.
And punched her again.
I don't know why. I just felt like punching her. Just a second was all it took, and now I didn't know what to do with her anymore. It was like I was a cat who lost interest in its toy. Even getting rid of her would be a bother.
My rage was already mostly gone, I felt empty again. Incredibly empty. With the anger gone I felt the void that it was filling. Not knowing what to do.
Two weeks. I pushed forward. For one goal, because that deity told me that there were people waiting for me at home. Two weeks, and four deaths. I glossed over them on the journey, but what happened to me over these two weeks was more than enough to break a person. I tried to ignore it, to suppress it, but it was impossible to.
I got chased by a moose. I got chased by the biggest group of organised douchebags I have seen through a town I was unfamiliar with. I almost fell off the bridge and fell to my death in a crater. I had my insides turned out by the woman next to me.
These are the kind of life experiences you don't even see old men brag about in pubs. You can't even wish these on people you despise.
And I went through all of that.
Sure I felt rage. Sure I could take it off on this woman I'm holding up by her hair. But that would make me just as bad as that hero. Just pointlessly blaming people who had no role in his fate.
Who do I even blame for this?
Rumie? My family? Anino? Myself?
WHO DO I THROW THIS ON?!
As I drew my punch back again for the third time to end this, out of nowhere holes in space formed, through which the grimoire's chains wrapped around me, stopping my hand in its tracks as the black book floated in front of me.
I tried to pull my arms out, but the grip only got tighter. My eyes were flaring up and my powers weren't working well anymore. The harder I tried to kill her the more constricted my movements became.
Drip.
Cuts opened up in my arm and started falling down my arms.
[ Blame? ]
Drip.
[ But, you already know. ] Liu's voice rang in my head. Her voice was clearly feminine and calm. And prepared. As if she was waiting for this moment. For everything to go irreparably wrong. She had a purpose of her own too.
'She decided to speak up now of all times.'
"I DON'T!" I shouted as Rumie looked at me with her bruised eyes.
[ Who was the one who pushed you towards this journey? ] Her timbre calmed me down in an instant.
"That m-"
[ Who was the one who said that there were people waiting for you? ] It didn't feel like she was talking right in my head anymore.
It felt like arms were wrapping around my shoulders. And a soft yet stern voice was whispering words right into them.
I was getting taken in, a fool. Mesmerised.
"But he wouldn't ha-"
[ A deity always knows. ]
Rumie pulled my fingers again and fell back to the ground. Panting erroneously.
"Why would h-"
[ To use you. As the Goddess of knowledge, I know everything this world had to offer yet I could never figure out a man's intentions. You know who you must blame... But do you have the power to do it? ]
"I d-" I didn't have anything to do anymore. I don't have another home I could reach out to. I could never live a life gaudily living as Elyan. His days had already ended. I was wanted for all the wrong reasons, and with everything that had happened to me, I was deprived.
Just a husk.
What do I even answer to that? Why was I getting asked all of a sudden? Why stop me? Why now of all times?
I had so many questions plaguing me.
So many.
But my mouth had an answer of its own.
"I will."
[ Then you know the destiny befitting you, Elyan. ]
That moment was it. My life had changed multiple times in the last month. But those words set everything in motion. The clogs of time were turning. There was no stopping this. I didn't.
.
.
.
[ It won't be a short one, but you know who you must fight against to secure this land. You can never go back to what you once were, even if you tried. Everything has a reason, there's a reason why you hunger for more, it is now your duty to fulfil your tragedy.
At the end of this journey, you will be alone. And in peace. No one shall bother you no more. Fight for your next life. ]
[ Ah, and don't forget to use that lady. She'll come in handy. ]
The grimoire shut, revolving around me before it left my sight.
I let out a sigh.
'To kill a deity and destroy his belief.'
I opened my mouth.
"What kind of deal did Luoris make with you?"