"Fuck... I'm such a loser"
Lying on the ground helplessly getting buried by the snow, Aldo pitied himself. Not only does his sister got taken away by Ivor, but now his teacher, the one that helped him and taught him got taken away by some unknown group of people too.
He tried his best but he's still nothing but a loser, the power he got doesn't change him. It just amplifies his loser mentality showing just how weak he really is.
Blood kept flowing out of his severed left arm creating a pool of blood.
The sharp and cold pain coming from his non-existent left arm is still vivid, the green arc that cuts his arm, Aldo can still feel it clearly.
"Hugh... Stay strong, I can do this"
Aldo tries to keep his mind intact but his heart is hurting right now blaming himself for not being able to save literally anyone, he's been training but it doesn't seem to bear fruit. No, that's not it.
His mentality is the one that inhibits him from going forward.
"I could've killed that man..."
"But I don't want to kill him... he may have families that will not be taken care of, parents that might die if he's gone, a brother that might miss him, a sister..."
"I know damn well how it feels, is there really no other way?"
While muttering to himself feeling his eyes becomes blurrier as time passes by, Aldo wanted to close his eyes feeling his eyelids heavy but he saw something sparkling not far from him. He can reach it if he wanted to.
After lying for a while, Aldo reaches for the sparkling object and pulls it closer.
Upon closer inspection, while still lying on the ground, turns out it's a necklace of some sort. It must've been the middle-aged man's necklace that he might've cut from the slash he did.
There's an emerald pendant, but Aldo is too tired to see its shape.
Sighing to himself feeling unworthy of life, Aldo was taken back to that night when that mysterious man called him the strong one. He chuckles remembering that, "I can't even save my sister, who am I kidding to save Diane. I'm not a strong one..."
Just after he thought of that,
[Ack...Ack...Ack...]
A crooked and weird laugh can be heard inside of Aldo's head, this makes his eyes enlarged hearing his Ego Beast laughing inside his head.
Since the first time it talked, Aldo has tried to communicate with it to no avail.
Hearing that the Ego Beast is responding to his circumstances gave him hope, not only himself but even Diane knows that the Ego Beast within him is strong. Stronger than the normal Ego Beast for it to give him an Innate Skill.
[Pathethic... Worthless human...]
'I know that much already, is that all you want to say?', Aldo asks inside his head.
The Ego Beast inside his head went silent, it makes Aldo lose all hope again seeing that it doesn't provide any sort of help aside from mocking him. But the voice soon comes back again, and this time it gives him actual hope.
[Get stronger, by, killing other humans...]
Even though Aldo knows that the Ego Beast is not a human, he still finds it weird to hear the Ego Beast talk stammeringly but it's more because of it can't talk well rather than nervous.
Aldo frowns upon hearing this, 'What- do you mean by that?'
With the loss of blood from his severed arm, Aldo starts to feel dizzy. He can feel that he was about to pass out from the excessive amount of blood he lost. But he is still curious about what the Ego Beast is trying to say.
[Kill fire Ego- Fighter, or stay- a loser]
It's becoming more harder to keep his consciousness, but Aldo still chuckles weakly hearing that the Ego Beast says the word kill so clearly but the other words are not as good.
'Huh... that's your favorite word I guess. Whatever, let me sleep for a while...'
Just after saying that, Aldo falls unconscious. His face is already pale because of the loss of blood. The cold weather is also an inconvenient addition that freezes his body.
But not long after he fell unconscious, the tattoo on his right arm glows.
The tattoo on his right arm started to heat Aldo's body creating a warm blanket around him so he won't freeze to death, and even his bleeding severed arm slowly clotting until finally, it stopped bleeding entirely.
A moment later,
"Hey! Aldo! Wake up!"
"What happened here? Wake up!"
A series of voices alongside his body his head shaken a couple of times makes Aldo slowly open his eyelids, he saw the familiar ceiling before a man got into his field of vision.
It was the worker from the bar, Magnus.
Aldo knows his name from the last time Magnus brought Diane to the house after she got attacked, he introduced himself as Magnus just before he left to work at the bat.
"M-Magnus...", Aldo mutters before blinking his eyes a couple of times.
Seeing that Aldo seems to be fine except for his severed left arm, Magnus sighs before he sat on a wooden chair just beside the bed, "I wanted to visit you and find you lying on the ground beside a pool of blood, I thought you were dead!"
Hearing this, Aldo slowly sits down on the bed before leaning on the headboard.
Remembering the incident where the people in black robes took Diane away, Aldo feels down again before he said, "We got attacked in the middle of the night by a couple of people in robes... I tried to fight them but they manage to take Diane"
"Diane? Are they from her organization?", Magnus asks in surprise.
But Aldo shakes his head, those people are not religious people from the church, "No, they definitely are not from the Astral Rose Church"
"Wait, Diane is strong. How can they capture them like that?", Magnus asks.
Magnus is the one that saw how Diane fights clearly against those soldiers and came out on top even though she got injured, she's very feisty and agile so getting the news that she has been taken by a group of people confused him.
With her set of skills and also an Ego Fighter, she's not going to be easy to capture.
Aldo also frown while remembering that night, he saw Diane didn't fight back and just let the group of people take her away, 'Just what is wrong with her?', logically thinking, if he can technically win against that middle-aged man then Diane can definitely beat these group of people in robes.
She's his teacher after all, and Aldo didn't even know what circles she was in. But surely she's at least in the second circle.
No matter how much he thought about it there's surely something wrong with Diane that night, and now she's taken to god knows where. But then suddenly, Aldo remembers the pendant that he saw before he passed out.
Jumping off the bed, Aldo ran out of the room before exiting the house.
This sudden movement caught Magnus off guard, he pursued Aldo and after reaching the front of the house he saw Aldo digging in the snow trying to search for something.
"What are you searching for?", Magnus asks putting his hands on his waist.
While still digging, Aldo then replied, "A pendant, I believe it belongs to the leader of the people in robes. Maybe I can find out who they are!"
"Oh! You mean this?", Magnus said before he takes out a necklace from his pocket.
Aldo looks back at Magnus and finds he's dangling a necklace with an emerald pendant on it, he ran back to Magnus and took the necklace before inspecting it. The necklace has an emerald pendant that took a shape of a flower, a six-petal flower.
"Let me ask around in the bar, I have a few friends that might know what this pendant means"
"Really? Thank you, Magnus!", Aldo replied blooming a smile.
Since he's a worker in the bar, a place where visitors or even other villagers exchange information through a talk. Magnus should be able to do this much, who knows maybe one of the people in the bar knows who the person that owned this necklace or even the organization behind this person.
After replying to the smile, Magnus takes a look at the pendant.
Even with Aldo's intention to give the pendant to Magnus, he kept inspecting the pendant without even touching it. He even circles the pendant to get a good look at it.
"Aren't you going to take it?", Aldo asks in confusion.
But as if Aldo just said the dumbest thing in the world, Magnus looks at him with a weird look, "What are you saying, you find this pendant and it might cost a lot. You might suspect me of stealing it if I don't come back in time"
"Besides, If those savages in the bar know I have something like this. They're going to rob me"
Aldo didn't expect such an answer so he just held the necklace in silence while Magnus inspect it, and after a moment Magnus finally nodded his head before he bid his goodbye after making sure that Aldo didn't need any medication of some sort.
Looking at his severed left arm, Aldo finds that it has clotted completely.
For such a severe wound to clot so quickly is a miracle even for an Ego Fighter, but it clotted anyway. Then again, the Ego Beast inside him is mysterious and it might even have the power of accelerated healing. Who knows.
'I'm not going to get used to this...', Aldo thought while looking at his severed arm.
Later that night,
Aldo is swinging his sword trying to let out the pent-up frustration inside him. He might look fine in front of Magnus but he's dying inside, the lack of mentality is still there. Even if he wanted to change it, he finds it really hard.
While Magnus is trying to find out who took Diane, Aldo went back to his priority. Laziah.
Strapped back in his leather armor and robe, Aldo sheathed his sword after training for a bit to get used to using one arm to fight. It's the first day so he still feels clumsy.
'So what do you want me to do? What do you mean by fire Ego Fighter?'
Before he falls unconscious, he remembers the Ego Beast inside of him is saying something he doesn't understand. But one thing he knows is that the Ego Beast asks if he wants to get stronger.
If stronger is the goal, then he will do anything.
Just like the middle-aged man said, he has a loser mentality. If anyone in this world can become strong that easily without having to kill, then there probably will be more strong people in this world.
But that's not how reality works, to become strong is to be willing to get our hands dirty.
Learning the hard lesson twice is already enough, if he falls for the third time then he will be worst than a donkey, 'Just tell me what I need to do, and I'll do it!'
Not long after, the voice appears again inside his head.
[Kill fire Ego Fighter to get stronger]
Hearing this, a frown appears on Aldo's face but he soon takes a deep breath and exhales. His eyes turn cold just like the winter, 'Fire Ego Fighter eh? I know a couple of them...'
A moment later,
Aldo is currently near the south wall of Pendle Village, standing on a tree trunk.
With the view from the top of the tree, Aldo can look at a particular house that is not far inside the south wall. His eyes soon flash when he saw a man coming out of the house.
Fixating his eyes on the man that seems to be heading out of the village, Aldo calms himself.
Closing his eyes and taking a deep huge breath, 'I know it's going to be hard, and I need to work for it. But this guy deserves it, one step at a time. Let's get used to blood. For Laziah... For Diane... For Power!'
Steeling his resolve, Aldo opens his eyes again before jumping off the tree trunk.