“So, have you heard about that certain noble family?”, a mercenary asked the other mercenary right next to him. “You mean the one with the ‘Sword Saint’?”, he answered the question with another question after taking a short yawn.

These two mercenaries were sitting on a small bench inside the castle walls, conversing with each other and alike. “I heard they’ve been wiped out in a single day.”, the mercenary told the other.

“No way!”, the other mercenary said in disbelief. “Yep, it’s true. Their daughter has been marked as deceased, they figured she wouldn’t survive long without food and there were also monsters to consider.”, he continued the story with little interest.

“But! How did the ‘Sword Saint’ get killed?! I heard she took down a whole army alone!”, the other asked showing more interest towards the rumor.

“Hey! What are you two jackasses doing?!”, somebody out of nowhere complained. “Oh, it’s you Ralph. We were talking about—“, the mercenary was saying, but Ralph ignored what he was about to say and said. “No! What I mean is if you are here to get the money?!”, Ralph said in a arrogant manner.

“Oh, we already got the money long ago. You didn’t get yours yet?”, the mercenary responded to his arrogant question. “Yeah, we got ours already.”, the other mercenary responded as well.

Ralph’s pointy ears were getting redder with anger. “DAMNIT! That useless king! He owes me gold! I’m going to him right now! Damn! If I knew this was going to happen I might as well as sold off at the very least one of those outcasts!”, Ralph complained.

He was done with waiting, he had been waiting for days just to get his reward for doing his ‘job’. He was at his wits end to wait any longer and hearing that his fellow ‘friends’ had already received theirs was the last straw.

“Well actually…”, one of the mercenaries sitting on the bench spoke out. “Some of us actually did that.”

“WHAT!?”, Ralph astonished by the response. “Hey, don’t get riled up. It was just two of them, and old people don’t sell much.”, he tried to calm his ‘friend’ down. “Tell me, who did you sell?”, Ralph asked.

“It wasn’t me, but I heard from one of the mercenaries that they were twins, and if I remember correctly, they sold them from Dawnwell to Zeltram.”, the mercenary recalled. “Ahhh… those two little brats, I think I remember them, not that it matters.”, Ralph remembered the two twins back in the village.

‘I see… that’s a relief.’, a voice that could be heard from far away entered one of the mercenaries ears. He got suddenly confused and checked who could’ve spoken to him.

“I should’ve sold them!!!! ARGG!!! That’s it I’m going to the king!”, Ralph complained even further and headed towards the entrance to the castle.

“If you’re going then I won’t stop you. But, please have consideration it’s three o’clock in the morning.”, his mercenary friend told him, and Ralph just ignored him and walked towards the entrance to the castle while the other was still confused searching for the soft voice that resounded within his ears.

The other mercenaries were looking at them as if it was some sort of small entertainment. The two mercenaries including Ralph were not the only ones inside the castle walls, all the mercenaries that were part of that ‘job’ were there as well.

These mercenaries were contracted by the king himself and were rewarded with not just money, but also a temporary stay in the buildings within the castle walls. Thus, they were here, unlike the mercenaries, Ralph wanted money only and didn’t care about staying inside the fancy houses inside the castle walls and the like.

“Huh?”, Ralph stopped in his tracks as he felt something weird around him. It was like something cold and malicious had wrapped around him.

‘What’s this feeling?... This is mana!”, he realized but was already too late as he saw small black particles appearing in front of every mercenary in the area. The other mercenaries didn’t know what they were, but they were spread out throughout the castle walls and spreading even further.

“What are these?”, one of the mercenaries said pointing at them with curiosity, these particles looked like flames almost for a second if you looked closer.

“Stay back—!”, Ralph screamed warning the mercenaries, but was too late as the particles exploded into balls of spiraling dark flames.

‘I, Shiro have eliminated all mercenaries that have attacked my village and executed my revenge.’, I made a reference to an anime I watched years ago as I watched the mercenaries burn to dust.

I was using ‘Flight’ to fly up in the air to over watch the entirety of the castle, the spell that I had used was only possible due to my high leveled skill ‘Mana Control’.

The spell is called ‘Flame Destruction’, the way I made was simple, I spread my mana all over the castle and then used ‘Mana Control’ to precisely locate my enemies. The last step would be creating highly concentrated black flames and making them explode and spread across my enemies.

I know, you guys are itching to know how exactly I made that spell. And I’m going to tell you: I simply have a huge imagination. I heard this sentence once ‘creativity is a weapon itself’ and they were right. With this one spell I created another one and it is called ‘Sense’, I should have thought about a better name.

The spell ‘Sense’ is  a ‘No-Attribute Magic’ spell and it is used by spreading out your mana and sensing other beings around it, kind of like a radar sensing other beings.

“Uhm… Master, could we proceed now?”, Athena asked blushing as I held her in my arms like a princess carry. “You were the one who wanted to come with me, and this is also embarrassing for me, you know?”, I told her.

I could feel her entire body weight on my arms, every single twitch of her body and throb of her heart. “Am I heavy?”, Athena asked concerned. “No, not really.”, I gave her quite a vague answer and she pouted to my reply.

Thanks to the strength stat I can carry her as if it were nothing, had it been me from earth I would have dropped her instantly.

I landed back down inside castle walls and inspected the piles of ashes, the spell would release black flames that would spread inside and outside of the opponents body, thus reducing them to ash.

“Master how are you able to stand? The spell you used didn’t drain your mana completely?”, Athena standing on the ground asked. “The surprising thing about this spell is that it doesn’t take a lot of mana to cast.”, I answered.

I looked into the distance to see whether anybody was left alive. “Give me a brake!”, I said as I spotted a shadow of someone I knew.

Long ears, charred skin, a pretty face and a long bow on his back. “YOU! HOW ARE YOU STILL ALIVE!!!”, Ralph screamed at me while holding his missing left hand. “It seems you are tougher than what you seem to be.”, I responded leisurely.

“ANSWER MY QUESTION!!!”, Ralph screamed again with bloodshot eyes. I really couldn’t care less about him right now, he’s already on deaths door. “I don’t know. Why don’t you come over here and make me spell it out for you.”, I said mocking him.

“‘WIND BLADE’”, Ralph chanted a spell and released a thunder fast wind blade coming in my direction. I tried using my swords to stop the blade, however I wasn’t able to deflect completely and it scraped a bit of my cheek and leg.

<< You have acquired the Skill ‘Wind Attribute Resistance’. >>

Blood flowed out of my wounds and healed themselves soon after the blade hit me. “YOU LITTLE BASTARD!!! YOU WERE THE ONE WHO DID THIS, DIDN’T YOU?!!!”, Ralph asked, spitting on the ground blood and vomit.

“Yes, it was me.”, I responded sincerely and without hesitation.

Ralph picked up a sword from the pile of ashes and came charging towards me like a wounded beast. “I’LL KILL YOU!!!”, he shouted at me. “You know how little that narrows it? I’m already dead by the way.”, I responded to his murderous intent with a small joke.

The moment he got close enough for him to touch me, I dodged to the left and hit his back with the hilt of my sword. “AAGHH!”, Ralph growled falling to the ground.

‘I thought he would’ve had more fight within him.’, I thought disappointed by how quick he fell to the ground and couldn’t move.

Did I get stronger or was he simply weak? The average human stats are around one hundred and adventurers have more than that, but what about elves?

Ralph tried standing up and I kicked him in the stomach. “Don’t stand up if you know what’s good for you.”, I warned him, but he didn’t listen and I kicked him one more time and this time he got thrown away.

“Master, you sound like a criminal.”, Athena said a little concerned. “I don’t care, I’m going to kill this guy no matter what.”, I said slowly walking forward to his limp body bleeding from his left arm and mouth.

“I know I’m going to regret this, but… what were Iris’s last moments?”, I asked with my usual emotionless voice. Ralph looked up to me and smiled like a mischievous child.

“Her last moments, you say. I loved to see her frightened face as I rode her!”, he responded to my question and laughed afterwards as if it were the joke of the year.

I squeezed my fists to suppress my anger. ‘DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE!!!’, these thoughts crossed my mind as I kicked him again and again.

Ralph kept spitting more blood and his wounds started getting wider. I sat on top of him, form other people’s perspective it could have been seen in a sexual way as I rode him. I picked up one of my swords and drove it towards the edge of his mouth.

“Tell me… that at the very least you had a reason… to do what you did?”, if he had a reason a really valid reason, maybe… just maybe I could forgive him…

“You want to know the reason? Why should I tell you out of all people?”, he refused to answer what I had asked him, at first I thought I should use ‘Brainwash’ to make him speak. But I would not let him have it the ‘easy’ way.

I took my sword from his mouth and held his remaining arm. “If you don’t speak, then I’ll make you…”, Ralph got terrified for a moment and resisted with all he could.

“Quit squirming.”, I hit his head with my fist, and he hit the floor and almost lost consciousness. His nose was bleeding and half of his face was destroyed because of my magic spell.

Now, I held one of his fingers moved my hands in a posture to remove his nail. “Waich, pleashe don’t. (Wait, please don’t)”, he spoke with little strength he had to stay consciouss. “Then, you know what to do.”, I told him slowly ripping his nail off, I could see tears forming on the corners of his eyes.

“I… won’t…. tell….. you…. a…. single thing!!!”, Ralph thought that I could possibly be bluffing just to get answers. “I’m so glad!”, I said in joyful manner, but my voice made it sound emotionless.

Ralph looked at me with visible confusion as to why I said those words right there. “Want to know what? You don’t need to tell me a thing…”, I ripped one of his nails off. “There isn’t a single thing that you can say, that won’t stop me…”, I ripped another nail off, every single time his reaction was even more priceless than the other.

“………from torturing you.”, Ralph looked into my dead eyes full of fear and despair. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!”, Ralph screamed for his life.

“Hey, don’t scream. I wouldn’t want the guards coming after me.”, I grabbed his jaw forcefully and heard something snap. “--------“, his jaw was broken, it was a miracle that he even could produce a sound.

“Oops. Didn’t mean to do that, but I guess this should stop you up to some extent.”, I looked at his arm and realized I ended up ripping all of his nails. I looked at his barely alive body.

“Your face… disgusts me.”, I punched him in the face over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over to the point where his head wasn’t even recognizable anymore. It just looked like a small puddle filled with remains of skull fragments and blood.

I touched my face and did not even realize that tears were flowing down from my eyes.

I saw his spirit rising from his body, I used ‘Brainwash’ and spoke to him. “I heard you speaking about the king. What exactly does he have to do with your existence?”, I asked without even looking at him in the eyes.

He spirit was extremely broken, not even the shape of his body he could remember, but I was hoping he would at the very least be able to give me answer.

“…. The king suddenly came to me and contracted me to do a ‘job’ for him…”, he answered my question despite the possible brain damage he had received.

“So, the king really is involved…”, Ralph’s mind was in a fragile state due to him dying recently, there was no way he could lie to me.

I used my sword to cut his spirit and he disappeared, his spirit probably ascended and returned to the cycle of rebirth.

“Are you alright, Master?”, Athena who had to watch everything asked concerned. “I’m alright, don’t worry.”, I tried reassuring her.

I looked at the castle in the distance, there was a clock pointing to the number three, now that I think about it. I never knew how time goes in this world (since I was more interested in other stuff).

“Hey Athena, how many days is a year, how many seconds is a minute, how many minutes is an hour, how many days is a month and a week and how many hours is a day and how many months is a year?”, I asked Athena a random question that even she had to tilt her head in confusion.

“A day has twenty-four hours, a year has… three-hundred and sixty-five days, a minute has sixty seconds, an hour has sixty minutes, a month has thirty days and some don’t a week has seven days and a day is twenty-four hours. And a year has twelve months, following: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November and December.”, Athena answered in a quick succession.

‘Same amount of time on earth… is it because of the former heroes who were summoned?’, I thought in my mind. “What year is it?”, I asked to get rid of my final doubt.

“Year?”, Athena asked confused as to what I referred to. ‘So there aren’t any years.’, I deducted. “What month is it and day?”, I asked another question and Athena answered. “It’s August, the twentieth.”, Athena said.

“Thank you, I now have cleared my doubts.”, I told Athena and she nodded somehow confused.

‘I was reincarnated on June or July, I’m too lazy to check that right now.’, I excused myself from having to count back when I was reincarnated.

<< The levels of ‘Pain Resistance’, ‘Fast Healing’, ‘Chant Revocation’, ‘Wind Attribute Resistance’, ‘Mana Control’, ‘Dark Attribute Magic’ and ‘Flame Manipulation’ have increased. >>

YeetusFeetus

Writing this chapter was hard, I felt quite sluggish today. I hope I was able to give you a satisfying ending to Ralph, up to some extent.