With the complication of Allan’s family members that came with their visit to Bladethawl last time, they decided to try again a month later… with devastating results.

 

It all began with accidentally entering from the same telecircle before, then taking the opposite direction from where they explored last time, hence, away from Virenford’s general direction. They first explored within the range of the Silver Wolf territory’s natural barrier of trees, then exited it to… find the one thing that Marcel should desperately be avoiding because it never ends well when he sees one: a dungeon rift, dun dun duuun!!!

After seeing the dungeon rift, a big and violent spatial anomaly that seemed to call out to him, Marcel felt like it had his name written all over it. His senses were tingling. He wanted to explore it, thus, he put on his adventuring gear stored in his spatial storage and forced Allan to come along.

Hehehe, he regretted it!

Having been the first time in years since he last entered a dungeon rift, Marcel felt very excited, eagerly waiting for what existed on the other side, unaware of the fact that he’d leave as another person, never the same again. It was probably the worst experience he’d had with the dungeons in a while, excluding outside interference, of course, but then again, this was also sort of outside interference, so…

‘Why do those things keep traumatizing him whenever he enters one?’ This question was one Marcel also needed answers to, sobbing when he saw the enemies of the area they’d entered: Thunder Falcons.

What are Thunder Falcons exactly?

Oh, simple beasts! Very big simple bird beasts! These ones were of the B-rank. They stood over two meters in height, resembling the regular falcon bird outside, hence the ‘falcon’ in their name, and if you haven’t already guessed, those things are naturally adept at using thunder and lightning. They are speed-type creatures that use thunder and lightning to increase their speed and acceleration.

If you remember the time when Marcel ‘acquired’ the identity of Dave, then you should know that this simple C-ranked Thunder Falcon was what supposedly killed Dave, Marcel’s other persona created by Vitalis to help him have a life outside the Demon Lord’s castle.

Hehe, Marcel learned a lot about Dave on that day. One, that he had an irrational, almost crippling fear of Thunder Falcons and, two, Dave WAS REAL?!! Dun dun duuuuun!!! Heh, I’ll stop doing that!

Anyway, allow me to explain!

When they entered the rift, they were brought to a Thunder Falcon territory, and the moment he saw one of those giant birds, it shook something in his body and soul, filling him with nothing but crippling fear. He froze up and entered a daze of sorts, completely fear-stricken, then started hyperventilating. His body was freaking out, and guess what? So was his mind!

“Marcel? Marcel!” Allan tried to snap him out of his daze. The enemy was already attacking and he required some assistance. They were like 50 of those beasts coming all at once.

“This was not the time to be dramatic,” Allan thought.

He was wrong! This day was about to get very exciting!

Marcel couldn’t hear any of the sounds around him, except for his own erratic breathing rhythm and the sound of his body, metaphorically and literally, screaming at him to get away from the Thunder Falcons. He didn’t want to be here in this dungeon. He wanted to leave, as quickly as possible, but his body was too busy being scared to help him. He seized up, falling to the ground, immobilized. He only made things harder for Allan. Now he had to protect Marcel while fighting. Just great!

 

Ok, let’s talk!

Now, what was going through his mind that it crippled his very desire to fight monsters he normally wouldn’t have any problems soloing?

Well, it was a traumatic memory.

Marcel started remembering what had happened to the fictional, much created Dave in the time of his death, this time, in clear detail. The memory of that lad’s death was deeply engraved into his very being to an alarmingly vivid level.

He remembered. The altitude at which the bird took him, the crashing sound of thunder, then the lightning sparks that followed afterward when that giant falcon started speeding up. Afterward, was the thunder that coursed through his, or Dave’s body, singeing him until he turned back as coal. It was the moment when Dave closed his eyes from the immense pain and never saw the light of day again.

When he remembered all this, all the lightning he was currently harboring inside his body got agitated. A Thunder Falcon, along with many others who were trying to approach him and finally managed to breach Allan’s barrier, came closer.

When they swooped down to attack the defenseless pray before them, all of Blitz, Marcel’s lightning companion, inside his body broke free to protect its host with a massive shockwave that carried its insane power to burn down all their enemies. Allan was surprised, barely shielding himself in time with a high-level wind barrier before the indiscriminate attack by the lightning bolts.

Afterward, blue lightning Blitz formed a cage around its host and his companion, Allan, to keep more enemies at bay. It kept at it for an entire hour as Allan continued to strike down the remaining Thunder Falcons in this nest they’d found themselves in with more spells from inside the barrier. Marcel, meanwhile, continued to stay the same: irrationally afraid, hyperventilating and eyes that moved around so erratically that one would imagine that he was analyzing an entire world. He looked to be in excruciating pain. Allan was getting extremely worried.

Hehe, he was right to be worried, sort of. Just before the lightning cage fell, Marcel, who’d been crippled for the entirety of the enemy’s attack and fell into a daze, fell deeper into whatever realm of consciousness he entered, unable to be retrieved back from the plane of existence he was on. It was like the time he found out he was not very human like he always thought, but much worse.

In the realm he entered, he was made to watch the death of Dave unfold repeatedly until he woke up back in his ‘real world’. They say that some pain can reach all the way to the soul… and he had become sure of it.

***

 

He returned from that realm the next day in a small cave. It was in the middle of the night and lying there with Allan sitting beside him, deep in thought.

“Hey...” He said weakly.

“Marcel! You’re finally awake! Are you okay now?!” Allan asked, extreme worry written all over his face.

“Yeah… I think I am now.” He answered, much calmer than before when Allan last tried to talk to him. Seriously, Marcel was so agitated that he almost attacked him while he was stuck in his trance-like state.

“What happened? You suddenly froze the moment you caught a glimpse of those Thunder Falcons.” He wondered, still worried about the mental state of his friend. He seemed almost agitated.

“Honestly, I didn’t know either. It’s just that when I saw those beasts… I was sent back to the moment when Dave died. I had to watch it over and over again until I woke up.” Marcel responded.

Allan was stunned.

“What?! I thought Dave was just something the Supreme Administrator came up with as a different persona of yours.” He said shocked.

“Haha! Yeah, me too until yesterday! According to my memories, Dave was as real as you and I. I lived his death and all the feelings he experienced during that time as if they were my own and I finally understand something now... Sob... I’m... Dave’s second chance at life, or at least, half of it. Dave is, or was me in that life, and I... Sob… am his future...” Marcel said, before breaking into tears.

“What?! So Dave…”

“Yes, exists inside of me… sob… I thought the ‘Soul of Dave’ I received along with the name was just something like a skill… to make it easier… sob… to be Dave, but he’s a real person… Sob… He was probably there all along before I even got the name. When I separated Dave from Marcel, I was mean to Dave! Dave was me, and I was Dave! I hurt me!” Marcel cried. He looked very hurt.

Finally, the stress from seeing Dave get tortured by those lightning strikes for more than a hundred times and remembering the truth got to him again and he just broke down. He cried and Allan gave him a shoulder to cry on.

 

Allan, albeit not wanting to, felt slightly happy for a reason he couldn’t even understand. It made him feel so guilty afterward.

Yes, although he didn’t like seeing his constantly energetic friend cry like this, it also brought him a sense of relief that filled him with happiness and belonging because it told him that Marcel was more like him than he thought.

Albeit Marcel’s consistently cheery, almost never sad self, he could still be unhappy, traumatized even. Marcel wasn’t just some mysterious guy who could easily kill him and his friends, he was also a person capable of all the good feelings he felt as well as the bad. On that day, Allan gave Marcel the comfort he sought in his arms and Marcel opened his eyes. It was a very tranquil night.

That night, Marcel and Dave as two ‘souls’ truly merged and became one. Nothing felt wrong anymore unlike before where he would have felt guilty if he introduced himself to someone as Dave. Now, he knew! Dave was real, Marcel was real, and they were both him, thus, there was no need to fret. Marcel and Dave were now one unified being, a single soul.

 

***

 

The next morning arrived and Marcel had finished crying his fill about his terrible experience. He was now ready to confront Dave’s or rather, his trauma, both as Marcel and Dave, as much as he’d like to not deal with it at all. He need closure, and the only way to get it was to deal with the Thunder Falcons.

He put away his sword Sigurd. Why, you may ask?

Well, he felt like strangling those Thunder Falcons to death after the hell they put him through. Marcel’s physical strength was excellent for such an action. He was already a B-class adventurer and with Blitz’s help, he wouldn’t have any trouble at all dealing with their lightning, so [Pugilist] class it is. Remember that, the class he unlocked after training hand-to-hand with Claude? He decided to deal with them with his bare hands.

Like before, upon seeing the beasts, the crippling fear settled back in, but this time, not for very long.

Allan picked out his magic staff and conjured giant ice bullets, which he used to easily rip through the birds like sheets of paper. Truly an A-class! The remaining beasts froze up after witnessing their companion ruthlessly bisected by the witch. Marcel was shocked.

“Seriously?!!” He screamed. It was that easy to get rid of these traumatizing bastards? Why was he scared of these beasts when all it took was one basic cursed ice bullet to rid this world of them? He laughed slightly as he acknowledged his own fear of the Thunder Falcon as ‘dumb’.

With the change in mentality and quelling the little of the fear that still loomed over his heart, he headed into the fray. He showed the Thunder Falcon who needed to be scared in ‘Normal Mode’ just when he realized that yesterday, he could have made himself feel so threatened that ‘Kill-switch Marcel’ came out and dealt with these nuisances.

He killed most of them with extreme punches and strangling, getting very physical and showing them, the birds who needed to quiver in fear and run for their life. It was an unbelievably cheering and refreshing experience and it rid him, Dave and Marcel, of his fear of Thunder Falcons forever.

Refreshed and done with the Thunder Falcon’s territory, he packed up their carcass to later be sold by Allan and Shalia like usual, then onward they went, deeper into the dimension of this dungeon.

And this is why he and the others don’t go crazy with fire spells when fighting anymore. They returned with a nice haul of corpses to be sold, though that really doesn’t sound right when you say it out loud. Allan returned with a lot of memories he wouldn’t be able to forget for years to come.

Although they kept what happened in the dungeon inside the rift a secret from the others, Allan still acted different from usual, prompting the others that something was wrong. He looked Marcel’s way more frequently and seemed distracted all the time, especially while looking Marcel’s way. Lastly, was it just them or did he no longer have any reservations when teaching Marcel alchemy?

No, he seemed way more eager to teach Marcel now compared to before. What happened to the guy who loathed Marcel’s better talent for alchemy and eagerness to learn the craft?!

Again, the two put exploring all of Bladethawl on hold again, but that’s definitely better than missing a chance to see a new change in a member of Marcel’s group of friends, right?

I think I know this feeling! I can feel it. Allan is definitely…

Oops, I almost let it slip! You’ll notice it yourself. For now, let’s just say that hearts have crossed certain thresholds that are hard to return from. Someone just lost their imperviousness, is all I can say. Until next time!