Chapter 14 : A Sudden Visit (2)

'What should I do ?'

Lloyd hadn't anticipated a customer waiting outside his store—that was a relatively rare occurrence. However, he was taken even more off guard by the lady's appearance and her unexpected request.

She was wearing cheap clothes with no other ornaments than a simple necklace, but Lloyd could tell that she was of high standing.

Wearing a mask, helmet, hood, or anything else that concealed the entirety of one's face was strictly forbidden within the capital. This regulation was one of the many security measures implemented by Valor's current ruler to combat the escalating crime rates in the city's most sensible districts.

Only military personnel such as soldiers and knights, and officials like vigilantes and arbiters were allowed to completely hide their faces.

Yet, there was a loophole in this law many people took advantage of—the term 'entire' face. As long as the lower or upper half of the face was visible, it wasn't deemed illegal.

Furthermore, the law didn't specify anything when it came to face-shifting, whether it was through magic means or the use of artifacts—some of which were even sold legally in auction houses.

When the Royal Family initially introduced this law, their original intention was to prohibit all forms of disguise without distinction. However, they were met with strong resistance, not only from influential noble families but also from within the Royal Court, which traditionally always stood by the Royal Family's side.

Many nobles chose to hide their identities when they wandered in the capital. Whether it was for a discreet visit to the Red Light district or for clandestine negotiations with merchants, safeguarding their identities was of the utmost importance for them.

It wasn't wrong to say that most of the nobles living in the capital valued their privacy more than their wealth. They could always recover lost assets, but when it came to their tarnished honor or shattered pride, even with all the money in the world they wouldn't be able to mend those wounds.

As a result, to avoid futile political tensions, the Royal Family made a compromise with the noblesse ; they purposely left out of the law everything related to face-shifting.

Thus, face-shifting and other kinds of full-body disguises were legally in a grey area. They weren't officially authorized, but they weren't forbidden either.

The only reason why the Royal Family yielded to the complaints was that face-shifting artifacts were extremely expensive—only the wealthiest figures of the Kingdom could afford them, and there were so few of them in circulation that they would have to compete against each other every time a new artifact was discovered by an adventurer and appeared in an auction.

The Royal Family killed two birds with one stone—on one side they made it harder for small thugs and gangsters to hide their identity, and on the other side, the war between nobles over face-shifting artifacts would indirectly make them inaccessible for larger criminal groups.

As for the face-shifting magic, only mages of 4-circles or more were able to learn and cast it safely. Requiring the services of an eminent mage just to temporarily change your face and physical features was even more expensive than buying an artifact.

Given the limited numbers of 4-circles and above mages within the capital, even in a mighty country like Valor, it would be even harder than acquiring a pricy artifact.

Battling other Houses in an auction to get your hand on a face-shifting artifact required tons of money, sure, but hiring a Battle-mage just to change your face required just as many resources but also good relations in the highest circles of the capital.

This made it even more out of reach for third-rate criminals, which is why the Royal Family deemed it acceptable to not forbid face-shifting.

Lloyd didn't know if the beautiful visage of the lady in front of him was her real face, but he could tell that she was using some sort of disguise to hide her identity. It wasn't hard for him to guess.

Lloyd knew that it was a common practice among the nobility and other high-ranking individuals to conceal their identities when conducting business in the capital. This was the most effective method to avoid drawing unnecessary attention to themselves.

Many of his most influential customers never visited the pet store without their disguises, and some even wore a different face every time. This was why Lloyd had a particularly keen and discerning eye for such matters.

Unless someone was a true master of impersonation, Lloyd could easily see through any kind of disguise.

More than her physical appearance, the delicate manner in which the lady carried herself didn't lie.

'She seems to be of a certain standing, so I don't know if it's a good idea to let her enter the shop... It's not like I can sell what she's looking for, I don't have any other beasts than Blackie...'

After hesitating for a second, Lloyd finally decided to let her in.

Since arriving in this world, Lloyd has always been willing to accept any kind of customer, from the refined nobleman to the ruffian who looked like a beggar.

Everyone was equal in front of Lloyd—as long as they had money to spend, of course.

After all, it was so hard to earn a living in Valora as the owner of a small store located in the middle of a commoner district that Lloyd couldn't be picky with his customers. Every penny he could get his hands on was more than welcome.

'But this lady, why the hell did she come here to buy a beast ?!'

It would seem logical for someone to go to a pet store to buy an animal, and yet, it was the first time it happened to Lloyd.

Most of the time, new customers were just random people passing by who got interested in the products displayed on the shelves.

Some were curious about the items made on earth that Lloyd was selling, like little Adam, while others already had a rough idea of what they were looking for and often came here just to seek guidance from Lloyd, like Sir Albert.

There was also the case of the lost people entering his shop every once in a while to ask for directions, but Lloyd didn't think too much about them.

He just blamed the royal architects for designing the districts in such a complicated way.

Even he lost his way quite a few times when he first left his shop to buy groceries.

Nevertheless, it was the first time someone had come to the pet store... to buy a pet.

'Now that I think about it... Isn't that strange that no one ever asked me if I was selling pets ?'

Lloyd thought it was due to Lunaris and Earth's cultural differences, but now, he wasn't so sure anymore. Lloyd pondered whether it was all his previous clients that were odd people, or if it was just this lady that was special.

'After a few months on Lunaris, I assumed the people here don't buy animals in pet stores, but only accessories.'

'There's probably another type of store that focuses solely on pet sales. Maybe you even need a special license to sell animals, like on Earth. Given the strangeness of the creatures living here, it wouldn't be so surprising.'

That's what Lloyd concluded after a year of living here without anyone asking to buy an animal, yet the beautiful lady waiting nervously in front of him just shattered his reasoning.

'I should ask Sir Thelec later whether I need a license or not to sell pets here.'

Pushing his thoughts aside, Lloyd sighed and invited the lady inside.

"...Please, come in."

Even if Lloyd didn't have what she was looking for, allowing her to enter was the minimum courtesy he could do for a potential—and wealthy—client.

"..."

The lady, however, remained still and looked at him with wide eyes.

She seemed surprised that Lloyd would let her in so easily.

'What's with her all of a sudden ? Did she not want to enter ?'

Lloyd couldn't understand why she was staring at him so suspiciously.

"Don't worry, I won't eat you," Lloyd said with a soft smile.

He tried to put her at ease with a little touch of humor, but apparently, it had the opposite effect.

The Lady raised her hand in a defensive position and took a step back, not taking her eyes off Lloyd for a single second.

"..."

"..."

This resulted in an awkward situation where neither Lloyd nor Avea had any idea of what the other was thinking.

'Is she perhaps... retarded ?'
'Did he accept to let me in so he could eliminate me in a place where no one can find my body...?'

Both the man and woman stood still and looked uncomfortably at each other for a few seconds, before Avea broke the weighting silence.

"I-I just remembered that I had something to do, h-haha... I will come back later...!"

Before Lloyd could say anything, Avea bolted at an incredible speed.

"Huh...?"

She was so fast in running away that a faint afterimage of her remained in the fog where she stood.

"What the..."

Lloyd was puzzled.

From the beginning to the end, his interaction with this strange woman made no sense to him.

"Are everyone living here lunatics...?"

Lloyd rubbed his eyes and headed back inside with a fatigued face.

"Let's just close the shop for the day, I think I need some rest."

___

Far from Valora, in a foreign country in the north.

A man was admiring the landscape, his once luxurious and finely tailored suit now completely worn out and covered in blood stains.

From the top of a small hill, he stood immobile watching the sunset.

The orange glow of the setting sun reminded the man of his hometown.

For as long as he could remember, the man had been fighting. He methodically hunted down every last one of his lifelong enemies, pairing clinical precision with extreme brutality.

For more than a decade now, the man never stopped his hunt, not even for a single day.

More than once, his life has been close to being claimed by the gods, but every time, the man survived.

No matter the ordeal, no matter the opponents, the man overcame all the obstacles that stood on the path of his vengeance.

'Fifteen years already...'

The man just realized—he almost spent half of his life fighting against fate.

That was the time it took him to fulfill his revenge.

After persisting through difficult moments that could have broken any other man, he ultimately attained his goal. He finally arrived at the end of this path filled with death that he had walked for so long.

The man once thought that this long-awaited moment would make him feel at least a tiny fraction of his long-lost happiness...

But it didn't.

Looking at the horizon, the man reflected on his life.

The faces of every member of his now-deceased family flashed before his eyes one by one, as if he had gone decades back in time.

The stern expression of his father, followed by the comforting face of his mother.

The warmth of his little sister, and the coldness of his older brother.

The man reached beneath his tattered shirt, retrieving a rusty pendant suspended from a delicate gold chain that he wore faithfully.

With fingers wrapped in bandages, marked by numerous cut scars and rough calluses, he carefully opened it.

Within the pendant lay a tiny painting, portraying him in his youthful twenties with a radiant woman by his side.

"Darling..."

The woman appeared ethereal, emanating an aura of grace and purity that was almost otherworldly.

Her long hair cascaded down her thighs like a river of spun gold, shimmering with a lustrous, sun-kissed blonde hue. She was draped in a robe as white as freshly fallen snow, adding to her divine features.

The smile that graced her face was so bright, that it could illuminate even the darkest nights.

So gentle, that it could melt even the coldest glacier.

And yet, even her angelic smile couldn't appease the intense fire raging inside the man's heart.

"After all those years, I've finally done it, darling... I've avenged you and Lua, so why... why am I still in so much pain..."

The man, whose feelings have been numbed for a long time, felt all his emotions resurfacing at once like an unstoppable torrent.

"Why did the church who made you a saint didn't protect you..."

The man's vision blurred.

"Why did the god you revered so faithfully abandon you..."

The man's chest felt heavy, as if an enormous weight pressed down on him.

"What wrong did our Lua commit to leave this world so early..."

He couldn't catch his breath, and his throat tightened.

"TELL ME, ARTHEMIL, YOU FALSE GOD !! WHY ??"

The man raised his head and shouted at the sky, salty droplets running from his carmine eyes to his cheeks.

"Arghhhhh-"

The man crouched, holding his chest tightly.

The corpses of his foes scattered everywhere he looked did nothing to calm him, it only fueled his anger even further.

Cold tears dropped on the crimson-red soil, soaked in blood.

For an entire night, the man silently cried on top of the hill, mourning his loved ones who left him behind, in this horrible world ruled by false gods.

His beloved families, for whom he walked such a path.

Quenching his thirst for vengeance didn't bring back his family, nor did it send him back in time. The man was now alone, with no more goal in his life.

He considered ending his days since life was no longer worth living, but he couldn't.

Not yet.

One last promise lingered, waiting to be honored.

He had to repay the one who made his final revenge possible.

"Sir Aurelion..."

The only person who ever landed him a hand since the tragedy that altered the course of his life.

After regaining his composure, the man grabbed his coat drenched in blood, and went down the hill.

Each of his footsteps either made a cracking sound, or the noise of crushed porridge, but the man didn't care.

He made sure to take his time to go down the hill...

"Urgh!..."

...as sometimes, the soil he walked on emitted faint groanings.

Whenever it happened, the man's eyebrows twitched, and his cold eyes scanned the bloody mash pressed under his boots.

When his piercing eyes locked on the part of the ground that was still moving, the filth under his feet often talked.

Pleading to remain in this world.

"P-Please, have m-mercy..."

It begged, with the same phrase that he had heard so many times already.

To this, the man always reacted in the same way.

He mechanically unsheathed his rusty sword and pointed it toward the faint voice...

"N-No, p-please-"

...before planting it in the 'talking' ground, as slowly as possible.

"-Arghhh!..."

Only when the man couldn't hear anything except his own breathing did he start walking again.

Once at the bottom of the hill, the man turned his head and took one final glance at the myriad of corpses entwined on top of each other, before continuing on his way, leaving nothing but death and destruction in his wake.

___

From the forest's edge, a herd of wild beasts watched the man walking away. They were salivating when they saw the feast he had prepared for them.

Although all these northern beasts were man-eaters, none of them dared to attack the walking man ; their instincts prevented them from doing so.

The aura of death around him was so thick that just looking at his back for too long made even the strongest creatures freeze in fear.

Only when the man was far enough away did the wild beasts surge out of the dense forest.

Each creature walking out of the forest was larger than the previous one.

Surprisingly, they didn't fight among themselves.

As if they had come to a tacit agreement, they shared the corpses rather than attack each other, which was an unprecedented behavior for wild beasts.

All the beasts in the area headed toward the rotting corpses the man left behind—a putrid hill made of torn limbs violently dismembered, crushed heads through which pinky brain matter flowed, and internal organs scattered amidst ripped-out intestines.

The vengeance of this single man spilled so much blood that even after an entire week, all the wild beasts who converged on the hill to partake in the feast couldn't devour even half of all the corpses.

At least, not before other humans arrived.

This country, much smaller than Valor and located further north in the outer continent, had to gather all its knights and half of its military for an emergency large-scale subjugation.

The humans fought for three whole days against the endless waves of beasts spewing out from the mountain before they finally discovered the grim reason why the beasts gathered en masse so abruptly.

The first officials who arrived on the site were shocked when they identified the corpses, now reduced to a bloody mash in decomposition.

A week ago, a concerning rumor spread out in the region : the last branch of the Orange Thorn Syndicate, a violent criminal group that was once famous in the Central continent, had been wiped out overnight by a single man.

The rare witnesses of this man's carnage over the continent called him the Grim Reaper, in reference to his black attire darker than the night and the unusual curved blade he wielded.

The reports of his presumed feats were so unbelievable that very few people believed this rumor.

Even the intelligence department of the country where the last massacre took place dismissed the rumors, assuming that the Orange Thorn just relocated their last branch somewhere else to reform their group.

"Good lord... It was really Orange Thorn, look at the tattoo on their neck... Or should I say, what remains of their neck."

Nobody expected to find out the whereabouts of those criminals who suddenly vanished in such a state.

"Fuck... After seeing this, I won't touch meat for a year."
"May the gods save us..."
"Wait... Does this mean the Grim Reaper is real?"

The severed bodies of over a hundred men were piled up, forming a mound of dried blood and decaying innards.

An artificial hill with flesh as soil.

Whether this was the aftermath of an internal conflict with another criminal group or the doing of a single man, it didn't change the horror of the scene.

Many of those who witnessed this atrocity vomited everything they'd eaten in the last few days.

Even the most experienced knights had chills running down their spines when they thought about the inhuman torture that had been inflicted on each of those criminals.

Nobody knew who the Orange Thorn offended, but everyone who saw what remained of them thought the same : they would rather fight wild beasts non-stop for the rest of their lives than suffer the same fate as these guys.

When the rest of the troops arrived with the mages and priests, it was already too late—the land had been impregnated with so much negative energy that it became cursed. It was beyond salvation.

The ground has been so contaminated by the aura of death, and the criminals have suffered so much before their demise that the priests who arrived at the hill a few days later couldn't absolve a single of their souls.

Nobody knew the story behind this massacre, but one thing was certain—whoever killed those people did so with extreme brutality and barbary.

He made sure that none of their souls would ever be able to rest in peace, forever damned to linger in this place.