The Art of Tyranny
001 - The End
“Shit…!” Ingram cursed as he ran across the forest for dear life. While weaving through the trees and trying his best not to trip on some roots, he inwardly berated himself for not learning any military-grade spells before dropping out of the academy.
‘Son of a bitch…! Just when I was short on time, I just had to encounter bandits!’
He chanced a glance behind him and saw men who looked as if they smelled like the plague chasing him with smirks and grins, gradually spreading out to cut off his escape routes.
“Damnit!” Ingram made up his mind, grounding to a halt and standing his ground. Even if he was a failure of a wizard, he was still part of a noble household. And all the hells would freeze over before he let these godforsaken hoodlums capture him without a fight.
He drew his wand and fired the only spell he knew that could come close to military spells.
‘Force Bullet…!
Countless runes on the surface of his wand—previously indistinguishable from the black wood that the wand was made of—now emitted a soft, luminous glow. Drawing upon months of practice, specific runes brightened as he willed.
‘Success!’
The time he’d spent training was not used in vain—in a mere fraction of a second, Ingram sensed a shift in his mind, a clicking sensation that heralded his success.
The next moment, a fraction of the arcane energy in his surroundings was focused on a single point. Thankfully, though the process was quite complicated, only a fraction of a second had passed. He then pointed his wand at the nearest brigand and fired.
A bright flash filled his vision, and the white wisp of arcane energy shot across the air to strike one of the bandits right in the chest.
“Shit!” The marauder cursed loudly in pain, his yellow teeth clenched in a sharp hiss. Weak as it was, the wizard’s spell had seared a hole through the man’s clothes, revealing red and swollen skin underneath.
That was all his spell did. And he couldn’t even fire it again because of the cooldown—a brief period where all wizarding spells were inactive to prevent the risk of rebounding. He could fire other spells in the meantime, but Ingram didn’t know any other spells that could help him in his current predicament.
Hence, Ingram turned around and resumed fleeing.
“Son of a bitch…!” he cursed at the top of his lungs, glad that his parents weren’t around to listen. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”
Ingram, raised as a nobleman in a strict and refined environment, had picked up a rather unconventional skill at school: the art of cursing. Oddly enough, he found that silently uttering profanities in his mind—and out loud—helped alleviate some of the tension in his current dire situation.
Sadly, it was the only thing he’d learned there that he could use right now.
‘If nothing else, I’m glad I followed my father’s advice and kept exercising!’
That way, perhaps he could outrun his pursuers on account of his higher stamina.
“Ugh!” Suddenly, Ingram was knocked forward by a great force striking at his shoulder.
The momentum from his running caused him to roll around on the ground first, causing numerous lacerations to his soft skin. Soon, sharp pain erupted all over his body.
“I got ‘im! Me! All you’s step aside, aye? I got first dibs on this wandlubber’s shit!”
Ingram groaned in pain as he reached up to the back of his left shoulder, where a crossbow bolt was lodged deeply into his flesh. But just before he could even try to pull it out, his head was yanked up by his long black hair.
“Top o’ the mornin’ to ya, sir wizard.” The ugliest bandit to ever bandit smiled down at him, showing off his uneven teeth. “I dun’ suppose ya got any coin on ya?”
“Eat shit.” Ingram spat out a mouthful of blood at the bandit’s face, knowing he was done for anyway.
Even if the emperor had already forsaken their household, he had still been raised with pride—he would not grovel for his life. Not to the ruler who abandoned his family, not to those snooty bastards at the academy, and most definitely not to these filthy lowlives.
“Bah.” The bandit wiped the blood and spit off his angry face. He then pulled out a knife and stabbed it repeatedly into Ingram’s stomach. “Pah. Bleed ta death, ya little bitch. And tell yer fathers that it was me, Doral, who did ya in.”
“Oi! Why’d you fockin’ kill ‘im?”
“Why not, eh?”
“Ransoms, ya nitwit!”
“Yer the moron ‘ere. We ain’t gettin' no ransom for ‘im. Jus’ look at ‘im. Can’t even afford a fuckin’ horse!”
The bandit let go of Ingram’s hair and the dying noble fell back, his back slamming against the forest floor.
‘This piece of shit really went and killed me…’
Ingram had held onto some slim hope that he would just be sold off as a slave—though he supposed that would also count as death in a certain sense.
He could never live while serving another. It was one of the reasons why he enrolled in the Academy instead of staying home. To make something of himself instead of being bossed around by his excellent brother back home—that was what he wanted.
‘This is… for the best… I suppose…’
He stared up into the sky, life gradually draining out of multiple stab wounds. Ingram couldn’t help but notice a large shadow creeping into the sun.
‘Is that a solar eclipse…?’
Ingram couldn’t help but think how timely the rare heavenly phenomena was. There were numerous legends about solar eclipses, but the most famous one was that it signified the beginning—or the end—of an era.
‘And this is where mine ends…’
It was a foolish thing to strive for in the last moments of his death, but Ingram tried his best to maintain consciousness right up until the moon’s shadow fully covered the sun.
And his efforts bore fruit.
‘Beautiful.’
As he lay there, frail and fading, the young man's feeble breaths and weakened body offered no resistance to the inevitable. He should have been sad, even angry at the bandits, but in this special moment, Ingram felt a strange sense of peace.
The eclipse was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. And he felt as if the void he was heading to would not be too bad as long as they were somewhat similar. Ingram couldn’t help but laugh at himself for thinking such thoughts.
‘I’m sorry, Father, Mother… for dying before you…’
While trying to burn the deep darkness of the moon’s shadow, the prodigal son breathed his last.
“Oi wuzzat?” One of the bandits pointed upwards, prompting the others to follow his gaze.
“Beats me. Fuckin world’s endin’, yeah? Gahaha.” Another bandit chortled at his own joke. “Beau’iful though, innit?”
A dark shadow fell over the world and all of the bandits found themselves admiring the celestial phenomena, wordlessly agreeing to do so in solemn silence. At that moment, they all contemplated their own lives and the atrocities they committed. Although initially forced by circumstance and a hard life, they’d changed somewhere down the line.
It wasn’t the only life they ever knew. But it was the only one that kept them fed in a world where poor peasants like them had no choice but to be toyed with by those in power.
As the silence gradually made them contemplate whether it was really too late to turn their lives around, a rustling noise made them all look toward the same place—where the wizard was bleeding to death.
“What is…” The wizard sat up with a grimace. His hand hovered over the wounds in his stomach, still releasing blood. A look of confusion filled his face.
‘Why are my wounds healing so slowly? Ah, what is… What language am I even thinking in right now…? What in the world is happening… I should be dead, I believe…’’
All of the bandits were unified in wondering how the wizard was still alive even after bleeding so much. They all stood there, whispering to each other.
Except for one of them.
“We got a hardy one, ‘ere!” Doral yelled out before sending out a kick to the deadman’s face. “Oi!”
The wizard nimbly rolled aside to evade the kick. He then threw a clump of dirt at the bandit’s face.
“Ack! Shit!”
“Wahaha! Boy’s got some life left in ‘im!” The other bandits jeered.
To them, the young wizard was as good as dead and couldn’t even fire spells that dealt significant damage. So he was no threat at all. It was much more fun to watch the unfolding events from the sidelines. They even started making bets on how long the fight would last.
The wizard stood up with surprising poise despite his injury, scanning his surroundings. He stared down at his palms and flexed his fingers.
‘Blood barely works. And now even Claw and Scale are failing me…’
“Oi, what’re ya—”
“Be quiet.” The wizard commanded, silencing the bandits just from the intensity of his voice alone. He then held his palm out at a tree before making a slow grasping motion.
When nothing still happened, his frown deepened.
“I suppose that settles it.” The wizard shook his head and sighed. “None of my abilities work here. How irritating…”
Doral spat out the dirt that had made it into his mouth. His face twisted in rage as he eyed the wizard. “The fuck is wrong with ya batards!? Kill ‘im!”
The others reluctantly followed their leader’s orders, with the nearest bandit brandishing a small hand ax.
The wizard watched the brigand step closer with serenity. Once the brigand took a swing at him, he shifted his body a little, letting it pass by harmlessly. He then got behind the marauder and wrapped his arm around the axman’s neck.
With a twist, an audible crack shook the air.
“I would’ve preferred a longsword...” The wizard snatched the dead bandit’s ax before it could fall out of his hands. Then he charged at the nearest living bandit—Doral.
“Hah! Lil’ bitch boy thinks he’s the shit!” Doral squared up, dropping his yet-to-be-reloaded crossbow and pulling out two short swords. He sneered, waiting for the foolish wizard to come closer.
But the wizard suddenly stopped and threw the ax at Doral. Surprise filled the bandit’s face and he was unable to evade as the ax’s blade was lodged deeply into his face. The life rapidly leaked out of his eyes as Doral fell to his knees.
The wizard who was supposed to be dead walked up to the dying man and pulled the ax out. He inspected the blade, gazed at the blood and brain matter caking its edge, grimaced, and then threw it aside after deeming it insufficient.
‘Useless with a single kill… I suppose I shouldn’t have expected mere bandits to know how to maintain their weapons.’
With a sigh, he scanned the shocked faces of the bandits one more time and announced with an authoritative tone.
“Fighting you all is a waste of time. Get out of my sight.”
