Chapter 138: The Weight of Choice
[Consider it done milord,] Nepherage told Zhen Liu with a quick nod of respect before disappearing into the ground.
‘First off: Stop using my world’s slang. Second: I am aware, I just want to…see something.’
‘Since you can definitely read my mind, you should be aware that this is the first I’ve seen an actual revenge story play out before my eyes. It feels more poetic to see if people are willing to hear this kind of weight…’
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Draigo just sat there, stunned about what had transpired before him.
‘Did that seriously just happen?,’ he asked himself as he tried to recall the details of the fight he had just witnessed.
In the span of ten minutes, the Marquis de Howlite, an Aether Grandmaster and an existence that had unknowingly haunted his nightmares for years, was defeated just like that.
Defeated by monstrous beings, summoned by a devil in a young man’s form, the Marquis was rendered a burnt husk of a man and was now, presumably, about to be eaten by those same monstrous beings.
If Draigo hadn’t been here to witness this, sober and in person, he’d assume it was just a drunken vision or a tall tale told by some old crazy hermit.
This had cost him some of the last remaining mementos of his beloved, but that price seemed more than fair now.
‘And besides…they’re not destroyed, they just changed…and make up her now,’ he thought as he stared at the being calling herself “Hurricroak”. Draigo wasn’t entirely sure why, but there was something about her that just seemed…familiar.
It was like a long lost melody, the type you remember hearing a lot once upon a time, only for it to suddenly disappear and then be heard again after a lot of time had passed. It was simultaneously nostalgic yet alien.
But before Draigo could think upon this feeling further, a familiar voice decided to cut in.
“Draigo.”
“Huh? Oh…did…did you need something more from me?”
“Not quite,” Zhen Liu answered in an enigmatic tone, “I have simply come to give you yet another choice to make. But first, I need to know, have you ever taken another’s life?”
“What? No…,” Draigo answered in a confused tone. He might have/had the strength of an Aether Grandmaster, but he hadn’t killed anyone before. It wasn’t too rare to find powerful warriors who have never killed anyone before, they always thought it was worst to live on in shame.
Zhen Liu presented a hand for Draigo to take. The latter took it after a moment of hesitation.
“A devil’s deal is never as straightforward as a simple exchange,” Zhen Liu began to say as he helped the old bard to his feet, “sometimes they include a twist, a trick, something along the lines of making you regret your choice or at least think twice about it.”
“What do you mean?,” Draigo asked cautiously.
Instead of giving a proper answer, Zhen Liu gave the old bard a mysterious smile that seemed a tad unnatural before pulling him towards the trio of kaijin that were hovering over the Marquis’s deceased-
*Cough!*
Correction, over the Marquis’s living body.
While Zhen Liu and Nepherage’s attack was devastating, the Marquis had somehow managed to survive it. Whether it was due to the Marquis’s tenacity, Zhen Liu’s mercy or a lack of power…who could say for sure?
Zhen Liu made sure to bring Draigo to the front of the Marquis, so that the two of them could lock eyes with one another.
A wave of complicated emotions came over Draigo as he stared at the Marquis’s defeated form. It was mix of rage, disgust, horror and oddest of all…pity.
After studying the defeated Marquis for a spell, Draigo turned towards Zhen Liu, confusion in his face.
“What are you trying to-”
“Milord,” a rocky, grinding voice interrupted.
From the ground arose that horned red rock monster woman that has helped Zhen Liu deliver the finishing blow. In her hands was a military sword. The blade was nothing too fancy, symbolic mostly, but it was still made of steel and could cut through the flesh of a mundane person or beast.
“Thank you Nepherage,” Zhen Liu said as he accepted the saber.
“Anytime milord,”the monster called Nepherage said with a bow.
Zhen Liu proceeded to draw the saber and swing it about to test its weightiness.
“Have you ever heard of the saying,’ revenge is a dish best served cold?’,” Zhen Liu asked as he tossed away the scabbard and proceeded to use two hands to swing and hold the saber. “What do you think those words mean?”
“Uhhh…”
Draigo wasn’t expecting to talk philosophy so soon after such a violent endeavor. Regardless, he could at least somewhat answer, at least for a joke.
“It…probably means that revenge is best done in winter?”
Zhen Liu gave Draigo an amused look.
“Perhaps…but I would say it means that revenge should be done some time after the harm. So that one can look back at a slight not with heated passion, but cold logic.”
Zhen Liu swung the saber a few more times until he looked satisfied. Then he handed it to Draigo to hold, which he did automatically.
“But others still say that revenge has tendency to consume someone, and make it so that it’s impossible to move on with one’s life after the deed is done…and perhaps the best way to get revenge, is to simply live better than the one who wronged you.”
Zhen Liu made a gesture with his hand, a signal for the Razor Maiden to take a step back away from the Marquis’s neck. Meanwhile, Hurricroak and a large hairy beastman proceeded to tighten their grip.
He then gestured downward to the Marquis.
“Now then Draigo. I offer you a choice: what is going to be your final revenge?”
Draigo instantly grabbed the meaning of Zhen Liu’s actions once he locked eyes with the Marquis again. Only this time, he was the one with the power to end the other’s life on a whim.
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<...what, in the edgy overtly gothic fanfictiony hell was all of that?>
‘What? I’m just trying to set the mood?’
‘Stop reading my brain!’
