Deus Necros

“THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE!” the loudmouth hero howled as if all injustice had fallen upon him at once. His voice struck the stone and came back thinner, more shrill, the kind of sound that made already frayed nerves grate. Feeling completely humiliated by the fact that he was not only captured, tortured and even disregarded as weak and hopeless by both his enemy and his allies, he had no say nor leeway in deciding matters while Titania is here. The raw welt marks along his wrists spoke every time he gestured. The bruising around his eyes said the pain had not taught him anything.

“You will shut up, and do as you are told.” Titania spoke. Her words no longer had the usual nonchalant air that came with her more than five centuries of age. The weight was different now. The casual iron was gone. She looked very annoyed and ready to detonate at any given time. The air around her had that sharp taste right before lightning lands. And Ludwig knew the reason for it.

Well it was obvious wasn’t it, it was him.

The fact that she realized that the man who had been her companion albite for a short while, the one who assisted her in fighting against godless beings and heretics who forgone and betrayed their own god for their own greed. He even assisted her follower Misty and proved to be a great asset against the dark forces, was no more than one of the very same forces. The knowledge sat between them like a drawn blade laid flat on a table. Neither of them willing to reach, both of them very aware.

An Undead, an idea that goes against all life, that even goes against the very being that created him and gifted him his quest. Necros abhors those who refuse to die when their time comes. The doctrine was not ink on paper for Titania. It was the framework of her bones. But why would he even give this child a quest to dismantle the seven Usurpers of Death? When he himself is a Usurper? The contradiction bent the mind if stared at too long.

She could not judge nor understand the mind of a higher being like Necros, so she could only accept it. Acceptance tasted like sand between the teeth. But the problem at hand was, not only that every single former follower of Necros became a vile and terrifying being that the church always had incredible issues to deal with, this one was already several steps ahead of the former apostles, as he was an Undead from the start, an entity that is to be immediately destroyed by any of the members of the Holy Order upon sight.

The only issue is, she could not bring herself to do it. She saw his fight without eyes.

A person like Titania had no need for sight, her training in Aura was all she needed to recognize shapes and patterns. She saw how they fought, saw how Ludwig made sure that none of the blades from the monster she struggled against landed near any of her paladins or the soldiers of the empire. She noted the precise angles he chose to turn a killing arc into a near miss, the way he ate risk and bled effort to move death away from the helpless. And she saw how he made sure that Misty was always out of harm’s way. The girl had lied to herself once in the panic, but her body remembered who shielded her. Though the thought that a good Undead is a dead one kept nagging at her, along with the doctrines of the church, she could not help but fight the idea of immediately smiting Ludwig where he stood. Duty placed its hand on her shoulder. Experience pressed the other down.

She needed time, and the foolish Hero was not helping.

“I need to take the lead here! I’m the hero for god’s sake!” He puffed his chest as if that could fill the hole in his competence. The word hero came out like a badge he kept polishing while the metal underneath had already pitted.

“AND WHAT DID THAT HEROISM OF YOURS EVER DO!” Titania’s voice came out like the bellowing of a thunderstorm. It was the release of the frustration she felt toward Ludwig’s situation and now the full brunt of it was aimed at the Hero. There was no measured softness in it. The reprimand struck with the old authority of someone who had buried more champions than this boy had met.

Hiro buckled under the loud howl and could not help but fall on his back, heels skidding, palms scraping grit. Titania moved toward him threateningly. Her hair seemed to spark in lightning and smelled of burnt ozon. The gathered paladins and clerics took a half step back without thinking. Even the wounded tried to make themselves smaller.

“You led the people to their very deaths! For what foolish mission or Quest you called it? To be given powers beyond what you are right now? How stupid!” The word stupid landed like a mailed fist. It did not bounce.

Ludwig frowned as he began realizing more, not only did the Hero have the ability to inspect… Titania’s words meant that he had a System too. Threads tied to a distant hand. Numbers in the corner of the eye telling men they were stronger than they were.

“It’s your gods who tasked me to come here and obtain the heart of the moon!” he spat, and the spittle flashed in the light that still clung in scraps along the carvings.

The moment the words Heart of the Moon echoed in the chamber, the barely functional knight who was treated by some of the clerics that were released shuddered to stand up. The motion tore old scabs and opened the blood again, but he stood anyway. Pride hauled him upright where flesh begged him to lie still.

“NO! she is but a civilian!” the guard knight howled as he struggled to get a weapon. His hand closed on nothing. His mouth formed the promise to stop a thing he could not stop and would die trying.

Titania turned to him, confusion clear in her eyes. The confusion was not about the term civilian but about how many lines had moved at once in this room.

“I will not allow you to kill her!” the knight howled.

“Shut up, you damn savage!” the Hero, finding himself unable to fight against Titania nor go against her words, kicked the weakened, feverish man in the face. The sound was small, ugly. The knight folded with a stifled bark and a smear of blood against his own teeth. But his eyes didn’t hold a single mark of defeat, the man was serious, he’ll die for that woman.

“She’s but a tool, her heart is needed for the greater good!” Hiro said it as if greatness excused every cruelty in the steps that led to it. As if saying greater turned murder into math.

Ludwig’s frown deepened, and his expression turned gravely serious. The lines of his face settled in that way they did right before bad things happened to those who deserved them. The words from the hero meant that he needed to kill the princess of the moon, and from what Ludwig saw she could be a servant of a god of her own. Though there was hostilities between the two countries, killing an innocent person who is nothing but a servant or worshiper was far too greedy for war. It was the kind of move that turned sparks into a wall of flame.

“You shall do no such thing!” Titania’s voice cut cleaner than any blade in the room.

“That’s not what the pope had ordered! And you know it! Clementine had stated that I should be the one leading this expedition! Why the hell are we returning so soon!” He threw names like shields. He did not understand those names could be pulled away.

“The moment their princess of the moon dies, the war will truly breakout, do you think you can shoulder the weight of that many lives? Right now it’s just skirmishes without real casualties. No one wants the war to go on full swing!” She did not blink when she said it. This was not warning. This was forecast.

“That’s even better if it happens!” the hero howled back. The tunnel drank the sound and returned it thin. His grin looked wrong on his face.

Only then did everyone realize it, this guy was completely fucked up.

“Only then can I grow more! IN CASE YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND IT I AM THE HERO OF THIS STORY AND YOU ARE ALL SIDE CHARACTERS! Fucking act like them!”

Titania’s brow twitched. Ludwig sensed it. Someone was about to bite the dust.

The hero on the other hand was completely oblivious to his impending doom.

“Or maybe you’re just fucking afraid that I’ll grow stronger than you? Right, your pride is it not? The weak human from another world is growing too strong, stronger than the Holy Maiden who lived for hundreds of years. You’re afraid I’ll overgrow you!” He spoke fast, piling words in front of himself like sandbags. The fear in his pupils made the boast ring hollow.

Ludwig sensed it, right there and then, that Titania was about to do something extremely foolish. Not because she lacked control, but because righteous anger makes a clean argument in the moment and a bloody mess after.

And the bloody mess was about to be the Hero of his own story as he said.