Chapter 40: Answers and revelations

Suddenly, Jacob came back to reality as he opened his eyes, he was confused and a little disappointed that the "dream" was over.

That dream brought up confusing feelings that Jacob thought he had forgotten, and besides the feelings, it brought up insatiable doubts that would make him sleepless nights. After seeing that he was back to reality, Jacob knew that he had no time to waste, so he recovered and said to Erick:

"You don't care about your kingdom, or your people."

"I do care! I swear, please have mercy!" Erick begged for his life, but jacob didn't give a damn about those words and spoke:

"You did all that to me because you wanted to show your father that you were useful, didn't you?"

"No! I'm talking to..." before Erick could finish his sentence, jacob punched him in the face with all his strength. The impact of the blow was so powerful that it broke all of his front teeth and crumpled his face.

Erick collapsed on the ground on the verge of death, but Jacob was not satisfied yet, he wanted to continue and make Erick suffer, but strangely enough, Jacob could no longer feel that hate with such intensity, it seems that the dream changed some of his emotions temporarily.

Grace looked at Jacob worried that he would end up sinking deeper and deeper into darkness. At first she thought it would be a quick revenge, but that hadn't happened and Jacob was still getting revenge. Then Grace realized that the situation was serious and Jacob would probably become someone else, perhaps someone colder and with less love for life, because for Jacob the suffering Erick was going through would never be enough, so he would always seek more and more.

In an early attempt to prevent Jacob from becoming even darker, Grace used all the courage in his mind, body and soul and drew his sword.

At the same time...

"SHIT!" Jacob bellowed angrily as he took a few steps back. He closed his eyes and started talking to himself:

'Go Jacob, you were so close, now you have to finish the job, you have to kill him, but death will be a blessing, so I need to make him suffer, So why ... why can't I feel that uncontrollable hatred anymore? Is it because I had that dream? Damn... It doesn't matter, I just need to be who I've always been.'

Jacob was frustrated with himself and full of questions, the feeling was just like when you forget something very important that was on the tip of your tongue. Jacob wants to torture Erick for days, no, for weeks! For years! But it seems that he had lost something very important to complete this, his determination.

When Jacob was in that "dream" it seems that that entity temporarily changed his behavior into something passive, without hatred, without resentment, without sadness, without greed, lust, ambition... But Jacob couldn't accept that, he didn't go through everything he went through to give up at the finish line.

Suddenly, Jacob gritted his teeth and started walking towards Erick, he was going to do what he wanted from the start, and he didn't give a damn about the consequences that would happen, if any...

All of Jacob's senses were focused on a single figure, which was Erick lying unconscious on the ground, but to his shock, just as he was about to advance under him, Grace suddenly came into his view and with a sword in her hand, she drove the sword straight into Erick's skull.

"Huh?" Upon seeing that scene, Jacob was paralyzed, after all, it never crossed his mind that grace would interfere, or that Erick would die like that.

After killing Erick who was encapacitated and on the verge of death, grace calmly withdrew her sword from his skull as she spoke:

"I know you didn't like that, but we can talk alone later, okay?"

Even hearing everything, Jacob didn't answer her, he stared paralyzed at Erick's dead body on the floor, because his feelings were confused, a part of him was happy that he had died and another part was angry that he had died so easily. A mixture of hate and happiness ended up leaving Jacob's brain confused and not knowing how to react.

"Right... Heroes, check to see if the loop that held us has been broken. Helena, go get dressed properly and gather the supplies of the dead adventurers, we're leaving in 5 minutes." After seeing the state Jacob was in, Grace decided to take control of the situation and get out of that forest as quickly as possible.

"Right!" The heroes and Helena took grace's orders and quickly began to carry them out, they wanted no part of what was to come.

Seeing everyone moving, grace cleaned her sword and put it away, after that she walked over to jacob and put her hand under his shoulder as she said in an attempt to console him:

"I know... You didn't want him to die that way, but I couldn't let you become that kind of man, a man who tortures another man in cold blood while enjoying himself... Seeing you do that would cause me to start seeing him differently and I didn't want that."

"He didn't deserve death, death was too good for him..." Jacob whispered those words in a sad tone.

"No, death was and always will be the greatest punishment for anyone who wanted to live and from his record, I'm sure he wanted to live to show his father his triumphs, but it turned out he failed again. So, relax, the war is over. You don't need to think about the past anymore, now you need to live in the present and think only about the future."

After hearing those words in a gentle and sweet tone, jacob felt that he was not alone, either in making decisions or sharing feelings...

Regaining his composure to a usual cool atmosphere, jacob took a deep sigh trying to clear his mind and answered grace with a simple reply:

"You speak very beautifully."

Grace gave a light smile upon hearing those words and replied:

"I used to go to lectures on motivations and it turned out that I gained a little experience in that field. But don't you think we should take a vacation to heal the mind, just the two of us? Because since we've embarked on our journey, we've both only seen blood and death, maybe it's time we took a break from that."

"Not yet...maybe when I complete all my goals."

"Hm, but why don't we just drop everything? You know, we can just live our lives somewhere isolated."

"Grace, we have many enemies and they are very powerful enemies, enemies that I can't let live, otherwise they will never stop coming after us. Now five heroes have come and another small army and then what? Will 10 heroes and a whole army come?"

"Sigh, okay! But when we're done, you and I will..." Before she could finish her sentence, time suddenly froze.... Seeing that and feeling that everything was literally paralyzed, Jacob's eyes widened in shock, but his shock didn't stop, because he heard a voice coming from behind his back as he giggled:

"I am surprised that you have lasted so long in this world, jacob voss."

[...]

Author's note:

There was an entity that took the form of jacob's mother in that dream and she ended up temporarily altering his feelings so that he could spare Erick, but her plans ended up going wrong because he died...

Jacob's repulsive behavior towards Erick was inspired by real cases when it comes to betrayal, revenge, etc... The hatred ends up consuming his mind and causing the person not to make the right decisions for that moment.

You probably wanted Erick to die in a more cruel way, but I decided to put together some elements for character development which would be Jacob's hatred and Grace's feelings and form a connection, Grace being the "cure and peace" for Jacob's mind and soul. So Erick's death was in a way important to the relationship of the two.