Chapitre 17: Alastair's Disappointment
In the middle of the gloomy dark night, the pale silver moon shone with its brilliant moonlight as a heavy storm covered the heavens with its chunky storm clouds. The leaves plastered on their branches were swaying left and right as the grass protruding from the earth heavily rustled upon contact with the breeze of wind.
It was quite a messy night, especially for the bandits.
In a small decimated village covered by destruction, collapsed and burnt buildings could be found everywhere as corpses of their inhabitants were plastered all over the streets. Bandits had attacked this village to capture the young ones and turn them into slaves. But unfortunately for the bandits, this plan of theirs failed upon the revelation of the Krieger.
All of them had died, except for their leader, Otis. He was the only one who didn't charge with his subordinates to attack the intruder, and it was for that reason that Otis managed to survive that attack. At this very moment, he was lying on the ground as he couldn't move his feet.
He couldn't crawl away from the horror. After all, the moment he had done that, he would be revealing his back to a monster who wouldn't blink an eye on injuring him. So with this in mind, he simply lay silently while looking at the beast right before him.
Fear and dread were starting to take hold of his heart. His mind was becoming shrouded and illogical as the thought of his death was enough to make his body freeze. Despite being a former knight, the fear of death still plagued him. The fear of suffering and pain.
Such an ironic fear for someone who sought pleasure from it.
In front of Otis was the monster that killed all of his men, the one who he had thought of as a sorcerer. He still hadn't known what kind of thing the beast was, but he was sure that what she had done was nothing else than magic. This was why he thought of the monster as some traveling sorcerer.
The beast was a simple young girl, making it more strange.
She had silver-white hair which reached her waist; they were smooth and silky. Along it was her irises which shone in light magenta, they were beautiful with the combination of the slit-like pupils. Finally, her skin was soft and pale. She looked gorgeous as her body was seductive like the devil, yet her face was as pure as an angel's.
Not only that, she wore a strange uniform that appeared to be high-rank. There were also a pair of crow-ling wings behind her waist, which gave Otis a lot of questions. But there was one thing he was sure of. The monster before him was working for someone. A king, a nation, or an empire.
There were many possibilities, but the fact that this traveling sorcerer appeared to be working for someone signifies that she could negotiate. Even if the negotiation failed before, Otis was still not willing to give up on surviving this detriment. Once again, unfortunately, that wouldn't work against someone like her, someone like Alastair.
Alastair was gazing upon Otis with a cold expression plastered on her face. She slowly walked forward towards him as Otis flinched and tried to back away from her. As he couldn't move his legs, he was relatively slow as it didn't take a while for Alastair to stand before him.
"P-please, please, give me mercy. I will give you anything you want! I will do anything you want! I am Otis. I have wealth and power!!!" Otis begged for mercy as his recently assembled plan was already failing. Though, his fear of her was understandable. She was someone who didn't care about his words or anyone at that.
Could Otis even negotiate with her? After all, he himself wasn't her equal.
"Now, Otis. What did I hear from you? Hmm... Mercy? You want mercy from me?" Alastair questioned while standing before him with a cold expression and an icy gaze. She was talking like an executioner, waiting to hear the last words of the bastard that was about to die.
"Y-yes! Yes! I want mercy! I promise to do anything you want. I will dedicate my entire life to you! Please, let me live." Otis answered with a panicky voice as he wanted to be left alive. Wasn't the death of the bandits before him already enough? Such was the thought within his mind.
'Does he not have pride? Or maybe, his pride is elsewhere, somewhere along with his worldview?'
Alastair thought to herself as the bandit boss in front of her was relatively acting like a loser with no pride. It was kind of expected, but what if the honor was in his worldview? He might have a strange worldview which Alastair could strike to break him apart before killing him in the cruelest way.
'So what kind of world view does he have?' Alastair started peeking through the veil of the decimated village and thought of the words he had said before. From the imagery and words she could perceive, the worldview of this bastard was sadistic. A disgusting, sadistic worldview that stemmed from narcissistic desires.
With this idea in mind, an innocent yet wicked smile emerged from Alastair's face. Soteria simply stood right beside her master as she wondered how her master would handle the reason for this destruction and pain. Would she quickly kill him and continue on? Or will she do something else?
'Either way, I am excited,' Soteria thought to herself while having an emotionless expression plastered. She looked coldly at the bandit boss while Alastair walked nearer and nearer to Otis with a wicked smirk on her face. The show was about to start. It was time for Alastair to deconstruct Otis.
"You would do anything I want? A dog? You are an ugly one, at that. Working for me isn't something you should think of, though I wonder what makes you think pain and suffering could give people the things they need. Am I right, Otis? You hate someone trying to make you see what you are."
Alastair said with a calm voice as Otis froze in response. He slowly looked Alastair right in the eyes and replied with a cold voice. "What are you trying to say? Are you playing with me? What makes you think you know anything about me? You're just a sorcerer, given with power."
'That hit right on the spot.'
Alastair silently thought within herself as she continued.
"Say what you want, but we all know the truth. The reason why you hated that brother of the girl wasn't because of his anger towards you. It was simply because it makes you realize what kind of person you are. Pain and suffering, the trials of life. Death, the epilogue of life."
Without any hesitation like before, Otis shouted with all his might with a deep hatred towards Alastair. "You think you know anything!? I am giving them a chance to learn how the real world works! They should thank me instead! I am a knight, the one who saves everyone!!!"
"Hohoho, How foolish."
"What kind of delusion are you feeding yourself. You seek pleasure through suffering and pain. You are no longer a knight but a monster, pretending to be one. People like you can't see themselves in a mirror and would rather think of the world as something against them."
"Remember Otis, the reason you got disbanded as a knight," Alastair uttered with a soothing voice as Otis looked at her with shock. 'How did she know? How did she know I was a former knight?' Such were the thoughts trapped in his mind as fear continued shrouding his heart.
Soteria, looking at everything, immediately understood how Alastair managed to guess such information. From the sword, battle style, and the words Otis had uttered before. He might have forgotten that everything in the surroundings had clues of his past being a former knight.
Uneducated bastards like the bandit might not have known how the knight order works, but those within militaries would understand habits that would never disappear.
"You were too violent. You seek death and pain instead of hope and peace. You weren't a knight, and those above you know that. Until that moment, your termination of being a knight was set into stone. Due to that, you ran in this place and led your own bandit group. Aren't I right, Otis?"
Alastair once again kept giving information that was too broad. But even then, it was still enough for Otis to become surprised and afraid of Alastair's strange ability to perceive throughout his entire life. He slowly backed away from Alastair as his body was shaking in fear. Cold sweat was dripping from his forehead as tears were starting to escape from his eyes.
"This strange world perception gets destroyed when you see someone looking at you with a deep hatred. You usually get angry towards them as you know yourself that sooner or later, a blade would strike your head like a monster executed from the world." Alastair continued as she slowly activated her ability.
"P-please, no, no..." Otis said as he covered his ears and closed his eyelids. Alastair sighed upon seeing such a scene as she stretched her body and thought to herself within her mind. 'The truth is excruciating for them. A way to break them is to immortalize that truth.'
'But, I'm done. His reasoning for doing such things was rather flimsy. No debate or so whatever. Even my former enemies had good reasons for their strange views of life.' Alastair shook her head in disappointment as it was time to continue what was written on the contract.
"I'm finished with you, too easy," Alastair said with a tone of disapproval and disappointment. Meanwhile, Soteria, who was hearing the entire paragraphs, couldn't help but sigh in disappointment. After all, it would have been better if the boss had good reasons for what he had done.
Unfortunately, he was simply a dumb fool who couldn't think clearly of himself and those around him.
"W-what? Am I free?" Otis uttered as he gained control of himself and stopped covering his ears. He then opened his eyelids and looked at Alastair with a hopeful expression. Alastair tilted her head with a smile and uttered with a calm voice. "Obviously, you are free. From your life, of course."
A bad joke it was.
Even Soteria didn't have that much reaction from it.
"W-" He couldn't continue his words as he turned his gain downwards and noticed his body decaying. Without any hesitation, he shouted and started screaming with all his might. "NO!!! NO!!! NO!!! ARGGHH!!!" His screaming stopped as the decay had reached his neck.
He fell to the ground, flatly lying as he could only see the storm above him. Such was his last scene, and that was his death. The less honorable end. Not through battle or even torture. How he managed to enter the knight order was a question in itself.
Alastair sighed as Otis had finally died. She still found herself disappointed, but there was no helping it. "Are you okay, Lady Alastair?" Soteria questioned with a calm voice as Alastair turned her gaze towards her maid and replied. "I'm okay... Just a bit disappointed."
"I have met with a lot of people like him. They are more or less the same though the unique ones have more corpses on their names. I can be included in that list. I destroyed a lot of lives before getting executed. I stand by my reasoning and worldview till the end."
Alastair continued her words as she couldn't help but think of her long past on the battlefield. There were horrifying things that would break people's minds on that battlefield which spanned for decades. The soil atop it was probably the ashes of their grandfathers, or even the ones older than them.
She had seen numerous soldiers break their minds upon the scenes they could see. They would sometimes end their lives, they would sometimes become crazy fools, or they would become dangerous bastards. Unfortunately, dealing with them was not that rare on the battlefield in her past.
But even then, she still had a question within her mind.
"Soteria, I have my own questions waiting to be answered."
"I always wonder..."
"When will someone break this worldview of mine? The grand empire and its excellent loyal subordinates. Is it sick or twisted? That is a question that I myself will never answer, though maybe one day, someone will come."
"Maybe it will break. Otherwise, I may have to break it myself."
Cadeaux
-- Cadeau
reçu État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone