Capítulo 265: Jotunheim

[Sophie's Pov]

'Why didn't he kill us...'

Looking down at my hands, sitting up in the hospital bed that I had woken up in, I still couldn't wrap my head around what had happened.

Despite me having heard the story of us being found half-dead, with the media reporting it as a failed mass murder, a failed terrorist attack conducted by the demon James Jackson, it still didn't make any sense.

Even though the thought of it made chills fall down my back, I couldn't stop myself from thinking of the truth.

Because we should all have been dead. If James had really wanted to kill us, none of us would have survived. Which left only one possibility: He actively chose to keep us alive.

Not just me and Arthur, everyone who had stood under the insanity that he showed us, the rain of violence that he brought upon us, we were all still alive. This caused the question to repeat itself in my head, as I was incapable of finding an answer, just why? Why did he allow us to live?

Pulling me out of my head, Arthur, who was sitting beside the bed grabbed my hand, looking straight into my eyes.

"... are you listening to me?"

"Ah, I'm sorry. I was just... thinking."

With a sad smile, he stroked my arm and repeated what he had already told me, only this time making sure I heard him.

"The memorial will be held tomorrow, but I don't think..."

"I'm going. I'm absolutely going there, no matter what you think. Because..."

Once again reality hit me, and a tear emerged in the corner of my eye. A tear that I quickly swiped away with the back of my hand.

"Ha...haha... Peter and Brad would both have laughed at me acting like this, wouldn't they? Peter especially, going 'Kukuku' with that weird smile..."

This time, he didn't say a word, just allowing me to think about the ones that we had lost, the ones that for some reason weren't spared. A fact that only made things even more confusing for me. However, I also knew that this wasn't the time to ponder.

"But, does that mean Sarah woke up?"

"That...No, she is still unconscious. But the authorities and the families of Brad and Peter didn't want to wait anymore."

Sarah was currently the only one who hadn't woken up since the incident, and although Arthur had tried to ask the doctors at the hospital we were currently staying in, they hadn't been able to give him a good answer.

*Click*

Suddenly, the door to my private hospital room opened, and a face I would have never expected to see walked in, his body clad in a simple pair of black pants and his armless torso wearing a royally red shirt.

"Your Highness?!"

Panicking even more than me at the sudden sight, Arthur was well on his way to his knees as the king just shook his head, "No need for that, Mr. Luminary. I am not here as the king today, I am here as a father."

Though there was no mistaking that it truly was king George that had walked into the room, the paleness of his face and his sunken eyes were almost enough to make one believe that it wasn't.

'This man...'

I had already heard the stories of the video that James had shown everyone, how the king had supposedly set him up in order to get rid of him. And although the media went out declaring the video as fake, with multiple experts on the subject backing that notion, I was still not sure what to believe.

But then, he suddenly bowed to us.

"I am deeply sorry for allowing this to happen to you all. It was never my intention to make things spiral out of control like this, but there's no doubt that the fault lies with me. I am truly sorry for what you had to go through."

Somehow, although I wasn't quite sure what he meant, I also knew that he was absolutely sincere. This was his true feelings about the incident, about James, that he truly did believe that he was the one to blame.

Seeing the king act like this, not caring about upholding his status in front of us, I couldn't help but feel like there might still be more to it that I didn't know. Even if the video was true, there might have been more to the story.

If there was one thing I had learned while living in this world, it was that a lot of things weren't like they seemed. Naturally, this went both ways, meaning that there was still the possibility of James getting condemned for nothing.

Yet, that didn't even matter anymore. Because he had now cemented his role as the villain. No matter what had happened in the past, he was now the enemy. Not just the enemy of us, but the enemy of all mortal races on Tella.

Therefore there was no point in finding out the truth anymore either, as that would change absolutely nothing, nor would it take away the pain and sorrow of the families that had lost their sons and brothers.

Everything had once again turned into pure pain and misery, for everyone. Simply because a certain man did whatever he wanted, no matter the costs.

****

[James' Pov]

Sitting in my newly built office, one of the many parts of Jotunheim, the facility that the principal had so generously 'gifted' me, a very upset woman had made her way in here.

*BAM!*

"You lied to me, James!"

Slamming her hands down hard on my desk, Jessica's face was painted with anger and frustration.

Putting down the paper in my hand, the first report of many coming from Mark who was currently infiltrating Kurat, I wasn't too surprised to see my former teacher getting upset about what had happened.

"Hmm? What do you mean?"

"Don't act like that! You said that there would no unnecessary deaths! So how do you explain the fact that I just got word that you killed both Peter and Brad!"

Standing up, I walked around the desk, feeling a bit naked without my mask covering my face.

"So you say. Well, it's true that I did kill them, however..."

"However, what?!"

"However, I do not regard their deaths as unnecessary. In fact, I feel it to be quite abhorrent to view their sacrifices as such. Because their sacrifices are some of the paving stones for us moving forward."

It was pure sophistry. Sophistry created not only to convince Jessica that it was necessary but also to convince myself. Because the moment I stopped believing that, the contract that I had made with Jessica would claim my life.

"..."

Something that she must've also realized, as she turned her head down toward the wooden floor of the rustic room, unable to retort to my words.

Leaning forward, as my new height was enough for me to have become quite a lot taller than her, I spoke softly, "It's okay to feel guilt, Jessica. If you didn't feel guilt for what we were doing, you would not be suited to follow me."

"James..."

"It's enough for me to be the villain of this story, Jessica. Because after all is done, and we have achieved our goal, I will need people who want to rebuild a new world... So, what do you think of the establishment? Pretty neat, right?"

A bit shocked to see me suddenly take a step back and smile, it took her a couple of seconds to comprehend what I was saying.

"Uh... Oh, the buildings? It's pretty good, I think?"

Jotunheim, our new home. If one were to see it from the sky, one would probably think of it very strange that our home was placed right on top of the dried dirt of the wastelands, in the middle of absolutely nowhere.

As it had been built using the principal's technology everything was more than top-of-the-line in terms of modernity, barring my small little office which had been built with a 19th-century theme in mind, mostly consisting of wooden furniture, located on the highest floor in the main building.

Jotunheim currently consisted of three different buildings.

The main building, which we were in right now, had a multitude of different kinds of practice rooms, with everything from gravity chambers to more traditional dojos. This was also the building where the meeting rooms were placed, where the people who had joined the cause would be able to talk to each other.

The second building was more or less a hotel, the living quarters as well as the restaurant for everyone to live in. Though it was quite fancy, there was nothing that special about it.

Then, finally, we had the last building, the building that was the most important for us.

Looking like more or less a modern barrack, the last facility contained the biggest gift that I had received from the principal, a gift that he wasn't aware that he had given me, as I had 'accidentally' stumbled over some pretty neat blueprints in his lab.

A portal room, with connections all over the world.

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