บท 80: Reaper (2)

Having a preconceived idea of Elves as pretentious beings who hated filth, Gedril was having a hard time realizing that one of them was humble enough to want to shake his hand.

"Uh... are you aware that soap and water doesn't exist in Hell?" He asked Fimafeng while scratching his head with an embarrassed face to make him understand that, unlike him, his hands and the rest of his body weren't perfectly clean.

"*Snort*, I may be damn old but my nose and eyes are still working perfectly, I don't need you to tell me to notice that you're gross." He answered him tactlessly with his distinguished voice that wasn't at all in tune with his statement, which was certainly true but still very insulting.

"Come on! Don't be shy!" He added before grabbing Gedril's right hand to force a handshake, "My work often leads me to get my hands dirty, so I'm almost glad that for once I'm doing it for a friendly gesture."

Gedril overlooked his curiosity about what Fimafeng meant precisely by 'my work often leads me to get my hands dirty', as well as the fact that he mentioned his advanced age when he seemed barely older than him, and even the insulting nature of what he had just said to him...

Why?

Because he was enjoying that handshake.

It might sound like a weird reason, but for Gedril it was one of the best things that had happened to him since he had ended up in Hell.

After years of torture and humiliation, receiving a little consideration meant so much to him that it was enough to make him let his guard down a bit.

'Mmh?' As he was smiling stupidly at Fimafeng and as their handshake dragged on, Gedril looked down because although he hadn't shaken anyone's hand for more than a decade, he noticed that the one he was shaking had a strange texture...

When he looked at it he thought he was hallucinating, and once he understood that he wasn't, he restated the stereotypes he had regarding the Elves.

'I would have preferred him to abstain if it was to do that.' He thought with a bit of vexation when he saw that Fimafeng had made a glove appear on his right hand for their handshake.

Seeing that Gedril had noticed his glove, Fimafeng hastened to make it disappear, after of course removing his hand from the one of Gedril...

"*Cough*, *cough*, sorry if this appeared rude to you, it's that because of my age I have fragile health, I have to be careful with mycrobes." He justified himself before pretending to cough with such lousy acting that Gedril was hoping that he was only doing it out of politeness and wasn't seriously thinking that he was stupid enough to be convinced by his shitty performance.

Thinking it was the right time to get back to business, Fimafeng tried to find a way to change the subject and he figured it out by recalling the chains on Gedril's wrists and ankles, "That must hurt, right?" He asked in a serious tone for once, pointing to the chain wrapped around Gedril's right wrist.

Since Gedril's reaction after hearing this question was to not respond it and frowning, Fimafeng indirectly had the confirmation he wanted, because the nature of the energy as well as the smell of burning flesh that emanated from these chains had already taught him a lot about their functions.

"I see..." Fimafeng resumed, abandoning once and for all the jester character that he had shown until then, "...I was expecting this kind of cruelty from Amon. No wonder you're willing to go to such lengths to see him dead."

Amon; all the hairs on Gedril's body stood up when he heard that name...

This name, it belonged to the monster who was at the same time the one responsible for his coming to Hell, the one responsible for the tortures he had undergone as well as his father... and as much to say that of the three reasons why Gedril was hating him to the core, it was the last one that was hurting him the most because contrary to the rest, it was definitive.

Anyway, there was only one thing that mattered to Gedril in the present moment, one thing for which he had agreed to sell his soul to Death; see this bastard dead.

"Tell me, are you wondering why my master only offered you this deal now?" Fimafeng asked suddenly.

Gedril was surprised by Fimafeng's question because it seemed strange to him, then he understood his innuendo, "Are you telling me that you knew I was there for a long time and you decided to do something only now?!" He shouted trying to restrain himself from becoming violent as he didn't want to take the risk of pushing Fimafeng to retaliate since he knew it would be like signing his death warrant.

"To be honest, yeah, we know you've been here the whole time, though..." Fimafeng replied without showing compassion or remorse, "...who says we are here for you in the first place?"

Seeing that Gedril was now looking at him with a confused look, Fimafeng continued to explain, "The truth is that for us you are a bonus..." He said doing quotation marks with his fingers when he uttered the word 'bonus', "...we were going to come and kill Amon anyway."

Gedril's gaze became empty, "I sold my soul for nothing?" He mumbled.

Fimafeng tried to reassure him, "Well no, if the plan was just to kill Amon, then your fate would be to continue to rot in hell until the end of your life."

Since his words didn't seem to have reassured Gedril at all, Fimafeng tried another approach...

"Hey! You better not do your little existential crisis because you just realized that your Nephilim's butt isn't as important as you thought it was!" He shouted before slapping Gedril's left cheek with his glove, which he made reappear for the occasion. "If we didn't come looking for you before now it's mainly because your value is far from being equivalent to the losses we would have had in doing so."

"Then why are you doing it now?!" Gedril asked while stroking his left cheek after the slap woke him up.

"Because it's the Apocalypse and that a group of little shits from a subspecies of Werewolves were sent to cause trouble for the young master." Fimafeng answered him with an undisguised anger.

Gedril lost patience, "Apocalypse? Young master? Werewolves? What the hell are you talking about?!"