"THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE!" the loudmouth hero howled as if all injustice had fallen upon him at once. His voice struck the stone and ca 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 ti 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 ca 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 ti. 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 sa 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 ti cos. The doctrine was not ink on paper for Titania. It was the frawork 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 forr follower of Necros beca a vile and terrifying being that the church always had incredible issues to deal with, this one was already several steps ahead of the forr apostles, as he was an Undead from the start, an entity that is to be imdiately destroyed by any of the mbers 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 rembered 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 imdiately smiting Ludwig where he stood. Duty placed its hand on her shoulder. Experience pressed the other down.
She needed ti, 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 ca out like a badge he kept polishing while the tal underneath had already pitted.
"AND WHAT DID THAT HEROISM OF YOURS EVER DO!" Titania’s voice ca 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 aid at the Hero. There was no asured softness in it. The reprimand struck with the old authority of soone who had buried more champions than this boy had t.
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 seed to spark in lightning and slled 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 ant that he had a System too. Threads tied to a distant hand. Numbers in the corner of the eye telling n they were stronger than they were.
"It’s your gods who tasked to co 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 mont the words Heart of the Moon echoed in the chamber, the barely functional knight who was treated by so 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 ford 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 sar 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 ant 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 fla.
"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! Clentine had stated that I should be the one leading this expedition! Why the hell are we returning so soon!" He threw nas like shields. He did not understand those nas could be pulled away.
"The mont 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. Soone 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 sothing extrely foolish. Not because she lacked control, but because righteous anger makes a clean argunt in the mont and a bloody ss after.
And the bloody ss was about to be the Hero of his own story as he said.
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