**Kethryl**
What a shame it is.
The mission I was initially sent on was to gather enough mercenaries and bandits to draw Lord Yuwens’ attention and prompt him to send someone to investigate. After which, we would have killed whoever he sent until he would send someone actually important our way, so we could force him out and murder him.
But now that I have an actual look at the man in question… I feel reminded of my own master. Wilhelm Yuwen is no enemy I could ever even hope to defeat or live to tell the tale. I could see it in his eyes, a steadfast, cold determination to kill whoever stood in his way, just like my masters, but slightly different somehow. In a way, even I couldn’t explain. His glare was so sharp that I could almost feel myself being cut by his gaze alone.
So, if I can’t defeat him or take the city, I must at least return home to my master with “some good news”. Just turning Sir Rodrick into a traitor wouldn’t be enough. I had to come back with something, or else Miriael and I would be facing our master’s rage.
Mmmmh? How about I kill just one of them as a little souvenir? Hahahaha, that could work. Now Eeny, meeny, miny, mou, I choose you.
**Janus**
Everything hurts. I just want to roll over and die. Why didn’t I stay at home? I could just be home right now listening to Ruby.
“Janus ____ __”
But no, instead now I’m in some dark void with no light around me. There are no smells or anything to touch. And there is nothing to hear…
“Janus w___ _p”
Huh? I try to turn to this sudden voice whispering into my ear, but my eyes find nothing. I try to focus deeper into the dark abyss only to find an eerie darkness staring back. Then I hear the same strangely familiar voice coming out of the deep darkness that filled the void in front of me.
“Janus wa__ up”
I try my best to come closer so I can hear the whispers more clearly. When I suddenly hear a different, grotesque voice howling,
“JANUS, WAKE UP!!!”
The noise seemed to come from every side, completely filling my ears to the point of bursting, but what finally sent me awake wasn’t the guttural howling nor the overall noise; it was the creature that had come out of the abyss, completely filling my field of view. It was a hulking yet grazefull amalgamation of pale flesh with patches of white hair. Lumps and tentacles writhed and twitched as it transformed into myriads of shapes. It collapsed and rebuilt itself again and again into shapes I never even thought possible. This is something different, something alien, something inhuman. A Monster.
And as it opened, innumerable different-sized mouths filled with impossible teeth screamed another of its commands, and countless red eyes focused on me. Did I finally wake up?
I had hoped that I would be free from this nightmare when I awoke, and thankfully, I was right. However, I immediately noticed that something was amiss. And as I looked around to find the source of my discomfort, I saw Joel and Collin sitting next to me on the cobblestone floor of the city center. A peculiar hooded figure standing on a hill just outside Aldmoor. Who I could tell, despite the distance, was looking down at us.
Before I even knew what was going on, my body moved as I felt a change in the air surrounding Joel and me. I picked up my dulled sword, reopening the already scabbed-over wounds on my hands, putting myself firmly between the two and the Hooded figure. All this happened in barely a millisecond, and I felt the world around me coming to a halt when I noticed a distortion in the air coming closer and closer to us.
I charged my blade with as much aura as I could still muster and prepared for the worst. As the projectile drew closer, I noticed a blueish hue around it and a thin string of the same hue connecting it to the hooded figure. And without being told, I understood that was a spell cast by the hooded figure, and its target was not me, who had been lying on the floor defenseless, but… Joel? It didn’t matter; I would deflect it all the same. The question of how never even reached the surface of my brain. I just knew I could do it. And so I did.
When it was just a few centimeters from my sword, I cut right through the spell and its connection with one aura-charged upward swing. The spell fissled out, and I collapsed again, leaving a totally bewildered Joel and Collin behind.
