There were no words to describe Duchess Rudalia’s current feelings. Pure unadulterated rage did not have enough venom in it to describe what what was going through her veins. She had gone past seeing flashes of red and was starting to see spots of white in her vision.

  She didn’t even know that was possible. Especially at her level of advancement.

  But she couldn’t look away. She had to wait, wait until this cursed, wretched elf left her castle so she could go out and burn the paintings.

  She just had the scrying orb angled so that she couldn’t see her paintings directly. Just the budding ‘artist’s’ bodies.

  The elf then cracked his neck, and said something else.

  “The name’s Artigan by the way.”

  He looked around the hallway, when his eyes flickered over where the scrying spell was, her heart skipped a beat. Then his eyes immediately locked onto it.

  Artigan stared right at her, as if he could see right through her scrying spell. He grinned, teeth hungry for her delicate flesh, a monster of death ash and war. Her throat went dry as she smelled copper in the air.

  He turned away from the scrying spell, facing one of the walls, careful not to disturb the paintings. Then he punched through, destroying the stone walls of her castle and ending up in an entirely different room. He walked on through, the demon teen trailing behind him, confused and a little scared.

  Artigan marched to the other side of the room and then punched through once again.

  It was only then that Duchess Rudalia realized Artigan was going directly towards her.

  Her face instantly went pale. How? Was all of that a ruse? Had he been deciphering her scrying spell the entire time? No, that was impossible, even if he had been . Not even the greatest of the kingdom’s mages could trace her scrying spell without her noticing.

  There was absolutely no way that a primitive elf that constantly leaked mana would be able to work at such a level of finesse.

  Yet here it was, Artigan had found out where she was.

  And he was taking the direct route towards her.

  Duchess Rudalia didn’t even worry about putting on her shoes, she threw open her panic room doors and sprinted out. When she passed a window, she flung it open and threw out her scrying orb, using a magical hand to make it fly as far as possible away from her.

  A very close echoed out from behind her.

  Other sounds started to fill her ears as well. Her own heartbeat, her own panicked breathing, the steps that Artigan was making.

  They all echoed loudly in her ears.

  She sprinted, her mana coursing through her veins, wishing she had learned more than the basic boosting spells. She entered one of the more hidden tunnels and sprinted through, the stone door closing behind her, spells used to clean and hide all traces of use.

  She sprinted down one of her major escape tunnels, the musty unlit passageway marring her delicate feet.

  She didn’t even dare cast another spell in case he could track her through it somehow.

  Then a crash echoed out behind her. The mad silver-haired elf blurring up to catch up to her.

  It was like he had been toying with her from the very start. Rudalia raised her hands, fear gripping her heart, knowing her spells would do nothing to stop this great beast from tearing into her.

  Duchess Rudalia would not go out like a common peasant fleeing from a bandit.

  “D-do you know who I am?! I am the Great Strategist under King Theskar, the hero of the peo–”

  Artigan backhanded her across the face. She went flying into the walls as her spell fizzled out. She was so shocked by the speed at which he closed the distance she barely had the right words to say.

  “Y-you hit me! You savage primitive beast!”

  “No, I slapped you.” Artigan contemplated this like it was important. “Actually, you’re right. If you were a dude I would have punched you in the face. I should probably fix that.”

  “Wha-”

  A fist smashed into her face, shattering her nose on impact. She almost blacked out.

  –

  Ryan had of course held back. Agrinth was the real victim here, and it was only fair that the evil bitch would face the consequences from the aggrieved.

  The kid had barely arrived while Duchess Rudalia held her nose in shock. She looked at the blood, as if it was something impossible to believe. Clearly she hadn’t been hit before.

  Agrinth stared at the bleeding, screaming strategist of the human kingdom. The one who had routed the demons, slaughtered them and put them in chains.

  He jumped on her, his fists pummeling down on Duchess Rudalia.

  At first Ryan had thought it was a great idea. Let Agrinth vent out his anger and frustrations at someone truly evil. It had worked for Ryan. Beating the shit out of Rax and Rick had been quite therapeutic for him. Plus, was telling him that Duchess Rudalia deserved every single bit of the beating. Whether it was his class or instinct he couldn’t quite tell.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Twenty seconds went by before Ryan realized this wasn’t a good idea at all. Agrinth had turned completely savage, his eyes were bloodshot as he kept smashing away, his own fists breaking against the much tougher woman’s body.

  Ryan grabbed the kid by his shirt and lifted him back. Agrinth was snarling, trying hard to break free, grabbing at Ryan’s arms, trying to dig his nails in. He was so gone that he wasn’t even speaking words.

  Yeah… perhaps this wasn’t the wisest of Ryan’s moves.

  “Okay calm yourself.”

  The demon child kept snarling, then tried to bite his arm.

  “I said calm down.

  The aura snapped Agrinth out of his blood fury. He suddenly looked away from Ryan in fear, only to look at the cowering Duchess before him. Some of the anger rose back as he became articulate once more.

  “Let me go!”

  “Y-you–” the beaten Rudalia rasped. “You will regret this I–”

  Ryan threw a knife at the Duchess’ head, putting her out of her misery mid-monologue. That sudden action seemed to startle the kid. Ryan put the kid down and kneeled in front of Agrinth, blocking the view of the now corpse of Duchess Rudalia.

  He raised a finger.

  “Adventuring 301. When dealing with nobles that you know are going to stab you in the back, you either get out of dodge or kill them quick get out of dodge got it?”

  Adventuring 301 seemed a little too advanced for the uncomprehending Agrinth, so Ryan elaborated further.

  “I know sometimes you really, really want to smash their faces in, and some of them really, look like they need their faces rearranged. But the truth is, the worst thing for a haughty noble is to die an death in some godforsaken tunnel, killed like rats and forgotten. Giving them time to get riled up only lets them vent their anger. Got it?”

  Agrinth did not get it at all. “B-but you punched her in the face.”

  “Ah, but that’s why it’s adventuring 301. It’s a little advanced and I’m still learning and making mistakes. Like letting a kid beat up a helpless woman.

  Ryan was completely regretting letting Agrinth beat the shit out of the Duchess. Instead of venting his frustrations it looked like the hate had completely poisoned the mind instead. Agrinth was shaking, wishing he could have continued to punch Duchess Rudalia until his own fists broke.

  “She deserves it. .” He hissed. “They grouped all of us together, call us demons. All lies so they can take whatever they want from us.”

  “Ah.”

  He really couldn’t think of a better response to comfort the poor misguided kid. Then again, it wasn’t like the kid was completely wrong either. It was what Earth had done in The Realm, they conquered under false pretenses, justifying their expansion by demonizing the competition.

  That hesitation perhaps lost him any chance of changing the kid’s mind. Ryan refused to say something stupid like ‘demons can also be monsters too’ or ‘not all humans are bad’. They would be empty words, only actual, proper action might convince someone like this.

  He just reached out a hand to the kid.

  “C’mon, let’s go see King Theskar.”

  Agrinth stared at the hand, a steely look in his eyes. One where burning fury had forged into steely determination. Agrinth was perhaps truly realizing what Ryan was. Someone that had killed his King, someone who went around doing as he pleased and wrecked things that he didn’t like.

  “You said you would fix everything. Will killing another king fix everything?”

  “No. I said that because I was pissed off.” Ryan sighed, trying to find the right words. “I do have a plan but there’s no guarantee it’ll work. Adventurers aren’t really the people you call to fix things. We’re the ones you call to explore the unknown… or to slay monsters that others can’t. Like Duchess Rudalia.”

  Agrinth was silent for a moment. “Was King Arctus a monster?”

  “No, he wasn’t a monster.”

  “Then why did you kill him?”

  “That’s a little complicated.” Ryan scratched his neck, a little embarrassed at how he had made King Arctus and Fighting Fancy face off. “He had a request for me and I had a request for him in return. It’s still my fault he died, but I just never really thought about what would happen to your world when he did.”

  Agrinth was silent for a stretch of time. Long enough for Duchess Rudalia’s blood to ooze towards him.

  “You have got to be the worst adventurer in the world.”

  —

  The journey out of Rudalia’s hidden tunnel was thankfully uneventful. There was some screaming from a couple of the staff that had come this way but for the most part they all scrambled out of the way or just fainted in his presence.

  When they’d gotten out of the tunnels, Ryan placed Agrinth on his back, tied him securely with the robes’ sash and started running.

  It wasn’t the most comfortable of runs, Ryan had his pack fastened to his chest, Rax’s golem and spear in one arm and the broken mana cannon in his left.

  When they took a break, Agrinth collapsed on the ground. His knees unable to hold him steady.

  “You alright? You should have said something.”

  “It’s fine–”

  It was at that time when the alert happened. The world froze around him as the System screen appeared in front of him.

  It was like it had waited until that moment to freeze the world. As if to remind him that this world was fake and manipulated by the Trial System to be the way it was. It was a weirdly hollow reminder. The realistic suffering of this world contrasting with an emotionless entity that governed its fate towards conflict.

  Agrinth started moving as if nothing had happened.

  “We can keep going. Don’t worry about me.”

  Ryan smiled gently and ruffled Agrinth’s hair. “Nah get some sleep. We can pick things up later.”

  “While we wait here, there will be others out there that are suffering like I was.”

  “Yes, and they will suffer more if we do things the wrong way.”

  Agrinth was silent for a moment, then he turned bitter. “You don’t even have a plan, do you?”

  “Wrong, I have hundreds of plans. So many crazy ideas that may seem completely unbelievable to you. If only I could show you the Realmnet. You’d go crazy with the number of things people have tried.”

  “I don’t understand. So people have done this before?”

  “Toppled kingdoms and ruined everything? Yeah, plenty of times. Sometimes it’s the royals doing it to themselves, sometimes it’s just adventurers like me that come in and wreck the whole place like idiots. It all comes down and starts back up.”

  Agrinth was silent. Ryan saw the goosebumps on the child’s skin and took off his robes and wrapped it around him. Another couple of minutes went by as the child stared out at the darkening sky.

  “Papa always did tell me the world is a cycle.”

  “Maybe.”

  “If it’s a cycle then I see why you act like you do.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You do whatever you want, it doesn’t matter what you do because it all comes back to the start again, right?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “The cycle is only a cycle because someone wasn’t good enough to guide it, because someone wasn’t strong or creative enough to break it. I’ve seen the cycle break free. I just need to make sure that there is no cycle .”

  “Sounds impossible, even if you succeeded you wouldn’t know if you succeeded cause you’d be dead long before the cycle restarted.”

  “You’re just a kid. Wait until you're at least well into your teens before you turn all nihilistic on me.”

  “I’m not a kid, I’m fourteen.”

  “Really?” Ryan was taken aback. “Huh, and here I thought I’d taken a child in a bloody revenge streak. Guess I’m not that irresponsible after all.”

  When he was certain the kid had dozed off, he made a small oath to Agrinth.

  “Just you wait, I’ll show you it can be done. Your world first, then mine.”

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