Carr

Celle allowed me to appear decently cool in front of everyone after the duel had ended. She didn’t help me walk back to our room, even though I probably needed it. I was really glad that we all agreed to wait until morning to discuss the business regarding the princess and our plans. My knee was killing me since the duel against the Longswordsman and I needed some treatment rather urgently.

Soon as the door behind us was closed and we were safely in our room, however, she raised an angry eyebrow at me and pointed at the bed. I limped there as quickly as my knee allowed me to, nearly hopping on one foot at the last stretch, falling onto the bed and looking over at her ready for the scolding. “Shirt off,” she demanded. “Now.”

“Buy me dinner first at least, God,” I said, in mock outraged. She groaned and for good reason. I always said the same dumb line every time she asked me to take off my shirt to take a look at my wounds. Still, I giggled and tossed my shirt aside. “Sorry, sorry.”

Celle sighed and approached me, hands already shining with the now familiar [Restoration] light. “Trousers off too. Let me look at your knee.”

“Okay, now that definitely warrants dinner first.” When I heard her groan, I held up a hand to apologize and said, as I took off my pants, “Okay, okay, sorry!”

“Why are you the way you are?” She asked.

I felt the warmth of her [Skill] against my knee and it brought nearly immediate relief. Enough pain left my body that I was compelled to be actually answer her question honestly. “Sorry. It’s just a little awkward to take my clothes off, even if it’s for a perfectly valid reason. So I make bad jokes to take the edge off the situation. You have to understand, it’s a normal response.”

“I don’t have to understand shit. It’s always the same joke with you,” she grunted. Honestly, she could yell at me as much as she wanted if her [Restoration] kept making my knee feel like a human being’s knee again. “And it’s not that bad, you still have your undergarments on, don’t be such a baby about it.”

“Look, it’s just weird okay?”

“At least vary up your jokes.”

“I’ll try, but in my defence, it’s just a little awkward, okay?” I said, honestly. “If our positions were switched I bet you’d be making all kinds of dumb jokes too.”

I can’t say I expected what follows. She stood up, lifted her shirt over her head, and tossed it at my face. “There you go. And no dumb jokes. So no excuses from you” And without another word, she went back to working at my knee.

Among my many talents, the ability to shut up isn’t one of them—yet here I was speechless. It’s not that I didn’t have experience with women, but honestly I can’t say I had an experience before where someone appeared to strip out of spite. I kind of liked it though. “You still have your trousers on, it’s not really even,” I said, knowing it was a dumb thing to say.

“Behave and we’ll see about that,” she said, with a sly smile. I feel like I’m getting played and I’m actually perfectly fine with that. “Just don’t make any more dumb jokes while I heal you. I’m gonna have to do this to you almost every day from now on and I really don’t want to deal with your horrible sense of humour every time.”

“Thank you,” I said. She looked at up at me in surprise. This time I felt really awkward. Not like the half-funny awkwardness from earlier. This was the really awkward thing I had to tell her. “I have been an idiot for too long and I keep getting injured and at this point I wouldn’t even be able to keep living a normal life without you. It’s been one crazy adventure after the other since I met you, so I haven’t really had the time to appreciate just how much you’ve done for me but…thank you. For letting me live a normal life. And for sticking around with me even though I’m certifiably insane.”

She regarded me silently for a moment. “I’m crazy too, sword boy.” She stopped the [Restoration] process for a moment and sat down beside me on the bed. “I know you’re insane but I’m kind of an idiot too. I’m risking everything because I can’t let go off a dumb case. If I had just let go I would still be back in my hometown, speaking Visbonian instead of…”

“Wait,” I said. “This—English isn’t your first language?”

“So you call this English?” She asked, tilting her head. “No. It’s not. My first language is Visbonian. The Oportian half of the Empire speaks it, but we speak Inglês around this side. Even the Oportian half speaks Inglês these days, really. Nothing against it though. I’m pretty fluent if you ask me.”

“You sound pretty fluent,” I said. Strange, so English was called a different thing here…but it sounded the same? Was something translating things automatically for me or were Inglês and English one and the same? “Say something in your first language. I’m curious.”

To my surprise, she blushed. “That’s such a weird request,” she said. “It’s a little embarrassing.”

“We’re kind of past embarrassing,” I said, gesturing at our current state.

She laughed. “Fine, fine…” Celle looked at me, smiling, and brought her index finger to her mouth as if considering something. “Você é bonito, sabia? So um pouco. Não muito. Mas um pouco.” [You’re good looking, you know/knew? Just a little bit. Not a lot. But a little.]

“Tu também,” I replied. “E não estou so dizendo isso por ter tirado a blusa.” [You too. And I’m not just saying that because you took off your shirt.]

“You speak Visbonian?” She asked me. “That I didn’t expect. And what the hell is that accent?”

“Just a little. We call it Portuguese back where I’m from. I was in Portugal for a while and…” I shook my head. “That’s not the point. Isn’t that interesting? That there’s two languages from this world that are perfect matches for the ones in my world?”

“That is very interesting.” Celle shook her head, appearing to be considering a few possibilities. “I wonder. Even if the two shared a root at some point, shouldn’t they have evolved by now to the point where we couldn’t understand each other?”

It was a reasonable assumption. “I think that—“

I heard a terrible loud sound and I immediately jumped from the bed and ran up toward its source, putting my ear toward the wall. There was a thunderous sound coming from the room beside ours, followed by what seemed like Isabella’s laughter. “Either something is happening or Isabella is training really hard,” I said, looking back at Celle.

“Does it matter? Come to bed. I have to finish the [Restoration] process and you owe me a book to read tonight. My pick.”

“A murder mystery?”

“You guessed it.”

I looked back at the wall. Well, I was sure that Isabella was safe. If it was anything serious they would let me know and it’s not like I could do anything in my state right now even if an assassin had come. We needed sleep and I needed to be healed.

I’m sure Isabella was fine.

Isabella

I stabbed the Old Gambler one more time and slapped him in the face. When he winced, I laughed loudly.

The Old Gambler had a measure of dignity to the way he was seating. Which was impressive, because he was in my room chained up and his wounds still mostly untreated. I had made sure his legs, torso and arms were all individually chained up to his chair. The man could hardly move. Yet, his grin remained on his face, even after I slapped him across the face a few times.

“You confuse me, noble lady. Did we not have a deal?” His voice was coarse and rough, but there was a ghost of a laugh in there as well. “Your noble grandfather would not behave like this.”

“We had a deal. You will tell me everything I want to know after I defeat your assassin. But I don’t ever recall saying I had to let you go. That was never on the table. You should have worded your terms more carefully.” Moving him to my room had been less complicated than I expected. No one was awake by now, except by Fedal, who was training upstair. The old man was light enough to just carry over my shoulders and in spite of his resistance I managed to drag him to my room without problem. “I am very curious as to why you haven’t escaped me yet though…either you find this situation to be not at all scary or something is keeping you from escaping.”

He said nothing. That was promising.

“I’m pretty sure you can teleport somehow,” I said, watching his reaction. His face remained blank. “Considering your habit of appearing mysteriously out of nowhere and knowing just what to say…I think it’s a pretty safe bet that you can teleport. Probably some degree of mind reading like a high [Investigation] equivalent. Maybe invisibility too.”

He smiled sadly at me. “Will you not allow an old man some secrets? Will you not allow your heart to merely assume the wonders in this universe to be true?”

“No.”

「WINNING」

You’re winning the conversation. He is out of his depth right now. His tired eyes haven’t felt fear in a long time. Not until they were aimed to you. You know you got this. Press on.

“You made me hear voices in my head. You are the one who dragged Johan into this world. Johan is the one who…harmed grandfather. You have been stalking me forever trying to convince me to take those spheres…and you just show up, trying to act all mysterious and refusing to say anything, just manipulating everyone damned be the consequences.”

His face showed annoyance for the first time. Good. “There’s simply no way someone like you would understand what my plans are. Besides, we had a deal!” He snapped. “I won’t say anything until you kill the assassin. Prove your strength.”

“Ah, yeah…we do have that deal. And you will tell me everything after that. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t try to reason some things out before that point.” I withdrew my sword. “So that brings us to my question from before. Are you simply pretending to be scared of me right now or are you truly unable to teleport away? Because the latter implies some fascinating things…after all, you yourself said that you had no idea what would happen if I used the [Red Levelling Sphere]. Do you want to know what I think?” I leaned closer to him and looked him in the eye. He was trying to act cool but it was clearly taking him an effort for him not to look away from me. “I think that something about this reaction made me have an effect on your powers and you aren’t even sure what the effects are yourself.”

“Curious theory of yours, my lady,” he said slyly. “I do not think you have the means to set about proving it, however.”

“You might have a point there…” I said slowly. How would I go about proving that?

「MUSCLES」

You know how. For all the times he acted all knowing, this time he isn’t sure. He’s squirming in his seat. Make him squirm more. See who blinks first.

“You might have a point,” I repeated. “But then again…”

With「MUSCLES」 powering the strike, I sliced off his hand in one clean motion. I wasn’t quite sure how it worked, but I seemed to be much better at cutting things now, even though my [Swordsmanship] had dropped to zero. Immediately after, I covered his mouth to keep him from screaming. Oh, he tried to scream a lot. But I had no intention of letting him do so. Celle and the others would probably mildly object to this. “I will let you talk, but only if you promise not to scream,” I warned him.

When he nodded weakly, I let go from his mouth and knelt down to grab the hand I had just cut off, and brought it up to his face. “See, I cut off your hand,” I said, using his own hadn’t to wave at him. He looked at me like he was staring at a ghost. “You’re bleeding out quite heavily. Now, I know you have some form of healing. You used it yourself on the wounds I gave you earlier, didn’t you? But…if you close your wounds while your hand isn’t nearby, you’ll never get it back. You need me to press it against your stump before you close the wounds with your magic, don’t you?”

He breathed heavily, attempting to get words out and failing. Was this really it? Had I come face to face with the devil, only to see fear in his eyes?

「SPOTLIGHT」

Good. This makes you a better devil than the devil himself. Bask in the glory!

“I…I…” The Old Gambler sure liked to not say anything. Either he said cryptic bullshit or he just stuttered. Fine. We could do this his way.

“You’re going to bleed out if you don’t use your powers,” I told him. “Now, I don’t expect you to give me any information until I have fulfilled my end of the deal. But if you can’t use your healing ability for whatever reason…well, you’re gonna have to tell me what I can do to keep you from dying. And even if you can use it, you’re all chained up. Gonna need to convince me to bring your hand close to your arm so you can reattach it, eh chief?”

“You’re a maniac,” he managed.

“You made me this way,” I replied.

“No!” He thundered. “I did not! I unleashed knowledge upon you, forbidden knowledge, from the depths of the ocean of souls. But this did not…it wasn’t what changed you. Deep inside, you were always a fucked up person. You just…can’t repress it anymore.”

I shrugged. “Gonna keep lecturing me on morality or are you planning on surviving?”

Nothing punctured the silence for a while except for his heavy breath. He looked me in the eye, likely trying to find out if I was bluffing or not.

「REASON」

He can’t comprehend why you would be so violent. He thinks he hasn’t harmed you directly. He doesn’t understand that his actions led to your grandfather’s suffering or that you feel like he exploited your weakness with those cursed scarlet spheres. He thinks you have to be bluffing…but those dark eyes of his are starting to understand that you’re not.

「FLEXIBILITY」

We can adjust our plans based on how he reacts…if he dies, that’s fine too.

A minute more of silence stretched on. And then—“Get away from me!” he screamed. “If—if you’re near me, I can’t use my healing.”

“And how do I know you won’t teleport away if I move away from you?”

“Even if I leave, I have to come back when you defeat that assassin! We made a deal, Isabella!”

“I don’t trust your word.”

“You don’t have to!” He nearly spat out those words. “A deal with me is a Rule. I cannot break the Rules I make.”

The way he said the word was most curious. Rule, was it? So he made “Rules.” Was that how he granted me those powers? Was this related to how this world was made? Ah…the questions I would force him to answer once I dealt with that assassin. And somehow, my presence was enough to keep his “Rule” from working? This was important to know.

Without warning, I tipped his chair over and laid his hand against his arm. Slowly, I took one step away from him. “Is this far enough?”

“No!” He cried out. “Please, I—I’m fading!”

I took another step. “How’s this?”

“No! Just keep going!”

Another step. He cried out again. I took one more step. He hesitated, but didn’t say anything. One more step—a way of light formed around his bloodied stump, and I saw the hand reconnecting. A moment later I saw panic in his eyes, and that same light washed over him, and he was gone, the heavy chains that bound him hitting the floor as if they had never been attached to anything else.

Between four and five steps away from him, it looks like. I’ll keep this in mind.

“Well, that was a productive night,” I said, stretching my arms above my head. “Now, to clean up all this blood…lord above, he sure made a mess out of my room.”

It occurred to me as I was cleaning the blood in my room that I probably had some cleaning left to do in the kitchen as well, as it was the place I had started my violence in. Shouldn’t be as bad, but I really didn’t want to have to explain to Celle and the others about the bloodstains on the floor in the morning.

「FENCING」

Are you sure you don’t want that? You’re still bitter about Celle defeating you in that one duel. You want to prove to her that you’re stronger than her now, even if it’s a petty concern. Make her mad, fight her.

“And what do we have here?” I asked aloud to no one. As I was cleaning the kitchen, I found a sword. It looked like something between a smallsword and a rapier. Too long for a smallsword, too short for a rapier. The weight balance was something in between as well. It was only then that I remembered disarming the Old Gambler early on and tossing his sword aside. So this is his sword…

A thought overcame me. What if I just stole this sword?

「FENCING」

It might make you stronger…you can’t see its abilities, but it might have some sort of trick to it. Maybe it’s just an old, but reliable sword. Probably better quality than your current one anyway, so why not?

「MUSCLES」

TAKE IT. It belongs to you as you have established dominance over the weaker swordsman. Make it yours!

「SPOTLIGHT」

The sword is lightly decorated with some jewelry and appears to be made of a metal you don’t recognize. But it looks so freaking rad. You want it. It looks cool.

I reached over to touch the sword when another voice in my head interrupted me.

「REASON」

You don’t know anything about this sword. You know how cursed everything related to the Old Gambler is. You just spent a solid thirty minutes torturing him because of all the horrible things he has done to you and the ones you love. It could curse you. It could further make you lose track of who you are. It could permanently change who you are as a person. It could give the Old Gambler more power over you once more, now that you have obtained the upper hand. It could be your worst mistake even above using those spheres. Those who play with the devil’s sword will be brought by decree to wield his will.

「SPOTLIGHT」

It looks really, really cool. And you can kick the devil’s ass if need be.

I picked up the sword.