Chapter 7

With my right shoulder bruised from its recent dislocation, I tied the end of the 80 cm lengthed grass of twisted rope onto the center of my makeshift spiral spear. I then loosely wrapped the grass rope around my right arm, then grabbed the spear’s green shaft with my hand.

All my preparations were complete, with my left hand I gripped the handlebars of my glider, ready to sprint into the air. With no moments to second guess, I bolted across the oak branch towards its end and jumped as high with all my accumulated strength that could give me.

In the twilight darkness of the afternoon, I peered down at the shadows below me.

“It’s a pity that this hunt wasn’t long. But, I'm on a schedule and we don’t have time to dally.” The hooded man regretfully said, in his nonchalance way.

I flew down at his corner, a gliding bird of nature, not even worth the time to consider. I threw the spiral spear like a javelin, aiming for cloth fibers of his hood. The man feeling the vibrated disturbance on his hood sways his head to the side, which was the opposite direction, where I threw the grass roped spear.

The hooded man ignored the slight disturbance with a muttered curse. “Goddess be damn bugs.”

He swiveled his head back, facing the lady knight with a frown, then drew a serrated dagger out from his leather jacket. “You know, I am actually going to take my time with--”

No time to hesitate, he drew out a dagger, I followed the second step of my impromptu plan. I activated my Active Skill, Invoke Song, whilst gliding in the air, holding the rope that was strung to the hooded man’s hood.

“You spin me right round, baby

Right round like a record, baby

Right round round round.’

I was then hoisted by the full length of the grass rope, that was beginning to wrap around the man as I glided around--to circle from the height of the man's neck, singing.

“What’s the noise? What-?!”

The grass rope that was circling his neck and hood, began to constrict, reacting to the intentions of my thoughts through the song, I sang to them.

“You spin me right round, baby

Right round like a record, baby

Right round round round.”

I had to say, if there was an occasion to sing this song, this was the perfect occasion to sing ‘You Spin Me Round’ by Dead Or Alive.

Seeing what I was doing, the hooded man lifted his serrated knife to his neck to cut the grass rope loose. He was no wild boar, confused about the situation before him. He was smart, humanly smart. He figured what I was doing and countered.

I loosen my grip of the grass rope into the man. The grass rope was doing what I sang it to do, suffocating the man by constricting and strangling his neck. I was gliding towards the front of him, face to face, with the intention of collision. The man was about to cut through my rope, but I was there, with another song in my lips. Casting Invoke Song again.

“I came in like a wrecking ball!” I shouted as I collided to the man’s chest with all my new found strength, I pushed him off balance, making him trip backward onto the grass dirt beneath him.

I continued my singing atop him, whilst he had lost the grip of his dagger from the impact. It flew out of his hands and into the shrubs to the side.

Using his fingers he began to dig them into the ropes that were constricting his airways whilst I was singing Miley Cyrus’s ‘Wrecking Ball’ song. It wasn’t my first choice of picking a song to instruct the wrapped grass around his neck to push back into the ground. But it was a song, hate or not, will never leave your memories.

“Shut-The-Grh-Fucck!-UP!!-Grh!” The man strangled out, grated by my shirking cover of the song.

A bit peeved about one of my listeners, who was strangled to listen to my rendition. I huffed and changed songs halfway, invoking the Active Skill with a new song, with a new intention in mind.

“California girls, We're unforgettable, Daisy Dukes, Bikinis on top.”

One of my favorite guilty pleasures, song, and artist. If the fussy man didn’t wanna die listening to a song from Miley Cyrus, then Katy Perry will do the job. The grass network in the dirt below him began to listen to the song’s intentions, by pulling him with their leaves against the ground, constricting his movements.

But he was still struggling and spasming.

I removed my glider off my back, then I ran the span of his chest, and took a running jump. I was in the air, in front of his gaping face. I threw my grass bag into his gaping mouth that was screaming for air. The grass bag made him gag and choke his airway, making his face redden into a bluish skin tone.

The fight left him when his arms collapsed into the ground. I asphyxiated a man, with no time to second guess.

This was different from the Leviathan… It wasn’t a wild boar, But a human being with complex thoughts and aspirations. I had murdered someone, by singing ‘California Gurls…’

Granted, he was about to murder a lady and her child. So with that thought in mind, I pushed the confliction back into the dark furrows of my mind, where a lot of dissonant memories were held at bay.

Congratulations!

You have Leveled Up!

+1 to Skill Points

Congratulations!

You have Leveled Up!

+1 to Skill Points

I guess that settles it. I killed a man, through asphyxiation. Looks like the System is happy. An uncaring omniscient being that only rewards the killing of any life in this strange mother of worlds. Grossed out at the world’s rules, I turned to face the lady knight who was gaping down at me. Well, I wouldn’t know if she was gaping or not, but the stillness of her helmet, staring down at me, led me to believe so.

“Step back! Foul creature!” She screeched, more scared than she was before. She was bleeding all over, her child beside her, and was about to get murdered by a cruel man with a serrated dagger.

But in that warning she just gave me, was the panicking start of a mind nearly spent into madness. She had witnessed something in that twilight dark, was mesmerizingly horrific.

Well, granted she just witnessed a woodland creature with green pants, strangled a man to death whilst singing three covers of songs, with a shirking pipsqueak voice.

I stepped aways back, not wanting to spike her wits into hysteria. I calmly lifted both my wee arms to show her that I was unarmed. She was still shaking her broad sword’s point towards me.

With a calm voice, hoarse from singing in motion. I said. “I am not here to harm you. Just here to help.” I motioned my hand towards the corpse to the side of me.

“I am not here to harm you. I’m here to help.” I reinforced with a calming tone.

“What are you?”

Oh, right, I forgot. In all the stories, I forgot to ever mention. Something, unimportant, had slipped through my mind. I’ve never once told you that I never, will ever wear a grass made hat. The odd protrusions at the top, just don’t fit my style or my mood. I would rather look like a woodland elf, with green pointy shoes, before I wear that iconic Fair folk hat.

“I’m one of the grass folk,” I said.

In disbelieving tones, she asked me “Where is your weird little hat?”

I shrugged. “Must’ve misplaced it.” I lied.

The lady knight eyed me, then the corpse beside me, she then eyed me again. She then chuckled out a laugh. Chortling through her echoing steel visors at the comedy of it all.

“I was saved by a grass man.” She giggled, then chortled out another laugh.

Suddenly, she coughed and gagged inside her metal helm. A trickle of blood began to drip-drop down at the bottom of her visor.

“It hurts.” She moaned, still with merriment in her tone. “It’s just so funny.” She continued.

My worries turned into annoyance. This lady was bleeding out before me, and she was laughing at the benevolent hero who just killed a giant to save her.

“Yeah yeah, it’s funny, laugh it up. But, you need to get help? Is anyone that is a friend near you?”

After a few silent moments, she answered “There was…so many good friends.”

Hearing the underlying message by her tone, I nodded. No backup. She had dropped her sword onto the ground and was resting her back upon the oak tree behind her.

“Lift my visor, will you. I wish to see you clearer.”

Instinctively following the command, like a lieutenant to his captain. I jumped up onto her thigh plate, then onto her right pauldron. It looked like she didn’t have the strength anymore to lift her arms.

Looking for the button that was protruded out to keep the visor in place, I pressed it. Then I lifted the visor with both my hands, so I could see her face.

As ladies in armor go, she was a sight for sore eyes. Her damped blonde her was spiraling out of the edges, to an oval face with a strong yet feminine jawline. There were three scars on her right chick, a lady well accustomed to violence. But her fierce gleaming blue eyes judged her character of what she is. She was a beautiful person, with a military background aligned with her fierce intelligence, she was what I'd call an individual who will not be typecast by the world for her gender.

An avatar of her gender and species…

She looked at my awed expression, then gave me a bloodied smile. “What a debauched way to eye a lady, small man.” She saucily said.

Shutting my mouth, and composing my expression. I gave her a gentlemanly bow.

“Pardon my idolatry, for I have never seen such a beautiful creature such as yourself.”

She then coughed out a laugh. “Stop you're killing me.” She said, “saved and hit on by a member of the grass folk. It’s too goddess, damn funny.”

I shrugged at her response.

“My name is Amelia Sercroft of the House of Sercroft,” she introduced. “And what is your name...oh, Hero?”

“Call me…” For some strange reason, I told her the name, my parents in my first life gave me.

“Thomas... Thomas Rendfield.”

“That's a strange name for one of the fair folk?” She queried, lips bloodied from the coughs.

So I told her my story, my saga of woes and rebirth. The aspirations and dreams that's now finally accomplished and the alien nature of my world and hers. I don’t know why I told her my story, my truth... my song… Maybe she was the first human to have ever asked, maybe it was her inner-strength beauty, or maybe I knew in my deepest soul that I wanted to give her hope of something after when she passed from this world.

She stared in disbelieving amazement into my eyes, which held the truth of my story. She was fascinated by the saga of a little grass man that was sitting on her steel pauldron.

“You tripped?” She choked out a laugh.

I nodded to my dissatisfaction.

“You are…” She smiled. “The most fascinating individual, I’ve ever come across in this world.” She continued. “What a story...Thank you for such a telling.”

I gave her a wide grin, hiding the sadness and anguish of my song.

She then told me her story. She was a noble lady, born in a household of soldiers. Her father was a general, a loyal vassal to their King. She told me how she wanted to be a knight, to travel the world, and fight for the innocents and her Kingdom. Her struggles to succeed, her monotonous training she had spent throughout her years, and then she told me of her first love, her husband. The first prince of the kingdom.

They fell in love throughout a campaign as her saga goes. They got married in secret without their parent's permission. They were bonded through the gods and holy matrimony. They had loved, shared, and fought. They were humans living a life with few regrets.

I looked back at my life, my dreams, and aspirations, reflecting on my goals and focus of its end. I’ve never shared a bond, such as the bond that was spoken to me now. I grew a little envious, at the painted picture she told through her melancholic voice. I realized then that I was just a tangled string, in a multitude of strings, all pathing through the cosmos with their dreams and their life story.

I never thought I wanted anything else in my life, but at that moment, I knew, I did.

“Now...The Kingdom is ruined. The Royal family nearly all wiped out. My husband, my King, so many people... dead.”

“What happened? And what led you here?” I asked in a somber mood.

“There are still a few relatives left in the Kingdom that could aid us through shelter. My husband’s uncle, Duke Agenchord. Would have sheltered us.”

“Is that where you were heading?”

“Yes, through the Faefolk Forest, the border forest, that would cross territory with the Dukes.” Her eyes brimming with feigning hope at the plan.

“But we were betrayed and ambushed not too far from here.” She growled. “All my friends…” She repeated. “All my friends…”

Not wanting her to be depressed, I said. “Well, luckily for you, you found me. The most intelligent human slash grass folk in the world.” Boasting my ego and intellect.

She gave me a big smile. “Will you help me and bring my child onto me?” She requested.

“No need to ask twice.” I nodded my head, then jumped down her pauldron nearing the basket of cloth that held the baby to the left of her. I pulled on the basket towards her with my altered strength.

I went around, to lift it slightly above the ground. It was so very uncomfortable, seeing a little green man lift something 10 times his height and weight. Amelia helped along with what strength she could offer. The basket was on her legs, and the clothed baby was resting on her bloodied shoulder.

The baby was soundly asleep, used to the jostles of travel. The blonde-haired baby was maybe 1 year of age, judging from the length and growth of his hair.

Amelia crooned to her infant child who was soundly asleep from any disturbance. “My boy is such a heavy sleeper.” She admirably said, proud of her offspring.

“If I don’t make it throughout the night. Would you take my son, North-East from here to the Dukedom?”

“Nonsense, Of course, you’ll make it.” I adamantly told her. I just met her, and she was the most inspiring person I have ever come across. No way I'mma let her die. I tightly gripped my fist, adamant in my resolve to not let her die.

“No…” She said with a finality in her tone. “I don’t think I'll make it.”

I was quiet and outraged at her defeated resolve. But it wasn’t defeated resolve in her eyes, but a melancholic acceptance of her fate.

“I need you to do one more favor, that might help you in your journey.” As she looked down at her child, resting her bloodied gauntlets on the cloth, that sheltered the baby's head from the afternoon cold.

“I need you to give me a merciful death.” She pleaded.

“Nonsense.” I shook my head at the idea. No way I’m going to do that.

“Please…” She pleaded again. “You need to. You need all the levels you can get for what I have requested you to undertake.” Her eyes focused on me. I stood on my ground before her.

My legs shaking from her intense resolve to get this done.

“Sorry, Amelia. But that is something, I won't ever do, even if you asked. I will not follow the abominable System of this world.” My teeth gritted.

“Besides, I'm a famous inventor and a mecha pilot. So trust me, Levels is not all it’s cracked up to be.” I winked.

She gave me a sad smile, then looked down with adoration at her child. She then sang a foreign lullaby to her child, a song of hope, hearth, and a song of belonging. Inspired, I grabbed a scrubbed of grass, and hand size twigs and made myself a makeshift harmonica.

I then sat in front of them and followed her tempo and voice, with a tune. She looked down at me and gave me a nod of appreciation and continued her lullaby to her child. After a few minutes of melody, she suddenly dribbled a few gobs of blood that was seeping out through her throat.

Her right lung was drowning in her blood, now spilling out from her mouth. She looked at me with panic, then at her child.

“Thomas, remove my bolt. I’m drowning.” She pleaded. With no time to second guess, I ran to where the bolt was lodged under her right breastplate.

Grabbing the shaft I pulled it out.

Blood began to pour out from the wound, trying to find a way to close it. Amelia said to her child.

“I love you, Art, I wish I could have watched you grow into a beautiful young man, I wish I could-”

Her eyes were closed then, with her head tilted to one side, facing downwards to her child. She had died...before the song she sang had ended, she had died with a sad smile on her face, and tears running down her cheeks.

Congratulations!

You have Leveled Up!

+1 to Skill Points

I looked up at her aghast with tears brimming in my eyes. She tricked me into doing that. She had tricked me into sadness. I began to cry at the edge of the twilight for Amelia Sercroft, and her final goodbye.