Rebirth Online World

Polymath Redux – Will you grant my wish?
Chapter XX

[Get the demon!]
[Yeah!]
[Aim for the horns!]
[Where did she go?]

The screams and laughter of children could be heard throughout the alley, as a lone girl hid behind stone columns in fear. Visibly trembling and tears dripping past her face, even though the only differences between her and the other children were her horns they had picked that specific trait to torment her. ‘Demon’ they would shout out as they threw rocks and drove her away, sometimes even pursuing her to beat her down even more.

Though filled with malicious intents the real problem did not lie with the children, but their intolerable parents who spoke ill of the demons. Though even that wasn’t wholly unjustified as the root of the problem laid with the invasion of the center continent by the demon lord. Had it not been for him the demons would not have been antagonized so.

Like this, the orphan known as ‘Rena’ had spent the majority of her childhood, simply running away from the torment and scorn of others. Barely getting by eating scraps and whatever she could rummage. She had hated her life and contemplated suicide over and over but she could not go through with it, it was too painful and sad to die like this. Surely one day someone would come to rescue her? Her knight in shining armor… no she didn’t need anything like that, all she wanted was some benign company.

Yes… if there was just one person to talk to, perhaps this cycle of sadness and anguish could be vanquished from her. Like this she had lived her life, spending every night crying herself to sleep, wishing that someone would treat her like a normal girl.

However every time she touched one of her broken horns she knew that could not be. They hated her, so much that they had taken one of her horns, it hurt the first time and she knew that the children were only influenced by the adults. She couldn’t hate them from the bottom of her heart but she did cry for them and herself.

‘Help’… if she kept wishing then maybe someday…

…

Rena’s darkened vision started to heal and opening her eyes the much dreaded sunlight had come through.

“Nngh…”

She made a sour face as she slowly let the light in and her eyes adjusted. Morning had come… so how long had she been out of it? In the first place, what had happened? She remembered that her inn was demolished by some rough men and that she was stabbed through the chest, so how was she even alive?

Digging through her pained memories of that time she tried to come up with an answer but all she remembered was the scent of blood and smoke; It had clouded her memories.

She looked around to see where she was… ‘A camp site?’ she asked herself looking around she saw a neatly made campfire and she was sleeping comfortably inside a tent.

“Awake?”

A voice asked her, turning to it was Irina.

“Ah…”

She remembered what had happened, Irina had fed her some of her blood and that helped her survive just until Mordred had come and healed her up. She peered down to see what happened to her chest, if there had been any wounds? No, almost as though it was just a bad dream not even a scar had remained.

“Thank you very much, Miss Irina.”

She thanked with a smile.

“You don’t have to thank me, you should thank my master for saving you. All I did was help you hold out until he arrived.”

“I see… but if it wasn’t for you, I still would have died. So please accept my gratitude.”

It did not escape her glance but there was a small flash of a smile beneath Irina’s expressionless persona.

“Is that so?”

“Yes…”

Whenever she was with these people Rena couldn’t help but feel happy. Her wish from all those years ago, had god finally granted her wish? She couldn’t help but feel tears falling past her eyes again, not tears of anguish or sadness but those of happiness. If she could she wanted to stay with these people forever.

“Even if you’re back to full health you should just rest up. Your body is perfectly fine but your mind is still exhausted.”

Irina helped put her back on the bed inside the tent.

“Alright… umm, how come you’re so nice to me?”

Rena couldn’t help but ask. She had her wish granted but she didn’t know why, if possible she wanted to know more about the people who had treated her kindly.

“It was my master’s will. To me there is not more and nothing less.”

“Oh, I see…”

“Well, since you provided comfort and kindness to my master, I don’t dislike you. Anyway just go to sleep.”

Irina added, averting her gaze.

“Okay. Thank you…”

Letting exhaustion and sleep overtake her, Rena had once more entered deep sleep.

…

A dark room, lit only by a single candle. All of the blinds were closed letting in no light at all. It was the only remaining room in the Vardis Inn that had survived its destruction, but this room was perfect for interrogation.

At the center of the room was a single, balding man. His arms and legs were tied up against the chair, incapacitating him. His legs were severely burnt and was unlikely that he was ever going to walk again. He was still unconscious, suffering from a never ending nightmare, he groaned inside his sleep as though it was driving him insane. Putting an end to the nightmare, water had been splashed on him to wake him up.

“Wha! What! What? Where… huh?”

Standing in front of him was a tall man wearing an extremely high quality white overcoat and black inner vest. The quality of those clothes seemed to far outreach the kind of clothes available to even the king of this country. Just what kind of crime did someone have to commit to get their hands on those kinds of ultra-high quality fabric?

The man wore a blank white mask with only the slits for the eyes. Behind that mask was an ever gazing, menacing pair of red eyes that pierced straight through to his soul. They were eyes filled with nothing but hatred and anger towards him.

The man wanted to run away from those eyes immediately but found out that he had been tied up to a chair. He tried struggling but to no avail.

“Who are you?! Where am I?!”

The man screamed out, but the only reply he got was a slap to the face, in fact it was so hard that some of his teeth had flown out from the impact. Was that even a slap? Wasn’t it just a punch to the face? The man could start tasting his own blood as he crouched forward and screamed in pain.

“From now on, I’m the only one allowed to ask questions. Got that?”

The man frantically nodded his head.

“Now then, to be honest I have no idea how interrogations work. I’ve never worked in that kind of field before, but well I guess we can find out as we go along.”

The masked man dug into his pocket and pulled out a seemingly plain looking dagger. But even that looked extremely unpleasant for the man tied up, as ideas were running through his head about what kind of things would be happening to him. Noticing his subtle trembling the masked man turned to him and asked.

“Curious? This is going to be the tool for our interrogation. But before we start let me tell you now that this isn’t just an ordinary dagger. It’s aptly named the [Dagger of Healing]. Quite a surreal name for a dagger huh?”

‘What kind of name is that?’ the man wanted to ask but he didn’t really think he’d like the answer to that question.

“You see this dagger is actually just a joke. It has a negative attack rate and every time someone is struck by this dagger it heals them. It’s funny isn’t it?”

Indeed, the developers of [Hellgana] had created this dagger as a joke because people were complaining about how there was a lack of healing skills for [assassins]. So basically the developers were saying to the assassins that they should stab themselves to heal.

Knowing it’s name and effect, the tension died down a little, but unbeknownst to the man the significance of that dagger’s effect was much more frightening than any real dagger. While it may have been just a joke in [Hellgana], in this world it was a much more crueler than one would initially have thought.

“You’re thinking that this dagger isn’t that scary? No, you should be afraid of this more than anything, for you see this dagger will never kill you, but…”

The masked man thrust the dagger deep into the left thigh of the man. An excruciating pain had shot up at him and he screamed like he had never before. Once the masked man pulled out the dagger however, there wasn’t even a single scratch on him, like that entire stab never happened, but the pain was real.

“You see? Like this I can keep stabbing you and while you can still feel the pain from it, you will never die from it.”

The man had finally realized the cruelty of this weapon, just what kind of insane psychopath would create such a weapon? Not a shred of honor was put into the function of this weapon. Weapons were meant to kill and to quickly put the enemy out of misery, but this weapon existed only to cause pain.

…

The man had held out longer than Mordred had given him credit for. The man had a tight lip but after a few hours of pain it was evident that he was starting to lose conviction. Mordred stabbed the man once more with the Dagger of Healing through his hand.

“Argh! You bastard…”

“A name. I want a name.”

“I told you… That, I don’t know!”

Another stab to his other hand.

“Argh! We received orders anonymously! We don’t even know who we’re working for!”

“That sounds like it’s not my problem. All I want is a name. I’m sure you have one or two people you have on your mind.”

Another stab to his left thigh.

“Argh! The… Maybe the Grand Cardinal… if we’re talking about people who have the money to fund several operations and hates demons… that’s the only person I can think of.”

“Name?”

“… No one knows. He’s been working in the shadows and only goes by his title.”

After hours of stabbing that was the only name that had come up. Though Mordred wasn’t too pleased about the results that was all he could get out from this man.

“Is that so. Then go peacefully.”

…

As the shadows horses approached the grand walls surrounding the Baliazoural capital, Yda peered out from the side.

“Wow…”

She couldn’t believe that they were really able to get to the Baliazoural capital in only a day and a half. The capital of the Baliazoural, ‘City of Celes’ or simply known as ‘Celes’ for short, was a lot different than Solaris. Tall, dark, sky scraper-like buildings were erected around the circumference and inside were government buildings.

The city was a large, spiky upright cylinder. While it was very subtle Morgana could detect and see the presence of magic shield surrounding the place, protecting it from bombardment time attacks. In terms of architecture and technology one could say that Baliazoural was ahead but in terms of being stylistic Solaris was the winner.

That being said it didn’t matter to Morgana either way, the only reason she was here was to simply meet up with Baliazoural’s minister of warfare. Of course she didn’t have any prior engagements but there are other ways to get direct link.

Morgana stared out, rather unhappily as they entered the range of the guard sentries.

“Are you okay mistress? You seem… angry for some reason.”

“Mmm… it’s just something came up.”

Yda didn’t really know what was going on but since Morgana and Mordred were connected she too knew what had taken place back at the Vardis inn. For that she was also unhappy, but at the very least they had added one more target to their plans. The Church of Xagon.

As the carriage drew near, the shadow horses took on a different form, that of a normal thoroughbred horse. It was a special skill of Sleipnir.

“Do you have any identification?”

The guard asked as the carriage drew close to the front entrance.

“No. But you will let us pass.”

As Grimal answered and stared back at the guard his eyes glowed with a silver light. The guard became dazed and nodded as though he was answering in his sleep and without even checking for their identification or having a checkup they were allowed to enter the capital city.