BlaiseCorvin
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Past Life Hero 2, ch 30
🕑 Added 2023-12-21 19:12:34 +0000 UTC:)
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That night, Max suddenly felt a tugging on his elbow. He woke up from a deep sleep and troubled dreams of his childhood on Earth.
In the dream, he had been a relationship counselor trying to help his parents reconcile so they wouldn't get divorced. The dream was one he’d had before, but not for a long time.
His thoughts slowly sped up and he remembered he was going to the central area in the morning. What had woken him up? He wasn’t sensing any danger.
After his eyes flew open, he registered Lavinia's glowing form standing next to the bed. So it was Lavinia. He almost admonished her since he was half asleep and she was not allowed in his bedroom, but thankfully, he remembered there were exceptions such as important messages and emergencies.
Wait, what’s the time? He glanced at his tablet. It was three a.m. "What is it, Lavinia?" he mumbled.
The ghost girl's eyes were bright, and she wore a savage smile. "Wiley is out," she said. "In fact, he's not only come out, he left Summoner grounds and he's in the woods right now. If you hurry, you can catch up."
That definitely got Max's attention. With some concentration and a brief movement of mana, he was wide awake and ready to go. He vowed to himself to never take this ability for granted, not after his hellacious mornings living on a no-mana Earth.
Max hopped out of bed in his underwear and Lavinia abruptly turned. "For someone that makes all those jokes about the shower, you sure do like to startle a girl."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," said Max. "I'm just as covered as if I were wearing swim trunks to a beach.”
“Do I seem like the beach-going type to you?”
"Point taken, I guess. But I need to get dressed really quick. Wait out in the sitting room. I'll be there in two minutes. Then you can lead the way."
"You got it." Lavinia disappeared, and Max got ready.
Minutes later, Max was running through the empty campus. There were a lot of late-nighters at Summoner Academy, so he still saw the occasional student, but they definitely had their minds on other matters. His running footsteps didn't even get much more than a second look, especially since he’d decided to wear some of his Academy-supplied athletic clothing. It was better to move in than the standard academy robe but still wasn’t uncommon. He’d made sure to stay far enough away that no one would recognize him. None of them seemed to.
This time, unlike the last time Max had caught up with Wiley, the other man would be in the woods. That meant this time, Max wouldn't have to work so hard to avoid witnesses.
He frowned as he ran, thinking about the first time he’d tracked the weasely bastard down. It’d been right before leaving to try his first dungeon, Cradle of Giants, and the event had been so anticlamactic he’d put it out of mind almost immediately. It’d been a tiny blip in his day at the time. The fact was…he’d been so excited to finally find the elusive traitor, and working so hard to avoid being seen attacking him, that he accidentally killed the other man in seconds. Wiley’s head hit a corner of some brickwork and that had been that.
Max had barely thought about it since then, since deaths in the Quartet were not permanent and he’d been trying to capture Wiley, not kill him. Of course, he'd still been given two demerits for the “murder” by the system, but Max was long past caring about demerits.
The moment he entered the forest between the Summoner Academy and the central area, he automatically switched to his method of traveling stealthily through the woods. He was still able to make great time in no small part because he could use Lavinia's spirits as ectoplasmic rope to create bridges or swing over obstacles. Traveling quickly through the woods was a different experience now that Max was a two star mana body Blade Sorcerer. His mana-body granted night sight as well as superhuman strength and reflexes.
Lavinia fed him the information that she was getting from her spirits in a steady streamShe had a number of them shuttling back and forth between Max and Wiley, sort of like a bucket brigade. Each spirit only had to go back and forth a relatively short distance before passing information back, making the updates very fast. As a result, Max knew that Wiley was not actually heading for the central area. Instead, it seemed he was trying to take a roundabout path to the Mystic Spear Academy grounds. Max knew for a fact that the border between the schools was guarded, which meant Wiley must have some underhanded method to get past it. Otherwise, his clandestine travel through the woods wouldn't make much sense.
Max could hear Wiley before he could see him. Obviously unaccustomed to nature, Wiley was making a huge racket and carried a candle to help him see. Now that Max thought about it, he wasn’t sure if Wiley had contracted any spirits. If he had, he wasn’t asking them to watch for danger.
Max was actually able to catch up and just tail him from a short distance. He was curious about where exactly Wiley was heading. When they were only fifty yards or so away from the border between school grounds, Max struck. He sprang off a tree, flying forward in a silent and graceful arc with the help of an ectoplasmic monowing. His hand gripped the back of Wiley's neck and he slammed the traitorous bastard into the ground so fast he wasn't even able to cry out.
Wiley’s candle flew from his outstretched hand, tumbling end over end, and had a lucky landing on top of a large rock. Max was glad; now there wasn't much chance he'd have to put out a fire regardless of what happened next. The tiny bit of light from the distant candle must have made his face take on a hellish cast, though, because Wiley seemed even more terrified than he had been the last time Max had run into him.
"You’ve already killed me once! What do you want?" he whined.
Max didn't bother talking. Instead, his sword came out, and with two easy, economical slashes, he cut off the front half of Wiley's feet. It took a couple seconds for Wiley to believe his eyes, even after collapsing. Then he shrieked. Max pounced on him, holding his arm in a vice-like grip as he ignored Wiley’s weak slaps and punches. Then he cut the man’s fingers off of his hand with surgical precision.
Wiley shrieked again. He was flailing around like a fish and making too much noise, so Max rabbit punched the snake-like bastard in the jaw. Then while Wiley was woozy, he cut the fingers off of his other hand. Only the thumbs were left.
Max was covered in blood. He remembered Land covered in blood, screaming while being tortured for not reason, and his eyes narrowed. He refused to feel sorry for this mewling piece of trash writhing on the ground.
He didn’t want Wiley to die, at least not yet. Max bent to wrestle the gagging, screaming traitor, using a bit of mana to cauterize the wounds. The process involved rubbing mana against itself to create heat, a process only possible with Max’s fine mana control.
When it was all done, Wiley no longer had his toes or his fingers. Of course, he could choose to end his life at any time, but then he would be placing himself on an extra suicide timer.
It would also be unnerving to choose that option. Wiley was a coward.
"Hello, fuckstick," said Max. "I've missed you. Why haven't you been coming out of your dorm?"
Wiley had stopped screaming. How he just hissed and stared at Max with hate-filled eyes through gritted teeth.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" said Max. "I didn't sell you out to some assholes in another school to be tortured and killed. And unlike you, my friend and I are not lazy pieces of shit who took the absolute minimum of classes to still get free food. Well, that was before you started pissing yourself at the thought of me. If anything, I think you're getting off the hook rather easily. If this were the real world, I would have killed you already. The kind of killing that makes you stay dead."
"Fuck you," said Wiley.
"Oh, that's some tough talk from the weasel who couldn't even watch me and Lance getting tortured after you led us into the trap in the first place. Traitors who make friends just to sell them out for money should really have stronger stomachs."
Max rapped on the top of Wiley's head with the flat of his sword. "Where is all your attitude coming from anyway? There isn’t any way for you to rationalize being such a rat. You're in the Quartet. You can't even make up some lies about needing money for a sick relative or something. You are just a greedy, opportunistic, amoral, worthless garbage person. And you know what? You know the thing that really irritates me? Want to know the reason why I want to keep tracking you down over and over and over again? It's because you actually pretended to be Lance's friend. And unlike the two of us, he doesn't understand the score, he is not entirely wise to the world yet–a fact I am sure you were aware of. In fact, deep down I think he thinks you might still be his friend. And that is unacceptable." Max hit Wiley on the top of the head with the flat of his blade again.
"Wiley, what’s going on? Is that you?" Called a voice called through the trees.
Max glanced up, sharpening his eyes. "Oh my! This is truly a night of surprises."
I can guess what you’re thinking. You're right, I already confirmed it, said Lavinia in his mind. That's Prince Regal and two others.
Max whispered to Wiley, "I understand better now why you're not telling the system to kill you. Maybe you think that your little sponsor over there can help you out of this mess. Shout for them. Go on." He made a pushing gesture with his free hand.
Wiley glared at Max in equal parts frustration, despair, and impotent anger before finally shouting, "Prince Regal, I'm in trouble, help!"
"What's going on?" shouted Regal. "I can't go to the other side. Hurry up. The gap is going to close!"
Max stood up and walked towards the boundary between the school grounds. He couldn't see a golem anywhere at the moment, which was likely one way that Regal had organized this little stunt.
Lavinia, armor please, he thought, and instantly his body was covered in plates of glowing, ectoplasmic armor.
"Oh, hello friend," said Max. "If it isn’t little prince Regal! Long time no see. I hope your family is doing well."
"You bastard! What did you do to Wiley?"
"Oh. He was a little underfoot. But now he could use a hand."
"What does that mean?"
"He cut off my fucking fingers!" Wiley screamed from the undergrowth.
Even though Max had cauterized the man’s wounds, he was still missing half of his feet now, and his wounds had to hurt like hell. Trying to get up without the use of one's feet or hands would be difficult, if not impossible for him.
"Yeah, why don't you help him," said Max. He beckoned to Regal, who was now visible through the barrier. All three Mystic Spear students had uncovered some sort of magic lanterns and had lights on their weapons as well.
"On the contrary," said Regal, "why don't you come over here, Max?" He smiled but his eyes were furious.
"Oh, I don't think so," said Max. "I'm just out for a stroll, and I met our dear friend Wiley over here. Ah, it sounds like you all won't be able to get together soon. What a shame that is. Although…I might be helping our esteemed, wayward Wiley. After all, I'm not sure what he expects he's going to be able to do if he escapes to another academy. What, did he apply to be your butler or your servant or something?"
When Prince Regal's face grew somewhat stony, Max laughed. "Wow, I actually guessed it! It was something like that after all." He looked back at Wiley. "Pathetic. And to think, if you weren't a backstabbing, greedy bitch, none of this would have happened."
"Fuck you!" screamed Wiley.
"And you see," said Max, "that's yet another reason I don't feel sorry for you. You don't feel sorry for what you did. Instead, you're just upset that you picked the wrong person to mess with." He turned back to Regal's group. He couldn’t hear them whispering, but his spirits could.
Lavinia told him, Those two men just said that the opening in the barrier is going to close in like five more minutes.
Max briefly wondered if Regal was trying to bluff, maybe to convince Max to leave so they could come over and grab Wiley, or the traitor could crawl his way there. Max really didn't think Regal was smart enough or crafty enough to plan that far ahead on the fly, but he didn't want to take any chances.
He said, "You know, it's funny how the first time I met you, you were so arrogant despite being so weak. You wanted to humiliate me in front of everybody, just a first year to the Quartet you thought would be powerless. But now, here we are in private, you have two goons with you, but you still won't come over and fight little old me. Tsk, tsk. What a fucking coward. If I ever get a chance to meet your family, I'm going to be sure to tell them what a bitch you are. Then again, the apple probably doesn’t fall far from the tree. In case you don’t know what that means, I’m saying your family is probably all a bunch of useless blowhards, too."
"How dare you," screamed Regal. Then he started yelling a choice list of insults, but Max had already tuned him out.
Wiley lay moaning in the undergrowth. Max felt a flash of irritation. He grabbed the back of the man's shirt, pulled him up, and held up one of his hands with severed fingers. “Want me to shove this in your mouth? Stop moaning, genius. I went through a lot more than this when you sold us out." Then he began forcefully dragging Wiley back to the Summoner Academy.
Behind him, Regal’s voice grew even louder and more shrill. Max continued to ignore the prince, which was probably the perfect thing to make him even more furious. The prince’s growls and howls warmed Max’s heart.
His late wife really had been right. He had to admit that he had a vindictive streak. It was probably a character defect, but Max wasn’t too interested in fixing it.
Eventually, he grew tired of dragging Wiley and hearing the other man’s moaning. Now that he’d spend time and effort moving him, Max didn’t want him to find a kernel of decisiveness somewhere in his black heart, so he smacked him in the face, allowing one of Lavinia’s spirits to fill his mouth with an ectoplasmic gag. Then more spirits manifested, creating what looked like a stretcher with little miniature walking legs beneath it. Max unceremoniously dropped Wiley onto the contraption. Then, for the rest of the walk back to Summoner Academy, he neither had to carry the man nor hear his self-righteous wailing.
Once back at the academy, Max realized that he was in a small but beautiful garden, one of the first locations he explored when he first came to the Quartet. Even though he liked the garden, it felt like a perfectly disdainful place to drop Wiley off at. So that's exactly what he did. Lavinia's spirits ceased existing physically in the world, and Wiley heavily dropped to the ground. His feet and hands both experienced shock that sent him screaming again behind his gag.
"Oh Wiley," said Max, "calm down. Don't worry your traitorous little head. I'm not an evil fuck like you and your friends, just getting some revenge. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth and all that. Seems to me that we’re probably closer to equal at this point so this is the last time I will visit you with my tender ministrations. However, I do want to give you one last thing to remember me by." Max bent down, grabbed one of Wiley's thumbs, and turned Saliron loose. The dark spirit cackled in Max's mind as he and his subordinate spirits began taking tiny, rapid bites out of Wiley's thumb bones. Wiley screamed behind his gag the entire time. By the time the spirits were done, all that was left of the man’s thumb was flaccid flap of skin hanging down from his hand. Wiley's eyes were wide and desperate.
Max was privately shocked that the other man hadn’t elected to die like Lance had before. There had to be some reason he wasn’t aware of. Oh well, better this way.
"Now Wiley," said Max, "you need to be quiet and pay attention or else more bad things might happen to you." Somehow, Wiley got a hold of himself enough to quiet down and focus on Max. All of his earlier fight and rebellion were gone. Now the only thing left in his shaking eyes was fear.
"You see, Wiley," said Max, "I don't mind if you tell everybody what I just did. Because if you tell everybody what I did, you are probably going to have to tell everybody what you did, too. And if you don't, I'll make sure they know. But even so, if you tell people about our walk in the woods tonight, I don't even mind, beyond making sure everyone knows the full story. In fact, I give you permission! Most everyone already thinks I’m a monster, but they don’t know you are. It might bother you if the entire academy knows what a useless, honorless coward you are.
“However, this is an opportunity for a new start! Isn’t that great! if I ever see you again, I'd better hear sterling things about your character. You'd better walk the straight and narrow now, motherfucker. If I ever find out you’ve done one more shitty thing to anyone in the Summoner academy, it's game on again. Because you see, I already don't like you. I don't forgive you and I will never like you. The only reason I'm not going to delete most of your bones every time you respawn–or maybe even do something worse–is because I don't want to go too far. The line between justice and evil can be thin and move around quite a bit, don’t you think? Don’t make me go full evil, Wiley. The power is in your hands. Well, half of them right now."
Then Max patted Wiley’s cheek a couple of times, removed the gag, and walked away. All the windows that had popped up informing him of demerits being added by the system finally stopped.
Despite the obvious pain he was in, Wiley just panted and whined until Max was out of earshot. Hurting Wiley didn't make Max feel better about what had happened, but he hadn’t really expected it to. He was under no illusion that what he just meted out was justice. That had been revenge, and he was okay with that. The short-lived rush of payback was already fading.
This wasn't Max's first rodeo with retribution. His vindictive streak definitely wasn’t the best part of him, but ironically, it was one of the reasons he'd been called a hero in his former life. People, in general, were usually okay with somebody doing horrible things to somebody else if they were an enemy. Even though Max had stared into the abyss and accepted that everything he'd done in the name of revenge had not been justice, a lot of people in the universe seemed unwilling or unable to be that brutally honest with themselves.
Justice was done on the behalf of someone else. Pain for one’s own sake was generally something different, darker.
But even so, Max got back into bed and slept like a baby.
Comments
Daf High-Voltage
Tftc
Lost1nCarcosa
Pfff… Hary Potter nock off story…lol, idiots. Love it, keep it up!!
Milton Skipper
dang. Thank you for the chapter :)
