Chapter 13: A Little Bit of Love

Chapter 13:
A Little Bit of Love

 

FLUM BROUGHT THE SOULEATER down with all her might time and again, Dein only barely evading her head-lopping blows.

Fwooo-SMASH!

The sword whiffed past his head and crashed right into the wooden floor. She may have missed, but Dein’s back was against the wall now. What’s more, she was far too close for him to use his crossbow. If he didn’t discard it and draw the short sword hanging from his waist now, he’d be all out of options.

Flum decided to press the attack, not once considering that he might be luring her into a trap. As she came in with another powerful swing, Dein pointed his buckler up and jerked his finger.

Fwish! A wire shot out, dragging him up into the air.

From his spot up on the wall, Dein shot another bolt at Flum.

“You expect to take me out with one shot, Dein?!” Flum held her sword at the ready, prepared to knock the bolt right out of the air.

“You don’t give me enough credit, Flum. Spread!”

Dein cast a spell that burnt the bolt up in midair, causing it to split and barrage Flum with fireballs. Realizing there was no way she could take them all out with her sword, Flum dove to the side.

Dein loosed arrow after arrow.

“Spread, spread, spread!!! Gyahahaha!! I didn’t intend to finish this battle with magic, but you should’ve known better than to think a slave could stand up against the likes of me!”

Flum continued her desperate run, only a step ahead of the wave of fireballs that rained down on her. She felt one skim past her shoulder, her burnt clothes sticking to her body as blood soaked the cloth. The wound would heal shortly, but she still winced at the pain.

But Dein was slowing down, too. She wasn’t about to let the opportunity go to waste.

“Hyaaaaaaaaaah!!” She steadied herself and let loose a Prana Shaker. A crescent-shaped blast shot straight toward Dein as he pulled yet another wire to release his hook, dropping him back down. “I can get off more than one attack too, Dein!”

As soon as Dein’s feet touched the ground, she unleashed another Prana Shaker in his direction.

“Gyahaha! Thinking you can beat me in a battle of force is where you’re wrong, girl!” Dein shot another bolt straight into the Prana Shaker’s crescent beam. “Burst!!”

The magic-infused explosion left nothing but a white cloud in its place. Flum lunged through the smoke to press the attack once again.

“Whoa, hey! I’m not really interested in a melee battle.” Rappelling into the air once more, Dein rained fireballs down on Flum as he rose. “Gahahahaha!!! Take that, and that! Die, you disgusting little maggot! Try some of this!”

Each fireball he sent her way exploded in a cloud of thick smoke once it hit the ground. A Burst-infused bolt sailed straight at her.

“…Perfect.”

This was just what Flum was waiting for. She took the bolt head on with her Souleater, much to Dein’s cackling delight.

“That won’t save you from being blown away, Flum!”

He was right—under normal circumstances, she would have been blown apart.

“Reversion!”

She sent it flying right back at him.

“How’d…?!”

Dein hurriedly released his tether and let himself plummet before firing the grappling hook once more in midair. BWAFOOOM! The bolt detonated, blowing a hole through the wall where he’d been only a fraction of a second before.

“Whoa, pretty impressive, kid. I guess that’s what Reversal does.”

Flum ignored Dein’s nattering and cast Scan on him.

 

Dein Phineas

Affinity: Fire

Strength: 802

Magic: 1265

Endurance: 710

Agility: 1454

Perception: 741

 

His total stat value of 2,669 made him a low-level B-Rank. However, Dein’s gear boosted him to a top-tier B-Rank, with a final stat value of 4,972. Under normal circumstances, his Magic should have been well below the 1,000 mark. This explained how he was keeping her on her toes.

Adding to her problems, all of his equipment except for his autoloading crossbow was Legendary class—a tier even rarer than the Epic class items that Flum was equipped with. She only managed to get her equipment thanks to the fact that it was all cursed and of no use to most people. Insolent Leather Armor, Sage Iron Buckler, Wild Iron Dagger… All with powerful enchantments on them, too. It would have been rare to find even an A-Rank adventurer with gear so impressive.

“What’re you using Scan on me for, kid? I mean, I guess it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change the difference in our abilities one bit.”

“Is all that gear actually yours?”

“Of course. I’ve got some real nice friends who gave it to me fair and square. I guess you could say it’s a sign of our friendship, yeah?”

“Pretty ironic, coming from a man who sold out his friends and his soul.”

Dein snorted at Flum’s pointed remark. “Heh, I know you want to make me out to be some kind of villain, but really, look at it from my point of view. You make a man choose his life or his friends, you’re not really giving him a choice. Or do you mean to tell me that a little goody two-shoes like yourself would choose friendship?”

Milkit’s smile came to mind. Flum knew her answer in an instant. “If it was a choice between that and sacrificing dozens of others, I’d choose friendship.”

She’d sooner stab herself right through the heart than hurt Milkit to save her own life.

“Wow, you’re really somethin’ else. A real piece of work!” Perhaps it was her confidence that bothered Dein so much. Maybe, deep down, he knew she was telling the truth. “You really don’t know anything about the world, d’ya, kid? I don’t even know why I waste my time with you…!”

Flum could sense desperation in his voice. It wasn’t like he chose to join the church of his own will. He was driven to it out of a realization of his own flaws and a desire to save his life. The choice still ate at him.

“Everything I’ve built up over all these years, bam! Just laid to waste at the hands of an eight-year-old punk. Pretty hilarious, huh? Right??” Dein just couldn’t stop talking. “But ya know what? I found something even better than money and influence. A power so great that I could bend the very world to my whim!”

He was still reliving the days before he had to obey the whims of an eight-year-old child and serve the church. Now he was a puppet. A dog serving its master. His pride was ripped to shreds.

“So, Dein…”

“What?” The man shot her a cold glare. His mind was clearly stuck on the tragedy of his fall from grace.

“Are you looking for sympathy?”

“Huh?” His face went blank.

After a brief pause, he laughed so hard his whole body shook.

Just as it looked like he was about to rein in his emotions, his face flushed, and a vein bulged in his forehead.

“Ha…haha…ha! Like I’d ever want that from the likes of you!” He was howling with anger now, his screams echoing through the darkened city.

But Flum could see through him. Dein had succumbed to his desire to have his anxieties heard. It didn’t matter if the person on the other end was a friend or foe; he wanted someone to hear his woes. He wanted someone to tell him they understood, that he was justified in feeling so wronged, that he’d endured a lot.

Absurd. Why would she ever entertain the idea of providing him that relief?

“To hell with the Spiral Children, with Origin, and with this damnable church! Screw you all!!” Dein ranted and raved like a crazed man. He had nothing left. There would be no going back. “I’m the king of the West District! From the day I got dumped in this god-awful slum, I knew I would have my revenge on this world! And I did it! I crawled my way to the top! With these hands, with my own wit and intellect, with my charisma—
I brought myself all the way here! Don’t you see? If I didn’t give myself up to them, I never would’ve been able to kill you!!”

An eye peered through the hole that his last Burst made in the wall. Within moments, eyes squeezed into the hole until they fused into a vile wad. The sight made Flum tense up.

Flum glanced over at the wall. “What’re you trying to say, then?”

The eyes streamed down the sides of the wall, finding new paths wherever they could. Their irises were locked on Flum. At their current pace, they would burst through the wall and fill the church in a matter of moments.

She wondered if Dein was just trying to buy himself time but then rejected that possibility. The look of anguish on his face is just too real.

“What? You having a hard time following along?” Dein’s hollow laugh echoed throughout the empty building. “Gyahaha…ha…haaa…”

His voice trailed off, and his arms hung limp at his sides.

“I…I don’t even know, either. Aaah…aaaaaaaah… I don’t… I don’t know anything anymore. What do I even want to do with myself? Some brat shows me up, and I lose everything. I sell out everyone who didn’t turn on me, just so I can spend my days singing for my supper. This is the last place I ever wanted to be. Gah—hey, Flum. Those guys messin’ around with ya, are they all dead now?”

She figured he was referring to the adventurers that attacked her earlier. Her response was cold and even. “I wouldn’t call attempted murder ‘messing around,’ but yes, they’re dead. I think they were already dead when I faced them.”

“I see, I see…” Dein mumbled to himself, his eyes glassy. “Hey, wait a minute. What do you mean already dead? Are you trying to say I killed them? What the hell do you know?! You wanna die right here??”

His face stayed empty of feeling, even as he forced a smirk and leveled his crossbow at Flum. What an awful way to go: neither alive nor dead, just cornered with his back to the wall. Without Gadhio, Flum would’ve been in exactly the same spot.

Maybe she actually could empathize with him in that regard, though he would never quite see it that way. There was, after all, a barrier between them that he believed they could never cross.

“Hey, Dein. About what I said earlier.”

“Huh?” He kept his finger on the trigger.

Flum smiled. “Don’t come crying to me for sympathy, okay? It’s gross.”

Dein froze. His pride was in ruins, and now she stomped on whatever was left.

“Come crying? To you? No… I… I wouldn’t. Gaaaah!!!”

He screamed at the top of his lungs and shook his head frantically, trying to deny the reality dawning on him. He pulled the trigger. There was no magic behind the attack this time. Flum didn’t even need to dodge—the shot went wide.

“I’ll kill you!!” His second shot veered the other way. Flum hadn’t moved. “DIE!”

He missed again.

“Die, die, DIE!” Dein’s hands were shaking so badly that he couldn’t find his target. He steadied his aim with his free hand and drew a bead on her forehead. “Die, runt! It’s your fault I ended up like this!!”

Flum batted the arrow aside with her blade and started to advance. Dein finally regained some fraction of his senses and loosed a Spread-imbued bolt. Flum dashed, her sword hanging low at her side, building prana as she went.

She released all of her stored prana into a furious Prana Storm as she struck. The powerful winds tore up floorboards and ripped apart eyes as they buffeted Dein. The burning Spread shots went out and fell limply to the ground.

“Nngaah!” Dein threw his arms in front of his face to block out the wind. Flum took the opportunity to close the distance.

She brought the sword down in a powerful slash. THWANK!

Dein managed to block the blow with his crossbow, though it sent his weapon flying across the room. Realizing he wouldn’t have a chance to retrieve it, Dein decided to fall back on his wire trick.

Flum summoned up her prana again. Her repeated use of the Cavalier Arts had already taken a lot out of her, but she still had just enough left in her to give it one last go.

“You’re not getting away that easily!” The sword felt even heavier than usual in her hands as she rushed after Dein.

SWHICK! Her Prana Sting sliced right through Dein’s wire.

“Whooooa!!” He briefly considered casting Float to slow his fall, but that would just make him an easier target. Instead he chose to let gravity have its way while he extended his hand out toward his enemy. “Fireball!!”

It was a minor spell, meant to make Flum pause for the moment he needed. Flum had been dodging arrows all night; she easily ducked out of the way.

Safely on solid ground, Dein turned tail and dashed for the entrance. He had no plan to escape. He was trying to put as many of the eyes blanketing the floor between them as possible.

After all, they only seemed to be interested in Flum.

She gripped the hilt of the Souleater in both hands and pushed at full speed toward Dein, only skirting around the eyes at the very last second.

Her sword skimmed just shy of the floor; with all the grit and prana she could muster in one blow, she heaved it high, whipping up a mighty gale. The eyes surrounding her burst, and the wind cut Dein’s arms and body to ribbons in spite of his best attempts to shield himself.

“Nnngaaaaah!!” Dein gritted his teeth in pain.

His buckler protected his vitals from any significant damage. Everything else was left wide open.

Flum still didn’t slow down.

“Hyaaaaaaaaaaaah!!”

“Damn you, brat! I’m not gonna die just yet!”

He tried to catch her follow-through with his buckler, but the blow forced him to one side. Ice spread from the point of impact, locking his shield down for good.

“Dammit!” A variety of unique curses flew from Dein’s mouth.

Dein had been playing coy about his buckler’s poison darts, just in case, but that mechanism froze over with the grapnel.

Even with Dein backed up against a wall, Flum still didn’t let up.

“Now that we’ve come this far…!”

Flum brought down her sword, smashing Dein’s buckler to frost and flinders. All Dein could do was scramble backward on the floor.

“You’re not getting away! This! Ends! Here!!” Flum punctuated her sentence by slashing his shoulder, his leg, and his other cheek.

“FIIIIIIIREBAAAAAALL!!!” Dein loosed one last spell in desperation. His odds of hitting Flum at this point were practically non-existent.

True to form, she tilted her head to the side, and the fireball swept past before exploding on contact with the ceiling.

BWOOOOOMF!!!

The thunderous explosion echoed through the church.

“Wha?!”

Flum looked up just in time to see the falling debris. She barely managed to dodge out of the way in time, suffering only a gash in her nose from a tumbling beam.

Dein cackled. “I lured you out here, and you thought I wouldn’t use the environment to be best of my ability?? Fool!”

“You don’t know when to quit!”

“That’s how I’ve stayed alive this long, in spite of everything I’ve been through!” He shot another fireball at Flum’s feet.

Flum tried to dash out of the way, but the fireball exploded the instant it made contact with the floorboards, blasting her leg away in the process and sending her body flying.

The moment she landed, she looked down to find her hand touching an eye.

“Oh no…”

She felt it crawl into her left arm.

She tried to get to her feet, but it was already too late. A new arm was already growing; the old one refused to do as she willed.

Dein loosed another fireball. Flum knew there was no way she could get out of the way in time…unless…

She took the blast head-on, leading with her deformed arm.

Blood and flesh scattered with the blast. She grit her teeth through the agony.

“You impertinent little brat!!”

“That’s rich, coming from you!”

Flum’s new left arm throbbed, whole and unmutated. Back in the lead, she thought.

Dein was covered in wounds; he struggled to put distance between himself and Flum, inching closer to his discarded crossbow.

Flum changed direction, diving in to intercept him.. She won out by a fraction of a second and threw the crossbow as hard as she could.

Out of options, Dein dove straight into Flum.

“Waaaugh?!”

“Heh, you scream like a little girl, even out here on the battlefield!” Dein was on top of Flum; he wrapped his fingers around her neck.

“You sure have a big mouth on you, kid. Cryin’ to you? Pshaw. Don’t make me laugh.”

“I was just making an observation.”

“Just think about it. This is all your fault. Everything only started going wrong after you showed up. You’re to blame for everything that’s happened. Deny it, just try!”

His actions with regard to the church had nothing to do with her. Honestly, she barely cared what Dein thought anyway. All he was trying to do was get back at Flum and ruin her name for mocking him.

“Haha! Look, look! Those darling li’l eyeballs are coming for you. Even if I don’t get to kill you, they’ll turn you into an abomination and do the job for me!”

Flum struggled to break loose. Dein held fast; his grip was too strong to overcome from her position.

She let out a deep breath, which elicited a crazed smile from Dein. He took it as a sign of her surrender.

“Reversion.”

As soon as she whispered the spell, Dein’s face changed instantly. A moment later, there was a loud snap as Dein’s wrists reversed in an impossible direction.

“Gaaaaaaaaaaaauuuugh!!”

He tumbled to the side, screaming in agony. Once Flum was free of his grip, she rolled out from under him, kicked him solidly in the stomach, and jumped to her feet. She brought her sword down on him, catching him square in the shoulder.

“Nnng…graaaaaaw!!! You stupid, ugly, little wench…!” His anger dulled his pain; he didn’t slow down at all, in spite of his injuries.

“Gyaaaaaaaauuuugh!!” He pressed his wrist up against the wall to hold it in place before twisting his entire arm, setting his wrist bones back in place.

He may have lost much of his grip, but he was still strong enough to hold the knife he kept at his waist.

“Haah… Flum…haah… Flum!!!”

He dropped into a low crouch and dove straight at Flum. She was ready to take him head on, when she noticed an eye creeping in close at the last second and leapt clear.

“Those eyes are getting faster?!”

Dein took advantage of the diversion to further close the distance. Flum hurried to ready the Souleater, but he was running like a bat out of hell.

“Raaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!!!”

SQUOOSH!

The knife plunged deep into Flum’s stomach. He gave the handle a twist, tearing up her organs even further. Flum gasped.

“Fluuuuuuuuum!!!” With nothing else to live for and nothing to lose, Dein’s entire world now revolved around the simple concept of killing Flum.

Flum let go of the Souleater and shoved him away with both hands. The silver blade in his hand was drenched red.

Dein still wasn’t finished.

“Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!” He lunged back at her, though she was able to deliver a swift kick to his stomach this time.

“Hnngh!” Dein doubled over and clutched his guts, giving Flum an opportunity to get in close, grab him by the hair, and knee his face into hamburger before letting him drop to the floor.

His arms shook as he fought to push himself back up. Flum kicked him in the face again.

Dein’s movement slowed. Flum decided now was the time to draw her Souleater again.

“Hyaaaaaaaaaaah!!” Somehow Dein found his second wind and charged into her like a crazed animal, swinging his knife wildly and slicing open Flum’s shirt, exposing her underwear for all to see.

He lunged in for another stab, but Flum caught it with her forearm. She winced, first at the sound of the blade scraping bone and then the sensation of her flesh shearing away.

She noticed an eyeball once again creeping close to her feet.

Flum started to panic. The longer the fight dragged on, the worse her situation got.

She ignored the knife embedded in her left arm for the moment and nailed Dein with a right hook to the face that would knock a normal person out cold.

Dein had already pushed himself beyond all physical and mental limits; he hardly noticed. He glared back at Flum, yanked the knife out of her arm, and lunged again—this time for her heart. “You’re done, Fluuuuuuum!!”

In Dein’s mind, his victory was all but assured. He was far too close for her to use the Souleater at this range. Making matters worse, there were too many eyes around for her to escape. The deck was stacked against her.

What happened next was something neither Dein nor Flum could have predicted.

An eyeball tumbled down, landing on a bare shoulder before rolling down to a juicy-looking bicep.

“Huh?” Dein looked down at his arm and froze.

Why did it attack him? The eyes were on his side; they were only supposed to target Flum…

“I can’t believe…”

He was beside himself.

“Oh, I get it…”

It all made sense to Flum, though. The eyeballs were created by the power of Origin, but in the end, they were still Ink’s.

While she was scuffling with Dein’s men, she noticed that some of the eyes were watching her. Had she attacked them, she probably never would have been saved by Gadhio, Eterna, or Ottilie. She’d probably be done for.

In other words, the eyes chose to help her, and Flum knew instantly who was responsible.

Whose will was so strong it could stand in the face of the gods? Ink had subconsciously fought against God to protect Flum… No, that wasn’t right. She was fighting to protect her home.

“Dammit!!” A new arm sprouted. Dein’s mind was starting to split; he lost control over the hand he used to stab Flum moments ago.

“Hn!!”

Flum shoved him hard, sending Dein teetering. She drew her Souleater and raised it high. She could barely hold it up. Her grip on the handle was shaky at best.

She put everything she had into keeping the blade steady and true. Just as she’d done when she destroyed the Origin core, Flum put every last ounce of her energy into this final swing.

“Hyaaaaaaah!!”

The black blade cut right into Dein’s center mass, though she just wasn’t strong enough to make the bone-shattering cut that would split him in two. Her slash wasn’t even fatal. It was little more than a flesh wound.

“H…huh?”

But she still had magic at her disposal.

“N-no…s-ss-stop…b-b-b-brat…gaaaauh!!”

The skin where she cut him began to peel away, revealing white bones underneath before they, too, began to turn in on themselves, pressing his organs out.

“Kill…just kill…me…hngaaauh!!”

If she were to name this technique, she’d call it the Resolute Cavalier Arts Expansion: Prana Shaker Reversal. This sword technique literally turned a person inside out, though she suspected it only worked this well given Dein’s weakened state.

Dein’s groans ceased as the skin tore away from his neck. She could see his larynx tremble.

Flum took a few steps away.

“I hope you suffer, Dein.” She made her way to the back room, making sure to step around the eyes as she did.

She left the everted jumble of loosely connected organs out in the main hall of the church. She suspected he’d live a while longer; his heart still pumped, and his lungs rose and fell.

After the hell he put her through, she wasn’t about to give Dein an easy death.