"Alronde, focus. We need to get out of here. Okay? I need you to cast out your Earthen Vortex, you hear me?"
I shakily nod, but before I can think another thought that same terrible voice speaks again.
"Aww that's sweet, but why would I let you do anything?"
And just as I hear this, I feel Sertentio's hands call away. And I hear something clatter to the ground, followed by a stifled gasp.
Before I can even begin to process what just happened, I hear far in the distance, and quickly getting quieter, "Al, Kid, get out of there, I'll be fine. RUN!"
My mind is left in a state of chaos, but my body turns around and runs.
I just.
Left him.
I can feel my throat choke up, but I know I can't waste the liquid. So I resist the tears as I cast "Earth Magic: Earthen Vortex!" I feel it as the mana I used to cast becomes hard, begins to whirl to life, and pick me up in its spin.
I have no clue how fast I'm going, or even if I'm going in the right direction, all I know, is that fills my mind is that order 'RUN.' It bounces around my brain as if it's an echo chamber.
"Ahh, what was that I heard a mortal once say, 'You can run, but you can't hide!' It feels oddly poignant in this situation."
I feel My blood freeze in fear as I hear that from my left.
And as I try to go faster, all I can hear is the voice's sadistic laughter getting closer and closer and-
As the laughter starts to become deafening in the impossibly long hall, I am left gasping as I feel something burningly cold enter into my left hand, the hand holding my grimoire.
In my shock of being stabbed, it takes me a moment to realize that my mount is being destabilized as I lose concentration, and my mana, rapidly drained.
Having never experienced such a vile feeling, I am left scrambling to escape on my now all too weak legs, but no matter what to run, my body began getting colder and colder.
frazzled with pain, and fear, I suddenly saw in the distance, something I never thought I would in such a place as this.
A light.
But as soon as I noticed it, so too did the thing…
"Ahh, well, this has been fun, but I have to go deal with a certian, trickster, I hope you understand, goodbye, intuder." It spoke as if it were talking about the weather…
After it finished saying this, I felt that same sheer cold flood into my chest, with a sharp, wet noise.
I knew, for the first time in my life, with clarity, that I was going to die.
But as I collapsed onto the ground, and the monster took what ever it used to attack me oout of my body, I was left struggling to find why any of this happened to me.
'Why I had volunteered for this stupid mission, why I had just, left Sert all on his own, why I had rejected joining the family business…'
Why why why…
And as my mind slowly scattered into unconsciousness while staring at a light that slowly got closer, my last thought was 'why did I even join the magic knights in the first place?…'
- - - -
I was ten.
My mother and I had gone to the market, she was a wonderful woman, the kindest Mom I could ask for.
Sure she would get on my and my brother's cases on occasion, but she meant well, and always made sure we didn't go hungry.
She sold the fruits we grow at the orchard.
She was well liked by the townsfolk, our entire family was, so that's why it came at such a shock.
I was there with her, As she died.
A drunk noble had tried to bring my mother to his bed, she refused, and, enraged, the noble attacked her.
My sweet mother, was never a fighter, barely used her grimoire. Wasn't ready for the attack, and fell before my eyes.
I was there as she told me "Alronde, my youngest son, my sweet boy, I need you to promise me… that you'll live your life to the -cough- fullest." And I was there as the light left her eyes.
The noble got off with barely a hit on the wrist, even though there had been a crowd of people who had all seen it.
It was then, crouched over my mother's cooling corpse, promising her that I would do as she asked, that I experienced despair for the first time.
But I had been raised by a great woman, and I knew she would never wish for me to become the very kind of person who had taken her life, a murderer.
So I vowed that day to become a magic knight, to catch and incarcerate criminals like that man, and protecting the other citizens of clover, so no one need suffer the same way I had ever again!
- - - -
As I was walking away from the sad scene of the boy, killed by my hands, I was as sickened as I was delighted.
Sickened that it had come to this, delighted that I finally had a body to do anything with at all.
For far too long, had I just been a mass of darkness, with my only recourse to fighting off intruders being blinding them, and slowly chipping away at their sanity as they stayed under my spell, but now, now I can take a much more personal approach to things.
It's just as much a shame, that the grimoire took advantage of my efforts and converted those 'adventurers' before I could completely kill them.
But to quote one of those people, 'that's just how the cards fall,' what ever that means.
Sadly, having a physical body comes with it's own issues, it seems in my time as a spell, I have completely forgotten how to walk like a human, sure, floating around is fun and all, but I would rather learn out to walk soon. If for no other reason than to be able to feel solid ground again.
As I continued to rather comically attempt to walk while floating, leisurely making my way to where I was keeping an eye on that crazy little girl -who just so happened to have put me out of a job for all of eternity- I noticed something from the poor sap behind me.
'What in all the realms, is a 'poor sap'?' As I thought this, I was reminded of why exactly the war for freedom started in the first place…
"Ugh, right, I forgot, you're all a load of dirty cheaters…" I said, as I stared morosely at the view of the young man slowly standing up while glowing orange.
The thing that put us on the back foot, and the reason we lost that war… when a person with a grimoire is on their death bed, they'll somehow, instantly gain a boost in mana, and just, conveniently and immediately learn a new spell, as if it were nothing.
Seems I won't be able to go and check on little miss how-did-she-do-that any time soon…
- - - -
End, part two will be out shortly.