You Should Stop Being Yourself, Now

Dige swiveled 180 degrees on this barstool to find Shige, his third natural enemy, standing at the entrance with a cocksure look on his face. It was as if he were studying him. This, obviously, angered the dwarf. Dige launched from his stool, ready to annihilate his hated foe with his trusty axe, when a barrier stopped him in mid-air, and he slid to the floor on his back. Another barrier surrounded him in a dome, keeping him in place. There was no present danger, but it caused the fiend to bounce around like an angry cat.

“Wow, that was easy. Good job, Vel,” Shige said, strutting forward. His eyes squinted at Dige. “I was nervous at first, but once I got a look at your level, I knew it would work. You don’t stand a chance against her magic.”

“Sakakura, sir. Please don’t get close to him.”

“Why, is he gonna bite?”

“I’m…barely containing him.”

This was enough to have the protagonist leap back in an instant. Was he about to break free? Was he unleashing an unknown magic to weaken the barrier? What was happening? The answer was nothing, but Vel was still observing with immense curiosity.

“Barrier switch. Energy field.”

The dome around Dige morphed into something thinner, more gaseous than the solid form around him earlier. It was a barrier made of pure energy. Dige smashed through it within a second with his boot. 

Shige leapt back with his guard up. “Vel, what the hell was that?”

“An excellent question. That barrier was stronger than the previous one, and yet it didn’t stand a chance against him. Shige, can you fight him?”

“Uh, what!?”

The protagonist brought up the numbers in his mind again, just to reassure themselves. They were still the same as before. Level 18. Attack, 30, Defense, 48, HP 78. Axe was a standard iron axe with no enchantments. Right behind him were Vel and the bartender, level 49 and 74, respectively. Their stats dwarfed the dwarf’s in every way. They could even take a sword better than the mass of muscle he was. So why was he feeling so uneasy?

“Sure thing. Nice, Fura, a little help?”

The two girls nodded and chanted their spells to buff him. Shige was enveloped by a magical aura, his body pulsing with an intense light that crackled and sparked. The dwarf burst into action again and charged headfirst. It would’ve been easy to vaporize him with a spell. He wasn’t even a mob enemy at his level, but he was in a refined establishment, so he put the magic into his sword. It became a pure beam saber.

“Shige! I’ll kill you!” Dige swung.

“You little creep!” Shige answered.

And both were flung out through the door onto the path, and their roll turned into a struggle, and then a brawl, the agile magician knight outpacing the strong and brawny dwarf fighter. The beam saber was superheated magic, designed to cut through iron and steel with ease, and yet it plinked off the metal like it was solid. After a moment, the axe began to phase through the beam itself. Superheated plasma, to metal, to light. If Sakakura were unprepared, he would've taken an axe blade to his belly at this point. He couldn’t stand it.

“Why!? Why are you like this!?” he yelled.

“It’s your fault, Japanese man! You messed with the wrong dwarf!”

“Prisoner Sarcophagus, Ice Tomb.”

Vel’s spell shot up from the ground, entombing them both from the neck down in ice. It was a chilly affair, made only better by the warm, humid night. From there, she stood and observed. As disgruntled as her protagonist was, Shige was a man prepared for such an attack and muttered a flame spell to heat his body, melting the ice around him in an instant. Meanwhile, Dige was left struggling to break it, his musculature cracking the ice but not much more.

“So ice spells work?” Vel stepped forward. “Glass and ice. Solid manifestations are proving more effective than energy ones. Hmmm. Something's still off.”

“Like it matters,” Shige said, wiping off the water from his sword. “Let’s just kill him and go back inside."

“Hold it,” Swell, the bartender, stood in the tavern’s light. Her silhouette was more rigid than they remembered. “I’m not letting you kill a man in front of my brothel. You’re an adventurer, right? Show some class.”

Shige would’ve rather not, but given the lady’s level and her very nice knockers, he tucked away the beam sword and let his other sword do the thinking.

“Alright, you got me,” he sighed. “I mean, it’s not going to matter. He was just going to resp-.”

Without warning, Dige’s axe hand broke free from the ice, and with a vengeful swing, he laid it down upon Shige’s head, stopping somewhere between his eyes. The Japanese protagonist fell dead with the axe firmly embedded in him.

Vel's scream woke the entire wayside. “Shige!”

She and the girls sprang to his aid, crowding his body with all the healing magic at their disposal, but the deed was already done. There wasn't much to heal a brain split in two.

Dige's laugh was maniacal. “I knew it! I can kill you bastards! Who’s the creep now, huh!?”

However, his heartiness lasted only a second before Swell pulled him out of his ice prism with a single hand, her well-worn musculature for all to see. 

“What the hell is wrong with you!?” she growled. “Is this how a dwarf acts? You're a monster!”

“What are you talking about?” Dige’s voice was constricted. “Don’t you know what that bastard did to me? He's my enemy!”

“All I see are his friends crying for him! You said you try to be nice to others, but how can you say that when you’re willing to commit such cruelty? No wonder people don’t like you!”

“You don’t understand!”

"You. Attacked. First!"

"I am a dwarf. He tried to kill me before. Would you let a man like him live?"

She refused to answer. Fura was bawling like a baby while Nice was trying to make some dark humor to lighten the mood. She was failing. Vel eventually stood, but even she, as old as she was, couldn’t maintain her composure.

“I’m sorry. This is my fault,” she whispered. “I didn’t take this seriously enough. I should’ve…I should’ve made a stronger spell.”

Dige looked down at her from his raised position. The hatred was still in his heart. Even seeing his enemy dead before him didn’t quell the fire in his heart. The catharsis was still there. It shone bright like any grudge should allow, as he saw before in his own kin. It was the flame that moved the earth for his people, the foundation of men who lived in the dark, and now there was a conflict, because Dige couldn’t ignore their cries. It wormed into his head and struck him where it hurt, because despite everything, he was compassionate. The dwarf was hit with unbearable guilt. His lust for revenge was matched by the pain in his heart for hurting these girls. He wouldn’t show it, not for a moment. To the ladies before him, he was the proud, monstrous dwarf he always was. That's where it would lie.

“Huh!? What happened!?” Fura panicked. “Where is he!?”

“His body disappeared!” Nice’s eyes went wide. “Is this some kind of spell?”

Everyone looked at each other, wondering who had the answers, when a thud and a yelp echoed a few meters away in the grass. A light spell was cast to reveal Shige, alive and well, struggling to readjust to his body. The girls piled on him, almost killing him all over again.

“Sakakura, you’re alive!” Vel cried. “I’m so sorry! I shouldn’t have talked you into this!”

“That’s cool, Vel,” Shige suffocated. “But I need some space!”

Swell looked on in pure disbelief. She looked up as if she’d find some divine hand from the sky, but the stars were as clear as ever. She knew the goddesses were watching in this world, but she never imagined seeing their power on full display like this.

“Damn, so they come back as well,” Dige grumbled. “No matter how many times I kill them, my fire will never extinguish now.”

“Hey, dwarf,” Swell brought him down to her level. Her eyes were direct and full of conviction. “You wanna make friends?"

"Uh, yes?"

"Then stop being a dwarf.”

“Huh?” Dige didn’t understand, but he knew partially that he was lying to himself. He understood her loud and clear. It was just an impossibility.

Was that the end of his journey, an impossible goal?