Burning

In front of the gate which would allow us to enter the vicinity of the palace was a team of five guards. Three of them seemed as though they were the standard guards you would see all the time in the Capital. However, two of them seemed different from the rest. Their armour was far lighter, being somewhat closer to the leather armour I had been using.

In this way they had been far more exposed than the silver people beside them. They would probably be far more troublesome since our bullets had the ability to shred through armour. It made it so that the ability to dodge them was far greater than having protection. At the same time, they probably hadn’t seen the capabilities of our weapons yet, giving us the opportunity to get a surprise shot in.

“Aim for the ones without armour!” I called to Hue who had been right behind me in the charge.

“Are you sure?” She questioned.

“Yes, I am.”

Stopping in our dash and slightly skidding towards them, we lined up our shots. The guards had noticed us and were running towards us to stop any further approach. We both let our shots out, aiming for the ones I had ordered.

Hue’s shot hits the unarmoured girl right between the eyes, taking her out instantly. My shot however, had missed and instead blew right past the remaining unarmoured man’s face. While I can’t say my aim had been quite as good as Hue’s, this was not the reason I had missed.

Hue had shot a couple seconds before me and when it hit the other person, it gave enough time for the man to react to my shot. For this reason it barely missed him, but now he was going to be far more trouble. The worst part was that there were still three more people in silver also making their way towards us.

If we stayed in this position any longer, there was a good chance the people we were fighting would get backup. If that were to happen, it would be way too difficult to fight through all of them with just us two. Our best course of action right now was to take them out as fast as possible. To reach that end I did have a plan, but it would be slightly risky.

“You take care of the guy without any armour, I’ll handle the three.” I commanded Hue.

“Wouldn’t it be better for me to attack the three?” She resisted slightly.

“No, you’re much faster than me. Once you finish with him, come help me out, okay?”

“I’ll make sure I take mine out quickly so that I can also take care of yours then!”

“Haha, I’m counting on it!” I responded, slightly encouraged by her confidence.

We separated slightly so that our individual fights didn’t interfere with one another. Two of the silver men came after me, while the remaining two people went for Hue. This wasn’t good since she would be better off only dealing with the one for now. I took a shot towards the man in silver who had been heading to fight Hue.

This shot had missed. Unlike the other one, where the man was able to react to it and dodge it, I had simply just missed the guard this time. It seems like I’m not quite used to running and shooting. But whatever, it seemed his attention had been diverted towards me thanks to the act.

Now I had three people I needed to deal with. The easiest way would be to use the power of the crystal, but seeing as mine had increased power, it was likely that the blast would end up hurting both Hue and I. It seemed that the best thing I could do was try to stall and shoot them as much as I could. It’s a good thing the armour made them slower.

Getting a good enough distance from Hue, I stopped and reloaded. After I loaded the new bullet into the chamber, I began to aim for a shot. The guards weren’t lined up so I would have to shoot them one by one. For now I’d at least try to decrease the workload just a bit.

I shot the guard rushing towards me in the middle. He was the furthest ahead and had to go directly straight to reach me. The others had to curve just a bit and were slightly behind him. Killing him would give me the most time to reload. The shot I took at him hit cleanly, blasting through his armour and killing him.

I started to reload once again, but it seemed I underestimated the distance. Or possibly they had sped up a little after seeing the power of my rifle. For some reason one of them had made it to me. I was just quick enough to react and block the strike of his sword with my gun.

While I was able to keep this one held off, I knew the other one was also just about to reach me. He didn’t use a sword like this one, instead he used a flail. Or as they had called it in this world, a ‘Proxima’. The added distance he had with it made it so that I wouldn’t even be able to defend when he got close.

Was Hue close to being done yet? I may not be able to hold out any longer and I really need her help now. I looked over to where Hue’s fight was happening in order to see how she was doing. However, when I looked over I could only see her enemy dead on the ground with her missing. Where had she gone?

“DIE!” The man with the flail called as he approached.

At that moment, as if to answer my question from a second ago, a bullet went straight through his back and came out in front of him, stopping him in his tracks. The bullet had pierced his heart and he could no longer even attempt to move. As he coughed up blood, he fell to the ground.

As he hit the ground I could see that right behind him had been Hue. It appears that after she took care of her opponent she had gotten behind the guard to take him out. She was cutting it a little close, but I was grateful nonetheless. This display had also caused the man I was holding off to release his pressure and take in what had happened to his fellow employee.

With this subtle distraction I was able to pull away from him and shoot him, killing him. Realizing what had happened, he could only fall over like the others, unable to even contest the result. After all, there was no way he could do that now even if he wanted to.

“No fair!” Hue cried out.

“What do you mean?” I responded, confused.

“I wanted to kill him!”

“Uh--bu-ah-what?”

“I. Wanted. To. Kill. Him.”

“W-why does it matter?”

“I need to make sure once we win I write down all my contributions in a book!”

“Oh, I see?”

“Think! If I killed a lot of them then everyone would know just how great I was.”

“Well how about you write that you rescued your leader from peril. Thank you for saving my life.”

“Uh-we-hm--ah--you’re welcome.” She answered shyly. “But it’s not as cool.” She whispered softly, trying to make sure I didn’t hear.

“Haha. Well let’s wipe off our blades and make our way inside.”

“Okay!”

We quickly wiped off our blades with our cloaks. The shine of the blades had been restored to them once again, looking as if they were ready to cut vegetables. But this wasn’t going to be the purpose for them.

Approaching the castle, I could see that the violet coloured carpet had been dyed with streaks of scarlett. There was a good chance that the advanced team we sent to raid the castle may have taken everyone out already. They were all pretty powerful and also understood how to use the gun pretty well. Not to mention the combat training they already had was in a class of its own.

Looking at it now, maybe Hue should’ve also been on that team seeing how fast and accurate she was. At the same time, it was a bit of relief to have her with me instead after that last battle we just had. Without her, I’m not sure if I could’ve won that fight.

Making our way through the grand entrance, we could see three different paths. Each path had a different coloured carpet associated with them. One path was heading upwards and was lined with a violet carpet which seemed to slowly switch colour. Another path had been in lime green and stayed on the main floor of the castle.

The last path however, seemed to go slightly into the ground. It was also accompanied by a black rug. This path was particularly interesting to me as I wasn’t sure what would be in it. The others I could at least give a guess to, but this one didn’t make any sense to me.

I knew that the path which led upwards was where The King and Queen were as I’d assumed them to be self important enough to take the highest floor. It would also make the most sense for their safety as it would be impossible for anyone to shoot up there. Maybe even with magic it wouldn’t be possible.

The path which stayed on the ground floor was likely for guests. There was also a chance it was used for facilities as well. I’m not sure if they would even have a swimming pool, but maybe it would lead to the beach.

This path covered in black made no sense to me. It probably wasn’t a place to stay in the castle as it would put whoever was in there below commoners. It wouldn’t make sense for the structure of this kingdom. It might be the facilities I thought of earlier, but being underground wouldn’t really be too enjoyable for the people who came here to experience class.

The most off putting thing about this path was that the carpet used to identify it was black. It wasn’t a colour any nobility or royalty had been known for using, not in this world or my old one. It was a colour which by all rights had no right being in this place. Yet there it was, right at the entrance standing out to me.

“C’mon, let’s go!” Hue broke my train of thought and pointed at the staircase.

She also must have figured out that we needed to go that way to reach the throne room. But this other path was sticking out to me too much. It had been the only path devoid of corpses or bloodstains. Why had it been missing these two things?

“Go on without me, I want to check this way.” I told her, pointing to the mysterious path.

“But why? We should be taking out The King and Queen! Not dilly-dallying!” She replied.

“I need to make sure there’s not a trap waiting for us here.”

“Then I should stay with you.”

“No, you need to go help the advanced team. After all, there’s a good chance we’ll be dealing with the Mad Mage.”

“But they should have taken care of them by now, right?”

“Probably, but it’s always good to be sure. There’s probably more powerful magic users at the royalty’s disposal.”

“Are you certain you don’t want me to stay?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. I know you’re far more skilled than me, so I’m just doing this to fight the lesser of the possible threats.”

“Haha. Okay then, I’ll see you at the top!”

“See you there!” I waved her off as she began sprinting her way up the stairs.

All right! Time to see why this path had been so unique. I began walking the empty path. It spanned quite a distance, reaching into what would have been the inner depths of the castle if I was on level ground. As the walkway went further down, it felt more and more eerie as the light of the entrance began fading behind me.

There was almost nothing other than the ground, the walls, the ceiling, a couple of torches, and me. It was, for all practical meaning, desolate. Yet even then, I persisted through walking this path. After all, there was a chance that The King and Queen were hiding out here when they heard of the attack. If that was the case, I would be able to kill them myself.

The worst thing would be if they escaped. If they were able to do that, then it could cause this entire movement to be effectively worthless. They could rebuild their power with their names alone. If that were to happen then all the sacrifices everyone made would be meaningless.

There was no way I would let Flint and Allirea’s death be pointless. This was the last thing I could do to justify my existence after their death. If I was to fail, then my existence until this point would also be for nothing. I can’t fail, but with weighing those circumstances I had only put even more pressure on myself.

The light from the torches had stopped and left only darkness. There was a possibility this may have been near the end. If there really was nothing in this stupid hallway then I was going to be pretty mad. I mean I even separated from Hue to come here, so there being nothing would be a low blow.

As I was thinking, I bumped into a dead end in the darkness, smacking my nose.

“Aaaaa!” I yelled and held my nose to comfort it.

Was it really a dead end? I felt the wall in front of me and it felt sort of like wood. The walls just before had still been made with a grey stone, so to feel wood shouldn’t be right. Unless, of course, the wall’s material changed after the light ended. I’ll just go back quickly and grab a torch so I can see.

I sprinted my way back to the torches so as to not waste anymore time. They were placed on the wall fairly far up. I tried jumping for them and was barely able to reach the base of the torch. I put all my strength into a jump hoping it would work, and by stretching my arm out as far as I could, I was able to grab one.

“Why would you put them up there? It's way too difficult to get them!” I complained to myself.

Finally I guided myself through the darkness once again to reach the wall I was at before. Reaching it I could see that what I had bumped into was in fact not a wall but instead a door. I really hoped this door wasn’t locked or else I would have to waste ammo on it.

I gently pushed against the door and without hesitation it creaked open on its own. My light tap on the door had caused it to fully open. It seemed to be a dark room which was barely being lit up by my torch. It seemed the room didn’t have much to offer and was just another dead end.

“I guess, I just wasted all that ti--.” I began speaking.

Clank! The sound of metal moving cut me off and made me far more alert than I was just a second ago. I waved around the torch trying to identify where it had originated from. As I shined the light on the back left corner of the room, I was able to make out a small girl holding a knife to me and trembling.

She was fairly small, maybe around Cordelia’s size, or a bit shorter even. Unlike Cordelia, however, she was really thin. Like, too thin. Was I looking at a sack of bones?

Her clothing looked close to that of a slave with the ripped up rags on her and all. Her eyes were coloured silver with what seemed to be a slight tinge of purple. But what really caught my attention was the black hair she had.

Her hair had been black, just like mine. Could she be from the world I came from? Was the reason they kept her here because they knew? Or maybe because she just got unlucky? Regardless, I needed to help her. I began to get a little closer to her.

“S-stay back villain!” She cried out as she shook the knife in my direction.

I hadn’t noticed it earlier while I was caught up in looking at her, but the knife she was holding was dripping with blood. I tried to figure out why it was bleeding and saw that next to her was the corpse of a guard.

I illuminated the torch around me a bit more and could make out busted chains to the wall. However, underneath the area where people’s hands would be restrained to the wall I could make out a bundle of bones. This was not just in one part of the room either. This display littered the room almost in its entirety.

“You’re going to kill me!” The girl exclaimed as I was looking around.

“N-no! I won’t kill you. I’m not with them.” I tried to quell her fears while pointing to the corpse next to her.

“Y-you’re lying!”

“No I swear. Look, we're the same.” I tried to approach her to show her my black hair.

“I said stay back.”

“Look.” I showed her my black hair.

“You’re unusually coloured hair doesn’t make me believe you’re not with them!”

“Unusual? What do you mean? We’re the same.”

“We’re nothing alike!” She cried out.

“What do you mean? You have black hair as well.”

“No! I have silver hair.” She claimed.

At that moment she examined the colour of my hair, and then compared it to her own hair which extended to her bicep. Her eyes looked shocked at the realization of what her hair colour had been. But why would she be shocked by her hair colour? Also, what were they doing in this room?

“W-why is my hair…..like this?” She pushed out the words of confusion.

“Hey, was your hair colour not originally black?” I questioned.

“No. It was silver, I swear.”

“Can you tell me what they were doing in this room?”

“You should know! You’re with them!”

“I’ve killed a lot of them on my way here. I’m against them and I’m going to get you out of here. So please tell me what they were doing to you.”

Seeing a genuineness in my voice, she decided she would tell me. “They were experimenting on us.”

“Us?” As I let the words out I realized what she meant. “Wait, you mean those were all children?”

“Yes. They all died from the experiments. I was the only one to survive.”

“What were they trying to do with these experiments?”

“They wanted to make artificially stronger mages.” She explained.

Hearing her words, I could only tighten my grip around the torch and the gun. I was also gritting my teeth to the point that they may have broken if I didn’t release the tension. I knew Milarch was bad, but I never really knew it was this bad. To think they were doing human experimentation, and on children Cordelia’s age of all people.

The thought that the child in front of me could have been Cordelia made my blood boil. I really wanted to kill all the nobles now. I wanted everything to burn. I wanted all the people who could carry out such cruelty to perish. The anger was starting to show on my face and was scaring the child in front of me.

I relaxed myself enough so that I could hide the anger once again. I couldn’t scare her away. It would take away all the trust we had built up until this point. For now I needed to get her out of here.

“What’s your name?” I asked her.

“L-Luna.” She answered, still slightly fearful.

“Luna, huh? That’s a nice name. Where are your parents Luna?”

“They're gone.”

“Do you know where? I could take you to them if you know.”

“I don’t want to go to them!”

“W-why’s that?” I questioned, a little taken aback by the outburst.

“They’re the ones who sent me here.”

“What?”

“They sold me and sent me here!” She screamed, her voice breaking towards the end.

Why? Why would they do something like that? Did they even know what would happen to her by coming here? What kind of parents would do that? This isn’t good. I was struggling even more to contain my rage now. I needed to get her out of here quickly before all my anger bursted.

“I see, then come with me.” I held my hand out towards her, releasing my hold of the gun and letting the strap hold it up for me.

“To where?” She wondered.

“Well to start with, out of this place.”

“O-okay.” She agreed.

Putting the knife into her left hand, she grabbed my hand with her right. Pulling herself up seemed difficult for her with how little mass she had. They probably fed her the same amount I got when I was in captivity. It might’ve even been less than what I had gotten.

Holding my hand, I escorted her out of the room and made my way back up the path I had come down. As we reached the section which was lit up, I threw away the torch as it was useless now. I was getting her out of here no matter who got in my way, but seeing as the path had been left completely abandoned, I doubted anyone would.

Seeing the empty pathway once again, the anger I was holding back in me again came to me. My mind had come to process why this pathway was so empty even after everything was happening. It seemed they had planned to abandon Luna. I needed to calm down again or else I would squeeze her hand too tightly.

“Are you left handed?” I asked her, trying to divert my attention.

“Uh, I can use both.” She answered.

“That’s a nice skill to have.”

“T-thanks.” She replied softly.

The light from outside was finally starting to come into sight once again. We had finally been approaching the end of the pathway which spanned so far. The sky which was once blue had been painted in red. Smoke could be seen rising into the sky from multiple places, slightly adding a dark grey shade to the scarlet sky.

The exit was right in front of us, but I needed to complete the task I came here to do. I couldn’t bring Luna with me either since it would be dangerous. It seemed I would have to abandon someone once again. I’m so pathetic.

“This is where we part ways.” I told her, reaching the area where the paths split.

“What? But why?” She questioned, fearfully.

“I need to make sure the people that did this to you won’t be able to do something like it ever again.”

“Then let me come with you.”

“No way. You need to leave through that exit.” I pointed to the grand opening from which I had first entered from.

“But what will happen to you? I can’t just run away and leave you to die.”

“You won’t be. In fact, you’ll be my decoy to keep the guards from getting in my way. You better start running, because I can’t save you anymore.” Leaving her with those words, I took off while refusing to look at her expression.

As I ran away from her, I made my way up the lengthy staircase, not looking back. As I made it further up the staircase I could see that the smoke was in fact originating from fires. It seemed a lot of the Capital was catching on fire. This had been just what I wanted. This place of filth needs to burn.

I could make out people who looked like ants from this height running around. It seemed they were attacking the guards as well. Were they members of the revolution or were they citizens who decided to join in after the chaos?

Well, it should be fine as long as it helps out the cause. But by now the top floor should be cleared out entirely. I made my way up only to join in on the celebration they would be having at their accomplishments.

Finally, after a climb which was far longer than the path I took to find Luna, I could see the end. I was finally going to meet with everyone again and finish this task I took upon myself. It would all be coming to an end once I reached the top.