Chapter 5:

A New Resolution

Baizefield


“Huh! What was that?” Freya asked the beat up old man.

“I said that my comrades are coming! If I were you, I’d be damned.”

“Haha! haha!”

Freya let out a loud mocking laughter.

“What’s so funny?”

“If that’s your reason for holding on to your dear life, then you’d be better off dead. You know, I have some compassion! Allow me to attack you with the strongest forces that I have. That way you’ll die in honor.”

“Only I will decide when I die. Don’t decide for me!”

“Suit yourself!”

Freya summoned another humanoid being that was, this time round, the size of a normal human. It was dressed in black having a waistband and a scarf that were torn up like rugs. The scarf covered his mouth as well. He yielded two short daggers that would be sheathed at his left hip.

Teeg, exhausted as he was, held onto his broken sword.

“I’ll demolish him, and then come for you!”

“Fufu! I’ll be waiting.”

Shortly after they had finished talking, the humanoid with outstanding speed attacked Teeg who barely saw the attack. Pivoting to his right, Teeg made sure he avoided a critical hit to his neck but the dagger still managed to graze him.

“Too fast!”

Teeg thought as he searched around, looking for the humanoid who had disappeared from his view. Shortly after, it delivered a good deep strike to Teeg’s thigh.

“Arg!” Teeg yelled in pain.

“Freya! How can your summons use Ristír?

“Fufu! Keep wondering! It was a gift from old James.”

“Damn you, messing with people’s lives like they are nothing. That used to be a person right?”

“Aha!”

Frank, gritting his teeth, leapt towards Freya only to be stopped by the summon that attacked with its blade from behind. Teeg twisted and turned in midair giving him momentum to swing his broken sword to parry the dagger.

“Huh!”

Frank’s swing unexpectedly missed his target and suddenly received a massive cut on his chest.

“Urg! This is not good! This man can actually kill me anytime. Oh no, I’m getting dizzy. My vision is blurry!” Teeg desperately thought. “I’m really going to give these guys a very long lecture when they arrive. How dare they make me wait for this long.”

“Oh, by the way, your comrades, they are all dead!”

Dropping a bomb this large at this specific time really affected Teeg’s motivation by far.

“You jest!” Teeg doubted.

“Why would I? They took some merchandise of ours and refused to return her. So we imposed force!”

Teeg, exhausted as he was, didn't want to think about it for it would make his efforts go to waste.

“Give me one reason to believe you?”

“You know me! What would happen if the opponent’s backup arrives?”

“You would suggest that we ret— No! No! It can’t be!”

Teeg could suddenly not handle that intensity of news. First of all knowing that there’s no backup and secondly discovering that his friends had been killed was too much for him.

Teeg, suddenly losing all his strength, got down on his knees and looked up, raindrops bouncing off his face.

“If my friends are gone, then end my life as well! What more reason do I have to live?”

“Don’t worry sweetheart. You’ll definitely die. The daggers are laced with poison. It will take time to affect you. But it’ll kill you painlessly.”

Retracting the summon, she looked away saying, “it would have been nice if you had fought side by side with me. But nothing can be done. Say hello to Gordon for me on the other side.”

Teeg, saying nothing, lay on his back, allowing the tiny drops of rain to dominate his face.

“What a cruel life I’ve lived!”

***

“Was this how you escaped from us? But I saw you dead. How?” Danny inquired of Phillip.

“I’ll tell you everything, but in return, I need you to answer all of my questions.”

“Okay!”

Phillip while walking around said, “the realm of possibility allows me to view the different outcomes of an occurrence from the point when I activate it.”

“Let’s say that all these possibilities are threads that independently move consistently from the origin and don’t meet with each other. Within the realm of possibility, there’s a phenomenon that twists that concept such that those threads meet and coexist within the same space.”

“Unravel allows me to switch my body and consciousness to the position of another me, maybe one with a better chance of survival from an attack.”

“That’s why I say that I mainly use it to survive.”

“In your bedroom, I used ‘unravel’ to switch my position with one who had been killed while trying to escape the house that night. It was to simply buy me time as I escaped but it seems like things went south.”

“More than one me in a thread can’t coexist so one of them has to disappear.”

Danny, listening intently, internalized the content that he was given.

“So, does that mean it was James who killed the other you?” Danny asked.

“Yeah! I thought it was a no big deal, but it seems that x cut holds more meaning than I think.” Phillip replied.

“Yeah it does hold a lot.” Danny said as he lifted his shirt showing his left chest revealing an x-shaped mark.

“What in the world? How are you alive?”

“Dad, or rather James, is what you would call a necromancer.”

“Ability over the dead?”

“Yeah! The x-cut through your heart means he’ll revive you as his minion and he’s free to implant memories in you, just like he convinced Paula that he was her dad.”

“So, you and Paula were once dead? He’s not your dad? And how did you find out that he wasn’t your dad?.” Phillip said, scratching his head.”

“He’s not our dad and neither I’m I Paula’s sibling. Unlike Paula, he didn’t implant me with memories to make me forget about my past since he was sure that I would never panic.”

“Exactly when were you killed?”

“About ten years ago. For Paula, eight years ago.”

“How old were you back then, 11? Were you already in the kingdom’s army by that age?”

“After being resurrected by a necromancer, you stop aging. I should be about 35 years old now.”

Phillip, seriously scratching his hair, looked totally confused.

“Now it’s time to answer my questions.” Phillip told Danny, looking at him straight in his eyes.

“Sure! But according to the information I give, I might end up dead myself because of a curse that prohibits me from giving such information.”

“But it seems you have given me more information than you should have.” Phillip said pointing towards the blue images.

The images showed Danny’s shape lying down with blood flowing out of his scar. Another shape looking like Paula was kneeling over Danny, crying.

“Seems that no matter what you do, there’s no other possibility in which you survive?” Phillip assured Danny.

Scanning through the rest of the images, Danny saw the same thing happen over and over again.

“I’ve already died once before. I really should have died back then. I’ll tell you everything you want to know. In return, promise me that at least you'll help me grant Paula’s wish.”

“Which is?”

“To be free!”

“Well that’s vague, but sure! You have my word.”

***

“Huh? Who is that?” Teeg, seeing nothing but darkness, asked.

In the darkness, a young lad's voice resonated from all directions.

*…..so selfish?*

“What the heck are you saying?”

*How can you be so selfish?* The voice responded more clearly this time.

“What do you mean?”

The scenery then warped to the road from James’ house to Thorne village. Teeg was riding his horse beside Frank.

*I’m thinking of retirement. I want to go to the fishing town in the west of Baizefield, build a small cabin and take my grandkids there to live with me.*

*I didn’t know that you had grandkids! You really don’t say anything like that around me!*

“This is the road from Cotts house to Thorne village. Frank, I hope you’re okay?” Teeg thought.

*Well, I had no reason to!*

*Then why old man? Why do you want to leave your grand kids alone in this harsh life? WHY ARE YOU SO SELFISH?*

Teeg suddenly opened his eyes. The rain had stopped.

“Frank? You’re telling me to live? For the sake of my grandkids? How pathetic I am to have thought of death!”

“Slow shallow breaths. I’ll delay the spread of the poison further. The first person I’ll see, no matter who he is, I’ll seek his help.”

Teeg minimized his movements and started breathing incredibly slowly.

“I’ll live for the sake of my grandkids, the ones Norman left behind. It’s my new resolution!”

***

“What in the world is happening?”

James looked over at Danny, who had dropped down with blood coming out of his chest. Phillip stood right next to him, facing down with his hands folded into fists and his teeth clenched.

“Danny!”

Paula shouted as she ran over to his corpse!

“Phillip! What in the world did you do, you bean?

Phillip paid no heed to James’ question but instead, with overflowing rage, he yelled at him.

“For all you’ve done, you deserve death, you mongrel.”

“I see, he told you what he shouldn’t have! If he did it while knowing the consequences, then it was his choice to die.” James replied without sympathy. “The fact is that you know about me. It can’t let you run here and there with that knowledge.”

Phillip raised his head towards him and shouted, “I promise, I will end you with my hands and give Paula her freedom, and atleast fulfill Danny’s last wish for him.”

Paula, who had knelt over to Danny’s body’s and was crying in too much sorrow, paid no heed to the dialogue. The only one she called her family was gone.

“Let’s see you try!”

James drew his rapier and James summoned his flame which was lurking behind him.

While shouting, James charged in straight without thinking. He covered his right fist with his flame so that he would leave him burnt on impact.

Phillip reached halfway a meter in front of him and brought his fist to punch James’ cheek, but was totally surprised when he punched nothing but air.

“Huh!”

“I told you! Your impudence will kill you!”

Phillip’s vision blurred. He felt so weak that he fell to his knees.

“There’s blood in front of me. Whose? Mine? No, it can’t be!”

Phillip’s vision blurred further. Looking down he noticed a cut on his chest, not the x-shaped one, but a round one.

“W...what d...did you … do?”

Phillip shifted his gaze to stare at James right in front of him.

“You don’t deserve to know!”

Bringing a horizontal slash towards the neck, James swiftly decapitated the injured young man. His head on landing, the last scene he could map out was Paula, still kneeling beside Danny but staring at Philip in shock.

Paula muttered out something from her shivering lips.

“Huh! I can’t hear anything! I’m sorry Paula! I thought I was the strongest in the world. I thought I could easily grant your wish.”

***

“Where could she have possibly gone?”

Frank had moved South towards the mountains hoping that the girl, Vicky, would be hiding up there.

“But logically, a girl can’t survive alone in the mountains.”

Suddenly, a loud male voice that seemed to be trembling originated from a small shrub.

“W..who’s there?”

“Oops! That’s what I get for thinking out loud. But who is that?”

Frank drew his weapon and moved carefully towards the shrub. Appearing from its rear, Frank aimed his weapon at his target.

“Frank?”