Askin Nakk Le Vaar had always been told he was trash.
Not metaphorically. Not even insultingly. Just… literally. It was the kind of thing you heard often enough when you made a career out of pretending to care while calculating exactly how much poison someone needed to become fatally inconvenienced. He never took it personally. If anything, he thought it was kind of accurate, and it helped with people's perspective of him being a weakling.
So waking up in a dumpster was honestly kind of poetic. That didn't mean it didn't sting, though.
"…Huh," he muttered.
The first thing he noticed wasn't the stench, which was lethal in its own right. No, what really hit him right between the eyes, not that anyone had the decency to warn him, was the fact that he was alive. Like, breathing, blinking, aching alive. Which was weird. Because Askin Nakk le Vaar hadn't been alive in… oh, say, the last three hundred years?
If he had been, he would've been nicknamed "Askin, the Second-to-Last Living Quincy." Might've even been in the running for successor, if that wasn't just a honey trap meant to keep the current Successor-kun docile and obedient while Haschwalth glared at him from across the room.
But no, he'd done the whole dying thing, complete with a flashy exit when Lille-san fatally beat him, and had made his peace with it. Or at least a lazy shrug in that general direction.
He wasn't going to complain. Complaining would take effort, and lying in a trash pile certainly beat lying on a cold roof with a hole in his chest.
He leaned forward, elbows on knees, and let his thoughts catch up.
Last thing he remembered, he'd been bleeding out on some broken stone floor, smirking like an idiot while his Gift Bereich collapsed inwards and Urahara talked at him. Something about sacrifice. Something about time running out.
And then... nothing. Black.
Now, this.
Askin rubbed the back of his neck, fingers brushing something sticky that he refused to investigate. His nose wrinkled. Ugh. Yep. That's definitely blood. It could be his. Might not be. Either way, ew.
There were a few possibilities. One: His Majesty had lost. Unlikely because how the hell does one with the power to see all futures lose?!
Two: Despite his failures, or more accurately, regardless of how many times he messed up in a highly survivable fashion, His Majesty must have pulled through. Wiped out the enemies (which was sort of the bare minimum for a guy calling himself Almighty), fixed the mess, and maybe… decided to reward his most functionally useful Sternritter by dragging him back from the void?
Askin gave a little shrug. He always knew he was Yhwach's seventh-favorite person, but damn, it felt good to be appreciated. Now, did he die? Yes. However, His Majesty, in his infinite wisdom and omniscience, had probably figured out that Askin did pretty damn well for a guy who went up against two of the Five War Potentials. One being the world's most genetically messed-up mutt, and the other a man with more bullshit than a barn up his sleeve.
Add in a lightning cat, her lightning cat little sister who was actually a brother and could punch explosions—which was confusing and frankly a little unfair, and then toss in a couple of Fullbringers and what he was pretty sure was one of Aizen Sōsuke's freaky Espada. And he still managed to kill half of them. At least. Probably.
"Pretty solid résumé, all things considered," he confessed, dragging himself up out of the dumpster. "And hey, I wasn't even the first one to kick it. Lille-san and Pernida-san beat me to the punch."
Not that it was a contest. But if it was, he came in third with only Gerard-san and the Grandmaster outliving him. Third place wasn't so bad. Bronze was still a medal, and third was always the one who got to go home first.
So, what now?
His fingers twitched. His eyelids peeled open to a grey sky blocked by surrounding wooden buildings. He blinked once, twice, then let himself sit up and away from what he sincerely hoped was just rotting cabbage.
As expected, he found no white corridors of the Wahrwelt. No Urahara Kisuke. No Hellish fire of eternal damnation, unless Hell had gotten very lazy with decor and torture. He looked down at himself and found no gaping hole in the chest, but the crack in his chest piece was still there, as were his pants, but he was no longer in his released form.
He reached his reikaku senses deeper. No Vollständig, no Heilig Pfeil. But the core of it was still there. His body's tolerance routines were intact. He could still feel the little switches in his cells, waiting for the right conditions. His Lethal Dose mechanism was sleeping, but not gone.
He rolled his shoulders and stretched, bones popping, and his reikaku this time extended around him, and his brows furrowed.
What came back made his brow twitch.
"…Huh."
That wasn't right.
The spiritual particle concentration was… thin. Not just thinned out, but practically skeletal. Like the world had been juiced clean with o Reishi-rich air, no familiar hum of the world breathing back at him. He might as well have been waving a Geiger counter in a padded room. He gave the alley a sideways look, nose wrinkling again. The stench was still very much lethal, which told him his nose worked just fine. It wasn't a sensory issue.
This place just didn't have any juice. At least no juice he recognized. There was still a distinct something in the atmosphere that rubbed his senses the wrong way. It had the same baseline structure but was still different enough that he couldn't manipulate it.
Now, the similarities in base composition meant that he should still be able to theoretically adapt and reverse engineer into something half-usable, but that would require Askin to use his Hasshien, but using it twice in a short(?) time would put a huge strain on his already tired network.
"Well, that's… not ideal." But all that lends credibility to his whole Yhwach-rewrites-the-universe fiasco.
He clicked his tongue and stood, brushing himself off. His boots squelched in something he (again) wasn't going to inspect.
"Alright," he muttered, dusting his pants once, and licked a few suspicious globs of trash off his chest piece. "We're gonna chalk this one up to 'fatal dimensional hiccup' and not think too hard about it."
Because thinking too hard led to questions like why was he human again? and why wasn't the world made of Reishi anymore? And why was he waking up in a goddamn dumpster behind someone's suspiciously medieval-looking house?
And those were questions with lethal consequences. Like a fatal headache.
So with that, Askin finally stepped out of the dirty alley. The world that greeted him looked like a Renaissance Faire had gotten blackout drunk and passed out in a fantasy novel.
"Oi, oi.." He sighed in resigned exasperation at the scenery that met him.
Stone streets, and real ones at that, not Reishi-formed or spirit-reinforced, he was familiar with, ran crooked between old buildings that Half-timbered houses with steep roofs and wooden shutters jutted out over narrow walkways. Lanterns hung from iron hooks, with not a single electric wire in sight.
There were troughs, chimney smoke, and even a few carts parked by, pulled by what he could only describe as 'diet horses' that were smaller, stockier, and slightly too colorful for his taste. Askin counted three different kinds of shit on the road, none of them animal.
The place wasn't just old in looks. It felt old. Not like the fake grandeur of the Wandenreich with its too-white walls and polished ego, or Silbern's sterile palace chic. This place was grimy, lived-in, and smelled like wet wood and disappointment. It was medieval, alright. So medieval, it went the extra mile. Even down to the screaming peasants tearing through the streets like headless chickens while fire crawled up the buildings behind them.
Instinct had him lazily take a couple of steps to the side in time to avoid the screaming body that hurled from the sky. It slammed into the cobblestones with a wet crunch, bounced once, and collapsed at his feet with all the grace of a sack of meat.
Askin blinked. Then gave a long whistle. "Whew. Ten points for distance, minus five for form."
The corpse's mouth was frozen mid-scream, teeth clenched in a rictus. Most of its face, however, was no longer present. Just pulp. He nudged it with the toe of his boot, then stopped as a familiar tickle crawled across the edge of his senses. His reikaku screamed at him to look up.
And there they were. Dozens of tiny slits were tearing into the space fabric of the sky that felt like a bastardized mixture of his Majesty's shadow and Lille-san's X-axis. From them, more bodies spilled out. Some are falling limp. Others are clawing at the air. Teleportation?
He flicked his reiatsu and shot into the air with a Hirenkyaku, only to feel his footing slip halfway through. His body stuttered mid-air, the spiritual foothold buckling beneath him like soggy cardboard.
"Damn it," he cursed and twisted to recover.
A second application of it got him to the top of a tall building, where he landed with a skid and a low crouch. Somewhere in the distance, a bell tolled before the sound of an explosion bounced off cracked rooftops. Smoke rose from one side of town in a lazy plume.
His eyes focused, and he saw humanoid shapes throwing around light shows while others swung swords that did just as much damage. They all carried the same traces of the odd energy he felt.
Come on now, Your Majesty, give a man a break. Surely, there were other better places to drop lil Ol' him than in the middle of a fantasy siege, no?
As expected, and quite frankly, to his relief, there was no response.
"Alright… first order of business: figure out where the hell I am," he muttered. "Second: figure out when I am. Third: hope whoever runs this place has decent coffee and no grudge against well-dressed strangers with questionable death records."
Alas, life seldom left him with his peace of mind for long. Askin tilted his head to the side to avoid the mach-two rock that tore through the rooftop.
"I've found one! Over here!" A very angry, but comprehensible, declaration bellowed from another roof.
On the other hand, fortunately, it seemed his attacker was a conveniently local native who just so happened to speak the same language he did, and had practically dropped into his lap. Perfect for bullying some answers out of, if necessary.
"Hail! Friend."
"Die!!"
Askin raised an eyebrow as another rock shattered just past his shoulder, peppering him with bits of ceramic and dust. He did a half-turn toward the source of the shouting, then dropped into a squat on the rooftop's edge. One knee up, elbow draped over it. Real casual-like.
"Hey, hey," Askin called out again, friendly. "Look, you've clearly got opinions about my rooftop etiquette, and I respect that, I do. But if we could take a breather before the next boulder, that'd be stellar. I bruise real easy. Mind answering a couple of questions for me?"
"The only answer I have for you, you invading foreign dogs, is a swift death!" The mage-looking fellow rudely yelled while raising his staff again. A large ball of water burst from it, destroying the spot where Asking had been a moment ago.
Askin appeared on the other side of the rooftop, waving one hand to try and cool the tension down with sheer vibe control. "Hey, hey. There's a bit of a misunderstanding here," He corrected. "I'm not invading anything, alright? I got dropped here."
Another boulder, another dodge, and another thread of his patience disappeared.
"Look, pal," he called out again, "I get it. Strange guy drops out of the sky, you panic, you throw rivers at him. Classic first contact. But here's the deal: I'm not here to fight you. Honestly, if I was, you'd already be taking a nap in a puddle."
The mage was already halfway through another chant, water swirling around his staff. A second blur made Askin to move again out of the path of a warhammer that slammed into the roof with enough force to crack the damn building in two. Shards of stone and wood flew into the air.
The hammer's wielder was, without question, the stockiest little person Askin had ever seen. The guy was squat and dense, wrapped in so much armor he looked like a walking siege engine. Every step he took left a dent.
"Whatever question you have," the dwarf grunted while hoisting the hammer again with one hand, "will be answered in the deepest of dungeons."
He rotated his shoulder with a crunch of plate and muscle, and the warhammer glowed with a weird glow. "If you can still speak afterward, that is."
More figures began appearing on the rooftops.
A long and very loud sigh left his lips.
"Ah, well," he gave up, raising his arm. The mechanism on his wrist clicked and spun, glowing softly as the Heilig Pfeil began to materialize in his grasp.
"Was hoping we could skip this part," he stated casually. "But hey. Bit of slaughter never killed anyone."He paused. "Except all the people it does."
To be fair, he only needed one of them alive.
"This," he said with a lazy smile, "was a fatal mistake."
BAAAM!!
The metal door slammed shut behind Askin with the kind of finality that suggested someone really wanted to make a point. It was kinda uncalled for. He gave it a lazy glance, then turned to regard his captor with a resigned, but ultimately unimpressed expression.
"Was the hit to the back of the head really necessary?" he asked, rubbing the still-sizzling spot where the fire bolt had clocked him. "I already surrendered by that point. Very graciously, I might add."
"You're lucky we brought you in breathing," The dwarf growled with a gravelly and just a little too amused voice. "Keep flappin' that tongue, and I'll personally see to it your interrogation involves a crank, two buckets of ice water, and a goat that hasn't eaten in three days."
Askin blinked. "...That's incredibly specific."
"Aye," the dwarf said, smiling wide enough to show a gold tooth. "Been waitin' years to try it."
Askin raised his hands in a small, dismissive shrug. "Right. Well. Far be it from me to kinkshame a war criminal."
The dwarf's eye narrowed, but he didn't rise to it. Instead, he slammed the cell door again for good measure.
Now, one might reasonably be wondering, perhaps even aloud, why a member of the Schutzstaffel, blessed and terrifying, was currently in a dungeon. After all that talk, after shrugging off fireballs and dodging warhammers with style, how did someone like Askin Nakk Le Vaar end up here?
Well.
To his immense embarrassment, it turned out he may have underestimated just how little Reishi there was in this realm. Or rather, how annoyingly difficult it was to manipulate said Reishi, what with the Magic (that was what he'd decided to call the other energy getting in the way) mucking everything up like some kind of spiritual static.
His Heilig Pfeil dissipated the moment he tried to use it.
Now, sure, he could have simply beaten them all to death. Quite easily at that. He wasn't that depowered. But eh… not really his style. Besides, he needed information, and that little game of "everyone tries to kill the outsider" had actually been pretty enlightening.
Turns out, when people scream spell names at you, you learn a lot about what they think is going to work.
In addition to all that, he now had something very important: a bed to sleep on. An actual bed. Not a good one, of course. it was short, smelled faintly of moss and regret, and the blanket looked like it had lost a fight with a badger, but it existed. That was already more than he had when he crash-landed in this mana-choked embarrassment of a city.
All things considered, this was going surprisingly well.
And he had roommates, too. Just like the old days, back when he was just a lowly, yet still immaculately dressed and effortlessly stylish, Soldat.
The first was a man who looked about Askin's age, or close to how he appeared. His dark brown hair was messy, stuck to his face with sweat and soot. Bruises marked his jaw and arms, and he stood unevenly, favoring one leg. He tried to shield the woman behind him, one hand slightly out as if that alone could stop Askin.
The woman, likely his lover, was a redhead with what might have been the largest bust Askin had ever seen. The only other contender that came to mind was Kirio Hikifune's, though he had been slightly more preoccupied with not dying to get a full comparison. She was glaring at him with enough heat to peel paint, but Askin barely cared. He could feel the fear coming off her like smoke from a fire.
Tattered as their clothes (and the woman's were far more torn than the man's) were, they were definitely of high-quality fabric and tailoring, placing them far above commoners. Askin guessed that the two of them probably passed for nobility around here. The high cheekbones didn't hurt, either.
"Well," Askin smiled, giving the cell a slow look, "at least they put me in with the VIPs."
Somewhere in the universe, His Majesty probably gave him a B+ for effort.Last edited: Jul 26, 2025 Like ReplyReport Reactions:Bearligoust, GoToSleep10, Alex012 and 306 othersThatOneGuy69Jul 26, 2025Add bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Chapter Two View contentThatOneGuy69I trust you know where the happy button is?Jul 27, 2025Add bookmark#17Askin stretched his arms behind his back and leaned into a lazy backward bend. His spine cracked as he arched, and that was when he spotted it. Above him and was a purple crystal-looking thing that pulsed and glowed...well, purple.
His half-lidded eyes took it in without urgency. His reikaku gave it a curious nudge.
Lines lit up, invisible to the naked eye but impossible for him to miss. They ran from the crystal along the walls and down to the floor in a simple network of circuits that glowed faintly. He straightened, then leaned forward again, this time folding at the waist with a perfect and quick ninety-degree bend. The sudden snappy motion startled the pair behind him. The man flinched, and the woman let out a whimper that she quickly tried to cover with a growl, though it came out closer to a hiss.
He turned his gaze to the carpet beneath his feet and wrinkled his nose. It was dusty, discolored, and hideous, and worst of all, it clashed with the architecture in a way that offended him on a personal level. He nudged it aside with the tip of his shoe. There was no way he was going to touch it with his hands. Beneath it, resting on the cobblestone floor, was a small piece of paper that was more than likely a talisman if his Genre Savvy-ness wasn't wrong. A dainty, weathered, and almost pitiful talisman.
He gave it a long look. It was kind of sad. Askin didn't even know which part was sadder. The piece of paper's craftsmanship, or the fact that it was hidden under a dirty rug. He almost felt insulted.
He tapped his foot near it. A small ripple rippled around the object. A thin barrier flared just a few millimeters wide, catching the edge of his heeled boot.
"The crystal powers this," he muttered. "And in turn, the talisman activates..."
His attention followed the thread of not-reishi/magic radiating from the talisman. It traveled across the ground, snaking a path between his legs. He bent down again to trace it, hands still in his pockets, legs locked as he leaned over and until his head was upside down over in an awkward fold that made him look completely ridiculous from behind. He squinted. The line stopped a few meters back, where it met a horizontal junction set deep in the floor before rising into the air into the ceiling.
A barrier. He did wonder why his jailers left him unbided inside a cell with barely holding up bars.
But that wasn't all. From how little the concentration of Magic in the cell was, the circuits were also intended as a magic-disabler.
He stayed like that for a moment longer. Then he straightened and sighed through his nose. An investigating glance and a sensory nudge to the other cells revealed nothing so similar. Just plain old stone and iron, so Askin figured out that this was, indeed, the VIP holding.
He felt his heart flutter at his jailer's lovely gesture.
"Well, I suppose the least I can do is be an ideal prisoner as a reward for their hospitality," Askin said to himself while brushing a hand through his immaculate hair. He would make sure to scream and beg for mercy extra loudly when they came to drag him off. Let them feel like they really got him. Give them that morale boost.
Hopefully, they would not take too long. Otherwise, he might just get bored and break out. And really, no one wanted that. So, he would give them the benefit of the doubt.
Now, as for being a good captive...
Askin turned a perfect one-eighty toward his cellmates. He clasped his hands behind his back and gave a small bow at the waist. "A pleasure to meet you both," he said with a smile that could pass for sincerity if you squinted. "This is actually my first time as a prisoner, so I do hope I can count on your guidance. I'll try my best not to be a burden."
He gave another shallow bow, then added, "Ah, how rude of me. I should've introduced myself first, shouldn't I? Askin Nakk Le Vaar, at your service, or rather, in your care, I suppose."
He glanced between the two. "I'll do my best to keep to my side of the cell, refrain from snoring, and die quietly if it comes to that. Let me know if I step on any toes."
The man opened his mouth, then shut it. The woman narrowed her eyes and shifted her feet to stand behind her lover.
After a pause, the man exhaled slowly. Then, with a soft grunt, he shifted his injured leg forward and bowed with enough effort to show respect, but not aggravate his injuries. His left hand rested lightly at his waist while the other extended in after a slow and flourished gesture. The smile on his bruised face was strained, but he held it all the same.
"Philip Boreas Greyrat," he greeted with the old cadence of a nobleman. "Mayor of the Roa Citadel, and a son of House Boreas Greyrat of the Asura Kingdom. The pleasure, under the circumstances, is still mine."
He straightened, just enough to step aside and point toward the woman behind him. "This is Lady Hilda," he added. "My companion, and the strength behind most of my better decisions."
She hesitated. Her hands clenched at her sides. But when Philip glanced at her, she stepped forward and lowered her head with a small curtsy. "A pleasure." With that, she moved back behind him again, not meeting Askin's eyes. One of her hands found Philip's coat, lightly clutching it.
Askin was going to assume those things were a big deal in this world, but not necessarily where they are. At least not at the moment. Either a recently disgraced nobility from here, or an unlikely victim of the teleporting shenanigans that had been happening when he arrived. But that in turn opened another can of worms about how long that had been going on, since these two were definitely not recent additions to this room.
Askin gave a polite nod, "House Boreas Greyrat... of the Roa Citadel," he repeated with a faint smile. "Sounds very grand and powerful."
"Very few could claim to be equals to the House of Boreas in the World. People would grovel to be at our service, and we, in turn, hold no qualms when rewarding and showing gratitude." Philip said with little humility. "Though that might seem to have the opposite effect, and inspire jealousy and envy in here. To end up in the Strife Zone out of all places..."
He tried to cover it with a chuckle, but Askin could spot the bitterness behind it easily. He also did not miss the not-so-subtle way he spoke of his family's treatment of allies. Now, Askin could have simply brushed it off as simple nobility haughtiness, but he was Askin. ...and Askin never took anything at face value.
If nothing else, Philip Boreas Greyrat seemed to have a good head on his shoulders and keen eyes.
"I suppose that makes me the odd one out. I'm not a lord, or a mayor, or anyone you'd invite to a banquet." His smile widened just a touch. "Though I do have good table manners. And I'm very good at not dying, which I think is a useful skill in places like this."
He glanced at the bars and then back at the couple.
"By the way," he added, almost as an afterthought, "what is this place? You mentioned the Strife Zone, but I didn't exactly get the brochure."
A bead of sweat betrayed Phillip's anxiousness at Askin's implicit non-answer. He realized that Askin had seen through his pitch. Still, Philip answered with some retained pride. "The Strife Zone is a region outside the control of any major kingdom. Dozens of minor nations rise and fall here, usually within a few decades. Some don't even last that long.
Askin gave a small nod, humouring the lecture.
Most of the fighting is between local warlords, but some factions receive backing from greater powers: Our Asura Kingdom and the King Dragon Realm. They use this place for proxy conflicts. Arm a faction here, support a lord there, stir up enough chaos to keep the other side occupied."
Askin tilted his head slightly. "And you landed where, exactly?"
Philip went on. "The Kingdom of Delacoa, where we are now, is one such place. It has ties to the King Dragon Realm. When we arrived, we were treated as spies from Asura. That was a week ago...
We tried to explain who we were," Philip continued. "That I was a Boreas noble, and that we were not here by choice, but rather forcibly teleported. But... well, a city like this doesn't care about Asuran blood unless it's on a blade." Philip's knuckles turned white. The black and blue all around his skin, and tattered clothes, the bruising marks, and the way the colour drained from Hilda's face and her lips trembled were pretty all god indicator if how that week had passed.
Askin would bet that these two weren't going to last another week in here. Well, Philip wasn't at least. The wife would probably last longer.
"My condolences," Askin offered what little he could.
It was the closest thing he had to sincerity. And he meant it, in that way only a man who had seen too much injustice in the world could. The world was cruel, stupid, and unreasonably unfair. What happened to the couple was awful.
But then again, what wasn't?
Askin sighed as he lowered himself onto the sorry excuse for a bed, brushing off the top of the dirt-caked straw. His fingers pinched a twig, and he gave it a scornful look.
Damn.
He shifted, getting more comfortable, then let out a long sigh.
That whole conversation did put a damper on his mood.
Ah well.
Nothing a good nap wouldn't fix.
He draped an arm over his eyes. "Be a dear, and wake me up when it's my turn for torture."
Hilda seemed to choke on something.
A moment passed.
The sound of hurried steps.
"Askin-dono!" Philip called out, now much closer than before.
Dono?
"I know you're a powerful man," the nobleman began. "Even a non-adventurer like me could tell. From the way you carry yourself. You were brought here with two dozen guards and without a single scratch on you. Dare I say, you are only here because you chose to be, and will be out before morning is up."
He kinda did like the sound of Askin-dono.
Philip took a breath. "I have no illusions about my situation. My family name means little in these lands now, and less by the hour. But I am still Philip Boreas Greyrat, of the Boreas House. The greatest house in the Asura Kingdom, surpassed only by the Royal family. In short: I am a man who can pay."
Some expectations of discomfort were there, but damn. This mattress was killing Askin's back.
"I'm not asking you to fight. You don't even need to draw your weapon. An escort mission like this—" Philip gestured vaguely to the bars "—should be nothing to a man of your caliber. I'm willing to pay you three hundred Asuran gold coins just to get us out of this cursed city, with another five gold coins for each day you escort us. And that's simply the tip of the iceberg."
He paused, waiting for a reaction. When he received none, he pushed forward, more desperately now.
"If you get us to Roa," he said, "you'll be rewarded. Gold. Favors. Land, if that's what you want. Enough coin to live like a king—and that's just the start. The Boreas name still carries weight in every corner of the Kingdom. If you're the type to think long-term, I can even secure trade licenses. Titles. Political immunity. Things no adventurer can buy, no matter how strong they are."
He leaned forward slightly.
"You're a smart man. You don't need me to spell this out. Whatever you are, mercenary, spy, magician, monster, you're no doubt a victim of this incident too. You'll need a foothold sooner or later. I can give you one. I'm the only thing in this cell that's still worth something."
Philip's voice dropped to a pleading tone.
"So, what do you say, Askin-dono?"
For a few long moments, the cell was silent, save for the heavy breathing of a man doing his damndest to strike a deal with someone who might be a savior… or a devil.
Sadly for him, his plea fell on deaf ears.
Askin had already fallen asleep.
It was very telling how tired and mentally exhausted Askin had been to fall asleep so quickly, despite the mattress doing its best impression of a wet burlap sack stuffed with broken glass and prison lice.
It was also rather damningly embarrassing, really, that he found himself waking up in a strange and wet place for the second time today.
This time, however, he didn't wake in a trash pile to the smell of sour cabbage, blood, and burnt wood.
At least this time when he went to sleep, it was listening to the pointless rambling of someone, and not to the pointless rambling of someone with a hole in his chest.
You know what? Maybe things are really starting to look up for him.
He opened his eyes and found up in the middle of a lukewarm, ankle-deep puddle where an endless white mist rolled in every direction. The sky(if his sense of direction was still functioning, and up was still up) above was colorless. There was no sun or moon, but there was just diffuse ambient light.
This place also smelled faintly like laundry detergent and existential crisis.
Welcome back to consciousness!" A voice greeted jovially. "Askin-kun!"
Askin turned lazily to the voice, and...nothing. Wait. No. Not nothing. There was something. Or rather, someone, only this someone was rather fatally bad at being someone. He looked human in the way a mannequin might look human from a distance. A man-shaped cutout of mist that was too symmetrical in all the wrong ways
"To be honest, I was hoping you'd come a bit later, so that I could maybe prepare a show or a cool entrance, but maaan! I'm so happy you're here!"
"Glad I made your day," Askin said after a moment. "But, sorry, you are...?"
"Oh, right, right! Introductions! Manners! I keep forgetting those. People care about those, huh? I'm, well, that's the funny part. I've been called a lot of things."
The man-mist thing skipped around Askin until he stood in front of him. He leaned forward.
"But you, my dear Askin-kun, can call me... Hitogami." Like ReplyReport Reactions:Asala, Rashomon, SCP-035 and 257 others
God of Humans?"
"Well, technically, it's the Man-God, but indeed!" Hitogami beamed with his arms spread like he expected applause from Askin. "Or Hitogami-sama, if you're feeling respectful! Which you don't have to be, obviously. I'm very chill about that sort of thing. Super casual."
Askin clapped out of politeness. "Uh-huh. How magnanimous of you."
"See? I knew you'd get it!" Hitogami spun on his heel, or what might have been his heel if he had actual feet, and then drifted backward through the mist like an enthusiastic soap bubble. "Most people wake up screaming. Or praying, or groveling immediately, which is, like, understandable, but does kinda get uncomfortable, ye get me?"
Askin nodded lightly and spoke with a tone that was only 70% sarcastic. "Yeah, it does get a bit hard to hold a proper conversation with someone beneath your station. You always have to worry about crossing into power harassment."
Hitogami let out a delighted squeak. "Right?! Finally, someone who gets it! It's not my fault I'm all-knowing and vaguely omnipresent! I try to be relatable, but nooo, they just collapse and start bawling."
"Being a god does sound rather exhausting." He feigned understanding when he stood up. "My deepest condolences."
Of course, he didn't believe a word of it. The only gods he had ever known were the Soul King, His Majesty Yhwach, and Mimihagi to a lesser degree. Compared to them, this strange, cheerful mist-thing barely registered. He didn't even exude the same feel as Gerard-san or Pernida-san, nor the creepy existential and the otherworldly wrongness he'd felt from Ichibe Hyosube.
Ah well. To be fair, there were like thousands of weirdos back home who called themselves 'Gods of Death,' so really, why bother? But power was power, and Askin knew how to play the game. Whether this 'Man-God' was real or deluded didn't matter yet. He'd smile, nod, and wait for the opening.
Hitogami, unaware or simply pretending to be, floated closer.
"But you, Askin-kun! You're different. You're calm! Composed! Fashionable! I like you. So I thought, hey, why not pop in and say hi before things get complicated?"
Askin folded his arms. "Complicated how?"
"Spoilers~!" Hitogami wagged a finger. "Seriously, what is it with you other-worlders and being so impatient?"
Other-worlders?
Askin's brows raised in alert. "There are others?"
"Ah!" Hitogami clapped a hand over his mouth. Then, he whispered, "Pretend you didn't hear that."
"Really?" Askin narrowed his eyes.
The Man-God just mimed a zipper closing where his mouth was supposed to be.
Askin gave him an unimpressed look while tapping his index finger on his bicep.
Hitogami said nothing and just floated there with an exaggerated oops expression, wide smile, and far too pleased with himself.
Askin held the stare-off for a moment longer, if only to give himself the chance to actually spread his senses across his surroundings.
He wasn't sure what he expected, but the absolute abundance of reishi in the air was very much a surprise after the reishi desert of a city he'd just been in. It was rich in a way that would let even a novice Quincy fire arrows for days without running dry. It was almost comparable to the Wahrwelt's atmosphere.
Moreover, there were significant traces of the New World's magic in the water at his feet, and as if to prove his earlier hypothesis about the two systems. Both spiritual and magic energy seemed to bind into one another and be woven in together in a seamless manner. His Schrift was itching to see how it all worked.
If nothing else, his little rendezvous in this place was already a net positive.
Also, he was back in his spirit form, which meant that wherever and whatever this place was, it was more than likely another miniature realm à la Silbern and not this place's Earth.
He looked back at the floating, half-translucent idiot still grinning like he was winning something. Askin sighed through his nose and gave a small shrug.
"Fine. Be that way."
"Yay!" Hitogami cheered. "See? Cooperation! That wasn't so hard, was it?"
"I'll take your word for it," Askin said. "But if this isn't some hallucination or dream, then you're either real or real enough. That means this place—" he glanced around again "—isn't the World of the Living. Otherwise, I'd be in my body and not a spirit. So, this is what? A higher realm? An independent dimension?"
Rather than answer, Hitogami actually looked a little caught off guard.
"W-wow, I didn't think you'd figure that out just from looking around. You even know the difference between soul and flesh. You're a pretty scary fellow."
Askin raised a brow at that. Was it really that surprising? Maybe it was for the people of this world. But if this guy brought his soul here to this place, wouldn't he already know what Askin was? From the way he was acting, either Hitogami was a decent liar… or he didn't actually know as much as he was leading Askin to believe.
Either way, there was no point in giving him more than needed. If anything, it was better to let the man-god keep underestimating him. He made a mental note to keep the rest of his deductions to himself going forward.
"You're making me blush." He released a light chuckle with a wave of his hand. "Well, it's only because I happen to be in the divine presence of the Hitogami. Maybe your brilliance rubbed off on me."
"Aw, don't flatter me too much. I might start thinking you like me." Hitogami beamed, apparently eating it up. "But I like your attitude. You've landed yourself in my personal little... waiting room."
"This is a waiting room?" The Quincy made a small show of turning around and looking around, if only to cover the small thread of reishi he released into the water while channeling his "Death Dealer" through it. "Where's the terrible music and wrinkled magazines?"
"Lost them in a budget cut. But what I do have is opportunity. And mist! Lots of mist. It's very metaphorical." Hitogami grinned. "This place is my little haven where I spend my time, and where I talk to my most favored people from the 'World of the Living,' as you've not-so-eloquently called it."
"Ah. So I'm one of the favored ones." Askin put his hands on his hips. "Come on now, if you keep saying that to me, I might start calling you 'Hitogami-sama!'"
Hitogami clasped his hands together and started gliding again. "Please do! I know I just complained about it a minute ago, but coming from you? That'd be the highlight of my week. Especially because I know you don't mean it!"
Askin let the smile stretch across his lips. "You read me like a book. But just so we're clear... why exactly am I here, Hitogami-sama?"
The man-god stopped mid-glide. "Now, now, Askin-kun, the answer's pretty cut and dry, no? I am the Man-God. That means I must help humans. Do you know why?"
Askin shrugged without much interest.
"Because I am a good person and a benevolent god! I want all humans to be good people!" Hitogami puffed out his chest proudly, then leaned in with a finger a bit too close to Askin's face. "I watched your whole performance from up here, popcorn and all. You made a lot of very not-good-person decisions, Askin-kun."
"Not going to argue," Askin said, brushing the finger aside like swatting away a fly. "So what now? You going to smite me? Send me to hell?" While his voice stayed friendly and relaxed, he let the word Vollständig hover unspoken on the edge of his tongue, just in case.
"Oh no no no no no!" Hitogami gasped, clutching his chest like he had just been insulted. "I would never! That would be so... un-me!" He twirled in midair again, arms spread. "I don't punish, Askin-kun. I guide! I encourage! I nudge! Sometimes with a helpful dream. Sometimes with a cozy little chat like this!"
He pointed at him again. "I'm saying this for your own good, and for the good of that Boreas couple you're so content to let suffer. Karma's a real thing in this world, you know. And it's one of the few things even I cannot control."
"I see," Askin's smile stayed, but the amusement behind it cooled. "So this is one of those very spiritual, very wholesome, moral intervention things. You going to pull out a chalkboard next and draw a big heart with 'redemption' written inside it?"
Hitogami clapped, delighted. "See! You get it!"
"I wasn't being sincere."
"I know. But I'm choosing to ignore that. Because I believe in you, Askin-kun." Hitogami floated backward. "But jokes aside, I wouldn't actually have intervened if this were any other poor schmuck stuck in a dungeon. Truth be told, the karmic fallout of this little event is just a tiny bit too serious for me to ignore."
Askin narrowed his eyes slightly. "How serious?" he asked, before rolling his eyes when the man-god started miming again. "In a non-spoiler way."
"The world will be destroyed," Hitogami replied. "In less than a decade."
"...Seriously?" Askin stared.
"Seriously."
"Wait, wait, wait. Isn't that a bit much of a consequence? What is this, one of those overdramatic JRPG plotlines?!" Did Askin just stumble upon this world's version of Archduke Ferdinand?
Hitogami's smile turned sheepish. "Ahaha, yeah, it does give that vibe. Very 'save the girl, save the world' energy, huh?" He raised both hands in a shrug. "But I'm not the one who decides how these things escalate, you see. Karmic structure and domino effects are real things like I told you, and Karma's a bitch, as they say."
Askin was definitely calling bullshit on that one, and he really didn't even try to hide it.
Seeing his expression, Hitogami sighed. "Look, I'm not telling you to change who you are. You don't have to go all mushy or become a full-blown hero. Just… be there. Play it by ear. Let the little gears turn. That's all I ask."
Askin gave him a long, blank look. "That's vague enough to be useless."
"Yup!"
"...And you're proud of that."
"Extremely." The man-god-clown seemed proud of himself. "But you know, Askin-kun, it's pretty clear that you're a self-serving scum. But this is a real new world for you. Unlike your world, where everyone was just a different flavor of bad people with their own agendas, this one's got a pretty cut-and-dry morality. Black and white. Clearly defined good and evil. Aren't you being a bit of a dumb-dum for a supposedly smart guy?"
Askin ran his hand through his hair. "Backhanded compliments are a weird way to try to convince me of this nonsense."
Hitogami made an impatient little noise and puffed his cheeks like a sulky child. "See, see? That's exactly what I mean. You're falling back into old habits and treating everything like it's the same old game with the same old rules. How about a bit of change?! Play the hero every once in a while!
Doesn't that intrigue you even a little? That things might actually matter here?" He smiled again, all sunshine and fluff.
Askin stared at him, unimpressed. "You know this still sounds like manipulation, right?"
"Oh, totally. One hundred percent." Hitogami gave a cheerful thumbs-up. "But it's the nice kind of manipulation. The kind where if you play along, you might actually feel something besides 'mildly amused contempt' for once."
Ah, shit, he got him there.
Mildly amused contempt.
Yeah, that tracked.
Yhwach had offered him a front-row seat to the end of one world and the birth of another. That was the only reason Askin had even bothered with the whole Sternritter routine. That, and the whole 'you say no, you die' clause in His Majesty's onboarding process.
But to be fair… wasn't this exactly what he'd asked for?
He was alive. He was in a new world. He'd made it through the apocalypse, which already put him a few steps ahead of most of the old gang. Yhwach, for all his charming genocidal tendencies, had actually delivered on the fine print.
And now? Now he was sitting here, having metaphysical coffee with a weirdo who talked like a mascot and smiled like a scam artist.
If that Boreas couple died (if this world really did go to hell in a handbasket), then what the hell had he even survived for?
That wouldn't be just a waste. It would be spitting in Yhwach's face.
Shit!
And Yhwach wasn't the type to let that slide. Not before, and definitely not now, as the Soul King with his fingers jammed into every layer of reality like a bad infection. He would notice. He would care. And he'd absolutely be petty enough to reach across the multiverse just to make sure Askin knew how thoroughly he had disappointed him.
And somehow, just to add fuel to the already growing fire. The thread of reishi Askin had sent had nearly finished crossing the entirety of the place he was in, and it came across something.
A very dangerous, and very, very terrifyingly familiar something. No wonder there was an abundance of reishi around!
Askin gulped. Cold sweat traced a line down his neck
"Y-you okay there, Askin-kun?" Hitogami peered at him with fake concern. "You're looking kinda pale, and you're sweating a lot. Should I call someone? An ambulance? A nice little spirit medium to send your soul screaming back to where it belongs?"
Askin let out a long and tired sigh. At least it made things, if not easier, then at least simpler. He leveled an annoyed look at the man-god. "So, as long as I get them out, all should be well?"
"Eh? Why are you glaring at me? Why are you suddenly angry at me?" Hitogami recoiled with cartoonish indignation.
"Just answer my question."
"Oh, absolutely. You help those two escape this mess, and no universal collapse." Hitogami chirped. "As long as they make it to Roa, all is good."
Askin narrowed his eyes.
"That's it?"
Hitogami tilted his head innocently. "Yup! Pinky promise and everything." He held up his hand and wiggled his little finger.
"Yeah, yeah," Askin rubbed the back of his head. "Thanks for the heads up, I suppose. But if I found out you lied to me, and I'll be very cross with you. I'll tell them you're into weird stuff."
Hitogami burst out laughing. "Eh? Slander is a bit much, don't you think?"
Askin shrugged. "Yeah, I meant weird weird. Like, really specific. You know. Personal."
"Okay, let's not get hasty," Hitogami said with fake seriousness. "You keep that little imagination of yours zipped up, and I'll keep my divine favor right where it is."
Askin raised a brow. "So you are into something fatally freaky."
"No comment," Hitogami said quickly. "And anyway, serious note; keep it to yourself that you spoke to me."
"Why?" Askin raised an eyebrow. "You scared of someone?"
"Scared? Nah. I just don't want people to think you're crazy." Hitogami grinned, but there was a moment of hesitation before it. Oho? Ohhooo?? This will definitely prove useful later on.
"Been called worse." Askin shrugged. "Now, this has been a lovely conversation, but I'd like to go back now, so if you would—"
Before Askin could finish his sentence, he found himself back in the cell, staring up at the weird crystal embedded in the ceiling. His upper body jolted upright, startling the Boreas couple sharing the cramped space.
What a fatally unpleasant fellow, that Hitogami. Even so, he somehow didn't even approach the top five most annoying people Askin had to deal with in his life.
"A-Askin-dono..."
"No need for that '-dono'," he ordered absentmindedly and without looking. The whole thing was confusing enough already, and he was pretty sure none of them were speaking Japanese. If anything, that just made it weirder. He was simply too tired to notice back then. To be fair, he should check if the language barrier existed or if it was conveniently waved off as well.
Another sigh left his lips, and he turned to look at Philip. "How far is Roa from this kingdom?"
"How f-! You mean...!" An expression of both surprise and relief appeared on Philip and Hilda's faces. The two quickly shared a look before the mayor straightened up and answered with a touch more formality.
"Roa is... quite far," he said carefully. "From where we are now, it would take around three months on foot. Perhaps more, depending on the roads. And we are not on any road. But—ah—that is only if you wished to accompany us the entire way!"
He gave a hopeful, almost apologetic smile.
"If you could escort us out of the Strife Zone and into one of the neighboring allied kingdoms, I should be able to contact the Boreas household," Philip said. "My family still holds sway in several cities, even with the current chaos. Once word gets out that we're alive, they'll send men. That is, if our bodyguard Ghislaine doesn't find us first."
His wife quickly added, "S-She is a King-ranked swordsman."
The two seemed to take some pride in having a bodyguard of that rank, though unfortunately for them, that classification was completely foreign to him.
"Really? That's quite the fatally fearsome guard you've got," Askin said. He decided to be nice about it anyway. "But don't go around talking like I'll leave you halfway. You were talking big about how many rewards you'd give me, and I'm not letting you off the hook that easily."
Philip's shoulders sagged in relief, and a smile crept onto his face. "On my honor, I shall grant everything I promised and more." He thumped a closed fist lightly against his chest.
"You two stay here," Askin let out a groan as he pushed himself back to his feet. "Protecting others while fighting isn't my style, so I'll return to pick you up in, say... thirty minutes."
Philip and Hilda both nodded.
"Be careful," Philip added.
"Yeah, yeah." Askin stretched his arms, rolling his shoulders until something cracked. "Just don't wander off. That'll be fatally annoying."
He made his way to the front of the cell, where the invisible barrier still shimmered faintly in the air. He tapped into his reikaku again, trying to sense anything new now that he had a better grasp of this world's magic system. Unfortunately, the barrier was still as pathetic and sloppy as it had been the first time he checked. Nanana might've actually popped a vein if he'd seen it.
Askin placed his hand against it and felt the resistance push back slightly. He could have brute-forced his way through, and he was more than capable, but that wasn't his style. That was for brutes like Bazz and Driscoll.
And besides, as he'd already figured out, using the Death Dealer during his conversation with the man-god in his realm, where reishi and magic were so deeply intertwined, gave him more than enough understanding to work with.
Magic, to him, was no different than reishi now. And when it came to reishi manipulation, a Quincy had no equal.
With barely a thought, the barrier dissipated, allowing him to pass through. A tiny scalpel to the lock of the cell, and the door was opened. A couple more slashes and he had a piece of etal in his hand.
And Askin was free.
One hand in his pocket, he strolled through the halls, lazily dragging a piece of scrap metal across the bars of each cell with a grating clang-clang-clang. "Excuse me! I would like to file a complaint!" he called out, cheerful as ever. "This place has terrible service. The walls are dusty. The food is fatally rancid. And I think your barrier might actually violate safety regulations."
Fortunately, this institution seemed remarkably progressive. Someone actually showed up to address his grievances. "Bastard! How did you get out of your cell?!" barked a man in mismatched armor, sword halfway drawn and eyes bulging with fury.
Disappointedly, the guard was not a mage, nor a magic user.
Askin smiled at him. "Sorry for the inconvenience, but could you please tell me where the complaints register is?"
The man didn't respond. He charged forward with a roar, weapon raised high. "Don't you fucking m—!"
Thunk.
Down he went with a hole in his head, mid-word, mid-swing. The back of his skull splattered across the wall in a streak of pink and grey. Askin lowered his raised index finger, still holding the tiny reishi bow.
He kept walking until he reached the corpse, stepping neatly over the blood trail with theatrical care. He crouched beside the body and studied the sword, turning it slightly in the light. Not top-of-the-line, but well-maintained. He nodded, took it with his free hand, and stood again.
Then, with both the sword and the original metal rod, he resumed banging along the bars with a renewed, two-handed rhythm.
Clang-clang-clang… clang-clang-clang…
"Customer satisfaction is important!" he announced.
A few cells down, someone peeked out. A grizzled man with a long scar down his nose stared at him.
"Good afternoon." Askin nodded his head. The man said nothing. Just slowly ducked back into his cell.
"Oi, what the hell is that noise?!"
The sound of boots slapping against stone echoed through the hallway. Someone was shouting, angry and fast, coming from around the corner.
Another guard rounded it with a mug of beer still in one hand and his uniform loose around the collar. "Oi, Bastel, what the—!"
He froze.
His eyes went from the corpse on the floor, to the blood trailing up the wall, to Askin. There was a beat. Then the mug flew through the air.
"ENEMY!!!" the guard screamed and lunged with his axe.
He swung.
His head went left. His body went right.
Askin let the blade clatter to the floor and kept walking without looking back. The dead man's yell, at least, had done him a favor. Another pair of guards came running at the noise. They lasted long enough to scream but not long enough to actually do anything else. Their blood joined the rest, painted across the floor and stone like a poorly planned mural.
More shouts followed. More boots. More steel. More min arrows to the head. More blood.
Soon enough, Askin threw the metal rod and stopped banging for their attention when the deafening emergency bells chimed and let the whole base know that he was free.
Two hallways left.
If he remembered the layout right from when they marched him in, the doorgate should be just ahead. Big, metal, reinforced. Behind that, if no one had moved things, was the yard.
And maybe fifty, sixty soldiers waiting. He heard them first before he even got out, yelling orders, calling ranks, and scrambling into formation.
He adjusted his collar and stepped forward. Boots stomped against gravel. Shields locked. Crossbows were loaded. The whole yard was packed to the brim with angry men, all ready to kill the prisoner who had just broken half their barracks and murdered their drinking buddies.
And to his delight, he found mages among them with their flowing robes, as was the squarely built dwarf with the huge warhammer that was as big as he was.
"I FUCKING TOLD YA, DIDN'T I?!" the dwarf bellowed, slamming his hammer into the ground hard enough to make it tremble. "THAT YOU SHOULDN'T PISS ME OFF!!! I FUCKING TOLD YA!!!"
Askin didn't bother replying. He just shrugged.
"SO BE IT!!!" the dwarf roared. Oh, dear, he was clearly angrier now. "If you're so set on spitting in the face of my mercy, then I, Longsteb-sama, will grind your bones into dust!"
He pointed his hammer at the crowd behind him. "None of you interfere!"
Then he blasted off like a cannonball.
He leapt into the air, raised his hammer behind him. "KNOW THE MIGHT OF THE NORTH GOD STYLE SAINT!"
'How very cliché'
The hammer glowed and crashed into Askin's head with a thunderous boom that kicked up a whirlwind of dust and debris. A loud crack followed, and the top half of the weapon spun out of the cloud like a helicopter blade and tore through two unfortunate soldiers before slamming into the far wall and shattering it.
The dust settled, and gasps of disbelief echoed as they all bore witness to the sight.
Askin stood there, completely unharmed. Hands still in his pockets and without a single scratch on his body while glowing lines travelled and snaked along his neck and collarbone before fading back into his skin.
In front of him, Longsteb-sama, the so-called Saint of the North God Style, held the broken handle of his warhammer as hiis beard trembled, and his knuckles were white. His arms shook as he tried to process what had just happened.
"Im...impossible!"
"Yeah. Impossibly and lethally disappointing," Askin said flatly. "I even let you land a free hit because I thought you were using some sort of spell, but..." He glanced down at the saint with a sigh. "...It was nothing more than basic reishi reinforcement."
He slowly pulled his hands from his pockets.
The dwarf flinched and took a step back, raising a hand. "W-wait—!"
Askin's Heilig Pfeil bow formed in his hand. Before the dwarf could finish a single syllable, two arrows flashed forward like streaks of light. One punched through his sternum. The second drilled through the first, bone and sinew, and burst out his back with a sickening pop. The mighty Longsteb crumpled without a sound.
The crowd of soldiers watched, stunned. Several instinctively took a step back.
"In one hit..."
"...Without a single scratch..."
"...Just one man!"
"Silent spell-casting!!"
Askin could see the hesitation growing. Some had their weapons half-raised. Others glanced toward the gates, clearly hoping for reinforcements.
He gave them a reason to act.
His bow rose again. A third arrow flew.
It tore through the front line, lifted a soldier clean off the ground, and carried him into the next man behind him. Both fell in a heap of limbs and shattered iron.
A beat passed.
Then the courtyard erupted.
They all surged forward to try and smother him. Mages began to chant behind them, and Fireballs, Ice spears, and lightning appeared on their staffs.
Askin's lips curled. That was exactly what he wanted.
In a blur, he vanished from the ground with a burst of Hirenkyaku, reappearing tens of meters above the courtyard. Air whipped past him as he spun midair and aimed downward. Below, the soldiers scrambled to follow; some raised shields, but most just stared up with panicked eyes.
Stealing other people's abilities wasn't his usual style. Frankly, it felt tacky. But with his spiritual reserves running on fumes, beggars couldn't be choosers. But the least he could do was thank that obviously traitorous, walking security breach of a "successor-kun."
He gathered what little he had left. Thin threads of reishi crisscrossed the air around him like a spiderweb, converging on his fingertips.
"Licht Regen!"
Hundreds of arrows were released, and the courtyard below lit up with screams, as they tore through flesh and stone below. But Askin, true to his style, avoided the magic users. He needed them alive, after all.
Another Hirenkyaku tore him from the sky just before a bolt of lightning split the air where he'd been. He reappeared hundreds of meters higher then vanished again.
His Reikaku swept outward, locking onto the next formation.
He turned, aimed, and called again.
"Licht Regen!"
The arrows rained down once more.
Again. And again. And again.
He moved quickly, reappearing only long enough to fire before vanishing into streaks of reishi. Garrison after garrison fell. Castle towers crumbled. Outer walls split. Even the invading forces that were still organizing at the edges of the city found themselves under fire.
And one by one, the entire city's defenders, mages, guards, and even the attackers outside the gates turned their attention upward. Every single one of them was doing their damnedest to bring him down.
Within just twenty minutes, the sun disappeared amidst the hundreds of spells and arrows crossing between the sky and earth.
And all the while, dozens of spells, barriers, rituals, and magical wards saturated the atmosphere.
Just like Askin intended. At last, Askin stopped. He came to rest atop the tallest tower of the King's castle.
He spread his arms.
For hours, he had run on fumes. But now? With all the mana in the city condensed and stirred into a cocktail, he could finally top off the tank.
His Heiligenschein, a five-pointed cross, appeared like a crown hovering above his head.
"Vollständig!"
Askin was engulfed in a massive pillar of light that erupted beneath his feet, swallowing him whole and disintegrating the tower he was on an instant. The beam surged upward and terminated high above in the same five-point cross, suspended within a glowing halo.
And then, across the city, and across the very sky, a bell rang out.
One, single chime.
The light receded, and Askin remained, suspended in the air. Wings of reishi crisscrossed behind his back as he hovered over the ruined skyline.
Hasshien.
Spoiler: Hasshien
God's Poison Taster.
"Ahh, ahh. How fatally unpleasant," Askin muttered, side-eyeing the wings behind his back. Just his luck to end up with such a lame-looking and sounding Vollständig. The purple glow was tacky, too.
A lightning bolt tore through the air toward him, followed by dozens more from all across the city as the defenders finally got their bearings. In response, Askin merely uttered a single word.
"Sklaverei!"
The cross hovering over Askin's head began to spin.
The lightning bolts never reached him. They sputtered mid-air and were reduced to threads of glowing mana that were pulled into the spinning cross. IN a similar vein, all spells all across the city and beyond it started flickering out. Fireballs dimmed. Ice shattered. Summons collapsed into smoke.
Even the mana inside the mages' staves was drained away. Runes lost their glow. Barriers failed. Fighters who used magic to strengthen their bodies stumbled as their footwork fell apart.
'Holy Slavery. A fitting name if nothing else.' Askin mused as the tiredness that had plagued him finally disappeared.
He stretched his arms overhead and let out a satisfied groan. That hit the spot.
"Now then, let's put an end to this, shall we?"
If word got out that he'd used his Vollständig on this lot, the rest of the Sternritter would never let him hear the end of it. He could already imagine Bambi wheezing with laughter, and Lille-san shaking his head. Still, Askin couldn't be bothered to chase down every last grunt on foot. He said thirty minutes, and thirty minutes it would be.
He raised his hands.
The spinning circles on his wings cracked open, leaking violet light. Simultaneously, matching but far larger circles bloomed in the sky above and formed a half-dome around the entire city.
Thin curtains of violet energy linked the glyphs together, drawing a sphere across the sky and encasing the kingdom beneath a violet shell.
"Gift Bereich."
Spoiler: "Gift Bereich."
The Year K417 — Eight days after what would later be known as the Mana Calamity.
The Strife Zone.
The Kingdom of Delacoa Fell to a Single Man.Last edited: Jul 28, 2025 Like ReplyReport Reactions:GoToSleep10, AlterMain, Alex012 and 321 othersThatOneGuy69Jul 28, 2025Add bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Chapter Four. View contentThatOneGuy69I trust you know where the happy button is?Jul 30, 2025Add bookmark#54Demon Continent-....somewhere.
"Hohh. The other side sure is getting awfully flashy these days." The scantily dressed reincarnated demon cackled to herself, one hand shielding her eyes as she stared toward the eastern sky, far, far past the horizon. Her magic eye squinted against the sun, not that something as petty as sunlight mattered to one as exalted as her.
"Once, we'll forget, but hold a grudge! But twice! That is a provocation!" She straightened her back, hands on her hips, with the confidence only attainable to the Demon Empress who hadn't eaten in three months. "No doubt someone's trying to outshine the Great Empress of the Demon Realm! Unforgivable. It better not be that fiend Laplace! I'll dye the oceans red and feed him his own hair!"
She took a single stomping step to punctuate her anger and immediately stubbed her toe on a jagged rock.. "GHNNGH! Owwww!" She stumbled, clutching her foot while hopping in a crooked little circle. "However! Compared to the previous one, this is barely worth calling a disaster."
"What a letdown. The mana from this one... It's barely enough to make a halfway decent landslide. Not even a full city-wide area was affected, and it's already vanished." Indeed, the Mana she had sensed this morning had been much less interesting. In fact, she only caught traces of it hours after it had already finished. Compared to the spell from eight days ago, this one was small, barely lasting a few minutes, and no more than city-wide. It was also thousands of miles from the first.
A cheap sequel, and a weak encore, it was. She felt cheated for even bothering to walk to find the source.
She crossed her arms and frowned. Then her eye widened. "No. Wait. Unless—hah! It couldn't be..." She let out another cackle. "Did the last spell really drain you that badly? Ahh, you poor, shy little spellcaster! Couldn't hold it in the second time, huh? Kakakakaka! Don't worry, it happens to everyone!"
That mirth had helped guide her through the next few miles, where the only sounds were her loud and booming laughter and the cursed growling of her stomach.
Just as she was catching her breath, her eye twitched again. "Could it be?" She tilted her head toward the source. it was in the same place as the one of tomorrow. "Hohh! A third one? Already?" She tilted her head, intrigued. "Someone didn't like that jab, did they? Feeling insecure, are we?" Her grin widened. "We approve!"
Moreover, it seemed that this time, there was nothing to hide the caster from her sight. "Oho... finally decided to let us see you, did you, you shy little menace?" She leaned into the vision now stretching across oceans and continents.
Far beyond the Demon Continent. Past the sea. There.
The mana in this new burst felt different from the earlier two. Still weak compared to the one that caused the calamity, but with a strange twist. "Hohh.." A different structure that was unfamiliar to her, despite all her years. No resemblance to any spell she knew, neither did it feel similar to Laplace's nonsense.
"This is no doubt the work of a Grand Villain or a Grand Hero! Whichever you are, we, the Great Kishirika Kishirisu, shall acknowledge you!"
She flopped down onto the sand immediately after, stomach growling like a wild beast.
"…Eventually."
Central Continent- Strife Zone - Delacoa Kingdom.
"…It has been an honor, my liege,"
And with it, his servant had left him alone and went on to obey his last ever order. The king turned and moved once more.
King Reginald walked through the corridor of what remained of his castle. Poets might have likened his march to a man walking to a man heading to his own funeral, and truthfully, they would not be wrong. Except that all the mourners had already arrived early and died on the floor.
"Argh, my back is killing me." His boots stepped over one soldier's outstretched arm. Another lay crumpled near the wall, with frothing lips and glazed eyes still staring. The castle and the city were filled with many such sights. Some had blades and staffs drawn. None had managed to use them.
The whole hall stank of recent death and something chemical. His nose wrinkled. He didn't need to wonder what had killed them; it hardly mattered. All he knew was that whatever it was, Reginald was spared from it because the caster had deemed it so, and by no means by his own ability.
Reginald pushed open the broken doors of the balcony with the side of his boot, stepping over a half-collapsed guardsman whose throat had gone purple, and letting the wind hit his face and ruffle his numerous coats.
He took a deep breath.
The stench was already rising. He waved it away absently with the edge of his sleeve and kept walking while his fingers loosened the collar of his coat now that there was no point in looking stately anymore. Half the city was dead or dying, and he doubted the bastardly dogs of Avarez were any better.
The silver lining of it all was that, at the very least, to its last moments, they never managed to break Delacoa, and if there was any hell, then he'd get to gloat at them. That thought alone managed to bring out a chuckle from him.
From here, he could clearly see the spell. The violet dome still hovered over the capital. A part of him felt that this was the gods' way of mocking him since he had once desired to have a dome, not unlike this one, hover protectively over his kingdom.
Reginald exhaled slowly. He rested both hands on the marble balustrade and looked down at the husk of what used to be his.
Reginald stared at it with a strange sort of calm.
"…Hohh," he murmured, letting the sound out on a sigh. "Look at that. Pretty thing."
He had built this. Twenty years ago, this place had been a patch of competing fiefs with more in-fighting than a snake pit. He had married, bargained, intimidated, and stitched it all together. Piece by piece. Stone by stone. It wasn't much, and throughout most of his reign, he'd been barely more than a glorified vassal for the larger powers, but it had been his. And it had worked. A minor kingdom, yes, but a kingdom nonetheless with its own symbol on the world's map.
"Damn," he muttered, leaning against the stone railing."I actually built a kingdom."
He laughed as he reminisced.
"Twenty years. I had to bribe three clans to stop stabbing each other long enough to build the first walls. Married a woman ten years my elder ad whom I'd never met, because her cousin controlled the grain ports. Said yes to that damn duchess' endless wine taxes because I needed her cavalry."
He let that sit there.
"…Didn't think it'd end this quick. Figured we had another decade in us at least. I still had an aspiration of actually taking over the whole continent."
Reginald took off his crown and rubbed the faint mark on his forehead that the band of gold left. He looked at it for a second, then put on the marble balustrade.
"But all good things come to an end."
He drew the sword he had never used, the one that had hung by his side through ceremonies and parades but never once tasted blood. It trembled in his grip. He stared at it for a moment, then turned on his feet and raised it toward the man who stood at the heart of the ruin. The monster that wore a smile like it was a face.
He licked his dry lips. "If it's possible, I ask that my body, and that of...of the royal family's not be desecrated."
"I don't make a habit of playing with corpses, Your Majesty." The reply came as the energy bow was already drawn taut. "You'll be properly buried. All of you."
Reginald let out a slow breath through his nose. "My thanks."
He gave no war cry. It was more of a choked shout to drown out the part of him begging to run.
He lunged.
The sword was swung.
The arrow was released.
Far across the castle, the bell tower chimed once. The flag of Delacoa, proud and young and already fading into memory, was lowered from its post for the last time.
And the world moved on.
The feeling of unfairness and anger toward the world was no stranger to Philip Boreas Greyrat
It was an old companion, and if anything, to wake up not wishing and actively death upon half the people he knew was the odd thing.