10 Chapter 3 (4/5) - The Grudge that falls on me.

*tap*,*tap*,*tap*,*tap*, The sound of footsteps were echoing in the alleyway. The cold wind of the night blew through the alley. What time was it? I could only guess we were nearing dawn. It couldn't get any darker than this, I hoped.

How long had I walked? Where was I walking? Which way did I walk? Left? Right? I didn't know, I didn't know, I didn't know. I just walked, just went to where my feet took me. If I used my brain, my mind, it would only confuse me even more. This way, hopefully, I would find a way out.

How long would it be before I got out? Didn't matter as long as I did. I wasn't exhausted anymore, and just walking didn't take much energy.

The path split again, like it always did, this time five ways with the way back. I took the leftmost path. Was it east or west? Couldn't care less, I just went.

How long had it been since I felt like this? Like I was caught in a maze? Where I was forced to walk and walk without end? It was long, quite long ago. But, I still remembered it clearly, maybe not so clear. Point was, I still remembered.

Thinking back, did I forget something? Forget to think about something? About what I would do 'if' I didn't get out of here? Couldn't get out of here?

"Now what kind of idiot would think about that? To ponder over it would be to ponder over a rock. It would only weigh your mind. A useless thing that would pique your mind. You just had to see two roads, success and failure. Think about paths to success and leave failure at the back of your head. Seeing it was enough, thinking about it would make it harder to walk."

An odd sense of deja-vu hit me. I'm sure I had said that same thing before, but that time, was I alone? I could have sworn that I said those same words to someone once, but who? I couldn't picture that being said to anyone. No name could come to mind.

But I did remember why I was stuck in that maze-like place before. It wasn't an alleyway like this, but the woods near the hut. No, it wouldn't be wrong to say it was still far away from it, near the village probably.

I couldn't forget even if I tried, I couldn't allow myself to forget even if I tried. The look in their eyes as they stared at me. Little ones, old ones and the like. Women, children and the men of their houses. They weren't hiding their animosity, fully displaying their displeasure, staring at me like some sort of monster.

"They were the monsters looking at a child like that. Shunning someone so little when they were asking for help. Beating someone while they were down."

Wait, it was getting clearer. I wasn't alone, I wasn't the first one. It was only after that I too was the target of their gazes. Gazes full of hate, resentment, fear, anxiety, terror, grief, pain, sorrow, despise, disgust, helplessness,...

"Gaaah! It's driving me crazy!" I had to rest my hand on the wall to support myself.

I couldn't get over that memory, for one reason after another. One being I couldn't overcome it, haunting me to this day. The other, to find something. Something that was missing. I had a lot of things that were lost. A few magic stones that I stole in the woods when I was a kid. Keys to the house before the hole was there. Bread from the village in my stomach. The pieces of my soul could be said to also have been lost, though that way I would have lost them before or at the time of my birth.

But this 'thing' that I lost concerned my memories, a part of myself, my heart. I couldn't feel complete without this something. And that wasn't the only memory that gave me that feeling.

"Just what is it? It hasn't left my mind for six whole years. Am I going crazy? Senile even? I'm already crazy, and just a bit senile. But even a crazy person wouldn't feel like this. Like I lost something that I didn't even have in the first place."

"Shit! Just when am I going to get out of here!?" I could see no end to this path.

Was that going to stop me from walking? No, it wasn't.

As for that Viath's Council, they weren't anything to worry about. My soul couldn't merge because it didn't fit in this plane at that moment. But now that it was night, it finally settled. It would be fine to fuse it at daytime too.

Why couldn't I fuse it all the time? Why that would mean one would have to assimilate the other. They could only 'temporarily' 'fuse' without all the pieces together. The other was to assimilate the pieces, but I couldn't stay 'myself' this way.

It made me strong but what multiplied that strength was that I could use my ancestral magic with it. In fact, it wasn't 'ancestral magic' but instead 'ancestral curse'.

A curse would be another form of energy or using energy. If magic, that is, mana was one then a curse would be negative feelings so immense, obsession so strong, that they actually manifested as negative energy. The use of this negative energy to affect things would be a curse. A curse in the end would always have an evil side to it. Good and bad just didn't matter to stuff like this.

Curses were different from mana, and my ancestral magic used mana to curse. It converted mana to curses and used magic to cast these curses. That's what made them so strong. They couldn't be blocked by normal means and special here would be really rare 'holy' elements, a weak deterrent or 'first aid' would be the light element.

In the end only with strength could one truly dispell a curse. But even that was a curse that was inflicted on oneself. And to dispell a curse like a lock opened with a key, was only possible by another evil mage. Mages who used 'curses' were termed 'evil mages'. Necromancers were one of them dealing with the dead and rotting stuff that really smelled.

So practically, I came from a family of 'evil mages'. At least that was how the world saw it. A few of those other noble families saw their contributions to the world, helping in wars due to their bloodlust and stuff. In fact, I could guess that they only chose the righteous side because as righteous as they were, they were also the weaker side. So they could fight strong people by joining the weaker side and fighting stronger people was more fun. I had a hunch I was right. Not all of them found joy in killing weaker people all day. Just slaughter and slaughter all day would be boring, there was just no 'thrill' in it. Just like how people wouldn't enjoy chopping fish all the time. A battle with your life at stake, that was what 'thrill' was.

So they didn't go to find trouble with them. Even if they did, who would want to try and kill people who, by a sense, weren't alive? Madmen who would slaughter you if or when they felt like it? Not only did they not trouble them for that, they were also 'scared' of troubling them.

The madmen were dead, now I was the last MurkVeil alive. Or was I?

"Hey don't go too far, if you head in there you'll get lost by the rest of those guys. We've been coming here again and again for a week but we haven't seen them yet."

"They must be dead by now. They can't survive that long without water or food."

"It's been like this since last month. Now the shortcut is a maze that traps you forever. Isn't the academy doing anything about this?"

"They couldn't care less, don't you remember the people who got lost the first week? They haven't even done anything to find them after so long! The Academy doesn't have time to care, it already has enough trouble dealing with the problems that arise at other places."

"Eh!? I think I see someone coming out."

"Oh please don't let it be a zombie!"

The light at the end of the alleyway shone on me. Wasn't it dusk right now? Why was a crowd of people out there? I could hear their chatter, and somewhat of what they were saying, but I couldn't see them. My eyes, adapted to the darkness, were blinded by the light as I walked out. I had to cover my eyes with my hand.

I stepping into the light and everything was clear. It went from 'dusk' to 'noon' in an instant. Don't tell me that place back there was a different space? Owing to that having a different time as well?

My clothes were soiled, dirty and dusty. Were they torn? Didn't think so. I hadn't taken any hits except for my feet freezing.

With my sight now clear, I could see people standing afar, about ten metres or more from here. They were students, wearing the school's uniform. How many were there? Three dozen? Four? Five? They were a lot. Why were they here? From their chatter, was it about these students who got lost in that alleyway maze? What was that place anyway? I had to ask. I wasn't that tired right now. Slow pacing was as good as resting to restore mana. And that alleyway was strangely full of it.

"Do you recognise him?"

"No, is he a new student?"

"I haven't seen him at the entrance ceremony, so he can't be."

"But look he's wearing the uniform."

"Then why does no one recognise him?"

"It's not like I know everyone in the academy, go ask someone else."

"Hey mate, I'm just asking here. Sheesh."

"Then why is he coming out from there? Don't tell me he had something to do with the others getting lost?"

"That I....."

Why? Because I was in there and I had to come out, idiots. What friends? I had enough trouble with myself at the moment.

Truly a crowd. I'm only standing here, they're only looking at me. Still, they were already jumping to conclusions.

"Hey! Friend, who are you? And why did you come out from there? Do you know that it's been broken for the past month? Are you one of those people who got lost?"

Amidst the crowd, someone pushed through and came out. A guy with dark-orange hair. From what I could see, what stood out most was his black eyes amongst his dark-orange eyebrows that were straight and bushy and his tall nose. He even had to match, a black round earring on his right ear.

'I'm sorry but I'm definitely not an alien. Please speak to me normally.' Was what I wanted to say.

"I'm Ashwaal MurkVeil, I just came to the academy yesterday due to unforeseen problems. I don't know how I...."

Shit! I messed up, how could I be so stupid? Saying that out loud, the only thing that could happen was,

"Did he just say MurkVeil? He just said that right?"

"Of course he did. He's just lying, trying to scare us by using some peoples names. Those blood-suckers died a long time ago."

"Not only did they die, I heard that they didn't even leave corpses. The entire city that they were living with just disappeared."

"Now why would he be trying to scare us? We hardly know the guy!"

"And that's exactly why he's trying to scare us. Since we don't know him, we don't know if he's lying."

"But why would someone just use that family's name out of nowhere? To us, they're already history."

"What if he isn't lying? Look at his eyes. I heard that all the people of that demonic households were devil-spawns with grey-white eyes like they didn't have souls in them."

"But his eyes aren't soulless, they're just grey-white and now that you mention it, doesn't he look quite handsome?"

"He does I'll give him that. But it doesn't change the fact that he might have something to do with those missing ones."

Chatter and chatter. On and on. This was what people did when they gathered. They moved guesses up to conclusions. Incomplete facts to truths. A piece of the pie would be the whole thing.

"He's not lying. He really is from that damned household. The last one alive." Someone spoke up, Who was it? It was hard to know where it was coming from. Echoing out.... from the sky? The voice was low and flat. Someone was probably purposely changing their voice.

Even they didn't know, that voice could be heard by all of us, yet we couldn't find who said it. The idiots were also turning their heads here and there, yet all their efforts were pointless. It was obvious that said person wasn't willing to show themselves.

"A mark that was missed. A spawn that remains, he'll bring death and decay for sure. Like the rest of them did. Don't you remember? They slaughtered kids, children, mothers, fathers. They bathed the villages and roads with blood. The graves of our ancestors were pillaged by them. Even their souls were forcefully awoken by them, to serve as their slaves. Even after death, our ancestors couldn't rest, because of those darned MurkVeil's."

It didn't matter that we couldn't see the one who said these words because the person's aims were fulfilled. The crowd, that was previously confused, that did nothing but chatter and chatter while sending suspicious looks at me, now changed. Their eyes were filled with anger, rage, resentment, disgust... Their eyes were showing their animosity in broad daylight.

It was like I was back at that time where the villagers were staring at me like that, but that time was truly my fault. I hadn't done anything yet here.

"Can you prove that he really is a MurkVeil? If you can't then what you said means nothing right now." The reply came from the dark-oranged haired guy. He probably had a strong sense of justice, but that wasn't enough to quell the crowd right now. They were at the peak of their rage and if they passed this point then they would come after me in an instant.

Wait! Why were they so easy to change their thoughts? So easy to jump to conclusions? I know I did say that, but this was more like a direct influence.

But before I even had a chance to answer, the spark flew and the oil was lit.

"MurkVeil spells are weak against holy and light spells but they themselves have an inborn protection against these elements."

From the sky, a shining blob of light flew down. It wasn't exactly light, more or less mist that was golden in colour. This was the 'holy' element added mana considered another type of aura.

And just as she said the 'inborn' defensive protection against this 'holy' magic did happen. It wasn't exactly inborn but instead implanted into newborn babies before they were a year old. Normally, a magic circle would be implanted into the baby's heart. But for me, the implant was re-done on my brain.

*screech* The shrill sound of something metallic rang out, multitudes of minuscule strings from the back of my head were covering me in a sphere. This could block against almost all types of holy and light magic, but whether it could successfully block them mainly depended on my strength.

The magic was blocked, but I wasn't elated because either way, the 'voice' succeeded.

"It happened! He really is a MurkVeil! A bastard that can't be considered human. We must avenge our ancestors! He's only one, if we work together we can slay him right here. Charge!"

One cry then came another, then all of them were shouting. They charged straight for me, their eyes turning red like a bulls' would.

I was certain that this was a trap. That these 'people' were being manipulated. And I was being taken as 'prey'.

And that the one who was pulling the strings, would pay dearly for bringing back old memories, bad ones at that.