Story time (remade)

'How did this happen? How did it… come to this?'

Blades once again clashed against each other in the distance as Manu looked on in despair, and blankly stood up.

'…'

He looks over to his friend, who was also like him. She wept silently, cradling herself. She was broken, the scene of 'death' was too much to handle for her. She couldn't take it. As so did he, but still, he persevered and stood up.

'…'

The man who did this, he was battling against their common enemy with a crazed smile on his demonic face. The Undead was no different either, her face was the brightest smile one could see, like that of a child seeing their father after a long time.

'How… why, has it come to this?'

His mind repeated that question, and one particular moment stood out. The day when they made that decision. The day that Lily, the most rational of their group, acted without a clear purpose with it. Manu picked up on the irregularity, but didn't say anything because he trusted her judgement.

"…Lily, wake up. Snap out of it!"

Manu was unfamiliar with the sight of Lily, the usually calm and collected girl, weeping and sobbing while cradling herself for self-comfort. It made him mad, it angered him, and so he went and intensely shook her.

"N-Nooo! G-Get away from me!"

She frantically tried to remove Manu's hands on her body. Her eyes were sporadic, unsteady. Despair was too deeply seeded in her Soul and Mind. In her eyes, she saw the man who killed her friend, and she didn't want to become the second one.

Death is… unfamiliar with elven children. It's because they live long, so when they reach full maturity of 60 years they should at least be accustomed to how 'death' functions. But these elves were just 32, teenage years in elven standards.

They weren't soldiers, nor had any defects with their minds. They were pure, untainted, but this experience had scarred them ugly.

"Lily! Snap… out of it!"

He slapped her as she wailed and screamed for him to leave her be. This proved to be effective as she was now blankly staring at him. Her red cheeks a little swollen from the slap

"Good… we need to somehow save ourselves. He's a Demon, or half? He'll most likely kill us after he's done, so let's try and not let that happen. Charles shouldn't die a meaningless death."

"…right, yes."

Lily seems to have settled her mind at ease. She got up with Manu and first went to check the doorway they entered.

Reaching in front of it, they tried with their newfound might to push it open. However, it proved to be useless as the door seemed unmovable.

"Dammit! This can't be…"

"Manu…"

Lily stopped trying, but Manu still clung to hope as he pushed harder than the last. His muscles bulged, and face contorted from over-exerting his strength. His teeth grinder together, his face now bright red from the air he's holding in. A droplet of blood flowed down from his nose, showing his effort.

"Manu, it's enough!"

"No! It can't be!"

Manu, in a fit of rage, punched the door with the rest of his strength. Like the start, it did not move nor crack from the singular punch.

"…What do we do now?"

"I… don't know, Manu."

Lily, for all her intelligence and wisdom for her young age, couldn't find a solution for their current predicament. The two slumped down, back against their salvation.

"We're going to die…?"

"I'm afraid that is so."

"No… this can't be where it ends."

In Manu's imagination, he thought of adventures filled with scenic views, the beauty of camaraderie, and something at least romantic to see. But this? This was a nightmare that he'd have once every full moon lapses. Charles, the strongest of their group, now dead. Lily by his side consumed with despair. And him, cowering and slightly shaking with fear for what's to come.

"…Lily, want to have a chat?"

"Huh? Now…?"

"Yeah, just the two of us while we wait for the inevitable together."

"…Sure, why not."

Lily smiled as did Manu.

"So… wanna get the lover thing out first?" Manu said with a cheeky smile.

"Ehh…? That's the first thing you ask?" Lily asked in bafflement.

"Well, we can save it for last if you want. No need to answer it right away." Manu shrugged.

"…Yeah, let's leave that for last." Lily said with a mysterious smile.

"Then, first question, do you remember the time when we were in our 20s? We went out to that cave up Northwest and found that random skeleton, right?"

"Yeah, and after that we had bad luck with almost everything we did. Be it cooking, playing, and the likes." Lily recounted their bad luck from that time with a reminiscing face.

"Yeah well… I may have had something to do with that streak of bad situations." Manu said while scratching his left cheek nervously.

"What?" Lily raised her eyebrows questioning his sentence.

"I… kind of stole something from the skeleton. It only got better, and stopped for the most part, due to me returning an amulet I took for it." Manu said while avoiding eye contact.

"…You know, if it wasn't for the circumstances I would've punched you in the face really hard." Lily said with her eyes squinted to a slit.

"Ehehe… sorry, sorry." Manu said with an apologetic expression and raised hands to avoid getting what Lily said.

"I received the most out of everyone! And worse of all, I experienced terrible nightmares of me getting violated when I sleep! Even though it's just dreams, I still remember it clearly whenever I wake up!" Lily explained loudly with an expression that screams 'I'll kill you for that'.

"Alright, alright! I get it." Manu said while waving his hands slowly with an awkward smile.

"I'll let it slide because of our current situation. Consider yourself lucky." Lily said with a 'Hmph' at the end.

"Then… It's your turn now." Manu said awkwardly.

"…Do you remember the time when the village lost some of its records for some time?" Lily said with a nonchalant look.

"Oh yeah! It was such a shock, but I'm glad it was returned. I tried to find who did it, but my intuition couldn't specify anyone in particular. Do you know something about that?" Manu explained enthusiastically and asked in response.

"Well, it was me who stole those records. It was also the first time I learned Spellcasting." Lily said with a smile.

"Ohhh, how did you pull it off? Was it hard? How did you cover up your tracks?" Manu asked incessantly.

"One at a time, Manu." Lily said calmly.

"Oh, right. Sorry." Manu apologized after realizing.

"It was just a thought I had one day, and so I acted upon it when I could see it being pulled off. I used wind spells to reduce the noises I would make once I entered the thousand-year-old room, and carefully took away some that I found interesting." Lily carefully explained how she pulled off the stunt.

"I almost got caught, surprisingly. There wasn't supposed to be a guard that would come that day, but one strolled into the room to check it. I just barely managed to hide from his sight by sticking on the roof. I'm gonna be honest, that was probably the first time that a plan had gone off track for me." She further added.

"Anyways, I managed to satiate my curiosity for knowledge, and returned the books once I was done. I'm not some thief that would keep things that will no longer be of use once I'm done." Lily said nonchalantly.

"Wow… that was quite something I'm not gonna lie. If it were me, I would've resigned to my fate the moment that door creaked." Manu said with a dreadful smile.

"Pft, you know, it wouldn't hurt to try and use Spells. You are an elf." Lily said with a pitying smile.

"Yeah, but casting Spells has never been easy for me. And also, I couldn't remember them very clearly and so I wouldn't be able to cast a full fledged Spell." Manu said so, grimacing on the memories of himself practicing Spellcasting by himself.

"Haha, it doesn't mean you should stop trying. If you work hard, then it doesn't matter if it's a mountain, you can cut it in half." Lily said so with a beautiful smile.

Manu's heart throbbed intensely from that sight. The sight of his friend, simply just smiling. It brought him back to the current situation they're in, and what could become of them once the distant fighting noises stopped.

"…Then, I suppose it's my turn again. This time, I'll tell you a tale that I doubt you've heard from the elders." Manu said with a teasing smile.

"That's impossible, tell me." Lily said with a stern expression.

"Hehe, knew you couldn't resist. It's a story my father would regularly tell me for bedtime." Manu said with a raised face.

"Ah, right, your father was an explorer once before he settled down in the village." Lily said with a quizzical look.

"The tale is about the outside world, beyond our forest home. It tells of a hero dawning golden armor that appeared shortly after the end of the Dark Age of Death. His swordsmanship isn't something to scoff at, and neither were his looks from how father went into details about his face and body. His proficiency in Spellcasting is also not lacking, as he is able to cast Spells of the 6th tier." Manu explained with a proud smile.

"His name is Lain Alera Alastor, he's a commoner with a three word name. He apparently honed his swordsmanship from a young age, and progressed faster than his peers in an overwhelming pace. He started as an adventurer, before becoming lauded as a hero by defeating a Daemon by the name of Mok'kek. With the power to raise a capital of thousands, he was the most fearsome Daemon to appear after the Dark Age of Death." Manu said with a changing expression, from pride to shuddering fear.

"Father said Mok'kek would rally the people who survived, mind controlled them en masse, and compel them to cannibalize each other for entertainment. Guts, blood, and visceral screams hollered throughout the place it was taking place in. Mok'kek, a Daemon that is later dubbed as the Daemon of Flesh and classified as a Major-class Glutton. The hero Lain Alera Alastor, who father said only managed to get through with luck, defeated the Daemon with a special enchanted sword made of a metal that absorbs sunlight to strengthen itself." Manu explained as his expressions once again shifted as he retell the tale he heard.

"He was assigned a plot of land, but he refused that offer that came from the ruling king at the time. He retired from his profession and returned to where he came from. A village that has no name, and father said he most likely died a peaceful death by the side of his beloved people." Manu put an end to the tale he was retelling.

"Hmm, your tale does seem interesting, but isn't it just another one of those happy tales? Did your father never expand on anything?" Lily said so with a questioning gaze.

"Nope, father only said that much. But, he did say that the hero had a particularly strange lifestyle." Manu said so with a pondering look.

"Oh? How strange?" Lily asked about the new information.

"Well, for starters the hero Lain Alera Alastor had a particular obsession with a wheat-type of plant. It is the yellow colored Golden Wheat, but something he dubbed 'rice' which is similar but different variant. It's one of his few strange anomalies, but the strangest thing amongst his strangeness is a type of writing he seemingly invented. It has lines intricately woven together, and he could even speak that made-up language of his." Manu explained with a certain fervor in his tone.

"A made-up language…? Is that even-" Lily was about to say 'possible', but was interrupted by Manu as he continued.

"Not just the language thing, but his way of handling the sword from a young age. Father said he was astonished by how proficient hero Lain was in his youths with the sword. He demonstrated a high level of 'structure' out of the other three elements in his swordsmanship, like he already had previous experiences." Manu said with an excited, high pitched voice.

"That's… certainly strange." Lily said so with her eyes squinted.

"So, since I told an exquisite tale for you about the outside world, it would be kind if you could do the same." Manu said with a smug grin.

"Hmph, don't be so smug just because of your father. I also heard of many things, most of them being from the Dark Age of Death from the visiting elders. One of them, quite similar to yours, tells about a tragic tale of a Hero King, Zephyr Custodio Rekaliel. He was a pawn of Death, the elders told me. He was a puppet who obeyed the orders of Death, and could only make decisions after consulting Death on the matters." Lily explained with a pained expression.

"In the past, before he became Hero King, before the Dark Age of Death would commence, he was a commoner with ordinary blood through his veins. He had nothing exceptional, a farmer of the land like so many others, until his age turns 18 that is. The elders said that something changed in him, power overflowed from his body, from Aura to Mana. Slowly, as he grew, his body was shaped and turned into the most perfect being imaginable. From his strength to his wits, from his Aura to his Mana, everything about him was perfected beyond the human limits. He became a man capable of invoking the desires of his peers, his species. He led them to the pinnacle, until Death arrived." Lily told Manu as her expressions shift and change as the story progresses.

"He became Hero King through his might and kindness, but even if he is the pinnacle a mortal could achieve, he is still no match for the might of a true God, especially a God of Death." Lily said so with a frightful expression.

"The elders spoke of him as well, records written in the Dark Age of Death. He was ruthless, yet merciful to those who showed 'potential' to his purpose. Pawns, they all were. And… I believe that she is one of those 'pawns'." Lily said so while pointing in the distance.

"Ultimate Sword Skill: Eclipse Sword."

"Aura Release: Ten thousand."

A fierce exchange of swords, Aura and Skills made for an explosively extravagant view for the onlookers, i.e Lily and Manu.

"The elders said that Death was the very reason we Elves are even alive, since we sided with him instead of against him. We obeyed his orders, and in return he sheltered our Race along with nurturing our Goddess and Guardian Spirit, Svar'ritha. We haven't forgotten that debt, but since the times have changed we Elves have started to move on from those now ancient times." Lily said so with her trademark emotionless expression Manu was familiar with.

"Zephyr, the tragic Hero King that not even his surname is recorded, was the epicenter of the Dark Age of Death up until near its end. He died by suicide, but I doubt that's what became of him." Lily said so, ending her tale of the legendary tragic Hero King, Zephyr.

"Well, that's my tale. The tragic tale of Hero King Zephyr, the Demi-God of Humanity, the beacon for Humanity, He who represents Humanity's goodness, Hero King of Opposes Death himself."

"…That's a lot of ways to call someone magnificent, don't you think?"

Indeed, the Hero King Zephyr had a lot of nicknames for himself in his active days as King of the Human Empire. He led with a kind heart, and supported his people even though he is supposed to be by Death's side, his own personal lapdog. He stood for all that's good of humanity, and fought in the shadows to keep his people safe, even at the expense of his own life.

Unfortunately, his death and its cause has not been recorded into any material form. His legacy, now a thing of an ancient time that many would like to forget about. Though his tale is of tragedy for the many that heard it, those who experienced it themselves would never see it as a tale of tragedy and sadness. But rather, a tale to get stronger from.

"Ultimate Demon Slaying Skill: Vanquishing Sunlight Blade!"

And with that, a story came to an end with Edir Amandin being the victor.

"Kuh…!"

"…It is done, begone Undead."

"Hahaha… it's been a long time, but I'm ready…"

Then, just as Queen Suriel was about to disappear along with Kael, a mysterious black figure appeared behind them to embrace their lonely, sad forms.

"It has been a long time, my dear children."

The woman whispered something only the 'children' could hear. Suriel smiled, while Kael, now a blob of pulsating flesh on Suriel's left shoulder, jiggled up and down. The woman's face, shrouded from view by the eternal darkness, showed a bright smile for the first time in many millennia.

"...…"

And with that, the raid came to an end.

"...But damn, this place is a wreck now."

Edir looked around, and spotted the loose ends.

'…Yes, I can still work with this.'

Interesting plot developments are forming in his head. And now, it only takes a little bit of acting finesse to pull it off.

'I'm getting excited about where this is going.'

The story progresses, pages filled anew with hidden, exquisite history that Death can tell to his new generation.