Chapter 12: Jack and Route 5

Have you heard of Galges? Or any games that gets affected by your choice for that matter? No? Sad life then.

"Hey, Belial, care to tell me why exactly are we heading for the church the long way?"

The white haired Devil snapped her head to face me, well downwards, she's flying and I'm running on top of the trees, blonde ninja style.

"I assume you to be someone smart enough to deduce why and stayed silent"

She tilted her head as she sassed me, you know, the sarcastic highschool jock's gf style of things.

On that note, I actually did know why. I was just doing my best to act dumb, why? Let's just say that I took a page from a certain police in a game about Pokemons in tarot cards.

After not too much time though, said girl lowered her altitude and semi whispered near my ears, near because we had at least a whole tree length of distance apart.

"It's highly probable that they will be expecting me to arrive quickly, thus I'm willing to bet that they've placed guards or watchouts on the paths to the church, except for this particular one"

...

"Oh"

I was wrong, hahaha.

Shit.

"You mean you didn't choose this path to set up traps and bait them here?"

What? It's not my fault that everyone doesn't think like me, I prefer to perform slaughters with great cunning and traps, blood is hard to wash off.

Literally and figuratively.

"Traps? I'm a highclass Devil, mere exorcists and the Devils they might have won't be much of a threat, add the fact that I called for my fellow men to aid me, they should follow us shortly after I move to save Masaomi"

Same Devils big baddie recruited to backstab you too probably.

Well, I just hope that semi borrowed blades count towards my kill count.

After pretending to somehow agree to her foiled plans, we sped up towards the church, I got home around sunset and now it was nearly night time, the moon was out with it's full splendor and my feminine side was itching to come out.

Not this time, no.

*

After probably an hour or two, we arrived right exactly beside the church, elevated enough that we can watch a few exorcist talk and yell around from the windows.

I watched the Belial do something with magic, cool magic circles shit.

Tch, how envious.

"The Devils are going to aid me after I move in to catch Masaomi's attention"

Me? Selfish! How about me?! They're going to watch me play? That's...good actually.

But I can't exactly have holes in my plans.

"No, I'll directly take Masaomi out of the church, you Devils get weak near the vicinity of anything holy don't you?"

She narrowed her eyes at me, then to the church, then to the horizon full of trees before finally sighing and placing a hand to my shoulders.

"Please save Masaomi"

Gulp.

Her eyes...pleading, teary, desperate...

Hopeful.

I opened my quest screen once more and stared blankly at the air, or to her eyes I was.

This is so stupid. You're no hero, those guys down there aren't just ordinary exorcist, they're high levels, experienced with dealings against beings stronger than them naturally. Add the fact that the Devils she thinks is her aid would more or less also aim to kill me, and they're definitely not pushovers, I don't think that big baddie would settle for a sloppy assassination.

Damn! Get out kindness! Begone you filthy evil...err, good emotion! I either kill them all of die trying to act like some shounen protagonist, I have the element of surprise! A swift Chrono Burst would help me kill everyone!

JACK FRESHMAN! STOP BEING SOFT!

[New skill obtained Emotion Culling]

[Emotion Culling - A skill usually possessed by those who kills for justice. Forcefully culling emotions in order to allow maximum concentration on the task at hand, this skill may either upgrade to Emotionless or degrade to Emotion Dampen, depending on the amount of usage]

...

Convenient. Thanks G.

"Emotion Culling"

Unexpectedly, the voice that came out of my mouth as I said those words were, for the high quality description.

Cold. The voice of a man who's slain a million of it's kind. The sheer lack of tone and emotion apparent enough that Cleria was looking at me with confused looks.

"A-Are you fine?"

I flicked her hands off my shoulders and gave her one last dismissive look before jumping down from the tree and silently moving towards the other target.

As I got closer to the church, I kept it in mind to have a choice before the finale, Emotion Culling wasn't completely making me dead inside, it just culled them enough that it doesn't physically show nor will it actively affect my choices.

"Masaomi! The Devil is only tricking you! You are a devout follower of God, you yourself know that your intentions and relationship is... impossible, we want to help you, the best we can but the church doesn't want that"

A familiar looking brown haired man was emotionally talking to Masaomi, I was 100% sure that Cleria would've barged in a few hours prior if it wasn't for me, she took the time to visit and ask for my aid. Speaking of which-

I looked back to where we had our last conversation and I saw her already gone, then I looked up and could barely see a dot in the sky. Assuring myself that I would be able to make the right choice, I continued my side of the job.

"Shidou-san! Why don't you understand?! She's not evil, not all Devils are evil!"

"Shut it you buffoon! What are Devils but sinful creatures, what else should we understand but the fact that the Devil you fancy might be looser than a pot!"

Sounds of struggle and raging indiscernible sounds continued on.

"DON'T CALL HER A SLUT! SHE'S A PROUD AND PURE WOMAN!"

"Shinichi, I'd appreciate it if you don't call my men buffoons"

"Shidou, what else would you call something like that if not a buffoon?"

...

Oh fuck, I'm going kill Irina's father?!

Damn! Damn! Damn! How'd that stupid detail go over my head?!

No, relax, think about the technicalities, anything would have a logical way to it.

The quest route I'm going for is the massacre one, the task at hand is to kill everyone, the cause for failure is if... I didn't kill everyone I can...

Damn you G.

Why don't you just call it the stress route.

I crawled or something similar towards the wooden back entrance and positioned myself so I could hear and enter with ease.

"It isn't that long, that wench will arrive here, oh but maybe she already abandoned you, Devils aren't good after all"

"SHUT THAT DAMN FILTHY HOLE YOU CALL A MOUTH OR I PROMISE THAT WHEN I FIND FREEDOM YOU'LL LOSE THAT FIRST!"

It seems like that Shinichi guy is purposely riling him up, the church reeks of corruption, sheesh.

Soon, the star of the show made a perfect action. Masaomi bit the hand of the guy who was holding him and then ran towards the exit, hoh? He prioritized escaping over punching that other guy? Impressive.

From the footsteps and sudden grunts, I concluded around 15 bonafide exorcists and from that I kicked the door open.

"Chrono Burst"