CH- 01: Life after death.
Ric.
I always had one wisp of light, which shone with such dim light that one will miss it inside the abyss I hold, yet that damn minister struck right at it as if he noticed where the wisp was.
Destruction and healing are fundamentally novel concepts. I hated the light, but still needed to keep it alive to stay alive.
People say the undead have no light.
Those people are dumb, do not trust them. I tell them not to trust themselves.
There is no way a person doesn't perceive that they are stupid. It's fundamentally impossible to be that stupid.
To survive, one has to kinder their light throughout their life.
The higher forms of life, the way those imbeciles referred to themselves before I stepped up, had a dazzling light or the smallest spark within them.
For the foremost, one has to hack away at a never-ending pillar of light, and for the latter, one can never find the light. Both give the illusions of immortality, but I snuffed out enough lights to differentiate a myth from reality.
Yet I find myself in a new world, a stranger's body, and all of my memories intact.
Was I still alive or was this life after death?
Ric goes through a quick checklist to confirm his suspicions.
'A pathetic body, lost all touch with darkness, a binding light which won't stop following me, a heart which wants revenge! ha… at least one thing is from my old body, and being carried around by an old lady who, for the gods I killed, won't stop crying!'
'I am in hell.' Ric confirms.
"The boy lives!" Mary screamed within herself, containing her excitement. "This—He is a miracle gifted to us by the gods. I will not let him die." She promises the heavens.
Warm tears gushed down Mary's eyes, dripping over Ric, healing, comforting him with every drop, and Ric hated every second.
'Put me down, you old hag!' He wanted to scream, yet his burnt throat only raged in agony.
Ric was used to pain.
He trained for a decade to get used to pain, but all he brought along for the trip was that pathetic light that a dumb minister could not extinguish.
'I mean, how hard is it to kill someone? That is all we demons are supposed to be good at, and he sucked at that, too.'
Ric did not bother with trivial stuff, like how or why he survived. Being a demon has its perks. They never sweat the small stuff.
Demons always live by the saying, 'It is what it is,' and the Demon King stood at the peak of said attitude.
This new turn of events opened up the possibility of immortality, though.
If a soul never dies and keeps reincarnating inside another shell, isn't that called immortality?
Did he somehow disprove a traditional story, turning it back into a myth?
Reincarnation without memories is mortality.
While the concept of a true soul never dying is a myth, reincarnating with your previous life's memories should be considered immortality because a person's choices make memories, which in turn makes a path from which a person's character is born and bonded with a soul.
If said character dies and reincarnates in another soul with the exact bond, the character gets to live past their due date. Continue shifting the due date and the person becomes immortal.
A myth he not only proved but is a living, breathing example of.
Ric broke through another threshold and claimed immortality.
This logic will never sit right with a scholar and thankfully Ric wasn't one, but he always comes up with crazy explanations and sticks to them until he is bored with the idea. Later he makes up a new reason and believes that to be true.
This was simply him!
With one less thing to worry about, Ric ignored his pain and basked under the glory of immortality.
It hurt like hell and felt glorious all at the same time.
'Now how do I get back and teach my minister the proper way to kill?' Ric wondered to himself, with a smile for the demon king.
Mary witnessed hell being born in the wrong household, the wrong generation, and always caught on the wrong side of the argument.
She converted many smiles to frowns, proving her point. A few acknowledged their defeat with grace, while others blamed her further. Only once they suffered the same fate did they reflect on others' condition and realize their pain.
'Did they truly change?' Mary always wondered.
Most stuck to their old ways, blaming the less fortunate even more, but never in her lifespan did she see a smile that enjoyed the pain and coldly calculated its next move.
Never did she question if a life is worth saving.
— — —<>|*|<>— — —
Mary never understood why everyone feared death. A simple slip of an ankle in the wrong place or a kitchen knife in the right one can end one's life.
Living is an aspect one should fear.
The nourishment it takes to grow, feed, and care for life far surpasses the icy embrace of death.
Death is just a coward's way out.
A child can swing a knife and end a life, but how long does it take to heal a wound, mend a broken heart, or find one's lost hope?
Death is simple and fast. There is nothing to fear about it.
Life is slow and agonizing, yet everyone takes it for granted.
Mary did live in a strange time, and wrapping the kid in evergreen leaves, she wondered for the very first time. 'What did I wish for?'
Smiling at the sky and basking in his newfound powers, Ric's smile grew larger and larger.
'I am immortal—Ah!' Ric lets out a scream while his body jerks due to reflex, which hurts him even more.
His toothy smile clenched harder and Ric dropped his eyes to the side as his body still faced up, unable to move.
With a frightened look on her face, the caregiver pulled the bandage knot a bit too tight.
'Eh…!' Ric roared with his teeth. 'Too tight you old hag!' He grunts and hurts himself even more with every minuscule movement.
Mary snaps back to reality and loosens her grip. "I am sorry—." She barely gets those words out as she coughs out blood.
Ric glares at Mary, seeing through her body like an X-ray machine.
The world turns grey and every ruptured tissue inside Mary glows red.
Blood gushes out of every organ with tiny cuts, ripping new wounds and filling her stomach and lungs at a rapid rate. New wounds kept opening up while the old ones got worse.
'Begone!' Ric orders without opening his mouth.
A flood of vital energy washes over Mary, forcing the wounds to close, and driving away the white mist surrounding her.
'Fucking Fae mist.' Frowned Ric.
These tiny buggers mixed invisible blades in their mist and it's impossible to cure if you don't know the cause. Inhaled in light quantities won't kill you. One's light is powerful enough to break the blades and convert the energy. If a Fea isn't around controlling the mist.
Ric's eyes darted around as he almost sighed, unable to spot any Fea nearby.
— — —<>|*|<>— — —
Mary accepted the suffering and cost of the unholy thought that dared enter her head.
'How can you even…' She wasn't able to find the words to scold herself properly.
A kid lay on the brink of death and instead of helping, she doubted her unshakable will to help.
Life threw various hardships at her and she never doubted her resolve once, yet even after years of dedication, a single smile shattered her will to pieces.
She deserved nothing less than death.
As she accepted fate, destiny hugged her closer.
A warm embrace healed her wounds like magic. This magic, however, was familiar, like a distant yet close sensation that entered her body a few months prior, although at a much stronger level.
Her eyes shot open as she peers at the child casting a high-tier magic spell nonchalantly.
'Sir Reynold?' Her words never escaped her mouth, yet her heart grieved knowing of the truth.
She recognized a similar aura when one of her kids forced her to get treated by the new genius healer born in the castle. At first, Mary had her doubts, but after the aura washed through her like it did now, she couldn't help but compare a child to a god.
— — —<>|*|<>— — —
Ric hated every second of it... For the darkness's sake, he could not drive away the light from him. It clung to him tighter than ever, as if…
"Oh!" Ric lets out a defeated sigh and immediately regrets the action.
His throat pulled and stretched with a simple sigh, causing him to move and hurt himself more. This still was less pain compared to the realization that dawned on him.
He was a fucking white mage! The holy-gravy mother-nitty stick up their Hines priests.
A degenerate healer.
This was fucking hell!
═─┈─{═E═}─┈─═