(7) Emotions

*Whoosh*

A golden spear pierces the air at the speed of sound creating a sonic boom along the way. The spear hit its target without much difficulty. The poor skeletons crumble to dust before they could even register what happened.

"Now that I see its power up close. That ability of yours is way overpowered than I thought. Does it even require mana at all? You have been firing weapons none stop." said the amazed Irish hero.

"Of course it does. I just have a huge supply of mana ever since I become a demi-servant but it's not infinite. At most, I could barrage the enemy for a minute before I run out of mana."

"Half a minute? That's more than enough..."

They continue to eliminate the enemies standing in their path until they arrive on a hill somewhere in the city. Even though the hill was somewhat far from the center, the state of its surroundings is no different from the city itself. Burning buildings, Trees, and rubbles all around.

The Chaldeans continue their journey to the top of the hill where they discovered a Church. What intrigues them, however, is the state of the church. Instead of being broken, the church was in good shape. There is barely any damage to it.

With Cu from the front, Olga slightly behind and the two juniors behind her, and lastly Alexander and Tamamo from the back approach the church with caution.

"Hey, Caster, did you encounter this church before?" Olga asked. She expected a reply from him but she was ignored. Cu stared at the church with absent-mindedness which is rare coming from the hero.

"Hey, are you listening?!" This time, Olga asked while shouting. But that barely did anything. Alexander approaches him from behind and gently taps his shoulder. This, fortunately, triggers something within Cu snapping him out of his thoughts. A frown appears on his face as he gives his thanks to Alexander.

"Thanks, I was caught in illusion."

Saying that they were shocked will be an understatement. For a strong servant like Cu, a caster, to be trap under an illusion is quite hard to believe. To do this, the spell must be extremely powerful.

Cu looked at every one of them but they seem to appear alright, "It seems I was the only one who got caught in the illusion, huh." He grimly said while putting his left hand on his waist.

"Are they targeting you specifically?" Alexander asked.

"I don't think so,"

"Why is that?"

"The whole church is under the territory of a magus. The whole place is surrounded by a special barrier that could only be detected if you're close enough or have a strong detection skill."

Mash grips her shield tightly, the possibility of an enemy appearing made her anxious, the only thing she could do is look at her senpai in case they were ambushed. As the one who specializes in defense, her primary goal is to protect her senpai behind her, she then asked. "Who could have put such a strong barrier? Could it be a servant?"

"I doubt that, I fought the other servants and I guarantee that they have no capabilities to build a territory that is exclusive to the caster class. Although the possibility of other servants exists... let's just hope it's not a servant."

"Anyway, Romani, could you detect if there are any enemies inside?"

("I already tried, Director. But no luck here, the barrier prevents me from detecting any life forms inside. If you could safely past the barrier, maybe then I could help")

"Tch" hearing his response, Olga clicked her tongue in annoyance.

("...")

"Caster, could you destroy the barrier with your current capabilities?" Alexander asked Tamamo who is staring at the barrier with a frown.

She looked at her master and shake her head, "I'm sorry master my current state couldn't do anything to this barrier. If only I was on my full strength then this barrier will not be a hindrance to you." She said with a hint of sadness in her voice.

"There is no need to be apologetic about it. There is nothing that could be done if you couldn't handle it."

"But master, If I-"

"No," Alexander quickly interrupts her, knowing what will happen to her if she did what she was about to suggest, he started to feel angry, "If you use more than your body could handle, It may cause a backlash that may potentially endanger your life. Don't ever suggest something that may hurt you, Do you understand?" Alexander coldly said.

What he doesn't realize is that he is releasing a dangerous aura that suffocates the people around him.

"Y-yes, master, I'm sorry." she lowered her head like a little girl being scolded by her parents.

Looking at her pitiful appearance, all the anger building up suddenly disappear. He takes a deep breath and smiled.

He gently pats her head, her body who stiffens slowly relaxes. "As long as you understand,"

Alexander then realizes the Chaldeans suddenly gone quiet. He glanced at them to only found out that every one of them has different reactions. Cu has a smug on his face that made Alexander want to punch him, Olga with a frown on her face, and the two juniors have a wry smile.

Alexander frowns. "What is it?" he annoyingly asked, mostly directed at Cu.

"Oh, it is nothing."

"Then get rid of that smugly face of yours before I send a sword and spears up your ass."

"Hahaha, speaking of that ability of yours, I need your help to destroy this Barrier."

"Oh, you already know how? what do I need to do then?"

"I already spot a weak spot in this barrier, I will weaken it more with my rune spells while you do the last shot. Just aim where I will put the runes with the strongest shot you could manage. That should be enough to create a big hole for us to get through."

"Got it. Alright everyone stands back." The Chaldeans comply and move away from the church.

And with that, Cu gently taps his staff and the ground and closed his eyes. He started to murmured language that Alexander never heard before. A few seconds after, he swings his staff and pointed in the direction of the barrier. Runes with different patterns appear that seem like they were floating.

"Do it now!" Cu shouted as he jumps away to safety.

With Cu's reminder, Alexander summons a golden portal behind him over his head. This portal seems to appear bigger than the usual portal he summons. What slowly appears is a golden ax that has gold decorated all its body. He fired the ax at Mach 2 which cost a large quantity of mana at his arsenal. Since the distance between Alexander and the barrier is around 50 meters, the ax hits the barrier where the runes lay within a fraction of a second. It cost a big explosion that even blew Alexander away a few meters.

"What the hell, men! are you trying to blast me too?!"

"Huh? how is this my fault? You said a minute ago that I should fire with my best shot, and that's exactly what I did."

"..."

Cu was speechless, he did say that a minute ago so he can't exactly complain much.

Alexander seems to notices that his mana seems to be drained by quite a lot.

'Anna, how many shots I could fire with that kind of power?'

("At the current moment, you could at least fire 5-6 shots.)

'That low?'

("You burn way too much mana that it requires. Most of the mana escape through your body before you could even put it to good use.)

'If I could, hypothetically, used and control mana to perfection, how many shots do think I could fire?'

("A few hundred")

'...'

This time, it was time for Alexander to be speechless. He was quite proud of the explosion of his attack. But Anna's word brought him back to reality. He may have caused a huge explosion, but the price he pays is a huge loss of mana that could be avoided. It's like paying a candy 40x the original cost.

'Wait, so I'm doing this wrong from the very beginning?'

("Yes")

'Sigh, then why didn't you say anything?!' Alexander raised his voice inside his head making Anna caught off guard.

("I... I'm sorry") she said with her usual monotone. But If anyone listens to hear words closely, they will be able to sense sadness. Unfortunately, Alexander was too emotional for him to notice that.

fortunately, though, Alexander may have realized that he access the situation incorrectly, '...No, it's my fault, it's not yours, Anna. I'm sorry for raising my voice. It looks like I'm being too emotional today. Anna, remind me if my emotions are getting the best of me, ok? so that in the future, situations like this could be prevented.' he said gently as he could.

("I... I forgive you, Alex, this may be good news since emotions are vital to a human. I read your memories that Allan provide me. I saw your past sufferings, Alex, so to hide your pain, you abandoned your emotions. But remember one of the things that separate an animal and a human is that humans are very expressive when it comes to emotions. Alex, although the path ahead of you will be a tough one, please never abandoned your emotions. I... I don't want you to turn to a mindless robot whose only purpose of existing is to accomplish the task it was given to.]

"..."

Alexander froze. Anna's words hit him like a truck. Those are words he never thought he would hear from anyone. Ever since he was being bullied and abuse by the people around him. He started to close up, he started to abandon his emotions as a defense mechanism. He learns how to kill and silence his emotions.

From a child to an adult, the only emotions that he remembers were sadness, loneliness, and anger. Negative emotions only made his life more and more miserable, they were no positive emotions to balance his psychology.

His entire life, he believes that what he deserves is pain and more pain. Could you blame him? his only families reinforce that idea to him, his father treats him like garbage, the people around him treat him like garbage. Call him edgy as you will, but he has the right to be.

He hides his pain from smiling while killing his victims in the past, in his victims' point of view, they may see him enjoy torturing them but inside he feels empty.

He felt no sympathy for those he brutally murders because, at the end of the day, society treats them as corrupt and evil. He tried to justify his action, even though that small part of him keeps telling him to stop. But he ignores it.

He keeps murdering left and right until that part of him that made human, slowly but surely... it disappears.

Now being reborn, maybe he could forget his past and start a new life. And he was right, he finally was able to experience positive emotions like excitement and happiness. He finally understands the feeling of sleeping peacefully without someone beating him or someone aiming for his life. He was finally able to experience what it feels like to be accepted, even though he has to work hard for it. But it was worth it in the end for him.

But it seems that his past is starting to hunt him, every time he kills an undead(Skeletons,), he started to remember his past deeds. It started to remind him of every human he killed. He started to feel anger, the number one emotion associated with his past.

That's why he was planning on abandoning his emotions so that only those positive emotions will remain like what happen in his past life. Bizarre as that may be, but no one taught him basic knowledge and common sense.

He only looks natural outside because he learns to act like a normal human being but he never understood what and why people do things they do. He was nothing more than a broken child in a body of an adult.

When he heard that Anna knew what he planning to do, he was shocked. He was so shocked that he just stands there like his soul left his body. His companion's noticed this and asked him what's wrong but he ignores them all.

'How... did you know that?'

("With the memories and the time we spend together Alex, I knew you were going to do that. We may have been only together for a few weeks Alex, but I know you more than anyone else in this world, even better than yourself.")

"..."

"Master!!"

Snapping out from his deep thoughts, he looked at the source of the disturbance only to find a familiar yet unfamiliar face of Tamamo getting concerned. He then realized he was standing there for a couple of minutes. Everyone looking at him with worried eyes.

"I... I'm sorry about that, I just remember something that's all, don't worry about it me too much. Alright, let's go." Without even letting Tamamo asked more questions, he fled the scene and quietly enter the church with his usual indifferent face. His companions were confused by they quickly follow up and they all enter the church.