Dark Resurrection: Shadows of Nekrom [Dark Fantasy | Isekai | Soft-LitRPG | Slowburn | Time Loop]

That confession came with the inability to continue speaking. Her voice too heavy a burden, and her sorrow a devil within her that drove her to sobs. Lamenting in a vain attempt to atone for her soul of light; trying to purge all that torment that had been proliferating for almost thirty years of her life. And now, amplified to infinity by the seductive voice of Endrel's partner.

"Love…"

Tristessa repeated that word in her mind. She hadn't imagined that Astoria's suffering reached such depths, beyond being constantly insulted and slandered by everyone around her. And it broke her heart to know that she had to raise all those barriers of antipathy and coldness to avoid being hurt, condemning herself to never receive what she wanted.

Was that her deepest desire, more powerful and desperate than restoring the honor of her family name? It was love?

Affectionate love? Erotic love? Familiar love? Friendly love? Generous love?

Perhaps all those kinds of love? Or one Tristessa didn't know or couldn't imagine?

She couldn't know it yet, but there was something about that word that was very striking. Something that connected everything.

It wasn't a minor detail that Margules had chosen Astoria to take her out of the battle. Why not Severus, who was now fighting her weakened daughter? Why not Auron, or Tristessa herself?

"Is it because Margules can sense that need for love? She makes anyone who sees her feel a false and poisonous love," she reasoned, from her own experience and remembering the reactions of Daiana Mercer-Archeos and the other witches. Back when they all witnessed Margules alongside her eternal lover when they invaded the Evil Dream. "Perhaps she was the easiest victim to subdue? The easiest to…?"

To make her feel pain.

Love and pain, two opposing concepts, yet indispensable to each other. For Margules was the [Demoness in Pain], one of her most controversial names. Loving her beloved and divine Endrel but agonizing and suffering at the same time; the price to pay for sharing eternity with her, beyond Life and Death, dwelling in the bosom of the everlasting Darkness that was coming for everything.

That was what Tristessa recognized, gaping at her epiphany. Seeing that Astoria was the perfect victim to attract the influence of that transcendental entity, her hunger for love with the pain of an empty, lonely life… The ultimate receptacle for a curse that Auron and she must now try to break.

"You will not succeed…" Suddenly, the Dullahan's voice sounded next to the girl's ear. So clear and cruel, bringing despair and promising misfortune. "You cannot, my Nemesis."

"That is not true."

"Being one, you and I, I know that you are incapable of rising above the love of my holy mother. She loves everyone equally, but you cannot love your Queen… She is a goddess in your head. But in your soul, she's but a princess of rats. A garroter, vicious, and primitive. You cannot love someone of her likes."

"Enough!"

"You abhor someone of her likes."

"ENOUGH!"

"Please, hurry!"

Severus's plea from a distance overrode the Dullahan's mental manipulation. Freed from it, this time Tristessa couldn't help but look back, frightened by the elf's voice laden with fatigue.

He was sweating and gritting his teeth to resist the torture of insistence; the muscles in his arm burned at the touch of the cursed blood, blocking a downward slash the Dullahan brought down on him.

"I-I can't take it anymore…!"

"Sev!" The gray-eyed girl's fear had become divided, and with it her priorities. She wanted to go help the blood elf, no matter how useless she might be in this situation. She wanted to help Astoria and free her from Margules' poisonous influence. "N-no… what do I do?"

She couldn't fight the Dullahan. She didn't know how to break that curse, and even if she did, her Nemesis was certain she wouldn't succeed. Because the Astoria who nearly killed her still existed in her memories, as did all the disasters she had suffered firsthand and seen fall upon those she cared about, becoming unbearable burdens on her soul.

"I can't... Damn it, I really am scum." The title she had given herself, manifested in the [Black Mirror]. A reflection of the truth, impossible to circumvent. Crushing her confidence, breaking her spirit. "Useless to my allies. A weakling to my Nemesis. Am I destined to fail?"

She was lost, unable to make a decision that could resolve this conflict and allow her to take a new step toward the ending she desired.

An ending in which she could save everyone in this cursed loop of pain and suffering. An ending in which she couldn't hear the agonizing screams of those she cared about. An ending in which she didn't hear that witch's evil laughter, mocking her for another failure… Having forgotten that, to achieve that ending, she couldn't do it alone. It was impossible, like stopping the rain with her hands, or halting the passage of time.

Something a certain gunslinger was going to help her remember.

"Astoria... Do you know there's a bet going on among your fellow soldiers?" Auron asked her, a heavy tone in his words. As if he were talking about a topic he didn't want to talk about. Or that he was about to and had no choice. "I heard them talking once, while they were patrolling around the refugee tents... They're betting on which month you'll become a [Virgin of Sorrow]."

"What are you saying, Auron?" Tristessa asked, her despair overpowering her to the point that she squeezed his left shoulder tightly, demanding an explanation. "What's that?"

But Auron didn't answer. There was no time for explanations, he knew that well, as he couldn't stop listening to Severus's titanic efforts to keep the Dullahan at bay.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"How many times have we crossed paths over there, near the black doors? How many times have you told me I was a slimy bum, and I told you you were a miserable drunk?" he asked the knightess, forcing her to let him go despite her efforts to hold him back. So afraid of loneliness that, just by losing the gunslinger's touch, Astoria couldn't hold back her tears. "Always with that bitchy grimace, as if you didn't want anyone to speak to you... Seriously, lady. From others' perspective, it seems you're bringing all the hatred they feel for your family on yourself. That's why some people hope you'll become a Virgin of Sorrow and die alone."

"...just like you," she accused him. Without hatred, resentment, or accusation. Only pain, the quintessential emotion that subdued all others and made it the center of her universe. Pain, her new god. "You hate me too."

"No. I told you I don't hate you. You're a nasty, violent woman, and you become even nastier and more violent when you're drunk. But I don't hate you. I know much more about you than you know. After all, I'm very interested in eccentric people like you, Tristessa, or Severus."

Auron took off his hat and placed it beside him, its brim sinking slightly into the layer of ash and burned soil. With his hands, the backs stained with Astoria's blood, he closed the distance with her and placed them on her cheeks. To wipe away those traces of liquid suffering and gently forcing her to look into his eyes. To make her see his honesty and sympathy, something she wasn't used to.

"I speak the truth, lady. I swear by Nahalith, Angel and Lady of the Hunt. I've seen you help so many people without asking for anything in return, even ignoring their slander once you turn your back to go away. That is admirable, and I can't hate people I admire," he told her. Tristessa saw his cheekbones rise a little behind the handkerchief, a sign that he was smiling. If only he didn't use it to hide his face… "I can't fathom your pain at carrying such an important surname, and that it's what has left you so alone… But perhaps we can share the heartache. I can tell you that I had a love once and lost her."

"…!" The dark-haired young woman turned her attention to the left pocket of the gunslinger's jacket. Imagining his pocket watch was in there, with the photo of that woman named Melinda inside. "Auron…"

"No. No, no, no. You hate me. Everyone hates me, they want me gone, along with what's left of my family. They always tell me that, every day." Astoria had listened to his words, had wept and suffered more for that. But the internal torture that devastated her was vile and cruel. She had nothing to fight and give way to the warmth of empathy and humanity that Auron offered her. "They want Endrel's Consort to mark me as her equal. To be a Virgin of Sorrow and die alone… That's what they want! They want me to die!"

"They, maybe. But not us."

"Yes, you want me to die, Auron."

"No."

"Yes, you do. You want me to rot and lie stinking in the earth."

"Don't be stupid. I need you alive. Tristessa needs you alive, Severus needs you alive! He's there, fighting in your place!" The gunslinger insisted that Astoria see the purity of his words. It was frustrating to see the message go unspoken, the envoy getting lost in the path of bloody tears that kept flowing from those dark eyes, spilling onto Auron's fingers. "Without you, we can't win this battle, lady!"

The knightess shook her head. Looking beyond Auron's worried eyes, toward the cusp of pain. Where the mechanical demoness waited, surrounded by other love-starved souls, awaiting her confession:

"I want love, and I'll never have it. If I don't have love… I-I want to die."

Tristessa covered her mouth with both hands, on the verge of tears as well.

"Astoria…!"

She couldn't bear to hear that, knowing Death so intimately. That second of eternal silence when the heart stopped beating, and only the same darkness that had now devoured Burnt Fort Hexel remained. No one could wish for that desolation once it finally arrived and left its mark, shattering the soul to pieces.

"I want to die… Please, let someone kill me," she begged, a longing so desperate it might even surpass redeeming her family name. Her greatsword, trembling with the frantic pulse that she sought to raise her hand and use it to slit her own throat. "Kill me, Auron."

Or even reach that other hand toward the revolver resting in the holster on the left side of the gunslinger's waistband. He realized what she was trying to do but didn't intervene. He never stopped paying attention to those empty vortices that her beautiful ruby-red eyes had become.

"You are just like her, lady… The love that I lost. She… She was someone with dreams almost impossible to come true. More miserable than me, without a single soul-jewel in her pockets. Unlucky in love and so lonely that she hung out in the same bar for two years, and no one knew her name."

"…"

"There's no time to delve into the matter now. In short, she ended up becoming a Virgin of Sorrow and waited for the end, locked in her hotel room. Accepting that no one would come find her and save her from falling into the Abyss…"

The tornado of Discord threatened to bring down the Fort, its winds turning hurricane-force and eroding the walls like some kind of countdown. Astoria's fingers brushed the cold, solid iron surface of the revolver, Severus roared angrily in his last conscious minutes, unable to subdue a weakened Dullahan.

And Tristessa listened with her heart in her mouth, placing all her faith and hope in that black-haired man who, despite everything, continued to smile within the discretion of his handkerchief.

"Fortunately, she was wrong. Very wrong. I made her see that no one is doomed to be alone. No one. Not even you, lady, the great-great-granddaughter of the [Valkyrie of Darkness]."

"…"

Astoria's cries subsided, and Auron continued wiping away the rivers of blood that ran down her beautiful face. Refusing to let them reach the end of the path of pale skin and fall, while his words sought to move her frozen heart.

"Listen to me. I promise you, here and now, that I will never leave you alone. Alright? Even if you're a disgusting drunk and we get along like vargs and aracrosses, we'll be together as we try to fulfill our dreams."

"I don't believe you. Something as good as that can't be true," she whispered in return. "I don't deserve it."

"Damn you, Astoria…" Auron glanced sideways at Tristessa, debating what course of action to take, and beyond, where Severus was fighting to the bitter end. He sighed before asking the grey-eyed girl for just one thing. "Please take a few steps back, lady."

"Y-yes…" No stage in the mind palace had prepared her for that kind of situation. She had already completely surrendered to whatever the gunslinger said, unable to object in the face of uncertainty. "Do what you got to do, please!"

She obeyed and then saw with utter surprise Auron removing his bloody left hand from the platinum-haired woman's cheek to bring it to his face and lower his handkerchief.

"A-Auron!"

From that angle, she couldn't see the rest of his face. And under other circumstances, her curiosity would have tempted her to discover the secret that had captured her attention for several loops.

Astoria, on the other hand, seemed to see the darkness Margules had plunged her into and could only catch a glimpse of the person in front of her. Her ears were hypnotized, both by his words of hope and the whisper of oblivion she heard inside her head; reverberating, telling her that Death's embrace was the only salvation from such a void existence. Her hands paralyzed, in contact with two weapons that could grant her that dark desire that blossomed in her broken heart like a black rose with the deadliest of thorns.

"Auron… Auron, please…," she begged, not knowing what, or why. Death? Or love? "Please…"

All her senses sharpened to feel the gunslinger's presence. To feel the touch of his warm, blistered fingers after years of following the path of the gun. That mixture of the smell of gunpowder and sweat emanating from him.

And then his hidden lips against hers, making Astoria close her eyes and let the last of the dark, bloody tears to trickle out.