Chapter 28.1
No one liked being blamed for something that wasn't their fault. When a person refused to take responsibility for their own actions, then tried passing the buck to you? Infuriating, to put it mildly.
So when Simon snapped out of his dissociative episode, left with his Demonic arm fully on display, claws dripping with the blood of a savaged nobleman...
He couldn't help but feel that he was passing the buck to himself.
Time seemed to freeze as he soaked in the moment. Piers Helmund had been caught off-guard, his throat torn out in one swift motion, neither him nor his guards having expected Simon's abrupt burst of speed. Realization was just beginning to dawn on their faces. Within seconds, the entire tavern would be aware of what had transpired.
This was...perhaps...a tad rash of me.
Simon was no stranger to high-risk, high-reward. He certainly hadn't reached Level 25 in three weeks by taking things at a gentle pace. However, attacking royalty in broad daylight wasn't just risky – it was tantamount to suicide. There weren't many ways that he survived the next ten seconds.
He wished he could be angry. Wished he had someone else to blame for this turn of events. Unfortunately, while he could feel like an outside observer when hyper-compartmentalizing, the transmigrator knew better than to treat it as a literal split personality.
In the end, it was still him. He'd made this choice willingly.
And even if it had been some form of split personality, Simon would've agreed with its decision regardless. What he'd seen...what he'd felt...
What he'd been made to remember...
So be it. Simon assessed the situation, noted the repercussions that would arise – and accepted them. Whatever the consequences were, he would bear them wholeheartedly.
Because Piers couldn't be allowed to return to the 'playthings' he'd hidden in the Sanctuary Grove.
Even one more day of letting him continue would have been an unconscionable sin.
Time unfroze. Blood gushed like a fountain from Piers' ruined neck. A screech rang out – someone in the corner of the tavern noticing the Fell creature in their midst.
Simon didn't bother Shapeshifting his arm to human form. They'd seen everything; no putting this genie back in the bottle.
Escaping with his skin intact was a far more pressing concern. The soldiers hadn't attacked him yet, stunned into inaction by his Demonic limb and the sudden ambush on their liege lord, but their confusion would only last a moment. Simon willed his body to move–
Then gripped the nearest table for support as his legs almost failed him.
The aftershocks of hyper-compartmentalization slammed into him like a tidal wave. An influx of sensations flooding his mind, absence replaced by substance. There was tingling skin and pumping blood and emotions that he couldn't pretend weren't his own.
Alert: 52 damage incurred!
Simon saw the system notification before he felt the sword sticking out of his gut.
A guard had rushed forward to stab him. Just one guard, braver or more foolish than the rest, who hadn't hesitated when faced with the first Demon to grace the Severed Isles in decades.
The dam broke. Spurred onwards by their comrade's act of valor, Piers' nine remaining guardsmen fell upon Simon with a maelstrom of blades. Most of them were terrified even as they struck, but that didn't make the bite of their steel cut any less deep.
Alert: 34 damage incurred!
Alert: 21 damage incurred!
Alert: 47 damage incurred!
He couldn't move. His body hadn't recovered yet from his least-favorite coping mechanism, and these new injuries...weren't helping.
Alert: 42 damage incurred!
Alert: 33 damage incurred!
Alert: 59 damage incurred!
The soldiers had surrounded him. Nowhere to run, even as his legs finally regained their strength.
Alert: 26 damage incurred!
Alert: 37 damage incurred!
Alert: 20 damage incurred!
Simon blinked with surprise as the assault came to an abrupt end.
Piers' retinue had backed off. Half of them were moving to tend to the nobleman's wounds. The other half were staring straight at the Demonic transmigrator, their gazes burning with overflowing relief – and something resembling anticipation.
What? Why did they...
Oh.
Laughter filled the tavern.
It wasn't a laugh of mockery. Rather, it was the kind that belonged to someone who'd realized a joke before anyone else – who was inviting everyone to partake in a moment of joyful absurdity.
To the soldiers, it may as well have been the sounding of a funeral bell. Those who'd gone to assist Piers went shock-still, slowly turning back around, their faces stricken with dread. The nobleman himself was aghast, barely caring about the blood flowing from his throat. Even the local tavern-goers were starting to look like they'd been trapped in a waking nightmare.
Simon met them all with a wide grin. His laughter subsided to giggles; a fading hurrah of mirth as he committed the dozens of petrified expressions to memory.
They thought I was already dead.
How couldn't they? Simon had been turned into a human pincushion. Heart, lungs, liver, face, gut, spinal cord – the ten soldiers had struck true again and again, one blow from each of them. Then they'd backed away before he could retaliate with his dying breath, believing the monster to be slain.
A logical assumption. His body was a mutilated mess. It was easier to count the vital organs that hadn't been skewered. Some of the guards' swords were still lodged inside him. Half of his right cheek was missing, the teeth exposed to empty air. While he hadn't keeled over yet, any reasonable person would've measured his life expectancy in mere seconds at best.
And none of it mattered, because he was a transmigrator.
HP: 19 / 390
As long as that little number on his Character Sheet hadn't reached 0, he was alive.
Simon drew himself up. Keeping his balance felt wonky, considering the multiple blades sticking out of his torso, but he managed. Body mangled, blood dribbling from his lips, he opened his mouth to speak.
"Is that all?"
His voice came out raspy and harsh – a consequence of his vocal chords being nicked by a sword. The soldiers stepped back, many of them scrambling in their haste to get away.
Only one person in the room appeared unimpressed. Piers Helmund was glaring hatefully at Simon, as if the Demon's resilience was an affront to his senses. He stood up, his finely-tailored shirt utterly drenched in red, then angrily hurled his seat into a wall, shattering it to splinters.
Outwardly, the transmigrator showed no concern. Inwardly, he was...less than pleased. I ripped out most of his throat, and he doesn't even have the good graces to die? To fall unconscious? To look as if I'd done worse than spill wine on his favorite shirt?
Killing Piers would've at least been a palatable consolation prize. A feather for Simon to put in his cap before oblivion took him. Not the conclusion he'd wished for his Valtian voyage, not remotely, but something. If he didn't even manage that, then...
It can't have all been for nothing.
Simon rapidly made plans. Each one ended in his demise – a small price to pay when he was dead anyway, and a fair trade for thinning the Helmund gene pool. If Piers wasn't going to take him seriously, then the transmigrator still had one opening left to exploit. Let's see you ignore a full-on decapitation.
The nobleman yelled a furious proclamation. It came out more like a wet gurgle, but his intent was made clear nonetheless. A surge of luminous mana engulfed his body, the wound on his neck healing partially–
Yet not completely.
Piers Helmund, son of Duke Helmund, scion of the Severed Isles...froze. His eyes bulged with stupefaction as he touched his still-ravaged throat. The arrogance fled his body in an instant, replaced with rising panic and the impression that something had gone terribly wrong.
Another surge of mana swelled within him. This time, the wound didn't heal at all, staying exactly as it was: torn ribbons of flesh from where blood gushed freely.
That was when Simon felt it. A chance to thread the needle. An inflection point in history.
A moment of opportunity that, if he let slip by, would never come again.
Projecting an aura of amusement, the transmigrator grabbed hold of a sword – the one piercing his heart. He pulled it loose with a nauseating splorch, the sound echoing loudly within the tavern walls. Droplets of crimson scattered across the floor as he tossed it aside.
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At the same time, he took his claws and ran them down his face, royal blood smearing his forehead and left cheek. Red lines adorned him like war paint, a trophy taken from that which was believed to be untouchable.
He hunched forward. His spine arched, resembling a hungry, ravenous carnivore who'd spotted helpless prey. Silver claws tensed and twitched, brimming with energy, eager to greet tender, pliable flesh once more.
Yet his face was most striking of all. Twisted. Deranged. A poorly-constructed facade of humanity, slipping away to reveal the feral beast underneath.
With blackened Fell mana gathering around his right arm, and with his shorn-off cheek openly displaying his inner teeth, the Demon smiled and took a single step closer.
Piers ran.
With a ridiculous burst of speed, so swift that Simon could barely keep track of him, the Helmund scion leapt backwards and sprinted to the closest wall. He smashed through the tavern's reinforced wood as if it were paper, creating a hole large enough for him to escape–
Which he promptly did, jumping outside in a flash. The entire process happened so quickly that it was legitimately faster than if he'd simply used the front door.
Monster. Simon couldn't think of him as anything less – and not just because of what he'd witnessed during Sin Scry. Despite receiving an injury that would have felled any normal man, Piers Helmund hadn't seemed close to death.
If anything, before realizing that his healing magic wasn't working, he'd treated the grievous wound as a minor inconvenience. Even when his healing partially failed, he'd still had the strength to move like the wind and effortlessly break down a sturdy wall, exhibiting mana and power far beyond mortal limits.
There was no comparison between the two of them. Simon would have easily lost a duel at full HP. In his current state? The nobleman would've only needed to flick the transmigrator's forehead and be done with it.
But that wasn't what Piers had seen.
He'd seen a Demon shrug off numerous fatal stab wounds – a Demon whose claws inflicted injuries that would not heal. Simon had no idea why it wasn't healing, but neither did Piers, apparently. For a tyrant nobleman used to being on top of the world...
It must have been the most disturbing moment of his young life. When encountering a seemingly-immortal opponent, an insane creature that smiled with part of his face missing, what else could he do but flee?
Fake it 'till you make it had never felt so gratifying.
Five of the ten guardsmen belatedly trailed after their master, calling out with voices of fear and dismay. Watching them shuffle through the hole in the wall that Piers had punched open was honestly comical.
Although it would've been funnier if there weren't still five guards left behind. The annoyingly brave one was already readying himself for another charge. Simon didn't know where the Helmunds had located a decently skilled soldier with zero survival instincts, but evidently, it wasn't impossible to find good help these days.
Options. What are my options?
Landmine was tempting. Blow them to smithereens before they even understood that he was casting a spell. It had surprised the guards at the stronghold, so it would hopefully surprise these ones too.
Unfortunately, they were spread out right now. Any Landmine circle wide enough to encompass all the soldiers would hit Simon as well. And some innocent bystanders. And maybe collapse the tavern. Just a big mess, really.
Would probably be wiser to run. Fun as it was to bluff his way to victory, the fact remained that he was unlikely to defeat five similarly-Leveled enemies when he only had 19 HP and a dream. Any mistake, any mistake at all, and he was dead.
Simon had a strong feeling – more of a screaming instinct – that transmigrators couldn't survive with 0 HP. The gods' system wouldn't let him push through with a burst of willpower, or even afford him the chance for a heroic last stand.
He would merely collapse to the floor, his strings cut.
Should follow Piers' royal example, he determined. Get out while the getting is good.
Of course, fleeing wasn't the easiest thing to do with so many goddamn swords jabbed into his body. Simon was genuinely worried they would shift around if he moved too quickly, exacerbate his wounds, and deal enough damage to just straight-up kill him. Have to remove them carefully, and that takes time I don't have.
Could he escape like this? A hairsbreadth away from death, with it barely even safe for him to walk? Using expertly-timed Barriers to cover his retreat, somehow picking off the guardsmen one-by-one with Kill?
It was possible, but–
A crossbow bolt flew past his shoulder.
Katarina's red-tipped Firebolt connected with a guard's shield and detonated, sending the man flying backwards through the air. She let loose a second arrow right after, this time catching two guardsmen at once, the explosion knocking them aside like tin soldiers.
Ah, Simon remembered. That's right. I have allies.
Still not entirely used to that.
"Bastian," he said, raising his voice so that it could be heard above the guards' shouting. "Kill them."
The rebel let out a curse as he unsheathed his blade and obeyed his Contractor's command. He deflected an attack meant for Simon, then retaliated with a precision riposte that almost took a soldier's eye out.
The few soldiers who'd been preparing to charge immediately backed off. They were made of sterner stuff than the guards at the stronghold, but just from that one exchange, it was obvious none of them matched up to the Swordsman's expertise. His very presence was creating a zone of denial – a space they dare not enter lest they lose life or limb.
Simon breathed an internal sigh of relief. With Bastian on offense and Kat contributing fire support, the situation was significantly less dire than it had been several moments ago. He could protect himself with Barrier, take potshots with Kill, and Empower one of his Boon-Bearers if need be. Three versus five still wasn't ideal, especially with him on death's door, but their odds were good unless something–
He didn't even have time to complete the thought before a chair sailed through the air, colliding with a guard who'd just gotten back on their feet.
By this point, unexpected surprises weren't really...well, a surprise. Simon had grown accustomed to Valtia derailing his plans whenever it pleased. Was part of why he preferred to improvise.
Usually the surprises weren't beneficial, though – which is why he stared in amazement as Tomas dashed forward like a man possessed. The spindly old barfly grabbed another chair on his way, then set about battering the nearest soldier in a fit of rage.
"ANCIENT ONE TAKE YOU, WHORESONS!" Tomas' voice cracked as he bellowed across the tavern, his tone filling with a combustive cocktail of anger and grief. "YOU AND HELMUND BOTH! YOU...YOU ALL..."
His words began to fail him, yet his strength did not. The soldier, a warrior handpicked by Piers himself, was given no time to gather their wits as a hurricane of civilian wrath fell upon them.
Tears were shimmering in Tomas' eyes as he risked his life for this fleeting chance at revenge. More than the weight of his attacks, it was the fervor behind them that gave the soldier pause. There was a story behind each reckless blow – stories that spoke of unbearable loss, deeply repressed until Piers had arrived to dredge long-buried feelings to the surface.
And Tomas wasn't the only one.
The rest of the Caelryn city natives were staring, transfixed. Not at Simon and his Demonic arm – but at the soldiers. Soldiers who, for possibly the first time in their lives, seemed so enticingly vulnerable.
One of the bar-goers stood up. Then another. Men, women, their faces contorting into hatred, anguish, loathing. Some drew bladed weapons; others simply grabbed whatever was available, seizing dinner knives or breaking glass bottles into jagged-edged implements of murder.
Decades of resentment boiled over as half the tavern swarmed Piers' retinue.