1 Betrayal

After far too many lifetimes locked in endless toil, those tears paid by me and my friends were, at last, granted their due recompense. Acting together, my allies and I had finally ended that thousand-year war; a thing which had laid claim to countless innocent lives.

"The demon king is dead?" or so came frail words, a mixture of hesitance and adoration that my actions had provoked, with this now being sent to ring out across the entire kingdom.

"The demon king's era is over, at last!" I announced back to all, even raising the dethroned tyrant's decapitated head as a show for both the crowd and the heavens.

Jubilation bled into thundering cheers, with this driving our gathering's fervor ever louder. Soon too, my party members joined in on this celebration. Just like all others within this kingdom, they had found themselves to be overcome by joy.

But, I was the happiest of these revelers... I was now Dorian Silver; and at last, I had a future here.

It had been mere moments before the final battle when the most beautiful elf in this whole world came to me. My summoner, Miranda Silver, had agreed to my request: I was to become her husband, and she would be my wife. And, from that moment on, nothing else would dare to matter.

This would be my life from now on, my final days spent among my wife and my friends. Or... So I thought.

Although, not long into my thoughts, our celebration was next over.

I and Miranda had traveled to her village, though once there, we found it burned to the ground. Shock does little to describe how I felt; these culprits were those like-same men which I had just previously been fighting right alongside. These had been my compatriots, knights against the rogue demon's kind.

Such sights had brought my motions to a halt, while Miranda fell to her knees in horror. These were actions through which not even those elven women or children could have been spared. Miranda's cries broke out, my wife's shuddering figure wracked from spasms of her own fitful sobbing, our eyes having now been forced upon yet more miseries from carnage and death.

"This...must be some sort of mistake," I pleaded in a trembling tone, only frailly managing to convince myself of this lie. "It must be some sort of accident... Or... Or an illusion."

I lurched my head towards Miranda, and there she remained silent among panting and tears.

In the next moment, those knights noticed us; their cruel figures were made to suddenly flinch. They had not expected Miranda and me to return to her village so soon.

"Stop! What is the meaning of this!?" I called from behind my glare, encouraging my voice to echo above the forest and its squawking birds. "What have you done with the villagers?!"

My hopes had still clung to their own foolish ideas, them desperately seeking to assure my mind that this was just some form of a terrible misunderstanding. Perhaps the village was attacked, and these were the knights who had safely evacuated them?

Yet still, these men pointed their weapons first to my chest, then they gestured to my wife beside me.

"Dorian and Miranda Silvers," one knight yelled, his fellows preparing to fire their arrows. "You are under arrest!"

"Wait! Where are the villagers?" I could only repeat this same question, as I was still striving to hold firm in my tone.

I had begun to glare each knight straight into their eyes, judging every fiend by a set of mockingly cold expressions. And, what well caught my notice, each former ally flanking their master had begun to shirk behind his commander in fear.

"You will pay for your crimes!" the man rudely erupted. "It was you who ended the lives of everyone here... You've brought death to all these elves!"

This brought one knight forwards, where the flames could dance as sharp specters across his face. He clenched his fists tight as if he were ready to strike me at any second. This entire approach had seemed built to command 'Do not fight against this'.

"I see what's going on..." I sighed deeply and shook my head. "You plan to pin this crime on me."

The moment these words left my mouth, the knights shot their arrows at me. I extended my hand and created a barrier around myself and Miranda, and so the arrowheads bounced off harmlessly.

Upon realizing that I did not activate a skill to use magic, the knights gasped, then they took a few steps backward. Their expressions had changed from those of hostility, becoming shocked in an instant. However, this was only natural, for in this world, I was the only one who could use magic without the help of a class system.

"Impossible," one of the knights muttered while his mouth hung wide. Cold sweat was running down his forehead.

"Nothing is impossible my fellow knight!" someone said behind me, with this prompting me to freeze the moment I looked back. It was Jarec Zake, the berserker of my former party; a tall and muscular man with messy black hair that reached his shoulders. He was now walking towards us.

"J-Jarec?" I exclaimed. "Do you know what's going on?"

I had lowered the barrier around Miranda and myself so that we could speak freely, although this quickly proved to be a mistake. At the very instant my barrier had gone down, Jarec launched himself towards us to strike out with his battle-axe. I quickly parried Jarec's attack, counter-attacking with my kick to his chest, and this sent the berserker flying back by several meters. I next stood in front of Miranda, moving to protect her as she remained frozen to the ground in fear.

"Stay calm!" I ordered. "You're safe now!"

Yet my words did not affect Miranda at all. She just stared at me blankly, tears streaming down her cheeks.

"Jarec," I heard a voice from behind me. "You know you can't win this alone."

And at that, I quickly turned around to parry a thrust from an assassin.

Our blades clashed together, with me face-to-face against another old friend. This was the assassin from my former party. He was a feminine-looking man, wearing dark glasses while wielding a thin sword, which he quickly brought forward once he approached us. Turning his head slightly with a big smirk across it, I recognized Martin from the moment he'd called out.

"It's over, Dorian!" came yet another familiar voice's order, this one belonging to Saintess Mary. "Stop fighting! You've done enough for today!"

I looked around, now realizing that all seven of my party members had been there.

"You all planned this, didn't you?" I asked, but my attention was still kept on Miranda. She had suddenly grabbed my leg, causing me to look down and ask if something was wrong. It was then that I saw an arrow stuck inside her chest.

"I did it... I have slain the summoner!" some foolish knight celebrated, raising his bow proudly into the air.

"M-Miranda?!" I screamed in terror, falling to my knees beside my beloved. My hands began shaking, though I realized that there was nothing I could do about this. I knew healing magic, but the summoned are never to perform magic against their summoners.

Miranda coughed up a few flecks of blood before collapsing into my arms, yet I could only shake my head in violent denial.

"No... No! This can't be happening..." I begged. However, at that moment I noticed that my own body was being forced to slowly fade away. And so, I was made to understand. My summoner had been slain.

"W-Why?!" I screamed while raising my weapon toward the sky. "Why did you do this?! Why?!"

I then raised enough mana for one final attack. It would be my last action before disappearing from this world.

"Are you fucking serious?" Martin asked me while staring with his eyes cast wide. "You're a monster! And she is your summoner!"

"Indeed," Jarec said with a bitter smile. "As your summoner, she had to die. You have both served your purpose."

Jarec was holding his bleeding axe in both hands.

"Think about it, Dorian," he continued. "What if she wanted to destroy or conquer the world?"

"Then why the entire village?" I asked while trembling in rage.

"Because..." Huntress Sylvia nodded while moving to her companions' sides. "Another elf could summon someone like you."

The trio looked at me, then they laughed mockingly.

Everyone was chattering, as everyone assumed that my last attempt at the attack was simply a poor bluff. However, sage Darson quickly realized that I was supposed to disappear the moment Miranda died.

Darson fixed his glasses upon noticing that I had been using his life force, converting it into ever more mana.

"Guys?" Sage Darson exclaimed, gesturing with panic at my weapon. "He still has enough mana for an attack."

"What?!" everyone turned towards me in surprise once they heard Sage Darson speak out.

All seven in this party were shocked to hear the words coming from Darson's mouth. Then all seven of them focused on me again after hearing his revelation.

"Dorian, don't do anything hasty." Martin approached me with his blade drawn.

Martin had taken a step forwards using [Wind walk], instantly closing the gap between us. Then he swung his sword down on my head.

I didn't bother dodging. I instead released all the mana that I gathered within my sword, taking this as my first chance at revenge. This spell would not kill my former party members, but it would at least kill everyone else; all those that had taken part in this massacre.

"All traitors should die!" my voice sounded like it came from a monster as I spoke.

The spell that I'd cast was a high-level one, a thing that could incinerate anyone who had yet to reach S rank class. It placed around six people prone on the ground, then the entire area was engulfed in flames. Screams of agony carried throughout the air before everything went quiet once more. The fire had faded away, with it leaving only ashes and wounded heroes behind.

"I will return..." I muttered as I could no longer keep myself in this world.

Using a relic ring from the forbidden library that I had picked up in a demon king's castle, I activated the spell inside it. This created a portal to a magical library that was far off in another dimension. It, therefore, did not abide by those rules binding a summoner.

"I will return," or so came my pledge. "I will murder every single one of you..."

All I needed was a summoner to call out to me once more.

***

I woke up inside some kind of hall. It was filled to bursting with books and scrolls. The library's walls had been lined with bookshelves, with each shelf containing thousands upon millions of ancient texts; there was all manner of different subjects, such as magic, history, the arts... And all sorts of other knowledge.

"Time here moves slower than in real life..." these words were sparked from my recollection.

I'd begun looking around this vast endless library. This library was the demon king's treasure, a place that he had been trying to open ever since he grew to power. However, due to his demonic nature, the divine ring rejected all of his attempts.

I had read some text about this place, coming to understand how the time here moved about a thousand times slower than in Eyluania.

"Cultivation?" I muttered.

I then walked towards a shelf, picking out a random book called [Yin-Yang body and spirit training].

"Well," I sighed as I sat on the floor. "I have nothing else to do as I wait for a new summoner anyway."