Chapter 9

Caution: Gore, you have been advised

.....

The berserker and I lock eyes.

A feeling of pressure washes over me as the berserker locks eyes with me, he suddenly looks like he grows ten feet taller and his muscles bulge to three times their size.

I know this is just an illusion though as Logan's killing intent was much stronger. The illusion falls away and I keep walking forward as I exert my bloodlust on him, his face twitches, but nonetheless he makes a path to me, pushing and throwing my comrades to the side like ragdolls.

As we meet he swings both axes at me which I side-step and give him a small slash on his side with the knife in my left hand, then I give him a gash on his leg with the short sword in my right.

In retaliation, he swings his axe at my head almost taking it off, before I slam the the pommel of my short sword into the back of his head. He only looks slightly shaken as he keeps swinging his axes, only this time with reckless abandon, no accuracy, just swinging in my general direction.

I give him little nicks and cuts in between reckless slashes, and his face slowly starts paling from blood loss.

He kicks me in my chest as a last ditch effort. I feel the bones in my chest whine from the impact, as he knocks me flat on my back. He stomps at me, trying to bash my face in with his waning strength.

I catch his foot when it hits the ground, barely missing my face. I put his ankle in a lock as I slash his Achilles tendon with my knife.

He falls to the ground with a yell of pain, and I take advantage of his downed state, catching him in the stomach with my short-sword, I filet him like a fish, his mangled intestines falling out onto the ground. I straddle his bloody torso as I punch him in the nose a few times, trying to disorient him so he doesn't catch me in a moment of indecisiveness.

The berserker isn't quite done yet as he catches me a few times in the face, almost knocking me off of him. The feeling of blood streaking down my face catches me off guard as I look to his knuckles which are wrapped in thorns like some madman. I think he knows that those are doing as much damage to him as they are to me, but I don't think he cares.

The pain from my face rushes me on to get this over with, as I put my knees into his biceps so he can't fight back. I bash my dagger through his skull as I see the, sweet, sweet message of exp fly across my screen.

[Defeated (REDACTED) Berserker]

[50/50] [+50exp]

[Optional Objective Completed]

[Collect reward at end of mission]

Annoying but acceptable.

Regrouping with my buds, I notice that their number has almost halved. I never bothered to learn their names for two reasons, they are a product of the system, and because we are currently on a battlefield, death is guaranteed.

The path to the commander is open now. I run forward and he locks eyes with me. The feeling I get looking into his eyes is like trying to lift a mountain, not quite as bad as Logan but almost there.

What makes me angry isn't that he's stronger or taller, what really makes me angry is that he's affecting me like this, that another human being can exert pressure over me, like I'm a child being talked down to. That's what pisses me off.

Strength surges in my legs as I launch off the ground. I tackle him off his horse. He reacts by getting to his feet, grabbing me by the back of my armor and throwing me.

I hear a loud growl as I recover, and getting back to my feet, I see that his helmet has fallen off. At first he looks human enough with a scarred face and killer gaze, his face then changes to form a cat-like snout and a mane of brown hair sprouts out of his hair.

"Grimm!" He snarls in half fear and defiance.

"That's right, now come and get me, fucker!", I yell in challenge.

We charge each other and instead of hitting him strait on, I strafe to the side, hitting him in the side of the head with a hook.

He does the smart thing, unsheathing his longsword. I grab a hammer off of the ground, thinking I can't let this turn into a sword fight, our gap in skill is way too large.

I rush towards him, deflecting his first over head strike and taking his second to the back which cuts into my armor, but saves me.

When I'm close enough for him not to be able to block, I bring the hammer down into his knee join, denting it in, illiciting an exhalation of pain from the commander.

The opposite leg flies out, catching me in the stomach and making me fly back. The kick knocks the air out of my lungs leaving me there trying to catch my breath. I just find myself thinking, crikey he's strong.

"You insolent fucking brat, what are the chances of finding a teenage Grimm in the middle a human battlefield, oh no matter, you're going to die anyway," he says while taking off the knee portion of his armor to regain some semblance of mobility. I say this because when he did so, he revealed a huge bruise where I hit him.

A weak point, there's actually some chance that I'll win this. Desperation sparks across my mind, not wanting with all my heart to do this again. To kill all those people again. It hurts even thinking about it. There is no disconnect, I kill because it is a matter of survival, not for the rush, not for the experience points. I kill because I have to.

Desperation fuels my anger as I fly forwards. The skill gap is still there but I just don't care about the slashes as they strike my chest and arms. I activate rage strike making my overall strength rise to thirty. My blow is an overhead strike that makes my muscles tear and the bones in my arms shatter. I get through a kick to his injured knee, leaving him open, and my hammer comes down splattering his brain across the ground. He crashes to the ground with metallic clang.

[Optional Objective Completed]

[Collect the reward after the end of the mission]

[Defeated Löwen Commander of (REDACTED)]

[+100 Exp]

My arms feel as though they are going to rip off of my body and lay limply at my sides. The pain is blinding as I drop to my knees. I let out a scream of anguish as a brother in arms sees the bones sticking out of my arms.

"Come with me brother, I need to get you out of harm's way," he says as he grabs me and puts me over his shoulder.

"How did you do that anyway, I've watched you this entire battle, and I've seen you do some things I simply can't explain," he yells over his shoulder while dodging a stray arrow. The pain of his jostling keeps my mind occupied and me silent.

"I mean, I've seen you heal from cuts that would take me months to heal from in the course of a few minutes, not to mention that arrow that I swore was going to be your end, but it moved out of the way and happened to hit an enemy behind you."

We get to a treeline not far away from the main battle, there he sits me up on a tree.

I look at him with a pained glare before saying," What the hell do you think? Magic".

"Show me, if you're so damn sure", he says with newfound confidence.

I pluck a leaf out of the air with mage hand and hover it in front of his face, before moving it in a square. I then let it drop to the ground, feeling a headache set in.

His eyes widen with surprise before saying with astonishment," Who are you anyway, I've never seen you before."

"Just a mercenary," I say with a pained chuckle.

"Well, my name is Joffrey, what's yours?" He says with a bright smile, taking off his helmet and sitting next to me.

The man that saved my life was a stocky man with a mop of dark brown hair down to his shoulders. He had amber eyes that reminded me of space dust. He was short maybe 5'5 but had muscles that you could notice through his armor.

"Name's Christian," I say in defeat, these guys are probably just a figment of Adel's imagination put into life anyway so I don't see the point.

"Isn't that a girl's name?" he says in mild confusion.

"My parents were dicks, wanted a girl and didn't care enough to name me differently," I say, the name Christian was used as a girl's name until around the 1800's where the book, The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan popularized it as a mostly male name.

"Well, that sucks but hey you didn't come here to be judged, you came here to fight, how long until your arms are back to normal?" He asks with determination.

"I give it 25 more minutes", I say, the bones in my arms actively moving back into place.

...

The bones in my arms realigned and the flesh wounds have healed, making me come back to 100%. Joffrey only had to protect me once as a stray enemy caught sight of us. To say the least he is good at fighting, dismantling the man methodically, breaking through their defences before pushing his sword into their neck and twisting, promptly decapitating them.

I get into a standing position and flex my arms. Good as new. I grab an arming sword and a partly broken shield off of the unfortunate soul that fought Joffrey.

Moving forward we stuck together, developing a sense of small sense of brotherhood throughout the rest of the battle, which took the rest of the day.

I was going to miss Joffrey, he was a good fighter and a better friend. He had my back the entire battle, saving me from the stray arrow or blocking an attack that I didn't see as I did the same for him.

The battle came to a close as the sun started to set over the horizon. The only ones on the battlefield were stragglers from both sides. The battle was pretty evenly matched, as I have said before, the two armies were like two sides of the same coin.

The feeling I felt as I stood on a hill looking over the battle with tattered armor, was numbness. The pain of killing so many people was weighing down on my psyche. The wives that would never see their husbands again, the sons who would never see their fathers again, it was smashing down on me like a sledgehammer.

The only solace I felt was that this was probably all a simulation, but everything in me told me that was wrong, everything was too real, there wasn't a defect that would steer toward that outcome. Not to mention Joffrey, a man I would trust my life to, I couldn't imagine now that he was fake.

'Adel, please don't lie to me, was this all real?' I ask with a tremble in my mental voice.

[It was a replay of real events, I'm sorry Christian, you did kill real people, but I need you to know that they were all going to die anyway, the outcome of this battle was decided before you even started fighting]

That realization hit me like a freight train, it hit me harder than anything else. I drop to my knees, staring into the sun, tears falling down my cheeks.

"Christian, what's wrong?" Asks Joffrey, with concern in his voice.

"Today was my first battle, the first time I've taken a life, I hate it, the numbness, the families I've taken from, how do you do it?", I whimper, my voice cracking every other word.

"I can't tell you it gets easier, I feel the same way every time I take a life, I just get better at dealing with it. All it will take is time. If this helps I took my first life at the age of fourteen, I was coddled up in a blanket sitting in the family home. I didn't eat for days, barely drank any water, didn't leave my bed for a week. You're doing much better than I did", he says in a solemn voice.

[I can't make you feel better and I know this is all incredibly hard, but I have a consolation prize]

'What could you possibly give me that could make me care', I think with a disconnected voice.

[Joffrey was never meant to survive this battle, you can take him with you if want to and no, he has no attachments, he's a mercenary]

'I'll think on it'

[While you do that, he will be in your inventory, titled by his name]

'Since when did I have an inventory '

[You never asked]

...

The world fades to black before I hear my alarm go off on the side table.