The Archangel of Death

Chapter 12

[Name: Adrian Von Deus Lux

LV: 16

EXP: 5500\7000

Age: 16

Race: Human

HP: 106\200

MP: 110\170

STR: 25

AGI: 25

END: 25

PER: 25

INT: 35

CHR: 65

LUCK: 25

SP: 0

SKILLS: Heal LV: 5 (488\500), Divine Shield LV: 4 (174\200), Magic bullet: LV: 7 (128\2000), Bless LV: 5 (0\500)

TITLES: None

Achievement(s): 1]

I was coming along quite well for someone who couldn't even run a mile properly just a day ago. It's a shame I didn't get a title after my amazing strategy but still, my progress wasn't bad. Besides, this was not my real progress. My real progress would begin when we got back to the palace.

For now, I will just become strong enough to fend off most threats of lower levels. And at the palace, I'm pretty much safe so I don't need strength until I leave for the academy.

"How are you feeling now?" I asked my new friend Max while we were traveling through the forest. It had been two days ever since our little incident but he was still under the effects of killing someone. The first kill is always the hardest. Funny though, since I had no such problem. Although it was hard for me to kill and I had nightmares afterward, I didn't feel a lot bad about it.

[Maybe because of the choice of victims]

'It's not like his kill was a saint.' I retorted to Allison's remark and turned my attention back to the black-haired young man. He was taking his sweet time thinking of an answer yet he couldn't come up with one.

"Do you have a girl you fancy, Max?" I asked.

[Nice choice of topic]

Allison sarcastically remarked but I ignored her. Right now, Max was unstable. He needed an anchor to hold on to. If it isn't a girl, then family, if it isn't family then a goal. Something, anything. He needs something to hold on to.

"No, Your Highness." He replied with a dead tone. It was barely audible to me.

"Do you dream of getting married?" I continued. He shook his head. Then I asked, "Tell me about your family."

He didn't speak for a while but began after a while, "My father was a guard in the palace. A simple solider. He died while saving the life of a knight who then recruited me to pay his debt to my father."

"My mother is already dead. She passed away while giving birth to my sister. My sister is four years old."

A brief and to-the-point answer. He wasn't in the mood to talk. But he had to.

"Who does she live with? She can't be alone at home with how young she is." I asked. After a while, an answer to that came. "My aunt. She lives with my aunt."

"Is your aunt married?" I continued to ask.

"Why does it even matter?!" He turned to me and shouted. He soon realized his mistake but didn't apologize.

"Did it work?" I asked. "Did yelling work?"

He broke down in tears at my words. I stopped our horses and we both got off. He kept on crying, and I let him. While he was crying, I told him something that would stay with him for the rest of his life.

"It wasn't your choice. Being embroiled in all of this. That was destiny. Your opponent wasn't whoever was behind that attack. No, it was the destiny. Destiny brought you face to face with that choice."

"And you made a difficult choice. That's what survival is. Making difficult choices. Of course, what happened today will haunt you for the rest of your life but tell me, would you have felt better than you are feeling right now if you had chosen to side with them?"

For a while, he kept weeping, but he stopped after a few minutes. He looked at me and said, "I wouldn't have chosen to be with them." There was no hitch in his voice. He was conscious of his choice.

"Then why did you do it? Why did you choose the more painful path?" I asked.

"For my sister. If I had died, she would have been alone sure but at least I would have died with honor." He replied.

That! That was the mindset he needed to lose.

"Always remember this Max. There is no honor in death. In fact, there is nothing pleasant in death. Nothing except pain. Pain and excruciating pain." I looked into his eyes and told him the harsh reality.

"That is why you need to live. Live no matter what. If you have to bite, beg, or kill to live, then do it without hesitation. That isn't dishonor, that's life." I said before I stood up and pulled him along.

========

We entered the vicinity of a small town. I wanted to conquer another dungeon before heading back to the capital. A dungeon with a special material. It was time I reap some of the benefits of knowing the future. Such as depriving the protagonist of an opportunity.

It isn't a very big opportunity for him and there were many alternatives so I was sure that to compensate for it, his system would do something regarding it.

Oh yeah! The protagonist also had a system. Although a very inferior one compared to Allison, he was still the main character of this world. The laws of this world were on his side. Of course, he would become strong one way or another.

[Comparing it with me is an insult]

'It's kind of is.' I agreed with her. Sure, he had the laws on his side, but I had Allison with me. I didn't know whether she was on my side or not but right now she was with me and that was a surety I had to admit. As long as she was on my side, I was invincible in this world even if I did nothing.

[Flattery will get you nowhere]

Anyway, what I wanted from that dungeon was located in its dungeon core. Destroy a dungeon core and that dungeon will never spawn again. It is a fact that will become public a few years later but as of now, no one knew about it.

We came to this town because we had been camping in the open for many days and we were very filthy right now. It was an option, so we took it. Although it wasn't a city, it was still enough to spend the night. Besides, I doubt anyone here knew who I was so the ruckus wouldn't be much.

However, I was quick to change my mind to see fire and hear screams of people from the other side of the town. I hurriedly yanked my horse and Max followed me, "Your Highness, wait! Let me check first."

I didn't wait, however. If I wasn't mistaken, there were children's screams mixed in. As soon as I entered the scene, I saw about seven individuals on horses, with a range of weapons in their hands. Civilians were rounded up in a corner and currently one of the assailants was forcing himself on a woman.

'Magic bullet.' I used the skill right at that moment. With my skill level and INT stat, it was enough to blow the head of an F+ or E-. I didn't know what the rank of these people was, but I'm sure it wasn't much given where we were.

And as expected, his head busted into shreds on the impact of a magic bullet. The other assailants who were still on their horses turned their attention to me but I wasn't in the mood to assess the situation, nor did I want to chat and figure things out peacefully.

I jumped from my horse, equipped my steel sword from the inventory, and attacked the nearest target. He tried defending himself with his axe, but my strike cut through the axe and then went through his head, slicing him into two pieces.

Before the others could gain their momentum on me, I used Magic Bullet twenty times. Unlike earlier, I didn't have time to aim properly but still with how close they were, every shot landed on a target. 

It didn't take me much time before killing the wounded ones. The last one tried to say something, no doubt a villainous line about who he was and who he worked for, but his head was flying to the other side of the town.

[You have gained 800 Exp]

[You have gained 1000 coins]

As expected, they were just riffraffs. Even the weakest guard that came with me gave me 1000 Exp yet here I had killed eight and I earned 800 Exp. Which meant only a hundred for each which was equivalent to an E rank. For an E- I only get 10. The Exp multiplies by a ten every time the rank goes up.

I sheathed my sword and saw a little girl running to the woman who was almost naked on the ground. If I had been a minute late, that woman would have been violated and that child scarred for life.

Max came by my side right at that moment. I could see that he was still uncomfortable by the scene of death but looking around, he wasn't feeling it much badly this time.

An old man came near us while holding a cane. He wanted to say something, but he couldn't. He just couldn't bring himself to say something. I was after all a 'Blessed'. Blessed people considered themselves above normal people.

In other words, they were the elite class and treated normal people as nothing but garbage.

I was about to ask what happened here when a little girl came running to me and started crying, "Please, please, help my mother. They took her too." She was crying and there was snot coming out of her mouth. The others in the village were too afraid of me to say anything but she wasn't.

I smiled and kneeled in front of her, "Where did they take her? Tell me. I will get her back."

She stopped crying but was still sobbing. "They… They went into the forest. I don... I don't know where."

'Can you find them?' I asked Allison. I could find them myself, but I was afraid that I would be too late by then.

[I can]

That was enough for me. Allison wasn't unreliable in the least. If she said she could find them, she could.

======

"Your Highness, we don't even know what we are getting into," Max advised me for a thousandth time as I examined the bandit camp in front of my eyes. With Allison's help, it took me only ten minutes at the full speed of the horse to get here.

The camp wasn't very big, and I counted about thirty bandits at most. There were a total of seven tents. One of them was a little bigger than the rest, no doubt of their leader. 

If these guys were at the same level as those guys back in town, then this would be very easy. The problem was I didn't know what their boss's level was. There was no use asking Allison as I knew she would refuse to tell me.

She wasn't even obligated to help me earlier but she did so because she also knew the gravity of the situation. This time, however, I had to do it on my own. Besides, Allison's help was precious. Wasting it here would be utter stupidity.

There is no choice but full frontal assault. I thought as I came out of the bushes and appeared in front of the entrance of the camp which was being guarded by two bandits.

"Who are y-" One of them began before his head was blown to smithereens. The other one panicked but he met the same fate in a second too. One thing was sure, this was going to be very easy.

I entered the camp and saw about twenty-five bandits getting into a formation, preparing their weapons. They were also about to say something but I wasn't in the mood to listen.

'Magic bullet.' I used Magic Bullet a hundred times at once. They were only twenty five so even if their luck was A+, they wouldn't be able to avoid this rain. Some might not die, but they wouldn't be far from it.