Chapter 12 12: Kill the Hero (8)

Words : 1302 Updated : Sep 17th, 2025

Standing over the Hero's unconscious, unprotected body, I did all I could to calm myself. Even still, my heart was racing more than it had ever done throughout its entire life. Faster than it had whenever I had felt like I was dying in that "training". Faster than it had when I encountered a magical feline critter in the dead of night. Faster than it had when I faced the reality of someone very close to me passing away. My eyes, gazing down at the sleeping Hero, remained unblinking. Positioning myself to kneel on the bed beside that unconscious body―I steadily raised the dagger in my hands. "..." For a while, I stayed there, utterly unmoving. As if my body were paralysed. No, not 'as if'―I really couldn't move. Staring down at that defenceless target, only faintly visible in the midnight darkness, I gulped innumerably; for some reason, the saliva continued to pool in my mouth to no end. Then, I don't know if I swallowed something else, but whatever I tasted next was like pungent, salty iron. 'Haha... this... is harder than I thought it would be...' I didn't know what it was that was preventing me from taking the next―the very final step. All I knew was that it felt like an invisible mountain blocking my path. As if my arms, raised just a bit up in the air, were chained in place by something imperceptible. My hands shook. Trembled. I just... couldn't bring them down. I didn't know what it was, or why it was happening, but instinctively, I realised there was nothing I could do to stop it. At least, it seriously felt that way. Genuinely, as if standing before a cliff's edge. A precipice into the unfathomable depths. This must be what it felt like to take a step into that unknown. In the simplest of terms, it was hard. Impossibly so. I closed my eyes, hoping it might help to not see the target in the flesh as it happened. I couldn't do it with them open, was that the limitation? Alas. "..." I just had to do it. Just one action. End it in a single go, and it will all be over. I knew. If I didn't do it here―if I failed myself in this moment right now, everything would be screwed completely. To go home. Now was the best time. The only time. If I failed now, the difficulty to take action in the next opportunity would only become even more insurmountable. If there ever was a second opportunity. So, I just had to do it. Right now. Just... "――――――!" ...Fucking do it already. All of a sudden, feeling, hearing something strange, my eyes snapped open. Just like before, there the Hero was, lying on his bed... with a blade plunged hilt-deep into the centre of his nape. "Ghgggphg...!!" Gurgling bubbles of blood peeking out from that turned mouth, face-down in the pillow, drowning in its own discharge, thrashing about violently. The scene, bathed in the light of the full moon observing from the window, was etched into my eyes as if with acid. "...Ah. A-ahh...!" Clang~! Reflexively, I stumbled backwards, letting go of the dagger as it fell with me to the floor. My shaking gaze lowered to my hands, and though it was only barely visible under the tinted moonlight, I could see it clear as day. Red hands, stained with the Hero's blood. The same Hero who annoyingly kept calling me 'little knight'. The same Hero who I was drinking with not even an hour prior. The same Hero who just now leaned on me and for some strange reason said I 'was the only one who understood him'. Even though all of it was such meaningless bullshit. "...!" My agape lips quivering unstoppably, not knowing what to make of the situation, I could only flip my attention between my own blood-stained hands and the blood-frothing Hero before me. However... "Ghk--! Ghaaaaghk...!" Zombie. That was the only word I could use to describe what was in front of me. The 'thing' that turned its red-eyed gaze towards me, a face veiled with tar-like blood. Gurgling, bubbling, frothing, purling, foaming, fizzing, churning, seething, spuming. Blood―was not something that should be described with such words. And yet... And yet, and yet... "...Guuupphhhghk--!" "Hk-! No, fuck! Get the fuck off, shit...!" That far-too-disturbing creature, by no means could it be called human. Reaching weakly towards me, I, whose jellied legs refused to stand, couldn't get out of the way. "Gh, off! The fuck...?!" Wrestling with that sort of horrifying, yet evidently debilitated monster, I struggled even to push it off my body. It's-- the Hero's physical strength, albeit compromised, was nevertheless too great. The back of my head slammed against the wooden floor, sending a white flash to shoot through my eyes. And then, slowly, steadily, I felt sticky, sanguine fingers wrap around my neck. "!!" All of a sudden, as a light, yet increasing pressure struck me, so did my sense of urgency skyrocket. Try as I may, wrenching its curled vice from my throat, removing them was impossible. There was only one path left. Frantically thrashing about, I whipped my head and arms all around me, searching for that one item I so carelessly dropped. I didn't care if I cut myself by doing this――I needed that damn dagger. "Ghhk-!!" Abruptly, my body jolted, the minute air in my lungs squeezed out. Gazing up, those convulsing eyes glared frightfully at me. Was I the only one who was terrified? Certainly not. However, I could also be sure. The only one making it out of this struggle alive... "Guhhghk...!!" I felt a splatter of something warm and viscous paint my face. With a gurgled cry from the Hero, one step from crossing over to the afterlife, I caught his half-dead, yet simultaneously too-tenacious glance sink down. To the side of his abdomen, where my hand ever-so-excruciatingly twisted the dagger's hilt. Was that final push―enough? Was that final attack―what was needed to tilt him over the edge? The only answer I received was a few more coughs of sick blood―perhaps a final attempt to drown me alongside him―a weakening in the strength of the grip on my throat... And a glimpse of the fading light in that undying monstrosity's eyes. Gaining the edge to push it off my body, the thing slid effortlessly onto the floor as I hurriedly clambered to my feet and far away, rubbing my sore, surely bruised neck and panting roughly as I wiped my sticky, dripping face with my sleeves. Soon after, the zombie Hero's writhing quietened down on the other side of the room. At the same time, my heavy gasps, gradually substituted with steadier, deeper breaths, were the only sound that echoed upon this floor, soaked―drenched in the blood of one's divine favour. The lost vitality seeped back into the world, and the fiery metallic stench was proof of it. Peering down, the sight reflected in my eyes was still. Still. And blissfully silent. A scene―the extinguished flame of life―illuminated only faintly by ivory moonlight. It was, perhaps, only in this moment that it dared to bear some long-lost lustre, if only to highlight the brutality... the execution I had just served. "..." With an extended pause, a moment of true nothingness ensued―when, piercing through my stupor, a certain voice rang clear through my vacant mind, resembling somewhat the chime of a bell. Hearing that high-pitched voice, I let out one, final exhale. And I closed my eyes. [The Protagonist, 'Kala Maine, the Hero', has been dispatched.] Now, after everything that occurred. [Contract complete.] At last, I could go home.

Chapter 12 12: Kill the Hero (8)

Comments (0)