Bound and Broken: An Isekai Adventure Dark Fantasy (Melas Book 1) by V.A. Lewis (autobiographies to read .TXT) 📕

He stared at me in shock. I bent over him and jabbed a finger at his face.

"However, I still saved your life. So the least you could do is stop being a jerk to me. Got it?"

Karna hesitated, but I loomed over it.

"I said: do you get it?"

"I— uh, yes."

"Good." I grinned. "Now let’s get out of here, I’m hungry."

And my stomach growled in agreement.

Chapter 33: Close-quarters Combat

When we got back, Victor was mad. He was angry. Furious.

He was all of that, and more. To say he was just ‘pissed off’, would be an understatement.

"And what made you think it was a good idea to go with them?!"

I winced, as the Dark Acolyte yelled at me; he was pacing back and forth in the command tent, as I sat on my knees in front of him.

"I-I’m sorry. But that wasn’t supposed to happen!" I protested. "Things were going well! Well— u-until…" I scratched the back of my head and trailed off.

The young man stopped; he folded his arms, and tapped a finger on his elbow impatiently. "Until what?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"...until it wasn’t?" I said unconvincingly.

Victor snapped. "Not only could you have gotten yourself killed— which would have put me in a lot of trouble with the Infernalis— but you’ve also compromised our mission!" He took a seat, and began rubbing his temples. "If word gets out— no, when it gets out that there are Dark Crusaders in the area— the Free Cities will be on high alert. They’ll fortify their towns and their forts. We can’t proceed as planned, unless we pick up the pace…"

I felt bad; I honestly did not expect any of this to happen. But as Murphy’s Law goes: anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. I should have known better.

"S-sorry," I said softly. There was nothing else to say; I messed up, and I had to own up to my mistakes.

My apology was met with a glare from the young man. He stood up and sighed, while shaking his head. "I saved your life and this is what I get in return? Trouble? Typical..." he muttered under his breath, then stalked out of the room.

I grimaced, but he was already gone. I exhaled deeply, and turned to the other person in the room; Gerritt was standing behind me, with his hands behind his back.

"You’re not mad at me too, are you?" I asked weakly.

"Hrmph, to answer your question: no, I am not mad at you. But I’d be lying if I said what you did did not cause issues for us," the Orc answered truthfully.

"I know, I know," I said with a sigh. I slowly got to my feet. "I really am sorry too."

He nodded slowly. "Indeed. But there’s no need to be too worried. The worst thing you’ve done is force our timetable forwards."

"But that Goblin— Sena— he’s dead because of me. I got him killed for nothing."

I glumly looked down at the palm of my hands as I said that; it was stupid, but it almost felt like I killed him with my own two hands. Intuitively, I knew that was not the case— but I just felt that way.

"Don’t be foolish, Melas." Gerritt placed his massive red hand on my shoulder. "I heard about what happened. Sena made a mistake. It was because of him, the alarm was raised. Whether or not you were there would not have changed that fact. And, if you were not there, Karna would not be alive right now too. He said it himself."

"He did?" I blinked. That did not sound like him; I had expected him to blame me for his comrade’s death.

"Yes. He says it was his fault that you came along. Because he made you do it."

"Oh,"— I shuffled my feet— "but he didn’t make me do anything. I decided to go by myself.".

"Maybe. However, what is done is done. All that’s left now is to make sure we are not pursued. And we proceed with our goal."

"I guess you’re right," I relented. Then I stared at the Orc curiously. "If you don’t mind me asking: what exactly is your guys’ goal here?"

"Our goal?" Gerritt inclined his head to the side.

"Yes," I said. "Your mission. What are you guys— or the Dark Crusaders— trying to do?"

He raised an arm and began stroking his large jaw contemplatively. "If you’re asking about what… we’re specifically trying to accomplish here. Then the answer is complicated. But it’s all because of our main goal. It’s a simple one, really. It’s the reason why the Dark Crusaders were created in the first place."

"And that is?"

"We want justice," he said simply. "To spread the truth to the world. For all to see that magic is not inherently evil— that it does not go against the will of the Goddess. She gave us magic to use, not to abstain from. That the Holy Xan Empire— and those that came before them— lied to the world, simply because they were afraid of magic. Afraid of us."

"I see…"

I remembered my mom telling me something like that, from when she briefly spoke about the Shadow’s Evangelium— her group that came before the Dark Crusaders. She said that they believed that the Goddess was not the Goddess of Light, but the Goddess of Darkness.

The Goddess might have created light and life, but she also brought the night to end the day, and death to end life. Darkness was not evil, but simply a part of the world like everything else, just like Monsters and magic.

When I asked my mom if that was true, she refused to give me a definitive answer. She simply told me that that was what the