City of Fallen Souls: A LitRPG Adventure (UnderVerse Book 3) by Jez Cajiao (fb2 epub reader .txt) 📕

the goddamn rich shits that were wandering around, laughing and living their fucking best life, okay?!” I snarled, the memories coming back to me. “I didn’t just get a mystical message from Amon; I’ve got the mental bastard riding in my soul. He saw it, the same as I did, and I felt his rage. We were both so fucking angry, that... that…”

“That you lost control and destroyed the market?” Soween asked, shock in her voice.

“Yes! Okay? It was probably wrong, it’s probably buggered all our chances, and yes… I’d fucking well do it again in a heartbeat!” I growled, sitting forward and clenching my hands into fists. “It might have been wrong. It might have cost lives that we could have saved. I should have kept control, I know I should have, but I can’t. I won’t just stand by and let that shit happen! I spent my entire life being called here to fucking save people. I’ve died hundreds of times, and I fucking well won’t stop! I will NOT let them die, not when I can save them, not fucking one of them! Amon, that dick, he’d have burned an innocent to death in an instant to save a hundred more. I know it might make sense; I understand fucking numbers, okay?! I just can’t do that! I can’t let them die, not if I can stop it!” I bit down on my last words, nostrils flaring as I tried to bring my frantically beating heart under control.

“Truth,” Nerin said quietly, and everyone gaped at her.

“What?” Josh asked, looking from her to me and back again.

“Every word he just spoke was truth,” she said slowly, clearly considering my explanation. “He said things exactly as he believes them, without even a slight tremor. This is literally the truth of his soul, the most basic tenets of his mind and personality.” She lifted the ring of slowly spinning mana for all to see. “I used a section that would allow me to detect any hedging or attempts to disguise the truth as part of that spell. There was absolutely none in anything that he said.”

“Well, that’s just fuckin' peachy,” Mal griped, rubbing his hand through his hair. “So, you’re sayin' every time he sees someone in trouble, he’s gonna jump right in? You know where you are, right?” Mal asked me sarcastically. “This is the fuckin' arena; we don’t do pillow fights downstairs!”

“And I’ll kill any fucker that faces me by choice,” I snapped back at him. “I just won’t kill an innocent.”

“This is Himnel! There are no fuckin' innocents here!” he snapped back at me, then coughed, grabbing at his throat as the Oath punished his use of hyperbole.

“I won’t fight slaves, then; I won’t fight those who’ve got no choice in the fight! There are innocents out there. That’s why all this happened, because I won’t let them suffer!”

“Then you’re an idiot!” Mal shouted, getting to his feet and waving his hands around. “You’ll let hundreds die, all our plans fuckin' fail, just because you want to be the hero! You think you’re the only one? You think we don’t all want to be that guy, standin' up there and savin' the kids? It doesn’t work, Jax… you can’t save 'em all, and when you try, you just get your friends killed!”

Silence filled the room as the echoes of his shouted words faded away, and I noticed the looks people were giving him.

The spell, or Oath, or whatever Nerin had used, had forced us to only speak what we believed to be the truth… so Mal really believed that, and I wondered what had happened to him to make him feel that way.

“Look, I know you want to help 'em,” Mal said hoarsely, rubbing at his throat. “I understand that, okay? But to throw everythin' away because you can’t walk away from one person is just stupid. The plan was hard enough already; now, it’s even worse. You could lose the chance to help hundreds, to save just one. I know what you’re sayin', but those numbers don’t add up… they just don’t.” He slowly shook his head.

“I know that, Mal,” I said, equally quiet in the silent room. “I understand it in my head… but in my heart, I can’t accept that. Logically, it makes sense, but I can’t live by logic, not with something like that.”

“Then we’ve got no chance,” Mal said bleakly.

“Of course you have,” Mistress Nerin snapped, standing up and glaring around the room. “What, you think because you idiots can’t see a way forward, it can’t be done? Fwah!” She blew her lips out in exasperation. “Men always think in straight lines. Can’t see it, it can’t be done! What do you think has happened here, boy?” she said, looking at Mal. “You think just because he can’t fight tonight or tomorrow, it’s over? You’ve already got a Legionnaire who’s volunteered to fight in his place. As to getting out there and bringing in the people on this list … that just got easier.”

“How? Now the damn gangs will be watchin'. Hell, the guards will be in an uproar trying to figure out what happened! There’ll be investigators everywhere, tryin' to trace the magic used!”

“True,” Nerin said, smiling. “But that just means he,” she pointed at me. “…can’t go outside again. That means he won’t have another chance to get into trouble, either. Instead, we send his newly devoted friends.”

“Who?” I asked, confused, and she smiled.

“The slaves you freed. You literally tore the market to shreds in a display of power I cannot imagine, while leaving a ring of safety around each and every slave. Men, women, and children who had believed their lives were gone. They had no hope of ever being free, and yet saw their tormentors punished by… and I quote from what was being said while I was working on you… ‘the light made flesh’. You think they won’t happily go carry a few messages for you, if