Bro, I'm not an Undead!

The situation had escalated way too quickly.

Many of the Priestesses and Priests present didn’t even understand the situation properly. All they knew was that someone identified a threat heading for the Grand Priest and they all ran.

Of course, the Priestess who had shouted those words earlier hadn’t been trying to inject Yuyui with the crime of wanting to harm the Grand Priest because she knew the context. This was her way of making everyone move to stop Yuyui no questions asked.

Regardless of the semantics involved with how she said it or how her peers responded, this was where they were now.

What made the situation even worse was that there were a few congregants within the Temple at this moment, all of them bewildered by the current events.

Was this a terrorist attack or something?

None could afford them answers though. A few of the Temple personnel near them hurried to direct them outside.

Drip. Drip.

Blood flowed from Yuyui’s neck as she panted, desperate to get her point across.

She looked at each one of the Priests and Priestesses surrounding her from a short distance, some of whom showed fright while some who understood Yuyui’s story a little better felt guilt and pity.

“Why?!” Yuyui said. “Why would you deny me….my brother this chance?”

There was no answer.

Even though the story she knew was a lie weaved up by Skullius to not get the Grand Priest and others killed by UNCoddled, Yuyui started to meld this story with some of her own conflict without realising it.

“Aren’t you people supposed to who people like me and my brother can turn to? Why… why does it feel like you’re no different from THEM?! Why?!”

The people around Yuyui couldn’t tell who ‘them’ were but parts of them were struck nonetheless.

Yuyui further plunged the dagger she held into her neck. This was the same dagger Skullius had gifted to her yesterday. Stylla had given her a storage ring for convenience the other day and she had stashed her new weapon in it, never imagining that she would end up using it on herself.

“Miss, please stop! You’ll die!” a Priestess called with desperation while taking an anxious step.

“Now you care?!” Yuyui barked.

Slowly, just like back when she was with Skullius in the eatery, her flaring emotions, her eagerness to complete this mission to help her master, something she felt she owed… caused her to remember how she felt on the day.

Only partially.

The day when she and her parents were fleeing from their home.

The day when evil men ravaged the town.

The day when hope seemed so close, only she survived in the end.

She felt it vividly now.

She understood her role. She had even listened to the doctrine of the Deities, following what the Priest had said when he gave her Direction. She had been cheerful and optimistic and so were her parents but…

It was clear now.

“There’s no such thing as fairness or right reward is there?” Yuyui said hollowly.

Killing herself once was not an issue but the people surrounding her didn’t know. All she had to do was pressure them but now, she was losing the mission a bit.

Her memories, triggered by emotion were rushing back.

“What is all the noise about?” the door behind Yuyui opened to reveal an aged man adorned in layers of lavish white robes.

Yuyui hurriedly turned, her one eye eternally unveiled behind bangs gazing at the Grand Priest.

The old man looked at Yuyui’s wound.

He shook his head.

“I assume you’re the lady I heard was crying her eyes out?” he said before drawing Primus from his body, casually gathering it in his right hand and extending it in Yuyui’s direction.

Yuyui’s wound was quickly healed up with the pristine energy flowing to her!

“Come. Let us talk,” the old man said.

**

The Grand Priest and Yuyui sat down on opposite ends of a beautiful, black hardwood table plagued with documents and books.

The old man gazed at Yuyui without turning his attention and Yuyui did the same.

“Tell me truth. What is the real reason you are so adamant?” he asked with a stern but calm voice that demanded the truth without inducing fear.

“It’s just as I said. I need it for my brother,” Yuyui said while puckering her lips.

She was serious about this.

The Grand Priest leaned against his chair and locked his fingers. The story had been told to him in detail by the Priestesses so he knew the full picture.

“I do not fully believe your ‘brother’s’ tale. I do believe he is cursed, perhaps by some truly evil bit of treachery but I doubted his tale from the start. Strangely, I think he expected me to. Without a doubt he has done things he’s not proud of still, correct?”

Yuyui only breathed without answering immediately. The adrenaline was only just now dying down.

Things that Skullius’ regretted? That was a funny thought.

She didn’t think he had those.

That aside, it seemed the Grand Priest had seen through the lie but he still assumed Skullius was man who had done some evil that he wished to rid himself of but only after he got cursed for it.

That was reasonable assessment.

One that didn’t make Skullius look any better.

But Yuyui wouldn’t buckle.

“Please. I only want help for my brother. Whatever you think doesn’t matter to me. Since you know there is a curse…” she said.

“Why did he not come himself? Indeed, regardless of the great merit and prowess that I was told he possesses by the Knights in Evic, we still do not serve him immediately as he desires but… shouldn’t he express the urgency himself?”

Yuyui was ticked off. She had already told these people why.

“This is your way of making him atone?” she asked with a heavy breath.

“Yes. Sometimes it is up to us to pass judgement, no? The Deities can be too benevolent. It is why the Orders are created, the Higher Order Priest elected with a treasure containing a Divine Blessing. It is so that we can pass judgement in the Deities stead,” the Grand Priest said with sharp glint in his eyes.

Yuyui’s emotions flared again.

This man…!

To speak so casually about judgement and all…!

“You feel free to judge others for their wrongs but you… you don’t see it fit to atone for all the lives you fail to save?” Yuyui leaked a tear from her eye. “Do you also find the will to judge those who died because you couldn’t save them? What are you teaching then?”

The Grand Priest’s eyes grew sharper.

“To humour such questions would be to test my rank among those who truly deserve to speak for the Deities. Nothing does not have its purpose in the world. Hmm perhaps that’s not the correct way to say it. I believe the world is fair enough when it grants purpose, life and death. You are alive and perhaps that’s the fairness of the world. You need to accept it as it is.”

Yuyui grew silent.

So that’s how it was.

This man didn’t want to help Skullius. At least not until he thought even judgement was passed.

“If your brother has the strength to save an entire city, he should burden himself with MORE of the work of the Deities for a time and earn a reward enough to cure him. That’s all there is to it.”

The lime haired girl nearly exploded with rage but she controlled herself.

She could have sworn this was the most emotion she had felt in a very a long time and it wasn’t worth it.

It seemed that she was doomed to fail. There was no convincing this man with mere words.

Unlike the Priestesses, he wasn’t susceptible to sap.

This plunged all of Yuyui’s efforts since she arrived down the toilet and she could only stand up and walk away feeling the scorning stench of defeat.

This was really it?

What if… what if failing this mission cost Skullius a great deal?

What if failing this mission forever proved that Bassbion was right? Was her resolve fickle?

Did failing this mission mean… she accepted…?

Yuyui stood, her eyes burning with fury. Controlled fury.

Maybe what she needed was to get out of her comfort zone.

Skullius never mentioned that she should press on but she was willing to go the extra mile.

“If you’re contemplating killing yourself, you’re welcome to do so. I only healed you earlier because i couldn’t have a discussion with you while your neck was leaking. Suicide is never rewarded,” the Grand Priest said before turning his attention away from Yuyui and looking at the documents on his desk.

The lime haired girl took a deep breath, her gaze shakily looking straight at the old man.

She was deciding on something.

She couldn’t let this go.

The still misty memories in her head and the emotions that came along with them pushed and pull at her.

Before she knew it, her dagger, her Legendary grade dagger appeared in her hand.

Her mana flared with this action as she made a decision.

The old man looked up.

“You intend to kill me now? Over a clash in ideals. How barbaric,” he said, dismissing her entirely.

Yuyui took a step closer, her heart pounding. She was torn but she didn’t stop.

She kicked the Priest’s desk aside and pointed her dagger at him.

“I also forgot to mention,” she said while grinding her teeth and forcing herself to say things she would have never said before. “I also have an evil curse.”

“Hmmm?” the Grand Priest hummed while languidly gazing at Yuyui. What was this desperate attempt?

Then…

…!

The old man was jolted by surprise, Divine energy pouring out of his body as he saw…on Yuyui’s forehead, a dark eye with a ice blue iris emerging from the folds of her skin!

“You…!”

The Grand Priest was about to incapacitate Yuyui using the Divine energy swarming out of his body when the third eye looking straight at him worked its magic!

All the energy that Priest had summoned around him… suddenly vanished!

NO!

More aptly, it was dispersed!

…!

“Fiend! You also…!” the Grand Priest yelled in bewilderment.

Yuyui leapt towards him, her heart pounding madly as still… her body struggled to accept that she was doing this.

What was she even doing?

‘Take it out! Take it out! Take it out!’ she shrieked in her mind as several morale alarm bells rang loudly, trying to discourage her from this.

But it was her only option!

Surely, the Grand Priest scurried as she expected, his hands rapidly searching around his body only to pull out a certain brass coloured necklace seemingly from under his robes!

He attempted to wear this item!

Yuyui’s eyes constricted!

That must be it!

Wait! There was a better way to judge it!

She tackled the Priest, grabbed his arm and pulled it away from his body. She then grabbed the necklace in the man’s hand and with her guidance field, she appraised it, finding that…

…!

Yes! Yes! Yes!

This was it!

She did it!

“Argh! You think you’ll get away with this?! Haris! Meel! HELP ME!” the Priest yelled much to Yuyui’s fears.

She rolled, pinned the Priest down and tried to get away when…

She stopped.

This old man knew her face and her powers.

It wouldn’t even take a day. No, perhaps hours for him to find where she lived. Her master too!

Yuyui knew this situation was already messed up!

She had acted purely out of emotion and desperation, probably creating problems in the process for Skullius but… she needed it to mean something in the end!

She couldn’t fight for Skullius properly but this…

She gazed at the Priest who drew away from her, while calling for his Priests and Priestesses. As he scraped against the floor he reached into his robe, mana flowing into something.

…!

Yuyui noticed this.

From the depths of her fragmenting moral compass, a sudden urge rose like vomit and in the next moment she found herself on top of the old man, pushing her dagger down towards his chest!

A dangerous murderous intent spilled from her as she stabbed!

Then she paused.

Her hands trembled.

‘What am I doing?! Since when do I….? I can’t. I can’t. I can’t!’ Yuyui struggled, sweat dripping from brow along with tears. ‘Am I really about… kill someone?’

She was torn and this time, she couldn’t just cross this boundary.

The Grand Priest scoffed at her.

“You’re surprised by how much man can lose their sense of direction in seconds? Ha! Hesitating, killing me, sparing me… all of it don’t matter anymore. You’ve sealed your own fate already,” he said. “I do not fear death. I only fear being meeting it at the hands of evil. But you… you are nothing but a corrupted soul donning death’s robes…’

Yuyui sucked in a pained breath!

Dhu! Dhu! Dhu!

Footsteps approached from the distance. From a floor below this room.

The Temple personnel were coming!

Soon, she would be caught.

Yuyui huffed. Her indecision’s noose burning away slowly.

Her eyes opened with a fierce fire full of burning guilt, understanding and conflict.

But…

The Grand Priest was right.

“You… you’re right,” she said in a low voice, both her hands now gripping the dagger shakily yet firmly as she fought against morality.

She had already messed up.

Now all that was left was…

PCH!

*

The doors to the Grand Priest’s office were forced open as a group of white robed men and women stormed in!

“Grand Priest!” a Priestess shrieked as she raced towards the corpse of the old man with a look of terror in her eyes.

The others also followed after her save for one young Priest who caught a glimpse of something from the corner of his eye.

There, in the corner, atop a patch of charred floor.

There… the body of a woman, a familiar woman, aged as it was with the same clothes she had on before, with a rusting dagger in hand could be seen.