Chapter 253 – Such Is The World

Lilyth - Mission Day 1 (relative time)

Kaidan turned out to be a reasonably decent company and continued to show me the ropes. For one, I have learned that the faction on whose turf I was was called the Trueborn. There were reasons for that, ones I would have to discuss with Malika the Betrayer, but we will get to those in due time.

On an unrelated note, as far as my friends were concerned, the people in the district were all elves and the faction was called the Sylvan’s People Front.

Anyway, as we walked, I noticed how normal life in the district was. People running errands, shoppers, people on dates.

A shocking amount of the damned were very young-presenting, like eighteen-to-twenty at most, which raised very disturbing questions, but not as much as the few young teens around.

What the fuck would a thirteen-year-old do to warrant ending up here?

‘The one you are looking at?’ Ere replied. ‘Killed his parents over them taking away his shiny new toys as a punishment. Or at least he tried to. He first murdered his mother by surprise; his father survived, but accidentally wounded this… child so heavily he died in a hospital. The man never got over it and ended up drinking himself to death.’

Jesus Christ.

‘Yup. You would be surprised at how many child murderers there are. Usually they kill other children, and most of them don’t die this young, but you know… the law of large numbers.’

What… What is the age of accountability?

‘No such thing. Age is a mitigating circumstance for most sins, though. You won’t find many people younger than thirteen down there.’

The “many” there is not reassuring.

‘It wasn’t meant to be. A ten-year-old who set his wooden house on fire when playing with matches ended up here once. The fire spread and soon engulfed the entire neighbourhood. Thirty-five dead, a few dozen with burns of various severity, even more rendered homeless.’

I felt sick to my stomach.

A ten-year-old? Seriously?

‘The rules are slightly loosened for cases like this. I place them in protective custody, give them a temporary body and let them grow up. After they reach adulthood and mature, they are on their own. Often, stay with the family that took them in. Some just set out on their own. Child murderers don’t get such treatment.’

So what? This kid is doomed to be thirteen forever?

‘Just like ninety-year-old men will stay ninety.’

I can imagine the old man will handle being here better.

‘Not my problem. He was smart enough to try to kill his parents, so he should put his great “intellect” to use to try to survive here.’

That… that is so… so…

‘Heartless? Maybe. I don’t expect you to approve. But put yourself in his parents’ shoes. Did either of them deserve what had happened to them?’

P… probably not.

‘Exactly.’

The line went dead.

We never reached Kaidan’s command post. We were still a fair distance away from it, walking down a quiet side street, when we were intercepted by a squad of five soldiers in heavy black body armour. Their leader, judging by the elaborate insignia on his collar that seemed to indicate he was an officer, was a short green-haired demon.

The four without funky pins raised the submachine guns they were carrying and aimed them at me, causing the whatever few pedestrians there were around us to start making themselves scarce.

[Shadow Form]

‘Kaidan, Kaidan, Kaidan, Kaidan…’ the man began. ‘Do you seriously think we were going to let you bring one of THEM into one of our bases?’

The man had a portable radio attached to his belt, which gave me a good idea of how they found out.

Who watches the watchers?

‘Captain Lamkin,’ Kaidan began to explain himself, ‘she is not a normal Hellborn. She’s a m-mor-’

‘Don’t tell me you believed her sob story!’ Lamkin spat back and, in a mocking tone, added: ‘“Oh, I’m new here! Let me join you and learn all of your secrets”’

Oy gevalt…

The captain gave some signal I didn’t recognise, and a hail of bullets pierced where my body should have been. Instead, my torso and head became a mess of shadowy smoke.

A few seconds later, the onslaught ceased and my body reformed.

[Shadow Barrage]

Four orbs of purple-black light appeared and formed an arc leading from one of my shoulders over my head to the other.

The soldiers made moves to dodge, but the magical projectiles were too fast, and all of them were sent to the ground, where they began to writhe in pain, clutching their wounds.

I was actually surprised none of them died, but hey, maybe the armour wasn’t for show.

Unfortunately, the kerfuffle didn’t end there, as there were two loud bangs and two high-calibre bullets went through the centre of my mass.

Can’t blame the fucko for being prepared.

‘Wait here,’ I told the white-faced Captain, and began transforming into my Hellborn form. ‘I’ll be right back. I think an object lesson will be required.’

Luckily, the snipers were dumb enough to fire at me again, so I could home in on them with surgical precision.

One of them was on a roof and the other inside of a building.

Making a quick decision, I chose to deal with the former first. I leapt towards them using [Jet Jump], and, using my wings to help me cross some of the distance, I landed near their firing spot.

The sniper turned out to be a cute black-haired woman who, judging by the semi-automatic she drew, wasn’t planning on going down without fighting. She managed to pop off several rounds into me before I sent her flying off the building with a [Fist of Wind].

That handled, I turned my attention to the other sniper, but they were nowhere to be seen.

That is going to be a problem. One for later, though.

I leapt down back to the ground level and began slowly approaching Captain Lamkin.

Seeing that the man drew a pistol from his holster, shot Kaidan a few times, then put it underneath his chin and pulled the trigger.

Siehst du, so ist die Welt: Ruhe und Eintracht, das gibt es nicht.

I looked at the remaining soldiers. Some began to gather themselves onto their feet.

[Shadow Barrage]

Lilyth - Now

‘Are you sure finishing them off was a good idea?’ Aki squeezed my hand. ‘Maybe it would have earned you some goodwill to spare them.’

It was a valid question.

‘She was tying up loose ends,’ Ren came to my defence. ‘No witnesses.’

‘One sniper escaped,’ Aki continued.

‘And that excuses leaving four other people who can identify her alive, how exactly?’ Sav asked in a wry tone. ‘They were active combatants too.’

‘Also, I didn’t actually kill them,’ I shrugged. ‘Just sent them to the respawn queue. At any rate, it is not like I was planning to work with those people. Of course, there is a decent chance that riddling someone with bullets is how their culture says “hello,” but at the time I wasn’t interested in exploring that possibility.’

‘Back in the Fourth, I heard some Navy boys say that nothing says “we come in peace” better than two days of orbital bombardment,’ Savri smiled.

‘Truth be told, at the time I was just making shit up as I went,’ I continued. ‘Later, when I had time to clear my head, I realised that I had no guarantee that the Collector even existed or whether he was just a story Kaidan made up to recruit me. Or that his friends would give me legit info and not use me and discard me.’

‘And was he?’ Nyxie asked. ‘A story, I mean.’

My mind went back to the cages, the moans of agony and the smell…

‘I wish he was, Mom,’ I finally said. ‘I wish he fucking was. But let us not get ahead of ourselves.’

Lilyth - Mission Day 1 (relative time)

I needed to get off the street. Soon, scavengers would likely start appearing to loot the bodies, and that would mean more witnesses. The worst part was that I had to disable all of my survival abilities for the time being, as I had to conserve mana. With as fucky as time was down in Hell, Ere couldn’t guarantee my mana would regenerate at the same rate as in the Mortal World, and it wasn’t like I started this caper with a full tank either.

Even under the best circumstances, I calculated that I was at least two days out from regaining all of my reserves. Those weren’t the best of circumstances. In fact, I would likely be running on empty most of my stay in Hell, as I would have to get food and water somehow.

Gonna get well acquainted with [Create Food].

I looked at Lamkin’s corpse again. Specifically, at that pistol of his.

Well… it will save me some mana.

Quick search through all the pouches the Captain had netted me some extra mags, a few ration bars and, most importantly, money.

Hopefully, it is universal.

Just as I finished stashing everything into a hastily conjured satchel, I realised that I should have kept the [Shadow Form] on while I was looting the corpse. Luckily, the sniper didn’t use that opportunity to capitalise on my regrettable mistake.

I would say that it is the kind of thing you don’t regret for long, but there is like a fifty-fifty chance of me getting to regret it for all eternity down here.

Thanking my dumb luck, I began backtracking towards Kaidan’s guardpost, as at least I had a decent idea what was awaiting me there.

My luck held, as I didn’t need to go far to find a dead-end side alley where there was a fire escape staircase of a ten-storey apartment building. I was weirdly excited to see it in person, as previously I had only seen those in American movies.

Thanks to my shitty lungs, I quickly noticed how much climbing those fucking sucked for anyone not in top physical condition. Part of that was on me, since I think those narrow and steep stairs were meant to be one-way only - down, but I felt sorry for anyone with actual walking difficulties having to descend them. Then again, you can just yeet them outta the window, and if they live, they live.

Sorry, fuckos, but the fire code requires sacrifices on the altar of natural selection.

I managed to get up to the second storey without issue. Then each landing started to get worse and worse. My thighs began burning, each breath began to feel like inhaling broken glass, and I started needing to take breaks. First, after every landing. Halfway up, even that was too much, so I began resting after a few steps. By the end, each step felt like climbing a mountain.

Fucking... Curse…

The worst part was how much noise I was making. I was supposed to be stealthy, but between the rickety stairs, my wheezing, and sheer exhaustion, staying quiet soon stopped mattering. It was just me and those damned stairs.

But… finally… I made it up. By then my vision was greying, and each movement was agonising. My consciousness registered one of those rooftop ventilation doodahs, and I figured that I could just sit by it and take a few breaths. Yes…

I never made it there, as my head grew woozy and the next thing I remembered was being woken up by a hard kick to my side.

‘Hey!’ a gruff voice barked at me. ‘Wakey wakey, ya Hellborn cunt!’

A steel-toed boot was wedged beneath my ribs, and I was flipped onto my back, only to see a squad of five demons clad in heavy black armour and aiming assault rifles at me.

My mind feeling sluggish, I began… trying to cast spells, but something must have shown on my face, as one of the soldiers flipped his rifle and slammed the butt of it into my face.

‘Don’t damage her too much,’ I heard as my consciousness faded once again. ‘Command wants the cunt alive for what comes next.’