Dokeshi March: Chapter 19 (Patreon)

Chapter 19

“Ow.”  Suki sat up, rubbing her head.  Grant knew exactly how she felt.  Looking around, her eyes widened in surprise.  The unconscious and bleeding forms of twenty-five people littered the ground.  And, of course, one headless body.  “What happened?”

“When I broke the Vassal’s weapon, it exploded.”  Grant winced as he finished moving the big guy off of her.  Even using just one hand, he still managed to hurt his injured arm.  “It gave me the chance to defeat everyone else.”

“It blew the clown’s head off?”  Suki looked a little green.  Grant was confused.  She had seen dead bodies before, and had even killed monsters right in front of him.  Eyeing Grant with more than a little hostility, she pointed at the dead man.   “It looks like it was cut off with a sharp blade.”

“Oh, that’s because I cut it off.”  Grant shrugged, which caused him to wince from the bolts sticking out of his arm.  “He was pure evil.  At least Fluffy Fingers didn’t torture and kill people.  That guy was a menace to everyone, so I took care of him.  Like a rabid dog on a farm, you have to put them down before they can hurt anything else.”

“But, he was a person!  You can’t just go around cutting people's heads off!”  Suki was clearly upset, but Grant couldn’t understand why.  Did she want him to let the clown go?  She shook a finger at him.  “You don’t get to be an executioner when you feel like it.  You don’t even know if what he was saying about killing those people was the truth.  He could have been lying just to mess with your head!”

“Was I supposed to capture him?  Take him with us?  Let him go, so he could continue killing innocent people when the mood struck him?  He sure sounded like he was telling the truth to me.”  Grant was getting louder, and he could feel his pulse speed up.  “I will save these people, and I won’t allow monsters like that roam free.  I’m supposed to become the Calendar King, which means I have to start thinking like one.  I’ve seen you kill monsters before, Suki.  Just because he was shaped like a human, didn’t make him any less of one.”  Grant grabbed the bolt protruding from his bicep and ripped it free with a spurt of blood.

Suki was shocked into silence, and looked down at her feet.  She had never killed a person before, and she trained as hard as she could so it was possible for her to defeat an opponent without having to resort to killing them.  It wasn’t that she thought a murderer should be spared, but there were trials and procedures to follow before an execution.  Suki understood that Grant was rightfully both Lord January and Lord February.  It just didn’t feel right for him to serve as judge, jury, and executioner.  It was a bad mindset to have for any leader, and it worried her to see him adopting it.

Instead of continuing the conversation, Grant removed the second crossbow bolt and sat down to meditate.  If he waited too long, he wouldn’t be able to heal the damage.  It was dangerous not to get somewhere safer, but it would only take one minute for his absorbed healing skill to work.  He glanced at his health before he started, to see how much he had lost in the fight.

Health: 311/421

Mana: 22/22

“What?”  The increase in his health was huge.  Almost seventy points!  “Sarge, what happened?”

<You have a lot of information to look over.>  Sarge sounded very happy.  <In that battle, you defeated one Wielder and five Vassals.  Then, you killed one of the defeated Vassals, which counted toward your levels as well.  You jumped from cultivation level seventeen to nineteen almost instantly.  Like I’ve told you before, defeating enemies is the fastest path to power for you, and the only way to make up the difference between you and the people that have been cultivating for years.>

“Wow.”  Grant was stunned.  “I’ll look everything over when we get to a safe spot.”  He blocked out the urge to look over his stat sheet, and instead concentrated on healing.  He was already coming close to the ten minute time limit.

The replay of events showed Grant his mistakes.  He should have waited to use the spell until his second turn to attack, even though the surprise had been effective.  It would have allowed for a tighter cluster of enemies, and he would have dropped more of them at the start.  His other big mistake had been how he had struck the scepter that exploded.  If Grant had destroyed it after forcing the clown to turn slightly, he could have utilized the explosion to take out almost all of the enemies on the bridge.

Health: 311/421 -> 355/421. Critical areas focused. Soft tissue repaired to 80%. Internal bleeding successfully stopped.

“Grant, we need to move.”  Suki was sitting next to him, shaking his arm.  It was still sore, so he didn’t exactly appreciate the motion.  He opened his eyes to see a forest of spears approaching in the distance.  In the lead, he thought he could faintly see a small figure holding a golden orb leaking green gas.  “The rest of Dokeshi’s forces are on their way.”

“I couldn’t agree more.”  Even with the system down, Grant had no way to fight against the poison of a House Saturday assassin.  “We can lose them in the alleys.”

The two of them climbed to their feet, and took off in the opposite direction.  While neither Wielder was in perfect health, the thought of what was behind them kept their pace to a fast jog.  In just a few minutes, they were out of sight, weaving between and through the abandoned buildings of District March.

While they ran, Grant could see Suki occasionally sneaking looks at him.  They hadn’t finished their conversation about him killing the clown yet, and he wasn’t looking forward to finishing it.  Had he been wrong?  He firmed up his jaw, convinced that - at least this time - he hadn’t made a bad decision.  The Vassal had declared his intent to kill Grant, so all he really did was respond in kind.  He could have killed the others, but he at least gave them a chance to survive.  That was more than they would have offered him.