Master of the Loop

Chapter 40

  From Wilds, They Come

Shaking his little general, Sylas hurriedly pulled up his pants, shuddering. It wasn't easy, needing to do business outside during the winter. He had to be fast, and do it often, as to do so in lesser increments. Shaking his head at his state of living, he walked back from behind the castle and toward the eastern wall. Increased numbers have been manning the wall for hours now, ever since late afternoon.

Just as Dyn said, it began to snow as soon as the night settled in. At first, it was sporadic, largely displaced by the cutting winds. However, as the time passed, the patches grew bulkier and heavier, indicating the onset of the blizzard that did eventually strike—close to midnight. Standing on the wall, it was physically impossible to see anything. In fact, the only way people confirmed others were on the wall were the torches that they tucked on the inside as to not alert the enemies.

The truth was, at least from Sylas' point of view, that it was pointless to actually station forces on the wall—archers were extensively useless in this sort of weather, and they'd descend the wall anyway if it came to skirmishing. It would have been much smarter to simply station a few people to see who the inside source was, capture them, and then open the gates slowly and lure the enemies into the trap.

Sylas, however, didn’t say anything; in fact, he’d already planned on resetting the loop. Three days wasn’t nearly enough to prepare, and rather than being on the defensive, he’d much rather strike offensively. The only unfortunate part was that he’d have to buy Dyn over on his side again, which might prove even harder if he invaded his home. Alas, he was confident—not so much in his abilities as in Dyn’s social ineptness and naivety.

His plan was simply to see the number of the enemies and their overall skill level as to have a better chance of successfully defeating them in the next loop. Well, he wouldn't be the one defeating them. Even if his skills with a sword had grown exponentially, he wasn't at the point where he'd be confident facing someone in a life-or-death duel out on the open battlefield. He did, however, need to start gaining some experience. Simply tossing strikes in a controlled environment would never make a fighter, even he knew that much.

“They should be approaching any moment now,” Dyn spoke out suddenly. Even though the young man was standing two feet to Sylas’ side, not only could Sylas barely see him, the boy had to even shout to be heard. The blizzard of this magnitude—or, really, any magnitude—was something Sylas had never experienced. It was… unique, to say the least. “The gates should be opened by now!”

“They will be,” Sylas shouted back. “You just relax and do your thing.” Just as Sylas’ voice trailed off, a low-humming thud could be heard even through the raging blizzard—it was the creaking sound of the gates being flung open. Sylas hurried backward and descended the wall, figuring it was best if he knew who the insider source was.

When he arrived, he saw two people—a man and a woman—standing on each side of the gate. They wore numerous layers of clothing, making it impossible to recognize them. As soon as the gates were opened, the two hurried away and toward the castle. Sylas followed right behind, somewhat surprised that it was two. It didn't matter, however. After confirming who they were, he'd come back outside and look at the general state of things, calculating the enemy's overall strength.

The two entered the castle stealthily, though with how quickly they navigated the corridors it was clear that they were very familiar with the interior. Sylas followed from behind, not even bothering to conceal himself all that well, but he still wasn't noticed. Either the two were terrible at it, or were too focused on whatever pre-planned thing they had to do.

The pair eventually led him to a small, abandoned storage room in the back of the castle's left-wing. The room wasn't terribly large but was very humid as it had a hole in the wall that would occasionally flood, especially during the rainy days, which was why it was abandoned in the first place.

“W-who’s there?!” a man’s voice trickled out, with them finally noticing Sylas when he entered the storage behind them. He slowly undid his scarf, smiling at the two gingerly.

“How curious. What are the two of you doing here? Everyone in the castle should be in either of the two pre-ordered places.”

“… you’re a distinctly clever one, aren’t you?” a familiar voice surprised Sylas, forcing his eyes to look to the other person in the room. The man undid his scarf as well, revealing a very familiar, scarred face—Dyn’s.

"… yo', what the fuck man?!" Sylas groaned, mostly because he realized he had been played. "You were standing right next to me when the gates opened! How is this even possible?!”

“You’re an ignorant fool, in many ways,” Dyn’s countenance had changed considerably from how he behaved beforehand. Rather than a prideful youth, he seemed more like a once-bitten-twice-shy snake. “But thank you for oh-so-perfectly playing the role I needed you to play. You’ve made all of this so much easier.”

“Haaaah,” Sylas sighed deeply, putting on a bitter expression. It wasn’t a fake one—he was genuinely feeling bitter. His complacency had gotten the better of him, but it was irrelevant. The truth was, he could afford to be complacent and play the life loosely. “I really liked you, you know? I spent all day yesterday figuring out your role for the future.”

“My role? I already have a calling. I don’t need fake messiahs like you to assign me one,” Dyn scoffed, bending over and pulling out a sword from the corner of the room.

"Fake messiahs? Ah, I suppose you're partly true," Sylas chuckled. "I figure your goal wasn't Ryne, since you clearly didn't know of her before I introduced you. So, what is it? Revenge? Food shortage? Daddy issues? A complex? Were you banished by nobility at some point and now have a hard-on to prove them how big of a mistake they made?”

“…” one of those struck the cord, Sylas realized, due to the sound of gnashing teeth eclipsing the silence.

“Hah, in the end, you’re still just a kid. Go ahead,” Sylas said, taking off his scarf and exposing his neck. “Chop away. It’s been a while since I got beheaded, actually. Prove to me and yourself and the rest of the world that you’re a man.”

"Heh, petty mind tricks," Dyn scoffed. "Once I'm done with you, I'll kill everyone else of note here—even that dear Exorcist of yours. Then, I will have a castle for my men for the winter—the world will finally know of us and regret ever treating us the way they did." Jesus, he's really been wanting to espouse his genius to someone… fuck, is this why every movie depicts bad guys who love their monologues? Stop, Dyn! Stop embodying stereotypes! It's lame! Nonetheless, Sylas remained silent. After all, why close the lips of a man who is revealing his entire plan to you? “Do you know what they call us? The Beastals! They see us living in the woods, and they call us beasts! Not anymore. They will learn that these beasts can bite back.” By now, Sylas was growing kind of bored and so a yawn barely escaped his lips. Nonetheless, that yawn seemed to fan Dyn’s fires even further.

“What?! You think our pain is boring?! You think our lives are worthless?!! You, who sit in your ivory towers, judging the rest of us as though we are animals! I spit on you! I spit on you all! Just because you were born in the right family doesn’t make you better than the rest of us! I will teach the Kingdom that lesson or I will burn doing so!”

"Ah, a revolutionary, how original," Sylas scoffed, sighing yet again. "No, wait, I suppose in this world it might even be original. Since I kind of like you, and since you'll forget it anyway, let me share a key piece of advice with you: revolutionary heads almost always end up martyrs for their cause and someone else ends up yielding all the profits of that sacrifice. Now, this benefits greatly those poets who like writing songs about the individuals, but less so the headless corpses of men who fought for what they believed in, only to die before seeing it realized. Now, please, for the love of God, kill me."

“Kill yourself,” Dyn suddenly tossed over a dagger at Sylas’ feet, his eyes full of mockery. “If you are so brave.” Sylas glanced between the dagger and the young man dumbly, a strange look in his eyes. “What? You don’t dare?”

“…” Sylas bent over and picked up the dagger, inspecting it for a moment before shoving it through his neck, a wide smile on his face. He ensured to distort his expression as much as possible as to invoke just as much horror in Dyn, even if the young man would forget it all. For just that one moment, Sylas figured, it would be a fine joke.

“W-what?!! Y-you, you… you…” the last ‘you’ trailed off into nothingness as Sylas lost his consciousness.

You have died.

Save point ‘Ignorant Awakening’ has been initialized.

Sylas opened his eyes with a sigh, finding himself back in the forest, just after Ryne, Tenner, and Valen promised they would remember. The trio quickly descended into the same conversation about the plans for the castle’s future, largely ignoring Sylas who remained seated on the side.

His shoulders felt heavy, all of a sudden. After all, it takes a lot of very awful things to create a man like Dyn—someone so driven by madness, by the intrinsic need for revenge that they would ravage the world to obtain it. Whatever the young man's story was, that scar on the face was likely the outcome. Sylas could postulate—after all, there are only so many stories that could result in such an outcome, but it didn't matter. The sad fact of reality was that Sylas… couldn't change him. No amount of the clever word-play and tongue-in-cheek references could undo the wounds on that boy's heart.

What weighed on Sylas’ shoulder was that Dyn… would have to die. Though certainly not by his hand—largely because Sylas still couldn’t fathom the thought of actually killing another person—the boy would still have to die. And that raging spirit whose fire probably won’t be extinguished even in death… would continue to burn in anger and pain for all eternity.

That was why there was the separation between the intent and the man—Dyn wasn’t necessarily evil, but his intentions were. As such, ethics emerge in situations like those; is it worth preserving life that isn’t intrinsically evil, or should the intentions supersede all else? Rarely, if ever, did that question have a clear black-and-white answer…