NOVEL NEXT Chapter 6, "But in cases such as yours..."
“-From then on… I have only fought.” Somehow, Kreig was surprised he could even remember their names. They had been so young when they were taken. So old when they died. Still, it was too early. He glanced up at the officer where he sat, slack-jawed with a creased brow.
“Is-, is that so…”
Silence stretched between them.
“Well, I, er… Guess I can just give a little info on what’s been happening here in the meanwhile. These past ten years have been… pretty turbulent. These damn portals started opening up, and if nobody went in them for like three days or so, monsters and things would come out of it. We’ve learned how to deal with it, sort of. Mostly because of these people who started popping up. They can see statuses and grow stronger by defeating the monsters in the portals. Fighters, the lot of them. They’d have these randomly assigned Jobs that only let them use certain weapons, the lot of it. Weirdly enough, most of them are kids… Really strange.
It’s mostly all good, but sometimes… Sometimes, really strong monsters come out of the portals. See, in most cases, we can see how strong the monsters in the portal are and send in stronger Fighters, but sometimes the Fighters still get defeated. In those cases, we got a back-up team just outside, but in cases such as yours…” He glanced away. “-We’ve got no choice but to deal with it some other way.”
...So that was how it was. Those people he saw in the cave must have been those ‘Fighters’ that the officer had talked about. Kreig almost felt a little guilty to have killed them.
Though, by the sound of it, if he hadn’t done it, he wouldn’t have been able to leave the portal at all.
“May I speak with my family?” Kreig asked. The officer didn’t meet his gaze.
“...At the moment, we cannot allow that. Though, in some time, you will be allowed to. Undoubtedly. Until then, you will be kept elsewhere, as this cell is unfit to contain an otherworlder of your calibre. Not that we have anyplace suited to hold you…” the officer said. Elsewhere could be anywhere. But the thing that Kreig found himself caught up on was…
“I’m not an otherworlder.”
“Sure, yeah, of course! But in this moment, you’ve gotta be treated like one. Okay? Don’t hold it against us, it’s just protocol. Listen, I promise you, on my auntie’s grave: you will meet your family. As long as you don’t rebel against us or hurt anybody. You’ve been through a lot. You told me so yourself. I can’t imagine how hard that must have been on you, and sitting here in a cell yet again must remind you of a lot of terrible things. But if you just stick through it… One day, you may go free,” the officer said. The smile on his face almost seemed warm. Friendly.
Kreig hadn’t seen a friendly smile in so long. In this moment, he could only glance away, and accept it all. “...Of course.”
The officer clapped his hands together and stood up. “-Alright! The transporters will be here within the hour, so what I need you to do is strip off that armour you’ve got.”
Kreig whipped his head around to face the interrogating officer. His armour? This heavy thing that he’d fought through countless wars in? The last remaining artefact of the Holy Order of White Roots? This armour that had saved him from the breath of a dragon, from the pikes of man, from the biting teeth of nature? He was to take it off, put it to the side? Remove his weapons and his shield, too?
“...Please?” the officer asked, testing the waters by giving another non-threatening smile. How was Kreig to know that he was testing the waters? That he’d realized Kreig’s fatal flaw of being unable to say no to a friendly face?
“...Okay.” His gauntlets were already off, so he just went up the arms. Removing the vambraces, the rerebraces, the couter, the pauldron… He placed these parts so gingerly upon the ground. The parts may have been red, but many years ago, they had been the most pristine and pious white. He had sullied them with his battles, as his battles had sullied him. The breastplate, the plackart… It was heavy. He wasn’t sure if a normal man could lift even his gauntlet.
He placed it all on the ground, and when he was done, he stood there. Clothed only in the bare rags that he had escaped from the Empire in. It was tattered, many parts rubbed off and destroyed by his mere movement.
He was almost naked, really.
And the interrogating officer was immediately flustered. “...You’ve really been fighting in that for - what? Thirty years?” Kreig nodded. “Jesus. Okay, officer Jenkins, go get him a pair of overalls. Extra-large.” Kreig had no idea what the officer had ran out to fetch, but for some reason, he felt rather excited about it. After all, he hadn’t worn new clothes in, what? Fifty years? A typical lifetime. And now, he’d get to wear new clothes. He just hoped they had his size. He’d always been extraordinarily tall, not to speak of his muscle mass.
While officer Jenkins hurried out of the room, the interrogating officer turned back to Kreig, looked him up and down, and gave a true, heartfelt sigh. “-Geezus.”
For some reason, Kreig felt the same.
About five minutes later, far less time than Kreig had expected, officer Jenkins returned with a large orange thing in tow. He held it folded in his grip, and he seemed a little out of breath. Had he been running? Odd of him. Either way, the interrogating officer swiped it out of officer Jenkins’ grip and stuffed it into the little box that went into Kreig’s holding cell. He unfolded it. It was a large (maybe a little small for him but still) jumpsuit. It even had a zipper, something he hadn’t seen since his summoning.
With no possible hesitation or wait, Kreig peeled off his rags, finding that many of them had plastered to his body, using dried blood and mud as a glueing agent. God, he was dirty. But now he had a clean jumpsuit to we-,
“No, hold on, Kreig!”
Kreig turned to the interrogating officer. “-I can’t let you wear that without getting a damn shower. You’re crusted in filth! How have you been able to live like that?” Kreig had an answer to that, but he wasn’t sure if the interrogating officer would like it. So, instead, he folded the jumpsuit back up. The interrogation officer’s eyes scanned Kreig’s body. “-Yeah, you need a shower. Officer Jenkins, unlock the cell and cuff ‘im. I’ll take him to the showers.” Officer Jenkins seemed like he wanted to object, but a well-placed glare got him to work.
At this point, Kreig had already removed his shirt, so the only thing that kept him from complete nudity was a pair of torn wool trousers. Still, he had no shame. He’d lost that long ago.
He was soon led out of the holding cell, cuffed, and guided out of the door with the interrogating officer as his lead.
Outside, they found what seemed to be a Fighter (young, carrying a fancy-looking spear and wearing modern armour) holding guard. The appearance of Kreig set the young Fighter’s teeth on edge and he branded his spear purely by instinct. “Stand down, Fighter,” the interrogating officer said.
“B-, but sir-”
“Stand. Down.”
Maybe the interrogating officer could sense the murderous intent flowing off of Kreig, maybe he knew that a man such as Kreig would react to violence the same way a wounded animal would, or maybe he was starting to feel genuine compassion for the man. Either way, the Fighter reluctantly followed the order. Though, even while they were leaving with the interrogating officer leading Kreig through the hall, Kreig could feel those burning eyes on his back. Eyes of fear. Eyes that knew what he was.
Somehow, the interrogating officer hadn’t truly understood that. It was one thing to see a few numbers on a card. One thing to hear a tale of woe and death. It was another to see those three question marks, to see them and know you were faced with Death.
He’d felt it himself, after all.
It had been a dragon. In the middle of a battlefield. He’d been fighting for the Empire, and back then, he hadn’t known that adolescent dragons enjoyed joining human wars just for fun. Like trampling ants. It was grinning all the while it lapped up humans and crunched and mangled their bodies like a great big crushing machine.
-But that was long ago.
Really, almost everything he remembered was.