Red hair was the first thing she saw, followed by a pair of ruby eyes.
"Ah?"
The sound escaped her unconsciously, head tilting sideways, arms folding defensively around her chest.
A hand reached toward her. She flinched, eyes squeezing shut, arms tightening until they ached. Tremors raced through her as warm fingers met her forehead. Her breath hitched, teeth chattering, mind bracing for pain.
No pain came.
Instead, those fingers sparked a soothing warmth that spilled down from her head and flooded her body. That thin, burning line across her cheek knit close in seconds, its searing pain fading to a distant echo. Scratches vanished from her scales as though they'd never existed. A thorn lodged deeply within them slipped free. Even the bruised skin where that chain had dug in smoothed over.
Then, embers crawled across the chain still locked around her calf—tiny orange sparks igniting across every link simultaneously—and it fell away in pieces, clinking softly against ground.
"Ah. Ah."
Her eyes opened wide. Unblinking. She stared up at the face above her, breath stuck in her throat. Her trembling didn't stop—if anything, it worsened. Her arms stayed locked around herself, body still waiting for the pain that was supposed to come.
It was the only thing that ever came.
But that warmth kept flowing.
Her brow furrowed, lips parting, but no sound came—only short, shallow breaths that grew unsteadier with each passing second. She looked down at her own arms. At the soft skin where bloody cuts had been. Her fingers came up, brushing against her cheek, and found nothing.
She looked back up at those ruby eyes, and her expression broke. Her chin trembled, vision blurred—and only then did she feel more wetness spilling down her cheeks, completely beyond any control.
"Ah—"
A sound choked from her chest. Her body turned before her mind could follow, arms unfurling and reaching blindly forward, her small hands clutching the cloak before her. She pressed her face into that warmth—into the softness of another person's body—and her sobs intensified before she could understand why.
She didn't know why she was crying.
She didn't know what crying was.
.
Bell looked down at her.
His free hand hovered above the trembling child pressed against him. Then, slowly, carefully, it came to rest on her back. He pulled her in. One arm wrapped around her shoulders, the other holding Crimson Order, blood dripping from its edge onto soil.
His cloak darkened where her tears soaked through. Small fists twisted into its cloth, pulling herself deeper into him.
The last adventurer was still writhing beneath his heel. Fingers twitching uselessly against ground.
Bell didn't look. He shifted his weight.
Pressed down.
Crunch.
It never reached her. Buried under the sound of her sobs.
A moment hadn't passed when the sound of multiple footsteps resounded from left. More silhouettes burst into the ravine from that direction.
One. Three. Five.
"Over there! It's over there!" A voice screamed from within their ranks.
"Our people—!" Another adventurer pointed his sword toward the three motionless bodies scattered around Bell.
Someone tore through foliage behind them. A huge, bald man, black tattoos running along the side of his face.
Gran. Level 4.
"Grab them."
He charged toward Bell, greatsword resting on his shoulder, every step punching up soil in his wake.
Bell's arm slid from her shoulder, hooking behind her thighs. He lifted her. Her arms looped around his neck on instinct, face burying into his cloaked shoulder.
He held her with his right hand. His left side facing those approaching adventurers.
"Charge!" Someone screamed.
She flinched against his shoulder. Peeked up at his face with a single eye.
A gentle smile greeted her. Calm. Tranquil.
What she could not see: Bell's entire left side had dissolved into abyssal darkness. And on that half—the same smile stretched. Wide. Wider. A smile that didn't understand what it meant.
On his right, he held a child. On his left, something else held Crimson Order.
"Ah?"
Gravity pressed her face back into his shoulder as he tilted leftward, legs coiling, darkness expanding—
Gone.
An adventurer with a battle axe watched Bell vanish and ground his heels, dragging his feet to a stop. His eyes swept around. Dirt. Shadows. His companions. Nothing else moved.
Something moved.
He tracked it—slow, drifting. A shape sliding across the edge of his vision. He tried to follow it, but his neck wouldn't turn. Couldn't turn.
Why—
That shape settled. He could see it clearly now.
It was a body. Standing. A familiar build, familiar armor, familiar axe still gripped in its hand.
That's mine.
The thought came before understanding did. He watched his body sway slightly, feet planted in dirt, and something about its angle was wrong. Ground was above it. Sky was below. His body was standing on nothing—no, it was standing on the ground, but the ground was—
Upside down.
His mind reached for a conclusion slowly.
Why is everything upside—
Then a feeling reached him. Weightlessness. The absence of everything below his jaw. The way his own shoulders looked so far away, rising and falling with a breath he could no longer feel.
His head was upside down.
His head was not on his body.
He was watching himself from further away, and his body over there was still standing, still holding that axe, swaying like it hadn't realized it was dead yet.
Just like him.
The body toppled.
Darkness took him before it hit soil.
Bell was already in front of an Amazon.
Crimson Order wailed toward her. She bent low—then whipped her blade up toward the girl in his hold.
He saw it coming. Blocked. Moved.
She was already adjusting her stance, weight shifting to her back foot, blade curving toward that cloak—
Black.
The ground was rough against her cheek. When had she fallen?
Her eyes tracked left. A boot moving away. A stone. Her own hand, fingers still curled, resting in dirt. Funny. She hadn't told her hand to rest.
She tried to lift it.
Nothing happened.
She tried to call out.
Nothing happened.
Something heavy pressed against her back. Something warm pooled beneath her. Her thoughts were slowing, each one harder to pull forward than the last, like water through her fingers.
I should get up.
I should—
.
A third adventurer dove left as Crimson Order tore through the space he had just occupied.
He came up spinning, sword ready—
And saw himself still standing where he'd been.
Chest split open. Mouth frozen.
Why am I still over there—
The "him" still standing burst. A spray of blood erupted from its chest, and his awareness snapped back to his body just in time to feel a burning line across his torso, to look down and see the front of his armor part, innards spilling free.
Ah.
He'd already been cut.
His dodge had never happened.
Bell appeared in front of Gran next, moving toward him leisurely, one hand still keeping the girl secured.
Gran held his broadsword with both hands, fingers trembling as his sword pointed at Bell, sweat dripping down his bald head, thighs feeling like lead.
Two more adventurers behind him were already on the floor, shins refusing to respond.
Gran forced his mouth to work, tongue crashing against his teeth.
"W-Which side are you?"
Bell's right side had a gentle smile. His left side tried to have a gentle smile.
"Side? I am..."
His hold tightened around her, preventing her from looking around.
"Both."
...
..
.
***
[300 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter]
[8 chapters ahead on P@tr3on = [email protected]/Not_Aaryan]
...
[Authors Thoughts]
Honestly... that Wiene part might be my strongest writing. I honestly just followed my instincts and wrote whatever came in mind. In fact, I went so into it that for a moment, the distinction between Wiene and me blurred, it was like I was there instead of her, feeling what she felt, shaking like she shook, crying like she did.
As for the Bell sequence? I specifically dabbed my fingers into horror professional writing to show how Bell moves in the lower rank adventurer's eyes. After all, I had given him Ghost of Sparta epithet. I at least had to make it feel like a ghost.
And finally, Bell's duality is the final cherry on the top. Writing when he speaks "Both" gave me chills.
He was human to a monster, and monster to humans.
Some will ask, why?
I will only say that many people are monsters in human clothing and many monsters are more human than humans can ever be.
So... If you want to know what someone is... observe their actions, not their words, neither their promises.
Words can lie. Promises can break. But actions will always tell you the truth about someone.