NOVEL WEB Chapter 16: Chapter 16: Journey
"WAHH!" A yawn escaped him, and then his eyes opened to flashes of light that filtered through the leaves and spilled over his face warmly.
He sighed and raised his hand, then looked at his fingers. He moved them one after the other, and after some time, he sighed and looked down.
"Huh? Did a nuclear bomb drop here?" he wondered. The ground was charred black, absolutely black.
He hopped down from the tree.
"Ugh," he grunted, having underestimated the fall.
He looked around. Trees that had once stood there were now ashes, and he could see bones scattered about. Ether beasts? He wondered—it was the only explanation.
He then walked deeper into the forest. Destruction. It was as though only the tree he had been on was spared from the devastation.
"Ahh… Haah.. AHHH! Sobs ahhh… Sobs ahh sobs" He heard disjointed sounds and frowned.
He kept walking and with time found an opening where everything was frozen. A girl stood at the center, countless corpses of creatures lying dead around her. She was crying, her hands on her neck, kneeling, begging for breath that didn't come without pain. Her eyes were hollow, most of her pink hair burnt, her clothes burnt completely—she was literally naked.
He gazed at her, then tilted his head.
"Do I want to?" he wondered. There was no drive. "No… I don't feel the need," he muttered, then walked toward the dying girl with practiced ease.
She looked up, her eyes dilated. She scrambled back, exposing her oddly large backside—everything was in view, as if she was giving him an invitation or something. But he wasn't tempted, not even in the slightest. It felt as though all urges had been deleted from his program. At this point, he was driven by one thing alone: revenge.
"I… feel strange…" He looked at his palm where the tattoo was there again, glowing fiercely. "I wonder, would I feel pleasure?" he muttered. Perhaps he could feel pleasure, or would he?
Before she could get far, he had coated his body with ether and grabbed her by the neck, slamming her hard against the floor. "Look at me," he said. Tears trailed from her eyes, her horror evident. She was exposed, vulnerable, her breasts out in the open, displayed in all their splendor. But she noticed he looked at her like an object—there was no lecherous gaze, no hint of wanting to take her there and then.
She was horrified of that possibility, but the more she looked at his eyes, the more she realized: he wasn't interested.
"I. Can. Kill. You," he said, and after all this while, she finally stopped fighting.
Fighting was stupid. She had tried her best, but her body kept betraying her. She couldn't harm him—she didn't know why, but for some reason, she was now a slave to this weakling.
"Now. You can obey me and save yourself the pain, or keep deceiving yourself and we could stay here all day," he said. She looked—was there a choice? She bit her lips, drawing blood, more tears flowing. She hated this, but there was nothing she could do. She couldn't bear this pain anymore—she was already losing her mind, having endured it all night after all.
"Please. Make it stop. I beg you…" she cried, taking fearful breaths, but the pain still stirred if she took more than a second to breathe.
He looked at her for a while, then spoke. "Breathe," and she did—oh, she did.
It felt like she was intoxicated by the air due to how much her eyes rolled back, and she trembled. Finally, air.
"Hm," he thought. "Wear this, quickly." He manifested some clothes from the spatial ring, walked over to a tree, folded his arms, and looked at the sky.
…
…
He looked at her. Now she was dressed in a gown that hugged her curves properly—a flared skirt, white with blue lines at the middle and bottom. The top had a military jacket-like design with a huge belt that emphasized her bust. It seemed she had prepared this dress specially for Austin… but why carry it everywhere? He thought, then said, "Good. Where are we?"
"At the border of… Montelia," she said after a while of silence.
She didn't have any under wares on, and asking for them when he clearly wasn't going to give them to her made it all the more worse. She felt like she was still naked, and it made it extremely uncomfortable to even stand.
"Montelia? You brought me all the way out here?" he muttered, clearly not expecting the answer. But now it made sense—no one lived around here, no wonder she did whatever she wanted. The worst that could happen was ether beasts.
She looked away, though he wasn't sure why. "Do you have… a way to get back?" he asked. She bit her lips, then responded, "Yes."
"…A scroll?" he asked.
"A spell…" she responded.
"Teleportation?" he frowned.
"Not completely… There have to be anchors on where we—" she explained, but he had already heard what he needed, so he thought deeply.
Get a teleporter. Then to the north pole, he thought, then sighed.
"Let's go… What?" he asked. She was misbehaving, and he wasn't in the mood for stupidity. If she turned out useless or still determined to kill him, he would just tell her to kill herself and leave. She would eventually do it.
"Please… You… didn't give me… all the clothes," she said, feeling irritated. She didn't know how to say it, but being this exposed and being close to a man was not something that would let her concentrate.
"Huh?" He looked her up and down. "What's wrong? I see no issue with it," he asked, and she felt a vein bulge on her forehead. But she couldn't do anything—was he blind? Couldn't he see her breasts were exposed through the cloth? Was he stupid, or was this intentional?
"My…" she bit her lips. Ashamed.
"Let's go," he said, not caring anymore. "Use the spell. Get me to the nearest city." He walked off.
"WAIT!" she screamed.
"You are not to talk, only cast spells. Also, twenty meters is the furthest you can stay from me, and if I do die for some reason, you will die also," he said, and she gritted her teeth. She would kill—oh, she would kill him!
How could she walk in public like this?! How?!